So Much to Learn (4 page)

"Morning boys,"
I sang cheerily, sauntering over to the kitchen to grab myself a
bowl and trying to pretend I didn't see Jack start so violently at
my entrance that he began to choke on his breakfast.

Matt helpfully
thumped his friend on the back while looking over at me curiously.
"And what happened to you last night, Natalia, sister dearest?" He
asked. "You were asleep by the time I got home, what was up with
that?"

I shrugged
nonchalantly as I got the milk out of the fridge. "I had a hard day
is all, and I just wanted to jump straight into bed."

Jack, poor
thing, began choking even harder at that and I had to duck my head
to hide the smirk that appeared on my face as I realised what I'd
said. Double entendre, much?

"Dude, chew
first, then swallow," my brother advised, fairly hypocritically
considering the way he was shovelling his food into his own mouth.
He turned back to me and said, fulfilling his brotherly quotient of
the day, "but you're alright now, yeah?"

I took a seat
opposite Jack and smiled broadly. "I'm fine. Jack’s going to help
me with an assignment so I'm feeling pretty confident about
things."

Jack glanced at
me with eyes watery from the force of his choking. His expression
clearly read, 'don't push it.'

"Cool." Matt
finished his cereal and dumped his empty bowl into the sink.
"Right, I'm off then. I should be back around five or so, oh, and
the guys are going to crash here tonight, alright?"

I sighed
heavily. The 'guys'. Otherwise known as Tommo, Micky, and Samsa.
How terrible it must have been for their mothers who had given them
the quite nice, ordinary names of Tom, Michael and Sam and had to
watch as they were transformed into names that their friends could
more easily grunt. Matt and Jack were known as, and it pains me to
admit it, Matt-Man and Jack-Hammer or Hammer for short.

The realms of
masculine stupidity really do know no bounds.

"As long as
they don't prance around in my underwear again," I muttered
remembering the last time they all came over en masse. I have to
keep my clothes in a big chest of drawers and cupboard out in the
lounge room because there is no space for it in my little room.
Rifling through its contents while drunk one night the boys had
found my bras. Some of my lingerie was stretched beyond recognition
once I'd finally rescued it. Enough said.

Matt snorted
with laughter as he grabbed his backpack and shook his head. "Nah,
no worries," he said easily. "They learnt their lesson with the
lecture you gave them the next morning, although I think that
probably had more to do with their hangovers than your teacher
voice. See you later." And he walked out of the flat, still
chuckling.

Jack and I kept
our eyes averted and stayed silent as we listened to Matt thunder
down the stairs and then the unmistakable sound of his wreck of a
car roaring into life in the car park. It was only when the screech
of tyres alerted us that he'd pulled out into the street and
properly gone that we looked at each other.

"So, how're you
feeling…I mean really?" Jack asked, leaning forward over the table
and looking at me seriously.

I twisted a
piece of hair around my fingers self-consciously and gave him an
uncertain look. "Not sure," I confessed. "A bit pissed off, a bit
humiliated, but quite a bit hopeful." I checked to make sure he
knew what I was hopeful about and, as I saw him awkwardly lean back
in his chair, I knew he'd got my point.

"So you're still keen on…
that
then," he faltered crossing his arms
defensively.

I nodded. "It wasn't just the ramblings of the broken-hearted,
I honestly and truly want to learn about…
that
. And I'm not doing it simply to
get back at Brad, I promise."

"It wasn't so much the getting back
at
Brad that I was worried about, but
the getting back
with
Brad." He frowned. "If we do this, and I'm only saying
if
," he added as he saw
my face light up, "you're not going to go running straight back to
that prick are you?"

"Yes, Jack," I said sarcastically. "Because I'm sure there's
some part of my self-respect that he hasn't had a chance to carve
up with a chainsaw, and it would be a shame to walk away from this
with any sense of dignity left at all." I shook my head. "This is
for
me
, get it?
I'm sick of having to constantly watch myself around guys in case I
give some sign that it would be alright for them to go for it and
then having to run a mile to get away from them."

"In that case
it's not yourself that you have to watch, it's them," Jack
countered. "And it's a bloody good thing that you do run a mile
from most of them."

I stood up and almost threw my bowl on top of Matt's in the
sink before whirling to face Jack again. "Look," I bit out, "as
sweet as the whole protective thing is, I already have an older
brother for that sort of nonsense so you can lay off. I'm not
asking you to teach me how to tell the difference between a decent
bloke and a bastard. Apart from the Brad glitch I'm pretty good at
knowing the distinction between the two without any help from you.
What I need to learn from you, is what to do once I've
found
a decent
one."

OK, so maybe I
should have been trying to be nicer to him considering the
circumstances, but, honestly! He'd been pushing my limits with the
whole 'running back to Brad' thing and if I let him get away with
being patronising during the preliminary negotiations then he'd
think it was OK to always treat me like an imbecile. Like my mum
always says, 'If people know what you want, there's more chance of
you getting it.'

There were a few moments of silence and then Jack blew a long
breath threw his lips and stared down at the tabletop. I knew what
two warring factions were doing battle inside his head. He could
help me, therefore protecting me from other guys whilst, in all
probability, ruining the close friendship dynamic that ran between
the three of us in the flat. Alternatively, he could
not
help me and pave the
way for my full on emotional breakdown culminating in, yet again,
the ruination of the close friendship dynamic that ran between the
three of us in the flat. Whatever he chose to do, things were never
going to go back to the way they used to be.

Damn, but I was
a bitch.

Suddenly he got
to his feet, the chair he'd been sitting on scraping back noisily
on the floor and making me jump.

"I'm going to
regret this for the rest of my life," he muttered.

And that was as
close to a yes as I was ever going to get.

I bounded over
to his side and grinned up at him. "You're a star, Jack."

"I'm an idiot
is what I am," he disagreed, shaking his head. "Look, let's sit
down for a sec and sort some things out, rules and that. I'm still
not entirely sure what I've got myself into."

I agreed and we
walked over to our crummy, saggy couch and settled ourselves at
either end of it, Jack looking as if the distance wasn't nearly
great enough. Well that was going to have to change for this whole
thing to work...

"Right then."
He ran a hand through his short dark hair. "You want me to, er,
accustom you to touching and that …um…stuff, yeah? God, I can't
believe I'm saying this."

I ignored the
last part. "I just want to get used to it and, I don't know, enjoy
it a bit maybe." I looked up at him through my eyelashes. I wasn't
trying to be coquettish, I was just trying to avoid looking at him
directly.

"And how…" He
coughed uncomfortably. "…how far do you want to go?"

I went bright
red. Without the hysteria of last night this really did seem like
the stupidest idea. I mean talking about this kind of thing with
Jack was…kind of gross.

"Let's just play it by ear, shall we?" I suggested, backing
down a little from my earlier position. It didn't mean that I was
still wasn't up for, well,
everything
, but in the glaring light
of day, it just seemed too distasteful to spell it all
out.

He looked
somewhat relieved at this small reprieve. "OK then, I'm going to
lay down some rules." He got to his feet once again and started to
pace around the room. "Rule number 1, what I say goes. If I say
we're not going to do something because you're not ready, or
whatever, then we're not going to do it. You're going to follow my
lead, alright?"

I opened my mouth to protest. No, that was
not
alright! If that was the case
he'd just say no to everything! He caught my eye and held my gaze
for a long moment. "I'm serious, Tally, you're a bit weird at the
moment so I think it's best if I’m the one to lead the - what do
you want to call them? - lessons?"

"Fine," I said
sulkily. In any case I could agree to his stupid rules now and then
argue my case later on if needs be.

"Rule number 2,
no dating. I won't and you won't. That way we can at least try and
keep this whole thing from diving completely off the cliff of
morality."

Why did I get
the feeling that he wasn't completely convinced about the merit of
my idea? Still, this second rule seemed sensible so I nodded in
agreement.

"Rule number 3,
no mind-altering substances during lessons."

"Yeah, 'cos you
see me injecting heroin on a daily basis," I snorted. "Be serious,
Jack."

"That
description includes alcohol," he said simply and my eyes
widened.

OK, that
changed things. Yes, I didn’t like to drink at parties, but the
very occasional make-out sessions with Brad had been helped with a
bit of beer. Oh God, it sounded awful put like that, but I'm trying
to be truthful here. I don't mean I had to get completely sloshed
for him to come near me, but a little outside help to relax was
always appreciated.

"Have you got
that then? There's already enough people in the world who use
alcohol as a precursor to sex, but you're not going to be one of
them, understood?"

Man, but he was
taking this rule thing seriously!

"Yes sir,
anything else?" I asked clasping my hands together in my lap and
looking up at him innocently.

"We don't tell
anyone," he replied quickly and I nodded fervently.

"Well that's a
given. Anyway, it's not like people would believe us anyway."

"Yeah well,
let's not test that theory, alright?" Jack suddenly sat down on the
couch again staring fixedly down at his hands. His last words had
been no more than a mutter. I could tell there was something else
he wanted to say, but he couldn't find the words to express
himself.

For once in my
life I sat quietly and waited for him to pull the words
together.

"One other
thing…" he finally began, and I nodded encouragingly even though I
was a little apprehensive about what aspect of the situation had
been just too uncomfortable for him to be able to spit out.

"You know how
people who…um…play more interesting, ah, sexual games have a safe
word?" He asked, stuttering and coughing his way through the
sentence.

"What, like if
they get scared or whatever they say a random word which means
whatever is going on should stop?" I nodded, hoping this wasn't
part of his planning for the 'lessons'. "Yep, I'm with you. Some
word like…sheep!"

Jack sent me a
little lopsided smile at the last bit, but became serious again
almost immediately, one of his distinguishing personality traits.
"Yes, like sheep, except I'll take anything. Any sign that you're
not comfortable, any look, movement, or word and everything stops.
I won't hurt you, Tally, I’m not going to do that."

Have I
mentioned that I absolutely adore Jack? Well I do.

"I know you
won't hurt me, that's why I came to you for help." There was a
pause as I delighted in the true loveliness of my brother's best
mate, but then I moved on. "Right, so, sheep it is then," I said
cheerily, glad that that seemed to be the end of his list of rules.
"So just a recap then, no disobedience, no dating, no drugs, no
telling anyone and no you hurting me. I think I can deal with all
that."

I bounced off
the couch preparing to go into the bathroom for a shower, the
second essential step in my morning routine after breakfast. Jack
stood up as well, however, and called me back before I high-tailed
it into the bathroom.

As I turned
around, I saw that he had his right hand stuck out towards me.
"Shake on the rules," he said calmly.

Dratted boy had
probably picked up on my hesitation over the first rule, darn and
blast it! I reluctantly took his hand and shook it quickly. As was
my usual habit I went to let go quickly, but his grip on my hand
tightened, not so much that I wouldn't be able to pull away if I
struggled, but enough to let me know that he had control of the
situation. I looked up at him in surprise and was taken aback by
the force of his gaze on me. His blue eyes, so rarely shown to me
fully, firmly caught my gaze. It was the first time in a long while
that Jack seemed fully present, his eyes neither hooded nor
slightly averted as was so often his wont. And, my God, when Jack
Whitby let himself be, he was one hell of a presence!

His hand was
warm and firm and…absolutely huge! I don't know why I'd never
noticed before, but I might as well have had doll hands the way his
completely enveloped mine. They were nice, his hands, clean, well
cared for, but slightly rough in that 'I am man, man will not
moisturise' kind of way.

Hmmm, was it my
imagination or was I getting tingles in the belly and warmth in my
cheeks? Christ! Jack, because he is neither stupid nor blind,
noticed my reaction and the slightest hint of a smile curled the
corners of his lips. Was he laughing at me? Surely my sweet Jack
didn't find my discomfort amusing? Although, now I think about it,
discomfort wasn't really what I was feeling...