The next morning, Ianto woke up with a smile on his face. Scenes of the previous night kept flashing across his mind. The way Jack looked at him, touched him, kissed him, listened to him. He couldn't exactly put into words what it was, but there was something about the way Jack treated him that made him feel... special. Almost treasured. And as much as he'd always say that he had a happy life, from when he was a child until now, he couldn't remember any time when he'd been treated quite like this.

He wouldn't deny that part of him was disappointed that they hadn't done anything other than kiss. And quite innocently, at that. But another part was extremely grateful, because no matter what happened, he'd always have this memory of this man who seemed genuinely interested in him, not just wanting sex. That didn't happen very often. But he sure as hell wanted it all to happen again.

xXxXx

Jack woke up leisurely. Even though he had some things to do, it was a Saturday, and he always gave himself time to wake up slowly on weekends. Especially this weekend. Usually he would wake up with a cloud hanging over his head, thinking about the thing that shouldn't be named and that he was never able to do properly, but not today. Today his head was clear, and his heart was light. He had so many better things to think about than 'the problem'. Particularly, deep, blue eyes from which the warmth of a sunny afternoon seemed to flow. Full rosy lips that tasted and felt incredible on his own. Gentle, long fingers entwined with his. Deep, Welsh vowels making their way into his ears and his brain, putting him almost into a trance. The amazing, gorgeous man whom he'd had the good fortune of spending the last evening with.

He let out a deep sigh while he stretched, thinking he could spend the whole day in bed, just replaying everything that had happened in his head. But eventually he got up, showered, and went to the kitchen to have some breakfast. He would try to tackle 'the problem' again. It gave him a shudder just to think about it, but he refused to give up. And today, maybe, just maybe, the images floating in his head would put him in enough of a good mood that he would actually be able to do something.

xXxXx

After taking care of his morning routine (shower, shave, coffee), Ianto sat down in the living room where his flatmate was happily watching the telly, with his feet propped up on the coffee table. Rhys immediately took them down, expecting the slap that would surely come from his friend, and proceeded to stare at him with a quizzical look when it didn't.

'Somebody looks happy today.' He said with a wry smile, noticing Ianto's dreamy look and smile.

'Hm?' Ianto looked over, as if he was noticing that Rhys was there for the first time.

'How was your date?'

'Good.' He said, attempting to appear nonchalant. Rhys just stared at him. 'Fine, really, really, really good.' The smile broadened, despite all of Ianto's efforts to hide it. Why couldn't he stop smiling?

'He's good in the sack, then?' Rhys laughed.

'No, it wasn't like that.' Not yet, at least. 'He's just... nice. He made me feel good about myself.' He sighed softly.

'Hmm, somebody sounds smitten.'

'Oh, stop that. I've only just met him.' Ianto admonished.

'Fine, mate, if you say so.' Rhys laughed again, putting his attention back on the telly. Ianto just stayed there for a long time, staring into nothing. 'So I suppose you're going to see him again?'

'Yeah, I think so. Don't know when yet.'

He tried to get on with his day as usual. Except today everything was extremely boring. He started cleaning up, as he did every Saturday, but his thoughts kept coming back to Jack. He really didn't know when he was going to see him again. Jack had said he would like to repeat that sometime, but no one said anything about when. He desperately wanted to know when this would be. Would he have to wait long? Maybe he could call him. But he'd already asked him on the other date, could he do it again? He didn't want to seem desperate. He probably should wait until Jack called. But what if he never called? What if he wasn't as interested in him as he thought he was? This kept going on for another three or four hours, the whole time it took for Ianto to clean the whole flat, very, very thoroughly. He needed to find something else to do, or he was going to drive himself insane.

'Hey, Rhys, when is the next rugby match?' He yelled to the man on the other room.

'Tomorrow. I thought I might go to the pub to watch. Do you want to come?'

'Yeah, sure.' Tomorrow. He'd have to find something else to do until the next day. What could he do? He didn't have any focus to read, the telly was boring as hell, he knew Rhys would go out with Gwen that night. He decided to shower, hoping that a brilliant idea would strike him while he was in there.

He left the bathroom twenty minutes later, towel around his waist, to the sound of his phone ringing. He rushed to answer it, only to have all the air leave his lungs when he saw the name displayed on the screen.

'Hi, Jack.' He greeted, hoping the other man couldn't tell how ridiculously happy he was that he was calling.

'Oh, hi, I was about to give up, it was ringing forever.'

'Oh, sorry about that, I was just leaving the shower.' A shiver ran down Jack's spine, and his whole body shuddered. Do not picture him in the shower. Do not picture him in the shower. And then Jack realised he hadn't spoken in a while, because he was too busy not picturing Ianto in the shower. 'Jack, are you there?'

'Oh, yeah, sorry, got distracted.' He cleared his throat. 'So, yeah, the reason I'm calling is because my friend Owen is insistently trying to drag me to this rugby game tomorrow, and I really don't want to go, but he won't take no for an answer, so I thought...'

'Um, excuse me, why are you so adamant on not going to watch the match?'

'I hate rugby.'

'You what?' Ianto tried not to shout.

'I hate rugby. Can't figure out what all the fuss is about.'

Ianto took a deep, calming breath. 'How can you hate rugby?!' Apparently the calming breath hadn't worked.

'I'm American! It just doesn't make sense to me...'

Ianto decided that maybe it would be best to just ignore his comments. He took another deep breath, and let his first word drag. 'Okaaaaay... And that made you think of me because...?'

'Well, I just thought that if you were there, maybe I wouldn't be so bored...'

'Where is he going to watch it?'

'I think The Great Western, it's called.'

'Oh, I was already going there anyway, with my flatmate. What time are you going to be there?'

'He said something around 4...'

'Okay, that's probably when we would be going anyway. So I guess I'll just see you there.'

'Oh, perfect! Now I'm even looking forward to it.' Ianto was sure he could hear the wide grin over the phone.

Then they were both quiet for a while, apparently neither men ready to disconnect the call.

'So... how was your day?' Jack finally asked. They hung up the phone three hours later.