Chapter 3
THREE
The morning had not gone the way Rafe had thought it would. He hadn’t known what to expect from Jake, but it wasn’t to find him as handsome and perky as he’d always been. He’d thought maybe Jake would be apologetic and ready to make amends so that he could get what he wanted, or that he’d be arrogant and try to overshadow him in front of his family.
None of that had happened. Jake was exactly the same as he’d always been. He was magnetic and luminescent. His family had liked him, Rafe could tell. It was clear they all suspected there had been a romance in Corning that he’d failed to mention to them. That was probably because he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Jake.
“Stupid,” he muttered to himself as he gathered a bit of glass from the furnace on his blowpipe. He wasn’t the sort to be suckered by charm. Not usually, at least. He was usually the one who exuded charm and drew people to him.
Spinning the blowpipe to keep the liquid glass in place, he moved from the furnace to the stainless steel marvering table nearby to roll the bit into shape. He’d pulled some cane when he’d first come down to the hot shop, since nothing soothed his anxiety like pulling cane, and as soon as the molten glass was how he wanted it, he carefully rolled it over the cane.
Are you sure you’re not just jealous , the annoying voice in the back of his mind asked.
Rafe frowned in an attempt to chase it away and concentrated on his glass. He wasn’t entirely certain what he was making. He wasn’t as concerned with the finished product as he was with the heat and the distraction of making something.
As long as he could remember, the sharp, acrid scents of a hot shop and its intense heat had excited him. He was a Hawthorne, so of course he had been exposed to every kind of art at an early age. He’d tried painting and ceramics, he’d sculpted in several mediums and even done some photography. But nothing sang to him like the high-stakes, risky art form that was glassblowing.
As soon as his piece was where he wanted it, he blew into the pipe to start shaping the striped blob at its end. Without an assistant to help with the process he couldn’t make anything particularly large or elaborate, but he could form a basic vase.
Without thinking, his eyes flashed to the hot shop’s door. Since returning to England, he’d had various students and people just learning glassblowing around to help him make a few more ambitious pieces. But it was difficult to do something stellar without a partner who was as much of an expert as he was. Now that Jake was here….
He grunted at the direction his mind had been going and pulled his forming creation aside to get a look at it, then took it back to the furnace to add more heat. He could make a vase on his own. He didn’t need Jake’s or anyone else’s help for that.
When the emerging vase was hot enough to work with again, Rafe pulled it out of the furnace then shifted to one of the handful of workbenches scattered around his hot shop and sat. He had his tools at the ready, and with as much focus as he could muster while his head was filled with tangled, unhelpful thoughts, he picked up a pair of jacks and began to shape it.
He wasn’t jealous of Jake Mathers. Why would anyone want to be jealous of a preening peacock with a pathological need to be the center of focus every time he entered a room? He’d had his family captivated up at the office. The most annoying part about that was that Rafe had the impression Jake had been wary of his family.
That was another strike against Jake. Who in their right mind would be wary of his family? His family was wonderful. They were exactly the sort of family that any queer person would give their eye teeth to belong to.
And why couldn’t he stop giving Jake free rent in his head? He was supposed to be working, supposed to be making something that might inspire him to create a new line or concept in glass. He didn’t want to be a lowly community arts center glassblowing teacher for the rest of his life. He wanted to make pieces that provoked thought and inspired emotion. He wanted his work to end up in museums, not gift shops. He wanted to produce something as brilliant as Jake had made in Corning.
With a heavy sigh, Rafe sat up and stared at the pedestrian vase he’d just created. He’d managed some nice, intricate stripes. It was close to Venetian glass but with his own spin. Once it had cooled, it would make a lovely vase for flowers. It would live out its life on some corner table, praised maybe once or twice, but relegated to obscurity after that.
It was too much. He scored the bottom of the work, then tapped the punty, sending the new vase crashing to the floor.
“Why did you do that?” Jake asked, shocking Rafe out of his thoughts.
Rafe shifted the pipe aside and lifted his goggles. He hadn’t seen Jake enter his hot shop, so he had no idea how long he’d been watching.
“It wasn’t right,” he said, pushing himself up and removing his work gloves so he could fetch a broom.
“What wasn’t right about it?” Jake asked with a focused frown. “The shape looked good and the stripes seemed just right.”
Rafe shrugged once his back was to Jake as he grabbed the broom. “I wasn’t feeling it.”
When he turned around, Jake was smiling at him. “That’s Rafe Hawthorne for you,” he said. “Always the perfectionist, always in pursuit of the perfect vase.”
Acrid disappointment filled Rafe’s gut. “I want to do more than make the perfect vase,” he grumbled, moving to sweep up the shattered glass near his workbench.
“Something wrong with the perfect vase?” Jake asked ambling around the hot shop with eager eyes.
Rafe focused on cleaning the floor and disposing of the glass shards before answering.
“What do you want, Jake?” he asked, ignoring the actual question.
Jake turned to him from where he’d been handling some of the blowpipes in the rack near the furnace. “I want to relocate to England, build a life here, and blow glass in peace,” he said.
Rafe huffed and shook his head. “Someone as ambitious as you? That’s all you want to do? Make goblets and vases?”
Jake’s usual boyish charm hardened, and for a change, he looked his age.
“I want to make a name for myself. Of course, I do,” he said, leaving the blowpipes and walking over to stand facing Rafe. “The last couple years have been really hectic, though, and I need a timeout.” He looked away, toward the annealer at the other end of the large room.
Rafe narrowed his eyes slightly. Maybe it was just jetlag, but something was off about Jake. He was still a simmering ball of energy, but that energy had changed.
“Alright,” he said, nodding at the furnace. “There’s the furnace. There’s plenty of material in there.” He turned and pointed to the long line of shelves across one wall of the hot shop. “Tools are there. Rods of whatever colors you want are there, frit is on that third shelf, and other bits and bobs are in labeled bins. Blowpipes are stacked near the furnace. Have at.”
Jake’s expression brightened. “Really? You’d let me work in your studio?”
Rafe’s face pinched slightly. “That’s why you came here, isn’t it?”
“I came here to marry you,” Jake said with a smile, his usual, saccharine smile returning.
Rafe turned away from him, heading for the furnace and grabbing another blowpipe as he went. “The hot shop is open from nine in the morning until six in the afternoon,” he said like he was talking to one of his students as he slipped the blowpipe into the furnace to gather molten glass. “I’ll exempt you from the usual orientation, since I know you already know your way around a hot shop.”
“Thanks,” Jake said.
When Rafe pulled molten glass from the furnace and turned, he found Jake already wearing an apron and goggles with gloves under his arm. He shouldn’t have been at all surprised that Jake would jump right into things with both feet.
“What are we making?” he asked as Rafe carried the blowpipe to his marvering table to turn and stabilize it.
“You tell me?” he asked. He shifted to the side, indicating that Jake should take over the make.
Jake rushed in, switching places with Rafe. He checked the tools that were available, then moved to one of the workbenches, quickly gestured for Rafe to take a position at the other side of the pipe. “Blow,” he said, turning the pipe to keep the glass symmetrical.
Rafe fell right into step with him, grasping the end of the blowpipe and blowing when Jake told him to. They actually worked well together and always had. Jake only needed to give him the barest instructions for him to know what he wanted.
“More, more, more,” Jake said, shaping and forming the growing bulb at the end of the pipe. He got up to reheat it in the furnace for a moment, then returned to the bench.
Glass was the most amazing medium to work with. Everyone knew what it was and saw it practically every moment of every day. It was a shape-shifter and a minx. Something that started out as a liquid could be pressed, guided, and molded into the most amazing shapes.
Within minutes, Jake had turned the blob of glass Rafe had gathered into a wide-bottomed, asymmetrical vase. He continued to work it with tongs and pliers long after Rafe’s part in the make was done. All Rafe could do was stand to the side, ready to offer Jake help when he needed it, and watch as an ornate, eclectic vase began to emerge.
It was disheartening. The vase he’d almost made was technically proficient, but the piece of art that Jake managed to coax from the plain glass, without a strategy or a plan, was so far beyond Rafe’s skill level that it made him wilt.
“Is the annealer ready?” Jake asked, his voice serious and urgent, as he made the last adjustments to the vase.
“Yes,” Rafe said, rushing to the side to get the heavy gloves he would need to carry the piece in its current state.
They worked in perfect unison as Jake freed the vase from the pipe. Rafe was right there to catch it, and as soon as its hot weight hit his hands, he and Jake rushed together to the large annealer. Rafe nodded at it, Jake opened the door, and together, they slipped the work into place, shutting the door on it so it could cool slowly without cracking or shattering.
Once that was done, Jake turned to him with a satisfied smile. “Just like old times.”
Rafe frowned. “Right, with me playing the role of assistant while you steal all the glory.”
Jake’s smile dropped. “I never stole anything.”
Rafe shook his head and walked away, back to the bench, so he could clean up.
“No, really,” Jake said, following him like a golden retriever. “I didn’t take anything away from what you were doing in Corning. We were there as equals.”
Rafe sent him a doubting look as he carried the blowpipe back to the rack with used ones. He didn’t know what else to do but grab another blowpipe and return to the forge for more glass. He wasn’t in the mood to work or to have Jake upstage him again, but his muscles and his soul reverted to what he knew best when he didn’t know what else to say or do.
“You’re mad at me, I know,” Jake said, following him as he started the process of gathering bit and moving it to his workbench. “You think that I drew attention from you, especially when Hero Yoshito visited the shop.”
Rafe scowled, but now that he had glass to focus on, he didn’t look at Jake. “I think you eclipsed me on purpose to win that apprenticeship.”
Jake donned his gloves and goggles again and came over to the workbench, his body language saying he was ready to assist Rafe. “If I upstaged you on purpose to win that apprenticeship, then why am I not in Tokyo right now instead of here at Hawthorne House?”
Rafe pressed his lips tight for a moment, then said, “Blow.”
Jake moved immediately to assist so Rafe could concentrate on forming the glass.
The two of them were quiet except for work instructions as Rafe slowly formed what turned into a large goblet. For a few, blissful moments, everything else was forgotten, and it was just him and Jake working in unison again. Goblets took time and several trips back to the furnace to reheat the glass and gather more. It was a dance that the two of them knew so well and could do without thought.
Rafe reached the point of opening the goblet’s mouth, spinning the pipe to keep its shape, and added a series of fine details with his favorite pair of pinchers. Once it was done, he and Jake repeated the process of taking it off the pipe and moving it to the annealer.
“Perfect,” Jake said as he rushed it across the room. “I’ve never seen anyone make goblets as fast and as spot-on perfect as you.”
Rafe nearly slammed the annealer door once the goblet was in. “Perfect goblets,” he said, not even trying to stop the resentment that spilled from him. “Perfect for a gift shop or my family’s Renaissance Faire.”
“Renaissance Faire?” Jake asked, perking up. Because of course he would get excited about something as touristy as the Renaissance Faire and completely miss the tension in Rafe’s statement.
Rafe ignored the question as he headed back into the heart of the hot shop. Jake followed him.
“I get why you think your work isn’t good enough,” Jake said. Even those words stung Rafe to the point of wincing. “We were in some pretty rarified air back in Corning. It was fantastic being in a place that was all about art and higher values. And you’re good at all that, too.”
Rafe rested his weight on one leg, crossed his arms, and stared at Jake.
“I mean it! You are,” Jake said, stepping closer to him. “You’re consistent, you’re technical, and you were better than ninety-nine percent of the people we were working with.”
“Ninety-nine percent, but not you,” Rafe said.
Jake let out a breath and rubbed a hand over his face. He’d only been in the hot shop for an hour or so, but he was already sweaty and dirty. He must have been incredibly jetlagged, too. There was no way he’d taken a nap before coming down to the studio.
“I can’t help it if I’m good,” he said, glancing at Rafe with tired eyes. “I’ve worked fucking hard my entire life to get where I am. Glassblowing was all I had.”
“But you want more,” Rafe said. It was obvious. Everyone at their level wanted more, even though they were already among the best.
“Of course, I do,” Jake said, staring hard at Rafe. “That’s why I came over here. I can grow more and do more in the UK than I can in the US right now. This is where I want to be.”
“And you’ve no qualms at all about using me to get what you want,” Rafe said. He had to fight the well of sullen feelings that sprung up in him, like he was some teenage boy, bitter because the guy he had a crush on only wanted him because he had the right group of friends.
“I can give you something you need, too,” Jake said, his eyes suddenly sparkling with intensity. His already flushed face splotched redder, and he seemed to dance on the balls of his feet, like he couldn’t keep still.
The shift was strange but intriguing. The prickles that always seemed to form on the back of Rafe’s neck when Jake was, well, being Jake were back.
“You think you have something I need so much that I’ll marry you and help you commit fraud to get a visa and become a citizen of my country?” he asked, frowning.
“Yes,” Jake said with complete confidence. “I can put your name on the map.”
Rafe’s frown deepened. “What do you mean?”
Jake took in a sharp, shallow breath and swayed a little, like he was so full of kinetic energy he might burst. “We’ll work together, here, in your hot shop,” he said. “I’ll teach you everything I know and you can teach me, too. We’ll inspire each other, and we’ll both improve and grow.”
“That still sounds like you’re helping yourself more than me,” Rafe said, then couldn’t resist adding, “As usual.”
“But wait, there’s more,” Jake rushed on, taking a step forward.
Rafe let out a tight laugh. “Are you selling me something?” he asked. “You sound like an American television commercial.”
“I mean it,” Jake said, his eyes almost glazing, he was so intent on something. “I…I can introduce you to some of the top names in the glass world. I’m…I’m friends with Hélène Rénard.”
Rafe froze, his heart pounding against his ribs. Hélène Rénard was the number one most influential artist in the glass world at that moment. Her exhibits drew crowds. Her pieces sold for millions of dollars. Museums were falling all over themselves to make her their artist-in-residence. Working with her had launched the careers of some of the art world’s current stars.
“Hélène only takes on apprentices once every couple years,” Jake went on. “I happen to know that she’s looking for someone to join her studio for a season. If you let me stay here and if you marry me so I can set up permanent residence in the UK on a spousal visa, then I’ll convince Hélène to take you on this winter.”
Rafe couldn’t breathe for a second. His mind reeled. Jake couldn’t possibly have that sort of influence. How did he know Hélène Rénard anyhow?
Then again, Jake got around. When they were in Corning, he had entertained everyone with the stories of his glass travels, from Tokyo to Murano to Los Angeles. He had exactly the sort of winning personality that made him fearless in approaching great artists and charming enough to win them over. More than once, he’d bragged about who he knew and how much they loved him. And not everyone knew about Hélène Rénard’s habit of taking apprentices now and then.
“You could really do that for me?” he asked, frustrated that his voice was hoarse with anticipation. “You could get me an apprenticeship with Hélène Rénard?”
Jake smiled. “Would I lie to you about something like that?”
The voice at the back of Rafe’s head said, “Yes!”
Jake stepped closer to him, putting a hand on Rafe’s arm. “What do you say? You marry me, I get a visa, you get an apprenticeship with Hélène Rénard, and maybe we even have a little fun along the way.” He winked.
Rafe blew out a breath. That shouldn’t have been the clincher. In fact, that should have put him off entirely. It was irritating that the prospect of sex with Jake on top of everything else was too good to pass up. He’d been having a dry spell since coming back to Hawthorne House, and he was more than ready for that to be over.
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll consider it.”
“That’s all I ask,” Jake said with a smile. He clapped his hands together and said, “Great! Let’s blow!”
Rafe shook his head as they moved to gather supplies for another project. He hoped he wouldn’t regret this.