Chapter 3 #2
“I have plenty of time,” Art said, glancing quickly at Casper. “I’m not teaching any courses this summer and the dig up in the Highlands that I was supposed to assist with during my holidays was canceled. In fact, if you’re free, I could go take a look at these ruins of yours right now.”
“Really?” Ryan asked, pulling back a bit in surprise. “I don’t want to keep you from whatever you’re doing.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Art said, standing like he was eager to get on with things immediately. “And I do prefer to be doing something, or someone, at all times.”
Ryan stood, his knees feeling weaker than they should have. Arthur Johnson was a firecracker, and he was beginning to worry that he might go off in his face.
No, that analogy didn’t work at all.
Or maybe it did.
Ryan cleared his throat. “My car is parked in the garage. I can take you home right now.”
“I love it when a handsome man offers to take me home,” Art commented to Casper.
Casper laughed and shook his head. “Sorry,” he told Ryan. “I should have warned you about him.” To Art he said, “Behave.”
“Always,” Art said with a flash in his eyes that said “never”.
Ryan used the time it took them to walk down to the garage to fetch his car to steady his nerves.
Art was a chatterbox who didn’t really say much of anything, which was actually something of a relief.
While he tried to figure out how he felt and what he should feel, Art entertained himself with talking about club business and the latest gossip from The Brotherhood.
By the time they were out of London and driving along the M20, Ryan felt gathered enough to join the conversation.
“So what made you want to become an archeologist?” he asked as they approached the turn-off that would take them to Hawthorne House.
“A mad crush on Harrison Ford when I was growing up,” Art said, freely and easily. “And on Brendan Fraser when The Mummy came out. Well, everyone in that film, really. When The Mummy came out, I came out.”
Ryan hummed and nodded. “What a film,” he said, sending Art a sideways look that said he understood completely. Graeme had probably developed a thing for Rachel Weisz.
The discomfort he felt over that thought vanished when Art went on with, “I also did a work-study in college. I grew up near York, where there are plenty of Viking-era sites to excavate. I fell in love with digging in the dirt and bringing ancient treasures to light that summer.”
Ryan was immediately certain that Art and Graeme would get along famously. They both liked digging in the dirt.
“And I fell in love with Lars,” Art continued with a broad grin. “He was a big, strapping Swede who had also come over as part of a university program to work on the site. What a summer that was! I could have let him explore my caves forever.”
Ryan whipped his head to peek at Art. That was the same joke he’d been tempted to make back at the club. The coincidence felt significant somehow.
They drove on and were at Hawthorne House in no time. Art bounded out of the car as soon as Ryan parked, giddy as a schoolboy as he looked up at the edifice of the family side of the house.
“It’s magnificent,” he sighed, scanning every detail of the side of the building. “It’s not Nicholas Hawksmoor, is it?”
Ryan’s jaw nearly dropped. “It is, actually.” He’d never run into anyone who knew the name of the prominent architect before.
“Magnificent,” Art said with genuine appreciation.
Art’s enthusiasm was contagious. Even though Ryan had spent nearly every day at Hawthorne House for the last several months and had grown up there, he saw his family home with new eyes as they walked around to the back, where the gardens were located.
For the first time in a long time, he felt deeply proud of his family and heritage.
“Absolutely magnificent,” Art repeated for the dozenth time, only with an entirely different inflection, as they stepped into the kitchen garden, where Graeme was hard at work, his shirt off, planting some of the shipment of vegetable seedlings and herbs he’d showed up with that morning.
The shattered glass feeling Ryan kept experiencing turned particularly sharp as Graeme stood from his work and glanced their way.
Especially since his eyes landed on Art before him.
Graeme jerked all the way straight, brushed off his hands, and looked around frantically.
He stopped searching when he spotted his t-shirt, but before he could make a move toward it, Ryan and Art had reached him.
“Hello, you,” Art said, flirting as hard with Graeme as he had with Ryan back at the club. He raised a hand and dove straight for Graeme like he wanted to do more than just shake.
Ryan’s insides tied in knots with…jealousy? No, that wasn’t right. He had nothing to be jealous of. Graeme was straight, and even if he wasn’t, the friendship that he’d begun to form with Graeme was brand new and miles away from exclusive.
Maybe the sensation he felt was arousal. Because if he was honest with himself, seeing Graeme take Art’s hand and shake it while smiling kindly at him, matched with Art’s clear intention to seduce the living daylights out of Graeme, kind of turned him on.
“Graeme, this is Arthur Johnson, an archeologist from the Royal College of London,” he said, falling back on manners to stop his libido from running wild. He really needed to get laid. Dry spells weren’t good for him.
“Pleased to meet you,” Graeme said, his lovely voice softer and smoother than ever.
No, Ryan would not be jealous. There was no reason for it.
“Art, this is Graeme Dallen, garden designer extraordinaire,” Ryan finished.
“You are very much extraordinaire,” Art said, wiggling his eyebrows.
For a split-second, Ryan worried that Art would offend Graeme by coming on to him, but Graeme just blushed and went straight on into business.
“Have you come to see the ruins?” he asked. “They’re right through this way.”
Graeme stepped away, ducking to the side to grab his t-shirt and put it on, then led them to the other side of the kitchen garden and through the brick archway to the marked-out lawn.
“He’s a snack,” Art whispered, leaning close to Ryan as they followed.
“He’s straight,” Ryan murmured back.
“What? No, he’s not,” Art laughed.
Ryan stole a sideways look at him, his heart beating faster with hope, then looked ahead to Graeme as he stepped over a line of twine and into the space where the ruins had also been marked out. “He used to be married to a woman,” he said, praying Graeme didn’t overhear their conversation.
“That doesn’t mean anything these days,” Art said. “It never meant anything in any days.”
Their conversation stopped abruptly as they joined Graeme at the edge of the half-uncovered foundation.
“This is what we found,” Graeme said. “Ryan uncovered a bit of a teacup, and I found a few other things as I cordoned the area off. I’ve talked to a few of the Hawthornes about what they know of the gamekeeper’s cottage, but no one seems to know much.”
Once again, like he had at the club, Art shifted with lightning speed from shameless flirt to professional archeologist. He rubbed his chin and walked around part of the marked-off area, his expression deep with thought as he tried to make out the full perimeter.
Graeme came to stand beside Ryan, almost too close for comfort, considering the wealth of conflicted feelings pulsing through him.
“Does he know what he’s doing?” Graeme asked in the same quiet tone Art had used to speculate about Graeme’s sexuality.
“He’s a professor at a university, so I’m assuming he does,” Ryan said.
“He seems a little—” When Graeme didn’t continue, Ryan glanced at him. Graeme watched Art intensely as he squatted to pull at the grass along one side of the marked-off area. Graeme’s face pinched, then he said, “He’s younger than I would have imagined an archeologist and professor would be.”
Ryan studied Art again. He was probably roughly his same age. “I guess not all professors are grey-haired old codgers.”
“I guess not,” Graeme said, a little too breathlessly for Ryan’s liking.
Was Art right? Had his gaydar detected something about Graeme immediately that had passed him by?
They watched Art poke around at various parts of the ruined foundation a bit more, just standing there, their arms nearly touching.
Ryan’s thoughts and libido bounced around all over the place.
He’d started the day wanting Graeme, had had his head turned by Art at the club, and now he stood with Graeme, wanting him while admiring the shape of Art’s arse every time he bent over to check out something in the grass.
Having the two of them together was going to drive him mad.
Finally, Art finished his initial perusal and strode back to where Ryan and Graeme stood. He didn’t say anything, but the look in his eyes as he glanced between the two of them screamed “I’ll have you both”.
“I think you’ve got something interesting here,” he said, his smile widening and his eyes flashing.
“I don’t know how formal you want my investigation of the site to be.
More research is needed, and I’m sure there are records in the house somewhere to pore through, but there’s a chance I could file some paperwork with the university and obtain a grant to do a thorough study. ”
A twist of dread hit Ryan’s gut. “Shit,” he said. “We don’t have any money to pay you. Archeologists are generally paid to investigate things like this, aren’t they?”
“On private property, yes,” Art said. “But that’s why I would apply for a grant from the university.
That takes time and would be a lot of faff, but it would benefit my bid for tenure as well.
The life of a university professor without tenure is an adventure, let me tell you.
Aside from that, though, because this is private property and, as far as we know right now, there isn’t anything of national interest to uncover, whatever arrangements we make could be strictly private. ” He winked.
Ryan felt that wink in his balls. Strangely, Graeme shifted slightly at his side as well.
“I’ll talk to Dad and Mum about it,” Ryan said, his voice rougher than he intended it to be. “But speaking for me, I’d love to have you investigate.”
“I can work on the other gardens while you do this work,” Graeme added.
“It’s settled then,” Art said, coming forward and standing between the two of them so that he could slap both their shoulders at once. “I’ll set up shop here and dig around in your gardens this summer. It’ll be a grand old time.”
Ryan couldn’t fight the shivers that shot through him, starting from the spot where Art’s hand rested on his shoulder.
Those shivers only grew when Graeme glanced to him as if asking for some sort of help or guidance in how to deal with Art’s overt sensuality.
One way or another, it was about to be an interesting summer.