Chapter 12
TWELVE
Half an hour later, completely unexpectedly, Graeme was sitting in the passenger’s seat of Ryan’s car, scrubbed and dressed in jeans and a soft shirt, on his way to London.
He’d learned after his first week at Hawthorne House to always carry a spare set of going-out clothes with him, because there was no telling when any one of the Hawthornes would skive off work and drag him along with them.
Janice and Robert seemed to like surprising him with lunch out and Nick and Bax had once begged him to watch their kids so they could have an uninterrupted hour, but more often than not in the last week or so, he found himself going somewhere with Ryan.
“It would probably be easier for us to get to Bermondsey by taking the train to London Bridge, then walking,” Ryan said as they drove along the highway, “but Goddess only knows how much I’ll decide to buy and need to carry back with me.”
“Why do you sometimes say ‘Goddess’?” Graeme asked. His question was a bit out of the blue and restless, but then again, everything Ryan had rambled on about since they’d left Hawthorne House had been aimless and designed just to fill space, too.
Ryan glanced briefly at him before turning off the highway and onto a road with much more traffic.
“It’s a habit Bax has gotten us all into ever since the entire family joined his coven,” he said.
He situated himself in the traffic, then peeked at Graeme again and asked, “You did know the entire Hawthorne family are practicing Pagans, right?”
Graeme caught his breath, not because he was shocked or offended, but because it made perfect sense. “So that wasn’t just an ordinary family picnic last month. It was the summer solstice, right?”
“Right,” Ryan confirmed with a laugh. “Bax likes us to go all-out for Litha. I was the odd man out for the fun part of the celebration, though, since neither you nor Art were around that night.
Graeme shook his head. “I’ve lived such a sheltered life,” he said, shaking his head.
Ryan laughed. “You’ve gone straight from one religious community all the way to the other end of the faith spectrum to fall into another religious community.”
Graeme’s face heated, although that wasn’t saying much, since he seemed to live in a constant state of shock and arousal these days. “Do you all consider yourself a religious community?” he asked.
“No,” Ryan said with a smile. “Not at all. But it’s terribly convenient to claim that you’re only following your religious beliefs when you engage in wild, hedonistic orgies.”
Graeme’s eyes went wide. “You’ve been in an orgy before?”
Ryan laughed again, making Graeme wonder if he was poking fun at him. “No, not really,” he said. “And to be honest, I’m new to the whole Pagan thing, too. Bax started it over a year ago, and I’ve just returned to the family relatively recently.”
Graeme hummed and nodded, staring straight forward.
He was a little afraid to look at Ryan in case it turned out that the man he definitely had a relationship with was making fun of him.
Then again, Art always seemed to be making fun of him, but that kind of turned him on.
Art’s version of making fun was like giving Graeme tiny glimpses into a naughty magazine and all the treasures it contained.
Ryan and Art. There were days, like, most days, when Graeme felt stuck between the two of them.
He shouldn’t have felt like that, considering Ryan was the one he’d had sex with.
Only that one time, though. But, if Ryan hadn’t been so busy with his spring collection, they probably would have gone to bed together several more times since then.
Art had teased him about it, and he was still fishing for details.
Almost like he wanted to know who Graeme would be comparing him to when their time finally came.
“I’m in way over my head,” Graeme blurted, certain Ryan thought his thought was coming out of the blue. “There’s so much more in the world than I was told growing up.”
“I think growing up is all about discovering there’s more to the world than when you were a kid,” Ryan said. “That’s why it’s called growing up.”
“Yeah, but most of the people I was raised by and around have carried their same opinions with them through their entire life, and they’ll probably continue to carry them for the rest of their lives,” Graeme said.
“I can’t imagine a worse way to live,” Ryan said, putting on his signal to turn into a parking garage.
“Neither can I,” Graeme said. “Now. But I’m still terrible at being hip and cool and in touch with the modern world.”
Ryan laughed as he sought out a parking space. “Do people still say ‘hip’ and ‘cool’?”
“See?” Graeme argued instead of answering the question. “I don’t even know how to talk like a normal person my age. And I certainly don’t know anything about juggling two men while—”
He stopped, a sick feeling hitting his stomach, like he’d gone too far.
None of them had talked about anything where the swirling knot of feeling squeezing in tighter and tighter on the three of them was concerned.
For all he knew, Ryan wanted to keep him all for himself and was plotting ways to get rid of Art.
Or, more likely, he’d already had his way with him and was getting ready to toss Graeme aside for his next conquest.
But no, Ryan wasn’t Damien. And neither was Art.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Ryan said with a sigh, finding a parking space and maneuvering so he could back into it.
The statement didn’t make Graeme feel better. He didn’t know what was going on either. All he knew was that he was equally drawn toward two men, but for entirely different reasons. And he wanted to have a sexual relationship with both of them.
It was everything he was raised to believe was not just wrong, but evil.
“It’s incredibly disorienting not believing any of the things you were raised to believe anymore,” he said once they were out of the car and walking toward the parking garage’s stairs.
Even though he kept his voice down, it reverberated through the hollow, concrete space, somehow giving those words more meaning.
“I guess I’m lucky I was raised by bohemian parents who have always believed in free love and sexual expression, then,” Ryan said as they headed down the staircase, his words echoing as well.
“Yeah, but you have your own hang-ups,” Graeme said.
Ryan glanced at him funnily as they made it downstairs to the payment kiosk. “I do?” he asked.
Graeme panicked. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Ryan was perfectly at ease with himself and he was just projecting his own insecurities about sex and relationships.
But he didn’t think so.
He shrugged, trying to channel Art and play it cool. “I don’t know. It’s just something, a feeling, I’ve had.”
Ryan grunted and focused on paying for the parking.
Nothing more was said on the subject, which kind of made Graeme feel he was right. He’d thought he was being like Art, but if Art were there instead of him, he would pester Ryan until he confessed why he was so cagey at weird times.
One way or another, the conversation was effectively over once they entered the wholesale fabric shop.
Graeme had never seen anything like it. Bolts and rolls of fabric packed the space like it was his gran’s closet times a million.
There were splashes of color and eye-jarring patterns everywhere.
The whole thing seemed to be organized into sections by type of material, but the names, damask, chenille, Georgette, and more, were complete mysteries to him.
Graeme had a thousand questions, but he bit his tongue as he followed Ryan up and down the aisles, watching him think.
Every once in a while, Ryan would stop and pull something out of the stacks, running his hands over it before either setting it aside or putting it back.
He seemed drawn to shades of rose, green, and gold, which seemed to fit for a spring collection.
Graeme licked his lips subconsciously a few times at the tenderness of Ryan’s touch as he fingered the fabric.
When Ryan pulled a roll of something silky from a table and stroked his hand up and down the cylinder, Graeme had to turn away for a second to stop his thoughts from going places they shouldn’t.
“I don’t know,” Ryan sighed after a while, sagging to lean against a table piled high with what looked like suit material. “The more I try to force creativity, the more of a block I feel.”
“So it’s not going well?” Graeme asked, heart going out to his lover.
Ryan shook his head. “I have to make this work. This is my last chance to have a career as a designer, despite what Art says.”
Mentioning Art felt like striking a match for Graeme. “What did he say?” he asked, deliberately leaning against the table directly across the narrow aisle from the one Ryan leaned against, his feet on either side of Ryan’s in the center of the aisle.
Ryan was looking down, maybe at their feet, and glanced up at Graeme with a spark in his eyes. “He said, more or less, that this spring show was a foot in the door and that I didn’t have to throw my whole shoulder against the door and bash my way into the room with trumpet fanfare.”
Graeme smiled. “That sounds right to me. And don’t you already have a name in the fashion world? Don’t people know all the work you did when you were working for George…what was his name?”
“Giorgio Esposito,” Ryan said, glancing away.
Graeme didn’t think the avoidance was accidental. It really wasn’t any of his business, but boy did he want to know the full story of what had happened with Ryan and his ex-boss.
“There you go, then,” he said with a nod instead of prying. “If Art has faith that you can get back into the industry with this show, even if you just do what you can instead of changing the world, then I think so, too.”
A slow smile spread over Ryan’s face. “Is that what the two of you were talking about in the garden? Are you tag-teaming me or something?”