Page 38 of Thrown

He squeezed Gerry’s shoulder, gave Tommy and Gracie kisses, and kissed his mum before grabbing his bag and heading out of the kitchen.

“It’ll work itself out, love,” his mum called after him. “If it’s meant to be, then nothing can get in your way.”

Toby smiled at his mum’s rosy outlook on things, but he lost his smile once he was out the door and in his car. Whatever was meant to be would be, and what wasn’t could cause a huge mess for him to clean up.

The drive to Hawthorne House was nicer than he’d thought it would be. It was a rare day of sun, and the other drivers seemed less incompetent than usual. He arrived early at Hawthorne House, swinging around to go up the back drive and parking in the family lot, as he’d been given permission to park there the week before.

The house was still relatively quiet as he made his way in. Classes wouldn’t start for another hour, and as he passed theoffice, Toby saw that neither Rebecca nor Early had opened it yet.

He hesitated in the front hallway for a few seconds, glancing at the stairs, which would take him up to Mr. Hawthorne’s office and the space he’d taken over to do his work, then down the corridor that led to Robbie’s pottery studio. He had a feeling, a pretty strong one, that Robbie would be up early and at his wheel. Two weeks of working with the family had taught him not only that Robbie was a morning person, but that he liked to work when he was upset about things.

It was probably a bad idea, but Toby couldn’t help himself. With a huff of frustration for himself and his inability to leave well enough alone, he marched down the hall to the pottery studio.

Sure enough, Robbie already sat at his favorite wheel. The hum of the wheel’s motor was the only sound in the room. Robbie was deep in concentration, his body braced carefully around the wheel, his elbows bent, and his hands seemingly working magic as the lump of clay spinning on the wheel morphed into the recognizable shape of a bowl.

Judging by the row of freshly thrown bowls on the shelf beside Robbie’s wheel, it must have been bowl day or something. Each of the three finished bowls looked completely perfect to Toby’s eyes, at least, from across the room. But Robbie grunted as though he wasn’t satisfied with something as he leaned back and took his foot off the pedal that ran the wheel.

Toby couldn’t drag his eyes away from Robbie’s muscled arms as he reached for a wire tool, then slipped it under the bowl on his wheel to get it off. There was so much strength and grace in the way he moved. It reminded Toby of the way Robbie’s body had felt shifting and flexing under his as their kissing had started to take them somewhere deeper the other night.

Robbie tensed as he set the newly finished bowl on the shelf and jerked to face Toby, as though Toby’s presence had startled him.

“How long have you been staring at me?” Robbie demanded with a frown, his face going red.

Toby was deeply tempted to say “Since the moment I first met you,” but that seemed like a little much.

“Just a few seconds,” he said instead, thrusting his hands in his pockets and walking slowly over to the wheel. He nodded to the finished bowls. “They look great.”

Robbie growled. “They’re off. Everything feels off today.”

Toby blinked in surprise and took another look at the bowls. “They look perfect to me.”

Robbie sighed and rubbed the back of his wrist over his face, since his hands were messy with clay. “The thickness isn’t right, in the base or in the walls. They’re not uniform either.”

“Who says they have to be uniform?” Toby squatted a little to get a closer look at the bowls.

“They need to look like the ones on the website,” Robbie explained. “These are for sale. I can’t go selling ceramics that don’t match the pictures on my website. People would complain.”

“Why?” Toby asked, shrugging as he stood. “You could just put a disclaimer on the page saying that individual items are handcrafted and may contain slight variations.”

Robbie narrowed his eyes at Toby, like he’d said something wrong.

“What?” Toby demanded, half laughing.

“Is that why you’re here? Am I the subject of your assessments today?” he asked. “Are you here to improve the way I do my business or live my life?”

Robbie Hawthorne. Sometimes Toby wanted to fuck his brains out and make him moan and drip with sweat, andsometimes he wanted to slap the bastard upside the head and tell him to get a fucking grip.

“Were you okay yesterday?” he asked instead, leaning against the wall. “Did you wake up and make it home alright?”

Another hurricane of emotions twisted its way through Robbie’s expression. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Instead of turning it into an argument, Robbie jerked away from him and started clearing away the extra clay from the bat he’d been working with, then grabbed a ball of clay from the pile on the other side of the shelf. He slammed the ball onto the wheel, then pressed the pedal to start it turning.

Toby felt a bit like the ball, slapped around, shoved every which way, and maybe formed into something useful.

“I would have kept going the other night if you hadn’t been sick,” he said, raising his voice over the sound of the wheel.

Robbie pulled his foot up, and the whirring sound stopped enough for Toby to hear his sigh. “And?” he asked without looking at Toby.

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