Page 8 of Thrown

Robbie moved on, checking some of the other kids’ work, but he was now deeply aware of Tillman watching him from the sidelines. It was as likely as not that the irritating man was judging every interaction Robbie had with the kids. He would probably tell him he was teaching all wrong and that he should leave the classroom instruction to the professionals and concentrate on producing hundreds of identical mugs to be sold in a house gift shop.

The idea of a gift shop for Hawthorne House, where the public could buy art in all its various forms as made by his siblings and other instructors had actually crossed Robbie’s mind before. Several times. They were all gaining reputations in their fields, and an online shop might not be a bad idea. They all did quite well during the Renaissance weekends that the estate put on a few times in the summer, selling their art as part of the fun.

The idea wasn’t a bad one, Robbie just didn’t want the suggestion to come from a short, spikey-haired, suit and lip ring wearing, professional fault-finder, like Tillman.

“Oh no! I’ve got it on my shirt!” Jessica, one of the more exuberant of Robbie’s students, called out from the other end of the table. Her hands were somehow covered in clay, and she’d wiped one on her school uniform shirt. “What do I do?”

Robbie started toward her, but Jessica had turned to Tillman, who stood closer to her, instead of Robbie.

“Oy,” Tillman said, the slightly more refined voice he’d used earlier slipping into something far more colloquial. “Not to worry. We can get that out in a jiff.”

Without checking to see if it would be alright, Tillman took one of Jessica’s messy hands and walked her to one of the sinks at the far end of the room. He proceeded to help her clean her hands, and then, with surprising effectiveness, he used the soap by the sink to clean the stain out of Jessica’s shirt.

Robbie was not jealous. Neither was he impressed. Nor intrigued. He fought off those feelings with everything he had, deliberately turning his back to the two of them and helping his other students as they worked on their snake pots. The furious beating of his heart was just that, fury. Tillman had no business interfering with his class or showing such care and natural ability with children. And he most certainly did not immediately compare Tillman to Keith in terms of who would make the better father.

“Why can’t I make my snakes round?” another of the kids, David, huffed in frustration, blessedly drawing all of Robbie’s attention. “They always turn out flat.”

“Let’s see how you’re rolling them,” Robbie said, walking around to stand by David’s side.

The rest of the class was low-key. Robbie fought tooth and nail to give his full attention to the students and not to Tillman.Tillman returned to standing by the side of the room, doing nothing but watching, once Jessica was cleaned up and back at work. There were no further incidents, and yet it was one of the longest classes Robbie had ever taught.

He nearly shouted in relief when Miss Rathore from the primary school came to collect the kids to take them back to their regular classes.

Of course, that left Robbie alone in the ceramic studio with Tillman.

“How often do you teach children’s classes?” Tillman asked, stepping forward to help Robbie with clean-up.

“Every weekday morning and some afternoons,” Robbie snapped, looking at Tillman as little as possible as they got to work. “There are three primary schools within a short drive. Two of them have no arts programs in-house, so we’ve organized a partnership with them to provide classes to students of exceptional aptitude.”

“Right. Exceptional aptitude, but not the ones who might just like to muck about with clay for an hour now and then,” Tillman said, his words practically slicing the air as they left his lips.

Robbie straightened and turned to him with an imperious glare. “There are thousands of school-aged children attending those schools. If we provided classes for all of them, not only would we only be teaching those classes all day, which wouldn’t leave time for adult classes, we wouldn’t be able to pay the bills. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be so concerned about?”

Tillman looked as though Robbie had fired shots in his direction. “Not all of us are born with the privilege of taking art classes, or even thinking of ourselves as creative at all,” he snapped.

Robbie immediately sensed he’d hit a nerve and Tillman was talking about himself. Though every instinct within him urgedhim to let it go, an entirely different part of Robbie wanted to goad Tillman into telling him more.

“Is all this anger merely frustration that you didn’t get to ‘muck about with clay’ when you were a kid?” he asked.

His question did exactly what he’d intended it to.

Tillman’s blue eyes went wide with indignation, and he said, “I was too busy getting myself up in the morning, feeding myself, and taking the bus to school while my dad slept off his hangover while my mum worked to support us,” he said. “Or working whatever afterschool job wouldn’t question whether I was old enough to be there, and that would pay me under the table so I could buy a second-hand school uniform. So no, I didn’t get to indulge in art of any sort when I was a kid.”

Robbie’s gut squeezed painfully, though whether the emotions he felt were anger or pity, he couldn’t tell. “Then you were exactly the sort of child we try to cater to here at Hawthorne Community Arts Center,” he said, admittedly with too much pride.

Tillman wasn’t impressed. “Go on, then,” he said, letting his accent slip again. “Give yourself a nice pat on the back for being such a saint.”

He slammed the ball of extra clay bits he’d been gathering onto the table, then walked off to wash his hands.

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping us?” Robbie called after him as he collected the clay and returned it to the container the kids’ clay was kept in. “So far, I’ve seen nothing but disdain and viciousness from you.”

“I am here to help you.” Tillman raised his voice over the rushing water in the sink. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t think you lot are a bunch of privileged pricks to the manor born who think they’re better than the rest of us because they ‘do art’.” He finished in a mocking tone.

Robbie was so affected by everything about Tillman, from his scornful, blue eyes to his acidic tone of voice, that his skin prickled like it would fall off. Or like it needed to be touched and grabbed and kissed, or bitten.

“Oh, so this is a class thing,” he said, marching over to the sink. “You’re one of those proud, working-class blokes who can’t stand us prissy aristocrats.”

Tillman turned off the sink and snatched at the pile of paper towels, nearly knocking it over as he grabbed enough to dry his hands.

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