Page 24 of Forged

Nick was perfectly still for a moment. Everything seemed to hang in the balance. The forge was silent and expectant with only the crackling of the forge’s fire whispering through the air. The scent of smoke and food and beeswax from the candle surrounded the two of them. Bax was just beginning to be terrified that he’d made a terrible mistake when Nick seemed to relax and kiss him back.

It was still only a brief, closed-mouth kiss, but the intention was definitely there. When Bax rocked back, letting Nick go, Nick had his eyes closed.

“Thank you,” Bax said, his voice hoarse.

Nick opened his eyes and met Bax’s. There was so much heat and promise in his gaze, but there was uncertainty and even fear, too. But those tighter emotions were secondary to the desire that was pulsing from Nick, like a seed about to sprout.

“Should we clean up?” Bax asked quietly. He could tell Nick needed something to move out of the intense moment. Nick needed time.

“Yeah,” Nick said, blowing out a breath.

Bax turned to his altar to begin putting things away. He couldn’t wipe the smile from his face, even if it was just a tiny bit gloating. Nick was within his reach. The two of them could actually have something. The possibilities were endless.

EIGHT

That kiss.

Nick could mark his life by a series of moments that had changed everything for him. Being accepted into art school. Meeting Raina. Marrying Raina. When each of his kids was born. The crash that had taken Raina from him.

That kiss.

Everything Nick thought he knew about himself had been blown completely out of the water in the course of a single evening. Although looking back on things, it had been much more than a single evening. It had been every walk he and Bax had taken together, every time his heart sped up when Bax laughed. The moment Bax joked with him at Raina’s memorial fundraiser counted in there, too.

Honestly, if he looked farther back, he could reasonably say it started with Matt from uni. That hadn’t been as much of a fluke as he’d thought. Raina must have sensed something about him back then, but if she’d tried to tell him more directly, he hadn’t listened. He could even see how the way he’d always been deeply attached to his friends in school as a sign of what he’d been oblivious to all this time.

He wasn’t as straight as he’d always assumed he was.

He had no idea what to do about it. It wasn’t like he was going to rush into London and demand membership in The Brotherhood. He still had kids to raise, classes to teach, and a unicorn sculpture that he was falling more and more behind on.

He did manage to find time to finally weld the unicorn’s head to the rest of its body two days after Imbolc. As soon as the joins were complete and stable, he took a step back and looked into the unicorn’s still hollow eye sockets.

“You knew,” he told it, feeling like he was looking into his own soul. “Of course you knew.”

The unicorn seemed to grin back at him with Raina’s mischievous love of romantic drama. That only squeezed Nick’s heart harder and made him feel like he was tumbling down a hill, unable to stop himself, but enjoying the thrill.

Knowing he might just be falling was one thing, running into Bax in the halls every day was something else entirely.

“I missed you on our walk this morning,” Bax said in the evening, two days after Imbolc, when they ran into each other in the hallway.

“I…er…the unicorn…and the kids….” Nick’s face felt like it was on fire and he couldn’t make himself stand still. His gaze kept wanting to drop to Bax’s mouth. And farther. He wanted to look at Bax’s body to see if he had any sort of sexual reaction.

He refused to let himself go there, though. Mostly out of fear. He already knew that he found Bax attractive. Looking at his body was like entering the metalwork studio for the first time and seeing a bunch of strange and intriguing tools that he didn’t have the first clue how to use, but that he wanted to play with.

“It’s alright, Nick,” Bax said with a soft laugh. He rested a hand on Nick’s arm. “I get it.”

“Are you sure?” Nick asked, going all hot and immediately wanting to kick himself.

Bax’s smile stayed bright and cheeky. “I think I do. It’s a lot to get used to. I assume you’re taking some time to process.”

“I…um…yeah, I guess that’s it.” Bax let his hand drop, so Nick immediately rushed on to, “It’s not that I don’t want…. I mean, I liked kissing you.”

He felt stupid for lowering his voice as he said that. They were in Hawthorne House, for Christ’s sake. The entire Hawthorne family was queer in every which way. Even Raina had been open about having relationships with girls before she met him.

“Take your time,” Bax said.

He then did the complete opposite of what he’d said by leaning in and stealing a kiss. Then he rushed off with a giddy grin, probably to do something even more contradictory, like crunching numbers for the arts center.

Nick shook his head and continued down the hall to his flat.

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