Page 11 of Blown

Not that he had a lot of money for supplies.

“What qualifies as ‘fun’ in your world?” Rafe asked as he tidied up his kitchen, putting everything away in its place. Jake was surprised every spot wasn’t labeled.

Jake shrugged and grabbed a cloth from the sink to help by wiping down the counters. “Let’s go into London. We could ride the London Eye, do a Thames riverboat tour, see the Tower of London.”

Rafe stared flatly at him. “That’s really what you want to do? You want to go to all the tourist traps?”

Jake laughed. “Why not? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you’re in London?”

Rafe studied him for a long time, so long that Jake’s body heated, and not in the good way. Any second now, Rafe would see through the string of lies he’d told and send him packing. It’d only been three days, but if he could just push things to the point where Rafe agreed fully to marry him and he secured a fiancé visa at least, then maybe he could breathe a little easier.

Just when Jake thought he’d have to go downstairs and start packing, Rafe dropped his shoulders with a sigh and said, “Alright.”

Jake burst into a grin. That was more like it.

“We could take the train into town, if that’s easier,” he said, rubbing the counters with more vigor, then rinsing the cloth in the sink. “You know how I love trains.”

Rafe cracked a smile. It was a small one, but it had Jake beaming like he’d won a prize. Rafe had the most beautiful smile when he let himself go. He really was gorgeous. He was tall, dark, and handsome in a classically British style. Now that he’d met the rest of Rafe’s family—and the Hawthornes were growing on him, but families were still timebombs to him—he could see those good looks were genetic. But Rafe also had a sort of earnestness that made him beautiful, whether he was cleaning up a kitchen, strolling through the grounds of his family’s impressive estate, or drenched in sweat from the hot shop.

Jake particularly liked him dripping in sweat. He’d like to make Rafe sweat in other ways, too. He’d tried flirting in the last few days, and so far, he’d gotten signals that said horizontal happy times weren’t out of the question.

“We’ll drive,” Rafe said, heading out of the kitchen, Jake following. “Traffic will be awful, but I’ve got connections when it comes to finding a good parking space.”

Jake couldn’t wait to learn what those connections were. He practically bounced out of the flat and downstairs to the parking lot on Rafe’s heels.

He was well aware that he was a cliché, manic American most of the time. But he was in England, the place he felt most at home, despite not having been born there. He couldn’t contain his enthusiasm for things that Rafe and his family, and everyone else on that sceptered isle, probably took for granted every day. He loved sitting on the wrong side of the car, listening to commercials in thick, British accents on the radio as they drove, and seeing signs for sales at the shops in pound signs instead of dollar signs. He was exactly where he wanted to be, forever, and every little thing made him smile.

All he had to do now was play his cards right so he could stay in the place that made him smile forever. And Rafe was a huge part of that.

“So no classes on weekends?” he asked as they wound their way through congested streets toward the heart of the city.

Rafe shook his head. “Not in the summer. Dad says the number of people signing up for classes over the summer versus those flying down to Ibiza or some other island isn’t worth the cost of staying open on weekends.”

Jake nodded. “Sensible.”

“Mum and Dad don’t like having classes on the weekend even during the rest of the year, though that’s when a lot more people would be able to come,” Rafe went on. “They want our weekends to be for family time and our own artistic pursuits.”

“That’s nice of them.”

It was nice, though Jake still couldn’t believe anyone’s parents would be so accommodating to a family that was as queer as Rafe’s.

Then again, the entire point of leaving his place of origin and all the baggage it had heaped on his shoulders to run away to England was because he wanted something radically different from the life he’d lived. It was so hard to forget sometimes that not everyone, every family, was the same, and that there were people in the world who might actually accept him just the way he was.

“It must be incredible having your own hot shop right in your backyard,” he chatted on, watching the world he so desperately wanted to be a part of zip past the car windows.

Rafe nodded. “It’s convenient. It was especially nice when I was younger. It meant I could develop my skills faster. Although Dad and I pretty much had to build the hot shop from scratch.”

“Does Robert blow glass, too?” Jake asked.

“He used to, but it wasn’t his specialty,” Rafe answered. “He was a painter for the most part, but as soon as he got the idea for the arts center, back in the nineties when the school folded, he invested everything the family had in building up the facilities. I was interested in glassblowing so we got a hot shop.”

Jake smiled. That was perfection right there. Who needed world renown and a jet-setting lifestyle when you had every artistic facility you could possibly dream of at your fingertips?

“My hot shop is good,” Rafe went on. “It used to be the stables for the house. We gutted the building and replaced the insides with the equipment you’ve been working on. But Hélène Rénard’s studio in Paris is much nicer.”

Jake tensed. “You’ve been to Hélène’s hot shop in Paris?”

Throwing in Hélène Rénard and the possibility of an apprenticeship had been Jake’s Hail Mary when it came to convincing Rafe to marry him. The truth was that he didn’t haveanything to offer Rafe. Not really. He’d met Hélène once at a benefit in LA five years ago, but he didn’t think he’d made much of an impression on her. Hélène’s apprenticeships were one of the most scintillating secrets of the glass world. Everyone knew she helped young artists now and then, but they didn’t know she worked intensively with them, too. He’d only found out that she sometimes took up-and-coming artists on through the grapevine.

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