Page 17 of Blown

“Weirdly enough, yes,” Jake said. “It could be so much worse, I know, but somehow, I’m not quite enough of a screw-up to have torpedoed my finances beyond repair. I don’t have any savings, though, and I’ve no idea how I’m going to pay off that credit card.”

Rafe knew. He knew what his own savings was about to go to.

“At least you have a marketable skill,” he said with a smirk. “And a place to live rent-free for the moment.”

Those last few words sent a visible spike of fear through Jake. “I’m fucked if your family throws me out,” he said.

Dammit, but Jake’s vulnerability tugged hard on Rafe’s heartstrings. It settled in his balls, too, which was disturbing. Rhys was the closet Dom in their family, not him. Although watching Jake fall apart and needing to do something about it was challenging that notion.

“I just want to start over,” Jake said in a whisper, stopping Rafe’s thoughts from rolling off down the hill. “This is my last chance for that. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me if I can’t start over. I just want to be here, with you.”

Heat raced through Rafe, but it wasn’t just for the implied compliment Jake tagged on the end of his speech of desperation. In fact, Rafe had the awful feeling that Jake could be telling him what he thought he wanted to hear to get what he wanted and needed. That was what all the lies were, essentially.

“You think that marrying me and securing a visa that will put you on the path to becoming a British citizen will solve your problems,” Rafe said. He didn’t even need to phrase it as a question. Jake’s motivations were obvious to him now.

“Yeah,” Jake said, his puppy-dog look turning sad instead of peppy. “I need you, Rafe. You’re the last hope I have of not completely messing up my life. It only takes five years of residency under a spousal visa before I can apply for citizenship. Once those five years are up, I’ll let you go do whatever you want with your life.”

Rafe made a grumbling noise and rubbed a hand over his face. He was going to do it. It was an absolutely mad thing to do, but he couldn’t resist Jake when the man looked at him like that. He was weak, and he would end up with a ring on his finger because of it.

“Alright,” he said quietly.

“Come again?” Jake asked, blinking.

“Alright, I’ll marry you so you can make a new life,” Rafe said with a shrug.

Jake burst into a smile, his eyes going glassy with tears of relief. “Fuck, Rafe, thank you! I won’t let you down.”

He leaned in and threw his arms around Rafe, hugging him tight in gratitude.

Rafe didn’t know what possessed him to do it, but as Jake started to pull away, he cupped the side of his face and quickly slanted his lips over Jake’s.

It was instantly hot. Rafe should have pulled back, but instead he leaned into the kiss, parting his lips. Jake was either too stunned to resist or else he wanted it, too. He moaned quietly and opened, touching his tongue to Rafe’s. Rafe pressed his fingertips into Jake’s stubbly cheek, wanting so much more.

A dog barked somewhere nearby, bringing Rafe back to reality. He pulled away from Jake, glancing anxiously around to make certain no one else out enjoying the afternoon was offended by the kiss. As far as he could tell, no one else had even noticed.

He cleared his throat. “We should be getting back,” he said, his voice gravelly. “We could get a lot of work done in the hot shop this afternoon if we leg it.” He stood and stepped away from the bench.

“Yeah, that sounds great,” Jake said, following him, a glazed look in his eyes. “Thanks.”

Rafe grunted in return and walked on. This marriage was for visa purposes only. He couldn’t let himself fall into a trap of thinking it could be anything more as much as he might want to.

SIX

Box Hill was a turning point.Or so Jake told himself. He’d confessed his problems to Rafe, and instead of sending him on his way, Rafe had kissed him.

A week later, Jake still felt that kiss. He felt it every time he looked at Rafe and thought about how much better a person Rafe was than him. He felt it when they worked together in the hot shop, experimenting with some of the ideas they’d batted around on the way back from Box Hill. It was awesome to have someone to work with, blending colors and testing techniques for making glass look like the English countryside.

They’d managed to come up with an idea for folding glass when it was at a certain temperature so that the dozens of tiny rods of glass that had been rolled into it looked like blades of grass and the contours of hills. It wasn’t really a new technique, but working together, the two of them were already devising ways to give the whole thing a sense of dimension and movement. They’d made a few pieces, but more work was definitely needed.

All that work meant he and Rafe were together in close quarters a lot. It was perfect and eased Jake’s mind in more waysthan he could say. It would work. His plan to start over would work. All he had to do next was keep on the straight and narrow with Rafe so that the man would lose the tense, puzzled look in his eyes that Jake sometimes caught when Rafe didn’t know he was looking.

Rafe was suspicious of him, but he was intrigued, too. It was the best Jake could have hoped for under the circumstances.

The Hawthorne family wasn’t so bad either. They were definitely weird, as Jake learned when he was invited to the family’s celebration of Lughnasadh.

“We all converted to Paganism back in the spring for Baxter’s sake,” Nally explained to Jake as he helped build a bonfire that Robert Hawthorne had had to get special permission for, despite the fact it would be located deep in the Hawthorne estate.

“Paganism,” Jake said, pulling a few shipping pallets off the bed of a small truck that the two of them had driven to a cleared space in the middle of a field. “Like, as a religion? This bonfire isn’t just for fun?”

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