Page 20 of Blown

“I’m sure your goblet is amazing, whether it’s a champagne flute or a flagon,” Jake bantered in return.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Rafe said.

He leaned back slightly and their backs touched. It was simple, almost silly, but Jake couldn’t remember the last time flirting had been so much fun. He and Rafe worked so well together. It wasn’t just their matching skills with glass. Rafe was as kind and compassionate as he was smooth and sexy. He made Jake feel like something more than the failure he constantly feared he was.

“Oh boy,” Jake said as he finished forming his glass as much as he could without heating it again. “I’m almost there. I’m so close.”

“I can feel it,” Rafe replied as their audience laughed and nudged each other, loving the show. “Ooh, this is going to be a big one. I’m not sure you’re ready for it.”

“I can’t stop,” Jake called out, picking up the tool he needed to score the base of his ornament so he could knock it off the pipe. “It’s coming! It’s coming!”

He quickly slipped on the large glove he needed to catch his bauble as he tapped it free from the pipe. The audience laughed and applauded as he set the pipe aside and stood to show them his work.

Rafe stood a second before him, though, holding up the ornament he’d made. Jake nearly dropped his work when he saw what Rafe had created in the relatively short time they’d beenworking. Jake’s ornament was slightly misshapen and warped in places. Rafe had produced an absolutely exquisite bauble with a ridged pattern and perfect, ornamental loop on top to hang it from.

“Wow,” Jake said, turning to admire Rafe’s work. “That’s really incredible.”

Rafe shrugged and walked his ornament over to the portable annealer on one side of the shop. Jake skipped forward to open it for him with one hand, then they both set their baubles carefully inside as the crowd applauded.

“If you enjoyed watching us make those ornaments, then you’ll really enjoy owning some of Rafe’s work for yourself,” Jake said, turning back to the crowd and walking over to the counter with the display of merchandise. “Rafe handcrafted all of these amazing pieces himself. Goblets start at twenty-five, and these lovely Christmas ornaments are a steal at ten pounds.”

It was meant to be icing on the cake of praise meant for Rafe, but several people opened their wallets and pulled out cash or cards to buy things. Jake didn’t know what to do, but Rafe stepped forward to take over.

“We’re going to need to get a lot more work done if people are going to buy like that all day,” Jake said when the initial group of people had moved on.

“We would be able to get more than enough done if we concentrated on work instead of putting on a bawdy show,” Rafe said, heading back to the furnace and selecting another blowpipe.

“Aw, come on, you loved it,” Jake said, joining him. “It was the banter that sold the glass.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Jake wanted to take them back. “Strike that. It was your amazing talent that sold those things. That ornament was incredible, Rafe. And it took you, what, less than ten minutes to make it?”

Rafe humphed and started blowing into his pipe to make the next one. “It’s just production glass,” he said as he shifted over to the workbench.

“It’s more than just that,” Jake insisted, preparing to make something he actually planned to concentrate on. “You’re exceptionally talented, Rafe.”

“Maybe,” Rafe said, then threw himself into his work in a way Jake saw as a clear indication he was done talking.

It didn’t make any sense. Rafe had skill and ability that most artists would have killed to have, but he seemed to think the opposite was true. There was no shame in being amazing at making tableware and functional glass either. That was the stuff that sold. And God only knew how important money was. Jake was happy to be able to sit beside Rafe and work with him. And if he had anything to say about it, he would convince Rafe that his work had value just the way it was.

SEVEN

Workingthe glass booth at the Renaissance Faire with Jake actually turned out to be fun. Rafe went into the whole thing wary and defensive. Sharing the same workspace with Jake when it was just the two of them in his hot shop was one thing, but having an audience watch them create the glass baubles, goblets, and mugs that would ultimately add to his family’s coffers felt a little too much like when Jake had sucked all the attention in Corning.

Jake was an attention whore. There was no getting around that. But the way he played to the crowd that wandered by to watch what they were doing throughout the day and the way he pulled Rafe into his cheeky banter not only sold glass, it turned Rafe on.

“Hey, Mr. Hot Stuff,” Jake said from behind him as Rafe gathered glass from the furnace to start on a goblet. “You’ve got what I need.”

Rafe smirked at him, then glanced past him to where a new set of people had gathered to watch what they were doing. They’d been at it for hours, so he knew the drill and said, “It’ll beall yours in just a second,” as he moved his blowpipe in and out of the furnace suggestively.

When he pulled his pipe out and took the glass he’d gathered over to the marver to roll it, he winked at Jake.

“Ooh, baby, you know how I like it,” Jake said, then groaned obscenely as he thrust a blowpipe into the furnace. “Hot and wet.”

Rafe laughed. It was silly, really. They were grown men behaving like randy teenage boys. But the crowd was eating it up, and Rafe would have been lying if he said he didn’t like the flirty connection it fostered between him and Jake.

There was actual work to be done. Competing by blowing glass baubles was one thing, but it took a lot more concentration, multiple steps, and frequent trips back to the furnace to reheat the glass to make the goblets that people would actually bring out their wallets to buy. That didn’t mean Rafe and Jake weren’t in competition as they turned out goblet after goblet and vase after vase throughout the day.

“I don’t know why you think you’re not talented,” Jake said, nodding to the goblet Rafe had just finished when they happened to need the annealer at the same time. “That’s beautiful.”

Rafe grunted and nodded to the mug Jake had just completed. “I’m not the only talented artist in the room,” he said, holding the door so Jake could position his work in the jumble of things they’d made throughout the day.

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