Page 18 of Blown

“For real,” Nally said, laughing. “You’ll have to ask Bax for more details. I’m just along for the ride, because revering the seasons and cycles of nature sounds a hell of a lot better than sitting in a cold, stone building while some tosser dressed in black tells me I’m going to Hell because I like to suck dick.”

Jake blinked, frozen for a second in the act of tossing a pallet on the pile. “Well okay then,” he said, then laughed.

If his parents knew he was building a bonfire for some heathen ritual, they would probably race down to the nearest church to get their pastor to pray for him. If they hadn’t already struck his name from the family Bible, which he was pretty sure they had.

The Lughnasadh celebration turned out to be a lot of fun, even though he couldn’t pronounce “Lughnasadh” correctly, no matter how many times he tried. It was basically a family picnicwith a tiny bit of chanting, candles, and incense. The only weird part was when Bax and Nick snuck off together at one point, and how Jake and Rafe heard them going at it in the bushes when they headed up to the house with a load of dirty plates and cutlery from the feast.

“Your family has made me completely rethink the entire concept of family,” Jake told Rafe the week after the bonfire, early in the morning as the two of them set up the glassblowing booth for the day’s Renaissance Faire.

Rafe laughed as he checked the settings on the furnace, which had been turned on and lit the day before yesterday to make sure it would be hot enough for demonstrations once the faire gates opened. “The Hawthornes redefine family every day.”

“I hope you realize how lucky you are to have been raised with these crazy people,” Jake said as he unpacked the equipment they’d brought down from the hot shop and lined up punties so they would be ready when needed.

“I definitely do,” Rafe said. He smiled at Jake as he shifted to sort the bins of frit they’d bought down. “You’re pretty lucky, too, you know.”

Jake barked a laugh. “I am not. I was raised by typical Fox News-loving, church-going, ‘there’s no way a son of mine could possibly be gay’ parents.”

Rafe grinned at him. “No, I mean you’re lucky that you landed smack in the middle of all this Hawthorne madness. You’ve found your people.”

Jake laughed, but in reality, he was deeply touched. Hehadlucked out and landed with his people. That was the whole point of wanting to marry Rafe so he could stay in England. It wasn’t just the Hawthornes, it was the entire culture. And no, the UK wasn’t perfect by far, but no place was. It was all a matter of where he felt he was supposed to be, and for the moment that was exactly where he was.

“What are all these pegs for?” he asked as he moved one of the empty bins under the counter at the edge of the makeshift hot shop. He straightened and touched one of the pegs protruding from the support beam that held the roof of the pretend Renaissance building up.

Rafe huffed a humorless laugh. “Those are for merchandise,” he said.

“Merchandise?” Jake turned back to him with a smirk, thinking he must be joking.

Instead of telling Jake the punchline, Rafe fetched one of the larger bins they’d bought down earlier. He opened it, revealing a dozen exquisite blown goblets. Once he took those out and set the tray on the counter where Jake stood, he fetched another tray from the bin that contained beautiful blown glass balls with loops of string or ribbon attached.

“Are they Christmas ornaments?” Jake asked, taking a particularly pretty one with swirls and ridges from the tray.

“Some of them,” Rafe said with a sigh. “Some are larger, like garden ornaments or suncatchers.”

Jake glanced from the ornament in his hand to Rafe. “A Pagan family selling Christmas ornaments. What is the world coming to?”

Rafe cracked a smile, which was better than the sour look he’d worn while taking the glasswork out of the bin. “We live in interesting times,” he said before going back to bring the rest of the bin over to Jake. “Just hang them up on the pegs and line the goblets on the counter. There are price tags around here somewhere, but the small balls are ten pounds, the larger ones are twenty or thirty, and the goblets are twenty-five.”

Jake watched him with a frown. “You don’t seem happy about that. And frankly, I think you should be charging more. Much more.”

Rafe huffed. “I’m supposed to be an artist, but instead, I’m blowing Christmas ornaments for my family’s Renaissance Faire.”

Jake nodded slowly as the crux of the problem hit him. Rafe was working below his skill-level and clearly it annoyed him.

“Well, I’m here to help today,” he said, putting his focus into hanging the ornaments and other balls from the pegs. “You can work on the fancy stuff and I’ll blow bubbles for the tourists.”

He heard Rafe laugh quietly behind him. It sent a wave of warmth through him. He might be a total screw-up, but at least he could make Rafe laugh. It was the least he could do for the amazing thing Rafe was doing for him.

It didn’t take long to set up the booth. Rafe had clearly done the whole pretending to be a sixteenth-century glassblower before. He had the costume and everything, although really, his costume was just leather trousers and a linen shirt with lace closures that he rolled up to his impressive biceps. He’d found a spare costume for Jake as well in an incredible room on the third floor of the family part of the house that everyone referred to as the clothes room. That was one part of Hawthorne House that Jake definitely wanted to explore more.

By the time people started meandering through the fake village that formed the center of the Renaissance Faire, Jake and Rafe were working together to craft baubles while the tourists wandered over to take a look.

“The art of blowing glass was invented in Syria in the first century B.C.E.,” Rafe explained to a group that had gathered around the booth while Jake was busy crafting a goblet using the template Rafe had explained to him. “Glass was a luxury commodity at the time, something only the wealthiest people would have in their homes. Prior to the invention of blown glass, glassware was made by pouring molten glass into molds. Oncethe Syrians revolutionized the process, glass began to spread throughout the ancient world.”

Jake stopped what he was doing as much as he could to listen to Rafe as he went on.

“The biggest boom in blown glass came when it reached Italy, specifically, Venice. I’m sure you’ve all heard of Venetian glass.”

Several of the people watching nodded, riveted by what Rafe was saying. Rafe really was an excellent teacher.

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