Page 8 of Blown

He wasn’t jealous of Jake Mathers. Why would anyone want to be jealous of a preening peacock with a pathological need to be the center of focus every time he entered a room? He’d had his family captivated up at the office. The most annoying part about that was that Rafe had the impression Jake had been wary of his family.

That was another strike against Jake. Who in their right mind would be wary of his family? His family was wonderful. They were exactly the sort of family that any queer person would give their eye teeth to belong to.

And why couldn’t he stop giving Jake free rent in his head? He was supposed to be working, supposed to be making something that might inspire him to create a new line or concept in glass. He didn’t want to be a lowly community arts center glassblowing teacher for the rest of his life. He wanted to make pieces that provoked thought and inspired emotion. He wanted his work to end up in museums, not gift shops. He wanted to produce something as brilliant as Jake had made in Corning.

With a heavy sigh, Rafe sat up and stared at the pedestrian vase he’d just created. He’d managed some nice, intricate stripes. It was close to Venetian glass but with his own spin. Once it had cooled, it would make a lovely vase for flowers. It would live out its life on some corner table, praised maybe once or twice, but relegated to obscurity after that.

It was too much. He scored the bottom of the work, then tapped the punty, sending the new vase crashing to the floor.

“Why did you do that?” Jake asked, shocking Rafe out of his thoughts.

Rafe shifted the pipe aside and lifted his goggles. He hadn’t seen Jake enter his hot shop, so he had no idea how long he’d been watching.

“It wasn’t right,” he said, pushing himself up and removing his work gloves so he could fetch a broom.

“What wasn’t right about it?” Jake asked with a focused frown. “The shape looked good and the stripes seemed just right.”

Rafe shrugged once his back was to Jake as he grabbed the broom. “I wasn’t feeling it.”

When he turned around, Jake was smiling at him. “That’s Rafe Hawthorne for you,” he said. “Always the perfectionist, always in pursuit of the perfect vase.”

Acrid disappointment filled Rafe’s gut. “I want to do more than make the perfect vase,” he grumbled, moving to sweep up the shattered glass near his workbench.

“Something wrong with the perfect vase?” Jake asked ambling around the hot shop with eager eyes.

Rafe focused on cleaning the floor and disposing of the glass shards before answering.

“What do you want, Jake?” he asked, ignoring the actual question.

Jake turned to him from where he’d been handling some of the blowpipes in the rack near the furnace. “I want to relocate to England, build a life here, and blow glass in peace,” he said.

Rafe huffed and shook his head. “Someone as ambitious as you? That’s all you want to do? Make goblets and vases?”

Jake’s usual boyish charm hardened, and for a change, he looked his age.

“I want to make a name for myself. Of course, I do,” he said, leaving the blowpipes and walking over to stand facing Rafe. “The last couple years have been really hectic, though, and Ineed a timeout.” He looked away, toward the annealer at the other end of the large room.

Rafe narrowed his eyes slightly. Maybe it was just jetlag, but something was off about Jake. He was still a simmering ball of energy, but that energy had changed.

“Alright,” he said, nodding at the furnace. “There’s the furnace. There’s plenty of material in there.” He turned and pointed to the long line of shelves across one wall of the hot shop. “Tools are there. Rods of whatever colors you want are there, frit is on that third shelf, and other bits and bobs are in labeled bins. Blowpipes are stacked near the furnace. Have at.”

Jake’s expression brightened. “Really? You’d let me work in your studio?”

Rafe’s face pinched slightly. “That’s why you came here, isn’t it?”

“I came here to marry you,” Jake said with a smile, his usual, saccharine smile returning.

Rafe turned away from him, heading for the furnace and grabbing another blowpipe as he went. “The hot shop is open from nine in the morning until six in the afternoon,” he said like he was talking to one of his students as he slipped the blowpipe into the furnace to gather molten glass. “I’ll exempt you from the usual orientation, since I know you already know your way around a hot shop.”

“Thanks,” Jake said.

When Rafe pulled molten glass from the furnace and turned, he found Jake already wearing an apron and goggles with gloves under his arm. He shouldn’t have been at all surprised that Jake would jump right into things with both feet.

“What are we making?” he asked as Rafe carried the blowpipe to his marvering table to turn and stabilize it.

“You tell me?” he asked. He shifted to the side, indicating that Jake should take over the make.

Jake rushed in, switching places with Rafe. He checked the tools that were available, then moved to one of the workbenches, quickly gestured for Rafe to take a position at the other side of the pipe. “Blow,” he said, turning the pipe to keep the glass symmetrical.

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