Page 88 of Give Me a Shot

Once changed, she locked up and headed down the hall to leave. Not knowing how long the photography would take for either of them, Jess had planned to head home right after and do some additional research, as she needed to update a course for the next semester, then check in with Mo in the evening. Almost to the lobby, she caught Doug’s voice somewhere behind her.

“The smithy is this way,” he said to the photographerfollowing him at the end of the hall. “Make sure to get a lot of close-ups of Mo.”

Jess frowned. That was exactly the sort of advice Doug would give that would make Mo crawl out of his skin. Jess couldn’t let him deal with this by himself, even though Rick was in the smithy as well.

“Don’t pay any attention to me, or to Sam,” the photographer said to Mo and Rick while gesturing to the cameraman as Jess joined them in the smithy. “You guys just do you.”

Mo gave her a curt nod. Several of the other volunteers had come in from outside, and Jess discreetly made her way to the back of the group, standing against the wall just across from Mo. She hoped to catch his eye so that he’d know that she was there for moral support, but he’d turned his attention directly to the forge just behind him after listening to the photographer. He was slowly shifting a piece of metal back and forth in the fire. Jess made a mental note to ask him about how blacksmithing worked, about some of the processes. Because looking back and forth between him and Rick, she realized she didn’t know anything beyond “bang hot metal with hammer.”

Mo caught her full attention as he moved the long metal rod—now glowing red—from the forge to his anvil. He picked up a hammer from somewhere to the side of it. The room faded away as he brought it down for the first strike. The shower of sparks that exploded in all directions drew Jess’s attention to Mo’s bare forearms. First, she had a hint of concern because they weren’t protected. But that concern turned to something deeper and needier as he flexed, turning the cooling metal with one hand. The hammer came down again, and she followed its path back up, her gaze catching on the biceps flexing to move it. The room was already warm when Jess had walked in, the heat from the forges getting trapped by the walls. Mo had been in there longer than she had, and his skin glowed with a light sheen of sweat. Now that she knew what his skin tasted like, she could imagine savoring it right then, just a little bit saltier than it had been before. She let herself lean against the wall as she dragged her tongue across hernow parched bottom lip to moisten it. Suddenly, the arc of Mo’s hammering faltered a bit, and she looked up at his face. In the brief second their eyes met, she winked at him. If she hadn’t known him better, she would have missed the red that deepened his already pink cheeks. But the way he tucked his chin, without losing his rhythm, was enough to let her know he was doing his shy thing.

So sexy yet so shy. She smiled, shaking her head a little.Makes no sense.

She tried to reposition to catch his eye again, but the videographer stepped in and blocked her line of sight. The photographer said something to him. All Jess caught was “blacksmithing god.” She chuckled.

Sounds right to me.

She pulled out her phone to send Mo a little encouragement for later.

Jess:

Goddamn, Hephaestus.

Glancing at the top of the screen, she noticed she’d missed a call. Checking the log, she saw that her mother had called her twice in a row, just a few minutes earlier. Jess’s heart leapt into her throat—her mother had only called her multiple times in a row once, to tell her that Cassie was gone. Jess inched toward the door, shooting Mo a quick glance, but he was focused on his work, clearly trying to pretend that the cameras weren’t there.

Everything’s fine, everything’s fine.

Walking around the side of the School, she called her mother back as she reached her car.

“Jess, hello!” her mother said brightly after the third ring.

“Is everything okay?” Jess asked, tossing her bag in the backseat and locking herself in.

“Yes, of course,” her mother said. “Why?”

“You called me twice in a row.”

“Did I?” her mother asked. “Oh, I tried to call but it dropped.I didn’t realize I called again. I tossed the phone into my purse just after.”

Jess let out an audible sigh, her shoulders unclenching as she rested her forehead on the steering wheel.

“Okay,” she said. “Good. What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Um, I wanted to know what you thought about the picture?”

Something had always bothered Jess about the way her mother softened statements about her thoughts or feelings by turning them into questions sometimes. She’d learned during her master’s program that it was called high rising intonation, and her mom was probably doing it from a lack of confidence in her own opinions, which saddened and angered Jess at the same time. She sighed.

“Which picture, Mom?” she asked.

“Um…the one with…the two of you,” she said.

Jess swallowed down her frustration that her mom wouldn’t even say Cassie’s name.

“It’s nice,” she said.

“Oh.”

Jess waited, surprised at her mother’s flat tone.

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