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EIGHT

A blowjob and a handjob in a closet when they were supposed to be getting work done. The whole thing reminded Jake of high school. Except this time, the story didn’t end with him being beaten black and blue by the jock who found them out, or the one he was blowing after the asshole got spooked by how much he enjoyed it, and then called to the principal’s office on top of that. It was fantastic to be able to enjoy himself with someone he liked without having his whole world come down around his ears.

It would have been fantastic if he’d been able to take advantage of the new, sexy connection he and Rafe had to do more than just fumble in a closet. Jake wanted nothing more than to take his time with Rafe in bed, exploring just how compatible the two of them could be. He was certain they could create fireworks.

He liked Rafe. More than liked him. That was the whole reason he’d gone to Rafe for help cleaning up his life. They’d gotten on well in Corning, at least he thought so, even though Jake had, admittedly, been an arrogant jerk. The fact that Rafe had even answered his call when all the other friends they’d made during their residencies had ditched him fast once they’d figured him out was proof that Rafe was a good man.

Which was why Jake got downright twitchy anytime bits and pieces from his not-so-distant past peeked around the corner and tried to bite him in the ass.

“Proof of identity isn’t a problem,” he said, half talking to himself, as he sat in the office at the desk across from Early on Friday morning. “I’ve got my US passport, and that’s more than enough to satisfy the fiancé visa requirements.”

Early glanced up from the purchasing orders they were filling out and cocked their head curiously. “What else do you need for the fiancé visa? Or the spousal one.”

Jake sighed and sank in his chair, staring at the pile of paperwork in front of him. “Too many things,” he muttered. “Can’t they just accept that Rafe and I want to get married and leave it at that?”

Early arched one of their perfectly plucked eyebrows at him. “I think the whole point is to prevent people from committing fraud by getting married for the sake of a visa.”

Jake eyed them sullenly. “It’s more than just the visa. I like Rafe. I wouldn’t mind being married to him for a while at all.”

“For a while?” Early asked.

Jake shrugged. “Maybe longer. It takes five years minimum to get British citizenship.”

That had been his goal a month ago, when he’d landed at Heathrow. Marriage to Rafe was supposed to be a stepping-stone to a new, clean life. Once he had what he wanted, he’d set Rafe free and they could both go about their business, no harm, no foul.

Now, however, he had other whispers and hopes growing inside him. There was no denying that he and Rafe had chemistry. Those fifteen minutes in the closet of the glassblowing booth weren’t the only proof of that. They flirted all the time now, dropping innuendos left and right and making dirty jokes whenever they had a chance. He knew Rafe wasn’t a prude. Far from it. In some of their friendlier moments in the hot shop, Rafe had joked about how big of a man-whore he’d been in his twenties. If Jake hadn’t been such an ass in Corning, they might have hooked up back then.

It was more than just the sexual chemistry. Professionally and artistically, they worked so well together. Their idea for a line of glassware that captured the essence of summer in the English countryside was moving from concept and experimentation to prototypes. They were so close to figuring out exactly what method to use to create a layered effect of greens and color that gave their pieces a real feel of being submersed in a summer day on Box Hill, and then using that method on a variety of shapes and forms.

“Well, that answers question number two,” he said aloud.

Early glanced up from his work again. “What answers question number two?”

Jake pointed to the requirements listed on his computer screen. “Documents demonstrating shared living arrangements, joint financial responsibilities, and common commitments. Rafe and I are working on developing this new line of glass together. We can show proof that we have a common commitment.”

Early smiled. “There you go, then. If that isn’t a basis for a marriage, I don’t know what is.”

It was impossible to tell whether Early was joking or not. Jake still hadn’t figured out if they liked him. He hadn’t figured out if any of the Hawthornes actually liked him. They were all nice to his face, but plenty of people had been nice to his face at first only to want something from him later. He would never forget the time in his early twenties when he thought he’d made a friend in Brian Fuller, someone he could actually confide his problems in, only to discover that Brian just wanted the accolades for converting the gay kid to his freaky church group and saving him.

Jake sighed, flopped back in his chair, and rubbed a hand over his face. The number of times he’d been burned by people he thought he could trust was harrowing. He wanted to believe the Hawthornes were different, but his track record said otherwise. Instinct told him to be careful.

Instinct also told him to climb Rafe like a monkey and offer his ass for whatever fun and games Rafe wanted.

“You okay?” Early asked, turning away from their work entirely and swiveling their chair to face Jake.

“Yeah,” Jake lied. That was one lie that wouldn’t bite him in the butt. He hoped. “They just make this whole process so complicated.”

“That’s the point,” Early said, rolling their chair over to Jake’s desk. “If you wanted an easy way to immigrate to this side of the Atlantic, you should have moved to France.”

“It’s not about moving any old place,” Jake sighed. “My soul belongs in England.”

Early sent him a sympathetic smile. They looked at the requirements listed on the computer screen, then nodded. “Okay, so this should be simple. You’ve got your passport, you can prove you have accommodation with your fiancé, and you can prove shared interest. You already speak English, you came here legally and don’t have any outstanding immigration issues, like overstaying a previous visa, right?”

“Right,” Jake said, swallowing, his hands going numb. He’d been within two days of overstaying his visa last time and had had to buy a freakishly expensive flight home at the last minute when he decided he couldn’t risk staying illegally. The British government wouldn’t have any record of that, would they?

“So all you need to do is prove you meet the financial minimum and you’re good to go,” Early said, shrugging like it was all easy peasy.

Jake was dead silent.

“You do meet the financial minimum, right?” Early asked. “You earn at least twenty-nine thousand pounds a year?”

Jake swallowed. “I thought that was a combined amount that included my fiancé’s income,” he said.

Early’s eyes widened a little. “You’re broke, aren’t you. You’re marrying Rafe for his money because you need him to support you financially.”

“No, no, that’s not it at all,” Jake lied, pushing back from the desk and standing. “I make plenty of money. In fact, just last week, I sold a piece worth five thousand dollars.”

His hands started to shake, so he pushed one through his hair to hide his nerves.

“Do you want a tea?” he asked, leaving the back part of the office for the small kitchen area. “I need a tea. I’ll gladly make you one. How much cream and how many sugars do you like? I love the fact that you guys use sugar cubes instead of packets of sugar or just sugar out of a bowl. One sugar cube is the perfect amount for tea, if you ask me.”

He needed to stop talking. That was as much a part of his compulsive behavior as the lying, but it was equally hard to stop. It gave him away every time.

“You’re broke,” Early said, standing in the doorway separating the front and back parts of the office and crossing their arms. “Does Rafe know?”

“Yeah, he knows,” Jake said, moving frantically and not looking at them.

“Jake.”

Jake glanced up at them.

“Rafe knows, doesn’t he?” they asked more seriously.

Jake blew out a breath. “We haven’t talked about it in dollars and cents, but he knows I’m broke. I don’t have a ton of lingering debt, though. Just the one credit card, and he knows about that.”

Early pressed their lips together and stared at Jake like they didn’t know whether Jake was a friend or a timebomb that would go off and destroy the whole family.

“You know, I think I’ll leave the rest of the visa application for later,” Jake said, abandoning his tea preparations and stepping away from the counter. “I’m allowed to be here for a hundred and eighty days before I have to get some other kind of visa. I’ve still got loads of time before any of this has to be sorted out.”

“Jake,” Early said, still disapproving.

“It’ll be fine,” Jake said, raising his hands as he backed toward the office door. “You’ll see. Everything will work itself out in due time.”

He turned to go, nearly careening straight into Rebecca as she returned from whatever errand she’d been running.

“Whoo! Where’s the fire?” Rebecca asked as Jake pushed past her.

Jake didn’t stick around to tell her. Early would fill her in on all the gory details, probably telling her exactly what they thought of him in the process. Jake didn’t need to be there for that.

Air. He needed air. He needed to get away from judgment and disappointment. He needed to boost himself, in the eyes of others, but especially with himself.

As he crossed Hawthorne House’s front hall and burst out into the warm summer morning, he could feel the house’s past as a school. He could hear the echoes of teachers telling him he was failing and needed to apply himself more, his parents screaming at him for being a waste of their time and a faggot on top of that. He felt a lifetime of never quite measuring up and constantly having to rely on his wits to stop himself from being beat down nipping at his heels.

He ran to the only place he thought he might be able to find help, Rafe’s hot shop. Unluckily for him, Rafe was in the middle of a class when he got there.

“That’s it, John. Keep the pressure steady and consistent,” Rafe instructed two of his students as they pulled cane in the long, empty side of the shop floor. “The key to making perfect cane is to be calm and steady, and to work with the glass’s molten consistency as it cools.”

“Like this?” the high school kid on one end of the cane pull asked.

His face lit up when Rafe said, “Yes, just like that. Good job.”

What Jake wouldn’t have given to have his parents and teachers praise him for doing something right just once.

“Pulling cane,” he said, striding in to join the class and stand by Rafe’s side. “My favorite.”

Rafe sent him a quick, sideways grin that had “we got each other off and I want to bang your brains out as soon as possible” written all over it.

“Good morning, Mr. Mathers,” he said instead, hinting to his class that Jake was someone to be respected.

“Good morning, Mr. Hawthorne,” Jake said in reply, like he was one of Rafe’s adoring pupils. “Can I join the class?”

Rafe hesitated. His warm smile turned confused for a second before he said, “Sure. Go right ahead.”

Jake clapped his hands together and bounded over to where the observing students stood. His energy volume was still turned up to high after and his desperate need for validation was in overdrive after his confrontation with Early, and he could feel a thousand disasters pulsing just under his skin.

“Good, good,” Rafe said, turning his attention back to the kids. “Who wants to give it a try.”

All the kids were eager, but Jake shot his hand into the air and made a fool of himself by shouting, “Me! I do! I do! Please me give it a try, Mr. Hawthorne!” like he was a teenager with no clue how bad life could get again.

The other kids laughed. They’d always laughed when he’d acted up in class. His antics might have landed him in the principal’s office every time, but at least he’d made his classmates like him.

“Alright, Jake,” Rafe said, a puzzled look on his face, like he’d just opened a bag of snakes and wasn’t sure if they were safe or dangerous. “Amy, do you want to try with him?”

“Yes, please!” the solid redhead who looked about seventeen said, jumping forward when Jake did.

Jake wasn’t sure about working with someone who didn’t know what they were doing, but it didn’t really matter. His aim was to impress, not to teach.

“I’ll get the glass from the furnace,” he told Amy, striding to the far end of the room.

“There’s colored glass and clear glass in there,” Rafe called after him, “but we’re just working with clear glass today.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Jake called back as he reached for a blowpipe. He glanced at the class as he slid the pipe into the furnace to gather a bit of colored glass and asked, “You guys want to see something really cool?”

“Yes!”

“Yeah!”

The kids responded with enthusiasm.

Rafe wasn’t as convinced. As Jake took his bit of glass over to the marvering table to cool it a little, he said, “We have to walk before we run. We’re only just starting with the basics today.”

“Then this will be a great demonstration of what they’ll be able to do once they’re running,” Jake said, sending the students a cheeky wink. “Now that I’ve got this colored glass cool, I’m going to gather clear glass on top of it. Watch.”

He spent the next few minutes gathering clear glass onto his pipe and rolling it over the marvering table to create the malleable cylinder of glass he would need for cane. The kids were riveted.

“This is nice,” Rafe said, his tone hinting that he thought it wasn’t, “but Mr. Mathers should have put on safety equipment first. That glass is over a thousand degrees Celsius.”

Jake ignored him. So did the rest of the class. It was harder to ignore the urge to get everyone’s attention and to sell them on the lie that he was something special.

“Okay, Amy,” Jake said. “Grab that other pipe and hold it up for me.”

Amy giggled excitedly, then rushed to do as he asked. She held the pipe horizontally, and Jake daubed the blob of glass from his pipe onto hers, connecting them.

“Now we pull,” Jake said excitedly, “and we twist the cane as fast as we can as we move apart. Go, go, go, go, go!”

The class loved it. Amy squealed as the two of them backed away from each other, drawing the glass into a long rod with a twist of color stretching along the inside. Jake played up the whole thing, shouting like the elongating cane would break and making faces that had the class in stitches.

The kids ate it up, but Rafe stood by the side, arms crossed, fuming. “Alright, alright, that’s enough of that,” he said as soon as the cane was stretched the length of the hot shop and set down to cool. “That’s all well and good, but can any of you tell me the half dozen health and safety violations Mr. Mathers made as he pulled that cane?”

Rafe was ignored. Or more accurately, Rafe was eclipsed.

“That was really awesome,” Amy said, laughing. “I loved the twisting part.”

“You’re a fab teacher, Mr. Mathers,” one of the other students said, her eyes bright with engagement. “Why aren’t you teaching this class instead of Mr. Hawthorne?”

Jake laughed and brushed the question away, but he peeked at Rafe, who stood off to one side, barely concealing his look of incredulity. It was awful, but also too late to fix.

“Can we do the twisty cane again?” one of the boys asked.

“Sure, we can do it again,” Jake said, his heart beating furiously in his chest. “Come on and I’ll let you gather the glass.”

The students all followed Jake to the furnace, eager and engaged. That was how things should be in a classroom. Rafe should thank him for making his class exciting. He was only trying to help.

That’s what he told himself, but Jake knew he’d screwed up big-time. His heart raced so fast that his chest hurt.

Rafe followed them to the furnace and gave more sedate instructions to the kids as they gathered glass for pulling cane themselves. He was adamant about them following every little safety instruction he could think of, but Jake was too impatient to follow those rules.

“Who wants to give it a go with me?” he called out once he’d gathered some glass and taken it to the marvering table.

“Me! Me!” several of the kids called out.

They had fun. Jake had always loved pulling cane. It was one of the easiest things you could do in glassblowing, but it was still exciting. He spent a good fifteen minutes laughing and having a great time with the kids…and ignoring Rafe’s glares as he did.

It was Corning all over again. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from doing something he knew would be entertaining and that would make the largest number of people like him. It didn’t matter who he upstaged or offended in the process. Having all those teenagers think he was cool and wanting to work with him was exactly what that younger version of himself had craved. It was balm to one part of his soul even though he knew it was poison to another.

Why was it all so wrong? Why did everything hurt? He just wanted to be accepted. He just wanted to be loved. The ache only seemed to grow larger and colder the more he did to make Rafe’s students love him. It was like a sugar rush, but it wasn’t nourishing. The thing that he really needed was Rafe’s love and acceptance.

But as he made an ass of himself by swinging a half-molten cane around to show how gravity affected glass, Rafe shook his head and turned away.