Page 37 of Kiln Me Softly

Middleport Pottery was even grander than it looked on TV.

Juniper and Tilly marvelled at the tall chimney and round bottle kiln bringing the factory to life while students swarmed around them to take photographs.

She felt a tiny bit more at home among the old brown bricks, or at least closer than she was in London.

Even the canal behind them reminded her of Manchester’s; grey and reflecting the colourful narrowboats on the water.

She sucked in a deep breath of frigid winter air in the hopes it would settle all of the mayhem inside her.

No such luck. It grated on her, how she could always feel her thoughts like they were tangible things buzzing around her body, begging for her constant attention.

Recently, none of those thoughts had been pleasant.

She felt lost with her contest project, swamped with coursework essays she had no idea where to start with, and drained from work.

This trip was less of a break and more of a thief, stealing precious time she needed to try to scrape together enough money to keep studying.

Her bloody dad had paid for the train tickets, and not without grumbling down the phone about how lucky she was to be able to cadge off her parents; she wasn’t sure she’d be able to put her pride aside again to ask him for anything more.

Warm skin grazed hers suddenly, and she snapped around to find Aiden at her side.

He seemed to always be at her side: in class, on the train.

Even his bloody hotel room was next to hers.

She didn’t know if it was the world still pushing them together at this point, or just him.

As much as she liked his attention, it was growing more difficult by the day to keep her worries hidden, and the fact he kept looking at her like he knew something was wrong only made it worse.

‘You look at home here, Hodge,’ he said with a gentle poke.

Not nearly as at home as he did. Dressed in casual ripped jeans and a thick plaid shacket, he could have been heading in to work to guide visitors around the historical site. He was good at that: blending in. Or, at least, he would be if he wasn’t one of the most handsome men she’d ever known.

‘I think I’d die if I met Keith Brymer Jones here. I’d love to make him cry.’ Tilly rubbed her arms with crocheted mittens to keep warm.

Juniper laughed at Aiden’s concerned expression.

‘With my pottery, obviously,’ Tilly explained. ‘When Keith cries, you know you’ve done a good job. God, haven’t you ever watched The Great Pottery Throw Down ?’

‘Afraid not.’

‘We’ll fix that on my next Cerberus visit,’ Juniper promised.

She hated to think of her poor hamster all alone in Aiden’s house, but apparently, he had a friend checking in.

A friend who she’d already seen named on his phone as Alfred Pet Sitter .

Either he had an interesting double-barrel surname or Aiden was paying him, which didn’t sit right, but he insisted Alfred was just doing him a neighbourly favour and refused to let Juniper know more.

Soon, she wasn’t sure she’d even be able to afford the hamster’s sawdust. She was becoming his charity.

‘You do know you’re allowed to come around even for non-Cerberus related things.’ Aiden’s touch rested lightly on the small of her back, about the only sensation she’d felt recently that was actually enjoyable.

Still, she stepped away, glad when Tilly said, ‘Stop right there. I don’t need your raunchy sex lives being shoved in my face again.’

Juniper rolled her eyes. Tilly seemed to be just fine asking for the finer details when it was just the two of them. Juni linked her arm through Tilly’s. ‘We’ll find you a pretty potter this weekend. I’ll be the best wingwoman you’ve ever known.’

‘I might be able to help. As you can tell, I’m decent at attracting the ladies.’ Aiden gestured something akin to finger guns. Shudder. Juniper couldn’t believe this was the man she was in lo—

Lust with. Yes, that.

She squared up to him, or tried to. Her shoulders barely met his even on her tiptoes, so it didn’t have much effect, but she would let him know some other way that her wingwoman duties were not to be messed with. ‘Any ladies attracted to you are not the type of ladies deserving of Tilly.’

‘Well, that just feels like a self-burn,’ Tilly commented, and Juniper realised she was probably right.

She sank back, a little embarrassed. ‘Whatever. I’m the wingwoman.’

‘Yes, good, that’s exactly why I brought you all the way down to Stoke,’ Chris butted in, casting a distasteful glare at each of them.

Then, he addressed the whole class in a way that would put a megaphone to shame.

‘Attention, gang! We have made it to the royal palace of pottery, the Taj Mahal of Stoke-on-Trent, the great temple of ceramicists’ hopes and dreams! ’

‘Not to be dramatic, or anything,’ Luc added dryly as they joined their formation of four.

Juniper chuckled, staring wistfully at the factory behind. She should have been that excited, too. Who was all these money worries making her become? Someone she barely recognised.

‘This is Zoey.’ Chris motioned to a short, blonde-haired woman who looked like she should have been one of the students, both because she was young and because she radiated the same confidence and class.

Or maybe Juniper was just at a point where everybody seemed better-suited for her position at RACA than her.

‘She shall be giving us the glorious tour today. Soak it all in, because you’re guaranteed to learn a lot about how pottery factories like this operate. ’

The tour guide, Zoey, beckoned them in. As the tour began, Juniper and Tilly drifted to the back of the class, where they could make comments about what they’d seen on their favourite pottery TV show in peace.

Once Aiden and Luc were dragged into an example of how to extrude clay in one of the workshops, Tilly elbowed her gently.

‘You’re not yourself, babe. Are you sure you’re doing okay?’

It wasn’t the first time Tilly had asked, or even the fifth.

Juniper had opened up to her about her frozen funding after mending her pit-fired plates, and Tilly had vowed to help her figure it out – but it was clear that was impossible, so after that, she’d vowed to help her with the contest instead.

We’re going to be okay, she’d insisted, as though Tilly had just at much at stake as Juniper.

It was nice, not to be doing it alone, but at the end of the day, only one of them would be going home if everything fell apart.

‘Just thinking about all the things I should be doing back in London,’ Juniper admitted.

‘The contest deadline isn’t far off, and I still don’t know what I’m doing.

’ She’d thrown a few vases that had turned out lovely, but not magnificent enough to win her any awards.

Her next idea was hand-built bookends, but she had no idea what else to join them with.

It felt like she’d used up all her best talents in the project with Aiden, though she’d admit she was holding herself back from her usual sculpted monsters, afraid they wouldn’t be appreciated if the judge was anything like her classmates.

After the tour, she was only proved right.

They wandered into the gift shop to find an infinite collection of sophisticated, gorgeous homeware pottery.

Porcelain dinner sets swirled with blue patterns that reminded her of Grandma’s old china plates; cake stands like the ones that customers of Caffé Verde enjoyed afternoon sandwiches on; teapots far smoother and more eye-catching than the one Juniper had shattered in the pit.

‘Wowzer. These are fancy, eh?’ Tilly went to touch a mug decorated with delicate pink florals and then thought better of it.

‘Too fancy.’ Way fancier than anything Juniper could create.

She wandered around the tables, holding her breath when she felt her backpack snag on the displays.

‘I’ve got it!’ someone shouted, thank god, and then the pottery she’d disrupted was caught in a set of sturdy hands.

Aiden’s hands, of course. Clearly, he was an expert at fixing her messes, or at least wanted to be.

‘Thank you.’ Juniper put a hand on her chest in relief, but it seemed like proof that she just wasn’t made to fit into spaces filled with delicate works of art. She turned around to joke as much only to almost knock off a toast rack on the opposite side of her.

He reached around her to catch that, too, one hand keeping her backpack away from any more disasters.

His chest was flush against hers, grin inches away.

It was as close as she’d let him get to her since the night she’d fallen asleep on his couch.

‘How about I hold your backpack for you before the whole shop comes tumbling down?’ he questioned.

‘Whatever would I do without you?’ she crooned sarcastically, earning her a laugh.

‘I wonder the same thing all the time.’

She glared and squirmed away, though her entire stomach lurched with the need for him to be closer. God, she missed the smell of him, the taste of him, the way he moaned for her like nobody had before, and she him.

Maybe Tilly wasn’t the only one yearning for connection. Problem was, Juniper already knew what she was missing, and it left her aching .

Something hard prodded her thigh, and she raised an eyebrow, glad to find nobody was looking. ‘Happy to see me, Aiden?’

He dipped his head in amusement. ‘Get your mind out of that filthy gutter, Hodge. It’s a gift.’

Juniper groused, ‘Look, I don’t know what’s with you and all these little shows of affection, but it needs to stop, okay? You’re not my—’

‘Boyfriend, I know. The gift isn’t for you.’ Aiden produced a paper bag from his pocket with a flourish. From it, he produced a marbled, ceramic toadstool with an arched doorway so tiny that only a mouse could fit.

Or a hamster.

‘Cerberus’s cage needs a little upgrade, don’t you think?’ he said.

She glowered frostily. ‘Are you trying to out-parent me, Whittaker?’

‘No.’ His smirk said otherwise, so smug that his teeth poked through.

‘I don’t think he would like something this bright. His favourite colour is black,’ she lied. His favourite colour was probably red, same as his wheel, and same as the top of the toadstool. It was adorable, and she wanted it immediately. She just wasn’t sure why Aiden had been the one to buy it.

‘I guess we’ll have to let him decide for himself. Maybe he fancies a change.’

‘I thought you didn’t like Cerberus. Thought he was keeping you up all night.’ Juniper crossed her arms over her chest, an accusation serrating her words.

‘Which is why he needs a little place to rest his weary head.’ Aiden tucked the toadstool back into its gift bag, chin tilted with pride.

Great. He was now better than her at taking care of her hamster. She had officially reached rock bottom.