Graeme was visibly flustered, though. “Sorry,” he said, fidgeting with nothing and shifting from one foot to the other, trying to keep a respectable distance from Art and from Ryan as well, once he joined them. “Sorry.”
Art ignored the pointless apology and made certain Ryan ignored it as well by asking Ryan, “Why are you going into London?”
Ryan must have been on the same page as him. Without any sort of awkwardness and with only a quick, neutral glance at Graeme, he said, “I have a meeting with the head seamstress forthe sewing team I’ve hired this afternoon, but I want to visit a fabric warehouse to see if I can find any ideas there before I meet her.”
“I just got here from London,” Art said. “And Graeme only just found this lovely brooch that is begging to be researched.”
He gestured to Graeme, who still held the brooch. Graeme flinched slightly, then handed the brooch over.
“Thank you, love,” Art said with a wink. He then turned to Ryan and said, “Our lovely Graeme will go with you.”
“I—” Graeme glanced between the two of them, his cheeks pink and his eyes filled with indecision. “I’m a mess.”
“You can have a shower, change into something more comfortable, and be comfortably ensconced in Ryan’s passenger seat before you know it,” Art said.
“You’re welcome to use my shower,” Ryan said, grinning like he knew what Art was up to.
“I should work.” Graeme glanced past them both to the piles of dirt that would one day soon be a gorgeous garden.
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” Art said, shifting to stand slightly behind Art and giving him a gentle smack on his backside. “Go on, sweetheart. Go help our Ryan, who, I might add, is desperately stressed out and in need of emotional support,” he added in a whisper right next to Graeme’s ear.
That seemed to settle things for Graeme. “Alright,” he said.
“Shower’s this way,” Ryan said, gesturing for Graeme to precede him to the house.
He glanced over his shoulder as the two of them walked on, though, sending Art a cheeky grin. Art just laughed and winked at him. There was no way that Renfer would approve, and there was an outside chance his job was at stake if the man ever found out he was courting two men at once, but he didn’t care. He was falling hard and fast in double love.
TWELVE
Half an hour later,completely unexpectedly, Graeme was sitting in the passenger’s seat of Ryan’s car, scrubbed and dressed in jeans and a soft shirt, on his way to London. He’d learned after his first week at Hawthorne House to always carry a spare set of going-out clothes with him, because there was no telling when any one of the Hawthornes would skive off work and drag him along with them. Janice and Robert seemed to like surprising him with lunch out and Nick and Bax had once begged him to watch their kids so they could have an uninterrupted hour, but more often than not in the last week or so, he found himself going somewhere with Ryan.
“It would probably be easier for us to get to Bermondsey by taking the train to London Bridge, then walking,” Ryan said as they drove along the highway, “but Goddess only knows how much I’ll decide to buy and need to carry back with me.”
“Why do you sometimes say ‘Goddess’?” Graeme asked. His question was a bit out of the blue and restless, but then again, everything Ryan had rambled on about since they’d left Hawthorne House had been aimless and designed just to fill space, too.
Ryan glanced briefly at him before turning off the highway and onto a road with much more traffic. “It’s a habit Bax has gotten us all into ever since the entire family joined his coven,” he said. He situated himself in the traffic, then peeked at Graeme again and asked, “You did know the entire Hawthorne family are practicing Pagans, right?”
Graeme caught his breath, not because he was shocked or offended, but because it made perfect sense. “So that wasn’t just an ordinary family picnic last month. It was the summer solstice, right?”
“Right,” Ryan confirmed with a laugh. “Bax likes us to go all-out for Litha. I was the odd man out for the fun part of the celebration, though, since neither you nor Art were around that night.
Graeme shook his head. “I’ve lived such a sheltered life,” he said, shaking his head.
Ryan laughed. “You’ve gone straight from one religious community all the way to the other end of the faith spectrum to fall into another religious community.”
Graeme’s face heated, although that wasn’t saying much, since he seemed to live in a constant state of shock and arousal these days. “Do you all consider yourself a religious community?” he asked.
“No,” Ryan said with a smile. “Not at all. But it’s terribly convenient to claim that you’re only following your religious beliefs when you engage in wild, hedonistic orgies.”
Graeme’s eyes went wide. “You’ve been in an orgy before?”
Ryan laughed again, making Graeme wonder if he was poking fun at him. “No, not really,” he said. “And to be honest, I’m new to the whole Pagan thing, too. Bax started it over a year ago, and I’ve just returned to the family relatively recently.”
Graeme hummed and nodded, staring straight forward. He was a little afraid to look at Ryan in case it turned out that theman he definitely had a relationship with was making fun of him. Then again, Art always seemed to be making fun of him, but that kind of turned him on. Art’s version of making fun was like giving Graeme tiny glimpses into a naughty magazine and all the treasures it contained.
Ryan and Art. There were days, like, most days, when Graeme felt stuck between the two of them. He shouldn’t have felt like that, considering Ryan was the one he’d had sex with. Only that one time, though. But, if Ryan hadn’t been so busy with his spring collection, they probably would have gone to bed together several more times since then. Art had teased him about it, and he was still fishing for details. Almost like he wanted to know who Graeme would be comparing him to when their time finally came.
“I’m in way over my head,” Graeme blurted, certain Ryan thought his thought was coming out of the blue. “There’s so much more in the world than I was told growing up.”
