Page 15 of The Lost Art of Woodworking and Taking Risks
Chamis nodded. “And I thought you stopped because I wasn’t worth the effort and you weren’t interested anymore.”
Bennan sucked in a breath, eyes wide, and Chamis, greatly daring, laid a finger across his mouth.
“You just did a very good job of telling me how that wasn’t the case.”
Bennan nodded, and then he pursed his lips and gently kissed Chamis’s finger where it lay across his mouth. Chamis smiled and drew back his hand.
Bennan said, “I’d like to see where this could go.”
Chamis acknowledged, “I will work on believing that. It’s, uh, not something I ever thought to hear, and sometimes it’s hard to silence the voices in my head that tell me I’m being stupid.”
“I can try silencing them, too,” Bennan offered.
Chamis nodded before it occurred to him that Bennan wasn’t actuallyinhis head.
Only then Bennan carefully put a hand on either side of Chamis’s head and tilted it down a little. He pressed a kiss right in the middle of Chamis’s forehead and murmured, “I know you have a whole lifetime of protecting Chamis because some people are terrible, but I swear I am not one of those people. And I’m going to stick around until you believe that, all right?”
He pressed another soft, gentle kiss to his forehead and then let go.
“How was that?” he asked.
And Chamis could only nod, because of course those words had been for him, and he wasn’t sure that they could completely do away with the voice in his head, but maybe they could help make it quieter.
Chamis had decided to be a Warrior even though people had told him it was a bad idea. He’d succeeded, and he wanted so much to succeed at this, too.
Bennan’s eyes strayed to his hair. “I just realized those are wood. I mean, I knew they were wood before, but now I know that you carve. Chamis, did you make your beads?”
Chamis nodded, a bit embarrassed.
Bennan grinned at him. “They’re beautiful. That’s so amazing. Do you suppose you could make some for me?”
Blinking at him, he took in Bennan’s hopeful expression. “Uh, you want me to? Really?”
“Very much so,” Bennan agreed before hastily adding, “I mean, only if you don’t mind!”
Chamis swallowed. “I don’t mind. I’d like to.”
A swarm of butterflies had taken up residence in his stomach. These would have to be the best beadsever, but the idea that Bennan wanted beads he’d made that he was going to wear in his hair was as appealing as it was terrifying.
“Thank you,” Bennan said, still smiling. “Only when you have time. It’s not a rush or anything.”
Chamis was going to start as soon as he could. Probablytonight.
Then Bennan said, “I, uh, don’t know the best way to bring this up, but in the spirit of making sure you feel comfortable, I feel like we should probably talk about it.”
Chamis nodded even though he was pretty sure that with a start like that, it was not, in fact, going to be something he wanted to talk about at all.
“Want to sit down?” Bennan asked.
Oh, even worse.
But Chamis nodded again, because it would probably be worse for him to say, “Never mind, I changed my mind,” and push Bennan out the door and close it in his face. Even if part of his brain was now clamoring for him to do exactly that, actually talking was good. If he hadn’t talked to Bennan, they wouldn’t be here now, wouldn’t have made it this far.
They sat, and Bennan said, “All right. So… I like to flirt with people. We’ve established that, right?”
Chamis nodded. The whole castle agreed with that.
“And you maybe thought I wasn’t interested in you because I was doing the same with you that you thought I was doing with everyone else until I wasn’t doing it because I thought it was making the situation worse and you thought that it was because I wasn’t interested anymore?”
