Page 16 of The Lost Art of Woodworking and Taking Risks
It took Chamis a minute to unravel that entirely convoluted sentence, but then he nodded again, because yes, that was what had happened.
“And then Perian sorted it for us,” Chamis volunteered.
This made Bennan smile. “Yes, he was very helpful, and I’m definitely going to thank him when next I see him. But also thankyoubecause you made the decision to believe what he said.”
And Chamis was back to nodding again, because maybe it was silly, but it really had been hard for him to do.
“So,” Bennan continued, “I’d really like to see where this can go, but there’s no pressure. We just keep spending time together when you want to do that, and maybe we could kiss again sometime?”
Chamis nodded, because he’d liked that.
“And perhaps cuddle a bit?”
Chamis nodded once more, because he’d never cuddled in his life, but he liked theidea, and it didn’t sound too alarming.
“Great,” Bennan said, grinning at him. “You can see how you feel about it, and we can try things at your pace.”
Chamis nodded yet again, and then made himself admit, “I think I maybe need more time than most people to, uh, get used to the idea of things.”
“That’s totally fine,” Bennan assured him. “And I swear you can always talk to me, ask me questions if you have any concerns. I think we’ve demonstrated that open, clear communication and honesty is essential. Oh, but if words are hard, you can just poke me to remind me that sometimes you need tonottalk about things and could I please leave you alone.”
Chamis raised an eyebrow.
Bennan was grinning, “No, I’m serious. We should have a way for you to let me know that I need to back off a bit, and I promise I won’t get offended. I know you process things differently than I do, and I might occasionally need a reminder, but I swear I don’t mind.”
“If Ipokeyou?” Chamis asked, bemused by the whole idea.
But Bennan was nodding enthusiastically, looking so proud of hisidea.
“Isn’t it silly that I need this?” Chamis finally blurted out. “That you have to make concessions for me?”
“What? No!” Bennan’s negation was gratifyingly swift. “Why would that be silly? We’re two people who really like one another but don’t react the same way to everything. And really, it would be stranger if we did. I’d much rather actually talk about it and come up with a way to deal with it than to fail because we didn’t even try to come up with a way to face it together.”
Oh.Oh. When Bennan put it like that, it actually did seem to make a lot of sense. But—
“I’m not very good at this,” Chamis said, feeling a little defeated. “I didn’t even think of that.”
“But I did,” Bennan said with a soft smile. “And I wouldn’t say I’m a relationship expert, but I’ve learned a few things along the way, and I’m happy to share what I know. There’s plenty we’ll learn together as we go because we’re the only two of us. No one has ever had our relationship before—we’re the only ones who can.”
That was… true. Chamis had definitely not thought of it like that before.
“All right,” he said, nodding. “But maybe I could, uh, do the finger thing instead of poking you?”
“The finger thing?”
Chamis leaned across the distance between their two chairs and pressed his finger to Bennan’s lips. Those lips tipped up into a smile before pressing a soft kiss to the finger in question before Chamis drew it back.
“That’s a much nicer gesture than poking. I will definitely not say no to that. But if we’re out in public or something and you’re not ascomfortable doing that—though you’re always welcome to!—you really can poke me in the side, and I’ll know to ease off or help out if other people are overwhelming you, all right?”
Chamis nodded. He didn’t actually know if it would work, but when he was at his most muddled, getting words out was hard. Bennan had just given him a way to express that which didn’t require any words at all.
Well. That wasn’t so bad, and Chamis was glad they’d talked about that.
Only it seemed they weren’t done.
Chapter Five
Bennan continued, “We’ve both acknowledged that we like one another and that we’re going to be in a relationship, right?”
