Page 33 of The Lost Art of Woodworking and Taking Risks
He sounded like he believed it, too, even though he must have no idea what was going on. Chamis drew in a few more slow, deep breaths, trying to calm down. Bennan had said it was going to be all right. Bennan cared about him, and even if Chamis had messed up, Bennan would probably give him a chance to fix it.
“Just tell me if you hate it,” he mumbled. “I can undo everything.”
Bennan looked more confused than ever, but he nodded and offered Chamis an encouraging smile, squeezing his sweaty hand. Chamis set off again, making sure to keep to a much more reasonable pace. They made it to the Warrior wing, and Chamis counted carefully: up an extra flight of stairs, down the corridor, one door, two, three, another two on the other side, andthen—
He stopped outside the door, a bit abruptly, and Bennan was jerked to a halt. He looked around them with puzzlement.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“We don’t have to stay,” Chamis told him anxiously.
“All right,” Bennan agreed.
Chamis drew one more deep breath, and then, with a shaking hand, he reached out and turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.
“Here,” he said. “You’d better go look at it. Like I said, if you hate it, we can change it all.”
Still looking puzzled, Bennan stepped inside, and Chamis followed him in, shutting the door behind them. If Bennan was going to be upset, he’d prefer it was in private.
He was so busy concentrating on how they could manage if Bennan hated it and wanted to run away and never talk to him again that he wasn’t paying more than cursory attention to the way Bennan was spinning around on his heel, taking in the entire sitting room.
“Is this—Chamis, do we live here?Together?”
Chamis clenched his fists. “I’m sorry! I asked the Captain for help, and it seemed like a good idea, but I didn’t actually ask you what you wanted, and—”
Only his words were finally cut off by Bennan flinging himself at him, wrapping his arms around him and kissing him, full and hard on the mouth.
Oh.Oh. Well, that didn’t seem like he was very angry, did it? Chamis wrapped his arms around the man’s waist and tugged him closer, kissed him harder, breathedhim in.
Bennan was laughing and pressing kisses to his cheeks and ears and jaw and forehead.
“Oh, Chamis, I was so worried, I had no idea why you were so upset. This iswonderful. You want to live with me? Truly?”
Chamis could only nod. “I know I really should have asked, but—”
Bennan was shaking his head. “I like surprises.”
And Chamis gave a shaky nod, because he knew that. Chamis hated surprises, and he hadn’t planned very many of them, so when he’d had this idea, he’d thought it was a good one, that it was the sort of thing Bennan would really like, but then he’d begun to second guess himself. A lot.
He swallowed. “I love you.”
Bennan grinned at him, that best and brightest smile.
“I love you, too. And this isamazing. Tell me all about it.”
So Chamis told Bennan how he’d had the idea, how he’d thought that while they were gone was the perfect time for their rooms to be combined together. The Captain had said that a room was coming available, and that it would be no problem to have castle staff transfer the belongings, and Chamis had thought it was perfect… until he started to worry that it was actually a disaster.
“It’s the best idea,” Bennan told him firmly, looking like he was bubbling over with happiness. “I want it so much, I promise you.”
“They tried to put things the way they were in both our rooms, but of course, it was combining things together, so I’m sure we’ll want to move some things around, but… I think it looks all right?”
“We’d better look at everything!” Bennan said with boundless enthusiasm.
They toured the whole space, checking where everything had been placed. It was very different from living together in the seventh district watch station. These were their actual rooms in the castle, the place where they were going to live for the foreseeable future. All of their possessions were here, and Chamis liked the look of their belongings side by side way more than he’d anticipated. By the way Bennan was grinning, he liked it too.
It wasn’t a huge space, but they’d graduated to a bedroom, a private water closet, and a whole small sitting room just for the two of them. Chamis’s carvings seemed to take up a lot of space, but when he tried to apologize, Bennan shook his head firmly. He pointed.
“That one’s mine. That one, too. And that one over there.”
