Nodding, Chamis repeated, “That sounds nice.”
“Meet at the gates to the castle at eight?” Bennan suggested. “I’m not sure how fast ribbons and beads go, but I figure it won’t hurt to get out there early and see what we can find.”
And Chamis could only nod, mind reeling a little bit about how well this had gone. Mostly because Bennan had taken over, admittedly, but Chamishadactually asked to talk to him first, and he’d even brought up theideaof the city.
He knew that wasn’t very much, but it was more than he could even have imagined attempting before, so he was actually pretty proud of himself.
Bennan gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder.
“Great, I’ll see you tomorrow!”
Chamis watched him go. It was a nice view, he wasn’t going to lie. He could sort of see why Perian and Bennan were so open about their admiration, he just didn’t thinkhecould be quite so overt about it.
He wondered if the other man had hurried off to try to find someone to cover for him for tomorrow. What if no one wanted to? What if Bennan thought more about it and decided it wasn’t something he wanted to do after all? He couldn’treallywant to look through ribbons and beads for Chamis’s sister, could he?
Yet he’d sounded truly enthusiastic about the prospect, and he’d volunteered. Chamis headed to bed in a turmoil. He was pinning a lot of hopes on this, and if Perian was to be believed, there was every reason to think those hopes would come to fruition. Certainly, Bennan had responded quickly and warmly, and heseemedvery interested, but did that definitely mean he was interested in Chamis the way Chamis was interested in him?
Perhaps Bennan really had been planning to go into the city in the near future, and maybe he just thought Chamis could use a friend and wanted to volunteer for that reason alone.
With a groan, he rolled over and tried to find a more comfortable position. Perian had beensosure, and maybe Chamis could… borrow a bit of that certainty, even if he couldn’t feel it for himself. He couldn’t know what was in someone else’s head without asking them, and he definitely wasn’t ready to do that.
But he could try to hope and keep an open mind.
He tossed and turned more than he had the night before he’d arrived at the castle to apply to be a Warrior. He was big and well-muscled, but he knew he didn’t exactly exude the confident demeanor Warriors tended to have. But the Captain of the Warriors, Onadal, had seen something in him. Chamis had never let anyone down when it came to his job, but that one was easy: it had defined parameters, and he knew exactly what was expected of him.
So he needed to do his very best to do the same in his personal life, to try to be strong and brave.
But he was definitely not confident, because he kept turning this way and that, tryingnotto think about what he was going to wear tomorrow—his regular clothes, like he always did!—or what he was going to say—the things that he normally said, totally dependent upon the conversation!—or how he was going to try to figure out if Bennan actually liked him—he had no idea, but did it seem likely that the best idea ever was going to spring into his head in the middle of the night? No!
He must have finally dropped off to sleep at some point, though, because he woke up in the morning feeling more bleary than normal and not liking his chances for being any sort of calm and collected with Bennan. He knew this tended to make him monosyllabic or entirely silent as he worried about what stupid thing he might say, and his hope for having a nice time with Bennan steadily diminished.
He made himself get ready anyway, took more time than normal to make sure his hair was tamed and there were no wrinkles in his clothes… with the result that he was nearly late and looked exactly the way he normally did, only his palms were a bit too damp and his heart was thumping as he hurried down to the castle entrance, more than half-convinced that no one was going to be there.
Chapter Two
This notion was immediately disabused, because Bennan was ahead of him, and his face lit up when he spotted Chamis.
“Hey, there you are,” Bennan said, grinning widely. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” he managed to mumble.
Bennan hooked an arm through his. “Are you ready for the best pastries ever? Delana swears by them, and Perian said he picked them up once, and he gave me instructions, so I can get us there.”
Chamis nodded.
And they were off, headed out into the city, Bennan and Chamis together, because Chamis had asked—well, sort of—and Bennan had rearranged his shifts so he had the time off. This seemed very positive. Perian would tell him these were all really positive signs. Chamis needed to keep breathing, and it would stay positive.
Bennan patted his arm. “Not a morning person, huh?”
“What?” Chamis was startled out of his spiraling thoughts and back to the man beside him.
“You’re even quieter than normal.”
Chamis flushed, which was always so distressingly clear on his skin.
“Oh, hey,” Bennan said, sounding a bit awkward. “That wasn’t—I don’t mind if you’re quiet if you don’t feel like talking. It means I can talk more, and you’ve probably noticed I like to talk plenty.”
Chamis managed a nod, which he realized a moment later might have been a bit insulting, but thankfully, Bennan just kept talking, chatting about where they were walking and the last time he’d been out in the city and what the weather was like and what he thought the summer might be like and how he was looking forward to the season of taking off tunics even more frequently—he accompanied this comment with an exaggerated wink—and how he thought the novices were doing.
