Chapter 3
THREE
Who did Toby Tillman think he was, marching into a family business and telling them they were wanting? Robbie was well aware of the fact that he needed to calm down, that Tillman was, in fact, doing his job. But something about the young, scrappy man had his back up, and Robbie didn't like it.
"Alright, class. Now that I've shown you how to roll coils, it's time for you to make your own pots. So have at."
Robbie tried his best to smile at the ten children from the local primary school who made up his first class of the day, but the irritation left from his interactions with Tillman was like a sticky layer of sap across his skin that he couldn't rub off. Tillman would probably have something to say about Hawthorne Community Arts Center offering art classes to the primary schools in the area at a discounted rate, but a commitment to education and the arts had been a core value of the family for generations. And it happened to be one of Robbie's passions.
Men like Tillman were all the same, Robbie thought with an inner growl as he helped the passel of ten-year-olds fetch clay from the special shelves put aside for them, then got a few of them started on rolling the long "snakes", as he called them for his juvenile classes, so they could start on the project of the day. Men like Tillman were cold and implacable. They didn't see the human element in anything they did, only the bottom line.
Of course, Tillman hadn't seemed cold at all in their brief interaction. He'd been extraordinarily hot, if Robbie was honest. The incongruity of the sharp, no nonsense business suit and the lip ring hinted at exactly the kind of acknowledgement of authority while still giving it the old two-finger salute that had always sent his blood pumping. If that sort of attitude had been directed at anyone other than himself, Robbie would have found it an absolute turn-on.
"Mr. Hawthorne, sir," one of the sweeter girls in the class, Vienna, called out his name as she grasped at a ball of clay on the shelf that was just out of her reach. The others had snatched the ones closer to the edge of the shelf, and Vienna was too short to reach the ones in the back. "Help me, please?"
Robbie's heart melted a little as he crossed the room to fetch the clay for Vienna. "Here you go, love."
Vienna rewarded him with an adoring smile before hurrying back to her place at the long, canvas-covered table where the kids were rolling out their clay.
On any other day, Robbie's smile and good feeling would have stayed in place as he walked around the table, excited about what the children were making, and hopeful about each one of them developing an appreciation for the arts that would be life-long.
Instead, he couldn't shake Toby Tillman from his thoughts. It wasn't only the impertinent suggestions he'd already made, about electricity and renting out classrooms. Somewhere in the back of his head, Robbie knew they were solid ideas. It was the audacity of the man to arrive like a bulldog, but one with a handsome face and, if his judgment of what sort of body there was under his suit was correct, exactly the sort of body Robbie liked to tangle up the sheets with.
He let out a breath and rubbed a hand over his face as he made it to the end of the table. There was nothing out of the ordinary about finding a man physically attractive and fuckable. Those sorts of first impression were exactly what had begun many a fun night in his past. Everyone in the Hawthorne family had been raised to embrace their sexuality and, provided they were safe about it, to explore and enjoy it without shame or hesitation.
But at the present moment, Robbie was in a room full of kids, so those thoughts were inappropriate. And Toby Tillman, with his angry energy and an obvious chip on his shoulder, did not deserve his thoughts.
Of course, because fate was a bitch, at just that moment, Tillman himself walked straight into the room. His bristling energy hadn't waned at all, and he looked around the room as though he were dying to find something to criticize.
Robbie's entire body heated, and he had to purposefully turn away to avoid meeting Tillman's eyes as he glanced in Robbie's direction.
"Sir, look!" one of the boys at the table, Owen, called him over, giving Robbie just the excuse he needed to avoid Tillman entirely. "I've made him a top hat."
As soon as Robbie saw the coiled snake pot, complete with snake head at the top, that Owen had made, his mood shifted and he laughed with genuine enjoyment.
"That's brilliant, Owen," he said, moving in to take a closer look at the pot. "Very well done."
A huge part of Robbie wanted to ruffle the lad's hair or pat him on the shoulder, but there was enough undue scrutiny on an openly gay teacher instructing children, a nasty relic of a bygone era when prejudice had been at its very worst, that Robbie made a point never to make physical contact with his students, despite the paternal instinct he knew resided within him.
"How do I make those glasses with only one side?" Owen asked, frowning up at Robbie.
"I beg your pardon?" Robbie stared back at him, puzzled.
"You know, those glasses with just one eye that posh people wear."
"He means a monocle," Tillman interjected from the side of the room, where he was now leaning against one of the shelves with his arms crossed.
"Thank you," Robbie replied tightly, his back up all over again. He forced himself to breathe, then focus on Owen. "Well, you could make a monocle in several different ways. How about trying a very small coil?"
Owen smiled with inspiration, then pinched off a small bit of clay to give it a try.
Robbie moved on, checking some of the other kids' work, but he was now deeply aware of Tillman watching him from the sidelines. It was as likely as not that the irritating man was judging every interaction Robbie had with the kids. He would probably tell him he was teaching all wrong and that he should leave the classroom instruction to the professionals and concentrate on producing hundreds of identical mugs to be sold in a house gift shop.
The idea of a gift shop for Hawthorne House, where the public could buy art in all its various forms as made by his siblings and other instructors had actually crossed Robbie's mind before. Several times. They were all gaining reputations in their fields, and an online shop might not be a bad idea. They all did quite well during the Renaissance weekends that the estate put on a few times in the summer, selling their art as part of the fun.
The idea wasn't a bad one, Robbie just didn't want the suggestion to come from a short, spikey-haired, suit and lip ring wearing, professional fault-finder, like Tillman.
"Oh no! I've got it on my shirt!" Jessica, one of the more exuberant of Robbie's students, called out from the other end of the table. Her hands were somehow covered in clay, and she'd wiped one on her school uniform shirt. "What do I do?"
Robbie started toward her, but Jessica had turned to Tillman, who stood closer to her, instead of Robbie.
"Oy," Tillman said, the slightly more refined voice he'd used earlier slipping into something far more colloquial. "Not to worry. We can get that out in a jiff."
Without checking to see if it would be alright, Tillman took one of Jessica's messy hands and walked her to one of the sinks at the far end of the room. He proceeded to help her clean her hands, and then, with surprising effectiveness, he used the soap by the sink to clean the stain out of Jessica's shirt.
Robbie was not jealous. Neither was he impressed. Nor intrigued. He fought off those feelings with everything he had, deliberately turning his back to the two of them and helping his other students as they worked on their snake pots. The furious beating of his heart was just that, fury. Tillman had no business interfering with his class or showing such care and natural ability with children. And he most certainly did not immediately compare Tillman to Keith in terms of who would make the better father.
"Why can't I make my snakes round?" another of the kids, David, huffed in frustration, blessedly drawing all of Robbie's attention. "They always turn out flat."
"Let's see how you're rolling them," Robbie said, walking around to stand by David's side.
The rest of the class was low-key. Robbie fought tooth and nail to give his full attention to the students and not to Tillman. Tillman returned to standing by the side of the room, doing nothing but watching, once Jessica was cleaned up and back at work. There were no further incidents, and yet it was one of the longest classes Robbie had ever taught.
He nearly shouted in relief when Miss Rathore from the primary school came to collect the kids to take them back to their regular classes.
Of course, that left Robbie alone in the ceramic studio with Tillman.
"How often do you teach children's classes?" Tillman asked, stepping forward to help Robbie with clean-up.
"Every weekday morning and some afternoons," Robbie snapped, looking at Tillman as little as possible as they got to work. "There are three primary schools within a short drive. Two of them have no arts programs in-house, so we've organized a partnership with them to provide classes to students of exceptional aptitude."
"Right. Exceptional aptitude, but not the ones who might just like to muck about with clay for an hour now and then," Tillman said, his words practically slicing the air as they left his lips.
Robbie straightened and turned to him with an imperious glare. "There are thousands of school-aged children attending those schools. If we provided classes for all of them, not only would we only be teaching those classes all day, which wouldn't leave time for adult classes, we wouldn't be able to pay the bills. Isn't that what you're supposed to be so concerned about?"
Tillman looked as though Robbie had fired shots in his direction. "Not all of us are born with the privilege of taking art classes, or even thinking of ourselves as creative at all," he snapped.
Robbie immediately sensed he'd hit a nerve and Tillman was talking about himself. Though every instinct within him urged him to let it go, an entirely different part of Robbie wanted to goad Tillman into telling him more.
"Is all this anger merely frustration that you didn't get to ‘muck about with clay' when you were a kid?" he asked.
His question did exactly what he'd intended it to.
Tillman's blue eyes went wide with indignation, and he said, "I was too busy getting myself up in the morning, feeding myself, and taking the bus to school while my dad slept off his hangover while my mum worked to support us," he said. "Or working whatever afterschool job wouldn't question whether I was old enough to be there, and that would pay me under the table so I could buy a second-hand school uniform. So no, I didn't get to indulge in art of any sort when I was a kid."
Robbie's gut squeezed painfully, though whether the emotions he felt were anger or pity, he couldn't tell. "Then you were exactly the sort of child we try to cater to here at Hawthorne Community Arts Center," he said, admittedly with too much pride.
Tillman wasn't impressed. "Go on, then," he said, letting his accent slip again. "Give yourself a nice pat on the back for being such a saint."
He slammed the ball of extra clay bits he'd been gathering onto the table, then walked off to wash his hands.
"Aren't you supposed to be helping us?" Robbie called after him as he collected the clay and returned it to the container the kids' clay was kept in. "So far, I've seen nothing but disdain and viciousness from you."
"I am here to help you." Tillman raised his voice over the rushing water in the sink. "But that doesn't mean I don't think you lot are a bunch of privileged pricks to the manor born who think they're better than the rest of us because they ‘do art'." He finished in a mocking tone.
Robbie was so affected by everything about Tillman, from his scornful, blue eyes to his acidic tone of voice, that his skin prickled like it would fall off. Or like it needed to be touched and grabbed and kissed, or bitten.
"Oh, so this is a class thing," he said, marching over to the sink. "You're one of those proud, working-class blokes who can't stand us prissy aristocrats."
Tillman turned off the sink and snatched at the pile of paper towels, nearly knocking it over as he grabbed enough to dry his hands.
"You said it, mate, not me," he said, before throwing the wad of used paper towels into the bin beside the sink.
He walked past Robbie, purposely bumping him with his shoulder as he headed for the door.
"I'll have you know that, despite the title and the estate, my family has been balancing on a knife's edge of financial ruin for generations now," Robbie defended himself and all of the Hawthornes as he chased after Tillman. "Look around you. Does this look like the sort of posh estate that the king would visit to take tea? We live day-to-day just like any other working-class family."
They'd stepped out into the hallway, which was bustling with people trying to leave or get to classes. That didn't stop Tillman from whipping back to face Robbie with a whole new level of ire in his eyes.
"You're trying to tell me that you lot are poor ?" he asked in a tight whisper, eyeing some of the people who walked past with wariness in their eyes.
"Yes," Robbie said, half laughing. "That's what I'm trying to tell you."
"Bullshit," Tillman said. Robbie had the feeling he wanted to use much harsher language. He leaned in closer, so no one passing would overhear them, and went on with, "The difference between you and me is that you've got a major corporation offering you more money than I can even conceive of. You think you're poor, but with the snap of your manicured fingers, that could all go away and you'd be millionaires. Me?" He stepped back and threw his arms wide. "No one's coming to save me, mate. If I want to be saved, I have to save myself."
Robbie's jaw dropped, but he wasn't certain how to reply to that.
Any kind or sympathetic reply he might have given died on his lips as Tillman showed him his middle finger before turning and marching off toward the front hallway, his finger still in the air as he showed Robbie his back.
Robbie clenched his jaw and was about to go after Tillman when his phone buzzed in his back pocket. Huffing with frustration, he drew it out.
In an instant, his mood snapped from furious to expectant. The name on the incoming call was that of the producer he'd spoken to about the possibility of appearing as a special judge on The Ceramics Challenge television show.
"Hello?" he answered the call.
"Mr. Hawthorne, hello. It's Harry Klein from The Ceramics Challenge."
"Hi. Mr. Klein. It's nice to hear from you," Robbie said, fumbling his way through the call already, and it had barely begun.
"Harry, please," Harry said. "Look, I know you're a busy man, so I'll cut right to the chase. We'd love to have you come in as a guest judge for this current season."
"This current season?" Robbie blinked stepping to the side to avoid the between-class traffic in the hallway.
"I know we had discussed next season," Harry said, "but we've had a judge who had to drop out at the last minute. Would you be available in next week?"
"Next week?" Robbie shoved a hand into his hair, excitement pulsing through him. "I might have to shuffle a few things around, but I could make next week work," he said.
Appearing on a nationally broadcast competition show had the potential to do amazing things for his career. And if his career soared, it would be excellent publicity for Hawthorne House and the rest of the family.
"Good," Harry said. Robbie could hear the smile in the man's voice and considered it a good sign. "I'll contact you with details as soon as we get them worked out. Do you have an agent I should be dealing with?"
He didn't, not really, but Rebecca tended to handle that sort of thing for everyone in the family. "It's best to speak to my sister, Rebecca," he said. "I'll send her your contact information."
"Good, excellent," Harry said. "It will be great to have you on board."
They exchanged a few more pleasantries, then ended the call.
Robbie took a few moments to let it all sink in, and to breathe. Then he pushed himself forward. He needed to find Rebecca and let her know Harry would be calling. He also needed to find his dad to let him know what was coming. And it wouldn't hurt if he found Tillman so he could rub it in as well.
He found all of them much sooner than he thought he would. As he stepped into the front hallway, his dad, Rebecca, Early, and Tillman were standing near the center of the once-dazzling foyer. With them was another man in a suit not all that different from Tillman's. He was in his fifties at least, though, and stood with an air of authority.
That wasn't what snagged Robbie's insides and made him suddenly hotter. No, what did that, pushing every one of Robbie's buttons, was the way Tillman smiled at the older man and beamed at him as if he were God.
Not jealous. Robbie absolutely wasn't jealous. But he sure as hell was going to find out what was going on.