"Will you please move that leg just a little to the left?"
Loren half-opened his eyes and did as he was told, and got a brief but bright smile from Arjan.
"Was I showing too much again?" he asked lazily.
"Basically nothing I wouldn't have seen before," Karos assured him. "But I know that my son's a bit possessive of your assets..."
"I really can't see what reason he has to be possessive," Loren drawled. "After all, they belong to me and no one else."
"I'm not possessive," Arjan declared. Loren snorted.
"Yes you are."
"Am not."
"Of course you are. Not that I mind, really." Loren stretched his arms. "Actually, I think I might get just a tad hurt if you weren't... Should I change pose soon?"
"By all means. Just give me another couple of minutes."
"Same here."
Loren relaxed once more on the large, comfortable sofa and closed his eyes.
To think how embarrassed he'd been, those first times when Arjan had persuaded him to pose, even though he'd had his boxer shorts and even a shirt on! Now here he was, as nude as on the day he was born, posing for two artists – one of them his boyfriend, the other said boyfriend's father. If that wasn't reason enough to feel awkward, then he didn't know what was. And yet he was totally comfortable... no, to be quite honest, it was more than that. He was enjoying every moment.
Loren grinned to himself and rolled around to lie on his stomach.
The door to the apartment opened and closed and a few moments later Reonn peeked in, looking oddly blond. "Hello everybody!"
"You're back early," Karos observed and went to ruffle Reonn's curly hair. A cloud of fine sawdust spread in the air. "My, you're dusty! What've you done, swept the floors with your head?"
"Using sandpaper," Reonn corrected. "The painters came today and I had to quit early so that the dust and chips wouldn't get stuck in the fresh paint. Now I'll have the next couple of days off, because I can't go on with the other room until they're finished."
"Well, if that isn't good news!" Karos looked delighted but Reonn quickly backed out of his reach.
"Hands off, man, you'll just get yourself all dusty as well! I'll go and have a bath now."
By the time Reonn returned, freshly scrubbed and squeaky clean, Loren had stretched himself into such a suggestive pose on the sofa that the man blinked a few times underneath the towel on his head.
"Whoa. What exactly are the two of you doing there, if I may ask?"
"Enjoying ourselves, what else?" Karos murmured, eyes never turning from the easel except to glance at their model. The tip of his charcoal pen was flying feverishly across the paper.
Loren waved a hand, eliciting immediate protests from the two artists, then placed it back on his thigh in exactly the same position where it had been, so that it just barely covered the most critical parts of his anatomy.
"Don't you worry, Reonn," he said. "Karos here just realized a moment ago that he knows a customer who probably would be mightily interested in something like this."
"I don't think I'm too worried," Reonn said and sat down to watch. "Is this what you've been doing the whole day, huh?"
"More or less," Loren admitted. "Though you must remember that 'the whole day' only means 'since the artists were awake enough', which wasn't very early in the day."
"And how you love needling us about that!" Arjan huffed. "We're just not morning people, all right?"
"Nothing wrong with that," Reonn put in, "but you just need to grow a thicker skin because I happen to agree with Loren. The two or you are really funny in the mornings."
The father and son merely grunted in unison, clearly resolved not to dignify the latest quip with an answer.
For the next several minutes silence reigned in the apartment while the planes and curves of Loren's naked body were traced on two sheets of paper. When Karos took a step back from his easel and heaved a deep, satisfied sigh, Arjan glanced up and nodded as well.
"Okay, is it now safe to talk?" Reonn inquired. "Does anyone want food today, or is art enough?"
"Always thinking about food," Karos said fondly, and Reonn shrugged.
"What can I say? I'm a material guy and live on my stomach."
"I'll cook something," Loren promised and stood up from the sofa. "There was stuff in the kitchen that needs to be cooked before it goes bad."
Arjan eyed him hopefully. "Any hope of your maybe not getting dressed before you start?" he asked.
"Think again," Loren suggested. "The stove is hot. Very hot. I need to stand pretty close to it, and I'll be handling stuff that's being fried or cooked on the stove. If I don't have any clothes on, there might be some burns in extremely inconvenient and painful places. Is that what you want?"
"Here are your boxers!" Arjan tossed a bundle over to his friend. "And I'll go find your trousers and shirt as well. Do you need anything else? A leather apron maybe?"
Loren shook his head as he stepped into his underwear, and Reonn burst out laughing.
"You're crazy... but hey, damn, I nearly forgot! Talking about leather, I met this guy at the top of the stairs – the frizzy-haired one who always wears that decomposing leather jacket, what's-his-name..."
"Fadyen? What about him?" Karos' head snapped up. Arjan looked at his father questioningly.
"He said I should tell you that the Meiderr has today got those papers you've been waiting for, and –"
Reonn didn't get any farther before Karos was already in the entrance hall, digging his coat out of the closet.
"What's up?" Arjan asked with a frown.
"I'm going there this moment," Karos announced. "Meiderr's ordered a batch of that extra thick paper from Heilos & Sons, and if Fadyen knows about it, then half of Saygorr is bound to know it soon enough. When did you see him, Reonn? Is it long ago?"
"Well, how long does it take to walk here from the Granite Steps?"
"That does it!" Karos was frantically tying his shoelaces. "I'm off. I absolutely want some of that stuff."
"Hey, me too!" Arjan almost ran after him, and moments later all Loren and Reonn could hear were hasty steps descending the stairs.
They stared at each other, then Reonn grinned.
"Those guys are crazy," he said.
"They are," Loren agreed. "Well, I'm now dressed enough to start cooking. Will you put some more firewood into the stove?"
"Sure, anything to help, as long as I'm not the one who has to do the cooking."
Loren dug the foodstuffs out of the cupboards and began to chop and slice them while Reonn persuaded the faintly glowing embers into a brighter glow. Small flames eventually began to dance on the thin splinters of wood he was feeding into them, and he pushed a large water kettle onto the stove.
For a moment he just watched Loren's concentrated face, then chuckled.
"I hope you're going to tell us well in advance before you get totally fed up with being the housewife."
"What?" Loren glanced up and smiled. "Hey, I'm not going to become a housewife! And I know how to stand my ground if I sometimes don't feel like doing this."
"I just thought," Reonn said, leaning against the side table. He folded his wiry arms across his chest. "I bet both Karos and Arjan know how to take advantage of you, if you let them. Hey –"
He raised a placating hand when Loren frowned at him. "Don't get mad. They're not bad guys, either of them, not saying that. I really like them both. It's just that they're so much alike – well, of course they are, because Arjan's been raised by his father – and Karos... Well, Karos can be pretty self-absorbed sometimes."
"Don't you worry about me," Loren said. "I honestly don't mind at all doing this. It's good to have a bit of something to do, really."
"That's good. I was just thinking that maybe you left home because you wanted to do anything but the things you do at an inn, and now you're here cooking for us!"
"Oh no..." Loren's words trailed off while he focused on peeling some vegetables without cutting his fingers. "No, that's not why I left."
His tone was elusive, and Reonn tilted his head curiously.
"Hey, there's something more to it then? I just thought you said you didn't want to work all your life there, or something? Or am I being too nosy here?"
"Actually it's just something so goddamn childish that I'm ashamed to even talk about it." Loren's face flushed red in support of the statement. "Well, I did want to see the world a bit, and Arjan was the perfect excuse to do just that. But I wasn't fed up with the work as such..."
"What then?" Reonn prompted.
"I – didn't get along too well with my second elder brother." Loren didn't turn his eyes away from the carrots on the table. "I'd known for a while that I liked guys, but my brother was forever chasing girls all over the place... until the new blacksmith came."
"The new blacksmith?"
"Yeah. We're a busy inn, with all those horses and carriages stopping there, and centrally located. So it's only natural that there's a blacksmith working in the premises. Our blacksmith wasn't that old but his back had begun to give him trouble, so he retired as soon as my father found a new one." The knife slowed down. "An absolutely gorgeous guy, about your age. Just seeing him made my knees go wobbly... and all of a sudden my idiot brother forgot all about girls."
Loren heaved a deep sigh.
"I think it'd all been fine and well, but unfortunately the new blacksmith was into guys as well. And much preferred my turncoat brother instead of a skinny fifteen-year-old."
"Oh boy." Reonn rolled his eyes. Loren snorted.
"You said it. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't take it too well. So, then I had this huge grudge against my brother, and when Arjan stopped there and I got to know him and he told me about all the places he'd been to... Ah, now I think it's hot enough!"
When all the ingredients were safely inside a kettle and boiling happily, Loren placed a lid on it and sat by the kitchen table. He looked sheepishly at Reonn.
"So, there you have it. That's why I left, and going with Arjan was such an easy way to persuade my parents that I'd be safe and sound. He already had experience and was there to guide me, even though he's barely older than I am."
"I think it was a good decision," Reonn mused. "To go when you had the ideal chance to do so..."
"I haven't regretted it for a day," Loren said firmly. "Besides, it's been no end useful while traveling to have experience of all those things! I had no trouble finding work to pay for a meal or a bed to sleep in. And I don't mind working, no matter whether it's grooming muddy horses or tidying rooms."
"Well, good," Reonn said. "I just wanted to make sure that you know you don't have to cook unless you want to."
"That's all right, and I appreciate your concern." Loren smiled to him. "In fact I rather enjoy this. Especially as my mum or big sister aren't around to tell me how not to do things, even though I'm not doing them exactly their way."
"They're the cooks, back home?"
"Yeah. But I honestly don't think any one of you will notice any difference even if the vegetable slices aren't exactly the same size and shape."
"No, I don't think so." Reonn peered at the chopped sausage on the table and pointed at it. "Though, hey, you've only cut those into four parts and those others into six –"
"I think you haven't spent nearly enough time in the kitchen," Loren said, "if you haven't learned the number one basic rule: never annoy the person who's holding the biggest knife."
Reonn raised his hands in surrender and laughed.
"I got it, boss, I'm a quick learner! How about I go get us something to drink? Would beer be all right?"
"Beer would go perfectly with this," Loren said. "But you don't need to go anywhere, water's just as well."
"Bullshit." Reonn shook his head. "Besides, I'll have time to run at least five times to the Honey Pot and back again before those two guys are back. We might have a beer while waiting for them."
Loren grinned over his shoulder and looked appraisingly at the thickening soup in the kettle. A good thing that all the recipes in his head were for stuff that only got better, the longer it was allowed to simmer.
