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Her gaze met his. Bright blue eyes. As she stared at him, she flipped her hair over her shoulder and smiled.
A glassblowing studio was not a pickup joint. Definitely not a place for a customer to flirt with him. Everything about this woman was trouble—from the way she was dressed to the way she looked at him. Seriously. Who wore a tank top in Chicago in November?
Bronte stopped in the middle of the studio to begin her spiel.
Rather get than get into his project again, Ezra crossed his arms and waited for Bronte to finish. She hadn’t told him during what part of this ridiculous show he was supposed to make the paperweight, but he figured it had to be pretty early on. He tuned out the words Bronte spoke about the molten glass and temperatures and tools. He stared at the group.
The woman in the back stared back. Her smile was even wider than it had been, if that was possible. He could tell she only half-listened to Bronte, as if she didn’t need the information. He didn’t recognize her, and he was familiar with most local glass artists. The world wasn’t that big. She should be paying attention. He lifted his brows in Bronte’s direction. The woman turned toward Bronte.
“This is my brother Ezra, master glassblower. He created most of the pieces in the store. They are all original, so no two pieces are identical.”
A woman in front raised her hand. “What if you wanted to make a pair of matching vases?”
“Well, Ezra could get close. He’s been doing this a lot longer than I have, but even then, they wouldn’t be identical. Rather than being a matched set, they would be a coordinated set. Similar colors and shapes, but not identical. That’s what makes hand blown-glass so special.” Bronte looked over the group. “Any other questions?”
They all remained silent. Ezra forced his gaze away from the pretty woman in the back. The last thing he needed was to be distracted while making a paperweight. Fucking that up would ruin Bronte’s plan.
“Today, you’re all going to be able to make your own paperweight, but before we get to that part, Ezra is going to walk us through how that works. Ezra?”
“Hey.” He cleared his throat. “Before we start, it’s important that you keep in mind that the furnace is two thousand degrees. The glass is hot and it will burn you if you’re not careful.”
As if she knew his comments were directed at her, the woman in back piled her hair on top of her head and conjured some magic to make it stay. Then she pulled a flannel shirt from her giant purse and tossed it over her tank top. She might be trouble, but she was smart and prepared. He had to give her credit there.
He turned to the furnace. “You start by taking glass from the furnace. To work with glass, it needs to stay hot, and pliable. Once you have your glass, you choose what color you’d like to add and roll it.”
He demonstrated the motions. “Then you take the glass back to the gloryhole to reheat it.”
A snicker behind him caught his attention. Without looking, he knew it was the woman in the back. When he turned back, sure enough, she was giggling, and the mess of hair piled on her head wobbled. He shot her a quick look and she covered her mouth. As if he hadn’t heard all the jokes before.
“Depending on what color you hope to achieve, you might have to make multiple trips. Then you take it to the marver to cool it a little and shape it.”
“When does the blowing part happen?” one of the women asked.
“Right now,” he answered. “You set the pipe down, and working with a partner, you blow through the pipe.”
Bronte joined him at the bench and blew. They’d worked together long enough that they didn’t need much conversation. They worked in tandem, with Bronte giving more detail on each step as they moved back and forth between blowing and shaping the paperweight.
Another trip to reheat. “Using the tweezers, you pull the glass to give it a twisted or swirled effect. It’ll feel like taffy.” He pulled and wrapped the glass. “Once you’re happy with the look, you go back to the furnace and add more clear glass. This will encase the color in your paperweight.”
He took the project to the bench and began rolling the weight. Standing beside him, Bronte said, “Ezra is using a block—which is basically a big, wooden spoon—to shape the paperweight. When he’s done, we’ll use the jacks to separate the weight from the pipe.”
Ezra was happy to let her continue talking through the process. It took a lot of effort for him to think about what the next step was and how to explain it. He preferred to just do it.
“Once we separate it, we put the paperweight in the annealer, where it will cool for a couple of days.” Bronte carried the paperweight in her covered hands and carefully set it in the annealer. Then she turned back to the group. “Any questions?”
ChapterThree
Questions?London was about to have a meltdown. She’d done her research so she understood the basics of glassblowing before arriving today, but she’d been hopeful that witnessing the actual process would make her feel better. However, it made everything worse.
Not only would she need extra time to allow for the glass to cool without breaking—days, not hours—she’d need a partner to help her with multiple steps in the process. She’d halfway convinced herself that she would be able to wing it alone.
While Bronte set the couples up to start the project, London studied Ezra, who had gone back to whatever he’d been doing when they started the tour. The orange-red flames of the furnace highlighted the red in his hair. He wasn’t exactly a ginger, but the reddish hue streaked through the hair on his head and in the curls of his beard. He stared intently at the glass as he worked, completely in a world of his own.
Having a master glassblower as her partner would probably ensure that she’d be able to make the forgery in a timely manner. But then she remembered his grumpy expression when she smiled at him. No, he would be hard to convince. He obviously wasn’t thrilled to have them there.
She continued to watch as he formed another hunk of molten glass and began blowing. The roped muscles in his forearms flexed as he turned the pipe and blew the glass. Part of her thought the whole thing should’ve been obscene, but really, it was sexy. Ezra was a big guy. Some might even call him burly. The kind of man who would be more likely to smash glass than make it. He was fun to watch, though.
Since the couples had built-in partners, Bronte helped her out when possible. She still needed to help the others, but that was fine with London. It gave her a good feel for the process and ultimately confirmed that she would need another pair of hands to make the tree topper.
