"Ooh! Get those smouldering eyes."
☆
This was now Jasper's life. Early starts and physical labour until Jasper was either hungry or tired. He wouldn't ever admit it, but his uncle Jim was right. Jasper had hardly glanced at his phone in over two weeks.
Jasper presently had mixed emotions over Thomas. How could he be so awestruck and annoyed at the man in the space of five minutes? This day was no different.
"Hey! Wake up you lazy shit!" Jasper's eyes slowly open to the silhouette of a man hovering over him. It takes a minute to realise that Thomas is peering over his bed, looking less than pleased. "It's 3 in the afternoon already and your uncle needs us to go wooding!" Jasper's 30 minute nap had gone a little over.
Jasper pulls himself up slightly from the bed. His eyes are still squinting a little from the brightness. "Wooding?...what's wooding?"
"He wants us to gather logs for the fire." Thomas replies, getting a little impatient in having to wait around to get going.
Jasper sits up fully, swinging his legs off of the side of the bed. He looks at the blazing hot sun out of the window. Why does his uncle need to make a fire? "It's fucking hot Tom. He doesn't need a fire." Jasper huffs.
Thomas lets a dry chuckle of amusement leave his lips. "Have you tried burning wet wood? We gather it now for the next season." Thomas heads for the door. "Hurry. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can get on with our own stuff." He opens the door, leaving it slightly ajar as he exits the room.
Jasper looks at the small gap, then at the window. The thought crosses his mind. He could escape. He could go do his own thing whenever he wanted. He thinks back to Molly's comment about choices. He guessed he kind of did have a choice to make in this moment and right now, he just needed a quiet stress free afternoon.
Even a little surprised by his own actions, Jasper finds himself heading for the open door.
Jasper enters the kitchen to see just Molly, boiling sliced apples in a pan. Presently pouring in some sugar. The smell of sweet bramley filled the kitchen and strangely made Jasper feel all weird and homely.
Molly caught sight of Jasper's eyes slightly closed and a small flare in his nostrils. "It's a beautiful aroma isn't it." She says as she slowly mixes the pan's contents with a wooden spoon.
"What are you making?" Jasper finds himself asking, a little out of character even to his own ears.
"It's the filling for an apple pie." She says grinning. "If you bring back some good firewood, maybe I'll let you have a slice."
Jasper feels an unexpected warmth of joy light up inside of him. He was a sucker for sweet treats it seemed. "Where is Tom?" Jasper glances around the empty kitchen.
"He's waiting for you outside I believe. He just had to get the bike." Molly added.
Jasper looks confused. Weren't they just picking up sticks from the woodland floor? "Bike?"
"The quad bike sweetie." Molly says casually, not even raising her gaze from her steaming pan of apples. Jasper hurries to the door, pulling his boots on his feet and heads outside. He now hears the faint sound of the engine as Thomas rounds the corner of the farmhouse, sitting on a bright blue quad, shirtless, an empty trailer attached at the back.
Jasper inwardly groans for the millionth time at how visually appealing this guy looked sat astride the all terrain vehicle. He tries his utmost to not let it show on his face. "Hey. Get in the trailer!" Thomas shouts over the noise of the bike's engine. Jasper looks at the dirty trailer filled with ropes and large manual saws in an opened long canvas zipper bag. Was he going to be expected to cut a whole tree down? He approaches the trailer, struggling to get his leg over the high side.
Thomas watches over his shoulder at the youngster's feeble attempts to hoist himself over the trailer's high side. He momentarily gets off of the quad bike and moves behind Jasper. Jasper was oblivious to anyone approaching from behind, due to the bike's loud engine. The next thing he knows, his left thigh is being grabbed by two callused hands and his weight is being shifted upwards towards the trailer's side and over the edge. "Woah woah! What the fuck are you doing?" Jasper protests in utter surprise as he lands on his side with a thud.
"I haven't got all day!" Is the response Thomas gives, stepping back with a grin of satisfaction. Jasper was too easy to wind up. He gets back onto the quad bike, looking one last time over his shoulder at a bewildered Jasper, who is trying to sit up and find something to grab onto, before the bike is revved up and is heading along the dirt track into a small clearing in the woods.
The trailer, which seemed to lack any form of suspension begins to shake and jolt Jasper all over the place. He tries his best to keep himself steady, but he is losing the battle, with Thomas holding no prisoners as he winds down the beaten track, which he appears to know like the back of his hand.
Jasper can feel nearly every bone ache in his body and was sure that he would be covered in bruises as the quad bike eventually grinded to a halt by a large tree.
Thomas gets off of the bike and heads to the trailer to see Jasper still trying to sit up straight as he reaches for the canvas bag alongside him. "You need help getting out too?" Thomas questions, biting his lip slightly so as not to laugh in Jasper's face and possibly earn another outburst.
"No I'm fine." Jasper huffs through gritted teeth, as his jelly legs get to standing as he jumps down to the ground, invading Thomas' personal space slightly. Jasper eyes Tom in the face, hoping to convey a threatening glare of annoyance, but ends up receiving a compliment.
"Ooh get those smoldering eyes." Thomas says with a hint of seduction in his baritone voice, accompanied with a teasing wiggle of an eyebrow. This leaves Jasper to once again tingle in places he wished he wouldn't. Jasper backs away instantly and turns to grab the rope, though he isn't quite sure what exactly he will need it for.
"Like you said..." Jasper says, being only able to look past Thomas's shoulder. "The sooner we get this done, the sooner you'll be out of my face."