Read Online Emyr's Smile by Amy Rae Durreson - Free Book Online Page A

here.
    It nagged at him,
except when he was curled into Emyr’s arms, and the worry lifted
away when Emyr smiled at him with that little hint of wonder.
    He could do portraits,
though they weren’t as fun as painting the land and the sky full of
islands. Sirig was on major trade routes, too, so there were plenty
of visitors, merchants and pilgrims. He could hire a little display
space near the dock and sell his pictures there.
    Or he could fly on, to
Gwydr and Enfys, and paint new places and new faces.
    He wouldn’t decide
until spring, he concluded. He could wait that long to choose. He
had no desire to sail through a winter storm, and spring was a
better season for new journeys. Until then, he would stay here and
be Emyr’s.
    He had forgotten, in
all his scheming, that other people gossiped, particularly on small
islands. It was Elin who pushed the point, in the end. She came and
found him where he was perched on the quayside, huddled up in his
warmest clothes and trying to capture the way the wind pulled at
the market awnings with smudgy charcoal and scrap paper. Coming up
behind him, she dropped a small bag of coin into his lap. “Your
wages, lad.”
    “I thought I was
working for a bed.”
    “Aye, but you’ve not
slept in my attic for three weeks. We’re honest folk here, and you
get paid for the work you do.”
    “Thank you,” Heilyn
said, blushing a little. He hadn’t meant to run out on her, but
Emyr’s bed was so much more warm and tempting than the drafty
attic, even when Emyr wasn’t in it.
    “I’ve been thinking,”
Elin continued. “If you’re considering staying permanently, there’s
a proper job going. Not much more than you do now, mind, but it
would pay regularly, and it’s not like you need to worry about
paying rent, is it?”
    “Stay?” Heilyn said,
panicking. He hadn’t thought he’d have to make the decision this
fast, and Elin wasn’t the first person he needed to discuss it
with, either. No, he needed to talk to Emyr first. He needed to
tell Emyr that he loved…
    Oh. Oh.
    “Heilyn? You interested
or not?”
    He decided to laugh it
off. “Who says I’m staying? The world’s still waiting for me,
didn’t you hear?”
    Elin pursed her lips at
him disapprovingly, and behind them there was a sudden clatter and
crash. Heilyn spun round to see Emyr standing there, one of Dilys’
good cake plates shattered at his feet and the cakes it had held
rolling across the cobbles.
    He wasn’t smiling.
     
     

Chapter
8
     
    “EMYR!” Oh, shit, shit,
shit!
    Before Heilyn could say
anything else, Emyr turned, almost running across the square.
Heilyn swore and shoved his sketches into Elin’s arms before he
took after him.
    He wasn’t fast enough,
and the office door slammed before he got to it. He heard the bolts
snap across, and swore again, banging his fists against the
weathered wood. “Emyr! Emyr, come out! I didn’t mean it!”
    But Emyr didn’t emerge,
and eventually Elin and one of her boys pulled him away from the
door.
    “You’ll hurt your
hands,” Elin said. “Come away now. You just scared him, you daft
brat. He’ll come round.” She marched him back into her kitchen,
shaking her head a little. “And we let you play with the poor boy’s
heart.”
    “I wasn’t playing,”
Heilyn said. The world had suddenly gone wrong around him, as if he
hadn’t been concentrating on keeping his hand steady, and he needed
to put it right. “I thought I was, but I never… I need to talk to
him. Let me go!”
    Elin sighed. “Calm
down, boy. You talk now, and you’ll just panic each other more. Go
home tonight and apologize.” She smiled, more kindly than he’d
expected. “Apologize for anything you can think of, not just that
piece of foolishness, and you’ll be fine.”
    But it wasn’t fine.
When he got to the house, the back door was locked, and though he
could see the light in the bedroom, Emyr didn’t come out for all
his knocking and shouting. Heavy-hearted, Heilyn