Burnt

Bond

Leo and I made it back to the forge safely without having to go into any more dark corners. When we arrived at the forge, he went through a door at the back of the forge to put his cup up. 

While he was away, I continued to look through the forge, seeing his tools and the type of materials that he uses to make his projects. For the most part, almost everything that he had to help him make his projects had a place to go but they were just laying on the table. 

Leo came back in different clothes, the same ones that he wore the other day when I saw him for the first time. They looked dirtier and they were not washed from when he wore them before. 

"I can help you wash your clothes if you want," I told him. I could take his clothes to the servants and ask them to wash the clothes for me and tell them to not tell anyone. So far, it seems like they are very good at keeping secrets.

He raised an eyebrow at me. "Do you live near a well?" I shook my head and he waved his hand at me. "Then you don't have to. I go to the well once a month with my master's clothes to get them cleaned. Other than that, it takes too much time out of the day for me to go to one.'

I followed him as he went over to the furnace and picked up a sword that he was working on that was hanging on the side of it. It looked halfway finished. Before he started to work on the sword, I stopped him with my hand on his shoulder.

"I don't have anything to do throughout the day so I can go tomorrow and then bring them back to you the next day," I explained it to him.

"Are you sure?" 

I nodded. "I just want to help you out."

He smiled, showing off his teeth. "Then I'm gonna go get changed and we can just-" he paused for a moment, glancing at my eyes, "hang out." He put his hands out like he had offended me, "If that's okay with you. You did say that you have nothing to do, might as well." 

Leo put away the sword that he was working on. "I'm going to go get changed." He went towards the door where he changed behind, "You can join me."

Walking behind him, I entered where he slept. His room was three times smaller than my room in the castle, with two piles of clothes right next to each other. In the corner of the room, there was a pile of sandbags, making up his bed with a goat's blanket on top of it. The floor was scattered with hay.

"You live here?" I asked him. I could not believe that this is how some people lived in the town. I slept on a feather bed with silk blankets.

Continuing to look around, I saw a wooden chair next to the door, facing the bed. 

Leo nodded, started to untie the top of his shirt. "My master allows me to live here while I apprentice for him."

He paused in explaining and grabbed the collar of his shirt, pulling it over his head. Since he was facing me, I saw his muscular chest and how defined it was. I had only seen him wear clothes that do not fit him that well and I could not guess that he had that underneath his shirts. Leo is a very attractive man. 

He threw the old shirt on to one of the piles in the corner and put on the same put on the same shirt that he was wearing earlier. Then he pulled a bag out from the bottom of the dirty pile and packed his dirty clothes into the bag. He placed the bag next to my chair, "Here you go."

I watched Leo as he rearranged the blankets on his bed on the opposite side of the room from me. "Do you wanna come join?"

I had never been alone with a boy before who were not Ezra or Noah. Well, Leo was not a boy, he was a man who was about four years older than me, around Charlotte's age. I was nervous that he was going to do something; I had only known Leo for a few days and did not trust him quite yet.