Clang Read Online Free Page A

barbecue, Cameron headed to Noah's place and Jackson started work at his forge. Thomas cleaned his kitchen and made his grocery list while he had a moment to breathe. He left the window open to smell the wood smoke from Jackson's forge.
    Neither of them had someone else to cook for, so sometimes they cooked supper together when Cam wasn't around. Jackson tended to go for easy meals when others weren't there. Thomas, however, didn't mind cooking for himself. Even at the end of a long week, it was a nice break. He liked taking that time.
    Thomas smiled as he glanced out across their yards from the kitchen window, washing the last few pots. Cam was lucky that he'd met Noah before even properly moving to the city. Thomas had moved back here at the same time in May and Jackson had always lived here.
    It's not like I don't try, though.
    With that in mind, Thomas dried off his hands and grabbed his laptop. Curled on the sectional couch, he first checked his dating site messages, then browsed for local matches. He was used to seeing the same few faces, but it was possible someone new had signed up.
    There was a new match, and his photo looked weirdly familiar.
    “Oh, Jesus.”
    Jackson's Facebook profile photo for ages had been him in front of the walking bridge in town. Before that, he'd had a handsome professional shot taken of him while forging. Those two thumbnails showed up when Thomas hovered over his profile.
    His brother was on the dating site, too?
    Fuck. Has he already seen me?
    Thomas's hand almost shook. He navigated quickly to his recent visitors and scanned the list.
    Nope. He'd found Jackson first.
    He clicked back to the profile and blocked it before his nerves calmed. It wasn't like it would be awful if Jackson figured out he was on the dating site looking for men, but...
    It was complicated and Thomas didn't want to get into thinking about it. His two gay brothers of all people would be cool with it, but he didn't want to talk to them . And for their part, neither of them had ever bugged him, thank god.
    He was curious, though. He hadn't heard Jackson mention online dating before. Might be worth stopping by for a chat.
    Thomas closed his laptop and headed out to the workshop.
    The muffled ringing of metal sounded through the door. Thomas padded through the tall grass en route to the converted workshop building where Jackson had installed his forge. It had been hell to get it up to code, but Thomas knew Jackson was prouder of it than his own house now.
    Thomas knocked, not that it would have made a difference, and let himself in. He closed the door after himself to keep the sound down.
    “Jesus, it's hot in here.” Good thing he was just in a t-shirt and light jeans.
    “Oh, I know.” Jackson was shirtless and red-cheeked. His gaze was utterly focused on the strips of metal he was hammering together. His big brother was ripped, sweat running down his back as his biceps rippled with the effort of joining metal to metal.
    Sometimes Thomas felt bad that he didn't work out even a little compared to his brothers. Then, he remembered that he liked pasta and hated lifting weights. If he never landed a man because of it, fine.
    Jackson paused to look over at Thomas. “You all right?”
    “Oh, yeah,” Thomas smiled. “Need any help?”
    “Grab those metal bits and clean them up if you wanna help,” Jackson nodded. Thomas went over to start gathering them into a bucket. “Having an exciting Friday night?”
    “Not as exciting as yours,” Thomas laughed. He examined a few cast-off scraps, wondering if they could be turned into art pieces somehow. Some of them were twisted in cool ways. Maybe that was Jackson's plan. “It was cool to meet Chase earlier, though.”
    “Yeah, we have coffee now and then. He's nice. A little hard to read sometimes, but nice.” Jackson frowned at his metal piece, then folded his arms.
    “What's up?”
    “Whenever I wonder why I don't have a boyfriend, two seconds later, I geek out