“Okay Grandpa.”
Aras flipped him off with one hand as he opened up VideoHead. “I won’t throw you straight into the deep end like we did when we were sorting. There’s talks from carnival glass conventions all the way back to the eighties uploaded here.” He typed ‘mariano auctions’ into the search bar, then popped down to open up the channel. “I had a passing interest, but I really got started with auction videos. These guys specialize in auctioning art glass, but especially carnival. And they put up videos going through the catalog every time. Usually try to keep it to one, but I think this particular auction is massive, so there’s two.”
“It’s not better just to share pictures?”
Aras dug out his phone and flicked over to something, then flashed the screen. Tiny squares of carnival glass looked back at Dane. A pale blue bowl emblazoned with a peacock. A lamp covered in glass flowers. A set of three small, ruffled bowls with grapes around the edge. All jewel toned and all scattered with rainbows.
Aras turned back to the TV. “They do pictures, but it’s hard to capture carnival glass in a still image. The color change doesn’t really come to life until they’re moving.” He looked across to Dane. “Bored yet?”
“Hell no.” Frankly, Dane found it hard to believe those pieces could look better than they did in the pictures. But he was excited to find out.
And probably more excited to watch with Aras and seehisexcitement over the whole thing.
Chapter twenty
Aras
“Wait,threegrand?”
Aras snickered. “Yeah, three grand. It’ll go higher.” Aras was following along on the auction site and he hadn’t been able to help himself from commenting on some of them. “It’s a Northwood Poppy Show bowl in aqua opal. I’d be shocked if it ends up less than five thousand. It’s in good condition.” No nicks on the pattern was crazy for Poppy Show or Rose Show pieces, since the flowers were so pronounced and stuck up so far. Over the course of the hundred or so years since the manufacture date, that kind of damage was par for the course. And that bright aqua color coupled with the white, opal rim… “If I thought I could afford it, I’d bid on it in a heartbeat.” He’d tried for a few Poppy Show pieces over the years, though in much more common colors—he’d gotten close on bowls in both pastel marigold and lime green, but got outbid—but hadn’t quite gotten his hands on anything in that pattern.
“Really?” Dane leaned back, a smile spreading over his face that Aras had to pointedlynotfocus on. If he did, he might decide to cross the line. Considering it was his line, that wasn’t groovy.
“Really.” Aras shrugged. “You’re telling me if you had a chance at some kind of specialty super awesome rare original model kit from the forties or whenever, you wouldn’t shell out some serious dough if you had it?”
“Don’t know that they were making model kits back then. Not like the ones I build, at least. But point taken.” He looked back to the video where they were still moving the Poppy Show bowl through the light. “I’m not saying that’s anything other than beautiful, either. The iridescence on it is amazing. I just wasn’t expecting four figure pricing.”
“Yeah. This whole auction has really nice iridescence, though.”
“The whole thing?” Dane’s smile widen. “You’ve already seen it? You bidding on anything?”
Aras, for some reason, felt a wash of shame. Mostly because he knew he was already bidding too high on a couple of those pieces, but a little bit because…well, collecting carnival was much more of an old lady hobby than he was totally comfortable sharing with a crush, even if he wasn’t letting that go too far.
I think he’s figured out that I’m into it. We’re watching Mariano Auctions for fuck’s sake.
Aras scrolled through to his bids on the auction site. “Nothing crazy, but let’s also not turn this into a discussion about my paycheck.”
Dane rolled his eyes, but instead of taking Aras’s outstretched phone, he pulled out his own, tapped and scrolled a few times, then handed it over. “My orders that are still incoming. I’m not judging anyone’s purchasing decisions.”
It was a show of good faith, even if Aras wasn’t asking. And he had to admit, he was alittlecurious how big a hobby this was for him. And what these model kits looked like when you werereallyinto it instead of…well, when you were someone like Aras, who’d seen one or two mecha shows in his life.
“That looks lovely.” Dane pointed to the second piece on Aras’s bid list, a complete Heavy Iris water set in purple. At two-hundred dollars, the price was crazy low, but it was still a lot to drop on some old glass and Aras knew it. But he wanted it. Heavy Iris tankards were stunning, and he had fantasies of serving lemonade or iced tea or something in this set for his friends.
If he ever invited his friends over to his house. Which hadn’t happened in some time.Which is probably also why they didn’t immediately clock that I was into carnival glass.The fantasy version of having a bunch of people in his personal space was a lot nicer than he figured the reality ever would be. But he still wanted the water set. Even if he didn’t have company, they’d look gorgeous on his kitchen table.
“Nowthatis more my style. No offense to your other choices.”
Dane turned the phone around again and showed Aras a ruffled bowl with an eight-pointed star in the middle. Ski Star wasn’t one of Aras’s favored patterns, but the color on that particular piece had been striking. It was a peach opal, which there were plenty of out in the world, but the iridescence had shades of red and pumpkin and even some greens and purples. Colors that typically wouldn’t show on peach opal, and vibrant as hell. Deep. Saturated.
“No offense taken.” That was one of the ones lowest on his priority list, but it wasn’t getting too much action, so the price was more than reasonable at the moment. “I don’t really have a place for that yet, but I’ll make room if I get it.”
“It’s a really clean design. Some of them are really complicated or flowery. Which, I know, weird criticism when I build those fiddly models. But I don’t know. I like being able to see the glass and see the pattern at the same time, if that makes sense?”
It wasn’t Aras’s jam, but he nodded. Then he looked at the model kits on Dane’s phone. They were all shown in much the same way: the box in the back and a completed version of the model displayed in front of it. As expected, Aras didn’t recognize most of what was there. What surprised him a bit was how little it seemed to matter. He had gut reactions to the different models on the screen. A big red one with long limbs was up first, and he got an instant flash of glee. It looked badass. No other way to describe it. It had one hand stretched out with long claws pointed toward the camera.
Next down was a winged figurine, all in shades of green, blue, and black, with blocky armor. The picture also showed extra bits and pieces that could be swapped out. Different hands, rifles instead of the swords it was holding in the image, and even some heavier-looking armor for the chest. A little ways down and Aras…smiled. He barely kept himself from giggling like a little kid. “Okay, what show isthisfrom?”
Dane pushed in closer to him. Very close. Close enough that Aras could feel his body heat, hear his breathing as he leaned in to look at his own phone in Aras’s hand. Aras had to force himself to focus on the phone screen so he didn’t lean over and try to get a kiss. The mecha therewasobjectively cool—four arms with lots of exposed machinery, navy armor that looked distressed and worn, with three ‘eyes’ on the head, and four legs to match the four arms, plus for some reason wielding a bow, which didn’t make any sense, but was cool as hell—so that helped. A bit. Not enough, but a bit.
