I don't own My Mad Fat Diary, Finn, or Grandma Olivia.
"Drinks are served." Ice clinked as Finn sat two glasses down in front of Olivia. She was perched on the end of the couch flipping through a photo album.
"These your friends then?" She held a Polaroid of the gang from the park a few weeks ago.
"Yeah, those my mates." He smiles affectionately and downs his glass before pouring another. French tipped nails flip through his latest stack of developed film. He eyes her through his empty glass.
"Who's this one then?" He almost chips a tooth against the glass as she holds out a picture of him and Rae outside the chippy.
"That's Rae." He wheezed out. His throat burned as he coughed into his shoulder gruffly. "That's Rae."
"Is she your best mate then?"
"No, that'd be Arch. Why ya ask?"
"You two are next to each other in every picture. Plus you're dressed similarly in this one." She held up a picture from Knebworth.
"We all have on the same shirt in that one." Reaching forward, he picked up his stack of pictures and slid them in his album before snapping it shut. He saw one last photo peeking out from under the sofa. Leaning forward she beat him to it. Finn held the album open for her to drop it in.
"You alright?" He asked after a few moments. She sat studying the picture like it was a thousand piece puzzle.
"She was your girlfriend then?"
Finn closed the album so quickly his thumb jammed in it.
"Why you say that?" He brought the tip of his thumb in his mouth, before pulling back quickly, already feeling like the baby in the relationship.
"You look cozier than your lads in this one." She used her middle and index finger to turn the picture towards him. It was one of him and Rae at Mrs. Earl's – er –Bouchtat's wedding. Both he and Rae were drunk, feelings running high after a night of confessions. Due to her mum's encouragement he and Rae had gotten up to sing a duet of John Mellencamp. They were both shit faced, falling over each other and their shared mic. The duo was a mess of arms and giggles trying to hold each other steady and failing miserably.
His memory broke as Olivia flipped the picture around and began studying it harder than he had any of his college work in the last week.
"Tell me about her!" She spoke with a cheerfulness that didn't match her eyes. He noticed the same trait in Chloe.
"Rae, she's proper mint. She's hard to read sometimes." An image of Rae handing him back his leather jacket flashed behind his eyes. "She has shit tasted in music really." He snorts, recalling her fingering his records and shaking her black locks in disappointment. He remembers the way those same black locks swayed with the summer breeze as they lay side by side, or whipped furiously behind them as he sped too fast on his scooter. The memory of her hands around his waist embarrassingly awakening parts of him. "She's Chloe's best mate." It was his turn to give a Chloe smile.
She placed the photo inside the album before yanking him to her. He's up so fast the photos spill out all over again. "What you say we go down for a drink yeah?"
"But we have some right here." She motioned at the table.
"But not your favorite though. They make a mean mixed one at the chippy." He's up and grabbing her coat before she protests. He reaches for his under the coatrack when a flash of Rae handing it back to him causes it to slip from his hands.
"You alright?" Olivia asks.
"Yeah. Not that cold outs' all. Let's be off then."
Hope you all enjoyed. Short and sweet.