A.N.: The good stuff begins!

Rose Amongst Thorns

Chapter Fourteen

Firecrackers

Rose spent Tuesday afternoon, after cross-country practice, at the mall with Aimee, Pearl, Jenna and Ria. It was strange to hang out with girls. While she was a feminine, girly-girl, Rose was also best-friends with a guy, and had never really had many female friends. Medha had been the first and probably most significant female friend she'd ever had. So it was strange hanging out with just girls.

But it was fun. She was probably the most girly-girly of them all, and somehow that made her the connoisseur of all things feminine. She helped Aimee pick out a top that made her curvy figure absolutely drop-dead gorgeous, with a deep V-neckline and crossover waist-sash to bring out the hourglass of her figure, and helped pick out an eyeshadow for Jenna, who never wore glasses to a party, in the cosmetics department in Macy's that would accentuate the colour of her eyes. Ria, the most self-assured of Rose's new friends, didn't need any help, but she and Rose had fun picking out jewellery and trying on shoes that were too expensive to justify buying just for a casual party. Pearl decided she would indulge in a new bra and panties to go with her dress, and they all tried to see how many free samples they could get from Sephora, Cinnabon and Wetzel's, and then went for dinner at Sweet Tomatoes buffet. Rose had a huge plate of salad, a bowl of clam chowder soup, and a bowl of soft-serve from the ice-cream fountain, with caramel and chopped nuts. It reminded her so much of Pogue, who worked at Cold Stone Creamery.

"So, what're all the guys doing tonight?" Aimee asked. "I mean, since I know Evan's not out with my sister. He's grounded, right?"

"I think he is, yeah," Rose said, tucking into her plate of salads. "I don't know—the little ones will be on the Xbox, and Sean's rarely out of the garage, so he's either with his band or working on his Harley. Finn has a date."

"Finn has a date?" Ria blurted, looking stunned. "With who?"

"Kayla Bird," Rose said, smiling.

"I thought he just liked staring at her," Ria said. "Most guys do. He got a date with Kayla Bird?"

"Why should he not? He's a nice guy," Rose said, flushing at Ria's indignantly disbelieving expression. "Anyway, you should see his studio; it's full of paintings he's done of her—or tried to do of her. She's his muse. He can't seem to finish them though."

"He uses her for inspiration for his paintings?" Ria frowned.

"What? It's romantic," Rose said softly.

"No, it's a death-trap," Ria said, in a tone that could not be argued with. "Being the muse never works out."

"Plenty of women have been both lover and muse to famous artists, like Picasso," Aimee pointed out.

"A guy starts out in his blue phase and everything's great. But it's only a matter of time before he's all into cubism and it's some other girl's eye coming out of her forehead," Ria said, waving her fork around. "They're doomed before they even make it to his car."

"Ria, ladies, is a sceptic," Jenna said, sighing. "Not all of us have had sucky experience with guys. What was that phrase Aimee said you used, Rose?"

"What phrase?" Rose asked, taking a sip of water to wash down some ranch-and-bleu-cheese soaked croutons.

"About Evan," Jenna said, waving her fork around. "Aimee, what was it?"

"Skirt-junkie," Pearl blurted, her face lighting up, and she snickered.

"Oh, you shoulda heard Hailey in the car on the way home!" Aimee laughed.

"Was she really mad?" Rose asked, wincing.

"Don't you dare feel sorry for her!" Aimee warned. "I saw the colour of that bruise on your hip. She's got a lot to answer for." Overnight, Rose's bruise had turned from reddish brown to dark-purple and royal blue, speckled with red and green. And it hurt like a bitch. Luckily, her hip wasn't actually damaged; she'd gone to the nurse during break to check, but nothing was wrong. It was just a horrendous bruise. She had run on it this morning, before school, and during practice she and Jake had tied; he said he knew it was because almost every single limb of hers was bandaged.

"So what's this all the hype about this party, anyway?" Rose asked.

"Every year, Christian Todd has a party at his house after the first football game of the season," Aimee said. "It's the first big party of the year—well, except Darnell Wilcox's birthday party, but he only invites, like, the most popular kids at school."

"I went to that," Rose said quietly, and all the girls stared at her. "Well…Evan took me along; he said Darnell wanted to meet me."

"Evan McGowan invited you to Darnell Wilcox's birthday party!" Ria gaped. "What was it like?"

"Er—I don't really remember some of it," Rose admitted, laughing. The girls laughed too. "It was just a great party, you know. There are at least a thousand photos on Facebook of it, though. I ended up in my panties in the pool—which wasn't the first time that's ever happened at a party." The girls all laughed. "So who's Christian Todd?"

"He's the captain of the ice-hockey team," Aimee said, and swooned. "He's gorgeous. And his party always ends with huge drama."

"Yeah, the cops busted it up last year," Pearl said, as she sat down with a bowl of ice-cream and cherry-apple cobbler. "It was so totally great."

"Pearl, you weren't even there," Ria said. "You were visiting your grandma!"

"Well, I heard it was so totally great," Pearl replied, unfazed. "Are you gonna come with us?"

"To Christian Todd's party? I dunno; maybe," Rose said. The girls all shouted her down about not going, so she laughed and said she'd talk to the guys and see if they were going too.

"But, if we're coming over to yours to get ready for the dance, you can just get a ride to the party with us when the dance gets old," Aimee smiled. "We're all going together in Jenna's car."

"Is there room for me?" Rose asked. Between them, it would make five.

"Yeah, sure," Jenna smiled good-naturedly. "Whaddaya say?"

Rose smiled shyly. Another party. And she'd barely been here two weeks. "Okay." The girls cheered, and the chatter turned to the party and how awesome it was supposedly going to be, how many kegs there would be, how big Christian Todd's swimming-pool was, and the kind of people who would be at the party; popular kids, juniors and seniors, the hottest guys on the football team and girls from the soccer team, some of the more popular artsy kids, the drama club.

"Hey! How was the mall?" Regina asked, smiling, when Rose entered the kitchen later that evening, fingers curled around a few small shopping-bags, and her keys. She had been given her own freshly-cut front-door key.

"It was great," Rose smiled. "We had fun."

"Where'd you go for dinner? The new sushi place?"

"No," Rose laughed. "Ria said if she was going to eat something that disgusting, she'd have to get something out of it, so we went to Sweet Tomatoes."

"Oh, the guys love it there," Regina laughed. "Every time we go they try and eat out the whole buffet. They nearly succeeded once. So what did you buy?"

"Oh, just some jewellery and a pair of shoes and some new underwear, and I got some free samples of makeup and perfume and stuff," Rose smiled. She hadn't thought it very grateful of her to have a big blowout only a week after Regina had spent so much money on her. "And a vest." She pulled out the cropped black vest she had found; it was sewn at the shoulders with gunmetal-silver sequins and pyramid studs; the seams were sewn with faux-pearls of varying sizes, and from the bust-line the edges were fringed with two-inch strands made of tiny clear seed-beads that glittered in the light and swung with every movement. "I thought it was cute. I might wear it on Friday."

"It is cute—but aren't you going to wear a dress?" Regina asked. "That sundress we bought last week would be so cute for the party."

"I thought about it," Rose said, blushing. "But with all my Wildcat war-wounds, I think I'll be sticking with pants."

"Ah, I see," Regina chuckled. "So what're your plans for the party? Are you going with someone?" Someone meant a boy. Sadly, no.

"Um, no—well," Rose blushed. "I mean; me, Aimee, Pearl, Ria and Jenna are going to hang out as a group, after the football game, you know? Jenna's boyfriend is gonna meet us there."

"So, you've been making some new friends?" Regina smiled.

"Well, I think Evan and Finn and Miller might have something to do with it," Rose blushed. Regina's eyes almost popped out of her face.

"Miller? What can he have to do with it?"

"Oh, apparently, girls at school think he's the silent but drop-dead gorgeous type," Rose said in a gushed half-whisper, slipping into a chair beside Regina's. Regina's mouth opened, and her eyelashes fluttered.

"My Miller?"

"Uh huh," Rose grinned.

"No! Who's going after my baby?" Regina gasped, her eyes wide and gleaming with curiosity. Rose sat down at the table and they gossiped for about fifteen minutes about who thought what about which of Regina's sons at school.

"Um…I saw your car outside," Rose said, climbing out of her seat. "Is Finn back already?"

"Oh. Yeah. I think he's in the studio," Regina said quietly.

Rose felt a forbidding sense of dread. Finn and Kayla Bird, alone in the quiet, secluded shed, wrapped in darkness and moonlight and the sounds of nature falling asleep. Rose frowned and rubbed the heel of her palm against her heart, which had suddenly clenched painfully.

"With Kayla?" she asked.

"No, I don't think so," Regina said. "He came home alone, went upstairs to get his iPod, and went out into the yard."

"Oh, dear. Do you think I should go talk to him?" Rose asked quietly.

"Mm…maybe," Regina shrugged. "He's had time to cool off, whatever's wrong. It's always best to give my boys a few minutes." Rose nodded, collected her bags, almost tripped over a toy car left by the kitchen door by Caleb, and exited the house, not bothering to go upstairs and put her bags down. She reached the shed and knocked on the door tentatively, but heard Styx playing loudly on the other side of the door and let herself in. An explosion of the song reaching its climax, "OH MAMA, I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the law!" blasted through her as she crossed over the threshold. The shed must have been heavily insulated, because, damn, but Finn played his music loud! She'd thought it was only Doug.

Finn, wearing his favourite pair of jeans and paint-splattered boots, stood before the portrait of Kayla Bird. Yesterday he had filled in the arms and most of the chest; today, he had filled in a lot of Kayla's wavy light-brown hair, but the slender oval face was still featureless. It was actually quite disturbing to look at, like a dreamlike Chagall painting in portrait form. There were hidden morbid qualities to the painting that made a shiver go down her spine.

No Kayla in person, though. Rose couldn't understand the impulse she'd experienced back in the kitchen, when her heart had practically ached at the thought of Finn bringing her here.

Now, she was too distracted by the sight of Finn painting half-naked in golden-amber candlelight. She hadn't noticed them yesterday, or maybe he had stored them in one of the potting-table drawers, but there were thick column candles set around the whole shed, filling it with light and flickering, romantic shadows. She suddenly wondered why Finn hadn't brought Kayla here. With the rich, golden light and the way it brought even more life to Finn's paintings, she would have thought it would be the perfect way to end a date.

And he was shirtless. A pale-blue button-down short-sleeve shirt had been cast, crumpled up, on the garden bench. She had seen him shirtless before, of course; none of the McGowan boys was at all shy about showing their skin—and parts of their anatomy they should know not to show off to complete strangers—and most of the time, the older ones wandered around in their boxers before school, trying to find this t-shirt or the other shoe, and Caleb spent every afternoon naked in the paddling-pool in the backyard, cooling off from the lingering late-summer heat and having backyard-wide water fights with Ian. And Finn was in her gym class; they were still on their swimming unit, and she had noticed that Finn was surprisingly muscular for the artistic member of the family. He had gorgeous shoulder and back muscles, and his arms were surprisingly taut. She had noticed that he had really nice hands, and suddenly, watching the candlelight caress his golden skin, she wanted to skim her fingertips up and down the curve of his spine to see how warm his skin was.

Maybe he felt her eyes on him, because he glanced over his shoulder and locked his eyes on her. They glowed palest blue in the candlelight, and the flames cast shadows of his thick, curling lashes onto his cheekbones.

"Hey," she said quietly, feeling her cheeks warm.

"Hey," Finn said heavily, and gestured her inside. "You got home just in time."

"In time for what?" Rose asked warily.

"My nervous breakdown," Finn said, with a wry smile, dropping his paintbrush onto the easel's shelf. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and then pushed his fingers through his hair; one curl wilted with red eggplant-purple paint. "I fixed the seat for you," he added quietly. Rose didn't understand what he meant, until he nodded at the garden-bench. He had folded a plush navy velvet Red Sox blanket onto the seat in place of a cushion, and added a little pillow.

"Oh dear," Rose said softly, setting her bags on the floor near the door, pulling it to after her; Finn turned the music—which had changed to Kiss—down. "Hang on—if you're going to have a breakdown, you need snacks. I'll be right back. Don't move!" Rose left the shed, ran back to the house, raided the pantry, and ran back to the shed. She made a spread of pistachios, mini-pretzels, marshmallows, Fruit Gushers, Goldfish, Fritos, and a bowlful of Halloween candy left over from last year on the potting bench. She handed Finn his favourite colour Gatorade, closed the door, changed the music to something more mellow and quiet, and sat down on the repaired bench, tugging the pillow into her lap to hug, patting the seat beside her.

"Okay. What's up?" she said.

"I suck. Did you know that you are in the presence of a person who completely and utterly sucks?" Finn said, looking utterly dejected, as he uncapped his Gatorade and took a big gulp.

"Oh dear," Rose repeated sympathetically. "Was it that bad?"

"The date? Oh, no, it was okay I guess," Finn shrugged, opening a tiny box of Dots candies and sharing them between them. Rose watched his shoulder muscles shift, and she fought not to lick her lips.

"So what happened?" Rose asked. "Why're you home so early?"

"Well, Kayla's a dancer, you know," Finn sighed. "She has to be up for four a.m. practices every day, and then she has practice after school, too. So she had to be back home to do her homework and get some sleep, or she'd be trashed for her morning practice tomorrow. At least, that's what she said."

"Well, if she's a ballerina, I'd guess that's about accurate," Rose said. She knew a gymnast who got up every day for four a.m. practices and was always travelling on weekends and had next to no social life because he was always training.

"Truth is, I think both of us couldn't wait for the date to be over," Finn grumbled.

"You didn't have a good time?" Rose asked.

"Well, we had a good time at the art gallery," Finn said. "She's really into that stuff, so I figured I'd take her to my favourite gallery, since there's an exhibition on performance photography right now. But then we went to the coffee-shop for drinks and, well, we kind of didn't have much to talk about."

"So the date wasn't what you'd hoped it would be?" Rose guessed. Finn grumbled in response, cast a glare at his painting, and offered her the bag of Fritos.

"No."

"So…what happened?" Rose asked, feeling very guilty.

"I don't know, I just felt like…" Finn sat forward and rested his elbows on his thighs; Rose saw his stomach muscles clench and her stomach did an odd flip-flop. He sat so close she could smell him; the combination of warm, just-out-of-the-dryer laundry and the tangy scent of paint. "You know how, if you don't really know someone, but you're kind of friends with them, you build up this picture of who they are based on what you think you know? I kind of got it into my head that she was this quiet, soulful girl."

"Who is very good-looking."

"Yeah, okay, that might've been part of it," Finn admitted, grinning bashfully.

"So what was she, then?"

"Well, when we got to the coffee-shop, we got drinks and a dessert—"

"Don't tell me she ate all the chocolate-cake!" Rose gasped in mock horror. It was worth interrupting him for the glittering white smile he gave her, and the deep chuckle that filled the shed.

"I think you know me well enough to know I'd never let that happen," Finn said, grinning. "I'm not that chivalrous."

"Glad to hear it," Rose smiled. "Go on."

"Okay, well, we started talking, and it was like…she'd been all over the world and seen all these fantastic things, you know, things I've never seen. And she kept asking me, have I been here, have I been there?"

"And you haven't been either here or there," Rose sighed.

"Or anywhere," Finn said, smiling wanly. "There's not a whole lot of world travelling with seven kids. It's pretty much Cape Cod and Florida."

"Did you tell Kayla that?" Rose asked.

"Yeah, I cracked a joke about it," Finn sighed, "but I could tell she was disappointed. It's like I'm some kind of leper just because I've never skied the Alps or seen the Mona Lisa."

"Overrated," Rose said, waving a hand; she offered him the bowl of marshmallows. "She's the size of a postage-stamp. Now, the Last Supper? The Birth of Venus? They're worth the cost of a transatlantic airplane ticket."

"That's right," Finn smiled. "You've been everywhere too." Then he smirked. "Maybe you should date Kayla."

"I don't think she's my type," Rose chuckled softly. She flicked her eyes over Finn's face. "If you were to ask my honest opinion about this Kayla girl…I'd say I think she's a little conceited." Finn flicked his eyebrows expressively and made a little grunt, and offered her mini Charleston Chews.

"It has been my experience in life that there are some people in the world who get off thinking they're better than everyone else," Rose sighed. "So you haven't seen the Statue of David yet—we'll go after high school, and, damn it, I will make you sit there and stare at his butt for twenty minutes!" Finn laughed. "And you might have to buff up a little more so we can play Gladiator in the Coliseum." He laughed again, his eyes crinkling at the corners, flashing that gorgeous smile.

"Only if we can go to Turkey and have you play harem-girl," he retorted teasingly, and it was Rose's turn to laugh. She lightly slapped his arm, and was surprised by how firm it was. There was not an ounce of fat on the boy. Warmth spread through her fingers where she touched him, and for a second, Finn's eyes were on her hand. She took it back and had to stop clenching her fingers at the strange sensation that flooded through them, by plunging her hand into the bowl of candy and retrieving a piece of saltwater taffy.

She cleared her throat and smiled, her cheeks lovely and warm. "My point is…Kayla didn't appreciate that you two have both had different life experiences. I'll bet her family doesn't sit watching the game together every week—well, almost every week; I still want to talk to you all about segregating Miller—but just because you guys do that rather than, I don't know, bungee-jumping Niagara Falls, doesn't make you any less interesting than her. Did you understand any of that?"

"You want us to stop making Miller watch the Yankees games in the basement and you think Kayla's a snob for not appreciating the differences between our family circumstances," Finn said, his expression thoughtful. "That right?"

"Well, I didn't call her a snob, but yes," Rose said, cracking some pistachio shells. "So…what happens now, with your portraits?" Finn glanced at the easel, and the canvas propped up glistening against it.

"Well, I thought after tonight, you know, if I went out with her that I would be inspired and I might actually finish this one, but…" Finn threw up a hand toward the painting and gave it a dark look. "I got nothing. Maybe I just need to work on something different."

"I like these ones," Rose said, unfolding from the bench and plucking her favourite paintings from the many stacks of canvases scattered about the room. They were the ones that reminded her the most of Schnabel and Cecily Brown paintings, so full of emotion and colour and sensuality and enigma.

For the rest of the night, until Finn's iPod ran out of battery and they ran out of snacks, Rose and Finn talked of everything and anything; art, travel, school, crushes, their friends, the dance on Friday and the party at Christian Todd's house, music, movies, finding a decent mechanic, books and hated teachers, nemeses at school and who was the best Guitar Hero player—an argument they agreed to settle tomorrow after school on the Wii. Finn looked through her shopping-bags and went through her purse, looking into the life of the average teenage girl through what he found, teased her about the black 'Lacey' thong he found in the little striped Victoria's Secret bag, wrinkled his nose at the perfume samples she had been given, painted two of his fingernails to see what colour her 'Catch Me In Your Net' and 'Bastille My Heart' O.P.I. nail-polishes were like, made her try on her new jewellery to see what it looked like (she refused to show him what her thong looked like on) and told her he liked her in the embellished vest.

"You look like the rock-chick you are," he said, tilting his head to one side as Rose turned in the vest.

"What do you mean, a rock-chick?" Rose laughed softly, cheeks heating up.

"Well, you listen to classic rock, you ride the back of your best-friend's motorcycle, you know about cars, but you wear floral dresses and mini-shorts," Finn said, grinning subtly. "You don't look like what you are underneath."

"How d'you mean?"

"Well…like…I expected you to listen to R&B and pop because you wear pretty clothes," Finn said. "It's just surprising that you'd even know Deep Purple."

"I like rock," Rose said, shrugging, "and I like looking pretty."

"Yeah. You always look pretty," Finn said thoughtfully, intense eyes roving over her face. "But you don't dress the way a girl who listens to classic rock usually dresses."

"I like looking pretty," Rose repeated, shrugging, and Finn smiled again. "And I don't just listen to rock, you know."

"I know," Finn sighed, shaking his head. "You have Taylor Swift on your iPod."

"Hey! Don't insult her! Insult Miley Cyrus, but not Taylor Swift," Rose warned playfully. Finn's eyes widened and he nodded in agreement.

"But, you know, in that vest, you look like you could be some biker's old lady," he said, grinning. "I don't know—throw on some leathers, you'd fit the kind of music you listen to."

"You just wanna see me in my leathers. And what about you?" Rose smiled, and Finn raised his eyebrows. "You listen to rock, but you're friends with artists who listen to indie and emo." Finn just chuckled; Rose stuck out her tongue, and he laughed.

Finn gifted her the painting Rose had loved above all the others; it swirled with colour and sex, reminding her of a Cecily Brown, but gorgeous and exhilarating in its own right, in mouth-watering teals, dark gold, coppers and purples, with two young lovers and a tiny splash of red that marked the girl's lipstick. The painting moved; the lovers came to life, thrusting and writhing together, completely alone and yet totally surrounded by the captive audience of a burning sunset; that's what she saw, anyway. Rose couldn't stop staring at it.

Finn couldn't believe she thought it good enough to even hang up on a bedroom wall.

"What are you talking about?" Rose said indignantly. "Finn, you could put all these in a gallery and sell them for hundreds of dollars apiece—if not more!"

"You're taking the piss now," he said, flushing.

"I'm not! My mom was an art enthusiast, you know," Rose said passionately. "She would search hundreds of galleries for someone with this amount of talent—galleries filled with professional artists' work. Professionals! You're not even a senior in high school and already you have this level of skill. Finn, you're talented." She took his hand and squeezed it subtly. Finn blushed and shook his head, but didn't look like he could respond. Rose turned back to the painting, watching the candlelight make love to it as the couple within it made love to each other. The colours were so gorgeous and mouth-watering, and the way Finn had painted it with smears and speckles and blurred lines and indefinite objects made it swirl and writhe. She couldn't stop staring at it.

When she finally managed to wrench her eyes away, she noticed Finn was staring at her. His eyes were wide and soft, intense, glowing in the candlelight, and he was biting his lower lip thoughtfully, one of the corner dimples of his lips winking.

Then, something strange happened. The air around them started crackling, and heat enveloped her and Rose's breath came quick and shallow, and she could not for the life of her look away from those glowing grey-blue eyes, with their luxuriously thick curling lashes. The way he was looking at her, it was like…like he was seeing through her skin, right into her very soul and her heart, and when somehow their lips were pressed together with the lightest, most delicious pressure, everything went right again. Her heart, which she hadn't known was clenched painfully with loneliness and longing, eased and swelled; she inhaled his warm, tangy scent and sighed softly as his tongue laced against her lower-lip; she gave him entry as his fingers slid through the locks of her hair, and down her throat to her shoulders, his thumbs stroking the column of her throat and her collarbones, and he leaned back into the bench and gently held her to his chest; Rose's fingers skimmed over his hot, soft skin, feeling the ripple of muscle tone beneath whenever he moved, pressing her hands to his chest and then taking them lower, to his waist, trailing her fingers along the V of his hipbones, up to run her fingers through his hair, to trace the curve of his cheek and his jaw, the slope of his straight nose, reaching up to take one of his hands, entwining their fingers. Their lower bodies cradled together snugly, Rose's leg curled over his hip, one of his legs pressed between hers, she propped herself up on her palms and Finn kept giving her those sensitive, sweet kisses, and kisses that took her breath away, kisses that made her feel like she was the only girl in the whole universe, and he was the only boy. His fingers skimmed under the hem of her t-shirt and left fiery brands where they touched her skin, crackling electricity surging through her body.

His fingertips paused over her scar, and their kiss lost some of its momentum when she stiffened. 'Forever Young' by Alphaville was playing softly, and the flickering candlelight made Finn look so beautiful. Propped up on her palms, her lower body pressed against Finn's, Rose licked her lips and gazed down at him. She had no idea kissing could feel like that. She had been kissed before—she loved kisses—but she had never…felt like this. As if leaving this shed without another might kill her.

"That was…" she whispered, realising she was panting, and trembling ever so slightly. Those fingers were wicked brands spreading fire through her skin, as he caressed his fingertips over her scar as if he wasn't repulsed by the smooth, raised skin. A shiver went up and down her spine.

"Yeah," Finn whispered, leaning up to graze his lips ever so softly against hers, curling a hand around her neck to draw her head closer.

Rose had the life frightened out of her and Finn blurted a cry of surprise when his iPod started playing Def Leppard at top volume. They looked at each other and laughed. Finn hooked his arm around her neck and drew her in for a hug as the giggled, then released her. Rose—unwillingly—clambered off his lap and went to the iDock, turned the music down and glanced over her shoulder at Finn. He had pulled his short-sleeved shirt on but hadn't done the buttons up, and sat with his elbows on his knees, his head tilted thoughtfully as he looked her up and down covetously.

"I've never seen your scar," he said quietly, and Rose flushed and looked away.

"It's ugly," she mumbled, and heard Finn stand and cross the tiny expanse of the shed; before she knew what he was doing, he had lifted the back of her top, revealing her lower-back and the jagged scar that crossed it. And then her eyes widened, because as he held her waist in his hands, he was kneeling down behind her and gently pressing his lips along the jagged, raised scar that marked where Rose's spine could have been almost severed during a motorcycle accident. He even kissed the two little dimples at her lower-back, which she was quite fond of. It was the strangest sensation, having her scar kissed; her body couldn't help reacting to those kisses, or the tongue that darted out almost imperceptibly to lick it.

And then she was engulfed in his taut arms, the scent of warmth and paint enveloping her, Finn's head nestled on her shoulder.

"You still think it's ugly?" he whispered. Rose smiled and glanced at him, taking in his profile, his curling lashes, his straight nose, and his lips even plumper than usual from kissing. Something made her heart do an odd pitter-patter beat against her chest and she had to remind herself to breathe when he caught her eye and smiled.

"Now…not as much," she admitted. He gave her a squeeze.

"Good," he murmured. For a little while, they just stood, his hands on her, his arms enfolding her, until the chorus of crickets grew loud and moonlight spilled into the shed, splashing the paint-speckled floor with silver.

"I think I should go in now," she whispered. Finn made a strangled sort of moan.

"Alright," he acquiesced, sounding begrudging. Rose smiled to herself. He didn't sound like he wanted her to leave any more than she wanted to…which was dangerous. Gently, she broke away from him, collected her things, the empty chip packets and candy wrappers, empty Gatorade bottles, and glanced over her shoulder at Finn, who was frowning at his half-finished portrait of Kayla Bird.

"Aren't you coming?" Rose asked quietly.

Finn smiled easily. "You go ahead. I'm gonna stay out here for a little longer. I have some stuff I have to do here," he said. Rose glanced at the painting. Of Kayla Bird. She didn't understand why it hurt her chest to think that, after kissing her, Finn would go back and finish painting Kayla.

"Okay," she said quietly. She reached a hand up and trailed her fingertips across Finn's cheek. "Goodnight."

He smiled, and that smile was balm to the recent wound that had hurt her, thinking he was still thinking about Kayla Bird. She smiled back and left the shed. The golden candlelight spilled onto the lawn and she drew the door to, looking up; the moon was almost full, and glowing brighter than she'd ever remembered it. Stars glittered beautifully, and for a split second she wanted to change direction, go back to the shed, grab Finn and watch the stars with him. But glancing at her illuminated cell-phone screen, she saw that it was past midnight; the twins' bedroom was still illuminated through the blinds and curtains, and someone had left the lighting under the cupboards on in the kitchen; she let herself into the house, remembered not to lock the door so that Finn could get back inside, tiptoed upstairs, and fell asleep, thinking of Finn, and his lips.

A.N.: Well, Tori, I expect reviews! :D