A.N.: Okay, I'm really craving the album Vault; Def Leppard Greatest Hits (1980-1995) because I keep having to listen to the songs on YouTube because iTunes is crap and doesn't sell any of their stuff, and that's all I can think about, buying it, and it's making me mad! Grrr! Anyway, this is dedicated to everyone who's reviewed so far; thank you!
Rose Amongst Thorns
Chapter Thirteen
A Little Birdie
After dinner, where Rose stocked up on juicy beef tacos dripping in cheese and sour cream, Mexican rice and refried beans, she finished her day's assignments for math, English and History and French, wrote an email to Pogue about cross-country practice and the injuries she had acquired and her conversation with Evan. She pasted a copy of a blue Julian Schnabel art piece in her journal and started writing about it and about her day, gluing a tiny square of her bandage to the page with the logo of the Casa Orozco napkin she had cut up, and after programming the numbers into her phone, the piece of notepaper on which Jenna, Ria and Pearl had scribbled their phone-numbers.
She got okayed by Regina to go to the mall the next afternoon with the girls, called Aimee's cell to tell her she could come, picked up Gone With the Wind and started reading where she had left off. She was okay until she stood up to go to the bathroom, when her entire body screamed in protest. Every joint was bruised in some way or cut up; Hailey had given her the workout of a lifetime, but she had survived, and would survive the aftermath of it. Rose went to the bathroom and was just climbing back onto the comfy chaise when she heard the sound of Doug's voice.
"Just keep your head up, dude. Don't be afraid of the ball. You own the ball." She put her book down open on her stomach and peeked outside. Down in the yard just below her window, in the shade of the climbing tree, stood Ian and Doug. Ian had his shoulders hunched, clutching a baseball bat, his lips pressed closed in a grim line of determination. Doug stood a few yards away, holding a baseball and wearing a baseball-mitt.
"Okay, ready?" Doug asked. Ian nodded and Doug threw an arching pitch right in Ian's strike zone. Ian pulled back and let rip; Rose laughed and smacked a hand over her mouth, realising it wasn't funny that Ian had just launched the baseball right at Doug's head and hit its target.
"See?" Doug said, smiling, rubbing his skull with one hand. "You can do it!"
"You're like a little Ortiz!" Finn said; Rose glanced around and spotted his gleaming blonde hair shining as he exited the kitchen; he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and strode across the yard almost to the brook, where a largish garden shed stood mostly in the shade, one wall exposed to sunlight, with ivy and roses creeping up the sides.
Ian grinned unabashedly and Rose settled back and watched Doug with Ian for a few minutes. This was the family in their natural, unimpeded habitat. The guy in the backyard teaching his little brother how to hit wasn't being obnoxious or unkind—the reverse, actually. It seemed when Rose wasn't around, and when Doug didn't feel the need to put his guard up, he was actually an okay kind of guy. Tired out from practice, Rose couldn't read any longer without risking falling asleep. Her pain-riddled body protesting, she rose and made her way downstairs. She filled a glass with ice-water and was watching out the window in the back door when she noticed movement in the shed. Hadn't Finn left it already?
Decision instantly made, Rose opened the back-door and slipped out into the yard. She wanted to know why Finn went to the garden-shed, and why, after twenty minutes, he hadn't come out of it. She wondered what he was doing, trying to block the unsavoury image of Finn with a bunch of Playboys out of her mind. Ian and Doug both froze
"Good hitting," she said, raising her palm for Ian to smack as she strolled past, sipping her water. It was still lovely and hot outside, the gentle breeze cooling her skin and playing tenderly with her hair.
"Thanks," Ian grinned, smacking her palm.
"What? Nothing about the pitching?" Doug asked.
Rose shrugged. "It was okay." Ian laughed. She strolled down to the end of the yard, listening to the gentle gurgle of the brook, and the insects buzzing and chirping in the brush at the edges, the birds still singing in the trees, and the breeze rustling the leaves like soft sighs. She glanced over her shoulder; from here, the house looked far away, and the noise of it was rendered muffled; she knew why Finn chose this place to get away, though what he was doing inside was a mystery. She just hoped it didn't involve a stack of Playboys. She didn't think she could handle that just yet. She'd only been here a week.
Bracing herself, Rose walked up the step onto the tiny porch, grabbed the door-handle and tugged. Finn stood with his back to her, earphones plugged into his ears, and something told her she should just back out of the room before he noticed her, but she was too stunned to move. Finn was not, thank goodness, doing anything unsavoury. He was, in fact, holding a paint palette—which was actually a recycled cake-tin lid—and standing in front of a canvas propped up on a large easel. Around him, behind him, on the floor, propped up against the walls, stacked on the rusty old cream garden bench, set precariously behind old plant-pots on the shelves of a faded potting-bench, were dozens if not hundreds of other canvases, in all sizes and painted in every style from cubism to fauvism to neoclassical to modern to romantic to still life and abstract. There were also portraits, the paintings furthest from the walls and on the tops of the piles. They were obviously the most recent, and none of them, as far as she could tell, were finished.
She peeked around Finn's back and saw that he was working on a relatively new painting; a pair of slender arms was crossed at the bottom of the canvas, and the outline of an angular face and slender throat hovered above. There was no mistaking the subject; Kayla Bird.
She tiptoed up to Finn, mesmerised by watching him paint. Though the rest of his body kept absolutely still, his arm worked in a frenzy over the canvas, spreading with it whirls of gorgeous colours. She realised she was hovering just as Finn shifted and glanced around; he yelled and jumped about a foot in the air, stumbled and almost fell into the canvas before he checked himself, clutching his heart; his paintbrush had dropped to the floor. Rose shivered. He popped the earphones out of his ears and gasped, clutching his heart.
"Jesus, Rosie! Okay, my life is flashing before my eyes!" he gasped, kneading his chest with the heel of his palm. "You scared the shit outta me."
"Sorry," Rose mumbled, blushing hotly.
"That's alright," Finn said, waving a hand idly, still kneading his heart with the other. "Just—just tap me on the shoulder or something next time."
"Or you could turn the easel so you're facing the door," Rose said softly. "You never know who might sneak up on you. A pagan scarecrow god, a homicidal hook-handed reverend, a Reaper…"
"You don't happen to watch Supernatural, do you?"
"I love it—well, I mean," Rose blushed, "I can't watch it without Pogue or a comforter to hide under, but the storylines are cool."
"And you like looking at the guys?" Finn added, smiling playfully. Rose blushed.
"Yes. Perhaps, a little," she said softly. "I'm sorry—I'll go. I was just curious, but I see you're working, so—"
"No—stay," Finn said, smiling, as she paused on the threshold. "Sit—stay awhile." He rearranged the canvases off the garden bench and patted it. "Sit down. Take a load off. You look like you could use it." Afraid to touch anything that might still be glistening with wet paint, Rose slipped sideways past his easel and sat down on the bench, which wobbled ominously—"Whoops!" Finn reached out and grabbed her hand before the seat of the bench could collapse beneath her. "Sorry! I forgot that's still broken." He pulled her up off the bench before she could fall in through the frame.
"It's okay," Rose said quietly; she looked at his hand clamped around hers, and Pearl's voice wafted through her memory, telling her she'd thought he'd wanted to hold her hand. He released her, clearing his throat, and shuffled around the shed until he'd found a small, three-legged old stool, as paint-splattered as the floor. Rose made sure there was no wet paint on the seat and perched on the edge of it.
"So, Evan told me Hailey gave you those," Finn said, leaning against the old potting-bench, ankles crossed, arms folded loosely, eyeing her many bandages and band-aids. Rose blushed, but smiled.
"You guys are too funny," she said quietly. Finn blinked and blushed lightly.
"How so?"
"You're so gossipy," Rose smiled. "I've never met a more yakkity gaggle of old hens—including the old women at Bob's Giant Burger who spent half an hour telling me young ladies shouldn't wear shorts." Finn laughed.
"So, what did you do to incur the wrath of the Hun?" he asked.
"The who?"
"The Hun…Oh, yeah, you wouldn't know; um, that's Hailey's nickname. Ev and I made it up when she was still living next-door," Finn said, grinning. "You know, Attila the Hun—'cause she's so scary."
"And now she's Evan's honey," Rose smirked, and Finn laughed again. She sighed and looked around the potting shed—his makeshift studio. The portraits weren't finished, but the other paintings were, and some of them were absolutely gorgeous—like early Frances Bacon or Schnabel paintings, with a little bit of Cecily Brown and Wassily Kandinsky and Picasso thrown in. The portraits were the only ones he hadn't finished, though there were more of them.
"I know what you're thinking," Finn sighed, touching his brush to the canvas in front of him. "This guy never finishes anything."
"No… I just… Well…Why don't you finish them?" Rose asked curiously.
"It's so bizarre—I get these inspirations, you know, and I come here all ready to throw my vision down on the canvas, but once the rush is gone, I freeze up. It's like I get painter's block or something," Finn grumbled. Rose leaned over and picked up a half-completed painting showing the bare shoulder and neck of a girl who was half looking away from the viewer, but her hair and features had never been filled in; he had painted the little birthmark on her shoulder.
"So…Kayla Bird, hm?" she smiled, showing him the portrait. He blushed.
Finn placed his brush in a cup of water and cleaned it. "How do you know Kayla?"
"I don't," Rose said softly, "but the girls were talking about you this afternoon at lunch, and they told me. You like her, don't you?" Finn turned his back to her and shoved his hands through his hair. When he faced her again, there was a streak of blue reaching up from his forehead and wilting one of his curls. Rose had to smile at it. He looked so embarrassed and anxious she almost felt sorry for him.
"I wasn't aware this was common knowledge," he said, blushing. Rose smiled.
"I don't think it is to anyone who doesn't know you," she said quietly. "But Jenna and Pearl and Ria spend most of their time ogling the 'hotness brigade' that is the McGowan family, and you notice things. You were sketching her at lunch today, weren't you—that's why you closed your notebook when she sat down at your table." He blushed hotter. Rose smiled.
"Nothing to be embarrassed about," she smiled. "Have you asked her out yet?"
"Not exactly."
"What does 'not exactly' mean? She didn't say no?"
"No, she didn't say no—I haven't actually asked her out," Finn said, smirking slightly.
"Well, you should," Rose said decisively. Finn stared at her, and then laughed. His smile lit up his face, and made Rose blush. "What?"
"You! You just sounded so…authoritative," he chuckled. Rose shrugged one shoulder. "Why d'you think I should ask her out?"
"You like her; that's a start. And life's too short, trust me," Rose said quietly. "Like—I had a crush on Garrett Norwood in my class in North Carolina—he had the most gorgeous arms—he was a swimmer—and I didn't do anything about it, and now I'm here. Opportunity lost." Finn flicked his eyes over her face.
"You don't look like a girl who wouldn't take what she wanted if she wanted it bad enough," Finn said thoughtfully. "Why didn't you ask him out?"
"Er, well…I saw Garrett's arms for the first time and fell in love with them, and the next day my parents had their accident," Rose said quietly, blushing hotly. Finn blinked, and then tried not to smile.
"Oh."
"Yeah. See—life's too short. I demand that you call up this Kayla Bird girl and ask her out on a date," Rose said. "One of us should be able to ask their crush out."
"Crush? Rose!"
"What? Don't guys get crushes?"
"No."
"Then what do you get? Do you have a 'thing' for Kayla?"
The shed door opened and Doug appeared, frowning.
"What're you two doing in here?"
"Talking about Finn's thing," Rose said evenly, and her mouth twitched as she tried not to grin at the blush that coloured Finn's cheeks a dark, gorgeous red. Doug blinked.
"Okay." He disappeared. Rose glanced at Finn and smiled.
"You are the oddest person," he declared, shaking his head slightly. She swung her legs childishly and smiled.
"Well, are you going to call her?" Rose asked.
"Who?"
"Kayla!"
"Oh." Finn glanced at her. "You think I should?"
"Yes. Even if it doesn't come to anything, you can't look back in ten years and wonder 'what if'," Rose said. "Where's your cell?"
"It's up in my room." Rose tutted and pulled her Motorola A630 out of her pocket.
"Here. Borrow this. D'you want a drink?"
"Er… Gatorade, please," Finn smiled shyly; Rose nodded, picked up her glass and left the shed, and walked slowly back to the house, took her time choosing the colour of the Gatorade from the multipack crate from Costco and refilling her glass of water. Finn met her in the kitchen, trying not to grin too widely.
"Success?" she asked, smiling, handing him the Gatorade bottle.
"Yup. We're going out tomorrow night," he smiled.
"You and who?" Rose jumped; Regina had just walked into the kitchen, glancing at her third-born son. Finn blushed a grin.
"Finn's got a date with Kayla Bird," Rose said, and he nudged her. She smiled.
"Oh! You do! You've had a crush on her for the longest time!" Regina said happily.
"Mom!"
"Apparently, guys don't get crushes," Rose said, sighing. Regina looked mildly confused.
"So what do they get?" she asked.
"They get things, apparently," Rose said; Regina just rolled her eyes amusedly and shook her head.
"I guess that means you'll be wanting to borrow my car," she said, glancing at her son.
"Er…Yeah, that'd be good, thanks," Finn said.
"You might wanna talk to your brother about fixing up your car if you're starting dating now," Regina said thoughtfully, pouring herself a cup of tea.
"You have a car?" Rose asked, surprised. He was always bumming rides off Evan.
"Of sorts," Finn said dryly.
"Why don't you show Rose," Regina smiled. "She knows a lot more about cars than I do."
"Mom, anyone knows a lot more about cars than you do," Finn laughed. Regina only smiled. Finn glanced at Rose. "You wanna see it?"
"Sure," Rose smiled. She followed Finn out to the barn, which served as a sort of quasi-garage downstairs and guest-house upstairs. It was Sean's haunt, but he wasn't there when Finn opened the barn doors and ushered Rose inside. The dying sun flashed off the freshly-waxed side-panels of a vintage mint Harley. There was an old broken-in suite of living-room furniture and a huge drum-kit set up with amps, and on the other side of the garage, what looked like the shape of a low, long car covered in a dust-sheet.
Finn went over to it and carefully removed the dust-sheet. Rose's jaw dropped and she almost moaned with pleasure at the sight of the car. It was a vintage 1967 Chevy Impala—black, four-door, hard-top, and drop-dead gorgeous. It wasn't a pretty car; it was a tough, masculine car that, if it pulled up next to you at a red light, you'd lock your doors.
"Oooh, Finn, where did you get it?" Rose gasped, love-struck. Her daddy would have killed to own this gorgeous vintage muscle-car. He wasn't just a Harley fanatic.
"My grandpa died last Christmas," Finn said, unlocking the front door and tugging it open. "He left it to me in his will." He slung himself into the driver's seat, hands lazily holding the steering-wheel.
"Aren't you gonna start it?"
"It doesn't start. Look under the hood," Finn smiled privately; Rose lifted the hood and blinked.
"I think I've found your problem," she said softly, closing the hood again, making sure it latched. "You don't have an engine." Finn grinned from behind the windshield.
"It's spread out behind," he said, and Rose walked around the car to the worktop bench built at the back of the garage, which was spread with a dust-sheet and covered with engine parts. The door of the Impala creaked open and slammed shut heavily, and Finn sighed, his hands in his pockets, as he sidled up beside her. "Grandpa hadn't driven it for at least fifteen years, so it needs a lot of work. Sean's rebuilding the engine…or he will, as soon as he can find the right parts we need to replace the busted ones." Rose leaned against the trunk of the car.
"When this car is fixed up, it's gonna be a chick-magnet," she said, stroking the glossy black paintwork.
"I'm hopin'," Finn grinned playfully.
A.N.: Please review!
