Richelle Mead owns the VA and Bloodlines series.

Alright, so some of the aspects of this chapter might be a little technically farfetched, I'm not sure, but I had this idea and thought it was impossibly cute, so just go with me on it.

P.S. I remember watching that show Brotherly Love on Disney Channel when I was a kid and I'm pretty sure I remember Lou doing something sort of similar to this once. If you haven't seen that show, go look it up on YouTube. It's only got, like, one season and all the episodes are on there. Totally worth the watch.

Review and let me know what you think!

There are plenty of beautiful things in this world. There was the Sistine Chapel, the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo's David, the flowers growing in the garden outside of Adrian's apartment building. But, I was sure, none of it could ever be more beautiful than the sight I had found myself looking at that afternoon.

Adrian Ivashkov. Standing shirtless and covered in paint in the middle of his living room.

That probably sounds a little more elicit than it actually was. See, after our little heart to heart on the plane ride to Sonya's wedding, Adrian and I had been trying to slowly ease our way back into a normal friendship. Since getting home two weeks ago we'd talked some more, hung out at Clarence's. He was even helping me practice some of those stupid spells Mrs. Terwilliger had suggested I learn. So, when he called me and asked if I could come over Saturday afternoon to help him out with a project for school I'd immediately said of course.

I'll admit, after the automatic response I'd gotten a little nervous about what he could possibly have in mind. I wasn't an artist. And although I did love art and art history, I had trouble interpreting most of Adrian's pieces. So, with trepidation, I'd showed up on his doorstep this afternoon, dressed in something I wasn't afraid to get messy, as per Adrian's orders.

Once I'd seen what he had set up, well... All my trepidation sort of melted away right on the spot, replaced by sheer amazement. His second-hand furniture had all been pushed to one side of the room and tarps covered the carpeting. A large canvas lay on the tarps. Adrian had painted rows of circles on it in different colors. Red, blue, yellow and green. I knew better than to think anything good could possibly come from this, but, despite myself, I was intrigued. And more than a little excited.

Adrian, despite his warnings to dress casually, wore dark designer jeans and a black T-shirt. Both shirt and jeans, however, were covered in paint splotches, so I guess it counted. Adrian took in my outfit with a grin. I was wearing a plain white T-shirt I sometimes wore while exercising and a pair of yoga pants. I figured these pieces wouldn't be hard to replace if I got paint on them. Adrian didn't seem to care about my clothing expenses, though. He just thought it was amusing to see me in something other than my "Alchemist uniform".

"Cute, Sage," he commented. "Although I would've loved to see you roll around in paint while wearing one of those tweed skirts. It probably would've created a nice effect."

I ignored his teasing jab at my wardrobe, but picked up on something else he'd said. "So I'm here to roll around in paint with you?" I asked, my hands on my hips. I wasn't sure if I should be outraged or not. Part of me wanted to yell at him. We'd been figuring out our friendship, finally, and now he had to go and try and make a move...

"Relax, Sage," Adrian said with a smile as if knowing exactly what was going through my mind. "It's nothing so sordid as what you're thinking, so get your mind out of the gutter. It's just Twister." He motioned toward the canvas as though it should have been obvious.

I stared back at him blankly. His jaw dropped.

"No," he said dramatically. "No, please, tell me you're joking. You've never heard of Twister? How is that possible?"

"I've heard of Twister," I explained, defensively. "I've just never played it before. I didn't have time—"

Adrian cut me off. "Well, you've got time now, Sage. So here." He handed me a rolling pin covered in blue paint.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked, holding the dripping brush delicately between two fingers and angled away from my clothes.

"Roll it on," he said picking up his own rolling pin. His dripped red paint, a slightly different shade then the one used to paint the circles on the canvas. I realized my blue was a little different from the blue on the canvas as well. "Anywhere you might touch the canvas. Kick off your shoes. You'll need to coat your hands and feet too." He rolled up his jeans and then rolled a generous amount of red paint onto his knees and then the front of his shirt.

"Are you serious?" I asked incredulously. "Why would I want to do that?"

Adrian sighed dramatically and paused what he was doing. "It's for my art class, Sage. The project is to create something in the post-modern style. We'll play Twister covered in paint so that we leave a trail behind us. It'll look cool. Besides I thought this would be more meaningful than painting a soup can," he added with a smirk.

I didn't laugh. I gave him a long, appraising look, trying to decide whether or not this was some sort of trick, and then finally decided I was already here. I might as well help him, right? He smiled a little as I began coating myself in paint and explained the rules.

"Don't fall," he said with a comically serious look on his face. "You can only touch the canvas on the colored circles selected by the spinning wheel. If you touch the canvas in any way, you lose." He smirked again. "Plus, everyone in my art class will see what terrible balance you have."

"Won't this paint dry on our clothes before it has a chance to transfer to the canvas?" I asked, ignoring him, and rolling paint onto the knees of my yoga pants.

"I mixed it with some chemicals to keep it wet longer," he explained. "It should work, but we'll keep the paint trays by the canvas, just in case we need to re-apply. You ready?" He held up a spinning wheel that had the four colors labeled on it as well as parts of the body. Right hand, right foot, left hand, left foot.

"Yeah," I said, cringing a little as I dipped one of my feet into the blue tray. It was wet and slimy and cold.

Adrian spun the wheel and we both watched as it turned and turned. "Left foot, yellow," he said and stepped onto a yellow spot on the canvas, his red painted foot leaving a mark as he stepped down.

I copied the action and looked up at him. "We're really gonna do this?" I asked.

Instead of answering me, Adrian spun the wheel again. "Right hand, green."

###

We'd been at it for about twenty minutes, both of us laughing at the funny positions the other was bent into. I had to admit, this was sort of fun.

"Right hand, blue," Adrian called.

I bent forward more, stretching my right arm out, and managed to plant my hand firmly on the blue circle. Adrian was still struggling behind me. He reached over, across my back, trying to maintain his balance. I figured it would have been easier for someone of his height, with a longer arm span than me, to reach the circles he needed to. But Adrian stumbled, his hand reaching automatically to catch himself. Problem was, the only thing to catch himself on was me. I felt the palm of his hand make contact with my butt as he swayed, trying not to topple over.

"Adrian!" I hissed over my shoulder. He immediately removed his hand, but didn't look apologetic whatsoever. As I looked back to where his hand had been I could just make out a few specks of red paint on my hip. No doubt from Adrian's right hand. Great. Now I had Adrian's red hand print painted on the seat of my yoga pants.

What were the people at Amberwood going to say when I came home with a guys handprint painted on my butt? Julia and Kristen would love that.

"You did that on purpose!" I accused. "You lured me here and set this whole thing up just so you'd have a reason to feel me up."

Adrian smirked. "Oh, shucks. You caught onto my master plan." He shook his head. "What are we? In eighth grade, Sage? I've got better moves than this if I wanted to feel you up. Would you like to see them?"

I blushed, turning my head away under the guise of readjusting my hands on the canvas. As he spoke his smirk had morphed into something far more suggestive and I couldn't look at him. I was almost mortified to know that he was standing above me, staring down at the mark he'd left on me when he fell...

"Hey!" I said, remembering the rules he'd laid out. "You fell!"

"No I'd didn't," he argued, all traces of suggestion gone from his tone as he got defensive. "I just lost my balance. That's allowed, as long as I don't fall on the canvas."

"But you fell on me," I pointed out. "That's the same thing. And," I drew out the word as I prepared for total victory, "your hand's still not touching the blue circle. So, that means you lose, right?"

I started to push myself up off of the canvas when Adrian's hands pushed me back down. "Not so fast, Sage," he said arrogantly. "I made up this little game we're playing."

"No you didn't," I said, pushing up again. "Milton Bradley did. And I'm not falling for this, Adrian. You lost, now let me up."

"Just one more turn, Sage. If I lose my balance again then I will gracefully bow out." His hand was flat on my back, still keeping me from standing. I wondered, briefly, if his hand print on my back would be as noticeable considering my back was already covered him paint.

I scoffed at that. "Gracefully bow out. You mean lose." Shaking my head at his arrogance I shrugged his hand off. "Fine. One more turn. But I get to spin the wheel. And you better get your hand on that blue spot."

Adrian agreed and, after a small readjustment of his feet, managed to place his palm on the blue circle. He was leaning over me a little, but thankfully wasn't touching me in anyway. I was worried that he'd end up making me fall and then claim victory by default. It would be just like him to do something like that.

I reached up with my left hand and grabbed the color wheel, dragging it closer and giving it a spin. "Right foot, red," I said, already planning how to maneuver myself into the correct position.

"Shit," Adrian murmured. He wasn't wrong to be upset about the outcome of the spin. It would be tricky to for him to get his right foot around me and across the canvas. Not impossible though with a little knowledge of physics and decent balance.

I lifted up on my palms a little and stretched my leg out sideways, easily landing on an open red spot about a foot and a half over. My foot, still coated in a decent amount of blue paint, made a squishing noise when I touched the canvas.

Adrian, in a halfhearted attempt not to touch me, tried to drape his long leg over my back, effectively stepping over me to get his right foot to that red circle. Unfortunately for him, and me as it turned out, stepping over me wasn't as easy as it would have been if he had been standing up. His foot clipped my back as I pushed up on my palms to reach the circle, causing him to stumble. He toppled forward, knocking me down and pinning me to the canvas. His right hand bracing himself on that stupid blue circle was the only thing that stopped him from crushing me completely.

I felt my paint stained T-shirt smush into the canvas, marking my failure for everyone to see. But I wasn't the one who had failed!

"Adrian!" I cried, trying to roll him off of me. He'd kept his weight off of me for the most part, but he was still pressed up against my back. He rolled sideways, onto his back. That made me feel a little better. His shirt was still just as paint covered as mine was and left a nice imprint on the canvas. At least he hadn't tried to pin the blame on me.

Adrian closed his eyes and laughed which, however unwanted the effect was, lightened my mood. Even though I wanted to be mad, I couldn't help but roll over onto my back and smile as well.

"See, Sage? That was fun. You should have more of it sometime," Adrian said, opening his eyes to look at me.

I shook my head and stared at him. "You fell on me. How is that fun?" I gestured to the canvas and paint beneath us. "Now it looks like we both lack balance."

Adrian stopped laughing for a moment, giving me an oddly serious look, much too serious for our current, comical, situation. "Believe me, Sage. If there's one thing you and I don't lack it's balance."

"What on earth does that mean?" I asked, leaning up on one elbow to look at him.

He just looked back, that serious expression still on his face for a moment before it melted into a smirk. "It means..." he said, drawing out the word as he reached over and dipped his hand into the paint tray, red paint dripping from his fingers as he pulled it out. "This!"

I screamed as he reached over and grabbed me, gooey red paint smearing over my arms and mixing with the blue paint on my T-shirt. I wriggled out of his grasp, laughing as I grabbed a fistful of paint from my own paint tray and whipped it back at him. He dove at me pinning me to the floor once more. We were both laughing and trying to smear as much paint on the other person as possible. Adrian reached up and traced his fingers across my tattooed cheek, leaving a smear of red paint in its wake.

That one small gesture changed the intensity of the situation enough that I started to feel uncomfortable. We were doing it again. Putting ourselves in the kind of awkward personal situation that I'd told him time and time again we should avoid. I couldn't really blame it all on him though. While he'd been tracing my cheek, I'd had my blue painted fingers tangled in his hair, and not only to turn it blue either.

I quickly disengaged from him, sitting up and then stepping off the canvas completely. He followed suit, staring back at our masterpiece.

"That's what you were hoping to accomplish?" I asked skeptically, looking down at the puddle of paint we'd left behind in our wake. There were handprints and footprints everywhere and I could see the outline of my body, two red knee prints on either side of it where Adrian had fallen. His body's outline was parallel to mine. Now that his red paint and my blue paint were beginning to mix together, purple swirls and patches were forming on the canvas in places both of our bodies had touched. It was a little startling because, even though we hadn't touched that much during the game—aside from out little paint fight at the end there—it was like he was everywhere I had been and vice versa. Somehow together, even in our separation.

It was strangely... beautiful.

Adrian, still looking at the canvas, wrinkled his nose a little. "Think I should have went with the soup can?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No. No, actually, I think I get this now. It's thoughtful and smart. A statement about the entanglement of everyday life. How people cross paths without ever knowing it. I like it," I said, looking up at him.

Adrian smiled proudly, like I'd understood exactly what he'd set out to do with this project, but then that infuriatingly mischievous smirk took its place. "That's nice and all, Sage. But really I only went with Twister so I'd get to see you all pretzeled and covered in paint." He even winked at me.

I threw the closest thing to me. The red rolling pin. It hit him square in the chest and bounced off, causing him to laugh so hard he doubled over.

"Kidding, Sage," he said between gasps for air. "Just kidding."

"I know," I said seriously. "Doesn't mean I didn't want to throw something at you anyway."

He conceded the point with a shrug and a nod, then looked down at his shirt. "This is starting to dry to my skin," he said with a grimace. Then he reached for the hem and pulled the T-shirt over his head in one quick movement.

So, that's how I ended up staring at Adrian's bare, paint spotted chest. Staring wasn't even the right word. I was gawking. I couldn't look away. I even bit my lip a little, looking at his smooth skin. My only saving grace was that he wasn't looking at me. He didn't see the way my eyes followed the muscles in his shoulders down towards his surprisingly contoured abdomen, then even further down toward the V shape that disappeared into his jeans. He was too busy wiping his hands off on a clean rag and checking the time on his phone.

"Good," he said, finally looking back at me. I straightened out my expression, glad for all the practice I'd gotten from the Alchemists in hiding my thoughts. "We have time to go get lunch while this thing dries a little. You can go get cleaned up first."

"Oh," I laughed. "I'm getting lunch out of this too?"

"Of course," he said deadpan. "I never feel someone up without buying them some sort of meal."

He laughed and held up his hands in front of him, obviously seeing the desire to throw something at him flash across me face. "Kidding, kidding. But," he added, grabbing a clean T-shirt from a pile of laundry on his coffee table and tossing it to me, "you might want to put this on. There's a big red hand print on your butt. Wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong idea."

I turned away from him and headed toward the bathroom, trying to hide the smile that was threatening to break out on my face. He was infuriating, but I kind of liked it.

Once in the bathroom I peeled off my paint encrusted shirt and replaced it with Adrian's clean one. It was red and hung down to my mid-thigh, but it smelled like him. Like his detergent and cologne and just him. I looked up into the mirror to see how awful I looked after our little artistic endeavor.

I was covered in purple and red paint. I was almost surprised by how little of the original blue, that had been my color, was still visible. Adrian had left his mark on me it seemed. I realized that statement was even truer than I had originally thought when I glanced at my cheek. Painted over my lily tattoo was a brilliant red splotch. A splotch that just happened to be shaped like a heart.

That's what Adrian was doing when he painted my cheek, a part of me thought, calmly and rationally. The rest of me was going, He painted a heart over the lily. He painted it right on top of the lily. Covered it up. Did he mean to do it? Is he trying to tell me something? Like that love can conquer all or..?

Stop it, Sydney. You're over thinking it. He loves you, he's told you that before, and he painted a heart on your cheek. That's it. That's why you shouldn't hang out with him in the first place.

I quickly brushed that thought aside though. I wanted to hang out with Adrian, even though I knew I shouldn't. I couldn't seem to force myself to stay away from him. I gave the heart on my cheek another look, thinking about washing it off, and then decided to leave it. I was never going to get the rest of the paint off of my face and arms and out of my hair. Why worry about a little heart shaped splotch on my cheek?

Adrian looked surprised when I came out of the bathroom, still mostly covered in paint. But it was my left cheek that his eyes lingered on. He smiled, now wearing new paint splattered jeans and a T-shirt, and held out a hand.

"Shall we?"

I smiled back—watching those brilliant green eyes focus time and time again on my painted cheek causing a strange flutter in my chest—and took his hand.