The Finn Factor

“I haven’t got him anything yet,” Amelia said. “I’ll have to do something this week. Are you giving him a painting again?”

“Yep, it’s almost finished.” The ritual of the teddy bear painting would be continued. Which made me think of Marnie looking at them hanging in Fi

“Do you still see Darren?” my mother asked out of the blue.

There was only one Darren I could think of. “You mean my old roommate?”

“That’s the one. He was such a lovely boy.”

“He used to steal my underwear.”

“Ew,” Amelia said.

My mother frowned. “Did he? He seemed so nice.” She turned the page of the newspaper. “What about Sarah?”

“She was arrested for growing pot in the spare room,” I said without looking up from Harvey’s nails. “She moved interstate after that and we haven’t kept in touch.”

Amelia sat back. “Geez, you’ve had a bad run of roomies. Lucky Fi

“That you are,” I agreed.

The year I’d been living in Fi

“Good,” Amelia said. “You should live with us forever.”

Before I could answer, the front door opened, and Fi

“Hey, Fi

“Uh, not really.” He headed for the kitchen then reappeared with a sports drink. He arched his neck as he drank, and my eyes were drawn to the strong column of his throat, to the Adam’s apple that bobbed as he downed the drink, and to the not-so-faint bruise just below his jaw that I’d made last night. Crap. I glanced around the room, wondering if anyone else had noticed the new mark, but it didn’t appear they had.

Or had they noticed too much and were pretending to be oblivious for politeness’s sake? Crappity crap. Lucky they couldn’t see the bite mark on his shoulder or the scratches on his back…

I looked back down at Harvey’s nails and tried to ooze I Haven’t Had Sex With Fi

Fi

“You know this dog is not a toy, right?” he said.

Amelia glanced over at me with a puzzled expression, reflecting the one that was probably on my face, then looked up at her brother. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not normal to paint a dog’s nails.”

I shrugged. “Normal is relative. Harvey doesn’t mind.”

“Harvey is doing whatever it takes so you don’t throw him outside.”

At that, Harvey got up and limped around me to stand beside Fi

Fi

My mother tsked from the sofa. “Vets don’t know everything, and dogs have pure souls. They don’t lie.”

Fi

Harvey whined at Fi

Amelia began to gather the nail polish bottles and put them back in the basket. “We were talking about your birthday,” she said over her shoulder. “Is there something special you want to do?”

Fi

“Not enough.” Amelia sat back on her haunches. “Billie’s coming home all the way from Melbourne for this, so we have to do something.”

“She’s right,” my mother said. “Birthdays are important rites of passage. We should mark it with an appropriate event. I know you’ve been the man of the house for a while now, but have you ever had an initiation into manhood? We could do something to pay you back for having us here.”

Fi

His eyes narrowed on me, then he interrupted, his voice calm. “Has Scarlett told you about her promotion at work?”

“Promotion?” my father echoed. “I thought this was a temporary job?”

Fi

Fi

It had been three days and twenty-two hours since I’d made love to Scarlett. And, even though we still hadn’t discussed it, not one of those hours had passed without me thinking about it. In detail.

Even now, sitting in the silversmithing workshop, where I was supposed to be learning how to work with silver so I could make my own replica of the pipes of Ur, all I could think about was that she was sitting beside me at the bench. Only inches away. Close enough to touch.

I reached across the bench to grab another sheet of silver, brushing her arm, the touch a little too lingering to be accidental. God, I loved her skin. Loved the way it felt, loved the way it smelled, loved the way it tasted…

She stilled and whispered, “Not while I have a sharp pointy thing near my fingers, Fi

Sensible. Besides, in the three days and twenty-two hours since she’d blown my mind, the only time we’d been alone was the drive to this workshop, and that had only been about five minutes, so we hadn’t discussed where things stood between us. How our friendship had fared. We were in some kind of limbo.

Sure, I’d caught her shooting me heated looks, but I’d seen her avoiding my eyes even more, and that made my gut squirm with nerves. If a temporary loss of sanity had ruined our friendship, I’d never forgive myself. Getting us back on track was a priority, and this class was a good start. Two friends, attending an art workshop together. Nothing unusual about that. As long as I could stop imagining myself kissing every bit of skin I could see. Which I had to stop doing. Pronto.

So I sat back and watched her technique again. There were nine people in the workshop and we were each supposed to be making a project. A couple of students were making rings, one person was making a clumpy thing—though, in fairness, I think it was also supposed to be a ring—and Scarlett was making a star shaped pendant. I was making a flute. It wouldn’t be a proper one on my first go. Tonight was more about learning to work with silver and getting the general idea of flute construction.