"...Babe, there's something lonesome about you897Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdeekgH5gUK
Something so wholesome about you897Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAXzoEx1QBD
Get closer to me..." Hozier897Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUD65IvwEhd
897Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNj4EPumMMV
Then897Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl85OjcHwXw
"Step aside from the window, now!"
The sound of Colton, Miles's father's, voice echoed all around, stern as always, tough we all knew him too well to be frightened. There was certain hushed note in his tone, ever so slight but there nonetheless. No matter how he tried, small interest in new gossip sat silently in deep corners of his personality and I knew it was only time he would join us behind the curtains.
"You are all acting like gossiping, old hags from suburbs!" He was relentless in his fight against his desire to know, and I stifled a laugh when he silently joined us next to the window. Peaking through the crack we made in blinds, he whispered, "What's going on?"
"We have new neighbors," Miles informed him, his voice equally hushed as his father's. There was nothing strange about new neighbors moving in, especially for Miles's upper class neighborhood, newly built and still offering homes for sale. On any other occasion, all five of us - Miles, Miles's parents and little brother, and me - wouldn't even spare them a second glance, tough the difference of this case had us all crouched behind window overlooking the house on our left, subtly observing.
It was not common for people to move in into the new house on midnight, without a moving truck and just few suitcases in their trunk.
There was a man and a guy, probably his son, silently moving from their car toward the door. It took them exactly two times to collect all their belongings and move them to the front porch. The man was fumbling with his keys, his impatience visibly growing into rage; but the boy stood impartially beside him. He seemed unaffected, what with his hands stuffed in front pocket of his jeans and bored expression on his face, as if he was used to all this already. He scanned their surrounding, his gaze lingering on every house in the neighborhood until it slowly swept over the window we were peaking from.
Several bones were hurt and heads clashed in our vigorous rush to crouch down in order to avoid him spotting us. Miles threw himself on the floor, followed by his fathers and; his little brother Oliver yelped and went running up the stairs. Unaccustomed to this whole ordeal of peeping and hiding, my reflexes kicked in a second too late and my eyes connected with his for a split moment, before I too followed the Black family.
"Did he see us?" Bruce, Miles' father whisper-yelled.
"Negative!"
"Well this is just great," Colton shook his head in disapproving notion, as if we were the ones to be blamed for his sprawled on the floor self, "now we need to make amends!"897Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2uGFPCLupQ
Unfortunately for us, the most acceptable form of making amends in Colton's eyes were waking up at the crack of dawn and baking several pies we were to bring over. We were woken up, pampered and dressed up and urged to new neighbors' house, offering our type of olive branch.
The look of their faces - who introduced themselves as Jack and Finn Beckless - was something I could quite sympathize with. The older man, Jack, didn't strike me as a person who would enjoy sharing a blueberry pie in the patio of his new home with neighbors that spent more than an hour stalking them through the window the night before.
It wouldn't have been awkward at all if those neighbors weren't Black family, and if I weren't their plus one, I'm sure, for we possessed a certain charm not a lot of people appreciated.
"I appreciate you bringing us a welcoming gift this early in the morning," said Jack, stressing the time of day we so eloquently chose for our visit. Five of us nodded, seated right across of him on a sofa. I was reminded of a Bennet women in Pride and Prejudice, the scene when they visited sick Jane, and I giggled. My giggle was not, in fact, as soundless as I imagined it and it rolled out of my mouth in an full out laughter that sliced through the uncomfortable silence.
"Um, sorry," I cleaned my throat, loudly. "Continue."
"Right," Jack did as I advised him, but there was something in the way he looked at me that I couldn't quite digest. The more I focused on his facial expressions, the more I was becoming aware of the way he looked at all of us. Disapproval was what I could pinpoint among different emotions in his eyes, and it what angered me most.
My eyes ran away from his as he continued chatting with Colton and Bruce, and it was my silent rebellion from his judgment. Instead I focused on Finn, wanting to discover whether he possessed same flaws as his father. However, there was smile painted on his lips, one that was deep and real and it completely altered his entire appearance. When serious, I realized Finn looked very much like his father; his demeanor serious and unapproachable. His brows as if were together constantly, stern look enhanced with narrows eyes and lips pressed tight.
But when Finn was smiling, small crow's feet would appear on the corners of his eyes and he would radiate with the happiness of child. It was contagious, that smile, and invited one on my own out, tough I attempted in hiding it.
Somewhere along the chatter that suddenly revived among elders, they have decided to sent us 'kids to take a nice stroll on the beach'. I have become painfully aware of that decision of theirs only after Miles shoved me and told me to 'move it', so I begrudgingly took my shoes off and followed the boys.
"You were drooling," Miles whispered to me, as we slowly trekked the warm sand. My eyes instantly snapped from Oliver and Finn that were walking in front of us and connected with Miles twinkling ones.
"I most definitely did not."
Miles smile deepened; his eyes reaching the radiant color of the cloudless sky above us. Bumping my shoulder with his, he continued, "You did too. Here let me get that for you."
His hand flew to wipe the nonexistent drool off my mouth, and swatted it away quickly. He broke into a sprint, me hot of his heals. It wasn't long before I gave up and sent Oliver after his brother to avenge me, seeing as the eight year old boy desperately wanted to be a part of our game.
Slowing down, I approached the sea, making patterns in the sand and fighting the waves that quickly took them away. At its wake, summer was like an angry lover; giving us its best before it retreated and left us struggling to fall back into the routine of school and work. The last days of August were the hottest; sea the most inviting and laying around never felt so satisfying.
"You were staring," a voice snapped me out of my daze, but I showed no proofs of the effect as Finn appeared by my side. "Twice."
It took me a fraction of a second before I realized what was he pointing out, and I laughed out loud. Deliberately, this time.
"Your confidence is cute."
He gave me a lopsided grin, his eyes deeply staring into my own. There was something about his eyes, his gaze; so intense and meaningful that I find myself wanting to know. Wanting to know everything about, how he could pierce through my soul, as if my entire life was set out before him like a map and he was memorizing all its roads and shortcuts. It didn't made me insecure, quite contrary, there was certain power Finn transformed with his eyes; as if he was lending me a split of his confidence.
"Your family is nice," he said suddenly; ending the silence that had merged with wind and waves. "Your little brother is really sweet child."
"Unfortunately, I'm not one of the Blacks," I retorted, shrugging. "Not in traditional, bound-by-blood way, at least." My eyes slowly left his and swam in the sea, getting lost somewhere away; faraway where nothing and everything mattered. Silence reigned again, slightly awkward; tough I forced myself not to take notice on the person besides me. Instead, I took in my surroundings; the way the sea and the sky were one, connected with a thin line way in the horizon. The way the Sun glared at us, threatening to melt everything around if it wasn't the wind to reduce its warmth. The way the wind played with my hair; the way Finn's shoulder brushed my own, ever so slightly that I thought it was wind if I hadn't felt the warmth of his body.
"Why do you have a bruise on your eye?"
That questions of his made me do a double take, my eyed quickly finding his in order to decipher whether I have heard him right. Finn's face was the same, tough the smile disappeared, but he looked far to relaxed to have had said that.
"I beg your pardon?"
"The bruise," he repeated, lifting his finger to trace the fading mark around my left eye. "Why do you have it?"
"Why did you move at midnight?"
He was taken aback, his hand retreated from my face and his own changed for a second. Gone was the relaxed boy, and got replaced with the stern replica of his father; before be tried to brush my question off.
"You are evading the question," he pointed out, his eyes leaving my own and swimming across the glistening water.
"So are you."
"Your question could be meaningless," continued Finn, his voice getting lost on the crash of the waves, "we could have been moving from a far and spent thee entire day driving."
"You could have," I shot back immediately, "but the way you worded that sentence confutes your reason."
I spotted Oliver and Miles playing around in the sand, the latter kept sending me meaningful glances and smirks I tried to avoid. There was nothing remotely worthy of that between Finn and I, only a conversation filled with spite and non-traditional questions.
"Or I could be secret spy sent on a very mysterious and secret mission to save girls with blue eyes," Finn said suddenly, glancing at me pointedly.
"My eyes are brown."
"I wasn't talking about the color of you eyes."
My breath hitched and I peeled my eyes off of his in a heartbeat, unable to stand the volume of his gaze. It was true that I had bruise on my eye; tough it was fading and I had thought it wouldn't be visible anymore. Discussing the origin if said bruise with a stranger - or anyone for that matter - wasn't something I was keen off.
"Hardly," I murmured, eager to change the subject. "Wouldn't stating you were a spy blow you cover?"
"What can I say, I'm a rebel," Finn responded with a wink, that lopsided grin spreading on his lips. Rolling my eyes I showed my thoughts on his statement, and let the silence stretch once again.
I always liked silence. It was like a dear friend of mine; a harbourage I sought once the world became too loud, too noisy. Truthfully, there were never silence in the nature; what with the philharmonic orchestra of the birds and waves, conducted by the wind. That I didn't matter, it was the noisy of people and their handicrafts that smothered me.
"Who did that to you?"
I stiffened, but refrained from looking back at Finn. There was something in his voice, empathetic and careful that made me belief if I were to even glance at him I would spill all my secrets.
"I could be a serial killer in disguise of a high school girl, and one of my victims got grabby and left me with a token of appreciation?"
"You could," he said in a heartbeat, his voiced lined with laughter. "But the way you worded that sentence confutes your reason." He laughed louder, then added, "Lexter."
My shoulders tensed in a response, but there was a hint of true laughter in his tone that made me realize the irony that was all to amusing. The fact that we, both strangers to each other, stood there with our feet sinking into wet sand, talking about grave things as they were nothing but a badly written scenario of some shitty soap opera Colton secretly watched. However, us being strangers was the key thing for me to say, "I don't see how this is any of your business," I stated, my tone final; leaving no place for further discussion. "Finnley ."
Turning around, I brushed past Finn to join Miles and Oliver and their sandcastles, oblivious of the fact that that was the day everything started.
And that it was exactly that day I would grow to desire never happened.
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