a work of art

chapter 26: great protector

"So, how do you think Finneas would feel if we told him I spent today chaining up and spanking his little sister?" I murmured in Billie's ear as we walked in the door.

"He'd cry, dude, shut up," she laughed and shoved me. "Well... actually, he probably wouldn't be that surprised."

A very non-menacing pitbull came hurtling out of nowhere and leapt into Billie's arms.

"Ms. Peeeeeeach," she thundered in her dog daddy voice. "Auntie Billie missed you, baby!"

Billie swung the brown and white dog my way so I could kiss her face and scrub her ears. "Do I need to get my own pitty to be accepted by this family?"

Billie laughed, "No, dummy, you have Sharky."

Right. Shark would be my dog, too... when I moved in. I smiled awkwardly and she put Peach down.

"Does anybody else live here?" She bellowed into the house. "No? Just a crazy poochie?"

I laughed and she grabbed my hand, dragging me through the house to a stairway that led to the basement. We could hear music wafting up the stairs, so we headed down.

Finneas and his girlfriend were both in the studio, and when Claudia saw me she squealed and held her arms out for me to jump into. We held each other on the couch, and Billie sat next to us.

"I missed you so much," Claudia cooed in my ear. "I'm so glad you're finally here! We're gonna do so much shit together while these two are busy."

"Good," I sighed, my head on her shoulder. "I thought I was gonna be dying of boredom."

"No way, bitch, we're going thrifting at all my favorite spots, and I already have a list of all the restaurants and cafes I wanna take you to. Oh, and hikes! We'll go see the Hollywood sign, and the observatory, and —"

Finneas cleared his throat, and I looked up at him sitting in his fancy producer chair.

"Hi, Lucy," he grinned at me.

"Oh hi, Finn, didn't see ya there, bud."

He chuckled and spun back around to face his giant monitors.

"Yeah, are you two done making out yet?"

I glared at Billie, who I was happy to see looked mildly irritated. I snuggled closer to Claudia, who laughed. "Thought you were gonna give me the fan girl tour, Bill."

Billie's eyes narrowed. She waved her hands around her. "This is where we write shit."

"Wow," Finneas said over his shoulder. "Eloquent."

Billie rolled her eyes. "Sorry, that's where Finn pulls incredible melodies out his ass, this is where I write the lyrics and record them, and that's where he makes it all sound like a song."

"Again, I say wow," said Finneas. "Billie I know my girlfriend's hot, but you know she's straight, right? No need to be snotty."

Billie glared at him, and I watched her shift her ass around on the couch. She winced. I bit my lip to stop myself laughing out loud.

"It's not that, Finneas. Billie had a hard... workout this afternoon," I said, and she whipped her head to look at me. "She's sore and it's making her cranky."

Finneas turned around to look at us. "Please tell me that's not a euphemism."

I shook my head solemnly, and Billie kicked me. "On god."

Finneas stared at me. "You know, sometimes you make it really hard for me to like you, dude."

I grinned at him and nodded. "I completely understand that."