Thanks, Brittany for the intriguing thought... :)
~ ~ ~ ~
"What's wrong with your eye?" Luke demanded, getting up and peering closely at North's face. He reached out towards it.
North ducked his head out of the way. "Nothing." He grumbled. "Leave me alone. You're going to poke my eye out, weirdo."
Luke gave him a look but shrugged and sat down again. "How is the job, brother?"
He still couldn't believe that everyone thought it was perfectly fine to let North have a job as security at a strip club. Seriously, Mr. Blackbourne must have lost his mind.
North shrugged. "It's okay. I mean, I'm just sitting in the back, making sure that no one gets into the dressing room while the girls are in there."
"But access to the girls."
North scowled. "It's not like that and you know it."
"Always fun to tease you." Luke shrugged.
North's face darkened like a thundercloud. "They're good birds. Don't be disrespecting them when they're not around."
Luke raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, I get it. You like one of them." He settled back into his chair before North could swat him.
"That's not..." North's response was interrupted when Gabriel came into the room, ahead of the rest of the team, his eyes locked on a video playing on his phone. "Luke, you've got to see this chick. She's amazing."
"What are you watching?" Luke asked. "Cupcake videos?"
Gabriel rolled his eyes. "No, that's what you go for. I've been picking up makeup tips. I want to see if I can get a mission somewhere that involves more of what I know. Hair... make up, you know?"
"Understandable." Neither of them looked at North when he spoke.
"Anyway, I found this chick on YouTube and she does awesome work." Gabriel nodded towards the phone as the rest of the guys filed in and sat down.
"Wow. She's amazing." Luke said as they watched the petite blonde discuss what she was doing as she applied make up to another girl. The effect was stunning as she created the jewel tones needed to create a mask across the girl's eyes, helping to mask her identity as well as to match the peacock themed costume she was wearing.
"Now that my girl's going to go out there and rock her routine, I'm just going to organize my brushes and everything for a minute." She flashed a smile at the camera. "And pick a question from last week's comments to use for our next segment. Ah, this one looks good." She said before reading it aloud.
~Hi Ghost chick, I think you're awesome. I love how you create looks so quickly for your friends. I was wondering though, I like to go to concerts and well, I have a really hard time making sure that my guyliner is right. I don't want to be the dork showing up, looking like a raccoon. Please help me! You're amazing. Rocker98~
"Aw, thanks Rocker98. I agree. Guyliner is difficult if you don't apply it all the time." She said. "I mean, there's plenty of girls out there who don't feel like they get it right either, so I am really glad you asked about it. Give me a moment to see who I have available to help me and we'll have a good lesson and chat about eyeliner." She flashed another grin and stepped out of the eye of the camera.
She wasn't out of the frame long, just long enough to have a discussion with someone off camera. "Good news. I don't have to use one of the girls to do this, because I've managed to talk one of my friends into being my willing victim, I mean, eyeliner...guyliner... model. Bonus, it's even a guy so really, win win for guyliner!" She grinned widely at the camera. "Come on..." she turned off screen, waving her hand. "I swear I don't bite."
"A likely story."
Gabriel and Luke shot up, staring at each other before staring at North. North squirmed in his seat. "What?" he asked as Sean and Mr. Blackbourne finally entered the room. He was fully aware of everyone staring at him.
"You... you're in this video." Gabriel stammered. He was too surprised to utter a f-bomb and he would normally pepper the phrase with several.
"I don't know what you're talking about." North denied the assumption.
"No, you are." Luke shook his head. "You know Ghost Chick."
North shrugged but Luke smacked Gabriel's shoulder. "Fine, fine. I'm starting it up again." Gabriel muttered, glaring at Luke.
"I just want to see his guyliner."
North rolled his eyes, fully aware that everyone else had gotten up to crowd around the two troublemakers. He huffed a sigh and sat back in his chair, arms and legs crossed defensively.
Ghost Chick smiled again at the camera, her arm wrapped around a muscular forearm before dragging in a guy dressed all in black. "This is my buddy." She said, patting his arm. "Don't be shy, bud. Like I said, I don't bite... hard."
"Promises, Promises."
She laughed. "Sit." She pointed and waited for him to settle on the chair before she pulled the sunglasses off his face. "We're inside. Sunglasses are overkill. Anyway, this is my friend Taylor." She said, moving to the side and revealing a frustrated North sitting on the chair. "Say hi, Taylor."
North raised a hand. "Hey." He said, glaring up at her.
"Oh, that's perfect." She laughed. "As you can see, Rocker 98, here we have an angry rock god and boy does he need some guyliner." She teased, patting North's shoulder again before she picked up her eyeliner and a couple brushes. "So, here's what we do to get ready to go to a concert." Her tongue poked out the corner of her mouth for a moment as she loaded her eyeliner brush up and stepped closer to North.
She kept a running commentary about what she was doing, making sure to point out angles and where to use the eyeliner to maximize the look. She even made North apply the eyeliner to his left eye. She cleaned it up a bit because he hadn't stayed as close to the lash line as she had on the right eye.
"There you have it. The perfect rock god guyliner." She grinned, stepping aside and showing off the results of her work. "See you next week, ghosties. And send in those questions, you never know when I'll pick yours." She leaned in and kissed North's cheek before waving and blowing a kiss towards the camera as the video cut out.
North squirmed in his chair as his entire team turned their attention to him. "What?" he asked, gruffly.
"Dude. Your eyes look funny because you're still wearing guyliner." Luke said, awed.
North shot him a dark look. "So?"
"So, it's cool." Gabriel said. "And you know Ghost Chick! Oh, my fucking god, North. I love that girl. She's fucking amazing."
"Watch your tone." North growled. "She's a good girl."
"Where'd you meet her?" Kota asked.
North's shoulders tensed and he rolled his neck, hearing it pop several times before he glared at all of them. "She works at the club, okay?" he finally said. "She's not a dancer or waitress. She literally comes in at the beginning of my shift and spends all her time doing make up for the girls taking the stage."
"You like her." Silas observed.
"What? No." North shook his head.
Victor smirked at him. "Yes, you do." He said. "You would never let someone you didn't like put you on a video and show how to apply guyliner."
"I might."
"No, you wouldn't." Nathan said. North scowled.
"Seriously, we need to meet her." Luke said.
North crossed his arms. "No, you don't."
"Yes, we do. What if we need to apply guyliner for a job?" Sean asked.
Gabriel nodded. "Yeah, what Doc fuckin' said."
North rolled his eyes again. "Well you could just watch the video again." He said, mildly, his arms crossing across his chest as the entire team seemed to get involved in asking to meet Ghost Chick. "Look." He held out his hands after seeing the annoyance about the delays in starting their meeting flash across Mr. Blackbourne's face. "I'll talk to her, okay? I'm not just going to shove you all in her face. You're an awful lot to take in all in one fell swoop."
"We'll take it." Luke said after exchanging a glance with Gabriel. "Just admit that your eyes look funny because there is still guyliner around them."
North shook his head. "Fine, you know what? You're right." He said, giving up. "But it doesn't mean anything so just stop thinking." He pointed at all of them. "Isn't there a meeting we're supposed to be having?" His eyes shot an anxious plea towards Mr. Blackbourne, practically begging for the attention to be drawn away from him and Ghost Chick.
"Indeed, we do, Mr. Taylor. So, let's get started before this is all we manage to accomplish tonight."
~Fade~