Chapter 14 #2
He also had no formal art training, but that didn’t mean they weren’t artists.
Rolling his eyes, Elliott went on to explain bisque firing, underglaze, glaze—the whole shebang.
The test plate was ready for her to paint, and he’d take care of the rest. When it was fired in a few days, she could check that her color palette matched her vision.
After getting her started, Fitz ran back inside to pop their pizzas in the oven for twenty minutes, then he joined her at his own station and got to work.
“What’re you making?” Fern asked a few minutes in as she dipped a small brush into the pale green underglaze. Her eyes focused on his hands as he pressed his thumb into a flat oval of clay and dragged it up the surface. Like magic, the clay curled around his finger, forming a natural-looking petal.
“Flowers.” Gesturing at the spread of cookie-cutter teardrops before him, he explained, “This is an anemone—or it will be. It’ll top one of the oil diffusers I’m making for the tables.”
“They’re beautiful. Will you still teach me to throw later? I came prepared.” She wiggled her short nails his way.
“Of course.”
“Good,” she said quickly, and Elliott busied himself with his petals so she wouldn’t see the heat rising to his cheeks.
They worked in comfortable silence for a few minutes, and when he’d finished the Japanese anemone, he set it aside to dry and went to wash up.
“Are we done?”
“No, the—” His phone alarm played a jaunty tune, cutting him off mid-explanation.
“Food’s ready?” Fern cocked her head in question, tilting her cheek against her upturned brush. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Yep. Just needs a few minutes to cool down. You can keep at it, I’ll be right back.”
Nodding, she chewed her lip and considered her next design.
It was a challenge to walk away from her, but the desire to not burn the food—or his house down—lit a fire under Elliott. Leaving their pizzas cooling on the counter, he made sure everything was set in the fridge, dropped a few ice cubes into his bong, and returned to the shed.
Soft, melodic, and slightly off-key, Fern’s singing greeted him before he reached the open doors to his studio.
She was engrossed in her task and singing along to “Big Yellow Taxi,” but then again, who wouldn’t be?
Swiping her brush around, she dotted sprigs and sprays of purple, looking completely at ease.
Elliott leaned against the doorframe, the early evening air warming his back while she heated him from within.
Fern was... wonderful. Like him, unlike him, it didn’t matter. They complemented one another, and she fit in his life. He wanted to waltz over and kiss her happy mouth, but he didn’t have it in him to interrupt her creative process. Eventually, at a break between songs, he knocked on the open door.
“Wanna eat or keep painting? I’m down to start a new project if you’re not ready to head in.”
Her eyes crinkled at the edges with each word he spoke. While grabbing the brush from the magenta underglaze, she said, “I’m... One second.” Four precise dots later, she dropped her brush into the sink with the others and announced, “All done. Want to come see it?”
He crossed to her side and leaned in. “Would you look at that?”
She’d decorated the platter with a circle of florals in all colors of the rainbow.
Their slender stems grew in from the rim, each flower a slightly different height, a different color, a different design than the one before.
The center was blank, awaiting a candle, a vase, a wheel of brie, maybe a loaf of bread.
The back of her head bumped his chest, and Elliott realized just how close he’d gotten in his perusal of her masterpiece. “Your talent is unreal, Fern,” he murmured before tugging gently on one of her pigtails. “Wanna go eat?”
She did, so they cleaned up, washed up, and went inside.
“Are you kidding me? This is amazing,” she gushed, standing on her stool’s footrest to get a full, bird’s-eye view of the tray he pulled from the fridge.
Fern had to stop with the compliments, or his chest was going to burst. Yeesh.
It was a pretty good spread, though. He’d pre-packed a bong, surrounding it with a variety of cheeses—hard and soft—olives, crackers, and crostini. And there was a complementary bottle of wine.
With her lips parted and nostrils flared, she stared quietly at the display, like she was exhaling private words and breathing them in again before he could make sense of the silence.
“Shall we begin with our first course, a sip of finely chilled smoke?” he asked in a shitty British accent.
Blinking back to the moment, she grinned and agreed, so he handed over the bong and grabbed the balsamic glaze to finish their pizzas.
Her hit was long and slow, and she held it in while passing the piece over. Maybe it was his fault for wiggling his hips to the music while he took a big rip—but she laughed, which turned into a cough, which turned into a mild fit.
“Are you all ri—” Elliott’s throat caught on the question, and he coughed once, harshly. “Fuuuu—” The fit got a hold of him, and he doubled over, hacking and laughing, which didn’t help him stop at all.
When he glanced over, he found her cracking up. Pounding her chest with tears streaming down her face, she mimed taking a drink.
He nodded and grabbed them water. Their eyes met over their mugs as they sipped, and he had to spin away until his breathing evened out and he turned toward her again. “Are you all right?”
“Of course.” Fern glanced up and offered a lopsided smile before taking another sip, her eyes slowly going wide. “I’m wicked high now. What were we talking about?”
“Same. And I have no idea.”
She beamed, grabbed herself a hunk of cheddar, and pushed off the kitchen island, floating away toward the shelves across the room.
Grabbing a knife, he cut the pizzas, parsing his thoughts while she explored. This was the greatest date of his life, and he wanted to say something to that effect. But… did she know it was a date? Fuck. Did she still think he wasn’t interested in a relationship? Double fuck.
Fern saved him from having to figure out what to do when she called, “Do you listen to only sixties and seventies rock?”
Was there a wrong answer here? She’d known every song on his playlist; clearly, it was her era too. But he did expand his horizons every so often.
“What else do you like?” she asked from across the room as she dragged her fingers down one of his earliest vases, lumpy and warped; it had sentimental value, but it wasn’t pretty. “You must have wider interests. I’ll brave the guilty pleasures conversation if you won’t.”
He laughed, grabbing his water and heading her way. He did like other music—who didn’t?—but the stuff he did like was admittedly corny.
“I also like early eighties music,” she offered.
“Madonna?”
“Nope. Stuff out of London, mostly.” Fern moved down the shelf to look at a collection of whimsical bud vases he’d made, each one styled after a tree near his home. “Can I touch?”
“Yes. And what, like, the Smiths?” Watch, she was going to be into cool music. Stuff he could never quite vibe with.
She rolled the miniature balsam fir in her palm and, biting her lip, looked up at him. “You are a phenomenal artist. And um... no. More like Culture Club?”
“Boy George?” he asked, unable to stop the laugh rising in his chest. Fate was such a funny thing.
Hurt flickered across her features.
“No, Fern—” Gently, he plucked the tree from her hand and placed it back on the shelf. “I fucking love Boy George.”
“Oh.”
“I’m going to put on ‘Karma Chameleon,’ right now, and we’re going to go eat and talk about our other guilty pleasures. Sound good?”
“Sounds great,” she agreed with a twinkle of laughter that had him beaming.
And she came through, telling him all about her not-so-guilty pleasures and making him admit his.
She had no trouble discussing her interest in why-choose, sentient object, and monster romances—things he didn’t realize existed.
She had favorite audiobook narrators, favorite artists, favorite authors; he thought it was great.
But the way she spoke of these narrators, specifically, sparked a wild sort of jealousy in his chest, one he’d never admit to because it was dumb.
They were actors and actresses who read fiction.
He was a man… who could turn into a goddamn bear…
sitting right in front of her. He was pretty fucking magical himself.
Elliott admitted to hanging out naked when no one was around, and confessed he listened to dough-kneading videos as ASMR to fall asleep. She said that was cute, but not embarrassing enough to count.
She spread compliments thickly over all his art displayed around the house.
Through her mix of raining praise on his meager accomplishments and the self-deprecating remarks she made about her own talents, he got the distinct impression she didn’t consider herself an artist even though she was clearly a fine one.
“Wanna learn to throw?” Elliott asked as they dropped their dishes in the sink, hoping the experience would help her realize how talented she was. Even though he missed her pointy nails, he was impressed she’d thought to cut them, and looked forward to bringing her into his world even more.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Fern said, snagging one final olive from the otherwise empty tray and popping it into her mouth. Glistening oil lingered on her lower lip, but before he could swipe it with his thumb, her tongue darted out to lick it.
“Come on, sugar. Let’s go.”