Painters creating beautiful, terrifying, vivid, headache-inducing masterpieces condensed onto a single canvas. Able to express every emotion with the flick of a brush.
How someone managed to create this without dispelling the lies hidden behind brave smiles and cold eyes I would never understand.
A true master of manipulation.
“Fun fact,” Finn says, coming up behind me. “I was higher than a helium balloon in space when we posed for that portrait.”
“You don’t look high,” I note, stepping closer. Following the individual brushstrokes. Weaving themselves throughout the lifelessly colored family portrait hanging above the fireplace.
“It was my first time. I had no idea what I was doing,” he murmurs. “Neither of us did.”
Finn was younger in the portrait. Ten at the oldest. His arm resting on a sitting Lorna’s shoulder, Abram standing beside them both. Each of them less unenthusiastic than the last.
Flat faces and empty spirits.
A calculating expression tugs at the corner of his mouth like he was remembering the memory. Was it in fondness or is it sadness? I couldn’t decide. “Mom had to pay extra to make it look like I hadn’t stuck my head in a bowl of chlorine for hours.”
See, true masters.
I look at the chair Lorna was sitting in more closely. The plush red velvet its giveaway as it dawns on me. That seat the same one I often sat in the conservatory.
It seemed almost too strange to be a coincidence, but Abram said no one had used that room for years. Maybe there was similar furniture elsewhere in the house.
Shrugging it off. I decided it didn’t matter. It was only a stupid portrait.
Finn and I content staying like that. Each stuck in our own heads for long minutes. An awkward tension is nowhere to be found.
Crinkling my nose, I look over. “What are we doing?”
“Stupid me, I forgot you were slow.” He loosens his stance. Purposefully being arrogant. “It’s called talk—ing.”
I roll my eyes. “Isn’t there another female you can bother?”
Finn didn’t move his head but lowered his gaze. “I might if your friend would ever respond.”
I don’t know why but hearing that made me happy. Not everyone fell to the feet of the hellhounds’ every command and it pleased me.
“Hailey has a brain… and common sense.” Adding the end at the last second.
“I have those things,” he rebukes, not carrying any conviction. “A decent looking face and a hot body helps too.”
My brows dip, pinching together when he winks. Finn needed another hobby other than looking at himself in the mirror.
“What are you doing staring at this old thing anyway?” he asks, getting us back on track.
Fair question, but not one I had a direct answer for. I had noticed it before walking by but today wanted to get a closer look.
Finn flicks at my ear. “Kidding, I don’t care.”
I swat his hand away, exhaling.
He tucks his arms behind his back peering up once more. The gesture one I’d seen Abram do before. Was he aware his father did the same?
Following, three sets of eyes stare back at me.
“Joke, genuinely is on you, isn’t it?” he jabs but there’s no bitterness. Finn making an observation.
It really is.