The Balls in Our Courts [F.SxO.CxT.S]

Chapter Four

Finn laid a card face down on the table before Isaiah, a playful grin dancing on his lips. "You know, you could put makeup on a pig, but it'll still be a pig." His gaze shifted to Amelia, who sat nearby, visibly vexed after enduring a meticulous seven-hour grooming session. The trip to the lingerie store hadn't been much better, with an overly enthusiastic saleswoman cupping and squeezing her breasts. Isaiah chuckled, his attention briefly diverted from his delt deck.

Ada, her patience waning, tried to steady Amelia as she applied lipstick. "Stay still!"

Amelia couldn't resist interjecting, "Oh yeah? Well, you can take a fucking donkey away from the farm, but it'll still be a stupid ass!"

Ada, exasperated, halted her efforts. "If you keep moving, you'll end up looking like a clown."

Isaiah, never one to miss a beat, added his two cents. "My dad always said red was for whores."

Ada's frustration reached its peak as she tossed the lipstick brush onto the coffee table, leaving a smattering of red across its surface. "If Tommy wants your face painted, he can do it himself," she declared before storming off to tend to her child.

Unfazed, Amelia seized the abandoned lipstick, using the reflection of a wine bottle to guide her. With a mischievous grin, she puckered her lips, applying. Finn watched, shaking his head in disbelief. "You're going to look like a circus act," he remarked, gathering the cards.

Amelia shot him a playful smirk. "Don't be a wee baby cause you lost!"

"A whole fucking shilling," he muttered, scratching the back on his neck, cursing under his breath. "Rematch?" He offered Isaiah, who simply snorted and swiped the money.

"Get ya' next time, Shelby," he said. "I'm off to get me some fags and a bottle." As he slipped out, John Shelby slipped in. "'Ello, John."

"It's fucking pissing out," he greeted, taking off his flat cap, waving it dry. He noticed Finn and nodded, then looked at Amelia, stunned. Her lower half of her face was a bright red. "Jesus fuck, you look like a...Amelia!" He plucked his handkerchief from his pocket and grabbed a bottle of rum from the cabinet. A few flicks of the wrist, he wet the blue cloth that matched his suit. "C'mere." He kneeled, reaching up to grab her face, scrubbing it to a tender red. "This will remove the stain."

Cheekily, she retorted, "and you know that how?"

He grinned. "Not a fella or bird from Birmingham that hasn't had their run in with red lipstick. Can you tell me why you applied it like autopaint?"

"Practice-"

"There you go," he said, in whispered thought, cleaning up the edges. "Gets it out of white clothes, too. That is what they use in the whor-theater. They use it in the theater."

"You go to the theater, John?"

"Not often anymore," he laughed. "Married now!"

"Your wife wouldn't enjoy the theater?" she asked, and Finn went to open his mouth, but John warned him to keep his mouth shut before simply explaining with a light tone that his wife isn't the theater attending kind. John was not knowledgeable about makeup other than birds look nice when they wear it. Sometimes it's so nice that when they take it off, it's a whole new bird. A pretty dove at night and a turkey in the morning, he thought to himself. He reached over for the bag, shuffling his fingers around.