Harrison Avenue // H.S.

Finger Painting Rock Star

[Harry]

"Harry, you're holding onto the paintbrush too hard," she scolds me, grabbing my hand with both of hers. Her touch is smooth as she opens the tight grip I have on the end of the brush and she spread my fingers out wide. "You need to relax, otherwise the tension will show in the strokes," she whispers, folding my hand around the paintbrush again but this time making sure my hold is light. I nod my head and she looks up at me with eyes that make my skin tingle. "Like that," she nods with me, a smile replacing her scowl. "That's better."

"You're makin' me nervous," I tell her, the mumble of words leaving my mouth as my hand shakes in hers. "It's like I'm painting with Van Gough and I'm still at a kindergarten finger painting skill level. You're intimidating, Ellison."

She is intimidating, has been since the moment I met her. Of course my slight nervousness from that has gone completely out the window because there isn't someone I feel more comfortable with than I feel with Ellison. There's something about being with someone who's so sure of themselves at all times that makes my knees shake a little though.

Elle knows what she wants and she does what's needed to get herself there. There's a lot of determination in those little hands of hers and intimidating is the only way I know how to put a word to it. But it pushes me too, because watching Elle do her thing, watching her become completely infatuated with the colors she paints and the lines she creates, it does something for me. I might not know what I want to the level that she does, but I have that in me too, and she certainly elevates that.

"You're overreacting," she shakes her head at me, laughing a little as she fixes my finger placement on the brush one more time. "I'm all for finger painting anyways."

"Can we do that instead?" I look at her with hopeful eyes, the tone in my voice picking up with excitement.

"No," she frowns. "I'm trying to teach you this."

"Right," I nod my head, moving my hand in circles. The brush is dangerously close to her face and her nose scrunches when the paint almost reaches the tip and then she swats at my hand quickly. "Can I paint you?" I ask, giving her the best wide eyes I can muster up, but she doesn't fall for it.

"Harry," she scolds me again. "Not happening. And stop squeezing so hard. Think about when you play the guitar... or piano. Are your hands all tensed up then?"

"Well there's some tension in it," I try but she cuts me off.

"Just," she takes a deep breath, looking at me closely as she leans in a little. "Here, watch my hand."

She does a swivel in her chair, moving to the side of me. I watch her as she scoots closer to the canvas in front of her, biting her lip as she moves the stool. The sun is shining through the window of her flat, the morning light giving her a glow and I find it impossible to focus on her hand. She's too... too Ellison, to stare at anything else. Her messy bed head hair is in a bun at the top of her head, loose strands hanging on the side of her face and her eyes look tired underneath but the gray color surrounding her pupils is so intense that it feels like the opposite.

She's in my shirt and nothing else, her legs hanging from the chair and the white fabric see through enough that with the light shining through her window the curve of her chest is easily seen. Her mouth is moving, I can see that much. And her hand is moving too, soaking select spots on the canvas with streaks of pink and orange. When her eyes turn back to me though, and she's staring that classic what the hell, Harry? stare that she's mastered so well, I realize I wasn't paying any attention to what she instructed me to do.

"Stop staring at my boobs," she glares but there's a smile that I can tell she's hiding away.

"Can't even see your boobs, Elle," I shake my head quickly, moving my gaze away from her chest. "Don't know how I'd manage that one. Are we painting a sunset, then? Is that what we decided?"