The Cleansing: Part One (Book Two of the Golden Eyes Trilogy)

Chapter 32: What Guy in His Right Mind

Finn

Once everyone was done eating Nova ordered the others to clean up and told me to put on a crappy shirt as she brought the kids to Shasta's room. I did as she said as she got them ready and then herself. We went out to the backyard and looked at what she had set up. She really does have a bunch of things planned for us. Is it wrong I'm a little excited?

"What is this?" I asked as I looked around.

"Finger painting and tye-dye shirts. I got a bunch of different colors to paint with! And I got all ten colors for the shirts too! What do you guys want to do first?"

"Painting!" Shasta shouted as she ran to the table and grabbed the first shade of purple she saw.

"Painting it is."

Nova explained to both kids what to do and gave them each a plate. Shasta picked several different purples as the boy chose the reds.

"Choose a color and start Finn." Nova said as she pushed me towards my easel.

I conceded and put a small puddle of a few different colors on my paper plate while Nova did too. Everyone went into their own little world as we painted. We must've been going at it for about a half hour when I got bored.

And then I thought of something.

Nova was facing away from me so I smeared the paint on my hand and grinned to myself knowing I was about to piss her off. I love making her mad. It's always a thrill not knowing if she's going to laugh or punch me in the face.

I walked up behind her and-not hard enough to hurt her by the way-smacked the side of her face.

Nova gasped as I laughed at the look on her face. She narrowed her eyes at me and I knew I was in trouble. I started to run away but she grabbed my shirt and yanked me back, her hand smearing paint across my whole face. And then the kids got into it too. We were spraying paint everywhere and smearing it all over each other as we ran around the backyard.

"Get him kids!" Nova ordered as she knocked me to the ground. They all grabbed paint and sprayed it over me as I attempted to block my face while laughing.

"Okay! Okay! I cave!" I laughed even harder as they practically covered me in it.

Nova told and signed for them to stop and they listened, letting me sit up. Yeah. I was covered in paint. Nova pulled out her iPod and took pictures of us, goofy faces, cute smiles. She took a picture of each of us with our paintings before we started hosing off most of the paint until we could shower but we had to do the shirts first.

Nova said by the time we got back tomorrow they would be ready to wash and dry and wear. She showed us what to do and we got started. I was tying different spots in mine as I watched her work with both kids. They picked up on it quick and shooed her away to do their own thing so Nova started on hers.

Once they were done tying knots she showed them how to do the colors and for a while she just watched them work with a soft smile on her face. I had the same smile on my face too feeling the love she had for them through our bond. So warm and happy. Not her usual agitation and annoyance. It was a nice change.

The boy was spraying red all over his as Shasta worked with purple. I used the dark green as Nova worked with a light blue herself. Once we finished we left them out to dry and used the hose to rinse off our hands.