A Portrait Of Love

Chapter 5 - A secret poet

I was sitting by the window in the attic, looking out on the neighborhood, trying to paint the view. My eyes studied the colors of the sky, the leaves on the trees, the rooftops, the gardens, the boy mowing the lawn outside. He was wearing jumpsuit overalls and his dark hair was full of grass bits. He was slowly pushing the mower along the fence and his golden eyes were sparkling in the sun. His look sent shivers down my spine but in a good way.

Wait! His look?!

It took me a few seconds before I realized I was staring at Mark and he was looking back at me.

"Like what you see?" he yelled out and turned off the lawnmower.

I tried to play it off cool, despite knowing I was blushing like a tomato: "Oh I'm just trying to paint the nice landscape".

"So you were studying me as one of the 7 wonders of the world?" he said smugly.

"You wish, I was only looking at you because you have more grass in your hair than on your backyard," I said sarcastically.

He took off the gloves and messed up his hair as grass bits flew everywhere. He then unzipped his jumpsuit revealing his muscular upper body.

"Man! Get a shirt!" I yelled out and put my hand up to block the view of the half-naked boy under my window.

"Well since you already saw one of the seven wonders, I thought you should see the rest six," he said pointing to his surprisingly well-developed abs.

I just wanted to reply with an extra load of sarcasm when Oliver came up. "Hey, Gally" he greeted me and walked over to the window. He looked outside at half-dressed Mark: "Hello, Mark..." he said confused.

"What's up, Oliver," he replied and raised his hand.

"I'm sorry I have to break up... whatever this is... But dinner is almost ready so come set the table" he asked me, still disturbed by the situation.

"I'll be right there," I said and put away my paint pallet.

"I gotta go and you better get a shirt or you'll catch a cold and I will be left wondering what 6 monuments I was supposed to see," I said down at Mark and closed the window.

Since it was warm outside for a change, we decided to dine in the backyard. I set up the plates and Oliver brought out the trays with food that smelled amazing.

"This looks delicious, will dad eat with us?" I asked as we sat down.

"What do you think Gally?" he replied with a blank expression.

I wasn't surprised dad wasn't home for dinner, he worked a lot, even back in England, and it was a miracle to catch him on a free afternoon. It was sometimes boring to be home alone, but then we just went to mums and spend the afternoon with her and Melissa. And on the other hand that gave us a lot of freedom and we learned how to be independent. It also gave us the ability to guilt-trip dad into almost everything.

"You ready for the party tomorrow?" asked Oliver and woke me up from my thoughts.

"I guess, we decided on a group costume, so that should be fun" I replied.

"A group costume? What are you like 10?" he asked mockingly.

"No, I think our costumes are pretty great" I disagreed.

"Oh really? Then wow me" he said.

"We are going as the DC heroes and, I'm gonna be Catwoman," I said proudly.

Oliver almost choked on his potato: "You're going as a cat? You know that's a costume for ...".

"Eww, no! I'm gonna look classy, not sleazy!" I snapped back.