The Wallflower Ch. 09

"Lily," Louis whistled at her, bringing her back to the present. "I think your food is done." Lily looked down to see her vegetables bubbling over and steam coming from the pot. Lily yelped as she immediately turned off the heat and moved the pots off the hot parts of the stove. She checked on the macaroni and cheese and sweet potatoes to pull it out just in time before the golden brown crust became a burnt black.

The little girl looked up at her with crumbs on her chubby cheeks. She began to raise up her eyes and wiggle herself upwards, causing a fuss. "Seems like I'm not the only one vining for your attention," Louis remarked as he tried to pick the girl up, but she moved away from his hands and fussed even louder. He laughed as he raised his hands and moved away from her.

Lily laughed as she rolled her eyes at him. "It also looks like I'm not the only one who is immune to your charms," Lily remarked as she picked up the little girl. "You ready to go outside?" Lily cooed. The little girl just looked at her as if to say she didn't care as long as Lily was holding her.

"It's about time." Louis put his hands behind his head as he walked with them out the backdoor. "Ever since I've been here, you've been cooped up in the kitchen with the kid on your hip. I'm surprised you're not dripping in sweat."

Lily simply shrugged. "Well I like cooking just as much as everyone likes eating my food."

"I can see that." Louis looked ahead. Lily looked in his line of sight and saw Nicholas drinking a beer in the big adult pool set up from the box. "Nicholas looks like he packed on a few pounds since I last saw him, but he's still pretty skinny."

"He eats everything I make. There is no such thing as leftovers in this house because he makes sure he's polished it all off at the end of the day."

"Mmm, well I'll just have to see what the big deal is then-"

"GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU LITTLE CREETIN!"

Lily looked towards the direction of the outburst and found, none other than, Nicholas having a stare off against a seven year old boy.

"Oh, boy," Lily heard Sal mumble underneath his breath as he flipped over a burger on the grill.

"What's up with Nicholas?"

Sal shook his head, smirking to himself as he put some more meat on the grill. "Every year Nicholas gets into it with the same little boy."

"He doesn't like kids?"

"He likes them. Just not that one." Sal jerked his head towards brooding stare down. "The boy is like Nick in every way. Even a flirt like him." Sal rolled his eyes as he turned around and took a swig of his beer.

"I told you, kid." Nicholas growled, "The kiddie pool is for kids. The adult pool is for adults."

"If it's for adults then why are you in it?" the little boy countered.

"Why wouldn't I be, Sherlock?"

"An adult wouldn't be wasting time arguing with a seven year old." The boy look at him bored as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.

Sal's chest rumbled with laughter as he looked on. "Nick walked right in to that one."

Nicholas looked as if he wanted to yell at him again, but he calmed down and even seemed relaxed. "Hey, kid. Ever heard of Adult Swim?"

"Yeah, so what?"

Nicholas shot his hands around the boy's waist and hoisted him over his shoulder. Nicholas rose up out of the pool and got up with the boy kicking and screaming. He walked over firmly to the kiddie pool and dropped the kid in, causing a giant splash and laughing children. "Well this is kiddie pool. Now stay in it." Nicholas went back over to the adult pool while the boy glared a hole in his back.

"Well that was entertaining," Louis snickered as he went towards the pool to hop in with Nicholas.

'Nicholas doesn't lose a fight. You may win the battle, but ultimately he wins the war.'Lily thought to herself as she walked the little girl in her arms towards the pool. The girl was reluctant to leave Lily when Lily lowered her into the pool, but soon got over it the moment her feet touched the cool water. She soon started to giggle and splash in the water, happily.

'Kids are so adorable!'Lily thought as she watched her play in the water. Something so simple can change a kid's mood to pure bliss. Too bad life couldn't be that way.

Lily turned around and walked towards the crowded pool, filled to the brim with Nicholas's tattooed coworkers. She walked in between the space Nicholas and Louis were occupying and rested her arms against the rim of the pool.

Nicholas slid his sunglasses down and looked at her. "What are you doing?"

"I'm resting," Lily said, closing her eyes. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"It looks like you're trying to die of heat stroke. It's the fucking Fourth of July and you've been stuck in the kitchen since six o' clock yesterday morning. And for the last few hours you've been sharing body heat with a toddler. I'm sweaty just thinking about it." Nicholas stood up in the pool and reached for Lily. She stepped away from him.

"I'm fine."

"No you're not. I can see you glistening from here." Nicholas got out of the pool and shook the water from his hair like a wet dog. "And you're wearing a hot dress on top of that."

Lily looked down at her clothes, remembering how she dressed quickly in a blur, so she could continue cooking. She had put on a swim suit, knowing that she wouldn't have time to put one on later, and a cool dress to go on top of it, so that she could still get in the pool without taking it off.

"It's not hot, Nicholas. It's to get in the pool with."

"Bull. What's the point of the swimsuit underneath?" Nicholas came towards her. "Take it off."

"Nicholas...get away from me." Lily annunciated each word as she backed up away from him. When Nicholas once again made a grab for her, she sprinted towards the other side of the backyard.

'Good thing this is a big backyard.'Lily slowed down to a trot as she bent over and tried to take a breath. For a moment, she glanced up to see Nicholas sidestepping children while barreling down the yard towards her.'Damn it!'

Before Lily could lift her feet, she felt Nicholas's hands circle around her waist and lift her off the ground. Net thing she felt was her dress come over her head, revealing her for fitting swimsuit.

"Nicholas you as- butt—" Lily's grumbling was cut off by a scream as Nicholas dropped her into the pool. She immediately began thrashing the moment the water began to enter her lungs and engulf her whole body. Lily felt a tug on her arm, bringing her out of the water. While coughing up the water in her lungs, she rubber her eyes to clear them of the burning chlorine.

"Lily, you're only making it worse."

"Screw you, Nicholas!"

"Fine. What day and what time?"

A roar of laughter erupted around her as she still tried to wipe her eyes so she could see.'Typical. They all have the same sense of humor.'

Once she felt the burning sensation leave her eyes, she looked around to see that the world around her was still blurry. Lily touched the area on her face where her glasses should've been to discover that they weren't there.

"Lily, hon, if you come over here, I can give you your glasses," she heard Nicholas say behind here. Lily turned around and stretched her hand out.

"Give it here."

"Well if you stop being a drama queen, hon, I can put them on for you."

Lily let out a sigh and walked towards him. The moment the world became clearer, she glared at Nicholas, who looked back at her with a smirk. "You're an asshole," Lily said.

"Call me something that everyone hasn't called me already," he replied as she waded in between Louis and Nicholas.

Lily took a chance to look at Nicholas's coworkers across from her. There were about six of them, excluding Sal. All of them dressed in a alternative pin up or punk style that helped show off the colorful tattoos on their bodies. For the most part, his coworkers were male. There were only two females out of all of them. Unlike Anna Belle, the women were open, friendly to talk to and didn't act like they wanted to rip Nicholas's pants off.

'I guess they're the other real women in his life,'Lily thought as she laid back against the rim.'Now that I think about it, I haven't seen Anna Belle in the shop since Nicholas set her straight. Most likely got fired.'

"Hey, Nicholas?"

"What?"

"What happened to Anna Belle?"

Lily heard a ring of groans around the pool from his coworkers.

"Not this shit again."

"I'm tired of hearing her fucking name."

"Who's Anna Belle?" Louis asked, the only one out of the loop.

"She's a psychotic bitch," the coworker with the mohawk said. "Literally. Last I heard of her, she got taken away to the psychiatric ward."

"What happened?" Lily asked.

The mohawked man shrugged his shoulders as he took a drag of his beer. "I don't know too much, but what I've heard is that when her roommate found her, she couldn't speak. Heard that she looked like she just stepped out of horror movie. Eyes were ready to pop out of her skull. Dark circles were under her eyes. Flinched at every little thing." The man paused as he took another drag of his beer. "Couldn't have happened to a more manipulative whore."

"Remember when she first started working there," the woman with bold red lips, who Lily believe was named Samantha, said. "She made it known to me and Kelly here that Nicholas belong to her." The woman rolled her eyes just remembering that. "When she figured out that we were gay, she backed off."

"She is fired." Nicholas said simply.

"What did she do?" Louis questioned further.

"She caused a major disruption at work and tried to assault Lily."

Louis turned concerned eyes onto Lily, trying to find any marks or bruises on her skin. "Are you alright? What happened?"

Lily raised up her hands, signaling Louis to calm down, "I'm fine Louis. She was obsessed with Nicholas and hated the fact that I'm around him all the time." But something didn't make sense. Yeah, you'd have to be an idiot employer to keep Anna Belle around after what she attempted to do. But Nicholas caused the whole place to paus and stop what everyone was doing when he nearly choked Anna Belle half to death. He would have at least been suspended, or at worst be fired. On the other hand Anna Belle was known to be a nuisance for a long time.

"Nicholas, why didn't you get fired?"

"He owns the place, hon," the mohawked man answered.

"WHAT?!" Louis and Lily yelled in unison.

"Yep. Owned the place for about...two years now?"

"Almost three," Nicholas confirmed.

"And Sal's been managing it for that long as well."

"But you're twenty-one," Lily said, staring at Nicholas. "And you're...you."

"Ouch," Nicholas said, sliding his sunglasses on top of his head. "Hard to believe that the party boy is actually a business man?"

"Yes," Lily admitted.

"Again, ouch!" Nicholas pouted his lips and crossed his arms. "I'll have you know I own the most successful tattoo shop in the state. And I started all this when I was nineteen."

"Yeah, and one of the campus's biggest losers," Sal said while walking towards them. "He was a skinny vampire kid who was majoring to be an artist. Believe it or not, he was moodier and a social recluse."

"Yeah and you walked around with a stick up your ass, dreaming of one day becoming an accountant for these big time companies," Nicholas quipped back at him. "Didn't have one tattoo on him. Had a head full of hair."

"Which I lost thanks to you." Sal touched his bald head and rubbed it as if remembering the good old days before Nicholas entered his life.

"Well you still graduated didn't you? You get to be an accountant of the most popular tattoo shop in the state. You get paid well. And I have never gotten one thank you after all these years we've known each other. But you're welcome anyway." Nicholas sipped his beer while glancing at Sal.

"Wait how could you work on the shop while you were in school?" Lily asked.

"I got a business loan and dropped out." Nicholas answered with no remorse whatsoever. "It was an art degree. What the hell does that prove? That I'm licensed to be creative?"

"He does really well without it, too," the other woman named Kelly piped up. "He's the one people ask for when they want very complex designs done. He's even gotten some notoriety in magazines for his work."

"Oh ya'll are too kind," Nicholas said in a whimsical voice, feigning bashfulness.

"But that's how all that mess with Anna Belle started in the first place," The mohawked guy said, breaking the stream of Nicholas praising.

"You know what. Fuck you Mike." Nicholas gave the mohawked man the finger while everyone laughed at Nicholas's expense. "Fucking know-it-all prick ruining my moment of glory with some bull shit," Nicholas muttered as he brought his beer to his lips.

"How does Nicholas being a good tattoo artist have to do with Anna Belle?" Louis asked.

"I'll tell this one," Sal volunteered, getting into the pool. "It all started when Nicholas got the front cover of some tattoo magazine for sexiest inked bachelor. The qualification were, of course, to be sexy and single, but you also had to also have some notoriety as a tattoo artist like those artist on Inked the TV series. Nick only did for publicity to get some more customers. At that time the shop was only a year old."

"Really?" Lily asked, not believing one word of it. "That must have done something for his ego because he won't shut up about what a pretty boy he is."

"Shut up, cowgirl," Nicholas growled back at her. "Anyway we got the customers. Most were fangirls who wanted simple tattoos that I easily passed off to everyone else. The ones who actually wanted real work done by me, I personally did. Of course, being twenty at the time, I slept with the simple fangirls. Buuuttt....then I got bored aaand more fangirls were coming in just to try and flirt instead of actually getting tattoos. All they did was loiter around in the lobby."

"So he made this new rule that only people who have appointments could come sit in the lobby," Sal butted in. " That got rid of a few of them, but not a lot. The whole mess with Anna Belle actually started when some random chick came up to Nick to flirt with him. Nick told her, "Do not talk to me unless you work for me". The very next day the place was surrounded with fangirls trying to get a job there."

"We narrowed them down to those who were actually qualified and was at least a good tattoo artist," Nicholas said. "Out of all of them, Anna Belle was the best." He reached down to get a sip of his beer but found that his beer had been knocked over. "That mother-" Nicholas exhaled through his nose before continuing. "She was normal when she first started working there. Well at least around me she was. Fake, yeah. But no different from other fake girls. I didn't know she was a crazy fan girl until the day after I slept with her."

Nicholas rolled his eyes at the memory and smoothed his hair out of his face. "I was young and stupid." He shrugged his shoulders and rolled them back before relaxing back into the pool. "I'm hungry. Is the food ready yet?"

"Yeah, I'll go get the meat laid out," Sal said getting out of the pool.

"I better get going too, then," Lily said reluctantly as she followed suit.

"I'll help out, too," Louis said as he followed close on her heel. "I have a feeling you have food stashed somewhere."

And he was right. When Lily got to the kitchen, she handed him a big, deep trays of macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes. She followed him back out with the trays of black eyed peas and green beans. They had to make four more trips back to the kitchen till they had finally arranged all the food on the table. In all there were about ten trays of food and six various cakes and pies.

Sal stared at her while holding his two trays of grilled meat. "Lily, you make me look like a chump," Sal pouted as he finally put the meat on the table.

"Well at least you made something," Lily said patting his back. "Everyone else just brought beer, junk food, and kids." Sal gave her a small smile as he stood back up.

"How can someone as small as you find so much energy to cook all of this?"

Lily put her hands on her hips and gave him a sassy look, saying right back to him, "How can someone as you big not find the energy to out cook someone as small as me?"

Sal's chest rumbled as he let out his infectious chuckle. "Touché."

The moment the barbecued meat hit the table, a long line of people crowded around the table to grab a plate. The kids went first, with the help of their parents and then everyone else crowded behind them. Lily smiled to herself as she saw the kids sitting down at their small tables eating everything on their plates. Obviously they were in love with what she made as she saw them running up to their parents or grandparents to eat stuff off their plates.

"Lily," Louis said with a mouth full of food. After a few chews, he took some more bites. Lily waited for him to continue, but he seemed to have forgotten that he had said anything at all to her. Finally after some minutes, Louis finally came up for air. "I need you to marry me and make me more food. And I will not take no for an answer."

"Louis, what would we live on?" Lily smiled, trying to hold back a laugh as she played along with his antics. "You're in school."

Louis looked up at the sky, continuing to chew, as he thought about it. "We can live on my undying love for your cooking."

Lily made a pinched face before saying, "Naaahhh, I already have enough cheapskates eating my meals for free."

"Hey!" Nicholas called from the line as he piled two plates full of food...for himself. "You live with me. And I do pay, for your information. Notice how your rent was cut in half."

"Yeah, yeah," Lily said as she made her way towards the line to get a plate of her own.

~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~

"I told you that you should've gone easy on the peach cobbler," Lily said sitting on the grass next to a laid out Nicholas. The bright burning sun of the day had long descended underneath the horizon to bring forth the cool summer moon against the blue black sky. Most of the kids were in a huddle watching the fireworks burst with an excitement of colors. Its colors dissipating into the sky as it fell down like colored rain. A few others were running across the yard trying to capture the fireflies in their hands. They screamed in excitement when they successfully caught one and huddled together in silence as they peered down into the closed child's cupped palms.

As for Mrs. Yates and her friends, they continued to play cards while listening to the Elton John song "Philadelphia Freedom". Louis and the rest of them had caught the idis and were laid out on lawn chairs or the grass snoring soundly. Even Sal was down for the count, laying face down in the grass.

"Well it's your fault for making it taste so good," Nicholas mumbled, nearing sleep.

"I didn't force three large helpings down your throat and "sample" all the other cakes and pies."

Nicholas only replied incoherently as he finally let himself fall into a deep sleep.

'The idis finally took him,'Lily thought smiling to herself. She brought her legs up to her chest and looked up at the dark blue sky, bursting with the colors of American freedom. Sighing to herself, she thought about her own freedom...and her own shortcomings. In the last month, she may have been thrown out of her house, but she was able to make decisions for herself. Do what she wanted to do. Say what she wanted to say. Be who she always wanted to be. As long as Brandon wasn't involved.

'Funny how the free are still not free from tyranny.'She was free to do what she wanted, but yet she would not free herself to tell the truth. In fear of humiliating herself if she ever outed Brandon. If people believed her or not, if she tried to take Brandon down, she would be taking herself down with him. Covered in the mud and filth he had imprinted on her. For all the world to see.