Piece of Work

I don't own Rookie Blue.

Please enjoy.

For the record, if there were an official record of her life, going to the art class had not been her idea. It had been Lisa's – Lisa, who was apparently 'super into branching out these days, Holly, and it won't hurt you to do the same, it's very important to be cultured'. So Holly had picked up a sketchbook she hadn't touched in years and bought a semi-expensive pack of pencils and turned up for the class in time for two surprises.

The first surprise was that Lisa wasn't coming.

"Hey, sorry, but art just isn't my thing," Lisa had in a tone heady with languor and lazy happiness when Holly called.

"What? But you said we-" Holly stopped herself, realising what had happened. "This was about some girl, wasn't it?" She gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to slam her head against the wall. Stupid, stupid, stupid Holly. Of course it was about a girl. For once, she wished that her best friend would keep it in her pants. Or at least stop dragging Holly places in order to get into someone's pants and then leave Holly there. Like in a bar. Or a concert. Or a farm.

"Yep."

"And you've slept with her already and now you're backing out of the class," Holly continued. Not a big surprise. She'd only done it with about every single one of the extra-curricular classes she'd suggested. Why oh why did she continue to think the best of Lisa's intentions?

"Look, I'm sorry if you're upset or whatever, but it's not a big deal. Just ditch the class and come over. We can get some drinks and go dancing or something." She laughed into the phone and then muttered, just low enough that Holly couldn't understand.

"Oh my god, the girl is still with you! I hate you so much!"

"Sorry babe. See you in class tomorrow?"

"Sure, if you don't ditch that as well." She hung up, wishing she had used a better, pithier, snarkier comment to end the call but let that wish go because as smart as she was, coming up with good comebacks wasn't really in her wheelhouse.

What was she supposed to do now? She'd already paid for the class but she'd never done it before – drawing yes, years ago now, but never a formal class and what if she was bad? What if they laughed at her – what if she had to show people her drawings?

The door loomed in front of her and she changed the grip on her art book. Her palms were sweaty, knees weak, arms heavy blah blah mom spaghetti. God. She had to stop listening to Eminem on her runs. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

And walked straight into surprise number two.

It was, apparently, a nude art class.

Wow. Just…wow.

She had not known that.

She had not known that. But it made itself abundantly clear in flawless white skin and graceful limbs and modestly crossed legs and a red curve of a smile and blue blue blue eyes that were looking right at her because oh my god she was staring at the woman. At the nude model. Well, mostly nude. She was wearing underwear that blended perfectly into her skin tone. Damn it. She was staring again. Holly dragged her eyes up to the ceiling and away from the model, whose smirk had split into a full-blown grin showing white teeth and the hint of a tongue pressed cheekily into them.

"Hi," a woman called out. Not the model. Holly snapped her head towards the voice, hoping her blush would fade with something else to concentrate on. "You look lost."

"No, I, uh," Holly squeaked out. She couldn't believe she sounded like that – she hadn't squeaked since she was thirteen. But then again, the model was perfect so maybe that was why. Stop thinking about the model, Holly chastised herself, and focus on the woman talking to you. Say something. Don't stutter! "I, umm, I'm here for… Is this room 304?" she stuttered – you fuck up, she grumbled to herself in her head, stop stuttering – and fumbled for the flyer she had folded into her pocket. ART CLASS, it read in bold black caps. 6 – 7 pm, ROOM 304.

"That's us," the woman said. "Hi, I'm Rachel."

"Holly," she replied, striding over to offer her hand. Rachel shook it, smiling kindly.

"Welcome. Take a seat wherever you like. Oh, if you need an easel I'm sure we have a couple in the corner."

Holly just held up her sketchbook and smiled before shuffling into the corner. There were a few stools available but she felt more comfortable just sitting on the ground and balancing the book on her knees. Her art history had always been a bit informal, incomplete, so this felt right. "Is this okay?" she mouthed to the nice instructor and Rachel just waved her away with a smile.

Holly took a few deep breaths. She flipped open her notebook to a new page and wiggled a pencil out of the box. A few light scratches to the edge of the page to blunt the tip and then – biting her lip to prepare herself because she'd never done this kind of thing before, she'd only sketched plants and stuff she'd seen under microscopes and anatomically correct skeletal and muscular systems and oh god what if she made a massive idiot of herself – she looked up. At first she looked at the other people. Students, some of them, a few older men and women who were painting and sketching with careful lines and serious expressions. Holly tried out a few quick sketches of them, liking their intent faces. Then she made her eyes focus where they were supposed to. On Her.

And she…she was looking at Holly. And smirking.

Holly gulped and her eyes returned to the blank page. She thought about drawing those eyes. Wished that she had some blue ink or paint or hell, even crayon. She tried to look up again but felt a red flush spreading over her cheeks so instead she locked her eyes on the models hands, where they were propped behind her to keep her in that long, long pose. Those she could draw. She was used to fingers – suturing. Broken fingers. Hangnails. She was used to hands. Hands that held scalpels, that bound things in bandages, that sorted through organs and flipped through files. But these weren't hands like that. These hands were just…oh my god. Holly couldn't think about that. She moved up, drew the arms. Shoulders. Focused on the dark lines and the scratch of pencil on paper instead of the skin that positively shone and she drew the woman's breasts and then toned stomach and thighs and legs but then she looked up again and she was still looking at Holly, or maybe she was looking at her again? Holly didn't know for sure but her pencil faltered on the page and though every feature imprinted on her memory and she was sure that she could close her eyes and with enough time she could render each detail of that face onto the page – those lips, that nose, those eyes, the wisps of hair that were floating light and angelic in a halo – she didn't even attempt to do it.

"You doing all right?" the model asked, seeing that Holly wasn't looking away.

"Fine," she croaked. Cleared her throat.

"Well, you don't have all night." She changed her pose slowly, glancing around the circle to make sure the others were fine with it, so that she was on her front. "Half an hour left." Then she dropped one eyelid in a slow, sultry wink. "I charge extra if you need to go overtime."

"Hey, no teasing the newbies, please," Rachel chided playfully. The model saluted her and Holly tried not to stare at the body that was exposed in the movement.

Her pencil returned to the page, drawing the new curves and shadows and lines and the thirty minutes passed quickly, she noted with some disappointment. Wait, disappointment? No. She meant relief. Relief, because the woman smirked at her and moved her limbs in an entirely too-graceful way and she purposefully trying to get Holly flustered, wasn't she? All because she'd come to class late, probably.

"That's time, everyone." Rachel's voice broke the silence. The model blinked and pulled her eyes away from Holly – who was refusing to look back at her and hunching over the sketchbook – and stretched. "Thank you, Gail, I really appreciate it."

"And I appreciate the money," the blonde laughed, voice husky and with a hint of playfulness. Holly shook her head down at her page. That was a voice that she could listen to forever. Fantastic. She wondered if the woman even knew how lucky she was with a body and face and voice like that.

"Same time next week?"

"You got it."

Holly quickly finished the sketch she'd been working on – Gail was it? – Gail's hands cupping her chin, and then threw her pencil back in its box. She picked herself up from the ground and as she did two bare feet stopped in front of her. Holly looked up.

She wasn't nude anymore. That was the first thing Holly noticed. She had pulled on a sweater and, as Holly watched, stepped into her jeans and pulled them up, zipping and buttoning after a little shimmy. The second thing Holly noticed was that the infuriating, slightly expectant smirk was still in place, hovering over those ridiculously perfect lips.

"Can I help you?" Holly asked.

"I was going to ask you the same thing. You looked kind of," she paused. Tilted her head to the side. "Uncomfortable when you came in."

"I, oh, that wasn't, umm." Holly bit her lip. Focus, Stewart. "I got dumped. By my friend. She was going to come with me but she didn't so I was just annoyed. Sorry for barging in, though."

"I don't care," the blonde shrugged. "It's not my class. I'm just the eye candy." Holly swallowed. "Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you weren't put off by my stunning good looks. Rachel says I have to play nice. Something about if I make you run away it's coming out of my pay check." She shrugged again.

Holly licked her lips, nervous. A little disappointed that Gail hadn't spoken to her of her own volition. "It's fine. I'm fine."

"Oh good. Coffee?"

"Pardon?"

"Do you want to get coffee?" Gail lent down to grab her bag, brushing slightly against Holly. Her smirk was hidden when Holly jumped at the contact. Standing, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a thick watch that she fixed in place on her left wrist. "I need a coffee."

"I, um…"

"Okay look here, nerd. I'm going to make this easy on you. Do you have somewhere else you need to be desperately?"

"No."

"Good. Then you're coming to get a coffee with me because if you don't, that boy over there who takes the class just to stare at my boobs for an hour will follow me to the shop and I'll have to 'accidentally'," she said, using air quotes, "spill my coffee all over him. And it is such a shame to waste perfectly good coffee. Ready? Great." Gail strode away without looking back to see that Holly was following. Which she was, like a puppy on a leash.

Twenty minutes later, in a cosy little coffee shop and with her hands wrapped around a mug, Holly couldn't help but laugh a little. Gail was coming back to their table with her second coffee, having swallowed the first in three gulps.

"What the hell is she doing here with me?" Holly asked herself quietly. Gail drew every eye in the crowd with effortless movements and a mean stink eye. And she had incredible hearing, apparently.

"You looked out of place. Like, super out of place. And being mean is kind of my thing," Gail said, sitting again.

"You bought me coffee. That's nice."

"Eh." Gail waved that away. Her bangles jangled. "I bribed the barista to spit in it." Holly looked down at her drink, uncertain. "So, what are you doing in the art class?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well have you done this before?" Gail pulled her feet up onto her chair. "Can you even draw or did you just stare at me the entire time and draw some squiggles?"

Holly looked down at her sketchbook, on the table. She'd never shared her art with anyone – she wasn't that great. She was a scientist, not an artist. But still, Gail was the model. So Holly handed the book over to Gail and sipped nonchalantly at her drink, trying not to freak out when Gail flicked it open. She moved past a close examination of cross sections of a lung, a daisy, the joints in the wrist, and then there was Gail – hands propped up, a close up of her knee, four little sketches of her chin in slightly different angles – and Gail gulped.

"Oh. Well. Yeah, okay, so you've drawn before. I guess these are all right," Gail said, handing the book back to Holly. "And look at that. Apparently you didn't stare at my boobs all night. Not that I blame you." She gestured to herself, shrugging. "They're pretty great."

Holly blushed. Her staring, obviously, had not gone unnoticed. "Sorry."

"Oh no worries. I work hard for this body." Gail grimaced. "So. Art class. You looked uncomfortable, secretly good drawer or not. You're doing it just for fun?"

"Ah, sort of." Holly placed her mug on the coffee table and pushed her glasses up her nose. "My friend tricked me into doing it."

"The one that dumped you?"

"That's the one, yeah. So I turned up tonight and turns out that she kind of already hooked up with the girl she wanted so she skipped out. But I'm pretty sure that she'll be having loud sex with her flavour of the week so I guess I'll use this to not have to go back and listen to that."

Gail winced. "Yeah. Staring at me would be better than that."

"Amen," Holly murmured into her cup, forgetting that Gail had already proved her excellent hearing. She remembered, eyes widening, and looked up slowly to face the slightly blushing but smirking again Gail.

"Thanks?"

"Oh god. I'm sorry. I kind of just say stuff without thinking and you are, I mean, you are attractive but you're doing that as a job not to get hit on all the time and it probably happens all the time. I didn't mean to be sleazy. I am so sorry."

"It's not always annoying," Gail said, smiling down into her cup. "You're doing a pretty good job."

Holly choked on a sharp inhale. "What? Really?"

"No. You're a nerd."

"Oh."

"But that's kind of cute. If I were into that, and I'm not saying that I am, but I am saying that it's leagues ahead of," here Gail deepened her voice and sneered, "Hey baby, I'd love to draw you in my bed why don't you get naked and I'll leave all my art supplies behind and use my hands instead. To fuck you. Let's have sex."

Holly frowned. "You're kidding. That's never happened. Boys don't have lines that bad." Gail held up three fingers. "Three times?" A nod. "Oh my god. Ew."

"Yep." Gail looked surprisingly cheerful at having creeped Holly out. "Boys suck." She looked down at her empty mug and pouted. She held it up in the air and, catching sight of the coffee boy behind the counter, she shook it warningly. The boy gulped and started preparing a new drink for her. "Are you coming to class again next week?" she asked, focusing on Holly once more.

"Will you be there?"

"Maybe." Gail pursed her lips. Then she relented. "Yes. They already paid me."

Holly grinned. "Then I guess so, yeah. Who else would mercilessly mock me for my complete lack of artistic talent?"

"Who would do that? They sound like a real jerk."

"I don't know enough to say for certain but they don't appear to be a real jerk. Maybe a fake jerk. Just a tiny bit of jerkiness." Gail snorted at Holly's words. "What about you then? Are you an artist?"

"Me?"

"No, that other nude model," Holly said, waving over her shoulder. Gail turned, frowning, and when she realised that Holly was kidding, she turned back. Holly was sniggering.

"Nice."

"You actually bought that?"

"Shut it." Gail pouted. "You're surprisingly mean for a nerd."

"I'm not mean. You're just gullible for a, um…" Holly arched her brow. "Dancer?" Gail laughed heartily at that, interrupted when the barista boy placed the coffee next to her, and laughed and laughed. Holly huffed. "Okay, not a dancer. Student of…something?"

"Art history." Gail bit her lip. "And criminology."

Holly looked at her closely. She sounded annoyed. Or upset? "You don't sound happy about that."

"Sorry, you've got to know me longer than," Gail glanced at her watch, "two hours to get me to talk about that shit fest." She raised her cup in cheers.

"Are you enjoying it, at least?"

Gail shifted in her chair. "Eh. It's fine."

"And the art class?"

"What can I say?" Gail grinned. "I like to take my clothes off." She grabbed her bag and stood. Holly jumped up when she did but Gail shook her head and leant in. "It's even better when it's for beautiful ladies." She pressed a teasing kiss to Holly's cheek before walking away, waving over her shoulder. "See you next week, nerd."

Holly stared after her for a long time before sinking back into her seat and shaking her head. She was definitely in trouble.

Here you go. I know it isn't great and I'm sorry. Happy reading, readers :)