There'll Be Thunder • •

[Shiloh Minerva Zales]

Not many people would look at Shiloh and think she was a girl who enjoyed motor sports. She was an extra-curricular girl who chose to do extra assignments for fun whenever she felt there was time to be spared. She was a freshman who read ahead in her textbooks, who filled her days with optional reading, and flooded her nights with shifts at Hard Rock and hobbies she took up just because they seemed interesting at the time. Shiloh very rarely sat still for anything at all, but a little known fact about her life was that Sundays had been reserved for motor sports back when she was growing up. Her dad was obsessed and it was something he passed on to all of his children in turn, his three sons and Shiloh. Her half-brothers were forever amused whenever she opened her mouth and spoke details of it around people and left them stunned. It was something she kind of missed since moving to New York. She had only made one friend who shared her enjoyment of the fast cars and the smell of rubber on the track and he wasn’t the most reliable of friends to have.

Michael was someone she had met through a friend on the debate team. He was loud and brash and prone to cancelling. Shiloh really ought to have known better than to make one on one plans with him, but she had been so excited by the thoughts of heading to the track for the first time since she had arrived in the summer that she hadn’t really thought it through. She had just gone ahead and got two tickets and told Michael she would meet him at Hard Rock when she finished her lunch shift. No one else had said anything, and it was sort of left at that. She had been working hard for the rest of the time, and her phone was in her bag in her locker so she didn’t get the text message from him until after she had clocked out and was changing back into her regular clothes. He was hungover apparently, and she thought he was also implying that he was still tangled in the sheets with a girl he had picked up the night before. That was all well and good for him, but Shiloh had been thrilled about their plans for this afternoon and now it was all up in smoke.

She moved out to the front and took a seat on an empty bar stool. She ordered a glass of lemonade and propped her head in her hand. Shiloh wasn’t usually the type to sulk, but she really did feel like someone had come and put a raincloud over her sunny day. Plucking the tickets from the back pocket of her bag she sat and stared at them wondering if there was a way to get the money back from them if she didn’t go. She didn’t think there was anyone else she could take along with her, and it wasn’t something she was comfortable going to alone for the first time. Sighing loudly, she slumped in her seat. So much for today being wonderful and giving her something she had left back in New Zealand.

• • •

TAGGED! Henderson Vincent Mitchell
WORDS! 543!
OUTFIT! Crazy Cutie!
LYRICS! Movie Loves A Screen - - - April Smith and The Great Picture Show
NOTES!

[Henderson Vincent Mitchell]

Henderson was trying to keep a low profile in New York. After all the trouble he'd gotten into before, back in California, he didn't want a repeat and have to go back home once again. He wanted to prove he could be out there in the world without his big mouth causing all sorts of trouble. It wasn't something he wanted to put his parents and sister through again. He'd already made her overly cautious of leaving home to attend school but he promised her it was all about his attitude, something she didn't have despite having just as stunning looks as her big brother. She'd learned that lesson through him and thank god for that! He would have felt beyond terrible for teaching her something so horrible. He had been a horrible teenager, first time away from home. Of course, there would be trouble but no one had thought it would end with a visit to hospital and two holes needing to be stitched up.

Thankfully, he'd grown up and moved on out again otherwise, Henderson felt like he would have been driven crazy and would have taken his parents along with him for the trip. New York like too many transplants was his fresh start. And he was thriving after being thrown into yet another big city. He figured maybe it had just been the city he'd chosen and the age he'd been when he tried to get his feet wet. And maybe it was because he found himself a job that had nothing to do with his looks. Sure, they helped, of course. His charming smile and his bright eyes brought in good tips but he had to be more than that at the Hard Rock. It was refreshing and challenging and Henderson found he liked being a waiter. He met some interesting people and saw all manner of things he wished he could take back but mostly, he found he had fun during his shifts.

The California native hadn't meant to be working any shifts Sunday. It was the only day he ever asked for off because he needed to get his coursework done. He wasn't the top student but he wasn't last in his class either. He was in a good spot in his classes but he enjoyed the nightlife and knew if he didn't have at least one day free to blitz his school work, he would probably never get it done. But Meghan had needed the Sunday afternoon for a group project and Henderson had taken pity on her. He didn't have group projects with his major but he'd had one once in his freshman year when he'd taken an filler course. Meghan's shift was the lunch rush and once it was over Penny said they settled enough that he wasn't needed; which was handy since he had one final assignment to push out and he would be finished. He would be off to Medical school for only two years as his programme needed and then off to his residency when the time came. It was a difficult programme but it was what he wanted. He changed into his street clothes and checked his phone to see what he missed as he walked out to the front and saw Shiloh sitting on a bar stool. "What's with the sad face?" He asked, leaning against the side of bar next to her.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tag || Shiloh Minerva Zales
Words || 568
Clothes || Wired Waiter
Music || Once Upon A Time --The Band Perry
Notes || <3

[Shiloh Minerva Zales]

Shiloh spoke to her family enough to stop her from feeling terribly homesick. There were still moments when she longed for New Zealand, but it was often more for something that country had that New York City didn’t. It passed quickly enough and she kept herself busy enough that she didn’t feel it overwhelming her for too long. Still, Shiloh didn’t have any friendships that had lasted after her move. In high school she had been such a busy bee that no one had really been a best friend to her. She had many friends, but she sort of drifted from group to group and got along with everyone. No one particularly stood out as that one person who had her back through thick and thin, which was why New York was kind of like starting all over again on that first day of school when you knew absolutely nobody. Shiloh only got to race home, wait for the right time in New Zealand, and then call home to tell her dad all about it.

Of course, she knew people now she considered friends, but it was all still new. No one in her life had ever known about her unique start in the world and there was still no one she trusted enough to share that tale with. It was all still playing in the shallow end of the swimming pool with these people, figuring them out and deciding if they were going to be there in four years, or if in four months they would be a stranger on the street. Shiloh didn’t want to spend her life drifting between friendships. She wanted people who would be there in ten years when she’d had a bad day, or had good news to share. She wanted to start making those connections that would last a lifetime. Her childhood had been full of turbulence she had been too young to understand; court cases, moving around, and new babies, but that was her past. It had been a happy past, but at the very same time it was not a past that many happy families shared. She didn’t let it bother her, but it was always going to be at the back of her mind, that little niggling voice of doubt that reminded her she was not quite like her brothers, or questioned if her dad spoilt her not because she was a daddy’s girl, but because she was his guilty mistake. Not true, but everyone had their moments when demons tempted them with dark thoughts. Even happy-go-lucky people like Shiloh.

Not that days like this helped much. Shiloh didn’t take people letting her down well. It was something she could never do herself. Even if she was dying with the flu she would show up for someone else. She always had been like that. It wasn’t in her blood to let people down, regardless of her own life and the events of it. It wasn’t like she could change other people and their bad habits. Henderson’s voice snapped her out of her melancholic thoughts, but not her mood. She traced her fingers over the tickets absentmindedly, and managed a disappointed smile as she looked up at him from her seat. “The guy I was meant to be heading to the car race with today has cancelled. He’s still in bed with last night’s conquest.” She explained, closing her hand around her ice cold lemonade and taking a long sip. “I wouldn’t care so much if I hadn’t been so excited in the first place! I haven’t been to a race since I left home. It was…supposed to be…” She trailed off and shook her head. It sounded so silly to be worked up and upset over motor sports when there were bigger things going on in the world. “Nevermind. I better get home and see if I can get my money back.”

• • •

TAGGED! Henderson Vincent Mitchell
WORDS! 658!
OUTFIT! Crazy Cutie!
LYRICS! Movie Loves A Screen - - - April Smith and The Great Picture Show
NOTES!

[Henderson Vincent Mitchell]

Henderson liked being busy. He'd never really been the kind of guy to sit around and do nothing but change positions on the couch for hours on end. Hell, he could barely sit down and get through the chapters of his textbooks in one go. He was most definitely one of those students that needed to give himself a treat every so often just so he continued to read and not just decide to do something else instead. His education was important to him and he wanted to see it through. But damn if it didn't bore the shit out of him. It was part of the reason why he took the job he had. There was always something to do, someone needing something and Henderson loved that there was barely any time to sit down and take a breath.

Henderson wrinkled his forehead up. "Nonsense. Come on, we'll go and you can explain to me the finer details of racing." He said knocking his knuckles against the bar top twice. He would not see his friend so upset. And it wasn't like he had other plans set up. He was going to go home and veg out with whoever was there, maybe play a game or two; nothing he couldn't do any time. Besides, whenever he was given the option to go out and do something else, he generally grabbed at that chance. He loved his place, his roommates- though he would never say that out loud, and enjoyed hanging out with the group but whenever he could get out and do something else, he took it.

"Come on, lead the way." He said as he waited for Shiloh to get up so they could walk out together. Outside the restaurant, Henderson stuck his hand out, hailing a cab for them to get wherever it was they were going. He had absolutely no clue. He'd never been to a race, had never really had any interest in it and probably still wouldn't after this adventure was done. But he was willing to try anything once and Shiloh had been looking forward to this afternoon out so he would tag along and see what she was so excited about.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tag || Shiloh Minerva Zales
Words || 369
Clothes || Wired Waiter
Music || Once Upon A Time --The Band Perry
Notes || <3

[Shiloh Minerva Zales]

Shiloh didn’t want to be anything like her biological mother. She had no memories of Aimee, and knowing she was born in a French prison was shocking enough. If there was ever a horror story to frighten a child into staying on the right side of the law, it was that. Shiloh was not a troublemaker, she never had been, but it was mostly out of the fear that Aimee’s criminality would be genetic. One day she might wake up and some biological factor will encourage her to break the law. It was ridiculous, but if Shiloh was stressed and feeling panicked that was the sort of thing her nightmares were filled with. She wanted to be something better, to cast off the legacy of the family’s prison baby. She would always consider Trisha to be her mother; she was the woman who had raised her, given her advice when she needed it, and helped her when she needed another woman to lend a hand. Aimee was just a name in a story. She was a couple of articles in an old French newspaper. She wasn’t someone Shiloh felt an emotional connection to.

She prided herself on being the type of girl who would be there for her friends, always. She might not see them frequently, but if they needed her then she would be there in a heartbeat for them. Shiloh believed that was what counted when it came to friendship. She would rather have that loyalty than someone who just dragged her out to get drunk, but ditched her for the first cute guy, not caring if she made it home alright or if she spent the night hugging a toilet bowl. That wasn’t really Shiloh’s scene anyway. She was happier with her excessive college clubs and the hours spent at Hard Rock. She found more pleasure in all that hard work than she could ever find on the sticky dance floor of some dark and filthy nightclub. One had more lasting potential than the other and came with less of a headache.

Shiloh blinked at Henderson. Her eyes were wide and it took her a good few seconds to find any kind of words again. He was already up and off his stool by the time she did. “What? I mean, thank you, but you don’t have to come.” She realised quickly enough that it was pointless to argue with him about this. “There isn’t exactly much to explain about fast cars on a track.” Shiloh smirked, wondering how out of place Henderson was going to feel around screaming fans and racing fanatics.

She climbed into the cab after him, giving the driver the address. Shiloh looked across at Henderson, reaching across the seat to squeeze his arm affectionately. “Thanks for this.” She said quietly with a sweet smile.

There were already crowds at the track and Shiloh pushed money between the front seats for the cab fare before they climbed out. She showed their tickets at the gate and then led Henderson through to the seats. People were only just getting settled, so they hadn’t arrived late as she had feared. “Want anything? Drink? Nuts? Spicy cheese nachos?” She asked, bending down to fetch her purse from the depths of her bag.

• • •

TAGGED! Henderson Vincent Mitchell
WORDS! 554!
OUTFIT! Crazy Cutie!
LYRICS! Movie Loves A Screen - - - April Smith and The Great Picture Show
NOTES!