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harryandmolly · 7 years ago

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Cuttlefish - (a LTBOMH deleted scene)

A/N: A little monday morning fluff for all you motherfluffers. I have issues letting go of things so... here’s Shawn and Lilly again (I imagine this fitting somewhere within chapter 6, FYI). ALSO CONVENIENTLY coincides with a 1200 follower celebration, I LOVE YOU GUYS <3

Summary: A nap date and a really stupid nickname.

Warnings: Language, domesticity

Word count: a respectable 2.1k

“Hi, you landed?” Lilly mumbles into her pillow. The yawned words distorted by a pillowcase would be impossible for anyone but him to decipher.

He’s lifting his bag off the luggage carousel with his free hand and nodding when he remembers she can’t see him. “Mm, yeah, about 10 minutes ago. I’m getting my bag now.”

“Good flight?” She rolls over off her stomach so he might be able to hear her better.

“Good enough. We didn’t die.”

She snorts. “That’s the spirit. You going straight home?”

He’s nodding again, silent for a beat too long. He has to blink hard to keep his eyes open. “Mmhmm. Bed. Sleep. Nap. Now.”

Lilly frowns. She knows they agreed they wouldn’t see each other today. She has just come off a 12-hour day on set that became a 16-hour day on set when absolutely everything went wrong. Now she knows why everyone in Hollywood says never work with kids and horses.

He’s been in New York for two and a half days and has been awake for the last 22 and a half hours of it. It was better, they both knew, to hook up later when they weren’t both zombies and could enjoy each other’s company.

“Hey, I know we said we wouldn’t try to see each other today but I personally feel that if you get in a Lyft and come nap with me, you’ll be a much happier boy.”

Her voice is run-down from a night spent muttering into a walkie-talkie and it’s fucking music to his ears. He loves that she wants to see him if only to dream next to each other. He grins goofily into the phone as he stumbles behind his team to the cars waiting for them at arrivals.

“That sounds nice, baby. Can I shower at your place?”

“Mmm,” she mumbles in assent, closing her eyes and rubbing her nose into Olaf’s dingy white fur.

He hangs up and tells Andrew he’ll take a Lyft to Burbank. When he arrives, he hauls his luggage up the steps to her private entrance and opens the door without knocking. She’s curled up in a ball on top of her yellow duvet with the curtains drawn and lights off, TV glowing a second season Gilmore Girls episode she’s seen about 104 times. She smiles sleepily at him in the dim light.

He drops his backpack by the door and bumps into her coffee table, swearing as he almost tumbles onto her bed. He steps away from the offending furniture gingerly, giving it a look. He turns his focus to her and feels his whole body relax at the sight of her in her big plaid shirt and her little pink panties waiting for him, barely able to keep her eyes open. He flops onto the bed, partially on top of her legs.

Lilly snickers at him, clumsy as ever, as he falls on top of her. She scoots down to curl around his head until they sort of resemble a weird, lop-sided yin and yang symbol. He lifts her warm little hand off the sheets and brings it to his lips, keeping his eyes on hers as he kisses her knuckles the way he always does when he’s been gone a few days.

“Baby,” she coos. There’s no follow-up thought, no words to accompany it, just the pet name says enough. He blinks his eyes open and decides it’s been too long since he felt her breath so he unfurls himself around her and rearranges her beneath him so his knees bracket her legs and he’s hovering over her, watching her chest rise and fall. Her skin is pale and peeking out of her shirt. He wants to drag his lips and teeth over the spot until it’s not pale anymore at all.

But he’s so fucking tired.

She stares up at him, tracing the edges of his lips, the slant of his nose, the circles under his eyes. She threads her fingers back into his hair and pulls him down for a kiss.

It’s warm and lazy and perfect, just like she feels. When he pulls away to prop himself up on his knees between her thighs, he tucks his hands under her knee caps and strokes his hands down over her calves, just looking down and admiring her. His eyebrows lift when he watches her face contort with pleasure.

“Oh my god, yes,” she moans, arching her back as his rough fingers rake over her two-day-old stubble. Her hand reaches out and grips Olaf hard. She looks up at him through hooded eyes.

“Lilly, what the—”

“My calves are so sore,” she whines through an embarrassed chuckle. She goes pink thinking about the noise she just made and turns her face into a pillow to hide from him as he snickers at her.

“I’ve never heard you make that noise without my face between your thighs,” he says, amused and smirking. She rolls her eyes.

“I did Blogilates yesterday before I left for set which was, by the way, the dumbest idea ever. She had us do calf raises for like, 10 minutes. I can barely walk up a set of stairs,” Lilly grumbles, closing her thighs against him encouragingly, jutting her chin at him to suggest he continue.

Shawn lowers to sit on his feet and spreads her legs, wrapping his broad palms and wiry fingers almost all the way around her calf muscles. He runs his hands up and down gently at first, feeling her out without exerting pressure. She watches him with a quiet smile. He’s looking down at her legs, marveling at how solid and good she feels in his hands. He glances up and blushes under her gaze. He squeezes his grip around her ankles affectionately and pulls his hands back up toward her knees, kneading smoothly as he goes.

Her head falls back and her eyes shut. She moans again, giggling at herself. He’s strategic about it, rhythmic even in the way he massages her legs. She loves it. He spreads his fingers wider and bears down a little harder. He’s entranced by the sounds she’s making and seeks them out.

“Fuck, baby, that’s so good,” she sighs. He laughs again. She opens her bleary eyes to see him pink-cheeked and staring at her.

“You’re turning me on a little,” he admits with a shrug, smiling shyly like he’s not sure if it’s ok to say out loud. Her stomach flips. She sits up and slides her legs out of his grip to wrap them around his waist and tug him against her.

“I missed you,” she tells him, propped up on tented fingers with her legs latched around his waist like she’s afraid he’ll leave if she lets him go. He cups her cheeks in those big, beautiful hands and brings his lips down so gently she barely feels it.

“You just missed my hands,” he teases, pecking her lower lip and pulling away, unwrapping himself from her legs reluctantly. She curls up without him, watching as he digs through his bag for a change of clothes. He grabs her spare towel and points up the stairs.

“Roommates home?”

She shrugs. “Probably a couple. Think Emily’s upstairs watching Gossip Girl. Avoid her if you don’t want a speech about Chuck Bass being an indefensible character from the pilot episode,” she advises.

He nods solemnly and disappears. Fifteen minutes later, he’s slouching back into her room, ditching the t-shirt and sweatpants he’s just changed into for the walk back downstairs from the bathroom. She smiles into her pillow, pleased he’s not starting down the path of complaining about how hot her room always is. He’s too tired.

In Under Armour boxer briefs, he crawls over her on the bed and starfishes, spreading his limbs and laying all his weight on her, snuffling into her hair. She grunts and shifts under him, playing along because she doesn’t mind how heavy he is. At least he’s here. She kisses his neck as he burrows his face into her pillow.

She splits into a cheesy grin against his shoulder. He feels her teeth against his skin and lifts his head, looking dozy and confused. “What?”

“You smell like me,” she laughs, lifting her nose to his hair. Strawberries and mint, just like hers. It’s delightful.

“I like smelling like you,” he whispers, too exhausted to be self-conscious. She fastens a hand into his curls and wraps an arm across his warm, still damp back, rolling him off her to his side. He takes the hint and adjusts them so he’s on his back and her head is tucked in against his shoulder, their legs tangled on top of the sheets. He runs his fingers through her hair all the way down her back until she falls asleep. He follows soon after.

Almost two hours later, Shawn blinks awake. They’re in exactly the same spot they fell asleep in, frozen in time. He cracks his neck and shifts her away just long enough to lift and turn her onto her side and cuddle up against her back. The jostling wakes her up, which wasn’t exactly an accident on his part. He misses her.

“Hey,” she murmurs, voice crackly with sleep. She lifts a hand to pat the arm he’s slung around her body and scoots back a little more firmly against his chest. She likes feeling surrounded by him.

“Mmm, my little cuttlefish.”

Lilly’s eyes open. Shawn enjoys teasing her with weird nicknames. As long as he doesn’t use them while they’re having sex, she doesn’t mind. But this one is weirder than usual.

“Did you just call me a cuttlefish?”

“Yep,” he mutters into her neck, rubbing his nose against the downy hairs at the nape.

“Have you ever seen a cuttlefish?”

“No. Is it cuddly?”

Lilly bursts into giggles. “You are so fucking cute. Cuttlefish are terrifying. They’re cephalopods. They look like freaky squids.”

“Not cuddly,” he murmurs, voice muffled, “Should change the name, then.”

She closes her eyes, unwilling to continue this bizarre line of conversation. She settles back into him, wondering if she’ll drift off again.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

She turns over to see what he’s yelping about. He’s staring wide-eyed at his phone, eyebrows pulled together, looking horrified.

“I just googled cuttlefish! This thing is gross! It doesn’t look like a fish at all!” He flips the phone around to show her. She squints at the screen before she takes his phone away and puts it on the night table.

“No cuttlefish in bed. New rule.”

Shawn smiles and pulls her in by her hips. “Any other bedroom rules I should know about?” He runs his lips along her hairline as she plants kisses down his jaw.

“You have to kiss me when we wake up together even if we have morning breath,” she whispers into the skin below his ear. He smells even more like her now that he’s been lying in her bed. It’s getting her a little carnal and territorial. His hands come to rest on her lower back under her shirt as she mouths at him.

“Ok,” he breathes, sounding a little worked up himself. He nudges her legs apart to slide one of his between them. He pulls her so she’s lying underneath him again, enclosed in him like she likes.

“Anything else?” he pants.

“Yeah. Nap dates are now part of the regular routine, mmk?”

Shawn lowers himself carefully around her until he’s flat against her torso and his nose is brushing against hers. “I love nap dates. All of our dates should be nap dates.”

“But what about movie dates? And sushi dates? And beach dates and pool dates? And ice skating dates? And—”

He plants his lips against hers firmly, laughing into her mouth. She grins back and their teeth clash but they don’t care.

“Any kind of dates you want, sweetheart.”

They make out like teenagers for a while, copping feels and moaning, whispering conversations about nothing before they’re both exhausted again. This time, she slots up against his back and holds him against her chest because she knows he likes to be the little spoon sometimes but never wants to ask.

He’s wriggling as he searches for sleep. She’s desperately trying to ignore his restlessness.

“Lilly, it’s always so hot in your room, goddamnit.”

She rolls her eyes and buries her face in his back, kicking feebly at his legs, trying to pin him down to submit to her.

“Stop moving or I’ll get the cuttlefish.”

He giggles and complies. They fall asleep again and dream of anything but cephalopods.

Taglist: @the-claire-bitch-project @smallerinfinities @crapri @stillinskislydia @abigfatmess @heavenly—holland

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latesthollywoodnews · 7 years ago

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Ariana Grande Sparks PREGNANCY Rumors After "God Is a Woman" Video

Jeremy Brown - Latest News - My Hollywood News

Ariana Grande Sparks PREGNANCY Rumors After “God Is a Woman” Video, New Hollywood Celebrities Coming Out.

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Fans Think Ariana Grande Is PREGNANT After “God Is a Woman” Video + More Hidden Gems

Ariana God is a Woman Music Video (2:01-2:05)

Ariana Grande should’ve known that this particular scene would have people wondering if there’s a little bun in her oven.

After dropping her highly anticipated music video for ‘God is a Woman,’ we all have questions. Or like, just one in particular for Ms. Ariana Grande. Are you pregnant or nah?? It’s only been a few hours since Ari released the stunning visual for her newest single, ‘God Is a Woman,’ and fans are shook to say the least.

While the music video was super mesmerizing and beautiful and incredible as a whole, there’s one major question lingering on everyone’s mind after watching it and I think you know where I’m going with this. If for some crazy reason you don’t know which scene I’m talking about, here it is.

Ariana God is a Woman Music Video (1:59-2:05)

Immediately after that scene, Arianators started speculating left and right if Ariana was hinting at being pregnant with that visual. One fan tweeted QUOTE, “Was Ariana hinting that she’s pregnant or was that just a part of the video?” Another straight up asked in all caps, “ARIANA GRANDE ARE YOU PREGNANT?” While one fan simply tweeted QUOTE, “We love a pregnant queen with a masterpiece of an album.”

Obviously everyone is going crazy over this visual, but a few others are pretty skeptical at the possibility of Ari being pregnant. One fan even made fun of everyone who fell into the ‘omg is she pregnant’ trap by tweeting two screenshots from the music video and writing QUOTE, “omg ariana’s hinting that she’s pregnant. Omg Ariana is in the illuminati.” Okay, fine, you got us there BUT WHAT IF SHE IS. Anyway, Ari has yet to respond to all of these speculations, but if we had to guess, she probably isn’t expecting. If anything, the pregnancy visual is probably just a part of the music video’s premise and just shows how powerful women are. And speaking of powerful women, in case you missed it the first time, Madonna actually made a vocal appearance in this video!

Ariana God is a Woman Music Video (2:24-2:35)

So, I guess that’s what Ariana’s tweet thanking Madonna the other day was about. But I still have my fingers crossed for an actual musical collaboration between the two because seriously how incredible would that have been?

What do you guys think? Did Ari basically reveal she’s pregnant or do you think it was just part of the music video? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below. Then click right over here to watch another new video and don’t forget to subscribe to our channels! Thanks for watching, I’m Emile Ennis Jr. and I’ll see ya next time!

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araniladin · 7 years ago

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Step into my Parlor

Little short story I wrote, felt like sharing

Teslas parked illegally in front of your apartment would not be a common harbinger of doom, but that day, two of them, red and blue, stood outside the door to my complex. I had always liked the idea of the car, electric, thumbing its nose at those gas guzzling assholes on the road. These cars never drive down the roads in this part of town. I felt a cold chill down my spine seeing them.

I took the steps to the apartment I shared with my partner, three easy flights, holding the foil-wrapped burritos in my hands. The elevator made a lot of noise when it arrived and could take forever to reach my floor.

The apartment near the stairs housed a couple that could only communicate at loud volumes, but they had chosen for a silence night in. The pothead who screamed at his video games had taken the day off, odd for an unemployed and agoraphobic man. The mother of three had found a way to quiet all her toddlers and babies.

And the door to apartment 312 hung open. Our apartment.

Never trust a quiet apartment floor.

Placing the food down against the wall to protect it, I threw back my shoulders and walked to my open apartment. My flats whispered against the carpet floor as I strolled into my violated home.

The living room was wrecked, the television face down on the floor, the couch ripped opened, all our games and movies scattered across the floor. A discarded rope laid near the door, which might explain why two boys had my wife pinned against the floor.

The boys wrecking the place all had that mass that came from having too much time at the gym, perfectly sculpted muscles and the money to buy the clothes to show it off. Caps with flat brims, black and white t-shirts and beige shorts. All of them carried guns, oversized pieces that spoke of too much television and not enough time at the range. Aside from the two in my living room, two more were in the kitchen, and another trashed the bedroom, having a good time with the underwear drawer. Fucking frat boys.

They must have caught her as she returned from her patrol, as she still wore her red supersuit. It had strike plates along the torso and legs for protection, making her skinny figure androgynus, although it looked like something had broken her ankle. Her hood and mask laid across her head askew, exposing her copper colored hair and a bruised cheek.

She spotted me first, and froze. The Red Blur, as they all knew her on the streets although her friends and I called her Rose, a speedster who protected this part of San Diego from robberies, muggings, sexual assaults, and saved cats trapped in trees, making sure that if someone missed the bus, they were not late. Someone who cared more for others than for herself. It’s why I loved her, one of the reasons. She never came out to me about her powers, although in the eight years we have been married, I had always known.

I closed the door, the sound of the lock sliding in drew the attention of the rest of the household. Five guns pointed at my face, Rose whimpering as the boy on top of her ground his knee into her spine.

“Told you there was another!” One of the boys said. He had a tan so orange it had to be fake. “This freaky bitch is also a faggot, I told you, Carl!”

The boy digging his knee into Rose’s back rolled his eyes. He had a boater’s tan with a wispy few hairs on his chin, a failed attempt at a beard. “Thank you for the observation. Hey, fatass, how about you take a seat, and we’ll get to you after we finish off with your paramour here.”

This is why I never wear sweaters. People always mistake my size for weight. It could also be that they dislike me looking down at them and calling me fat saved their egos. “How about you get off my partner, and I let all of you walk out of here alive?”

They all laughed. “Listen lady, we have the guns, and we have the super on the ground.” Carl said, pressing harder down with his knee till Rose gasped out a breath. “I do not believe that you have any agency here.”

“And what makes you think she is the only one with powers here?” Mouths dropped open as my face rippled. Even Rose looked aghast. We all have secrets.

“Now, get off my wife, get out of here, and you live, last chance.”

“Supers don’t murder, everyone knows that,” Carl sneered, that knowledge putting steel into his spine.

“Who ever said I was a super?”

Carl’s eyes widen the split second before he fired, everyone else in the room following him. As they fired, I became we. Bullets struck my clothes, the walls behind me, but bullets are really inefficient means of killing off a swarm of spiders. It does, however, piss off said spiders.

We skittered around to the kitchen, the two boys in there jumping onto the counter as they fired at the floor. Their guns clicked empty, and we swarmed over them. Being six and a half feet tall, and about 220 pounds, we became a lot of spiders. They stomped, swatted, and ripped us off by the handfuls, means of murdering us that hurt as much as the bullets. Billions of small bites meant lots of small doses of toxin. Orange boy choked on his own swollen tongue while his partner in the kitchen started to convulse as his nerves were eaten away.

The boy in the bedroom bolted for the door. When he reached for the lock, we stopped hiding in it, crawling over his hand. Skittering up his arm, under his shirt, over his neck and we dived into his mouth. He died choking on us, sixty four spiders crawling down his windpipe.

The other boy, not Carl, leaped out the window. It shattered around him. A heavy thump. The car alarm signalling point of impact.

Carl placed his gun against Rose’s head and pulled the trigger. It clicked empty.

We gathered in front of him, pulling back into a form that had terrorized the East Coast ten years back. I stared down at Carl through eight eyes. Three pairs of hairy hands grabbed him and lifted him off Rose. “I told you, you should have left.” Large, articular fangs slurred my speech, spraying venom and spit onto his face.

The front of his beige shorts started to darken, and the smell of urine filled the apartment. “You’re-you’re Lady Arachnid,” Carl croaked out.

“Thanks for the observation,” I mocked as I hugged him. Inside my embrace, I became billions again, swarming over him, consuming him. He tripped over the fallen television and through the open window.

Tattered remains of his body fell from the window, landing next to his unmoving friend.

We became me again, towering computer tech,white hair tumbling over my bare shoulders, my eyes black, the coloring I had when I stalked the world, before I went mundane.

Taking a deep breath, I turned around and knelt at Rose’s feet. She watched me, eyes full of fear, but when I reached out, she didn’t flinch away from my touch. “I’m sorry you had to find out that way.”

She sputtered, her face moving from fear to anger to embarrassment. “I had the biggest crush on you in college.” Her face matched the red of her suit.

I blinked. “You are not mad at me for never telling you?”

“My wife is a super villian, my secret is out, and I’m trying not to think about the fact that you killed five guys in our living room,” she giggled, manic as tears streamed down her cheek. “I have no idea what I feel right now.”

“Well, technically, I only killed four of them and I always knew you were a super,” I said as I sat next to her. After a moment she shifted into my lap. Giggling tears fell onto my chest. “Remember when we started taking Krav Maga classes? It helped hide your bruising from others, the sewing classes that I backed out of first and let you lie about going to?” She shifted away as if in shame. “I knew, but I supported you.”

“Why, was I your chance for redemption? Support the hero to make up for what you did?” The venom in her voice hurt.

“No, I did it cause I loved you. I...I planned to hide what I was for as long as I could before paying that price.” Saying it outloud made it sound ridiculous even to me.

Pulling off her hood, she finally looked at me. “You never hide what you do, you’ve always owned up to it.”

I shrugged. “Admitting that I forget to pay the phone bill is one thing, admitting I killed a bunch of capitalist is on a whole other scale.”

“Well, they kinda deserved it,” she muttered. “And well, this was self defense, they broke in here, and planned on...hurting me. Is this what shock feels like?”

“Let us get you out of that suit and I’ll take you to the hospital.” The sounds of sirens far off turned us both towards the window. “Or we can let the police do that.”

The suit came apart easily, panels designed to be replaced if damaged without having to resew the whole suit. Much better than a certain black leotard painted with white webbing. I grabbed sweats from the bedroom and helped Rose into those. I stuffed the suit into her hidden compartment in the closet.

“Maybe you should also get dressed and, maybe change back into your normal hair color?” Rose suggested as she ran a hand though my white hair. “Although that is really, really sexy.”

Smirking, I became we, and flowed back into my clothes. A few minor adjustments, and I looked normal again. Rose stared with an open mouth. “You really did pour yourself into your old costume...do you still have it?”

I laughed. “Ask me after we get you checked out.”

The sounds of police stomping up the stairs warned us as they flooded our floor.

“Wait, is this why you do web design?”

#superheroes #i wrote this #writing prompt

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eddiejpoplar · 8 years ago

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Our Four Seasons 2016 Fiat 500X Gets Freaky and Laps Road America

BROOKFIELD, Wisconsin — Bobb Rayner gets to the crux of what makes Fiat freaks Fiat freaks well into his presentation at the national club’s awards ceremony Saturday night. And he does so by repeating a quote by Automobile founder David E. Davis Jr. every year at the Fiat Freakout, held this time around in metropolitan Milwaukee.

“The Germans invented the automobile. The Americans made it a dispensable product. The Italians taught it how to dance and sing.”

Can our Four Seasons 2016 Fiat 500X Trekking Plus live up to that standard? What if it dances like Elaine Benes on “Seinfeld”?

Flashback to two days earlier: I pull our orange 500X into the Sheraton Hotel Brookfield parking lot to a section cordoned off for club members’ Fiats, Alfa Romeos, and Lancias. There are more Bertone-designed Fiat X1/9s here, running the full original-to-modified spectrum, than you might have thought survived. There are nearly as many 124 Spiders, mostly the 1966 to Malcolm Bricklin mid-’80s imports, a couple of new Fiat 124 Spider Abarths, and a Barchetta brought in from Canada. Some random Lancias and Alfa Romeos. A couple of 600s, a boxy sedan or two from the ’70s, and a 1971 Zastava AR-55, a preternatural Fiat Chrysler based off the Jeep-like Fiat 1101. Probably half the lot is filled by the new generation of Fiats, especially 500s and 500 Abarths, plus two other 500Xs, one 500L, and an Alfa Romeo Giulia.

Tim Beeble, in the lab coat, left his ’74 Fiat 124 Spider at home and instead drove his green 500X from Connecticut. But he will not be our long-termer’s toughest competitor.

With no organized events this Thursday evening, just a few club members hang around. One asks, “How do you like your 500X?” The question comes up again Friday for the drive to Elkhart Lake and Road America and on Saturday morning at the Concorso. I reply with something close to, “I like the way it handles. Not crazy about the powertrain.”

Drizzle the next day forces some of the 124 Spider drivers to raise their soft tops before we reach Elkhart Lake in the afternoon so we can retrace most of the original public- road race circuit. Then it’s on to Road America for three laps before sundown.

“We’re only going to go 40, 50 mph,” our Road America pace-car driver, Bill, tells us at the drivers’ meeting. “Enjoy the scenery.”

We enter the circuit somewhere in the middle of the pack, persistent drizzle keeping the road slick. I slow down and speed up for Jessica Walker in the passenger seat. She is taking photos of other Fiats on the track. My nephew and budding car guy Jeffery Dziadulewicz is having the time of his 17 years in back, even with the enforced slow, offline pace. On this hilly, wooded 4-mile racetrack, “America’s Nürburgring,” we might not see either of the two Corvette pace cars assigned to us after the first corner. Even with 78 Fiats, Lancias, and Alfas on the track, there’s room to spread out between the two 500s behind us and the 500 and X1/9 ahead of us.

“Too slow!” Paul Perger exclaims after we finish our laps. He brought his 500 Sport, modified for autocrossing, up from Lewis Center, Ohio.

Eric Fredricks of Davenport, Iowa, went “off on the grass” with his often autocrossed 500 Abarth, “and I just got back on. There were cheers from the infield.”

On Saturday morning we arrive for the Fiat Freakout Concorso at Milwaukee’s Mitchell Park Conservatory, known colloquially as The Domes, thanks to three half-spherical glass greenhouses. Although I’m a new Fiat Club of America member, I haven’t spent much time meeting the organization’s muckety-mucks, which speaks to its casual attitude. Somewhere along the way, I shake hands with the club’s president, John Montgomery, who’s about to step down after 17 years.

Although some of the autocrossers in the Fiat Club of America wanted to go much faster, a speed limit of 50 mph or so on the spectacular 4-mile Road America circuit was plenty for most cars.

Club secretary and board member Tim Beeble is one of my two competitors in the 500X class, having driven his Verde Bosco Perla 2016 500X from Connecticut instead of his ’74 124 Spider (with 154,000 miles on the odo). On this sunny summer Saturday morning in the beer capital of the world, he’s wearing a white engineer’s lab coat and helping to usher cars into The Domes’ northeast lot. I have to pull our 500X out of formation to let in more traditional Fiats showing up later.

Pep Stojanovic’s 1971 Zastava 101 was restored in Serbia. The interior needed just a minor refurbishment. “It smells like Yugoslavia in there,” he says.

Will it hurt our chances for first place if we’re parked out of formation? What about the trim cap covering our car’s rear window wiper arm bolt that has been missing since before I drove it east from El Segundo, California?

I give my nephew a nickel tour of the Italian cars gathered, and the budding car guy quickly becomes a budding Fiat guy. He gravitates to the X1/9s, though he peeks under raised hoods and asks about every model.

I find the Concorso’s single rear-engine 500, a 1960 model. But it has oddly bulging, nonoriginal headlamps. “I’ve had lots of Italian cars,” says Frank Nezrick, a physicist from St. Charles, Illinois, while standing next to his other Concorso entry, a 1960 Fiat Abarth 750 Zagato “Double Bubble.” The bulge-headlamp 500 has a better story.

“Franklin Roosevelt’s son brought it in for his race team,” Nezrick says. The feds told him its factory headlamps were too low for U.S. specifications, so the little car would either have to go back to Italy or face the crusher. “I don’t care if your father is president,” a bureaucrat had added sarcastically.

Alfa Romeos and Lancias are also invited to join the Fiat Club, including Dale Gordon’s award-winning, 25,000-mile 1977 Lancia Scorpion.

Dale Gordon, an anesthesiologist from Libertyville, Illinois, lobbies for my People’s Choice vote as I approach his 1977 Lancia Scorpion.

“One of 387 of the 1977 models sold in the U.S., 1,755-cc engine,” he says. “First flush windshield, only 1,801 made in 1976 and ’77. It’s got 25,000 miles. I’ve never opened the [targa-style] roof. I’m afraid to.”

A couple of boxy malaise-era Fiats actually are Soviet-era models built under license that belong to Pep Stojanovic, who runs commiecars.com. His 1971 Zastava 101, essentially a Fiat 128 hatchback, was restored in Serbia. The interior needed just a minor refurbishment.

“It smells like Yugoslavia in there,” he says.

Michael Louviere drives his ’52 Topolino around town and on dirt roads in Anamosa, Iowa. He proves a keen observer of the Fiat community, so I ask him whether X1/9 and 124 Spider owners ever switch sides.

“It’s not unheard of, but it’s typical for people to be in one of the two categories,” Louviere says. “Spider guys sometimes dabble in X1/9s. X1/9 people typically don’t go to Spiders.”

Spider fan Laura Ives has never switched. She bought her 1972 Fiat 124 ragtop in 1973.

“It was between an MG, because my family is British, and a Fiat,” she says, sitting between her husband, Richard, and me at the Fiat Freakout Awards Banquet Saturday at the Sheraton Brookfield. “The Fiat gearbox was easier than the MG’s. I loved it.”

From left, winners of second, first, and third place in the 500X class line up. Below, Fiat Club co-founder Bobb Rayner says, “Buy a car, get an award.” And we do.

The Ives couple, from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, joined the Fiat Club of America in 2001 in order to attend their first Freakout in Grand Island, New York. Metro Milwaukee marks their fourth such event. Ives rejects the Italian brand’s reputation for poor reliability.

“As the car gets older, it’s good to meet other people trying to source parts,” she says. “I guess I’m lucky. The hardest parts to find are 13-inch tires.”

The Fiat Club of America is Eastern U.S.-centric, with most members living on that side of the Mississippi River or in Ontario or Quebec. Bobb Rayner, the awards ceremony emcee, co-founded the club with Dwight Varnes in Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1982, reacting to Fiat and Alfa Romeo’s impending withdrawal from the U.S. market.

Rayner, a presenter on home shopping channel QVC, gets to the heart of an enthusiast brand that’s within reach of virtually any driver.

“We don’t care how shiny and fast and expensive your car is.”

This warms my cold auto journo heart. It might be a cliché or even a stereotype, but it’s clear even from commodity products such as Fiat that Italy’s efficient, modern auto industry thrives with a workforce that knows how to take a good lunch break. Likewise, the Fiat Club of America draws sociable people who know how to throw a party more than they care about how to perfectly restore a car.

With that, the Fiat Club awards seven individuals and 53 of the 124 cars entered in the 2017 Concorso.

Ives’ ’72 takes second place among the 1966-’74 124 Spiders, Louviere’s patinated Topolino gets the Most Challenged award, Stojanovic’s Zastava 101 wins the Fiat Del Mondo class, and Gordon’s Scorpion takes first in the Fiat/Lancia Sport class. The Car I’d Most Like to Drive Home is Mark Rowan’s 1967 Fiat Dino coupe, and the People’s Choice for Best of Show goes to Nezrick’s Zagato “Double Bubble.”

In the Fiat 500X category—“Buy a car, get an award,” Rayner quips—Bryan Reiners of Hartford, Wisconsin, takes first with his tastefully decaled white XUV, Beeble’s emerald green car gets second, and Automobile’s Arancio Four Seasons car is awarded third. Ours proved shiny, though neither fast nor expensive. I should have replaced that wiper arm cap.

Our 2016 Fiat 500X Trekking

MILES TO DATE 21,748 PRICE $26,230/$27,730 (base/as tested) ENGINE 2.4L SOHC 16-valve I-4/180 hp @ 6,400 rpm, 175 lb-ft @ 3,900 rpm TRANSMISSION 9-speed automatic LAYOUT 4-door, 5-passenger, front-engine, AWD SUV EPA MILEAGE 21/30 mpg (city/hwy) L x W x H: 168.2 x 75.5 x 63.7 in WHEELBASE 101.2 in WEIGHT 3,292 lb 0-60 MPH 9.8 sec TOP SPEED N/A

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jonathanbelloblog · 8 years ago