Page 45 of Don't Be in Love

I didn’t know what I was expecting. Maybe a restaurant that only made food I hated. Or a university party where every student was waiting with their phones raised to take a picture of us and send it directly to Sabrina and the Board.

It was anything but a shirtless male model sitting on a stool in the center of the room with easels and chairs surrounding him like a recreation of the solar system. The planets around him were made up of a mixture of people. Some looked like accountants with their ruffled blouses. While others resembled fashion interns and grandparents. Each one was twisted away from their canvas to talk to the person beside them. Warm smiles and rosy cheeks everywhere.

“Hey Poppy,” Dorian greeted a woman who had tiny violins for earrings and a blush pink pixie cut.

Her face exploded into a smile. “Dorian, you’re never this early—” Her words snagged once I stepped beside him. “You brought a friend! Oh, how wonderful.” She clapped. “The more the merrier. Get a stool from the back, we’ll get started now. I’ll let you fill your friend…”

“Adelaide,” I filled in her gap.

She smiled. “I’ll let you fill in Adelaide on how we do things here.” Then she left to pass out a few cups of brushes.

“Go sit, I’ll grab another seat.” He gestured to the lone seat.

I nodded, moving to the small stool perched in front of an easel. I was fortunate that our seat was to the side of the model. It felt wrong to stare him in the eyes or be staring at him in the … backside.

Another stool tapped the space beside mine. I scooched over, making room for him.

“I can’t believe you have a hobby. Especially notthishobby.” I was dumbfounded.

“I have to be interesting somehow. You don’t even find me being British interesting,” he responded, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I dragged James the first few times because I was so nervous they’d kick me out for being horrid.”

“You really paint?”

“Do you think this is a front for a recreational football team?”

“This just doesn’t seem like something you’d do!”

He rolled his eyes. “And someone as type A as you doesn’t seem like the type to hoard stuff and then hang it on expensive pocketbooks.”

I clutched my bag. “They’re souvenirs, notstuff.”

“Everyone have their brushes?” Poppy asked over the music. Everyone raised their brushes, including Dorian.

I put my bag on the ground and pulled out my lapt—

“Not yet.” He took the purse and put it beside him, away from my reach.

“But I need to go over your work—”

“We can do that later. This is the ‘try something new’ of the list, so you do have to try it first.”

“How do you know I haven’t done this?”

“I think it’s fairly evident you don’t make much time in your schedule for…fun.” There was a smug look on his face. He knew I couldn’t argue.

“Dorian, did you give our guest the rundown?” Poppy reminded him from the other side of the room.

“Doing that now.”

“The rundown?”

He turned his body to face me. “Poppy takes creativity very seriously. So when you’re in here, you can do anything you want that’ll garner some type of inspiration. Sing, dance, paint the model, don’t paint the model, close your eyes. Take off your trainers and paint with your toes if you wish. As long as you’ve painted something.”

“Do people do that?” I hope they had highly fragrant candles nearby.

“Arnold, once.” He pointed his brush at a man in his sixties wearing a tie dye bandana. “He takes things quite literally when they come from Poppy. He fancies her quite a bit.”

“Oh god, does she know?”