Page 80 of Don't Be in Love

“Cerulean blue, right?”

“As cerulean blue as it get,” I replied, staring at the canvas covered in half-finished cerulean blue vases. The few lamps switched on in the studio flickered yellow light over the painting.

“Why don’t you paint her something?”

“Because that’s weird, Jasmine. And I already got her a gift anyway.”

“Why did you call me then!” Her pottery wheel shrieked.

“Because I bought the gift when I was half asleep weeks ago and now that it’s open and sitting in my kitchen, I’ve realized it’s oddly personal, so I need other ideas.”

“What did you buy?”

I briefly explained what the gift looked like and that I got the idea based on something I saw hung on her cork board in her room.

“Dorian, she’ll love that.”

“That’s the problem. If she loves it, then I’m not doing a great job at proving the ‘friend’ thing.”

“Maybe just flowers then,” she suggested. “Oh! You could get her the November birth flower.”

“What’s the November birth flower?”

“Peonies.”

“I don’t know.” I switched the brush to my other hand to scratch my forehead. “That seems a bit romantic.”

“Nooo, not romantic. No one buys flowers for romantic purposes anymore.”

“Dad buys Mum flowers every week,” I deadpanned. “Are you trying to set me up?”

“You’re a hopeless romantic, I don’t need to do that. You do it to yourself.”

“I am not,” I argued, accidentally flinging paint onto the floor in the process.

“Being a hopeless romantic is a sad life.”

“Are you calling me hopeless now?”

“No. I’m calling you senseless.” The eyeroll was evident in her voice. “Dad’s obsessed with Mum, so of course he buys her flowers all the time. It’s possible Adelaide’s never received flowers before.”

Something told me that wasn’t true.

She continued. “I’m telling you. If you walk in with flowers, the first thing she’ll do is smile when she sees you.”

That would definitely be a first.

It was risky. But that’s how things tended to be around us.

28

Don’t Pay Attention to the Ghosts — Adelaide

One week later, I not only had the photos for my project, but a finished hundred-page Globalization paper, a twenty-second birthday to celebrate in London, and a nerve in the back of my brain that forced me to think of Dorian Blackwood every hour on the hour like a grandfather clock. There had to be some recluse intern running around in my head pressing the Think of Dorian button. Maybe a forgotten paperweight.

Knowing that I was seeing him in about ten minutes made it worse. Every time the bookstore door chimed open, my head snapped up.

I lacked the privilege of distraction seeing as I finished all my work for the semester and applied to every open marketing internship for the summer in London (except Beverly). I’d ask about next semester’s workload if I knew the professors.