Say Yes (Nostalgic Summer Romance)

When my eyes flicked to his, he wore an amused smile, but didn’t offer any assistance in helping me put the pieces together.

“We just approached the assignment differently, that’s all,” he said after a moment with a shrug. “But no, I’m not making fun of you. What you painted is beautiful.”

I shook my head, adjusting my purse on my shoulder before I started for the door. “It’s nothing compared to yours,” I mumbled under my breath.

But before I could snake past him and retreat out the door, that stupid boy hooked his hand gently in the crook of my elbow, pulling me to a stop.

My breath caught, chest squeezing, and I could feel the warmth of his hand on my arm, could smell the peppermint on the wave of his breath where it swept over me.

If I turned my head just a quarter inch, I could see the scruff on his jaw up close, I could note the true color of his eyes, I could commit every shape of his face to memory and paint it later.

But I didn’t dare.

“I didn’t realize we were in competition,” he said, his voice low and melty like a stick of butter in a hot skillet.

I swallowed, but still didn’t lift my gaze to his. Instead, I shrugged him off and shoved through the door, back out into the warm summer evening.

This time, I went home.

But sleep never found me.

The Art of Frustration

I spent the weekend trying to forget about our first project.

Angela and I took a day trip to Rome to explore, doing a tour of the Colosseum and having lunch in the courtyard of the Vatican. We got back to Florence late and spent most of Sunday lounging around the dorm room. By the time Monday rolled back around, I felt marginally better, and at the very least, I was ready to let go and “forge ahead,” as my roommate had said, to the next assignment.

“La Nascita di Venere,” Professor Beneventi said when he rolled in Monday morning, haphazardly slinging his briefcase onto his desk before he turned to face us. “The Birth of Venus. Tell me what you know about this painting.”

“It was painted by Sandro Botticelli during the Italian Renaissance,” I blurted out without thinking, without realizing that no one else was volunteering themselves to lay on the professor’s chopping block.

He nodded at me. “Indeed. What else?”

I swallowed, looking around the classroom at all the other eyes on me. I tucked my hands under my thighs before I met the professor’s gaze again. “It captures the birth of the goddess when she first emerged from the sea fully-grown,” I said.

“Is that all it captures?”

I frowned, mouth tugging to one side as I considered the question. “No. There are many interpretations, of course, but… I think Botticelli wanted the viewer to be inspired by the goddess, by her beauty and how she grew from the earth. Or rather, the sea.”

“I think it’s meant to arouse.”

All heads snapped in the opposite direction of where I sat.

To Liam Benson.

Professor Beneventi arched a brow. “Go on, Mr. Benson.”

Liam shrugged, running a hand back through his messy hair. “Well, she’s naked, for one.”

That earned him a chuckle from the class and a glare from me. I folded my arms over my chest, fighting the urge to scoff at the simple view of such a historically significant masterpiece.

“And you think the artist painted her nude to arouse his audience?” Professor asked.

“Not necessarily, but I think it’s naïve to think he had this…” Liam waved his hand in the air. “Hoity-toity, nose in the air, it’s about her earthly beauty intention.” He paused. “It was the Renaissance. Artists all over were pulling away from the Christian focus of the centuries before and returning to classical literature for their inspiration. I think Botticelli picked the goddess of love because that’s what he wanted to inspire. Love. And sure, that could mean romance or commitment, but at the very base of it, at the primal level — love is sex.”

More laughter filled the room, and I shook my head, unable to hold off any longer. “That’s a rather crude way to look at it,” I said.

Liam tilted his head. “How so?”

“To think that all love is is…” I swallowed, my cheeks aflame. “Sex.”

Liam smirked at that. “I didn’t say that was all it is.”

“She’s literally covering herself, a modest thing to do, not a sexual one,” I pointed out. “And the Hora of spring waits for her with a shawl to cover her up even more.”

“That’s one way to interpret,” Liam said.

I fumed. “That’s the way to interpret.”

“Look, I get that you’re versed in what scholars have come to say about it. But when I think about how I would feel painting that, I don’t think I’d be painting a nipple or curvy hips of a beautiful woman and thinking, ‘Wow, this is so divine!’”