Say Yes (Nostalgic Summer Romance)

I could sense someone’s eyes on me.

I glanced up and to my left, but no one was looking at me. A glance to the right confirmed the same. But when I cast my gaze across the small room, I found a pair of dark eyes under thick lashes watching me from behind a canvas I could only see the back of.

It was a boy, though I supposed calling him a boy was somewhat silly, considering he was easily the oldest in the class. I couldn’t be sure of his exact age, but I knew he was closer to thirty than he was to twenty, and that just one look into his eyes confirmed he’d lived more life than I had.

I’d seen him last night, coming into the classroom as I was leaving it. He’d sat down at a blank canvas and I remembered shaking my head at the procrastination.

An entire oil painting in one night?

Even if he did wet on wet, there was no way the professor wouldn’t be able to spot that it was a last-minute painting.

A closer look told me he likely hadn’t slept at all, and though I couldn’t remember what he’d been wearing last night, I was almost sure it was the same black Pearl Jam t-shirt he wore now.

He had dark, hickory brown hair, lush and unruly, and an inch too long by my mother’s standards. A scruffy beard of the same color peppered his jaw and upper lip, scraggly and unkept, and again I could hear my mom’s voice in my head making a comment under her breath that he should trim it.

I kind of liked it, though.

I kind of liked the way it made him look older than he was, but how the boyish gleam in his eyes gave him away. I kind of liked that he looked grumpy but curious all at once.

I kind of liked the way he didn’t look away when I caught him staring, and how one corner of his lips ticked up just a notch when I didn’t look away, either.

“Okay, class,” a voice boomed from the door, and then Professor Beneventi shut it behind him, waving his hand impatiently with a frown etched deep into his brows. “Per favore, sistemati.”

Those who weren’t already in their seats found them quickly, a quiet shuffling of feet and books and paper until a complete silence fell over us all. The eyes that had been watching me disappeared from view, hidden behind canvas now, and I shook off the remnants of that gaze as I put my paint brush aside and turned my focus to the professor.

Professor Beneventi barely sat his own things down before he was pacing the room, his eyes roaming each canvas, and it was easy to tell by his reaction, or lack thereof, what he was thinking. He might frown or shake his head, stare for a long while with a thoughtful pause, or skim so fast you couldn’t be sure he really looked at all.

And we just sat there as quiet as we could, watching and waiting, hoping like hell he wouldn’t pass over ours as quickly as he had the one before us.

My throat was thick with a swallow I couldn’t manage by the time he made it to me, and I felt him hovering over my shoulder, though I wasn’t bold enough to turn and watch his face. I focused on breathing, on the inhale and exhale, and waited for him to speak.

Brilliant, Miss Chambers, I imagined him saying.

The colors!

The composition!

Instead, I heard a long sigh leave his chest, followed by a mumbled, “Prevedibile.”

I didn’t need to know Italian to know that didn’t translate to brilliant.

I finally turned to meet his disappointed eyes, and he clicked his tongue, nodding to my piece before he looked down at me. “You have talent, Miss Chambers. Why do you waste it?”

I didn’t miss the subdued noises around the room, a chorus of soft shifts and exhaled breaths that sounded like a loud ouch to my ears.

“I’m sorry, Professor, I’m not sure I—”

“What are you trying to tell me with this piece?” he asked, cutting me off.

I swallowed. “Well, the assignment was—”

“I know what the assignment was. But what did you do with it?”

My neck flamed, embarrassment building in my throat and threatening to form as tears in my eyes. It took everything I had to fight it and hold it down. And whereas every other student had his or her head down focused on their art, the boy across from me was watching me again, something of a challenge in his eyes.

I didn’t know if it was for me or the professor.

“I want you to look at what you created,” Professor Beneventi said. His hand gestured to the river, to the sunset I’d worked so hard on, that I’d been so proud of. “Yes, the colors are beautiful. Yes, you have captured light in a dramatic and beautiful way. But when I look at this, I feel nothing.”