Page 160 of Jesse's Girl

“Nah, it’s all good,” Ada says quickly, but her gaze lingers on the scene through the window.

“You should check it out, Ada. There’s good stuff in there!” Katie assures us.

I slip my hand into Ada’s again. “Yeah, c’mon. You said you loved art galleries.”

“Catch you later?” Dimitri asks, and we agree to find each other again when we’re done at the auction.

As I tug on her hand, Ada casts another lingering glance at the crowd inside the gallery, then pins me with a curious look. “When did I tell you that?”

“Tell me what?”

“About loving art galleries.”

“Uh, at the deli. You told me you went to every one you could find in Europe.”

“After we went shopping?” Her brows draw together. “You remembered that? That was like two months ago!”

“Of course I remembered that.”

“Aww,” she teases.

“I was hanging on your every word. Couldn’t stop staring at your mouth.” At her confused expression, I add, “There was mayo, like, everywhere.”

She swats at me. “Fuck off.”

I grin and wink.

“Did you just wink at me?” She rolls her eyes. “You’re such a tool.”

“Come on,” I say, dragging her through the open door. “Let’s go pretend to be fancy people.”

We stop inside the doorway, taking in the gallery.

A stylish woman with blonde, curly hair piled into a knot on top of her head winds between people, answering questions and rearranging the displayed items. When she spots us hovering in the doorway, she strolls over, beaming at us with an infectious smile. “Hey! Welcome!”

“Hey,” I say. “So, how does this all work?”

“Right.” She claps her hands softly together. “Okay, so tickets are fifteen dollars. After you pay, I assign you a bidding number, which is what you write on the sheet next to your bid. Bidding’s open until seven, so there’s still a bit of time to have a good look around.”

“Okay, cool.” I nudge Ada. “You up for it?”

“Sure,” she says, her attention trained on the paintings lining the walls beyond the auction items.

I dig out my wallet and hand the woman fifty bucks.

“Oh, great! I’ll just grab you some change.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “It’s for a good cause.”

“Well, that’s very generous, thank you! My name’s Caroline, by the way. I’m the Event Coordinator here.”

Caroline leads us to a table with a sign-up sheet, and we quickly scribble down our information. When she takes the clipboard from Ada, her eyes snap up.

“Ada Russo?”

“Yeah?” Ada sounds uneasy.

“Oh my God! You paint all those dark surrealist pieces, right? Lots of red and black? I follow you online!”

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