Page 11 of Love Potion No. 69
I’m not one. But I’m notnotone, either, so take that for what you want.
“Clementine?” Magnolia prompts.
Right. I lurch into it. “Hey. So, who likes flowers? I bet you do,” I say to the girl who’s still sneering at me. “Anyone want to take a guess at how many types are used for medicinal purposes?”
A kid raises his hand in the back. “Isn’t aspirin made from flowers?”
I smile. “It’s not.”
“It’s from willow bark, dumbass,” another guy snarks.
“Also not precisely true,” I lobby back, happy to shut him down. “There’s a connection to the willow tree, though—the white willow tree and leaves have salicin in it, which can be converted to salicylic acid in the body. Egyptians used it, and so did the Roman physician Celsius and even Hippocrates. Things kicked into gear in 1763 in England to uncover exactly what was in the tree bark that was working, and that’s how they uncovered salicin. By the early 1800s they could convert it to salicylic acid, and once they combined that knowledge with additional techniques in the lab, they were off and running.”
The next twenty minutes are easy, with me asking the students various questions and bringing it back to how plants are at the root—ha, pun intended—of so much of modern medicine. “So what is it that you do, exactly?” the girl in the front asks.
I can’t help the broad smile I give her. “I grow various flowers, shrubs and trees around our family property to be used in the teas we sell at the apothecary, and I’m working on some research of my own.” I can’t wait to finally tell my family what I’ve managed to do. I just want to recreate it one more time.
She sniffs. “Sounds boring.”
I’m about to retort when movement out of the classroom door’s window catches my attention.No. Way.
Magnolia stands, also seeing the tall drink of water that is Quinton Henry, and moves around her desk. “Thanks again for coming, Clementine.” She holds her hands out, indicating I need to leave, but I’m frozen to the spot. “Clem,” she hisses. “Move it.”
I lurch forward, possibly because Magnolia gives me a push, and am out the door before I realize what’s happening.
Quinton’s face is almost predatory as he takes me in. “Clementine,” he says, his voice low and velvety. “Just who I was looking for.”
I begin to walk past him, unwilling and flat-out unable to return the look, when he grabs my wrist. A zing of electricity shimmers through me again, far too similar to the one from last night to be a coincidence. And this time, there’s no thunderstorm to blame.
“We aren’t doing this here,” I say, having no idea what I even mean by ‘this’ but knowing that my old high school isnotthe setting for whatever it is.
He whips in front of me, halting my progress so quickly that I bang right into him, and immediately his wintry pine scent fills my senses.
Mine.
The thought whips through me so thoroughly that I lose my breath, bouncing back from him and nearly tripping over my feet as I go. Quinton grabs for me, his broad hands encircling my upper arms to steady me, and as I look up, I see literal hearts twirling above his head. Pink and white and red, glittery and bright, twinkling at me like some kind of scene right out of a cartoon. I blink, but they’re still there, and Quinton is still holding me, still steadying me as I try to understand what in the actual hell is happening. Again.
Then I realize: it’s Valentine’s Day. And the hearts that are above his head are in fact all over the place: hanging from the ceiling, stapled to the announcement board to my right, decorating the classroom doors up and down the hall. A relieved laugh escapes me, and it turns into something uncomfortably close to a hysterical giggle within seconds.
“Clementine? Are you okay?”
“Are youkidding?” I laugh. “Am I okay? No, no I’m not,” I say. “I’m not remotely close to okay. Are you?”
He laughs. “Not at all.”
“Exactly.” I shake him off and speed-walking to the exit.
He’s hot on my tail. “We have to talk about what’s happening,” he says. He keeps talking, saying everything that’s already run through my head overnight and this morning, and all I can do is keep walking.
Once we’re outside, I make a beeline for my car, knowing he’s going to get in without an invitation and knowing with a bone-deep certainty that I’m going to let him. It’s the potion. It has to be the potion.
It’s the potion’s fault that I aim the car for the hotel. It’s the potion’s fault that when we get there, I let him take my hand and lead me inside. And it’s the potion’s fault for the way I tumble into him as we step inside the room.
Quinton
MY HANDS ARE shaking as I haul her to me and crush my lips to hers. I lose my breath, growing dizzy as our mouths fuse to each other, and the stars I see may very well be from lack of oxygen. I don’t care.
After a moment, Clementine wrenches away, both of us gasping for air and staring at each other. “Are we doing this?” she asks, her eyes a deep shining emerald. “And to be clear, I don’t know what this is. Did I say that already? Oh, god.” She steps back, looking terrified.