Eric Clark lay in bed and ordered a bouquet of flowers—35 roses—to be delivered the next day. He had actually wanted to order 99, but he used to send Ethan Harris Jr. 99 roses, and he didn’t really like that number, so he went with the number Jack Morgan had mentioned.

35 roses wasn’t a lot; tied tightly, it was just a rather small bouquet.

Eric Clark sent a WeChat message to Ryan Turner asking what time Adam Wright was scheduled to work the next day. Ryan Turner said in the afternoon. So Eric Clark told customer service, “Please deliver to this address in the afternoon. No one will be there in the morning, thank you.”

At 2 p.m. the next day, the flowers Eric Clark ordered arrived right on time. At that moment, Adam Wright was in the tattoo studio getting ready, with pigments laid out on a small table—he needed a lot of colors that afternoon and was mixing them. The door to the room was open. Jack Morgan came in swinging the bouquet, knocked on the door a couple of times, and Adam Wright looked up at him, signaling for him to speak if he had something to say.

Jack Morgan deliberately twisted his arm as he came in, tossed the flowers onto Adam Wright’s lap, and winked flirtatiously: “Excuse me, is Mr. Wright here? You have flowers.”

Adam Wright raised an eyebrow at him, not sure what kind of nonsense he was up to.

“Your fanboy sent them.” Jack Morgan pointed at the bouquet on his lap, bright red, “Romantic or not, Mr. Wright?”

“Take them away.” Adam Wright didn’t put down what he was holding, just glanced at the flowers and said to Jack Morgan, “Stop messing around.”

“I’m messing around?” Jack Morgan was half amused, half exasperated. “I didn’t order them. Seriously, your fanboy sent them. Brother Clark said, one bouquet a day, for a whole month.”

—“Oh, Brother Clark?” The client getting tattooed today was a pretty cool girl. As soon as she heard Jack Morgan’s words, she sensed something was up. She looked at the flowers, then at Adam Wright, then at Jack Morgan, “Fanboy? A guy?”

Jack Morgan nodded, “Yeah.”

The girl gave Adam Wright a thumbs up: “Wishing you a lifetime of happiness together.”

Adam Wright looked a bit helpless and continued testing colors, not responding. His eyebrows and eyelashes were thick, and when he lowered his head, his lashes would almost completely cover his eyes, making it impossible to read his expression.

The girl said, “If you don’t want them, why not give them to me? I’ll give them to my girlfriend later.”

She reached out to take the flowers as she spoke.

Adam Wright shifted slightly, gently raised his arm to block her, and said calmly, “Better not. It’s not very polite.”

The girl glanced up and exchanged a look with Jack Morgan, who shrugged and smiled, then clicked his tongue and sauntered out of the room.

Chapter 10

Eric Clark said he’d send flowers for a month, and he really did. For two weeks straight, there were flowers every day. At first, the girls at the front desk or Jack Morgan would receive them, but later the delivery guy refused, saying the client insisted that Mr. Wright had to sign for them personally. So every day, Adam Wright would coldly sign for a small bouquet, then expressionlessly unwrap it and stick it in a water bucket.

The scene was a bit incongruous, but also had a weird kind of cuteness. Ryan Turner secretly took a short video of Adam Wright tossing the flowers into the bucket and sent it to Eric Clark.

Eric Clark didn’t hesitate at all and sent the girl an 88-yuan red envelope. In return, Ryan Turner sent him two more short videos.

It had been a few days since Eric Clark had gone over. He knew that if he saw Adam Wright in person, the flower deliveries would be stopped, so for once, he didn’t show up at the shop for two weekends in a row. The school project had paid out a bonus this time, not much since there were a lot of participants—he got less than 20,000 yuan. The royalties for two papers had also arrived. Eric Clark looked at the SMS notification and thought to himself, after working so hard on that project for so long, he only got 20,000.

Twenty thousand wasn’t even enough for his idol, Mr. Wright, to tattoo a more complex sleeve.

Eric Clark used to feel pretty well-off—he had a car, a house, and some savings—but it all depended on who you compared yourself to. Next to Adam Wright, he seemed a bit poor. But Eric Clark was pretty open-minded. He wasn’t chasing Adam Wright with money, but with his own poor but sincere heart.

“Shameless,” Eric Clark laughed at himself in the mirror.

When Eric Clark was bored in bed, he scrolled through Adam Wright’s Moments again. It was very monotonous—maybe one post every two or three months, either a drawing or a tattoo design. Eric Clark exited and was just about to send a message to flirt a bit, when suddenly a message popped up in the chat window.

—Mr. Clark.

—Enough with the flowers.

Two messages in a row. Eric Clark read them and couldn’t help but want to laugh.

Eric Clark squinted and replied: No can do, I ordered a whole month’s worth, Mr. Wright.

He waited for Adam Wright’s reply, staring at the screen. At the top of the screen, sometimes it said “Adam Wright”, sometimes “typing…”, and he had no idea how long the message would be. Eric Clark found it pretty amusing, and when Adam Wright’s message finally came through, Eric Clark burst out laughing.

Suddenly, he found Boss Wright especially adorable.

—You’re spending too much.

Eric Clark didn’t hold back at all and sent a long string of “hahahahaha” over several lines. Then he followed up with: It’s fine, don’t worry about it.

Adam Wright didn’t reply again, probably not knowing what to say.

Eric Clark was very optimistic. He realized that after all this time, even though Adam Wright hadn’t responded to his pursuit at all, he’d never seriously rejected him either. Maybe it was just that they were both adults and didn’t want to be too blunt or direct. Anyway, Eric Clark didn’t care about that. He was actually pretty satisfied with Adam Wright’s current lukewarm attitude.