Blue Moon.

Chapter 19

The rest of the school day passed by quickly, Liam and I mostly emerged in conversation. It was strange how after one evening together changed the space between us. Suddenly, we could keep up a conversation. Suddenly being side by side each other was comfortable and okay with Liam.

Suddenly, he was smiling and laughing more.

We were sitting beside each other in study hall, fifteen minutes remaining before the bell rang. Neither of us had homework left to work on, and the rest of class was getting fidgety too, ultimately making Mr. Grant abandon his tries to keep us quiet.

Liam had scooted his desk next to mine, and was turning in his chair so that he was angled in my direction, the both of us pouring over a single piece of lined paper, grins on our lips. We were scribbling down lines and loops over the paper's surface, and then leaning back a little to admire the squiggle, trying to decipher any kind of shape in the web of led ribbon.

"Oh, I got one!" he suddenly enthused, dragging the paper over so that it was more directly in front of him. He began to connect lines, bolden lines, and add onto the squiggle until the tangle of led pencil resembled some kind of unicorn fish.

I snorted and slapped my hand over my mouth to suppress a laugh. "That one's a keeper!" I giggled, pulling out my phone and sneakily taking a picture of the uni-fish without Mr. Grant seeing me.

I pulled out another fresh piece of paper and Liam and I repeated the process, except this time I was the one who found a figure in the squiggle. When I was finished, we were both looking at an octopus with a top hat, grinning goofily at us from the paper. Liam chuckled and his face reddened with laughter.

"That's the ugliest octopus I've ever seen." He teased, taking out his own phone and snapping a picture of it.

I narrowed my eyes playfully at him and snatched the piece of paper away. "Mr.Tenticles is very sensitive!" I stuck my tongue out at Liam and making me squeal he reached for my tongue, although I narrowly sucked it back into my mouth before he could pull it.

"My mom used to say that if she ever caught me sticking my tongue out, she'd snatch it away!" he laughed and I grabbed a stitch in my stomach that had formed from my laughter.

"Well, my mom said that if she ever caught me going to school with uncombed hair, she'd shave it all off!" I giggled, reaching forward and tossing Liam's messy hair about until he successfully batted my hands away.

"Too bad she never taught you that it's rude to talk unyieldingly!" he fired back and I gasped with faux aghast. "It's very irritating." He smirked and I narrowed my eyes at him.

"You take that back!" I threatened, but he just leaned forward, catching me slightly off guard, and stared me right in the eyes.

"No." he said simply, and with that he reached forward and tickled the sides of my torso, causing me to flail out of my seat and onto the floor.

The bell rang and students stood up, heading towards the door of the classroom to leave. However, I was still on the floor, glaring murderously up at Liam who was laughing so hard his face was turning the color of a plumb. Finally he got around to standing up and giving me his hand to help me to my feet.

I brushed myself off and glared at him playfully as we grabbed our things and headed out the door. "I had no idea you were so ticklish. Really." He continued merrily, only causing me to roll my eyes.

"Well now you know, jerk face." I teased, smiling smugly at him.

He walked with me to the senior lockers and to my surprise even followed me to my locker where he leaned against the medal, gazing at me evenly. "Hey, just so you know I'm not going to be at school tomorrow." Liam said offhandedly as I pulled out my trigonometry text book.