Leap of Faith

Day Twenty-Six

“Yeah?” Liam answers, but isn’t really sure what it is I’m trying to say. Eventually, the penny drops and he beams at me. He steps closer to me and places his hands over my cheeks as he kisses my lips quickly. “You, Cate Westbrook, are a genius.”

“You know I don’t like you like that, right?” I say quickly as I move away from Liam. He frowns at me and shakes his head in the ‘what are you talking about?’ kind of way. “I already have a boyfriend… there’s a guy… I mean…” My words become a big jumbled mess as I try to formulate something to say. I take in a deep breath and exhale slowly. “Liam, you’re my lab partner, and I think you’re my friend too, but I’m not interested in you like that.”

Liam stares at me, and then laughs. “Chill out, Red,” he says laughingly. “I know you’re with TJ and while I might have had a thing for you, I’m not stupid enough to tread on Rushing’s toes. And, yeah, we are friends. Just friends.”

I laugh nervously. “Good. We’re gonna need a dark room,” I tell Liam before contemplating taking him to my photography dark room. Eventually, I give in. “I’ve got the perfect place. Come on, grab everything you’ll need.”

While Liam set up the Dispersion of Light experiment in the entry way of my dark room, I sat in the inner room and pulled out my lunch. Before Liam had dragged me away with him, I’d managed to make it to the cafeteria and grab my usual salad. I ate slowly and waited until Liam called for me. I opened the heavy drape divider, my salad still in hand, and found Liam grinning like a kindergartner. His eyes flew to mine and they sparkled with excitement, until they fell on my lunch.

“Why do girls always think they need to be on a diet?” He asks before he turns back to his project. I rolled my eyes and refrained from telling him that I was any sort of diet. I turned to pick up my camera while setting my lunch down on the bench. I moved to join Liam in the cramped area and crouched down as Liam hovered above me. “Third time lucky, Red.”

He was right. When he turned on the torchlight and moved the light next to the prism, a small rainbow appeared. The lights were gorgeous and I immediately sprang into action, clicking away countless times from different angles as I tried to fulfil my brief. As I took my final frame, I knew that we had finally managed to get the photo in the bag. I stood and high fived Liam.

“Told you that you wouldn’t fail,” I say a little smugly.

“Oh, so you’re an ‘I told you so’ kind of girl, huh?” Liam said as he nudged my shoulder. “Did you get enough shots?”

“I got about twenty,” I said with a casual shrug. “Do you think that’s enough?”

“We’ll we only need one of them to be good,” he says before turning to me quickly and stuttering. He made zero sense to me. “I mean, of course, they’ll all be great but we only need one of them to be the one. You know?”

I nod. “I got you the first time, Liam. I’m not all that easily offended.”

Liam packed up everything we’d borrowed from the physics lab and returned them. Before he left, Liam gave me a thank you hug and asked if I’d had any ideas for my project. I just shrugged and told him that I’d think of something. He kindly offered his services if ever I needed him, reminding me that we were lab buddies and just friends. I laughed and told him I’d consider it before I waved him out of my dark room.