The Guys on my Flat

Chapter Thirteen

Petal was singing along to Isaac Kilmer again, I was somewhat scared to tell her I was his neighbour. What she might do... what she might ask me to do, did scare me and made me cringe more than her singing did.

So I played along.

I just sat there and listened to her off key singing to one of his songs I didn't know off by heart. I was sipping some coffee, burnt coffee, but the best to decent coffee this building sold. I was working on something else now, advertisement for more foods. I didn't mind this project.

But I would need a camera.

We didn't have a designer, like I explained before, but I needed some more money, so I'd like to design the advertisement myself. But I wasn't sure how the boss would take my request.

I found myself pacing his office for a long while before I finally got up the nerve to knock on his door and go inside.

Twenty minutes later, Petal walked up to me, "well? How did it go? Did he say you could make the design?" she asked.

I gave her a small smile and nodded, "he said he was willing to let me do it," I informed. Petal seemed more excited than I was as she practically scooped me up and hugged me. I was a little shocked as I clung to her shoulders to keep my rib cage from bursting in her grip. She squealed with delight and asked about my ideas.

I honestly had no idea what I would do for the design. I was expecting him to say no.

I was scribbling ideas down for the rest of the day, even looking up some photograph angles and ideas from other advertisements. I scribbled down some ideas I liked and asked George and Petal about what ideas they liked better. As I was going through some photos I stumbled across Liam's photos.

I was somewhat stunned to see them.

But that didn't stop me from looking at them. There was an entire website dedicated to his work and his business. Some were black and white, others colour, some on odd angles you could hardly make out what the picture even was and some so obvious they could even be classified as classically dull. They were all brilliant.

I nearly cried when I saw a poster he designed to raise awareness for children on roads. It was a close up of a little girl's shoe knocked over on the road, the shoe was so clear, yet in the background, out of focus but close enough to make out, were some paramedics and a little girl lying on the ground next to a car. The only colour was the little girl's blur of a pink dress.

But... where was anybody?

There weren't any photos of people, at least... the photo wasn't entirely focused on the people, just objects like ballet slippers hanging on a wall or flowers in some sort of meadow, but never was it based around people.

To be honest, I was expecting some sort of sexy underwear photos of women with seductive smiles or flirtatious looks. But no... I couldn't find one of those.

In my mind I was both relieved and annoyed. Relieved because it meant he might have some sort of respect for women, annoyed because it meant I now had no reason to give him that whip Lily gave me.

As I flicked through his photos I found one of a girl. She wasn't in her underwear or in some sort of heaven/hell background. It looked like a girl on the boat facing the sea, she seemed embarrassed about the camera, laughing even. I clicked on the link it was attached to and was sent from one website to another.

I found more pictures of the same woman, eating ice-cream, and hiding behind a large hat... I assumed she was Liam's girlfriend at some point because the only picture that suggested anything was one where she was smiling drowsily at the camera. Her body was lying down on a bed with white covers, her head propped up on her arms. She seemed to be naked, but there was so much modesty, it was a beautiful photo more than an offensive one.