Leap of Faith

Day Eight

“Psst, Cate,” another voice tried to get my attention. I look over my shoulder and see Nicole DeLuca leaning over her desk as she tries to talk to me. “Are the rumors true? Are you going on a date with TJ?”

I groan. “No, I’m not going on a date with him.”

It was midmorning and so far I’d had to set almost twenty people straight about my ‘relationship’ with TJ. Ever since he went and shouted ‘It’s a date’ yesterday, the rumor mill had gone into overdrive and I had become the object of everyone’s fascination.

I should really kill TJ for getting me into this mess.

“Oh, really?” Nicole smirks, obviously not believing a word I said. “Because I heard that he’s taking you out on Saturday.”

We were in Calculus and Chris was sitting behind me, tuned in to the conversation if the fact he’d stopped working was any indication. I sighed and rolled my eyes to Nicole, then announced as loudly and firmly as possible that I was not dating, nor going on a date, with TJ Rushing.

“I’ve got plans for Saturday anyway,” I tell Nicole, but it was more for Chris’ sake than anything. I didn’t want him getting the wrong impression about what TJ and I were. After all, I was working on the theory that Chris is Theo, and therefore should be the only guy I’m interested in. Not that I’m interested in TJ. “I’m going to watch a rugby game.”

Nicole frowned. “Rugby? What’s that?”

“A game played with an oval ball,” Chris announced, chiming in on the conversation.

“So, football?” Nicole scoffed.

“A little more brutal than that,” I say, remembering the hours of videos I’ve watched on YouTube. Chris eyes me peculiarly, but I shrugged it off. “I’ve done a little bit of studying. I don’t want to look like an idiot when I watch you play.”

“You’re watching Chris play?” Nicole squealed from her chair next to him. “So, you two are dating, huh?”

I looked at Chris, and he looked at me, but neither of us spoke. Instead, we just let the awkwardness simmer until Nicole made a sound that summed up just how uncomfortable this had become. She dropped her head back to her work and carried on solving the problems like the last five minutes didn’t just happen.

Chris smiled at me and motioned at his work. He got back to the worksheet and started writing out his answers, leaving me to wonder about us. We’d been messaging for the better part of last night and had Saturday all planned out, but I’m not sure if that made us friends, let alone anything else.

I turned back to face the front and waited for the bell to ring. The worst part of being a math professor’s kid is that you’re a bit of a math genius yourself, and work that kept the class occupied for the whole session rarely kept me busy for ten minutes. Today’s work had taken me a quarter of an hour at the most, and I’d been sat here for the past half an hour willing time to move faster. It hadn’t.