Penfield's Greatest Swimmer

🌊~28

"Hey guys, sorry I'm late." Pushing past the doors, I let myself into the lab. "Practice ran a littl-"

"Akwasi look out!"

Cold metal suddenly knocked me hard to the side and I quickly grabbed a table to steady myself.

"Felix, are you crazy? Gimme that!" I heard Nadia yell. "You're going to ruin it before it's even done."

"Oh stop exaggerating, it was only a light push," Felix chortled. "But sorry Akwasi."

"Hey, you ok?" Shola appeared at my side.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Regaining my balance, I picked up my sports bag. "I see you guys have the robot running."

Nadia had opened up the wiring compartment below the neck of the robot, making some adjustments whilst Felix and the others fidgeted with the control board.

"Yeah, Deladem's team spent the last hour welding all the different parts," Shola said. "The outer covering still needs polishing, other than that, it's working really well. Felix and Chad threw in a last-minute suggestion to install motion sensors so that when the robot is in the automatic mode, it doesn't collide into people like what happened to you," she chuckled.

"Hey, that thing just took me by surprise ok. If I'd seen it coming, I would've punched a deep hole right into it."

"As if you can punch through metal," Shola smirked.

"Oh don't you know? You're looking at a descendant of Superman." I flexed my muscles and she burst into a fit of laughter.

"Ok, ok, stop. You're just embarrassing yourself," she giggled, adjusting her glasses.

Ever since the Twilight Valentine dance, our friendship had seen some growth, growth I hoped would lead to something else, something better than friendship. And speaking of that...

"Hey, I have something to show you." Setting my sports bag on the table, I zipped it open and pulled out the envelope. "Akunna brought me this during practice and I thought you should see it."

"Ok." Shola carefully flipped it open, pulling out the picture. "Oh my God." Her eyes lit up. "I didn't know they were taking pictures of us!"

"Yeah, me neither. Akunna paid the photographer to take a picture of us so we'd have something to remember the first day we danced together."

"Aww, that's so sweet of him," she said, still smiling at the picture.

"And before coming here, I made that copy for you to keep."

Shola's gaze drifted up. "Thanks Akwasi, that's really thoughtful of you."

"Nah, don't mention it." I shrugged. "I'm not the only one in the picture so it makes sense that you should have a copy too."

Her eyes veered back to it. "We kind of look great together, don't you think?"

"Uh yeah." I felt my face heat up. "Yeah, we really do."

The smile Shola sent me set my heart ablaze with a thousand beats. She didn't know it, but that smile of hers had this angelic power to weaken any guy in the knees and sweep him off his feet. And that was exactly what was happening to me right now...until Mawuli barged in.

"Ah if it isn't the ever-persistent robotics-minded engineering club." The dark well-built guy wandered into the lab. "So how is it going? Has your project blown up yet?"

A disapproving glare soon replaced Shola's radiant smile. "What do you want here, Mawuli?"

"Wow, coming from you, Shola, that's a very dumb question." Mawuli crossed his arms and leaned against a lab table. "Did you forget that I'm the VP of this club?"