Linger

S I X

"Playing hard to get is fun. You're right." I smiled up at Chelsea next to me.

"You bet it is! So proud of you." She gave me a bright smile, nudging my side gently.

Alice, Chelsea, and I were now sitting outside in the courtyard, enjoying the sunshine and sharing a bag of gummy bears as we scrambled to finish our math homework before lunch ended.

Well, Alice and Chelsea were finishing the homework . . . while I stared blankly at the equations in front of me trying to get my brain to think about anything but him.

His eyes.

His touch.

His voice . . .

Every fibre of my being longed to be with him.

My skin wouldn't stop tingling from where his hands had been, even if it was just for a short moment and I found myself stuck between counting down the minutes until history class and not wanting lunch to end so I could finish this stupid math assignment.

"What did you guys get for number five?" Chelsea broke me out of my thoughts. "I keep getting different answers."

"You're already on number five?!" Alice cried. "I'm still stuck on number three!"

"Which one are you on, Mads?" They both looked up at me.

Our stupidly handsome history teacher. "One," I mumbled before shoving a few gummy bears into my mouth before I could say anything else dumb.

"One?" Chelsea lifted her head from her work to shoot me a concerned look. "We've been working on this all morning."

"Yeah, but . . ." I shrugged, raking my mind for some kind of excuse. "Come on. It's math," I explained lamely, punching random numbers in my calculator, trying to make some kind of sense of this assignment . . . or my growing attraction toward our history teacher. I wasn't sure which one was more confusing at this point.

She studied me for a moment. "Is this about skipping lunch with Tom?" She tilted her head. "Don't listen to Sasha. Playing hard to get always works. He'll be falling for you in no time."

"Oooh! Who'll be falling for you?" a new voice spoke up as Kelsey slid into the seat next to me.

"Do we know him?" Brooke chimed in as she slid into the seat next to Kelsey.

Chelsea met my gaze with wide eyes.

"Uh--" I began. "All the guys . . . would be falling for us," I said with a small laugh, glancing at my friends for reassurance. "Right?"

"Every. Single. Guy," Kelsey enunciated, looking me straight in the eye.

"Like, every guy," Brooke nodded along.

"Like, not just the students . . ." Kelsey began with a sly smile. "But the teachers too."

I let out a laugh, raising my eyebrows. "All the teachers?"

"Well, maybe just one . . ." Kelsey trailed off, looking over at Brooke who smiled knowingly at her.

"Let me guess," Chelsea said in a bored tone. "Hayden."

My heart dropped. Oh no. Did she know? How did she find out? Was she--

"You like him too?!" Kelsey asked, her voice growing high-pitched with excitement.

"I like him as much as I like Schottenberg," Chelsea shrugged.

Brooked scrunched up her face. "Ew. You like Schottenberg? He's, like . . . old."