Page 31 of Exactly What I Needed
Gasps shot around the room as the rest of my students dove into their backpacks and pockets for their phones. “Hold it, guys!” I said, stopping everyone in their tracks and finally finding the effort to pause the video. “What’s the rule?”
“Sorry, Miss Duval,” they all murmured, and I closed my eyes. Heaving a sigh, I was already distracted from the lecture, and so was the entire class.
“All right, you all have exactly two minutes to look it up. Come get your phone, Selena. This is aone-time thing, only!” I opened my eyes.
Grins met me with jumbled thank-yous as everyone snatched out their phones to look up the very post that Selena had found. She cautiously walked up front, hesitating before grabbing her cell out of my hand and dashing back to her desk.
“Why are you doing this? It’s not like you even care about anything except classical music,” Trevor taunted, a sly grin across his face.
“I like this band too, you know. But what’s wrong with classical music?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“So, does that mean you’ll be going to the concert this time, too, since you apparently like their music?” Caralee piped in.
“Miss Duval? At a metal concert? Does she look like the type of teacher to go to any concert unless it’s an orchestra?” Dane replied with a scoff.
“Excuse me? What do you mean by that? I have hobbies outside of teaching too.” I threw my hands on my hips.
Benson grimaced. “Not to be rude, but like, look at you. Bright blue plaid dress and dainty heels. Plus, those glasses and your hair pulled into a neat bun. That doesn’t exactly scream ‘metal music fan,’” he quietly said, and the entire class laughed lightly.
“Not everyone here screams ‘metal music fan’ either, yet from what I’ve learned, all of you enjoy Void’s music too,” I quickly replied.
“Yeah, but we aren’t old,” Madison slid into the conversation.
“I’m only twenty-three, I’ll have you know.”
“That’s old,” Dane teased.
I clicked my tongue as the class laughed again. “You really don’t think I’ll go, do you?”
“No, Miss Duval, we don’t,” he continued.
“I’d bet you twenty bucks that you wouldn’t go to the Void concert. Either night!” Selena lifted a brow. These teenagers were brutal, and I knew I wasn’t supposed to be playing right into their tactics, but it was hard not to.
Taking a deep breath, I smiled. “I won’t take your bet, because I literally can’t,” I began as my cell phone dinged, a notification popping up.
“Miss Duval!” the entire class said, and I grimaced.
“I guess I forgot to mute my phone.” I quickly hustled to my desk as Selena scoffed.
“You have Picsnap?” she asked in disbelief.
“What?” I gasped in shock before reaching for my phone.
“And it’s from someone you’ve got in your phone as ‘A’,” she added, pointing to the big, white screen. Glancing toward the projected image,my jaw fell open. Somehow, I clicked off the frozen screen, and my phone was connected. So, everyone saw the notification.
From Asher.
Wait, why would it be from Asher?
“Who’s A?” Benson asked, and I quickly relocked the projector screen once the notification was gone.
“Nobody,” I mumbled, and picked up my phone to silence it.
“Here’s the new deal, Miss Duval,” Selena said, rising from her seat with a mischievous grin and returning the topic to the former. “You go to the Void concert, and we won’t tell the principal that you were using your phone in class. Picsnap, no less.”
I shook my head. “Those rules don’t apply to me as your teacher.”
