Your voice. I like how husky it is. Like something or someone is stuck in your throat. Your smile. Your mouth, how pouty it is, how full your lips are.
We’re at the gate, waiting for our flight to start boarding. Mia is literally rocking in her seat next to me. I try not to notice, even if I know for a fact that she’s trying to get that hard part of her jeans, the one where all the seams meet in the middle, to rub in just the right place. I also try my hardest not to throw her phone on the ground and crush it underneath my shoe.
“Can I just tell him I want to put him in my mouth already?!” she shrieks.
My dick is all sorts of confused. “No!” I half-shout. I clear my throat, adjust my volume. “No, Mia. Sexting is… there’s an art. You can’t just throw all your cards out on the table. There has to be a build up. It’s like…” I cringe here, not believing I’m saying this out loud, “…actual sex. You can’t just jump right in to the main event. You have to build tension, build anticipation.” I sigh. “Also, maybe wait like five minutes before you send an answer. Don’t seem too desperate.”
She’s watching me closely as I tell her this, eyebrows furrowed, as if she’s really taking the time to hear and digest every word I’m saying, which is both the most uncomfortable and the most Mia-like thing imaginable. She nods to herself, once, thinking. She takes her phone out of my hand and… sets a timer for five minutes.
I can’t help but laugh. She smirks back, looking at me sideways.
“Have you looked at the schedule for the conference?” she asks me.
“Nope,” I tell her.
“Why not?”
“Why would I? We’re going to be in New Orleans. I wasn’t kidding when we were talking to my mom. I’ll probably just stop by one workshop, take all the handouts as proof that I’ve been there, then spend the rest of the weekend exploring the city. Have I looked for places to eat? You bet.”
Mia looks at me as if I’ve just told her I murdered a small puppy. “You…that’s… Elias, that’s so inappropriate.”Of all the things that have happened this week,thisis what you find inappropriate.“Thousands of dollars of our school’s budget are going towards sending you here. To learn something. To improve our school. Not to go on a weekend vacation.”
“It’s Thomas’s fault for choosing to send me. I’m just a P.E. teacher, Mia. I’m not the one to depend on to ‘improve our school.’”
“Not with that attitude, you aren’t,” she frowns, poking me in the arm. She is silent for a moment, gears turning in her head. “I think you could really learn something, Elias. Look,” she says, pulling a giant textbook out of her backpack. “This is the ELA curriculum that Thomas is making everyone teach. It’s scripted, whole group, and test prep.” She deposits it in my lap. “What do you think is wrong with this?”
I page through it. “Well, it seems like it would be easier for teachers. They don’t have to plan anything. They can just read from the book.”
She actually hits me. “The kids, Elias, think of the kids. Why would this be bad for them?” She waits patiently when I don’t have an answer. “Think of the train kid. The one who can’t focus on anything that isn’t train-related for more than two minutes. Why would this be bad for him?”
“Well, obviously it wouldn’t work for him, but that’s one kid out of the how many hundreds?—”
“That’s my point, Elias. It’s not just one kid. It’s most, if not all of the kids. Do you know any eight-year-old that will sit in a row and not only listen, but learn, from a teacher talking at them for fifty straight minutes? Think of what you were like at eight.”
“I was feral, but I wasn’t like most kids?—”
“I think it’s safe to say that there isn’t one eight-year-old that could sit through a fifty-minute lecture,” she says firmly. “My job this weekend is to go to panels and workshops that will prove to Thomas that this scripted test prep bullshit is a bad idea. The leading minds in our field will be here, and I’ve already identified the talks that will give evidence to my point.”
“I’m so happy for you,” I deadpan.
“You should come with me. Don’t forget that we’re improving your teaching, too,” she insists.
I’m tired of saying yes to this woman. “Maybe,” I say instead.Take THAT.
“You’re coming,” she mutters under her breath, and I already know I am.
The timer on her phone goes off. She pulls it out and types a message, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. I look away. She elbows me in the side, tilting her phone towards me.
I can’t stop thinking about your mouth, either.
“That good?” she asks.
I nod, eyebrows raised, actually pretty impressed. She left room for only one kind of answer. I know exactly what I’d say back to that. I wonder vaguely if this Adam kid’s game is as good as mine.
Mia hits “send” and puts her phone in her bag, before it dings again. We read it together, the hair on our arms brushing.
About what, specifically?
I smirk.Touché, asshole.
