Chapter Five
Evangeline
“Front and center again, I see,” Professor Spence states with a quick smile covering his face before he wipes it away.
“What can I say, I like to be the center of attention,” I respond as I sit up straighter in my chair and fluff my hair, over exaggerating my comment.
“I can tell you are quite often,” he whispers as he walks by, giving me a quick glance before heading toward another student.
Did my teacher really just flirt with me? Well then, this class just took a turn in a direction I can’t wait to explore. He’s sexy even though I’ve never gone for the retro, glasses type, but he’s definitely worth looking into more. I wonder if there’s some policy against us dating, though.
He turns around and catches me checking him out, but I don’t turn my head or pretend I wasn’t. I’ve never been shy about who I am or who I like. If he’s going to flirt, I’ll give it right back. Shit, he’d know the rules better than I would. It’s not my job on the line.
“Tonight, we’re going to talk about stereotypes, judging a book by its cover, per se. In the judicial system, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, or so they say. But what happens when someone is judged to be guilty just by the way they look? Take Angie here.” He looks at me with his hand held out, and his pointer finger curled up like he’s summoning me toward him. “Come to the front for a quick second.”
I squint my eyes, getting the feeling he’s up to no good but follow his lead and approach him, eyeing him suspiciously before I turn to face the rest of the class.
“Alex, point out something that’s obvious about Angie.”
“She’s sexy as hell,” he blurts out, and I instantly blow him a kiss in return as my thank you.
“Why, yes.” Professor Spence looks down at my tight gray pants and over the knee boots that make my legs look ten times longer than they really are. “But give me more. Just by the way she looks, without knowing anything else about her, would you say she’s single or married?”
“Definitely single, and on the prowl,” Alex teases.
“So a girl in a relationship can’t dress nicely?” he responds.
“Not girls that I know,” Alex states matter-of-factly, which gets a soft chuckle from the rest of the class.
“Okay, how about you, Nichole? Tell me, do you think she grew up in the City, in California, or somewhere else?”
Nichole pauses, looking me up and down for any clues. “I’m going to say somewhere outside of California.”
“Interesting. Why do you say that?”
“Well, she’s older than I am—sorry, just stating a fact,” she says directly to me before continuing, which I just shrug off. “But still young enough to be fashionable and obviously not on a shoe-string, college budget. I get the feeling she lives here now, which has introduced her to more of the fashion world than wherever she grew up. That’s why she still wants to look this way like she hasn’t been able to dress like this her entire life.”
He nods in confirmation. “Very good, way to think deeper than what’s in plain sight. So how old do you think she is?”
“I’m going to guess late twenties,” she says, unsure of herself like she’s trying not to offend me.
A small laugh escapes my lips before I regain my composure.
“Okay, one more. Sonia, give me something else you see just by looking at her.”
“Um…” She thinks for a second, so I turn around, holding out my arms, putting myself on display even more. “Because she’s a little older than us, taking a night class and obviously dressed nicer than every single person here, I’m guessing she already has a full-time job where she works in an office setting and has to dress more professionally.”
“Oh, good point. Okay, Angie, how did everyone do?” Professor Spence asks.
“Well, I am single, I grew up in a small town far from here, I’m twenty-eight, and yes, I work at a law firm during the day, so that’s why I’m enrolled in night classes.”
“Well then, I say the class did pretty well reading your so-called book,” he says to me before addressing the class again. “So you see, there are more ways to get information out of people than looking them up on social media. We were trying to guess these things about Angie here, and she willingly gave us more answers than we planned. She could have just said you were right or wrong, but she gave us actual specifics without us having to ask. Sometimes you can extract the info out of people without trying.” He leans in to whisper in my ear, “I knew I’d find out more about you somehow.” Then he walks to the board to write something as I return to my seat, trying to hide the feeling running through my veins.
Yes, he’s definitely flirting with me, and I’m so game.
* * *
After class, I approach his desk once the room clears out, and only a few students linger in the back. “Nice little trick you pulled there.” His face says it all, so I keep talking, “Do I get to play your game, again?”
