"The things I would do to that man if he just gave me the chance." I look up from my book as I see Paola and Justine looking at something behind me as they sit in front of me at our lunch table.

"Oh my gosh! Look!" Paola squeals to Justine, "He turned a little bit, do you see how nice his ass looks in those pants." She puts her thumb and point together holding it in front of her in the air pretending to pinch his butt I assume.

Furrowing my eyebrows in confusion I drop my book on the table next to my tray of food and I turn around to see who they're looking at.

I turn to see that they're looking at Mr.Maddow as he's standing at the back wall of the cafeteria with his usual cup of coffee from Starbucks in his hand as he lifts the cup to his lips listening intently to Ms.Warren as she spoke to him. I guess they were on their break and didn't have a class this period.

Rolling my eyes, turning back around to see them looking at him all google-eyed still, "Y'all that's a grown-ass man."

Paola sucks her teeth as she puts her head in her hand leaning on her palm, as she continues to gaze at him, "Aht Aht! Don't even start that. I'm already eighteen and legally, America says that I too am a grown-ass woman." She says and Justine nods her head in agreement staring at him the same way.

"Yeah, Karma. He already knows what it is. I shot my shot already I'm just waiting to see if I scored." she smirks as she refers to when Mr.Maddow had asked for her name and she responded by saying that she was legal.

Chuckling at her and her very vivid imagination I say, "He's not going to let you know if you scored because you're a student." and then look to Paola and say, "And Paola you have a whole boyfriend now." I finish as she averts her eyes to me and says

"So I can't just admire a gorgeous man that will never give me the time of day." she's still looking at him and I turn around quickly to glance at him again and I'm shocked to see that he's staring back at me, Ms.Warren now nowhere in sight. I watch as the right side of his lip quirks up and he raises his hand that is not holding the Starbucks cup and sends me a two-finger wave and before I can process his greeting I hear Justin and Paola shrieking behind me.

They have lost all of their cool at this point and I'm pretty sure he can see them as they flail their arms around and say, "OMG he said hi!" and I'm very tempted to move away from them as people turn to look at our table.

In embarrassment, I grab my book and cover my face as I turn to look at Mr.Maddow, and shocker he's full-blown smiling at this point as he is still looking at our table and trying not to laugh at their antics. He notices me looking again, as I notice that he threw his cup away and has crossed his arms leaning back against the brick walls of our cafeteria, biting his lip in amusement hiding the smile that I know he was trying to hold back.

I turn back around quickly to face Justine and Paola and I guess they noticed his behavior just now as they were talking about how cute he looks when he smiles. Rolling my eyes at how dick-deprived they look right now I say, "Paola. Boyfriend."

"What's the point of you reminding me again?" her smile drops as she tilts her head to the side trying to look at Mr.Maddow again

"Oh. I'm sorry for reminding you about the boy who is painfully in love with you so much that he took a literal bullet for you." I say and her face turns into a scowl as she whips out her phone from her pocket, "I will call him to ask how he is. You just reminded me that I'm supposed to call every two hours." she says scrolling through her contacts as Justine and I laugh at the dynamics of their relationship and how she forgot that part of her routine.

Justine now is scrolling through her phone too and I couldn't be more glad that they've stopped giggling. I'm scared to turn around because I'm already experiencing serious second-hand embarrassment but for some reason, I do anyway.

He has now started looking through his phone too and I guess he feels my eyes on him because he's quick to look up and make eye-contact with me for the third time and I'm pretty sure that it's because I'm not wearing my glasses but I see his left eye drop subtly into a wink when he stares back and I feel my whole body tense slightly before he shakes his head and looks back at his phone with a small smile on his face.

That couldn't have been for me right?

--------------------------

"Going back to the unit circle. If I erase all the degrees and coordinates of this circle." Mr.Maddow stands at the board, erasing parts of the diagram of the unit circle, leaving the circle blank, and then continuing what he's saying, "And I ask, what quadrant would I be able to find 150 degrees?"

The class is silent as no one is looking to answer the question. I know the answer. It's the second quadrant but I refuse to raise my hand because I still feel a little weird about what happened at lunch.

However, Justine doesn't seem to care because she says out loud from behind me, "Is it Quadrant two?" she says and I hear the flirtatiousness dripping from her voice, and Paola and I are fighting to hide the laugh that is threatening to spill out of our mouths.

He nods at her with a small smile on his face and says, "Correct. Thank you, Justine." as he labels the 150-degree angle in the circle.

He smiles a lot and it's refreshing. I actually think it's a nice change from hearing Ms.Tran complaining about how swollen her ankles were every day. Understandable though, I couldn't imagine being pregnant and having to watch other people's kids all day especially high-schoolers.

"What about 315 degrees?' he turns back around to ask as the class goes silent again. When Mr.Maddow said he's not the best at math or teaching math...he definitely wasn't lying but he basically gave us a cheat sheet right before he erased the board and we were supposed to copy it down. I can't fathom why no one is understanding.

Looking down at my math journal, I scribble along the sides with my blue highlighter, going outside of the red margin after I've already taken my notes. Placing my hand in my palm I lean on it looking down at whatever shape I was drawing.

Huffing under my breath as I hear, Mr.Maddow begins to call on others I say, "Quadrant Three." under my breath and I jump a little bit in my seat startled when Mr.Maddow calls my name and says, "What was that, Karma?" I quickly look up at him as he has his eyebrows raised and I clear my throat saying a little louder, "It's in the Third Quadrant."

He gives me a toothless grin and says, "Thank you, Karma. I'm glad some of my students are paying attention when I teach." he emphasizes the word, 'teach' whilst looking at the rest of the class before grinning at me again and turning towards the board.

-------------------------

A few minutes later we're doing classwork in silence through our workbooks. Maddow is a pretty chill teacher so far. Usually, when he's done teaching for the day, we work in our workbooks. He has a thing where he hates when people talk a lot in class so he insists that we listen to music as work so that we're not tempted to talk to each other.

It s a win-win. We get to use our phones while he gets to sit in silence and get paid.

I put my phone back in my pocket as I switched the song that was playing originally to Problem With You by Sabrina Claudio.

As I flip the page to work on the next question, I feel a presence next to me I look to my left and jump a little bit as I see that Mr.Maddow has now squatted next to my seat, looking up at me as he taps his ear signaling that I take off one of my earphones.

I grab my phone instead and pause my music, still taking out my left earphone

"Hey, sweetheart." He says softly, "You need any help with anything, are you okay?" he asks me as he continues to look at me with an intimidating stare waiting for me to answer.

He can't look at me like that and expect me to be 100% okay to answer. I'm almost tempted to say yes just so he can stay here talking to me. His cologne smells great and I have to hold myself back from literally inhaling his scent.

Apparently, I took too long to answer because now I can feel his hand on my shoulder rubbing it to get my attention, I snap back to paying attention and he notices this and chuckles, "Where'd you go, I almost lost you for a sec." he smiles, showcasing all his teeth and I feel myself die a little inside even more.

"I-I No," I say with a stupid stutter, and I shake my head a little at myself, "I don't need any help, I got it." I nod my head to reassure him and myself, a double meaning behind my words that I can handle talking to him without completely embarrassing myself.

He smiles again and says, "Okay." taking his right hand and rubbing along my thigh softly, sending me a small smirk before rising up and walking straight to his desk in front of me, leaning back in his seat holding his phone as he scrolls through it.

Would it be weird if I said I'm never washing these jeans again?

------------------------------

{A/N} He gettin' reaaaaaaal sus

Thanks for reading!