Play The Part (Player Next Door Book 3)

28 | Secret Code for Math Nerds

Special shoutout to the amazingly creative usernames of austintaylorswife, chadsbutler, millienlukeschild, lukedawsonlawyer, Lukesbrokenlaptop, lukedawson, mildredripley... who am I missing??? I love reading the creative comments <3 

Chapter 28: Secret Code for Math Nerds

Austin's face looked distraught.

It was like Winnifred had died again. A Winnifred 2.0.

The math teacher continued to pick on students to walk through individual math questions, but I struggled to concentrate. Austin was looking flaggergasted. He leaned over, tapping me and Luke on the shoulder.

I looked back at the same time as Luke looked up.

"Psst," he whispered in his loud-but-hushed Austin voice, "Guys, listen to me. It's ok. We can fix this."

Luke and I didn't say anything. We couldn't. This was so much harder than lying to our families, who were almost happy to hear the fake news.

Austin looked like a kid who had just been told Santa wasn't coming this year.

Luke rubbed the back of his neck and avoided eye contact, "We tried, man."

"Not hard enough," Austin insisted, looking at Luke and then at me, "I can fix this. I'm the ombudsman."

My heart panged at the mention of that. Austin had been there for us since day one.

Luke looked even more uncomfortable, and guilty, than me. I knew he was probably cursing me out in his head. He had never wanted to lie to Austin but I'd insisted that everyone was a suspect until proven innocent.

"Millie!" the teacher appeared in front of my desk like Chucky in a horror movie, "Is something a distraction?"

I snapped to attention, facing the front. Whispers erupted around the classroom, I'm guessing repeating the news that Luke and I had broken up.

It made me look a little pathetic to be caught with my body turned towards Luke's desk who was avoiding eye contact with me entirely.

"What's the answer?" the teacher probed, hands on my desk.

I could practically feel his breath. I don't really operate well under stress like this.

I stared down at my open textbook. His spindly hand pointed to the question in the textbook he was referring to. I was conscious of every single second that passed by in silence. I stared at the page, but my mind kept thinking ombudsman and the numbers weren't numbering.

Come on Millie.

"Millie?" the teacher repeated.

"Uh..."

Coffee. I need coffee.

"Ah..." I made another vowel sound.

The brain wasn't computing. I was entirely conscious of Luke behind me, watching me, expecting me to get this.

"I don't know," I finally admitted defeat.

"Disappointing. You should pay more attention if you can't keep up," the teacher sighed and turned around to Chad, "Chadwick?"

Chad sat up, mouth open, "If she didn't get it, how do you expect me to?"

Roland?

"Maybe if you didn't treat this classroom as your breakfast salon, you'd have a chance at answering these questions."