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I no longer thought Mr. Halifax had a crush on me. But I still felt so awkward around him. I really needed to ask him about that A he’d given me on my quiz. I knew I didn’t deserve it. And I didn’t want weird special treatment.

I kept my head down as I walked into class.

Sophie sighed as we both sat down. “I really love his ass in khakis. It’s better than the feathers of his mascot costume.” She made a face. “Confession. I’ve been having weird dreams too recently.”

I laughed.

“Do you think I should ask Eli to be my boyfriend?”

“Where the heck did that come from?”

“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “Nothing I do is working with Mr. Halifax. The note I left him would have been so easy to respond to. I basically just said I was good at doing what I was told. He needs to tell me to do something now, right? The ball is in his court?”

Sophie didn’t usually ask me for advice like this. She was the one with all the experience. But I guess I did have a serious boyfriend now.

“What did his note say again?” I asked.

“That he’d confiscate my phone again if I used it in class.”

“Well...” I stared at Mr. Halifax writing an equation on the board and then back at her. “Maybe that was his move. Maybe he wants to keep confiscating your phone.”

“You’re a genius,” she said. “He can’t get enough of my pictures. Okay, good call.”

I couldn’t believe I was actually encouraging this... But we did know for a fact that he’d looked at the pictures on her phone. There was clearly something going on between them.

The bell rang and Sophie kept her phone out. She was pretending to text someone. Or maybe she was actually texting someone. I had no idea.

“Miss Hunter,” Mr. Halifax said. “What did I tell you about using your phone in my class?”

“Sorry, sir.” Sophie leaned forward a bit, revealing the top of her cleavage. “Am I going to be punished?”

“Yes. I mean...no. That’s it.” Mr. Halifax walked down our aisle. “Hand it over. You can pick it up after school again.” He held out his hand.

Sophie dropped it in his palm. “Darn it, I keep forgetting to set a password.”

Mr. Halifax ignored her comment. He pocketed the phone and walked back to the board.

“Do you think he has sex dreams about me too?” Sophie whispered.

Honestly? “Yeah, probably.”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her so happy.

Mr. Halifax was just about to start class when the speakers turned on.

“We have a very special announcement this morning,” the principal said. “The results for student council have been totaled.”

I didn’t even know when the voting for that was.

“By an extremely wide margin, let’s congratulate our new school president, Scarlett Hunter!”

Um...what?

A few of the people in my class clapped for me. The principal kept announcing the other student council winners.

I leaned toward Sophie. “What the heck? I didn’t run for president!”

She just shrugged. She looked totally confused by the news too.