Then, while I was in the middle of lecturing through another slide, something else distracted me. Ben, a student in my class, got up and walked out, completely ignoring that I was still teaching. He’d been seated near the back, but I had good eyes, and I knew he’d been on his phone the entire time.
Dammit! Why does he bother coming here if he’s not going to pretend to care? He keeps disrupting my class!
I took my job as a professor seriously. While I wasn’t one of the ones that were strict with their students, calling them out when they did something stupid, I realized it wasn’t because I was acting like a cool adult. I’d just never had someone like Ben in my class. Most students would at least try to hide their phones under their desks, and still sort of paid attention in class, but he didn’t bother.
He was such a fucking jock, the kind I’d hated since high school.
“Ben,” I called unconsciously.
He stopped with one foot out the door and turned back to me with a bored look; one eyebrow arched up.
I hadn't meant to call out to him. I never had before, but we weren’t even halfway through the semester yet, and I might have to deal with him in another class next semester, too.
“Stay behind, I want to talk to you after class,” I said.
Since I called out to him, might as well get it over and done with.
“I’m busy,” Ben said and walked out.
I blinked at the door he’d been kind enough to close behind him. The whole class had gone silent; I couldn’t even hear papers rustling. Slowly, I turned to look at the rest of the class.
Shit.
This was humiliating.
I cleared my throat. “Let’s move on.”
As the class continued, I could feel gazes of sympathy on me, not to mention a few amused ones. I ignored them, though I could feel my face burn a little. I was only thirty-five years old, not as seasoned as some of the other professors, but this was the first time someone had been so disrespectful to me.
I finished teaching quickly. Because I wanted to be out of there, I didn’t bother waiting for the ones that wanted to take down the notes. I could see they were disgruntled, so at the end, I made an announcement.
“I’ll make the slides available after we go through them in class, purely for revision purposes. Please continue to pay attention in class. It’ll be in the class email later.”
My class still had another half hour or so, but I didn’t care, I was done for the day. I had stuff I needed to do in my office, so I’d allow that to take up my attention. I disconnected my laptop from the projector and quickly turned it off. Then, I started putting my stuff together. I was a little rough because I was irritated, and some papers fell to the floor. I just sighed and kept packing my stuff. The students were leaving early, and it would be even more humiliating if I got down to pick them up, so I’d wait until they were gone.
“Excuse me, ma’am? You dropped these.”
I looked up to see Kevin, another student, holding my dropped papers up to me. He was a little taller than me even with me in heels, with blond hair and pretty green eyes. He was grinning at me, and I already knew he had a crush on me. It was so cute that he had a crush on his professor, but I knew he’d get over it when he met a pretty girl his age.
“Thank you, Kevin,” I said, smiling in gratitude as I took the papers and packed them away. “You didn’t have to.”
He shrugged, ducking his head bashfully, and I had to hold back the squeal. Even though he was an adult, and looked like it, with his temperament, there was no way I could take his crush on me seriously.
“The piece you talked about in class today was interesting,” he said, looking up. “Rozland and Hyde is a hedge fund company I’ve been keeping my eye on for years. It’s why I wanted to study business in the first place, so I was happy you brought it up.”
“I’m happy you’re interested, Kevin,” I said, meaning it in more ways than one.
“Do you think you might talk about it more in the next class? Or if I have any questions…”
“I’ve looked at the company myself quite a few times, so if you’d like to discuss anything, I’m free Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. Just come to my office, okay?”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, grin widening.
I could almost picture a tail wagging behind him.
“It’s fine if you call me Angela,” I said kindly. “I need to go now, so I’ll see you in the next class.”