Teacher's Pet Read Free Page B

particularly melodramatic. Call it a side effect of living the artist’s life. An occupational hazard, even.
    Then again, maybe their chemistry helped convey something more powerful than the others. They were Vance and Fiona, fighting for their relationship, up on that stage.
    Or at least he was.
    Matthew Flint was a professional actor and he gave a professional and outstanding audition. Everywhere but in his pants.
    Maybe he shouldn’t have been so angry. Maybe a more subtle approach would have been Vance’s style, and he mucked it all up. All these ‘maybes’ were going to send him spiraling down another glass of bourbon. Or five. May as well enjoy the last of his savings.
    He checked his phone again. Nothing. At this rate, he was going to kill the damn battery before he could get a call anyway. He stretched and tried to distract himself with the art pieces on the wall for the fiftieth time.
    He was halfway through them when he spotted some new decor: a very nervous, very beautiful Lynn.
    She looked more of a wreck than he did, checking her phone every five seconds and chewing on her nails. From across the room, she looked way too young to be in the pub. That youthful glow did her a disservice around bottles of booze, but sent happy hour pricks circling her like gnats around a fruit bush.
    His fruit bush. Oops. He shouldn’t have thought about bush.
    Matthew shook his head slightly to unwind the territorial fingers wrapping around his brain. She wasn’t his anything. In all likelihood, she was his career undoing. Best case, she was so distracting, he had botched his final audition of the season. Unfortunately, she was so goddamn pretty, he almost didn’t mind.
    Almost.
    Roles before Hoes aside, he could at least keep her company and fight off the clearly unwanted company while they waited. Waiting alone was going to bring on an aneurysm. He grabbed his lukewarm bourbon and stepped between the tables.
    “Mind if I sit?”
    Lynn jumped, like he had pulled her out of a total daze. She smiled thinly, too nervous for those beautiful dimples to show themselves. Matthew took this as a good sign and took an empty chair on the other side of the table.
    “Hey pal.” Some twenty-something in a blue blazer with a checkered button down protested, clutching his glass of soda-and-something. He looked like the kind of guy who couldn’t drink liquor straight. Amateur! He probably liked skinny pants and man buns too. “I was talking to her first.”
    “Didn’t look like she was actually talking to you.” Matthew raised his glass in a mock toast. With his superior liquor choice. Boom! “So why don’t you respect her wishes and get the fuck out of here?”
    “That’s a pretty ballsy assumption, my friend.”
    Matthew stood to face down the guy. Maybe he wasn’t the tallest dude in the bar, barely clocking in at five-foot eleven, but what he lacked in height, he made up for in stature. Chubby kids in school may get made fun of through adolescence, but a lot of them end up kicking ass in the gym later.
    Matthew was no exception. Krav Maga was his friend these days. He held his glass so his arms bulked up substantially.
    “Is it now, friend ? Or are you too clueless to read body language?”
    Blazer Guy’s face screwed up, like he wasn’t accustomed to insults, but he should have been. The guy wore a cheap-looking blazer and had shitty highlights in his hair. Highlights! This wasn’t the late nineties and that shit shouldn’t be allowed anywhere outside of a rap-rock band. Although that was another nineties moment Matthew felt strongly should remain in the past.
    The guy took one final look at Lynn, who shrugged, and another at Matthew, before he stalked off.
    Matthew should have been wearing a cape at that moment, it was so goddamn heroic.
    A haiku:
    You’re welcome, ladies
    Matthew Flint is on the case
    Begone, bar lurkers!
    “I really should remember to start bringing my phone charger to auditions.” He gestured to