Chapter 22

"Well, guess I'd better get back to class now," she said. "And you should too, Mr. Time Stop; doing whatever you want."

I laughed. "Don't act like you didn't enjoy it, too."

She giggled, grinning once more enough to make her nose crinkle.

"Thanks for the wonderful time," she said. "This was so awesome—I'll never forget this for the rest of my life, promise."

"Same here," I warmly replied before she leaned in and gave me one final quick kiss. I then took her by the hand and led her back to the outskirts of the restrooms where I had first stopped time.

"This is where we were, huh?" she asked. "When you did your magic, I mean?"

"Yep," I calmly replied as I came to a halt and turned to her, our hands falling away from each other.

"How are you able to do it anyway?" she wondered. "Did you learn some kind of dark magic or maybe a dying wizard gave you a book of spells?"

I couldn't help but laugh. She was more imaginative than I was. "To tell you the truth, I really don't know," I replied, piquing her curiosity. "It just...came to me. I don't know how else to explain it."

"That's really cool," she remarked with a smile. "Maybe it's like a puberty thing—once a guy reaches a certain age; he learns how to stop time." I laughed again, shaking my head in amusement. She grinned from ear to ear, chuckling softly herself.

Then, we shared a heavy sigh together; both of us still smiling.

"Ready?" I asked.

"When you are," she replied. I nodded and blinked my eyes, our ears picking up the faint sound of the air conditioning cycling air through the vents and the sound of footsteps approaching.

From around the corner came the very same security guard that she had flashed earlier. He came to a stop near us and looked at us, realizing the two of us were coyly trying not to laugh or look at him.

"What are you kids up to?"

"Nothing," I quickly replied, letting a laugh slip out, "I swear. We're just...joking around."

He hummed suspiciously and motioned for us to keep moving.

"Back to class, you two," he sternly said before walking away.

The two of us were grinning as wide as we'd ever grinned as we looked at each other, still stifling our laughs.

"Well," she said with a quiet laugh and a sigh, "I'll see you around."

"Yeah," I replied. "I'm looking forward to it."

She leaned in and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and then turned to merrily walk off toward her classroom. I slowly began to walk back to my own class, waiting until she'd reached the door. She grabbed the doorknob and turned to me with a sweet smile and a little wave. I waved back before she walked back into her class and let the door close behind her. I breathed deeply and let out a very elated sigh. I was all smiles as I finally headed on back. That was one hell of a bathroom break.

I entered class while trying to hide how ecstatic I was—but it was pretty hard. The rest of the class was writing down what Ms. Adanna had written down on the board. A few of them looked up and saw my content expression, but none of them seemed to pay any mind. That is, until I went to sit down and saw Jordan looking very suspiciously at me. I chuckled before sitting down, flipping open my notebook and getting to copying down the text myself. Jordan, however, remained quite curious of me.

A short time later, Ms. Adanna got up from her desk and walked up to the board, facing the class. She had us speak along with her the text that we had just copied down.

"Muy bueno," Ms. Adanna said before glancing up at the clock. "All right, everyone. Class is over in just a few so, feel free to rest!"

I swear I heard the class breath a relieved sigh which made me just smirk and roll my eyes. The other students quickly began to talk to each other and put their belongings away. I was putting my notebook away when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, Jordan leaning over to Sarah and whispering something in her ear. Sarah smiled and nodded before they broke away. Eerily, they both looked at me at the exact same time with a couple of sly smirks on their faces. I sat up straight, looking at them in confusion.

"What do you two want?" I asked.

"That was a nice trip to the restroom, huh?" Sarah asked.

"It was so good you came back with a big smile," Jordan chimed in. "Did you get it all out?"

I smirked and sighed heavily. The two of them were pretty confident I took that bathroom break to go beat my meat. They were kind of right, I suppose but there was no way I would tell them what really happened.

"You two are way off-base," I remarked.

"Uh-huh, sure." Sarah sarcastically replied. She was good at that.

"We know you jerked one out, you horn-dog," Jordan said with a confident smirk. "Why else would you come back with a big smile like that? Unless you made it with some girl, but you don't have one of those."

"Oh, please," I shot back with a cocky tone of my own. "If I wanted to, I could—" I quickly stopped, right on the verge of blurting out something involving the words 'time' and 'stop.' The two to raise their eyebrows, waiting for me to finish my sentence.

I immediately relaxed the tone of my voice. "I could... you know, probably talk some girl up. I can get a girlfriend... any time I want. I might even have one now, you don't know."

"Poof, please," Jordan replied. "We know you don't have a girlfriend. Even though, you do want one." She then vigorously pointed to Sarah with a big smirk on her face.

I then woefully sighed, lowering my gaze to the ground. "You're right—I do need a girlfriend. I'm just a lonely dude who doesn't have anything going for him..."

The two were stunned, looking at each other as their expressions quickly turned remorseful.