Chapter 2
Collapsing into a booth Skye took a quick slug of the wine that had been bought for her. Today had been one of those days so instead of going home and getting stuck into the huge pile of marking she had she was now sat in the local bar with her best friend. She'd called in friend privileges having sat through Bobbi's rant about her husband Lance more times than she could count.
"Want to tell me about it?" She'd already told her about running into the wrong classroom this morning, that prompting this meeting. She'd yet to tell her about the rest.
"Well I got another look at him." She began, remembering those defined cheekbones and how his shirt had clung to his body, the abs it had hinted at.
"Well I meet him again."
"Skye. What were you doing?" Bobbi's sounded like a concerned mum. She'd always been the same with Skye. It was nice; she didn't have any family of her own, the foster families never sticking around for very long. She'd meet Bobbi's when she'd started work at the school and had quickly been adopted by her and her family. It was nice to finally have he feeling of belonging somewhere and having people who cared about you, even if they did tease you when you did something stupid like run into a strangers classroom.
"Do you know him?" Bobbi's taught sport and with the way he looked he clearly worked out so maybe she did know him.
"No. Now stop changing the subject. What were you doing?"
"Hacking" she mumbled, repeating it louder at Bobbi's look.
"One of the kids in my class as been coming to school with all sorts of bruises. I wanted to find out why. It turns out that one of the kids in the class has been picking on him. So I hacked into the orphanage's database to put a report in to try and stop it. He caught me doing that. I don't think he saw too much though." She babbled trying to avoid Bobbi's disapproving look.
"Why was he even in your classroom?"
"To complain about the noise. And before you say anything yes I apologised!"
She didn't feel the need to go exactly into how she'd apologised. If asked she'd say she bought him a coffee but that was way too simple to explain what had happened. First she'd had to find out more about him. That was surprising simple; she knew his name so had googled it. Apart from the usual academic waffled she'd noticed a few mentions on Twitter. A quick browse later and she'd found that although he didn't have one, his friend Fitz did and he was a follower of her. A quick search though his posts and she’d found out a lot about Mr Grant Ward, one of which was he had a particular way of drinking coffee. Luckily for her Fitz had been so astounded by it he'd tweeted every step that went into making that perfect cup of coffee. Personally she had to agree with Fitz, it was strange. Who was so particular that coffee had to have two shots of decaf coffee (a complete waste in her mind), a dash of milk followed by a squirt of caramel syrup? It was just weird. But stalking one of her colleagues had enabled her to provide a good apology, not that she was going to admit that to Bobbi.
"I'm sure it will be fine Skye."
"I just don't want him to hate me."
"I'm sure he won't. Besides if he does you could always have fantastic hate sex!"
"Bobbi! I'm not you or Lance."
"Clearly. Come on Skye. It's time you started dating someone again. Sure Miles was a dick but not every guy is like that. From what Tripp has said he seems sweet."
"So you do know him?" Skye accused.
"No. I know Tripp. I was certain I'd heard the name before so I asked him. Turns out they're friends. Plus he's single."
"Who Grant or Tripp?" She asked sarcastically.
"Ooh it's Grant already is it? Grant naturally, I'm fairly certain Tripp's seeing Jemma Simmons, you know the science teacher who keeps blowing things up."
"Actually I think she's seeing both Tripp and Fitz, the engineer." Seeing Bobbi's look she added. "Twitter."
"Are you stalking people again?"
"No Fitz followed me and so I followed back. I can't help being curious about my co-workers' lives."
Deciding to get away from a dangerous topic she moved to a subject she knew Bobbi wouldn't ignore.
"So how's Lance?"
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The next morning she was irritated to find herself carefully apply make up instead of spending the extra time in bed. Wincing at the red-rimmed eyes she carefully applied concealer, taking more time than she would for any date. This annoyed her, it was clear he didn't like her so why was she doing this? He'd called her a hurricane for god's sake! Still she chose her clothes with care, picking the jeans that she knew made her bum look great and a clinging top, which could be covered in paint. She might want to look nice but she wasn't going to ruin any of her good tops. She didn't want to dress up that much!
Noticing the time she grabbed her keys and raced for the door. As she'd spent so much time on her appearance she wasn't going to have chance to pick up her normal coffee and donut. Why did she decide that her appearance was the most important thing this morning? She couldn't do without her morning coffee. Racing into the school she nearly knocked over a guy wearing a cowboy hat.
"Slow down darling there's no fire."
"Lance. You know I hate it when you call me darling!" She huffed, glaring at the grinning man.
"So does Bobbi."
"What are you even doing here? You work at another school remember? Or did you just miss us that much?" Lance had a bad habit of bring out the worst in her, in everyone really. You could just feel your sarcasm levels rising as soon as you came near him. It had been come so bad that Steve the head teacher had transferred him to their joint school on the other side town. It was that or become witnesses to murder when Bobbi finally took him out. It was the best thing that had happened, both for the school and their relationship, not working together had stopped most of the fights and staff could now enter a store cupboard with relief of not finding a dead body or them both naked. Lance got to let out his inner child with the young kids so he hadn't complained too much about the change in rolls.
"Day off. Bug going around the school so Bruce closed it. I just gave Bobbi a lift and thought I'd wait around for my favourite rule breaker."
"Bobbi told you about last night didn't she?"
"Yup. So I wanted to check him out. I have to say you've got good taste. After me he's the next best looking guy here."
She snorted and didn't dignify it with a response. Fortunately Bobbi arrived before he could wind her up some more.
"Here."
"You are an angel." She enthused as Bobbi passed her a steaming cup of coffee. "Am I at predictable?" She frowned.
"I guessed you'd be late this morning so thought I'd save your classes from seeing what you're like without coffee." It was well known how grumpy Skye could be without her coffee; it wasn't safe to go near her really. "Plus I wanted him to see your best side. No point scaring him off at the early stages."
"I've already told you I'm not interested nor is he."
"Your mouth says no your outfit says yes." Lance grinned wincing at the elbow Bobbi threw to his ribs.
“I’m late!” Skye rolled her eyes before heading towards the school.
“I’m sure the kids will forgive you!” Lance yelled after her. “Bobbi tell me everything that happens!” Ignoring him Skye strode into the school, heading straight for her class, avoiding glancing at his classroom as she passed it.
********************************
Any plans she had of sneaking looks at the other classroom were quickly squashed. Her classes all seemed to have taken evil pills, being more rowdy than normal. She was slightly surprised that he hadn’t been across to complain again, becoming annoyed at herself that she was disappointed he hadn’t complained. During the break she nipped across to his room, finding it filled with students but no teacher, and left a note on his desk apologising for the noise. With this guy she seemed to spend all her time apologising.
Everything had finally settled down again when the fire alarm went off during the last lesson before lunch. Groaning her class filed out onto the playground shivering slightly in the cold as the stood in line to be counted. Catching sight of Bobbi and as she had no form group she headed over to find out the gossip.
“Hey.”
“Hey. What happened?”
“Simmons blew up the lab again.”
“Huh. Apparently Fitz caught it on video. Want to watch?” Skye offered her phone to Bobbi, grinning as she waved her off. “I’ll email to you.”
“Anyway something far more interesting. On the grapevine”
“You mean gossiping kids?”
“Exactly. Anyway he’s been asking around about you.”
“Probably because he’s annoyed by my classes. They’ve not exactly been quiet.” She glumly spoke as she scanned the playground. Catching sight of a small shivering child she slipped off her coat and placed it around her shoulders.
“Thank you Miss.”
“It’s fine.”
Moving back to Bobbi she caught her friend’s look.
“I couldn’t leave her to freeze!”
“Sometime you have too much compassion.”
“Because I don’t want her to get hyperthermia?”
“Because you see good in everyone. It’s not a bad thing but it can lead you to helping the wrong people. Miles for example.”
“You said you wouldn’t bring him up!”
“Just don’t be too trusting. That said you should try to get to know cheekbones better. He keeps glancing this way.”
“I think the girl I gave my coat to is in his form.”
“Ah ha. That’s why he keeps looking at you!” Much to Skye’s relief they were given the all clear so she didn’t have to come up with some witty comment in reply.
***********************************
Returning from lunch she found her classroom extremely tidy, a sign Steve had been by. Although he accepted that art classrooms would always be messy if he happened to pass one he couldn’t help tidying it. Heading to her desk she found her coat hanging on the back of her chair, a note attached to it. Assuming it was from Steve she was surprised as she read it that she didn’t recognise the neat handwriting.
Skye, thank you lending Charlie your coat. She wanted to say thank you herself but wasn’t sure where you were so I said I would return it. Don’t worry about the noise, I understand. I’m sorry for being so horrible to you yesterday. Thank you for the coffee, you got it exactly right. There’s something to say thank you in your pocket.
Wide eyed she reached into her pocket, giving a slight shriek of joy when she pulled out her favourite chocolate bar and a small origami bird. Snapping a quick picture she carefully placed the bird on her desk where it wouldn’t get squashed.