Mr and Mrs Bates

Chapter 2- Homework

I am utterly appalled at what happened this morning.

I came to work today thinking all I had to worry about was my lesson plans, then not even half an hour after I arrive, I get bombarded with these new developments in my life.

I was definitely not expecting this to happen.

It is currently 5th period and I have 9X2, the class of year nines that I was trying to plan my lesson for earlier, but after the events of the geography office- I will always call it the geography office, it will never belong to the history teachers- I was flabbergasted.

This resulted in me accidentally messing up the answer slide of the starting questions and writing the definition for 'urbanisation' as a very large ecosystem. So that was really fun (note the obvious sarcasm).

I am teaching the year nines about the Amazon Rainforest, which I really enjoy. I honestly don't get why some people would rather learn about some old dead people in history, when they could rather be learning about the world we currently inhabit in Geography.

I just don't understand.

"The Amazon Rainforest is the biggest rainforest in the world and can anyone tell me where it is located?"

Multiple hands are raised including the one of my favourite student, Marla.

I nod to her to answer.

"The Amazon Rainforest is located in Brazil which is in Sou-"

Knock. Knock.

Marla is interrupted by a knock on my classroom door.

"Come in!" I yell so that they could hear me through the thick walls.

The door is opened and I see the man I have been stressing about for the whole school day.

Sebastian.

Why is he here?

Why would he even want to enter a geography classroom, won't all the flags hurt his stubborn, stupid and small brain?

He answers my many questions by saying "If it's alright with you Miss Connell, may I give out some homework to this class? It slipped my mind to hand them out the other day when I taught them, I sincerely apologise for the inconvenience." He states.

The class groans at his statement, and I want to groan too.

I just want to scream No! Get out of my classroom! But the rational side of me says not to make a scene in front of a class full of year nine students.

Being professional is a hard task, especially when it involves him.

Deciding to stop obsessing over this, I open my mouth to say yes when he completely forgoes the need to have my permission and waltzes into my classroom like he owns the place.

For a man who is probably posher than the late Queen of England he sure is lacking certain manners.

Or just manners in general.

As he hands out the sheets of homework he walks past me and our hands graze each other. The skin to skin contact makes me shudder, reminding me of what happened that night.

He seems affected by it too as he clears his throat and walks away, handing out the rest of the sheets.

I look around to see if any of my students noticed that weird encounter, to see Marla and her friend, Lila giving me a look.

They are definitely the nosiest out of most likely all my students across all my classes. But it's probably why they're some of my favourites, they're just like me.

I hope they pick geography.

Once 'Mr Bates' is done handing out the rest of the sheets he tells the students "Alright class, I expect these done by next Wednesday, the next time I have you."

I think he is thankfully done being in my lesson  when he turns to me and says "Thank you Miss Connell for letting me interrupt your class, I'm sure you were teaching them some... umm very educational facts about geography."

I can tell that killed him inside. I mentally laugh at that.

He continues "I will see you later after school, is 4:20 an alright time to leave?"

My cheeks flame from the fact that he is mentioning that we are leaving school together, along with the fact he said it in front of a whole class full of year nines who will almost 100 percent tell all their friends that we are dating or some nonsense like that ,which will never happen.

I mean it is actually ridiculous.

Why would they ever think that could even be a possibility?

I'm pulled out of my zoning out by Sebastian coughing.

Only then do I realise I have been staring at him for like 30 seconds.

Someone please kill me.

They can bury my body near a nice waterfall. Or cremate me and sprinkle my ashes in his suits, so that he can never wear them again.

Who am I kidding? He'll probably just put them in a washing machine and wear them the next day.

I finally respond saying "Umm, yeah that's fine with me."

Then I quickly turn around and sit at my desk.

I can hear the class whispering, probably concocting their own silly little stories about what's going on.

Or they don't care at all and I'm just overthinking everything.

Nope, definitely the first one, which is confirmed when a group of boys start oohing.

I probably look like a brunette tomato at this point.

I notice he hasn't left so I say "Bye." Hoping he will get the message.

He fortunately does and closes the door, gladly relieving me of his presence.

Once he's left, I stand back up and finish my lesson, which there are luckily no more interruptions from fancy history teachers, as I try to not ponder about what just happened.

Obviously, I tend to overthink.

How come one meeting with Sebastian can have me thinking about him for hours?

I don't understand how I am going to sit with him in a car for about 20 minutes.

And what if there is traffic?

Someone help me.

Please.