Love Knows No Gender or Age.

III

Louis left work earlier than he normally did if he had to pick up his boys as he was simply done with everything and everyone.

He had asked the planning department four times, over the course of the day, for their budget predictions for the next three months and they still hadn't gotten back to him with anything but empty promises.

It was driving him mad.

And then there was the lady in the print room who's name he still didn't know but by God did she know his. "Oh Mr Tomlinson, you do looks dashing today. You simply sweep me off my feet!" Her twangy accent made his skin crawl and she must be at least double his age.

All he asked was if she had his printing ready.

When he reached the school gates at 2:57PM, well, that's what it said on his phone, they were already open and parents were slowly walking in the direction of their child's class, while having a natter.

He was lucky that classes two and four were next to each other, still to this day no one knew why class four was in the middle of classes two and three but he didn't question it. Louis thought himself lucky as he didn't have to walk from one end of the school, where class three was, to the other end, where class five was, to pick up his sons yet. That was next year.

When he found his usual, reasonably quite, spot to wait for his children he glanced down to his phone. 3:02PM. He still had a while so stupidly he started to look through the emails he had gotten since leaving work.

Once again he had forgotten to set his computers status as 'away from desk' so people were sending him work that they needed done buy this afternoon. Groaning internally, he rolled his eyes then stuffed his phone back in his pocket. It could all wait till tomorrow.

I should be like the other parents, he thought, chatting and watching his children finish off their days lessons through the windows of the class while smiling fondly.

He hated how much his work consumed him. It was bad for his mental state and he knew it. It was probably yet another reason for his marriage falling to bits.

As Louis looked into Westly year Four classroom, he smiled at his son giving the teacher something and her giving him a sticker in return. When Westly turned around to go back to his table he saw his dad peeping through the window from a distance and smiled widely, waving his hands quickly to show his excitement for his dad picking him up.

Louis briefly returned the smile before giving him a 'shoo' signal. The little boy then went and collected his bag and lunch box, like the rest of the children in his class, before standing behind his seat as the class said their goodbyes.

Harry always made sure he got to the school dot on 3PM so he could go and chat to the other parents.

Like most, Harry had his own clique of parents. He didn't like to think of it that way though, he liked to think that he was simply closer friends with these parents than the rest. His group of parents consisted of: Hattie's mum Leah who was married and worked from home, Jakes mum Deborah who was a beautician and was dating Jakes dad, Hannah's dad Jon who was divorced but had won custody of Hannah and Miles' mum Lisa who was one of those single mothers that had all their shit together and worked so hard.

All of their children were friends with Dori so they often had play dates set up with each other or the whole group would meet up at the park or something.

Harry was friendly with Danielle but she spent her time with a different group of parents.

"Hello Ladies." Harry greeted Leah and Lisa as they came walking towards him. They were a bit later today than normal.