Flashbacks

The Fire Escape

During the NYC class trip, Jon arranges a secret romantic rendezvous. Shawn is not impressed with the outcome

"So what happened last night?" Shawn demanded for the umpteenth time, tugging on Jon's jacket shoulder.

"Hands off the leather, huh?" Jon hissed irritably. His eyes darted around the hotel hallway they were in as though he expected someone to jump out from around the corner and catch them. "And I told you nothing happened."

Shawn snorted loudly, causing Jon to jump slightly.

"Would you be quiet!?" he snapped.

The teen couldn't hold back his amusement and chuckled at a normal volume. "You're really nervous about this sneakin' out aren't you?"

"I am not," his teacher growled, inching down the hallway.

"Are too."

"Am not!"

Shawn smirked. "I'm beginning to think those stories Eli told about you when you were my age were just stories he made up to make you look good. No way you ever snuck around. Ever. You're too nervous."

Jon straightened up and glared at the boy. "Get in the elevator, Hunter."

The doors were barely open enough to get through, but Shawn turned to the side and skipped through. Settling his back against the elevator wall, he folded his arms across his stomach and grinned broadly at his English teacher. Jonathan waited until the doors were opened enough to be able to walk through without any contortion. He shot his student a dirty look and turned his back on him.

"I'm just outta practice," he muttered, jamming the button for the ground floor with his thumb.

"Right," said Shawn with a roll of his eyes. He took a step forward and put his chin on Jon's shoulder. "What happened last night?"

"Shawn!" That kid had his number when it came to Audrey and he hated that he could get under his skin like that. The English teacher stopped for a moment to compose himself then sighed. "Nothin'. I wish I could tell you somethin' happened but nothin' did."

"So what was the point of last night?"

"To ask her to go with us tonight."

"That's it? You went through all that to arrange a romantic rooftop meetin' and dodgin' Miss Tompkins just to ask Audrey to go out with us tonight?" Shawn couldn't fathom that. "No kiss, no will you be my girlfriend? You wasted last night?"

"Hunter..." Jon said with a sharp warning edge to the name.

"I knew I shoulda gone with you!" Shawn declared, stepping back and throwing up his hands up in disgust.

The elevator chimed that it had arrived at their destination. Jon blocked Shawn from exiting before he had a chance to check out the area they would be stepping into. Shawn ducked under Jon's arm and headed out anyway, leaving his teacher behind to mutter rude things under his breath.

Walking down the hall of the Library Hotel, they encountered no one. That was a little strange. Given that it was just about an hour before the dinnertime rush there should have been more people wandering around. That there weren't made Jon even more anxious.

And he was nervous. To be sneaking out of a hotel and putting his responsibilities onto someone else to meet a girl when he was fifteen was very different than sneaking out of a hotel and putting his responsibilities onto someone else to meet a girl when he was thirty-three. And that girl was his student teacher. And he was taking his student with him.

What am I doing? He wondered in dismay.

Jon didn't have a chance to ponder this as Shawn hit his arm with the back of his hand several times. Pointing down the to reading area of the lobby, he gleefully chirped, "Ha! That's why no one is around. Miss Tompkins is here. She cleared 'em all out!"

Horrified at this thought, Jon followed the boy's finger to where he was pointing. Sure enough, there was his on-again, off-again girlfriend walking towards them with a her nose buried in a book. Quickly, he started to walk backwards away from her and toward the elevator but Shawn wasn't going with him- he was still laughing at his own joke. Jon reached out and grabbed the back of the teen's jacket and pulled him along until they were safely behind the closed doors of the elevator.

"I don't see why we couldn't just walk by her," Shawn grumbled, shaking out his jacket from Jon's grip.

"Of course, you don't," Jon scowled, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets. "You wouldn't have had to explain what we were doin' and where we were goin' to her."

"So what do we do now?"

"Wait for her to go back to her room I guess."

Shawn frowned. "How are we gonna know when she does that?"

"I dunno. I guess we could see if this place has a back exit."

"It doesn't," the teen said confidently. "I checked."

"When?"

"Soon as we got here," he admitted and then quickly realized his error. He gave his teacher a sheepish look. "Oh, you didn't know."

"No, I didn't."

"Sorry."

"Yeah, right." Jon checked his watch. "Audrey will be on her way to meet us by now. I can't call her to let her know what's goin' on. And there's no tellin' where Kat will be or for how long."

"There's always the fire escape," Shawn reminded him as though it was a common route to take.

"I am not usin' the fire escape."

As Shawn began to argue, a older voice trilled out of nowhere, "Sneaking out to meet a girl, are you?"

In sync, Shawn and Jon turned slowly to look to their left. A man, a several years older and several inches shorter than Mr. Feeny, grinned at them with a wizened smile. He had been standing next to them the whole time and neither had seen him.

Shawn returned the man's smile and put his arm around Jon's shoulder. "Yeah, my mom."

Jon gave him a withering look, clearly unhappy with the ease at which the boy could lie.

Shawn caught the look, leaned closer, and whispered, "What? You wanna tell him the truth?"

Jon pressed his lips into a thin, frustrated line knowing he couldn't explain what was really going on. He turned to the older man and said, "Yeah, his mom. It's, uh, complicated."

The man's eyes twinkled in amusement. "Trying to avoid someone at the same time?"

"Yeah," Shawn cut Jon off from answering. "His witch of an ex-girlfriend!"

"Shawn!"

"Well, that is true."

The man gave a deep laugh as the elevator came to a stop and the door opened. "Follow me, boys. I can help."

Without question, Shawn followed the man to his room. Because Shawn was following a stranger, Jon had no choice but to follow the teen. He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets again, grumbling to himself. He hoped this guy wasn't a serial killer.

A few minutes later, Jon found himself doing something he hadn't done since he was a teenager: he was climbing down a fire escape to meet a girl.