The Perfect Match | ✔️

The Perfect Opponent

It was an unusually sunny day in the city of Denbrook. As Charlotte Yates pushed in a couple chairs that were left astray from her last class, the regret of having a classroom with so many windows crossed her mind. When she first got the new room, she had been ecstatic to have been placed in such a light bearing classroom. It made for a better environment-she thought. Now, four years later, she had to keep a jacket on hand during the winter and bring a fan from home for 5 out of the 9 school months they had. Today was one of them, still the hot sun shone through her class windows and had her fanning like mad. She would be taking the papers home to grade today-at least she could control her own thermostat.

Having made up her mind, she promptly gathered the students' papers and placed them all into a bag to carry before taking her other things and heading out. She exchanged pleasantries with her coworkers and lingering students as she made her way to the teacher's lot. Once at her car she deposited all her things in the back seat before turning the air all the way to its max.

"Thank you, Lord for another day." She breathed.

Once home, she started on dinner and stood at her kitchen island while reading through students' essays.

"Remember polite order," she murmured inadvertently while scribbling this on the paper.

"Closed quotation," She frowned slightly.

"Review your prepo...-" Her phone rang before she could finish one of her last notes. She had gone through half of her classes as her dinner sat untouched on a plate beside her. Now she was too near her stopping point to take a phone call.

"97!" She smiled proudly. "Great...job, Glen." She even added a small smiley face to the note for good measure. She knew her students actually liked some of the corny things she did.

Her phone sounded again as she placed the paper to the side. A glare at her brows she absentmindedly swiped at the phone screen with distaste. "What in the everlasting..." she brought the phone to her ear, "Hello!" She exclaimed, not bothering to hide her annoyance, knowing who was on the other end.

"Charlotte, what are you doing?" The voice inquired slipping smoothly through the speaker.

"I was grading papers, Jack, and I've still got some more to go."

"Well first of all, this is a facetime call and I don't care for ears as much as you might think," She snatched the device away from her head to see her best friend grinning in amusement. "You said you would come by yesterday, Charlotte-we were supposed to play, remember?"

"Yeah, I know,"

"But you still left me all alone. That's how it's gonna be?"

Charlotte refrained from chuckling at her friend's antics. Sure he sounded sweet and the pout he wore looked genuine, but the second she stepped through his threshold, or on the tennis court, he was just as trash-talking and bothersome as usual. "Listen, all of the staff has to have one more major grade in the system by Friday. I'll be down to see you Sunday, though. I love you so much!" She hung up, promising to make it up to him by meeting him at the courts on Sunday afternoon.

Not even a good moment later, his name appeared on her screen again with his silly picture to accompany it. Charlotte answered the call and groaned aloud so that he could hear. "What,"

"I love you too." He hung up before Charlotte could respond.

Chuckling to herself, she tried to gather her thoughts again to continue her tedious work.

--

Per her promise, Charlotte had changed into pale blue nike fit after church to meet Jackson at the courts. When she pulled up, he was already practicing his serves and had broken a considerable sweat.