In Hate With You [mlm]

the third encounter

"Really, Hannah?" I groan as another stack of paper is dumped on my desk. "You know you're my bestie, right?" I send her a sly smile.

"Sorry," the woman who is currently torturing me chuckles, walking towards the door. "There's a little girl and her mum coming to have a look around."

"Why can't I show them around? I'm perfectly qualified to give tours," I complain. She sends me with an amused glance.

"It's not a tour," she says, her fingers trailing along the edge of my desk. "And you'd be showing them around a primary school that you've only been working at for a week."

"Exactly! I'll be able to relate to them," I declare, ignoring her other comment. It's totally a tour.

She sighs, scanning the classroom. Usually, it would be filled with thirty screaming children, but today it is filled with piles of marking. The youngest groups have gone out on a school trip with a 'select group of teachers' - lucky sods.

"No way. You've not been here long enough to know your own way around, let alone show somebody else." She rolls her eyes at me.

"Can I come with you, at least?" I plead, desperate to escape the large quantity of paperwork.

"No," she decides, beginning to walk backwards to the door. "I am unable to let you off going through those very important forms, despite being your 'bestie'."

I scowl at her as she ruffles a hand through my hair and winks at me.

As she leaves, my gaze drifts along the work splattered across the classroom. One of the best bits about my job is seeing the kids grow up; helping them find their talents and the thousands of possibilities for their future.

I can't wait to make a difference on a completely new group of kids.

Humming under my breath, I turn back to my work. For the time I wasted complaining about how much I had to do, I actually wasn't far off finishing.

I work through the final few papers, before organising the random stacks into neat piles once more, and putting them into one of the filing cabinets in the hallway.

"...and this is Mr Anderson." I spin around to see Hannah walking towards me, with a small girl and her mum stood beside her.

"Ady?" I ask, my mouth dropping open in surprise.

She waves back shyly, but doesn't retreat behind her mum. A smile spreads across my lips.

"Maybe I should have let you show them around, if you already knew each other," Hannah jokes, sending me a friendly grin.

"I wouldn't sa-"

"We don't know him! He's probably just some creep who saw my daughter running around the park and gave her some candy," Ady's mum growls, interrupting me.

I flinch back in surprise, and Hannah's eyes flick between me and Ady's mum in shock.

"Daddy and I took him cookies and cakes and cinnamon swirls and then Daddy told me he had to catch him when he fell down the stairs," Ady tells Hannah, whose lips curl into a smirk. A flush chases across my cheeks.

"Oh," Ady's mum mutters. "You're one of them."

I frown, my eyebrows pulling together in confusion. "One of-"

"Do you want to see the art room?" Hannah asks Ady, interrupting me. Ady's eyes light up with excitement. "Come on, then."

Hannah leads Ady and her mum away, turning back once to send me a curious glance.

I just shrug. Who knows?