Chapter 1: That day at the gates...
Mulch and dirt flies up from the ground and screams and laughter fill the air. The sky is a clear, bright blue, accompanying the unusual warmth for early autumn in England. A pair of seagulls fly past overhead, cawing loud over the rest of the noise of the playground.
Charlie Spring stands at the edge, leaning his arms against the metal fence. His curls are ruffled slightly in the wind as he watches the various children running around the playground. He has a soft, peaceful smile on his face, tapping one of his fingers rhythmically against the metal. Due to the unusual heat, he has left his suit jacket in the car, a pair of sunglasses perched on the end of his nose.
Meanwhile, Maya Spring dashes up the jungle gym, laughing as her other friends follow after her. Moments later, she appears at the bottom of the big tube slide, her skirt riding up slightly as she clambers clumsily off the bottom. She pays no attention to the curly haired man watching her from afar, caught up in playing and entertaining her friends.
Charlie never understood how she came out as such a social, chatty child. He himself had always been naturally shy and quiet, mostly keeping to himself out of protection. But Maya came out practically already talking to all the nurses, all wide eyes and loud as anything. From the day he dropped her off at day care for the first time, sobbing profusely as he waved goodbye, she made fast friends with just about everyone that knew her and any of Charlie's fears that she would grow up to be as lonely and awkward as he did were promptly squashed as soon as he picked her up from day care the first day.
Charlie glances down at his watch, pulling back his sleeve.
"Maya, sweetheart, let's go!" he calls.
Maya, swinging to and fro on the monkey bars, freezes midair and looks towards her father. Even from here, Charlie recognises the heavy, dramatic sigh as she lets go and lands several feet below.
Charlie jumps. He really hates it when she does that.
Maya sprints over to where her purple backpack has been discarded along with the other kids' and throws it carelessly over her shoulders before running towards the exit gate.
She keeps running until she leaps right into Charlie's arms, almost knocking him over. He wheezes as he catches her, stepping back slightly.
"Hello, darling," he says, bending down to lift her and prop her up on his hip. She's probably getting a bit too big for this by now, being 6 years old already, but Charlie would be damned if he gave up now.
"Hiya, Daddy!" Maya exclaims, almost choking him as she wraps her arms tight around his neck.
Charlie laughs, adjusting her grip so he can breathe easier. He glances back over to the playground, eyes locking onto the new teacher assigned to Maya's class that year.
Mr. Nelson is a tall, very broad shouldered man with light hair and a constant grin on his face, as far as Charlie can tell. Right now, he has a pair of sunglasses on, the sleeves of his button down rolled up, a grey blazer forgotten in the mulch.
According to Maya, he likes making up games to teach kids difficult concepts and cracks jokes that almost none of the class ever understands and he's incredibly patient with each and every one of them. She likes him much better than her last teacher, a shockingly strict teacher for year 1, Mr. West, so Charlie supposes he must be a good teacher.
He's certainly a looker, that's for sure.
~~~
For the next few weeks, the only glimpses Charlie ever receives of the famous Mr. Nelson are in the playground when he drops off and picks up Maya from school. One day, when Charlie comes to pick Maya up, he immediately spots Mr. Nelson among the students, towering over them as he jogs around the playground, joining them in a game of football.
He has discarded his usual blazer and his tie is loose as he passes the ball gently to the 6 year olds crowding around him in their school uniforms, yelling his name in delight. Among them is Maya, her cardigan wrapped around her waist and her dark hair falling into her face as she hurries to catch the ball from her classmates and teachers.
As much as Charlie would love to stay and watch his daughter and her hot teacher, Charlie is already running late to getting to Tao and Elle's house for Friday dinner, so he has no choice but to call Maya over again.
Charlie brushes past a few other parents lingering at the sides, nodding politely, and makes his way into the playground to pick up Maya's bag for her before he calls her over. As he straightens up, he catches her eye and raises his hand in a wave.
She returns the wave without coming over.
"Maya! Maya, we've got to go!"
When she still ignores him, Charlie mutters to himself, shaking his head, "Fuck's sake."
"You and me both."
Charlie startles at the voice to his right. He turns to find a pretty young woman with curly brown hair, freckles over pale cheeks and the bluest eyes Charlie has ever seen.
"Which one's yours?" she asks, gesturing to the kids running around the playground.
"Erm, Maya Spring. She's the one with the messy hair over on the left," he says, pointing. "I swear her hair was neater when she left this morning."
The other woman laughs, grinning. "Oh, I know what you mean. Mine is Timothy. He's the one absolutely covered in mud," she replies.
Indeed, one of the boys chasing after the football, has a massive dark brown and green stain down his white school shirt. He has tan skin and wild curly brown hair, though Charlie recognises his mother's smile even from here.
"Well, at least they seem to be having fun," he remarks.
The other woman nods, still beaming. She holds out her hand to Charlie. "I'm Imogen," she says.
"Charlie," he replies, shaking her hand. He drops his hand again and turns back to the playground. "Maya! Come on, sweetheart, we've really got to go!"
"But, Daddy!" she whines back, running alongside the ball.
Imogen giggles, covering her laugh with both hands. Charlie rolls his eyes, throwing an apologetic smile over his shoulder as he starts towards the football match. He narrowly dodges the ball being kicked his way, almost dropping Maya's bag on the ground as he strides into the middle of the 'football field' and over to his daughter.
Maya finally graces Charlie with her attention as he approaches her. She shrieks as he grabs her around the middle and lifts her up unceremoniously. She laughs and shouts the whole way out of the playground and Charlie shoots Imogen a polite smile before carrying her to the car.
"Daddy, we were just playing!" Maya complains as he tosses her bag into the backseat and helps her buckle her seatbelt.
"I know, sweetheart, but we're running late to seeing Auntie Elle and Uncle Tao," he explains.
Mercifully, Maya immediately stops complaining at the mention of her favourite 'aunt and uncle.'
~~~
Charlie doesn't properly meet Mr. Nelson until a few weeks later at the parent/teacher conference to discuss how Maya is getting on with school.
Charlie pulls into the car park with 10 minutes to spare before his scheduled meeting with Mr. Nelson. He pauses to inspect his appearance in the rearview mirror, taking in his messy curls and his ink-stained shirt collar and the slightly frayed edges of his brown blazer. He sighs, straightening out the fabric and yanking one of the longer threads off his jacket.
He doesn't even know why he's so bothered by how he looks. Mr. Nelson is probably married to some gorgeous woman and he's Maya's teacher for goodness sake! It would be inappropriate…
Finally, with one last glimpse at his appearance, Charlie forces himself to head into the school to meet with Maya's stupidly handsome teacher.
Inside the halls of Lewis Carroll Primary School, parents linger outside of every classroom, talking to each other as they wait to meet with the teachers. All the classrooms have been labelled with the names of the teachers, as well as a list of meeting times for all the parents from multiple year groups. Since the last time Charlie had been inside the school building, they'd painted the plain white walls with a colourful mural of a rainbow globe, surrounded by children of various races and sizes.
"Charlie!"
Charlie turns at the sound of his name and spots Imogen near the classroom door, chatting with a couple other parents. She waves him over with a smile and he awkwardly makes his way over. She has her arm around the waist of a man with a short black afro, dressed in a crisp navy blue suit. He has a friendly smile as he talks with the other parents and even gives Charlie a nod as he approaches.
"Oh, has everyone met Charlie here?" Imogen greets, peeling away from the other man to rest her elbow on Charlie's shoulder(a real feat considering the multiple inches Charlie has on her, even in her work heels). "Charlie, this is my husband Otis."
Charlie shakes hands with Otis, who immediately returns to wrapping an arm around Imogen's waist. Charlie is just getting introduced to the other parents he hasn't met yet when the door to Maya's classroom swings open and another parent walks out of Mr. Nelson's classroom, thanking him over their shoulder. At the back of the room, Charlie spots Mr. Nelson sitting at his desk.
"Are Maya Spring's guardians here?" Mr. Nelson announces to the hallway in a nice, deep voice.
Charlie says his goodbyes to the other parents and heads inside, shutting the door behind him.
He glances around the room. All the desks have been set into various groups of 4 or 5, each decorated with personalised name plates on all of them, which have clearly been decorated by all the kids. A big carpet with a map of the world spreads out across the floor and various multi-coloured shelves and cubbies line one wall, also labelled with all the kids' names. On the other side, the dry erase board has a mix of leftover maths equations, a rainbow alphabet going down the side and, in messy block letters, the date has also been written in the top right corner in blue pen. Along the windows at the back, various drawings have been stuck to the glass, including butterflies, badly done self-portraits and abstract colourful doodles. There's also a few flags hanging up from the ceiling, including a few pride flags and the school flag, as well as a couple rugby team logos.
Charlie's favourite part, though, is the plastic solar system hanging from the ceiling and the glow in the dark stars stuck up across the entire ceiling like the night's sky.
It's easily the coolest classroom Charlie has ever seen.
Charlie hadn't realised how long he's stood in Mr. Nelson's classroom gaping around like an idiot, until Mr. Nelson clears his throat, snapping him back to attention. He's still sitting behind his desk, brows pinching in confusion.
"Er, hi?" says Mr. Nelson.
Charlie shakes himself off and finally forces himself to cross the room, taking Mr. Nelson's proffered hand. "Hi, I'm Charlie Spring, Maya's dad," says Charlie, shaking his hand. It's warm and slightly rough to the touch.
"Nice to meet you, Charlie," says Mr. Nelson. "Take a seat. Please." He gestures to the seat across from him.
"Oh, yeah," says Charlie, dropping into the chair across from Mr. Nelson at last. "Sorry. I just got distracted. Your classroom is wonderful."
Mr. Nelson positively beams, sitting back in his seat. He even has a slight blush, Charlie notices.
Up close, Mr. Nelson is even more handsome than Charlie expected. He has bright, gentle brown eyes and a square jaw and his hair is somewhere between ginger and blonde, especially in the evening light coming through the classroom window behind him. His white button down is tight against his muscular biceps as his blazer has once again been ditched, hanging over the back of his chair.
Charlie is utterly screwed.
"So, are there any other guardians we're still waiting on or is it just you?" Mr. Nelson asks, shuffling through a stack of papers in front of him.
Charlie swallows and looks down at his lap, face burning. "Erm, no, just—just me," he responds quietly. He clears his throat and forces himself to look back at Mr. Nelson. He expects to find a pitying, apologetic look or a confused frown, but Mr. Nelson looks surprisingly unbothered as he nods in understanding.
"So, overall, Maya is doing quite well in Year 2," Mr. Nelson begins, pulling up a paper covered in notes about Maya, covered in messy blue handwriting. He straightens it out in front of him. "She excels in reading and writing and her maths is a solid level for where she is currently. As you can see here, her marks are pretty consistently high for these subjects here, though she does fall behind a bit in the history unit and art class."
He turns the paper around so that it faces Charlie, pointing at the marks on the page. Charlie leans over the table, scanning the paper in front of him. Indeed, everywhere but History and Art, all of Maya's marks are pretty good.
"Is there any reason she's not doing so well in those two specifically?" Charlie asks, glancing up at Mr. Nelson, brows furrowing and mouth pulling down.
Mr. Nelson spins the paper back around to face him. He laces his fingers together in front of him on the table and leans forward. "See, while she manages to get most of her work done in other lessons, she struggles to pay attention sometimes and can be quite the chatterbox when she wants to be. I've had to move her desk 4 times already due to her distracting the other kids from their own work," he explains, frowning slightly. "I asked her recently about her history and she told me she finds it boring compared to her other subjects, so I believe she falls behind because she doesn't try as hard in history and gets distracted much more easily as her mind wanders."
"And what about art? That's usually fairly easy, isn't it?" says Charlie, frowning. "And at home I know she loves doing crafts and art projects."
Mr. Nelson nods again. He gives Charlie a soft, understanding smile which only serves to make Charlie's heart race even more.
"I think it might be the opposite problem," says Mr. Nelson. "I spoke with her art teacher, Miss Allen, and she said that Maya has a bit of a habit of getting entirely off topic in her class and tends to not take the lessons very seriously. Apparently, she often decides to…" He lifts another piece of paper and reads aloud, "'embark on entirely different art projects to what she has been assigned.'"
Charlie snorts despite himself. His eyes bulge and he slaps a hand over his mouth, horrified at his outburst. Mr. Nelson's eyebrows shoot up, tilting his head to the side. One side of his mouth twitches like he's holding back a smile of his own.
"Sorry," Charlie says, cheeks burning again. "It's just—that sounds very in character for her, actually."
"Oh, I don't doubt that," says Mr. Nelson, smiling. "The other day, Miss Allen came to my classroom complaining that instead of the self-portraits they were supposed to be doing in pencil, Maya decided she would rather finger paint a very elaborate depiction of her cat, Tibby."
"How did she even manage that?" Charlie blurts, grinning even wider. He slaps his hand on his forehead. "I never should have let her around my friends so much. She's turning into a free spirit!"
Mr. Nelson chuckles. "She's certainly quite the character, that's for sure," he agrees.
Charlie smiles, listening to Nick describing his daughter. But he still can't ignore the comments about her history and art grades.
"So, what'll we do about her history and art?" he asks.
"Well, as for history, I've been slowly trying to work with her more individually to help," Nick explains, shuffling the papers again. "And I'm trying to make the class more interactive and engaging so that she finds more interest in it. And in regards to art, I've been speaking to Miss Allen and we're trying to work out ways to keep her actually paying attention to the tasks at hand and not getting carried away with other stuff."
Charlie hums, listening and nodding his head. He's shocked at how much care and attention Nick has clearly put into this. It's obvious from the way he speaks about Maya that he's fond of her and that he intends to try to help her in any way that he can. It's nice to know that Maya has such an attentive, helpful teacher.
"But honestly, I wouldn't worry too much," Nick continues. "She's a goofball and often talks out of turn in class, but when she's focused, she's one of my best students and she's always nice to everyone else no matter what. She's a real delight to have in the class. You should be proud of the daughter you've raised, despite any fallbacks we've got currently."
Charlie's eyes begin to burn listening to Mr. Nelson describing his daughter so fondly. He ducks his head down to avoid showing the deep emotions Mr. Nelson's comments have brought on. He can't go crying in front of his daughter's teacher, handsome or otherwise.
"Thank you for saying that," Charlie murmurs, peeking up through his lashes at the other man. His friendly smile has turned slightly concerned now as he watches Charlie, eyes widening. "Her other dad passed away at the start of her first year of school and I'm not close with most of my family, so it's been hard raising her mostly by myself. It's been hard raising her without a partner, so it means a lot to be told I'm doing a good job."
Charlie dares a peek up at the other man, blinking. While he expects at least some pity, he's shocked to see anything but. His features have pulled into a strangely soft expression, as if he knows Charlie well and hasn't literally just met him a few minutes ago. He isn't pitying or sad, he's understanding.
"I'm so sorry," Charlie laughs self-deprecatingly, sniffling and wiping his eyes. "You must think I'm such an idiot, crying in your classroom. I'm sorry you've seen me like this."
Nick shakes his head sharply, sitting up straighter in his seat. "Don't be. I can't imagine how hard it must have been. Believe me, I know how hard kids can be even on the best days." Mr. Nelson chuckles, eyes downcast, as if sharing a private joke with himself. Charlie feels his heart constrict with fondness. "Trust me, these… bumps in the road with Maya are nothing when you take into consideration everything else. You're clearly doing a wonderful job because—" He glances around before leaning forwards on the desk, a conspiratorial grin on his face. "—I know I shouldn't have any, but she's genuinely one of my favourite students."
Charlie laughs a little wetly. He shares a smile with Mr. Nelson, unable to tear his eyes away.
"It'll be our secret," says Charlie, miming locking his lips and tossing away the invisible key. Mr. Nelson's grin broadens.
For a moment, neither of them say anything. They sit across from each other wearing stupidly fond grins for essentially strangers, sharing a glance normally reserved for mischievous children. Charlie feels his whole body tingling with the gaze of the man across from him, abnormally attached to him despite never having spoken to him before this evening.
The comfortable silence is cut off abruptly by Mr. Nelson's watch beeping. Charlie jumps.
Mr. Nelson's eyes widen. "Fuck, that's my next appointment now!" he blurts. In his panic, he swipes all his papers to the floor, scattered haphazardly across the floor and his desk. He swears, leaping to his feet. "Damn, I spent ages organising those."
"Here, let me help." Charlie kneels down, gently collecting the sheets of paper one by one.
Mr. Nelson kneels down beside him, helping to collect the papers and somewhat organise them as quickly as he can. Their fingers brush as they both reach out for the same sheet and Charlie's heart skips, cheeks flushing as he jerks his hand away to let Mr. Nelson pick it up instead.
Once all the papers have been gathered and somewhat organised, Charlie passes his half over to Mr. Nelson and starts for the door. Mr. Nelson moves to follow, falling into step with him until they reach the door.
"Thank you so much for coming, Charlie," says Mr. Nelson, stopping in front of the door. "You really are doing a good job with Maya. She'll go far one day, I'm sure."
"Thank you, Mr. Nelson. It means a lot," says Charlie earnestly.
"Nick," says Mr. Nelson.
Charlie tilts his head, eyebrows furrowing.
"That's my name. You can—you can call me Nick, if you like." Curiously, his cheeks turn a pale, pretty shade of pink high on his cheekbones and he rubs the back of his neck, looking bashful. It suits him.
Charlie doesn't reply. He almost throws the door open, swallowing when he finds the other parents waiting outside(thankfully not including Imogen or her husband.). He turns back to Mr. Nelson one last time and gives him a small, shy smile.
And then he scuttles down the hallway, past the rainbow mural and back outside to his car without looking back once until he's in his car, backing out to head to pick up Maya from the Xu house.
God, he is fucked.