3
Unbeknownst to the happy couple a whole bunch of their pupils had pretty much the same idea as them and were in the park also enjoying the sun and extra long holiday they were in given under the circumstances. Bolton, Paul, Janice, Maxine, Dante and Chlo, were all sat under a huge Oak tree laughing and messing around doing what teenagers do best.
"Hey guys, don't those two people look familiar." Chlo said getting the attention of everyone around her as she pointed to where Eddie and Rachel were sat on a bench soaking up the sun arms wrapped around each other, laughing at one of Eddie's lame jokes that were designed to keep the listener laughing at the person who told the joke for the simple reason that they were attempting to be funny, but never would be in a million years.
"No way man, is that Lawson and Miss Mason?" Bolton questioned as he squinted to get a better look at the couple a hundred yards away.
"He's right ya know it is." Janice chimed in.
"Bloody hell, what d'ya reckon they are doin' here like." Dante asked, hoping to get an answer from people who were just as clueless as he was.
"How should we know man, we ain't psychic." Bolton replied, with a scowl on his face, ever since he had met Miss Mason, Bolton had grown to respect her and possibly even had a little school boy crush on her but no one not even Paul knew, if they did it would be round school quicker than he could throw a punch.
"Alright man, chill out. What's crawled your arse 'n' died then?" Paul jested, hoping to get a laugh out of Bolton.
"Nothin' man, so just leave it yeah." With that he got up and walked away from his friends, trying to calm down and resist the urge to walk over there and rip Eddie Lawson off of Miss Mason.
Deciding that it would be best to go over and talk to them and wish Miss Mason a speedy recovery Bolton strolled off towards them with his swagger in full swing. Back at the tree everyone else was still observing the blissfully happy couple.
"Never have guessed that Mason and Lawson as in like together, it's just a bit weird." Dante voiced his opinion when Bolton had left.
"Not really, it's been coming for ages; Steph says that if they didn't shag each other before the start of term she was going to lock them in Miss Mason's office and give them a box of condoms." Maxine said not taking her eyes off of Eddie and Rachel who had now proceeded to jumping about like the teenagers they ruled over every day.
"Well now she won't have to, will she." Janice spoke, with a hint of disgust in her tone of voice.
"Yeah man now that would have been funny." Dante said as he laughed at the absurd image he had conjured in his head.
"Pervert." Chlo said causing everyone else to laugh at the dream like expression on Dante's face.
"Sorry babes but Miss Mason is one hot woman, if you know what I mean." He replied sheepishly trying not to rile her up knowing that if he did he would be sleeping on the couch tonight.
They all turned their attention back to the couple they were discussing, only to find that Bolton was making his way towards them, with a rather unhappy scowl on his face.
"Shit is that Bolton." Maxine said as she noticed a rather familiar figure walking towards the relaxed couple.
"Yeah, come on we have to stop him before Lawson has his head." Paul shouted as he took off at a sprint to towards Eddie and Rachel, with Dante following close behind with the girls trailing even further behind him.
"Eddie what happens when we get back to work, do we keep this a secret or do we act as we are now and deal with the whispers as they come, God knows Steph will be at the forefront of the whispers." Rachel asked unsure that once the summer was over everything would go back to the way they before the whole mess at the end of term.
Propping himself up on his elbow Eddie leaned over and threaded his fingers through her hair and played idly with the silken strands. Contemplating his answer, he looked over her shoulder to find 5 teenagers chasing after a fast approaching Bolton Smiley who didn't look particularly in a good mood.
"We don't hide anything, they don't need to know anything we don't want them to and if they ask we simply smile and walk away, it's none of their business Rach and if they talk it's only because they have nothing better to do. By the end of the summer I won't be able to let you go, you mean too much to me." He said before he leaned over and gently captured his lips in a gentle and soft caress of lips.
"I won't be able to give you up either you're too addictive." She said in response, causing him to get a big full wattage smile on his face.
"Now we've got that sorted here comes trouble." He threaded his fingers through hers and pulled her from the grass to face the rapidly approaching gaggle of teenagers. At the sight of the of her students the grin that not a minute ago had been stretched across her face fell away and was replaced by a scowl.
"Oh great just what we need, to deal a bunch of kids I hoped I wouldn't see until September, such a brilliant way to start the summer." Rachel whined as they got closer to her and Eddie. She knew that as soon as they reached them their relationship wouldn't stay a secret for more than an hour because they would be texting everyone in their phonebooks and by the end of the day Steph and the rest of the staff would know thanks to Maxine.
"Couldn't we just walk away and pretend that we haven't noticed them." She said as she turned around and buried her head into Eddie's chest. Wrapping his arms around Rachel Eddie steered them away from the running teenagers and back towards his car ready to make a quick getaway. They managed to get all the way to the car before the Bolton caught up with them followed closely by Dante, Chlo, Maxine, Janice and Paul all by the looks of them had chased Bolton across half of the park.
"Oy Miss, whatcha you doin' here?" Bolton asked, meaning that Eddie and Rachel had to turn and answer him if they didn't want to be rude and being the adults they are, being rude was only reserved for school governors or snot nosed brats; that Bolton used to be like.
"Bolton Smiley why don't you just run along and continue doing whatever you were doing with your friends before you came over and ruined a perfectly peaceful trip to the park for us." Eddie said smarmily as he wanted to get rid of Bolton as quick as possible as he was burning up daylight that Eddie could surely find more interesting things to do with.
"Sir all I asked was what has brought you and Miss Mason out of the dark and into the sunlight as we all know that in the summer, teachers seem to hibernate and come back in the new school even more pissy, than when they left at the end of term. No need to go all macho we can all tell that you're most definitely male as Miss Mason by the looks of that hickey on her neck would agree." Bolton said trying hard to keep the smirk off his face at getting one up on the Head's of school.
Gasping at the side of Eddie, Rachel slapped her hand against her neck trying in vain to cover up the artwork Eddie had coveted on her neck in the early hours of the morning, as she had done the same on his chest thinking that would be a more discrete place and then he went and planted on in plain and she didn't even know, leaving her to find out by one the cockiest pupils she had ever taught, making fun of the both of them.
"Actually Bolton we were just enjoying the park until you walked over and started to pollute the air with your silly little school boy remarks so if you don't mind we have more pressing matters to deal with than your little school boy crush on your Head Teacher so if you don't mind we will be going now." With his parting words Eddie wrapped an arm around Rachel and steered her back onto their original course to the car just as they walked out of view the others finally managed to catch up to Bolton, only to find him in an even fouler mood from having talked to the adults than when he stormed away from them earlier.
"Bolton what happened? Lawson dint seem too impressed to see you." Paul asked as doubled gasping for air from running further than he had ever run before to stop his best mate from making a fool of himself, only it would appear that he didn't run fast enough and had to watch the anger now threatening to disrupt his usual calm and collected self.
"Nothin' man just leave it yeah." Bolton said as he brushed past them not one bit happy with how Lawson had shown him up in front of Miss Mason.
"What's his problem? Don't tell me he said something stupid and Lawson put him down in front of Mason and now he's off to go home and cry over his ruined chances with Mason." Janice said as she got on the phone, doing as predicted and started to spread the word about Rachel and Eddie being seen in the park as a 'thing'.
Next to her Maxine had already started on Steph who could now be heard down the phone squealing and screeching that Matt owed her money. No doubt that within minutes the rest of Waterloo Road's staff would know the last gossip and that at the beginning of term would ultimately test Rachel and Eddie's strength as a couple both in and out of work.
Deciding that nothing else interesting was going to happen in the park that day everyone made their home getting ready for the party thrown in the park on the other side of the council estate, where the dancing and drinking would go on till the early hours of the morning leaving the students with some nasty hangovers but some very good memories for the years to come.
Back in the car Eddie turned to Rachel would still hadn't managed to get over the incident in the park having had a piece of information dealt out that she really didn't know.
"He really has a crush on me?" She whispered uncertain of whether not Eddie said that to wind Bolton up or if in fact it was true and he still used it to wind Bolton up and stake his claim on her.
"Yeah, I'm surprised you haven't picked up on it by now. When he can he follows you around like a lost puppy and when he can't he's always trying to catch your attention by being a little brat so you can deal with him, but lucky for you, you have me and any incidents he causes I usually run interference so you don't have to deal with his childish antics." He answered proud of himself that he is able to protect her from the school boy crush that are always bound to happen when you have a beautiful woman as the Head Teacher of a school.
"Wow, I always thought he was just obeying the deal we made when I first started as Head, but now that I think about it, you're right he does seem to follow me around sometimes and in the morning s he offers to carry my thing s up to my office, that is when you're not there to do it for me." She said laughing at his chivalry even before she had given in to immense feelings inside her and thrown caution to the wind and took a chance on another lost soul.
Laughing at the absurdity of Bolton's little crush on Rachel, Eddie pulled the car out of the car park and headed down a familiar route to one of the places that could have Rachel cringing about entering.
Seeing the Asda sign in the distance Rachel looked over at Eddie who had a shit eating grin on his face as if he knew that she wasn't looking forward the next stop of the day but knowing that she also knew that she needed to do some shopping if they were going to survive at least the rest of the week.
Pulling into the car park and parking the car once again Eddie turned towards Rachel to find her with her arms crossed and an incredibly cute pout on her face protesting at the notion of going shopping. Leaning over he quickly stole her pouting lips away in kiss making her forget where they were and that she should be mad at him for making her going to food shopping, when the only sort of shopping she enjoyed was clothes shopping.
"Look Rach the quicker we get this done the quicker we can just go back to yours and hideaway for the rest of the week and shut off the rest of the world and be in our own enjoying the time we have to spend together before September rolls round and cuts down the time we can spend outside of school together." Eddie said trying to appeal to her rational side knowing that it would win if he said the right thing.
"Fine, can we just be really quick I don't like being in places like this for too long they make me feel like I'm being watched and judged." She huffed as she got out of the car, missing Eddie's little victory dance before he followed her example and got out of the car and headed towards Rachel's impending doom.
Wrapping an arm around Rachel, Eddie felt her cringe as they collected a trolley and made their way through the revolving doors, Eddie didn't miss it when Rachel cringed at the sight of the amount of people who were milling around going about their own business.
Stepping onto the first isle Eddie couldn't help but laugh out loud at her reaction to the food stacked on shelves as she looked at it as if it would just magically come tumbling down and fall on her at any moment and he certainly didn't miss the murderous look she gave him when she heard him laugh at her.
Watching Rachel square her shoulders, an action that he had seen on many occasions when they had to attend a governors meeting, ne knew that she was about to go about the task and try to forget her discomfort and get it done as efficiently as possible in the least amount of time, so she could be out of the shop and back in the relative safety of Eddie's car.
Nearly 2 hours and a full trolley of shopping later Rachel and Eddie emerged from the Asda with Eddie in stitches, whilst Rachel was sporting a light blush on her cheeks.
"Eddie, stop it it's not funny." Rachel hissed, trying to calm her already frayed nerves from being in her second most hated place.
"Actually Rachel that has to have been one of the funniest shopping trips I have ever taken, you were jumping at every new noise. You were doing a mean impression of a jack-in-the-box."
"Shut up." She muttered with a smile on her face showing that she was finally finding the funny side of things.
Reaching the car they pilled al the shopping in and set off back to her house to deposit the food into its correct places before collapsing on the couch and settling down to watch some daft movie on TV about a spy who had been betrayed and had to find out where his missing memories have gone whilst trying to take down a corrupt government all before his wedding in 4 days.