She leaned up against the wall, arms crossed, ankle locked around the other.  Watching the students forlornly walk in the directions of their homerooms, she couldn't help but smile.  She might have been one of the only ones happy to be back; from the looks on the teachers faces as they, too, stood outside their doors, they were already counting down the minutes to the final bell.

Summer was now closing in on distant memory; their minds occupied of summer love and parties; pushing away the mere thought of research papers, homework and tests (more importantly, mid-terms and finals).  It had been three short months of freedom for them, three long (but momentous) months for her.
 
While they had been out enjoying their parties, she was in the midst of planning her school year and getting engaged to another fellow teacher.  The planning began almost immediately and the aim was to be married by the same time next year.

As if he knew she had been thinking of him, the tall, muscular form appeared in her daydreaming vision.  She brought her eyes up to meet his, greeted by the dark blue.  "Hey, J."

"Morning, darlin'," he drawled.  She could only smirk: you could take the boy out of the country but you couldn't take the country out of the boy.  "Somehow ended up with a plan period the first period of the day; you want me to bring you coffee?"

She smiled widely at him, nodding appreciatively.  "That sounds amazing."
 
With a grin, he cautiously looked both ways down the corridor as the bell rang, alerting the students that they were now to be in their assigned homerooms.  When the coast was completely clear, he leaned down, placing a soft kiss to her lips.  "I'll see you in about 45 minutes."

"I'll hold you to it," she smiled, pushing herself away from the door and waving with her fingertips as she walked into her classroom, greeting all twenty-five of the sleep-deprived teens.  Laughing at their responses, she picked up the pile of necessary paperwork that was sent out to be filled out by parents or legal guardians, allowing them to zone in and out as they pleased.  While Channel 1 rolled on, she headed back to her desk as the school's own morning announcements began.
 
Sitting down in her cushioned chair and smiling to herself, she glanced around the room in excitement.  Four years into the career and she still loved it.  At least she knew she was getting somewhere.
 
Spread out in front of her, she studied her curriculum for the next semester: five classes (periods 1-3 and 6-7); one study hall in the cafeteria (period 4); lunch break (period 5) and her plan period ended the day.  The class sizes were a little above average: highest at thirty and the lowest at twenty-four.  Thankfully, as the junior and senior class English teacher, they had accommodated her with one of the larger rooms on the second floor, smack-dab in the middle of the hallway where most traffic accumulated. 

She got up, headed for the front of the classroom and searching the podium that stood at the left of the classroom, rummaging through the small shelf underneath the stand for the chalk that she had placed there earlier in the morning.  Turning, she gripped the chalk in her hand and placed it to the chalkboard, carefully writing out the information for the first official class of the year.
 
August 30, 2010
 
Miss McAndrews
Room 207
Honors English
 
"You think people are gonna forget who you are?"

She startled, turning her head slightly and smiling at her close friend and teacher next door, Rachel Turner.  Waiting as the bell rang to dismiss the homeroom to their first period class, she gestured for the woman to come in, she setting the chalk down and brushing her hands off.  "Why, Mrs. Turner, it's been a good while."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, you saw me two days ago," she laughed, sitting down on the centered desk in the first row of students' seats.  "So, did you get a chance to check out the new music teacher?"

She shrugged, giving a slight shake of her head.  "No, have you met her?"

"Him," Rachel corrected, "him, and Shelby, he's to-die-for."

With a roll of her eyes, Shelby picked up the first pile of books sitting on the ledge by the windows, putting piles of 6 in the 5 rows.  "You're married, Rach; if you are also forgetting, I'm engaged to be married."

"Who's to say I can't look?"  She grinned as Shelby shooed her away from the desk, setting the books there.  "Matt said he turned down traveling the world as a singer to take this job.  Apparently, he's this amazing songwriter and can play, too.  Sings in a band every so often with Matt's friend Steve's older brother Joe."

"You will always be the gossip queen," she laughed, looking over towards the door as students began to file in, talking amongst each other and eyeing her and the entire classroom.  "Now, go teach your own class.  French, is it?"

"Oui, madamemoiselle," she grinned, waving at her as she squeezed between students to get back to her own classroom, "au revoir!"

She turned her attention to the students, desks quickly filling up.  Inhaling, she smiled; she had missed this. 
 
___
 
 
The day ended fairly quickly and she was soon standing at the entrance of the school and watching the buses and students' cars drive away from the building.
 
"See-ya tomorrow, Miss McAndrews."
 
She turned, returning the same to one of her students from earlier in the day and jumping when she felt a hand snake around her waist, squeezing gently.  "Lord Almighty, Justin Timberlake," she chuckled, leaning into him briefly as he slid his hand away from her waist and lingered at the small of her back.  "Give a woman a heart attack, will 'ya?  One of these days, you're going to catch me so off-guard that you end up with a black eye or somethin' ..."

He smiled widely, fully releasing her as they both stood side-by-side watching the last of buses leave the parking lot.  "And you tease me about my little twang.  What about you, Georgia Peach? How was your first day back?  You already counting down to next year starting?"

"It was fine," she said, rolling her eyes as he studied her.  "All right, so it was fantastic; I can't help it.  Not every one of us had the popularity in high school and could care less about anything else.  Other people actually cared about their academics."

"If I didn't care about my academics, I wouldn't be a teacher."

"That, or you just chose your major when the freshman you fell in love with told you she was becoming a High School English teacher once she was finished with her degree."

"And you see where that has both gotten us." He replied.

"Yeah, the same thing I told you I was going for and you as a Gym Teacher."

He snorted.  "Hey, you've gotta learn fitness somehow!"

"Right.  And the reason why basketball rules this school over any other sport."

" ... Because the coach is amazing and has a great team ev-er-y damn year?"

"For the last four years." He puffed out his chest in pride.

"Which coincidentally was the same year you got hired here."

She rolled her eyes.  "Right, 'cause my presence at every single game since then has really upped your winnings well."

"Hey, I've gotta show off somewhere in this relationship; you can't be the one who has it all."  He threw an arm around her shoulder, nuzzling his face into the side of hers.  "Anyone ever tell you how sexy you look when you dress up as a teacher?"

"Justin, I am a teacher." She laughed.

He rolled his eyes, giving her a 'duh', look.  "Well, of course you are a teacher; you knew what I meant!" 

She looked down, shrugging at the attire that he had been ogling at.  "There's nothing sexy about this, Justin; it's dress code."

He reached down, lacing his hand with hers as he lead her to their car in the teachers' lot on the other side of the school.  Pulling his arm to make her a few steps ahead of him, he held their hands up as he surveyed her.  "C'mon now, darlin', no one can make a that skirt look quite as lethal as you do."

"It's a pencil skirt, Justin; it's supposed to be supportive."

"By clinging to every damn curve you've got?  No wonder everyone wants to have you as a teacher." He replied.

"Coming from the teacher elected 'sexiest ass' in the hidden student superlatives." She muttered with a laugh and roll of her eyes.

He guffawed, opening the door for her as she slid in.  "Oh, the looks on their faces when they realized that notebook was what we had found that day."

She nodded, watching as he walked across the front of their SUV, watchful gaze stopping when she saw off in the distance what seemed to be the new teacher that Rachel had been speaking of.  From the distance, he seemed about average in height, though thin in build with very dark hair.  A pair of aviator sunglasses rested on top of his head as he lifted one arm, throwing a messenger bag over his shoulder as he let the door shut behind him.  "Who's that?"

"Hmm, who?"  Justin's attention cast towards Shelby's gaze, nodding towards the man she had been studying.  "Ah, that's the uh, music teacher I believe?  We spoke briefly before lunch.  Josh, I think his name is.  Seems like a nice guy."

She nodded, watching as he walked down the stairs, taking them in a slight jog.  His dress shirt was rolled up above his elbows, a few buttons unbuttoned from the top.  She could tell that he was relieved for the end of the day just as Justin was; he had done the same thing once the last bell rang.  She continued to watch him as Justin revved the engine, catching the new teacher's curious gaze as they drove past.  He gave a small smile and a wave and she returned it then finally settled her attention on the road ahead of them.  "What's his last name?"

Justin, fiddling with the radio dial with his right hand, paused, still concentrating on his driving but thinking elsewhere also.  "You know, I can't remember," he stated, shaking his head.  "He said it and I can't, for the life of me, remember what he said it was.  Made a comment on how it's French, but I don't recall.  He doesn't look French."

She laughed, watching as Justin's right hand, finally settling on a radio station, slinked down to her hand resting on her thigh and gave it a gentle squeeze.  "Babe, you don't have to look something just because you have it in your DNA.  Just like I don't like Irish."
 
He shrugged.  "Well, if you'd stop dying your hair, you would."

"You want me as a redhead?"

He smiled, the grin growing slightly mischievous as he passed a sideways glance at her.  "Well, you know what they say: 'red on the head, fire in be-"

"Oh, Justin Randall, you're so twisted," she laughed, hitting his thigh with their joined hands.  "How about you drive and keep your mind outta the gutter?”

With a smile, he brought their conjoined hands up to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist before placing it back down into his lap.  “So, you had a fantastic day then, huh?”

She smiled, exhaling as she watched the light change quickly from green to yellow and then finally to red.  “Yeah,” she nodded, “I did.”

“Woman, you get as dreamy about work as you do when you look at that ring!”

She subconsciously looked down at her hand that rested on the driver’s side, her smile widening.  “I can’t help it.  Two of my loves stem from there.”

“What, torturing children and platinum?”

She smacked him lightly in the arm, shaking her head in disbelief.  “You know I would have been happy with that white-gold setting you had shown me.”

“You know I have the money, babe; I wasn’t gonna just leave you hanging.”

“With a modest ring that your modest, quiet fiancée would have loved just the same.”

“It’s money that doesn’t mean much to me, Shelb.  You know this.  Any way I can spend it and not have to worry about it, is better for me.”

She nodded, studying the side of his face as his eyebrows knitted in slight irritation, she knew that his mind had gone away from them and into another world; a world that involved an abusive father who ran out on his mama and him when he was only three and when he passed away from lung cancer, that sixteen-year-old who had not seen his father for nearly thirteen years, gained a good chunk of change from his father’s stock earnings and investments for being his next (and only) kin.
 
Squeezing his hand and watching as the focus became less intent on the past and more focused on his surroundings.  “You know I love it, Justin.” She said, reassuring him.

He smiled softly, his gaze slowly dragging back over to her as the light continued to hold onto its red.  “I know you do, darlin’.”  He kissed her wrist once more, turning his attention to the road as a car behind them beeped, alerting him to continue with his drive.  “Nothin’ else in the world that I wanna do than to make you happy.”

“Well, you’ve got forever to continue doing so.”

He chuckled.  “Yeah, you’re right; I reckon I do.”