Chapter Four Back to School
Chapter FOUR
Back to School
Jude hadn’t always rushed to get to school.
He loved teaching, sure. The classroom was where he belonged.
Maps curling at the corners on the noticeboards, timelines half-faded by sunlight, and the soft rasp of pen across a whiteboard when the projector gave up were the things that gave him life.
But he’d never lied to himself about the grind.
Paperwork piled higher than lesson plans.
Safeguarding forms. Bureaucracy thick enough to drown in.
Teaching was rewarding, but rarely easy.
Today felt different, though.
The walk along the coast path bit from fresh, salt wind carrying the faint cries of gulls and the hum of the sea.
His car was still in the garage—bloody thing spent more time in pieces than on the road—so he should’ve been grumbling about the extra trek.
Instead, he caught himself quickening his stride, watching the school roofline emerge through the morning sky with something dangerously close to anticipation.
First day back for the kids. The corridors would come alive again.
Year Nines bickering over forgotten homework, Sixth Formers loitering in doorways with coffee cups, staff corralling the chaos with registers and warnings.
History classrooms filling with students who pretended to hate the subject but still leaned forward when he lost himself in a story—Wars of the Roses, trench letters, the quiet bravery tucked into ordinary lives. That was his world. His ground.
And, okay yeah, maybe his mood had picked up since the staff training yesterday and had less to do with the Tudors and trench warfare and more to do with the new PE teacher.
The one with an easy laugh and shoulders belonging in a different century altogether.
The one Jude had sort of, maybe, dreamt about last night, though he’d never admit it out loud.
But whatever, he told himself it was the job he was buzzing for. Not the man. Course not. He hadn’t let himself buzz for a man in…well, he didn’t want to be thinking about that this early in the morning. It would prod at those unhealed bruises.
Inside the gates, the first wave of students streamed through, chattering about timetables, holidays, and teachers they’d hoped not to get again.
A football skittered across the tarmac, a shouted apology chasing it.
Staff drifted in clusters, coffee in hand, lanyards swinging.
The air smelled of fresh paint and polish, as it always did at the start of term, as if the building was trying to convince itself it was ready.
Jude stepped into the main corridor, the din wrapping around him, and for the first time in longer than he cared to admit, he felt ready.
Even if part of that readiness had nothing to do with history.
But he cut straight for the staffroom to get on with it and the second he pushed the door open, a wall of sound hit him.
Whoops, clapping, someone giving an over-the-top cheer from the corner sofa.
“Christ’s sake.” Jude ducked his head, but it didn’t quite hide the reluctant curve of his lips. “Didn’t you lot get enough of the applause yesterday?”
“This is the encore performance!” Angie Patterson gestured grandly to the noticeboard.
Jude groaned.
Pinned above the sea of timetables, lunch rotas, and last year’s exam successes was the newspaper clipping.
His own ash-streaked face staring back at him, along with the two firemen hauling him out of the wreckage and beneath the headline about the fire.
Someone had drawn a bright red heart around his head.
A speech bubble sprouted from his mouth with the words, I need a hero.
“You lot are deranged.” Jude made a beeline for the board ready to tug it down.
Angie slid in front of him, tapping his nose with the blunt end of a pen. “Ah-ah. That stays until something better knocks it off.”
“Better?” Jude dumped his hands on his hips. “What’s gonna top that? A meteor strike or Ofsted cancelling inspections forever?”
“Oh, could you imagine!” Miss Linley—Drama—looked up from the biscuit tin, already half-raided. “But don’t pretend you don’t like the attention. Or those strapping firemen holding you up.”
Jude groaned. “Can we move the summer play forward to next week? I’ll volunteer to play the villain and get booed off stage.”
“You? Villain?” Mr Hardy, Head of Maths, snorted into his tea. “Not sure you’ve got the range.”
“I have layers. Very deep layers.” Jude slung his satchel down by the sofa.
Laughter rippled through the room. Easy. Familiar. This was his crew. His rhythm. The clatter of mugs and rustle of crisp packets, the good-natured ribbing getting them all through twelve-hour days. And he was still half-grinning when he glanced towards the kettle.
He stilled.
Cause there he was. Warren Bailey. The new PE teacher.
Standing with one hand braced on the counter, waiting for the kettle to boil.
His smile was small but unmistakably aimed Jude’s way, amusement glinting in his eyes as though he’d heard every word of the nonsense.
Heat rushed up Jude’s neck before he could stop it.
So he ducked his head, reaching for a mug, desperate to look casual.
But his fingers slipped on the handle, clattering porcelain against porcelain, and the sound drew another round of laughter from across the room.
“Careful, Ellison,” Angie called. “Hero of the hour can’t even handle a teacup.”
Jude muttered something about treason under his breath, but his pulse picked up, thumping his ribs. And when he risked another glance, Warren was still smiling.
Right at him.
And of course, the bloody kettle was over there. Right where Warren Bailey stood, broad-shouldered and nonchalant, as if he’d always belonged in this staffroom. Jude steeled himself and crossed the room, mug in hand.
“Here.” Warren held out his palm, reading Jude’s mug slogan—Don’t Be Such a Neanderthal—before returning to Jude’s face with the hint of a grin. “Let me make the hero a cuppa.”
Jude rolled his eyes, passing the mug over. “Can we please stop with the hero nonsense?”
“Happy to.” Warren’s fingers brushed his as he took the cup, and if Jude didn’t acknowledge the jolt, he’d forever be known as a big fat liar. “As soon as you stop being one.”
“Brilliant.” Jude folded his arms, dry as he could manage. “And how exactly does one… undo hero status?”
Warren tilted his head as if genuinely considering it. “Don’t think it’s possible. You either are or you aren’t.” He gestured at the row of tea bags and jars lined up like soldiers. “What’s your poison?”
Jude leaned past him, close enough to catch the faint clean spice of his aftershave and plucked the Co-op branded instant coffee jar from the row.
“Not the green tea, unless you fancy Sandra’s wrath.
Nescafé is off-limits too—Mrs Turner will have your head on a spike.
And Twinings…” he raised his brows, “…reserved for royalty. Also known as the Ofsted inspectors.”
“Good to know.” Warren’s smile tugged wider, one corner curved as if hiding a private joke. “Guess I’ll stick to the people’s choice then. How’d you like it?”
Why Jude blushed said everything. “Black. One sugar. Strong. Two teaspoons.”
“Like me.” Warren met his gaze a fraction too long before turning to the kettle. “Though I’m not sure I’ll ever think of you as a Co-op coffee man.”
Jude blinked, surprised by the softness beneath the tease. He ducked his head, pretending to rearrange the sugar packets, but his pulse had already betrayed him, beating faster than it should over a bloody cup of coffee.
“Why? What do you think of me as?”
Warren looked him over. “You strike me as a barista type. Someone who knows his coffee.” He handed over a mug as the bell shrilled for form time.
Merciful timing before Jude could ask how Warren could possibly have known that.
How he’d once worked as a barista. When he’d been trying to get his life back together.
“Thank you, Mr Bailey.” Jude raised his mug in a dry little toast. “Good luck on your first day. Hope you don’t get peanutted.”
“By the kids?”
“No, by the staff.” Jude chuckled into his tea.
“Like to see who’s brave enough to peanut me.” Warren spread his arms to showcase the classic PE teacher uniform—navy polo, running shorts, legs like a rugby forward and an ease most people faked. “No tie to tug.”
The girls were going to swoon.
Some boys too.
The rest would hero-worship.
And Jude was a little ashamed to admit he was currently doing all three.
“Miss Linley teaches the kids to improvise.” Jude tossed Warren a wink. “And Mr Hardy teaches them to problem solve.”
Warren chuckled, then leaned in as they joined the flow of teachers heading out of the staffroom, his voice low and deep and rumbling down Jude’s neck. “So what would you yank of mine, Mr Ellison? Seeing as I have no tie to peanut. How would history work through that issue?”
Jude kept his eyes down as they were swept up by the chaos of first bell as students poured through the corridors in every direction. Mostly so Warren, and all the students, couldn’t read his thoughts.
God, he was disgusting.
And hadn’t thought things like that in…well, it didn’t matter how long.
They reached the crossroads. Humanities block right, Sports Hall left.
Jude slowed. “Don’t be too hard on them. Throwing a ball’s not as easy for some people.”
Warren grinned. “And you don’t judge too harshly when someone forgets which century the Napoleonic Wars were in.”
“Eighteenth spilling into nineteenth.” Jude smiled. “But I’ll try to hold my tongue.”
Warren leaned back on his heels, eyes crinkling. “You don’t look like the type who holds his tongue.”
Jude arched a brow. “You’d be surprised.”
Warren laughed, then nodded down the corridor. “Catch you later, History.”
“Only if you survive, PE.”