Knight

Bonus | 05

Mason and Sam 25 years old, the day before Valentine's Day

Mason Maloney

My eyes began to burn from staring at my computer for so long. I rubbed my eyes for a few moments before going back to the essay I was grading. This was what my life had turned into after becoming a high school English teacher. Grading, grading, and more grading.

I glanced at the time to realize it was already past ten, meaning I definitely wasn't going to get through the rest of the essays tonight and would have to finish tomorrow. On Valentine's day.

Sam was already fast asleep considering he gets up by six every morning to go work out even though he's going to end up going later in the day as well. Since football season was over, he tended to get bored very easily. I would always find him fixing things around the house that didn't need to be fixed or annoying the shit out of me by rearranging our things. But his paycheck for being the quarterback for the Giants was quite hefty, so I wasn't going to complain much.

"Why are you still up?" Sam asked in a raspy voice, sounding as if he had just woken up. I turned to see that he was standing behind the couch, looking down at me and rubbing his sleepy eyes.

"Trying to get through the last of these," I answered, turning back to my laptop.

"It's late," he said, coming around to sit beside me on the couch.

I rolled my eyes. "It's not that late."

"It is when you have to be to work by seven-thirty," Sam pointed out with a knowing look.

I groaned, throwing my head back and shutting the laptop. "I hate grading. I should just stop assigning things."

Sam chuckled. "I'm sure your students wouldn't mind that but you might get fired."

"Then I could just be a gold digger and you could be my sugar daddy," I told him with a playful grin.

"That would be okay with me," Sam said, returning my grin.

I gave him a quick peck on the lips before leaning my head on his shoulder and letting out a sigh.

"I really have to start enforcing stricter page limits on my students. I say at least five pages and some of them hand in fifteen," I said, causing Sam to laugh.

"Couldn't be me in high school. I was doing bare minimum," Sam replied.

"Yeah, I don't know what's wrong with them," I muttered, sliding the laptop off my lap and placing it on the table.

Sam stood up from the couch, rubbing his eyes once again before holding his hand out for me to take. I let him pull me off the couch and into his side, kissing the side of my head.

"Let's go to sleep," Sam suggested, shutting the living room light off and leading me to our bedroom.

After doing my nightly routine, I climbed in bed next to Sam and tucked myself under his arm while he scrolled through his phone.

"Did you see Nathan's instagram post?" Sam asked, tilting his phone toward me so I could see.

The picture on the screen was Nathan with his arm around a pretty brunette while she rested her head on his shoulder.