Meet Me in the Hallway (HS AU)

three.

Thursday flew by in a blur and before I knew it, it was 4pm. Weekly staff meetings were compulsory for all teaching staff, even though I would rather watch paint dry. I sat in the seat closest to the door of the conference room and pretended to read the handouts we were given at the beginning while Sandra, the business manager, gave us a run down of some new funding we had access to.

"-will be evenly distributed amongst each classroom for revamps and refurnishing." This caught my attention, my classroom is in the worst shape of all the other rooms, the paint was ugly, the tables were chipped and horrid and it overall wasn't a fun space.

"Thank you Sandra, any questions?" Mr Styles spoke from his seat.

"Yeah, when is it being distributed? I'm rather excited, it's almost as if I've been asking for a budget to fix my room for a whole year." I cock my head to the side.

"Sometime next week." Did he just roll his eyes at me? Cockhead.

The rest of the meeting consisted of progress reports and other things that could be delivered by a group email. I made my way down the hallway towards my classroom to grab my bag and tidy the room before I left for the day.

"It's not that bad in here, you know." The raspy voice startled me and made me drop my pile of vocabulary sheets.

"You scared the shit out of me, and yes, it is that bad in here. You know what the kids call it? The mother of all messes, like the house in Cat in the Hat." I gesture around to the gross yellow walls, purple going on brown carpet and damaged furniture.

"It's not that bad, you're just being dramatic." He crossed his arms over his chest and leant his tall frame against the doorway.

"Me? Dramatic? Please." I scoff, picking up the paper I had previously dropped, "this room is sad and you know it."

He looks around the room, eyes scanning and focusing on little things, "I think it's charming."

"Is that all you wanted to say to me? Or did you want to invalidate my opinions further?" I smile.

The bastard smirks at me and pushes himself off the door frame before turning and making his way out into the hall.

"Have a great afternoon, Miss Cook."

"It's Miss Jo." I almost cry out the door.

Breathe Josephine.

I grabbed my bag and headed to my car. I've had enough of this building for the day. The commute to and from work only takes me about 20 minutes, which gives me around half an hour until Will gets home at 6.

Home.

It's not my home, to me it was just a house I happened to sleep in. This was William's home. The house wasn't warm or inviting, it was sleek, minimalistic and boring. The living room consisted of a black leather couch, a glass top coffee table and a wall mounted television. The bedroom had a bed with grey sheets, glass bedside tables and our white chest of drawers.

Nothing about the house made me feel safe, at home or comfortable - but it was William's house and that's what he liked.

I kicked my shoes off at the door and threw my bag in beside 'my side' of the bed and headed to the kitchen to start making dinner. Right as I began to serve the spaghetti carbonara into the two bowls, I heard the front door click shut. I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, plastered a smile on my face and opened my eyes.

"Hey, I'm just serving dinner if you want to head straight to the table."

I let out a small scream and tensed my body when I felt the hands wrap around my waist from behind and the lips pressed to my neck. Then I heard the deep laugh just below my ear.

"Always so jumpy, babe. Here let me take those." He reached over my shoulder and grabbed the two bowls before turning and heading to the table. I followed him out to the table and we began eating in silence.

"Steve from work wants to go out tomorrow night. We should go, when was the last time we went out together?" Will smiles at me before going back to his pasta. I felt my heart rate increase.

"Oh, you can go. I'm not sure if I can tomorrow." I can't look him in the eye, so I continue to stare at my fork.

"C'mon Josie. It will be fun, I promise! You can get all dressed up, we can have a few drinks, dance," then he lowers his voice and drops one eye into a wink, "then we can come home and continue the party."

My hands started to shake.

"O-Okay, but maybe we don't stay out too late and we have a quiet night out. I'll be exhausted from work and all." I rambled, my mouth unable to keep up with my brain.

"Let's just play it by ear, yeah?" He sounded almost genuine, but I knew once that first drink got into him, we'd be there all night.