Teacher's Pet

Teacher's Pet: Chapter Three

Louis slept through his alarm the next morning and by the time he was dressed and in the car, he was already five minutes late for class. He hadn’t had time to truly take care of his hangover and his head was pounding the rhythm of the song on the radio as he weaved through town.

He parked his car and quickly stumbled into the school building, shoe untied and hair a mess, as he tried to make it to his class.

The classroom was in chaos, and Louis was able to hear the loud voices from all the way down the hallway as he quickly approached the room, his briefcase banging against his side. He flung the door open and stumbled in, silence falling over the room as twenty heads turned to face their late, young, hungover teacher.

“Sorry I’m late,” Louis muttered, bracing himself against the back of the desk and lifting his head to the twenty pairs of eyes. “I trust you made the best use of your time?”

A snort followed by a couple of chuckles erupted at that comment, but Louis was too tired to truly care.

“Right, so, if you open your books to page seventeen. I want you to start studying that picture of the brain, quiz tomorrow,” Louis said quickly before collapsing into his chair and resting his head in his right hand.

“Um, excuse me,” Louis raised his head at the voice, and his eyes fell on Liam in the back, who was squinting at Louis as if judging him. “What about journals.”

Louis looked around the room, surprised when a few other students murmured in agreement, nodding their heads along with Liam’s comment.

“You like those?” Louis questioned slowly, surprised. It had been nothing more than a filler activity, which had then transformed in a selfish way for Louis to steal information from unsuspecting students, like Harry Styles.

He’d decided last night to stop, it was an invasion of privacy, and he was sure that violated a term of his employment.

Plus it made him think a few thoughts on a certain student, which definitely violated his employment.

“Yeah, it’s a laugh,” Niall piped up from next to Liam, his legs propped up on the desk in front of him, “Plus it kills ten minutes.”

Louder agreement followed Niall’s comment, and Louis looked around at the enthusiastic nods of his students. That was a bit surprising.

He glanced at Harry, seated next to Liam, his chin resting in his hand as he stared directly at Louis, eyebrow raised. Louis quickly diverted his eyes.

“Right,” Louis clapped his hands, “Well then. Come up to collect your journals. Let’s let the prompt today be,” he paused, biting his lip thoughtfully. Something casual, trivial, nothing that would end with another kid outing themselves to him, “A favorite memory.”  

“That’s lame.”

Louis recognized the voice immediately and he turned his attention back to Harry, who was staring back at Louis with dancing eyes and a playing smirk. Louis took a step out from behind his desk, walking just a bit closer to Harry, aware that all eyes were on him.