THEN AGAIN • TC ✔️

2. Shower Steam

"I wish you were my high school math teacher," Clem says wistfully, looking over at Timmy for just a second before focusing on the road. Her hands drum against the steering wheel as they drive; it's late November and she really needs to buy a pair of gloves that don't have holes in the palms.

(And like, she's not even sure where the holes came from. It seems like they've been there for as long as she's actually had the gloves.)

Timmy hums. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. My professor was a dick. I can't look at an equation anymore for fear of...I don't know, throwing up."

She makes a face at the bad hyperbole. Cringes slightly, but Timmy just smiles.

"It's a shame, you know. Like, so many people are put off math just because they had a shitty teacher."

"Yeah, well. American schooling system for you," Clem smiles. Timmy snorts.

"Guess you're right."

Silence for a moment.

"You wouldn't actually want me as your teacher though," he says, wrapping his hands up in the ends of his scarf.

(He never used to wear a scarf, but that was the New Yorker in him. Insisting that he wasn't cold, insisting that it was only a couple blocks, we can walk it. Clem managed to drill some sense into him a month after Timmy moved in when he'd come home with his teeth chattering and nothing but a flimsy jacket to keep him warm. She still doesn't know why he chose Wyoming over NYC, but since then she has forced him to wear scarves and gloves, so she doesn't have to baby him when he comes home complaining that he's cold. So she doesn't have to run him a bath and make him a cup of tea. So Timmy doesn't demand hugs, complaining that he'll die of cold.)

Clem glances over at him.

"Why's that?"

"I don't know, but," he doesn't finish his sentence. Looks out of the window. "I'm probably too lenient with them."

"But you're nice," Clem offers, glancing over her shoulder as she turns the corner into a little row of semi-detached houses. They live at the end, number 12, on the top floor. Clem's been there for five years, Timmy five months. He makes a nice addition, makes it less lonely. Easier to pay the rent.

"Yeah, well. Being nice doesn't make you a good teacher," Timmy sighs. Taps his feet on the floor of his car (which Clem is driving, which Clem has full-time access to apart from when Timmy's using it) and looks out of the window.

"Makes you a good person, though," she says. "That's half of what being a teacher is."

Timmy scoffs. "Yeah, yeah, okay, fuck off with your inspirational-"

"I'm being serious, Timmy!" she laughs, her voice high pitched and sounding like a lie, even though it isn't. She can feel him looking at her, and she leans into him sideways over the console, like she's trying to bump his shoulder with her own.

"Well, thank you," Timmy says, as Clem pulls into the parking spot outside their house. He unbuckles his seatbelt; hops out of the car. "But I'm pretty sure if you were in one of my classes, you'd probably fall asleep." They both go to the trunk of the car as Timmy finishes his sentence, and start unloading grocery bags. Clem scoffs at him and closes the car door with her elbow. Goes round the side and locks it manually (because the sensor on her keys is broken and Timmy keeps telling her just to use his, but she won't do that because she works from home and she doesn't need the car as much as he does and besides, locking the car manually works just fine).

"I wouldn't fall asleep," she insists, lugging the bags up to the front door and dumping them on the step while she fumbles with her keys. "I think you'd be...interesting."