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The truth was, Newt had been kinda screwed since the first day of school. That was the first time he noticed him. The first day was almighty chaos; it would probably have been almighty chaos anyway, as most things are varying levels of chaos with kindergarteners, but it was Newt’s first day too, and therefore the chaos was at least tripled. There was introducing himself, confusing the kids by then telling them they could call him Mr. G instead - and why did he even say that when it’s not like his last name is that hard to say, it just sorta came out of his mouth - showing all the kids where they sit and where to hang up their bags and jackets and where the bathroom is, comforting the kids who broke down crying hysterically when their parents left, assuring the anxious parents that everything would be just fine (at least one dad also started crying but that wasn’t Newt’s business), trying to learn all the kids’ names, trying to learn all the parents’ names, trying to figure out what kid went to what parent, trying to get the parents to just leave already-
So it was like that. All that going on, the room impossibly loud and crowded, Newt hassled and nervous and enthusiastic and grinning and terrified, the kids overexcited and varying wildly from tearful to jumping with anticipation, all that, but he still noticed him.
He was across the room when Newt saw him, holding the hand of a little girl with dark, curly hair and a blue dress with a star pattern, Cassie Evans-Gottlieb (as Newt learned a little after, and then felt dumb because he put so much effort into fitting “Cassiopeia” onto the name tag for her desk but obviously she would go by Cassie), a tiny girl with big, dark eyes who was one of the ones to be serenely calm about the first day of school. And he was a pale young man, probably barely older than Newt, dressed in a cardigan and button-up and slacks even though it was hot as hell outside, with short dark hair and an angular, peculiar face. He was so young and - at first glance - had so little resemblance to Cassie, that Newt automatically assumed he was a big brother or cousin or maybe uncle, some relative like that. He was kneeling awkwardly on the floor to look the girl in the face and was telling her something with a look of great solemnity, so much so that Newt was worried he was scolding her for some reason and she was about to go over into being one of the criers, but then she said something back to him and he broke into a broad smile.
And yeah, Newt was definitely screwed from that exact fucking moment, because holy shit, that smile. It was like, it was like drawing back the curtains on a window so that golden sunlight suddenly came spilling into the room and shone down right upon him. He was gorgeous. Newt stared. And that was definitely the instant he was screwed.
The worst part was that it was so busy that day that he somehow missed being introduced to whoever it was and the person that came to pick Cassie up at the end of the day was an equally gorgeous dark-skinned young woman who introduced herself as the mother, so Newt was left with no clue who that beautiful young man had been.
***
It took a week for Newt to actually meet the guy. All the first week, the person that picked up and dropped off Cassie remained the beautiful mother, Vanessa Evans (which was presumably the source of the Evans in Evans-Gottlieb). Newt totally didn’t think about the non-specified young man who had dropped Cassie off that first day. He. Definitely didn’t.
Okay, maybe every now and then, in the back of his mind, he would wonder who he was. But really, at that point Newt didn’t think about him so very much. He was assuming he was some random relative/family friend/whatever who dropped the girl off the first morning because Ms. Evans - it felt so weird to think of someone barely older than him as Ms., but that was what he was expected to do, - was busy. He doubted he would ever see that guy again so it really didn’t even matter. Mostly he was just curious as to who that uniquely good looking young man had been.
But then, the second week of school, there he was. Walking into the auditorium where the kids all gathered in the morning, slightly earlier than necessary, hand in hand with Cassie, the guy with the gorgeous smile. Although he wasn’t smiling then, and without a smile his face looked angular and severe and slightly disapproving. Newt was a little intimidated, honestly. But it was definitely him. He had a cane in the hand that wasn’t holding Cassie’s, Newt hadn’t noticed that before.
The nice thing was that Newt totally had an excuse to talk to him. He made an effort to know all the adults that accompanied the kids, that was actually pretty important with kindergarteners. Didn’t want your five year olds wandering off with total strangers, after all. Cassie came right up to Newt and said “Hello, Mr. Geiszler!” enthusiastically (Newt had a tiny suspicion she was going to shape up to be a bit of a teacher’s pet, which he didn’t mind terribly much, particularly as so far she was mostly well-behaved, but he did worry a little about the other kids, especially when she was older), and it was perfectly natural for Newt to say, “Hi, Cassie,” and fix his eye on the man accompanying her and say, “I don’t think we’ve met?”
“No, not yet,” the man agreed gravely. He had a British accent, like Ms. Evans, which was somehow a surprise. “It was Vanessa’s turn week last week. I’m Cassie’s father, Hermann Gottlieb.”
Father shouldn’t have been so overwhelming. It wasn’t as if he was so much younger than Vanessa, he was probably almost the same age as her, but damn they were young to have kids. Newt had just assumed he wasn’t the dad, had mentally filed him in some other category, and had in fact been assuming there wasn’t a dad in the picture. Vanessa seemed like the sort of person who was highly efficient at everything, Newt hadn’t much questioned that she was a single mom, even though he’d also thought she was very young. But- “It was Vanessa’s turn week last week-” And Cassie’s name, Evans-Gottlieb- Must be a divorce, joint custody sorta thing.
“Oh!” Newt said accidentally, regretted showing his surprise, and hastily said, “Right, of course! Nice to meet you, I’m her teacher, Newton Geiszler.”
“My daddy is a teacher too,” Cassie piped up. “And a doctor. But not a real doctor like in a hospital.”
“Oh?” Newt said, a little puzzled, but amused to see a wry smile tugging at Gottlieb’s froggy mouth. It wasn’t the sunshine smile of the first day, but it was amazing how it served to soften his face. Made him look younger too; he was dressed, again, like a much older person, but when he smiled Newt could see how young he really must be.
“I’m a professor at the local university,” Gottlieb explained.
“Oh, wow!” Newt said, startled. “So- So you really are a doctor- Wow, holy cow, how old are you even?” And then he winced. “Sorry, that was rude.”
Cassie looked curiously between the two of them. “Why is it rude? People ask me how old I am a lot. I’m five.”
“When you are old like me, it’s embarrassing to admit how old you are,” Gottlieb said solemnly, but with a twinkle in his eye.
“How old are you, Daddy?”
“Twenty-six.”
Newt’s astonished expression - it was about what he was expecting, but holy cow, a PhD and a five year old at twenty six, those are both frigging unbelievable - was fortunately disguised by Cassie saying, “Wow!” loudly.
“Your mum is twenty-seven, so she’s even older. But don’t tell her I said that.”
Cassie put a hand on her cheek and said, “Oh my gosh, you’re so old,” in a very worried, wondering sort of voice, and Gottlieb laughed, and that managed to be even more incredible than his smile. Newt felt as if the air in the room had suddenly got thinner.
“Well, it was a pleasure to meet you,” Gottlieb said.
“Yeah,” Newt agreed faintly.
He thought a lot about that smile the next few days. Whenever Gottlieb dropped his daughter off or picked her up, which he did every day that week, but not the next, which seemed to confirm the joint custody idea. He found himself making a conscious effort to at least say “Hi,” to Gottlieb, if not have a brief conversation with him when he could.
But he didn’t realize yet how screwed he was.
***
For Halloween, Cassie came in wearing a black shirt and black pants with yellow five pointed stars sewn on and connected with yellow lines to form a pattern like a wobbly letter “w.”
“I’m me!” she said with a huge grin. “I’m Cassiopeia! The constelltation.”
She looked just like her dad when she smiled, Newt reflected.
***
Parent teacher conferences were in the middle of November. Both Gottlieb and Evans showed up, Cassie in tow. And they were- Wow. A really fricking intimidating couple.
For one thing, they were both beautiful. Evans was really sort of scarily beautiful, with features that managed to be both soft and angular, a near-perfect figure, natural grace, and the sort of inhuman loveliness most often seen in fashion models. Which, Newt had discovered, she was. Literally an international fashion model. He couldn’t resist looking up some of her work, and what he found was mountains of pictures of her draped in exquisitely gorgeous dresses made by big name designers on catwalks and photoshoots in all sorts of glamorous cities around the world. She dressed more casually for everyday life, of course, but she was the sort of beautiful and confident that made any outfit look like she was about to wear it on a catwalk.
One might think that Gottlieb would fade in comparison, it was true that his looks were hidden a bit under his terrible haircut and poor fashion, but instead they somehow complemented each other. Maybe it was just that they were both so sharp featured, or that they had similar builds, tall and slim, or perhaps it was the ferocious intelligence in their eyes. (Newt looked up Gottlieb too. His thesis was amazing, and when he went back even further, there were some records of “child mathematics prodigy Hermann Gottlieb.”) Whatever it was, Gottlieb’s looks definitely stood up beside hers, and they undeniably looked good together. Then you added in Cassie, who was an adorable child - and not all kindergarteners are adorable, contrary to what one might expect - with features visibly inherited from both, and how comfortable all three looked together, and you had a beautiful family unit. Newt was intimidated. And found himself doubting after all that they were split.
Except then they sat down - Gottlieb looking a little awkward in the tiny kindergarten chairs, and Newt worried that that might be difficult with his leg - and Evans said briskly, “I feel I ought to make it clear right from the start that the two of us are divorced.”
“Oh. Okay,” Newt said blankly.
“I just don’t know if that’s relevant or not, and I don’t want it to be an issue,” she explained. “But we are very amiable, and Cassie understands that we still love her and care about each other, don’t you sweetheart?”
“I get Christmas and Hanukkah and I get to celebrate my birthday twice,” Cassie said, looking very pleased with herself.
Gottlieb rolled his eyes fondly. “That’s the most important part, of course,” he said dryly.
“Twice the amount of holiday was always my favorite part of it, too,” Newt agreed, and when all three give him identically startled expressions, he awkwardly explained, “My parents split when I was young too.” They weren’t exactly amiable about it, though, not that he needs to share that. “Anyway, shall we start?”
Newt had already gone through several of these conferences so far, and the ones where he had to tell a parent that their kid wasn’t quite where they should be or had some behavioral problems were terrible. He told one mother that he was concerned their child might have some dyslexia or dysgraphia problems and she flatly said “No,” before accusing him of not doing his job well enough. That was terrifying. It was definitely not his fault. But Cassie was developing nicely, was even a little advanced. You could always tell the kids that had parents that worked with them at home. As for her behavior, other than some tendencies to show off and boss the other kids around and some typical kindergarten shouting and running and disobedience, was pretty well behaved.
Gottlieb and Evans were clearly the kind of parents that liked to hear that sorta thing, because they both beamed proudly. They made the whole conference pretty easy too. They asked lots of questions but not too many, and when Newt described the minor behavioural issues they nodded seriously and didn’t try to argue. He appreciated that. Then he went over academics, which were all pretty good. Newt mentioned that she was especially good at their math lessons, and Evans turned to Gottlieb and said, “She’s definitely your daughter.” He looked like he would burst with pride.
The meeting didn’t last much longer than that. It never took as long when Newt only had good things to say. “That’s about all of it,” Newt said at last, “Unless you have anything else?”
Gottlieb smiled softly at Newt and said, “I think that’s all. She’s been having a wonderful time, she likes you very much, we’re so glad.”
Later that night, when Newt was alone, he thought of how happy Gottlieb looked when he heard his daughter was doing well and of the kind expression he had turned on Newt, and he thought, He’s cute.
Shit!
***
Both of them came to the holiday show on the last day of school before Christmas, and Gottlieb filmed all of Cassie’s classes performance on his phone. He had an expression like it was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen, even though Newt knew for a fact that his class had the most lackluster performance of all three kindergarten classes that year. He practiced with them so much...They had no rhythm, if you asked him.
***
Newt woke up on Christmas feeling kind of lonely. Monica was in Austria performing for a prince or duke or whatever ridiculous thing it was she was up to these days, and his father and uncle had gone home to Germany for once, so Newt was kinda on his own for Christmas that year.
He was fine with it. He had plans. He was going to watch Netflix all day and then go out to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant that he knew for a fact was going to be open that night. And he would wallow in his own loneliness and think about the fact that he hadn’t gone on a date in a year and it would be pathetic and strangely satisfying.
The Netflix part went off without a hitch. The eating-mountains-of-General-Tao’s-chicken-all-alone-in-
mostly-abandoned-restaurant part...that did not quite go according to plan. Because, the thing was, he got to the restaurant, and it was mostly empty, per his expectations, only a handful of people there, a few couples and a few sitting alone, but the guy sitting on his own across the restaurant, he looked sorta familiar.
After all, Newt had watched the back of that head walk away from him many times before. And the undercut may have been awful and unflattering, but it did leave the nape of his neck bare, and, well, was it unethical to think that the parent of one of the children you teach has a beautiful neck? It was definitely a weird thing to think, but was it unethical, that was Newt’s question.
He sat there and considered whether or not he should go up and say hello, but before he could really make up his mind he found that he was already standing up and walking over and saying, “Dr. Gottlieb? Is that you?”
It was totally him. Newt knew it was. He jolted and looked up at Newt and said, “Oh! Mr. Geiszler!” and Newt thought there was something like a spark of pleasure in his clear brown eyes.
It was only reasonable for him to sit down and eat with Gottlieb. He was all alone too, as it turned out. “I’m Jewish, so it only makes sense for Vanessa to get Cassie for Christmas,” he explained, and then proceeded to insist that he was fine with being alone on Christmas so much that Newt knew he was not actually fine with it.
“It’s just a dumb holiday,” Newt said.
“Exactly,” Gottlieb said, looking all sorts of relieved. “You’re alone too, I assume?”
“Yeah, my family is all traveling,” Newt said, waving a hand vaguely. “And I haven’t been living around here long, so…”
“It’s just a silly holiday,” Gottlieb repeated.
“Exactly,” Newt said.
Gottlieb asked him about his job. Newt asked him about his. He admitted that originally he had been planning to go into the sciences - had, at eighteen, been halfway to getting his own PhD, which he doesn’t admit - and then they talked about science. Somehow Newt insisted that Gottlieb call him Newt, and Gottlieb didn’t say that Newt could use his first name but he did anyway, and Gottlieb - Hermann - didn’t tell him not to. Some recent article in a science journal came up and Hermann scoffed at how it was nonsense and Newt gasped dramatically and contradicted him and their food started to go cold as they bickered over it. Newt was sure that Hermann was hiding a smile. It was probably the most intellectually stimulating conversation Newt had had in months. He didn’t want it to end.
But eventually they ate the cooling Chinese food and the wait staff brought out a check and they had to admit it was done. They stood up at the same moment and walked out together. Newt hesitated in the doorway and looked at him, and Gottlieb looked back inquiringly, and he was so pretty, and-
Newt was fucked from the first day of school when he noticed Hermann smiling in the classroom. But right then, after an hour long dinner of the best conversation he’d ever had, with snow drifting down to land in Hermann’s short brown hair, with a warm sparkle in his eyes, Newt wanted to invite him back to his place for a drink. Wanted to ask him if he wanted to do this again sometime. Wanted to kiss him right on his funny, froggy mouth. And that was when Newt knew he was fucked.
“Bye, then,” he said softly.
Hermann looked ever so slightly disappointed. “Goodbye, Newton.”
***
“He’s so cute, and smart, and funny, and cute, and his accent sounds so classy, and the way he dresses is ridiculous, and he’s so cute, and am I a terrible person?”
“Yup,” Tendo said. “You are a really awful person. A parent of one of your students, that’s pretty low.”
“Shut up, you’re just fucking IT, you don’t know shit.”
***
There was a field trip a week or two after winter break ended. A local theater did a lot of children’s shows, and there was some sort of ridiculous puppet show about science, so they were bringing the kindergarteners. The puppets looked sorta scary in Newt’s opinion, but hey, he was always excited about science, and this was gonna be his first big field trip as a teacher, so he was totally pumped about it.
He sent the kids home with permission slips that also asked for parent chaperones, and Cassie came back the very next day with hers filled out saying that her dad would chaperone. Which Newt sorta didn’t know how to feel about. Like, that he was coming was good because it was good to have responsible parent volunteers and because Cassie was clearly very pleased about it. She kept going around telling all the other children “My daddy is coming and he’s a scientist!” or alternately “He’s a doctor but not a real doctor,” which made Newt laugh every time, he bet Hermann hated that. It was good because Newt was looking forward to another chance to see him and talk to him. It was also very bad because Newt was possibly nursing a crush on him and that was completely inappropriate.
He spent several days leading up to the trip convincing himself he didn’t have a crush. After all, how could he have a crush on someone that he’d only spoken to a few times? He couldn’t, he told himself. He totally didn’t. Nope, no completely inappropriate crush for Newton Geiszler.
That belief was harder to sustain on the actual day of the trip when he saw Hermann and got butterflies on his stomach and said, “Hi,” in a sort of breathless voice.
Hermann went sorta pink and scowled and said, “Hello,” in a terribly dignified way and then proceeded to ignore Newt.
The fact that that made his heart feel like it had been run over by a car made it harder to deny that he had feelings. And that he instantly worried that Hermann had figured out he had a bit of a crush and was put off by it also seemed to indicate that he did indeed have a crush.
They sat on opposite sides of the bus, Newt up at the front on the left side so that he could give the driver directions, Hermann somewhere in the middle on the right. Newt had perhaps fantasized a bit about being able to chat with him on the bus ride, but seeing as Hermann didn’t seem to want to talk to him, this set up was probably better. It also permitted Newt to see most of the bus at once if he turned around and stood up on his seat, which was good for making sure the kids were behaving themselves.
But it was a little weird, because once or twice when his gaze passed over that part of the bus, he could swear he caught Hermann quickly turning away, as if he had been looking at Newt a second before. He didn’t know what that was about.
They arrived at the theater, and everything was chaos for a while, what with making the kids line up and hold their partner’s hand and walk nicely through the parking lot. Newt was terrified he was gonna lose a kid or that one would get run over by a car. Wouldn’t that just be a great thing for his first official field trip as a teacher. There was one particularly bad moment where he turned around and noticed that Tom, a kid who should have been holding hands with Luka, was suddenly standing alone. No Luka in sight. His mind went sorta blank with panic, he started looking around wildly for Luka, wondering if he really had lost a kid, oh god- And then he heard Hermann saying, “Come along!” and looked over to see him herding the little girl away from a tree that seemed to have caught her interest. It felt like his heart had stopped and was abruptly starting back up. He managed to simultaneously scowl at Luka and scold her for wandering and direct a grateful look at Hermann. He smiled back shyly and then hurriedly focused his attention back on his daughter.
Once inside the building, there was not so much worry of a kid wandering off, but there was the hassle of finding their seats and getting them to sit down and wait in relative quiet and of course absolutely every child suddenly needed to pee even though Newt made sure they all used the bathroom before leaving the school. He nearly melted with relief when the theater went dark and someone came on stage to announce the program beginning. After that all he had to do was keep an eye on the kids to make sure they were behaving.
The puppets were definitely terrifying. But none of the kids seemed to mind. He just hoped he wasn’t giving them nightmares. Newt kept his eyes roaming over the kids for any signs of mischief and thought he could see, through the dim lights, Hermann smiling in a puzzled sort of way up at the stage.
The bus ride back was a bit less rowdy, as they seemed to be tired out from yelling excitedly at the puppets. And, coincidentally or not Newt didn’t know, Hermann and Cassie somehow ended up in the seat behind Newt’s. Newt was still making up his mind whether or not to talk to him when Hermann said, “It’s nice to see kids showing an interest in science so young.”
“Yeah!” Newt said eagerly. “I mean, science is my favorite topic, if I had my way we’d probably do science all the time.”
“We should!” Cassie interjected passionately. “And art. And maths. No more writing.”
“Aw, but you’re gettin’ so good at writing, Cassie,” Newt said.
“And what about reading, wouldn’t you miss that?” Hermann asked with that fond smile that made Newt’s heart sort of melt.
“I guess,” she said doubtfully.
“You need to be good at reading and writing to be a scientist,” Newt told her. “I bet your dad does loads of that.”
“Mountains of reading and writing,” Hermann assured her solemnly, although his eyes were crinkling playfully.
Cassie scrunched her mouth into a frown. “That sounds boring.”
“I am extremely boring,” Hermann agreed.
Newt’s traitorous mouth opened up and said, “I don’t think so.”
Hermann gave him a long, surprised look, only looking away when Cassie hurriedly said, “I don’t think you’re boring either, Daddy!” He seemed to have gone rather red. Newt was pretty sure he was blushing too.
They didn’t talk much more on the bus, Newt a little too embarrassed to meet his eyes. But when they were finally back at the school and the parents were getting ready to leave, Hermann paused and said stiffly - shyly? - “That was a lovely field trip, Newton.”
“Thank you for coming,” Newt said, and pretended he was so fervent about it solely because he was a really helpful chaperone.
***
Vanessa Evans had Cassie the week after that. “I heard the field trip was great,” she said, when picking up Cassie.
“Oh, yeah, it went well,” Newt said vaguely.
She looked him over in a way that was remarkably predatory and then smirked and said, “Well, bye then.”
She totally knows, Newt thought, panicked, and then wondered what it even was he thought she knew.
***
The kids had recess at lunch and a certain amount of free time at the end of the day to play in the classroom. There was legos, a house area, dress up, blocks, coloring, all that sorta stuff. It was good for socialization skills, and also they’d probably have a revolution if they weren’t allowed to play. For that matter, so would Newt. He needed that time at the end of the day to get individual kids to do the things they hadn’t done but were supposed to, or to print out stuff he needed for later, or just to breathe.
The kids tended to mix it up between what area they played in, and he tended to insist they at least try all the areas, but most of them had certain things they preferred. Rei liked to play with legos, Bob was the king of the block area, Steve and Luka were always in dress up. Cassie liked to draw. She was not the most artistically talented of the kids in the class, but she was very determined about it, and she seemed to enjoy it a lot, which was what mattered. Newt was already fairly convinced she was one of those kids that was going to go far in school. You could just tell, with some of them at least, who was gonna be successful. Like, for instance, there was Erica, who was very shy and usually needed extra help with lessons but always excelled at art projects. Newt was pretty sure she’d be okay, although he made sure to always compliment her at her art so that she got more confidence. Cassie was hard working and clever and did pretty well with math and science, and considering her parents provided good support, he was fairly confident she would be one of those kids that excelled academically. (It was sorta nice to feel like he was part of that, for all of those kids, he was doing his best to provide them with a solid beginning so they could go out there and be rock stars. He liked that.)
He moved around the classroom as they were playing to make sure that everyone was playing nicely, glancing over the kids’ shoulders at the drawing table to check out their creations, asking them what it was and cooing, “Wow, beautiful!” when they proudly showed it off to him.
“I went to my daddy’s job and this is him at his job and I don’t know what he is doing but it was cool!” Cassie babbled excitedly.
“Lovely,” Newt said with a smile, and then a shout arose from the lego area and he sighed and headed over there to see what was happening. By the time he’d sorted it all out it was time for everyone to clean up anyway, which was always a chaotic scrum of putting toys away and getting out jackets and backpacks and making sure everyone had the things they needed before herding them off to the auditorium to be picked up their parents or to go to their after school programs. He got to see Hermann through the crowd for a moment and smile at him like a dork because no matter how much he promised himself he wouldn’t do that, he always did, every day. Sasha Kaidanovsky, the scary gym teacher/organizer of events/head of discipline/pretty much everything, was starting to tease him about it over lunch. But so long as the terrifying school principal, Pentecost, didn’t notice, everything would be just fine. Probably.
He still had some work to do that day - as he did most days - so once all his kids were off he headed back to the room. It was a bit of a mess. He should pick up a bit so that the janitors didn’t hate him because word was they could be merciless. Some papers had been left, unsurprisingly enough, on the table where the kids had been drawing. He sighed and started there. Most of them were blank, but one he picked up and saw…
A blobby picture of a man wearing glasses and a big smile and a sweater that had messy stripes drawn on. He was standing before black squares that Newt thought might be chalkboards. One circle-hand was holding a black line that was probably the cane and the other was holding a smaller blob person with a halo of brown squiggles for hair. Cassie’s big, irregular handwriting labeled the taller person as “Dad” and the smaller one as “Me!” (Newt had been teaching them to label things for their writing projects, he was proud to see Cassie had absorbed it so well.)
Newt smiled gently at the picture. She was a sweet kid. And considering that with some of these parents there was sometimes a sense of, well, a lack of affection, attention, patience, kindness, etc, it was really nice to see when kids did have a good relationship with their parents.
He folded it up carefully and put it in her cubby so she could bring it home the next day.
***
It was sometime in the spring, a day that was so sunny that the piles of snow were finally melting and the air had that fresh, spring-like smell of fresh water, that Newt unexpectedly ran into Hermann at the grocery store. He rounded the corner on the cereal aisle and Hermann was just sort of there, staring at rows of children’s cereal boxes and looking faintly confused.
Newt sidled up behind him. “She likes Rice Krispies, I think,” he said.
Hermann startled and looked around. “Oh! Newton! I mean- Mr. Geiszler-”
“Newt,” Newt insisted. “It’s Newt. And I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“No, it’s fine, I...actually could not remember what she liked. That makes me awful, doesn’t it. I’m a terrible father.”
He looked genuinely distressed, as he returned his focus to the cereal shelf, and Newt could just imagine how he was the sort of person who worried about absolutely everything and had to get everything right, and he couldn’t help but laugh. “I assure you, you are not. Forgetting what kind of cereal she likes definitely doesn’t make you a bad father.”
He hummed as if not quite convinced and pulled a box of Rice Krispies off the shelf.
“So, um,” Newt started, not quite willing to let this conversation end but with no clear topic of conversation in mind. “Do you shop here a lot?” was what somehow came out of his mouth.
You just asked him if he comes here often, he thought incredulously. What is wrong with you?
“Yes, this is where I normally shop...Ah, do...you?”
And he asked it back, holy shit.
“Yup, yup, this is my primary grocery shopping...destination…” Primary shopping destination????
“Do you live around here?”
“Yeah, not too far off, plus I like this place because it’s close to the school so I can easily stop here on my way home from work.”
“Ah, that makes sense,” Hermann said. So very seriously that Newt suddenly wanted to laugh. This whole conversation was so awkward and ridiculous.
“I’ve been wondering,” Newt said suddenly. “Is teaching college kids much different from kindergarteners, do you think? Do you have to tell them to not call out and to be nice to each other and to read at home?”
Hermann stared at him and then unexpectedly burst out laughing. Newt’s heart did flips. “I would have said it’s very different but in fact I do have to tell them to do the reading. Honestly, they are college students paying to take these classes and buying these textbooks, it astonishes me the extent to which I can tell they are not paying attention or reading the books or doing their homework.”
Newt grinned. “I bet you always paid attention in class.”
“Of course,” he said primly. “I wanted to take full advantage of my education.”
“You were totally a teacher’s pet in school, weren’t you.”
“Perhaps a bit,” he admitted.
“That’s-” Adorable, Newt nearly said, but caught himself in time. “No surprise. Cassie probably gets that from you.”
“Mm, but she’s far less socially awkward than me already, so she ought to do well,” Hermann said. His eyes always went soft when he talked about her.
“She’s a sweet kid.” Parents always loved it when you complimented their kid. But it was also true. Newt was quite fond of Cassie. It was probably wrong to have favorites, but...Newt had a few, and Cassie was one of them, and it actually had nothing at all to do with thinking her dad was cute.
“Thank you,” Hermann said. He hesitated and said in a different sort of voice, “I’m sure this is an odd thing to ask, but...You must see a lot of children and parents, and- Am I doing well? As a father? I mean- It’s difficult, you know, we had her so young and Vanessa and I split up not soon after and I don’t have any sort of experience with this and I- Worry, a bit- I, I shouldn’t ask, probably, I-”
Newt felt like something was going straight through him and actually touching his heart. “Dude, seriously, you’re doing great. I mean, you keep your kid fed and dressed, she comes in happy every day, you are both clearly making efforts at home to educate her, so, yeah, from my perspective at least, you are doing a good job.”
There was a pause, filled up with the sounds of the grocery store and people shopping, and Hermann said simply, “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
Hermann hastily cleared his throat and partially turned his face away. “I apologize if that wasn’t very appropriate to ask.”
“It was fine,” Newt assured him.
“I should probably let you get back to your shopping now.”
“Yeah,” Newt agreed, mostly because he could tell Hermann was embarrassed now and wanted to be left alone, and he was willing to respect that; but also partially because he didn’t trust himself to not ask him out on a date if left alone with him much longer.
***
It was the last day of school. Newt was definitely not tearing up a little every time he realized this was the last day these kids would be his kids. And it was only a half day and normally half days were great but it meant his last day with his kids was only half of a day and that felt like cheating. He kept spontaneously hugging the nearest kid (unless it was Ryan who didn’t like to be touched very much). Time seemed to rush on faster than Newt would have thought possible, so that one second it was the very beginning of the day, the next it was already snack time, and then he was having to say his final goodbye and pack them up to hustle them off to the auditorium.
And- And maybe he was looking for- A specific person. A little bit. Maybe he was a little bit keeping his eye open for a specific person. Because it was the last day of school and that meant losing all of his precious kiddos but it also meant that certain specific people who were the parents of his students would no longer be the parents of his students because those students would no longer be his students. So. Maybe through the excitement and sadness of the last day of school he was looking for a specific person.
But he totally wasn’t disappointed when instead a certain specific student was picked up by her mother.
It was the last day of school. The. Last. The last day.
Newt walked back to his empty classroom and slumped down into his seat and sighed and tried (and failed) to not wonder if he’d ever fucking see Hermann Gottlieb again.
He was totally fucked.
***
It was a month. A whole month later. That he found himself standing in the ice cream aisle of the grocery store and someone slid up behind him and said softly in an uptight British accent, “From what I hear, you like the chocolate one.”
“Hermann!” Newt squeaked, wheeling around to see Hermann standing at his side.
He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans and it was far and away the most casual Newt had ever seen him. He’d been trying to convince himself, this past month, that Hermann was not actually nearly as cute as Newt remembered him being. Turned out he was right; he was way way way cuter than Newt remembered. Gorgeous, actually. Fuck.
“Wow, um, ‘s been a while. How’s Cassie?”
“She’s doing very well. She misses school.”
“Aw, that’s sweet. Wait, she told you I liked chocolate?”
“She mentioned it.”
Newt put his head to the side. “You talk about me a lot?”
Hermann went pink and said, “I wouldn’t say a lot.”
Newt began to smile slowly. “Mmhmm.”
“Maybe once in a while.”
“I see.”
“She was very fond of you,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind seeing you again.”
“Is that so?”
“Maybe...dinner sometime. Although. She and Vanessa are currently modeling somewhere ridiculous in Europe. So. Ah. Perhaps you and I could have dinner sometime. Alone.”
“I’d- Okay, you are asking me out, right? On a date? I’m understanding this properly?”
Hermann went completely red at that - it was a flattering shade on him - but said, “Yes,” determinedly.
“Oh good,” Newt said with a sigh of relief.
“Is that a...yes?”
“Of course it’s a fucking yes.”
Hermann smiled, looking equally as relieved as Newt, and-
“Okay I know we haven’t gone on a date yet, but can I just kiss you, like, just once, I’ve been dying to since Christmas-”
Hermann closed the gap between them and put one hand on the back of his neck and kissed him.