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“Mr. Nelson?”
“Yes, Esme?”
“Who’s that?” Turning to look where the little girl was pointing, Nick felt his face grow hot with a red flush as he saw his beloved Charlie’s face now on the projector screen. And in Hindsight, he should have known this would happen eventually, he’d been playing a risky game using his personal laptop to connect and display their lessons on (a game he wouldn’t have to play if the school board provided more funding for computers that could load anything other than Microsoft paint). An accidental miss click had minimized the page the class had been playing a round of kahoot on, revealing the (thankfully wholesome) picture of him and Charlie, sitting side-by-side in a restaurant in Minorca smiling at the camera while his arm wrapped around the other to hold him close. “Oh,” he supplied, looking back toward the room full of ten-year-olds and offering a smile before he cleared his throat.
“That is… well, that’s Charlie.” He supplied with a grin, and part of him was regretting moving up in years from the first years he had been teaching before as they would have most likely moved on. “Is he your brother?” Another student, Eddie had asked and Nick let out a small huff of laughter.
“Do we look related?” He asked with a slightly exasperated sound in his voice, which made most of the students laugh and Eddie fully cackle at the response. “No!” The young boy supplied. “Who is Charlie then?” Esme asked, ever the investigator.
“He’s uh, well—“ And it wasn’t like he was ashamed of their relationship or his sexuality but, he knew that the world wasn’t always so forgiving and while he wanted to shout his love for the other from the rooftops, he was acutely aware of the people who made the world unsafe for them who would be willing to throw stones at him and their love. “He’s my partner.” He supplied finally, scanning over the faces of his students to gauge their reactions.
“Mr. Nelson?” A new voice supplied, hand raised as Alexis spoke up from the back of the class with a small smile on her face. “Yes?” He responded, moving to reopen their game of kahoot which had timed out and was now on the main menu page. He and Charlie had discussed what to do if this ever happened, although that had been when he had first started teaching and now he was teaching older students so he wasn’t sure how much of the original plan stuck. “What does partner mean?” Alexis asked with a slight tilt of her head and if it weren’t for another little boy speaking, Nick could have maybe found a way to keep it vague. “Like a business partner? My dad has one of those.” James offered.
“Uh, no, not like a business partner,” Nick began with hesitation, looking at the photo on his desk of Charlie and their puppy Daisy as if to ask them for help before he continued. “Charlie is actually my fiancé,” he said, the dopey grin on his face was not something he had been able to stop from happening yet. Ever since Charlie had asked him to marry him over summer break, Nick had been calling him ‘fiancé’ almost as much as he called him ‘Char’.
“So you’re gay? My uncles are gay!” A student asked, and Nick was snapped out of his fond memory, shaking his head while he looked at the source of the voice. “No, Esme, I’m not gay,” he said before he let out a small nervous laugh as her confused expression. “I’m bisexual, which means I like more than just girls or just guys,” he explained gently and the kids seemed to understand that well enough, nodding in understanding. Then the questions came in rapid fire.
“When did you meet?”
“How long have you been together?”
“What’s he like?”
“Are you guys in love?”
“When are you getting married?”
“Can we come to the wedding?”
All valid questions for ten-year-olds to have, and all shouted at him in a ten-second period. Raising his hands in defence as the laughter bubbled through his chest, he shook his head. “Woah, woah guys, one at a time.” He said through his laughter, moving to sit on the edge of his desk with a large smile. Talking about Charlie was one of his favourite things, and so far this was going well… the kids were all curious to know about the mysterious man they’d seen flash across their screen in the middle of their game. Recapping the basics with them was easy, a well rehearsed story of meeting his best friend in his year 11 form, and falling for him soon after, leaving out the bits of struggling with his sexuality and Charlie’s mental health issues for obvious reasons, he jumped ahead to going to uni without his love and then how they’d been living together ever since Charlie joined him in Leeds. A few of the students looked awed, some were leaning forward to the story and others were staring at him with large smiles, while the rest were still eager to ask their own questions.
“Is he a teacher too?”
“Can he teach us?”
“No, no, he’s not a teacher,” Nick said with a slight shake of his head. “And no you could not replace me with him,” he added which caused laughter among the students. “He works in a museum.” He supplied and a few kids seems a little disappointed it wasn’t a ‘more exciting' career.
“Can we have a field trip there?”
“Can we meet him?”
“A field trip? Uh, maybe, I’m not sure if they have anything relevant to our curriculum this year but, I’ll ask him and see if he thinks it’s a good idea, as well as getting it approved,” he began before the last question sunk in. “Oh, maybe.” He said simply, shrugging it off. It wasn’t like he didn’t want Charlie to come to his class, he always wanted to be with Charlie. He just wasn’t sure if Charlie would want to come and be subjected to an interrogation by a group of ten-year-olds.
“Will you still be Mr. Nelson after you get married or will you be Mr. Charlie?”
They hadn’t spoken about their plans for their last names yet, although he was more than happy to take Charlie's last name or hyphenate if that was what Charlie wanted, the name Nick Spring was something he was quite fond of though. “Well, I wouldn’t be Mr. Charlie since that’s his first name but, I’m not sure… we’re not getting married for a bit so we have time to plan what we want to do about our name,” he said before he moved behind his desk again.
“Our puppy Daisy has both of our last names though,” he said and just as he suspected, the pressure had been taken off of interrogating him about Charlie and onto the puppy he had just name-dropped for the first time with them.