In the gym, the Year Nines took to him quickly during basketball. Lay-ups, basic shooting drills. He had them laughing, focused, trying. His height drew questions. Had he ever played pro? He gave the answer he’d rehearsed.
“Nope. Had a hoop on the side of the house growing up. South London. Played until the bolts rusted off.”
They seemed satisfied with that. Hero points earned. Trust inched closer. Because none of it was a lie. Which was unusual. On most ops, he had to think fast or stitch together backstories until they felt real. Here, he was mostly… himself. Strip away the detail that he was an undercover detective with the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit, following the thread of a trafficking network right into a school, a thread that might tangle one of their own teachers, and Warren was being Warren.A once sporty kid who grew up in South London and if it hadn’t been for his stable upbringing, and the discipline sport gave him, he might have ended up on the wrong side of the fence he skirted for a living.
And even though the first rule of undercover work was never to blur the lines between who you were and who you played, here, so far, being himself worked.
He liked it.
Liked it more than he should.
Because he hadn’t been himself in so long, he’d almost forgotten what that even felt like.
By Friday lunch, he headed, as usual, to the staffroom. Partly to dodge Stanmore’s latest war story, complete with pastry number three, and partly because he was hoping to catch Jude Ellison. The history teacher he was meant to be profiling. The one who seemed to slip through his fingers every midday, tied up in meetings or running clubs.
Busy. Involved.
Could be the mark of a good teacher.
Or the cover of a man with other reasons to stay occupied.
The staffroom was how it always was at lunchtime. Microwaves pinging, the hum of half a dozen conversations bleeding together. Teachers slouched on sofas with Tupperware balanced on their laps. Others hunched over laptops, grimly hammering out lesson plans they’d ignored all summer. The usual mix: overprepared, underfed, and terminally caffeinated.
No Jude.
Warren crossed to the fridge, crouched, and pulled out the salad he’d stashed earlier, the bottle of water balancing on top. A packet of crisps slipped from beneath it, his private indulgence, quickly scooped up before anyone could notice.
When he straightened, he jolted.
Ellison was right there. Clutching a bunch of printed papers and smiling.
Warren’s stomach tilted, a sharp twist that had nothing to do with hunger.
Adrenaline, he told himself. The familiar rush of being caught off guard by a target. He’d felt it before. Plenty of times. When someone on the job had turned their eyes on him a fraction too suddenly. That jolt of beingseen.
But this wasn’t quite the same.
Because instead of freezing, he smiled back.
And instead of whacking the bloke or lying through his teeth, his brain had tripped over the dimples in Jude’s cheeks. The faint crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled. The way his shirt hung just so, as if someone had cut the cloth deliberately to test Warren’s patience.
He snapped the fridge shut with his foot.
And needed to get his head straight.
Fast.
“Healthy.” Jude nodded at the salad box before plucking the packet of crisps from the top and waggling them at him. “These? Not so. Typical PE teachers. Alwaysdo as we say, not as we do.”
“Those are for you.” Warren smiled sweetly.
Jude raised a brow, checked the packet. “Monster Munch?”
“You look like a man who appreciates a claw-shaped snack.”
Jude narrowed his eyes. “Pickled onion flavour.”
“With a bit of tang.” Warren winked.
