Chapter Text
It started with the broken coffee pot. Melissa had burnt her hand on the coffee pot on Friday morning and Mr. Johnson had placed a yellow caution tape ‘X’ over the whole machine by that afternoon. Melissa and Barbara were on their way out of the school, heading down the stairs from the breakroom, when they were joined by the semi-new addition to the school thanks to Ava’s budgeting: the school office manager. Ava had hired her after the printer incident claiming it was necessary to keep the budget ‘budgeting’ and her online presence active. Though she wouldn’t admit it, Melissa had grown a quite fond of the younger woman.
Both of the older women nod in greeting as they continue their conversation.
“I hate to say it, but I guess” Melissa hesitates slightly before sighing “I missed Janine a little.” Melissa finishes her sentence in a whisper before turning toward the younger woman, “I never said that, capisce?”
Y/N raises her hands in mock offense before smiling slightly “Never heard a word,” she promises as she lightly bumps Melissa’s shoulder with her own. The red head smirks before meeting Barbara’s knowing eyes wipes it clean.
“What’s got you not missing Janine? Jacob not offer enough entertainment today?” Y/n questions, unaware of Barbara’s revelations.
Melissa lifts up her wrapped right hand palm up before answering, “Abbot’s state of the art coffee pot’s leaking’,” Y/N had noticed Mr. Johnsons handy work in the break room but never stopped to question it: Abbot was falling apart in some, most, places.
“We wouldn’t have asked, but we know Janine would have tried to at least eliminate some of the hazard.” Barbara added as she pushes open the door and passes the weight to Melissa, who holds it open for Y/N, as the three women step outside into the early spring air.
“Creating’ a new problem along with it, no doubt,” Melissa adds playfully as she lets go of the door and joins the others on the steps.
“Maybe she’s not so much creating a problem but finding it…” Y/N slips into her defense. Janine had been the most welcoming towards her when she first started and helped her around here and there. Janine was open with her enthusiasm and handiness, even if sometimes it was not so handy, and that was admirable to Y/N. It was not surprise they became fast work buddies- Janine even sometimes stopping by Y/N’s desk outside of Ava’s office for lunch.
“Anyway, I forgot something on my desk. I’ll see ya Monday.” Y/N adds before turning back into the building. Melissa watches the door close behind her before turning towards Barbara.
“Was it something I said?” She jokes as the two make their way to their cars.
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Monday morning Melissa walks into the lounge to see Mr. Johnsons mess of police tape missing from the machine. Eyeing the machine, she sits in her usual seat awaiting Barbara. As she’s pulling out papers to look over, Ava waltzes into the room and towards the machine. Curious, Melissa doesn’t try to warn Ava of the possibly-broken machine.
“No warning? You know I need these hands Olay commercial perfect,” Ava turns towards the cameras before continuing “not that I use anything other than Cold-men products.” She winks before focusing back onto pouring her coffee.
Melissa deadpans the camera returning to her papers.
“No need, anyway. I never risk my hand health, Janine probably snuck her little rat-ass in over the weekend because its fixed.” Ava says as she begins to pour her temple of sugar into the bitter beverage, taking her leave.
Before Melissa could focus too much on it, Y/N enters the lounge followed by Janine. The red heads attention is quickly placed onto the younger woman as she takes her place next to Janine in front of the vending machine. The camera zooms into Melissa’s face before panning over to Y/N’s and back again only to be caught by the Italian herself and met with a stare.
“Welcome back, Kid. Hope your fingertips are still intact.” Melissa levels at Janine who meets her with raised eyebrows.
“Why would my-” Janine begins before an elbow to the side takes her attention. She turns her head towards Y/N and furrows her brows “did I miss something important again?” Both women stare at each other for a moment too long before Janine’s eyes widen.
“Y-yeah, of course my fingertips are fine, y’know because I didn’t burn them off while I was fussing with the coffee machine. That’s not to say I didn’t burn myself, I did of course because of the heat that was coming off the machine when I was fixing it, like I do. I love to fix things, hence why I, of course, fixed the over-heating coffee machine. We, teachers, love coffee, couldn’t imagine what the day-” Janine’s rambling is cut off again by an elbow to the side. She cringes a bit at herself when she sees Melissa frown and furrowed brows. Thankfully, Barbara enters the room and takes the attention off of the two younger women. And by some god sent miracle, the situation is not brought up again. After a, slightly concerned, ‘thank you’ nod from Melissa on her way out of the lounge.
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The next incident happens not many days later, when Melissa’s car pops a tire. As Jacob tries to defend his switch to green bubbles, Janine still taken aback there is a groupchat she is not privy to, Melissa angrily huffs before tossing Jacobs phone on the floor. The phone hits the floor and Y/N enters the lounge.
“Whoa, what’s that about?’ She hesitantly asks scanning the faces in the room. Melissa huffs again before turning toward Y/N.
“Thanks to Jacob’s stupid green bubbles, I hit a pothole on the way to work. Now my tires blown.” She glares at Jacob as she finishes her sentence. Jacob raises his hands, ready to defend himself and his new phone now securely in his pocket and safely away from Melissa. Thankfully time grants Jacob some mercy as the clock warns them its nearly time for school to start.
“Got to go, we’ll talk later-” Jacob chooses peace, rushing out of the room to his classroom.
A slight silence follows his departure before Y/N turns to face Melissa, “What was that about your car?” Y/n questions as she starts to follow Melissa as she grabs her things and starts heading out the door.
“My tires blown. Lucky it didn’t send me off the road.” Melissa huffs and as the woman walk in pace to her classroom.
“With peace and love, why were you even on your phone?” Y/n chuckles and can’t help but furrow her brows. Melissa lightly their shoulders with a sarcastic ‘haha’.
“Right, the lesson we SHOULD be taking from this is the cities poor budgeting.” Y/n jokes, shaking her head before waving Melissa goodbye to get to work herself. Besides who knows how to change a tire? Triple A or some shit was needed.
As Melissa entered her room smirking slightly at the conversation, the cameras pan down the hall just in time to see Y/n rush out the doors of the school
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Since Y/n couldn’t do much about the tire, she had to go with plan B. Thus, when Melissa walked out of school the following afternoon, she was surprised when she found a gift card to her favorite coffee shop taped to her doorhandle with a sticky note attached saying ‘ sorry :( - Jacob’. She shook her head lightly before getting in.