The Gym Class Hero
"PE teacher Saira deals with rowdy students all day, but it's the new sports coach Omar—all muscles and soft smiles—who throws her off balance."
The Gym Class Hero
"Your students destroyed my equipment room."
Saira looked up from her desk to find the new sports coach looming in her office doorway. Omar Farooq was annoyingly tall, annoyingly fit, and annoyingly good-looking.
"They're your students too now," she said mildly. "Welcome to Year 9."
"I was not prepared." He collapsed into her visitor chair. "In my old school, they at least pretended to listen."
"Did your old school have 70% Pakistani students who've been told exercise is beghairat?"
"Point taken." He rubbed his face. "How do you manage?"
"Cricket. Always cricket. Start with something they understand, then sneak in the fitness."
His smile was grateful. "That's brilliant."
"That's survival. Give it six months—you'll figure it out."
Six months passed. Omar figured it out—and more.
He became her ally in the PE department, her partner for after-school sports clubs, her daily companion in the staff room. Their banter made everyone smile; their teamwork made the department flourish.
But the tension between them was becoming unbearable.
"You're staring," Saira said during a joint coaching session.
"You're distracting." His eyes traced her body in workout gear. "How am I supposed to focus when you're doing lunges?"
"Professional boundary, Coach."
"Getting harder to maintain, Miss."
The breaking point was the overnight sports trip.
Chaperoning meant separate rooms, exhausted nights, and one moment of weakness when Omar found her alone in the hotel gym at 2am.
"Can't sleep either?" she asked, not stopping her treadmill.
"Thinking about you makes it difficult." He stepped onto the machine beside her. "Saira, I need to tell you something."
"This sounds like the start of an HR complaint."
"Hopefully not." He hit pause, turning to face her. "I've been in love with you for four months. I've tried to be professional. I've failed spectacularly. And I need to know if I'm alone in this."
She stepped off her treadmill, heart pounding. "You're not alone."
"Alhamdulillah." He pulled her close. "I thought I was imagining things."
"You weren't." She kissed him. "Now, about those professional boundaries..."
"Temporarily suspended?"
"Immediately abandoned."
The hotel gym had a sauna that locked from inside.
Omar pressed her against the wooden bench, his athletic body covering hers. "We're going to get in trouble."
"We're adults. In private." She tugged his shirt off. "Stop worrying."
He stopped worrying.
His body was exactly as she'd imagined—strong, responsive, devoted to her pleasure. When he finally pushed inside her, Saira bit her lip to keep from crying out.
"Meri jaan," he breathed, moving within her. "I've thought about this every PE class. Every sports day. Every time you yelled at students and looked so fierce."
"My yelling turns you on?"
"Everything about you turns me on."
She came with a muffled cry, and he followed, both of them slick with sweat that had nothing to do with exercise.
"HR is going to have questions," Saira said afterward.
"We'll tell them the truth. We developed feelings while working together. Now we're dating properly." He kissed her hair. "I want this to be real, Saira. Public. Official."
"You want to introduce me to your parents."
"I want to marry you. Eventually. After appropriate courtship." His smile was soft. "But yes. Meet the parents. The whole thing."
"We just started."
"We've been starting for six months. This is the middle now." He held her closer. "Let me be with you. Properly."
They told HR the next term. There were meetings, formalities, and eventual approval.
The wedding happened in the school gym—their students insisted on helping decorate.
Best team-building exercise the PE department ever organized.