Hissy Fit (The Southern Gentleman #1)(31)

I was making him nervous.

“Do you want to come inside?” I asked, trying not to sound hopeful.

He shook his head. “I have an early morning practice tomorrow.”

I looked down at my feet. “I guess I’ll see you at the staff meeting tomorrow?”

I sounded almost hopeful as I asked that, and I knew that I likely sounded pathetic, too.

“I’ll be there.” He grinned, gesturing for me to walk to the door. “Thank you for inviting me to your parents’ place.”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure that I was actually the one to invite you…”

He chuckled and stopped at the bottom step, while I continued up the other three steps that led to my front porch.

Once the door was open, I flipped the porch light on and then turned to stare down at the man I’d never once entertained the possibility of being at my house.

Let alone dropping me off.

I guess I should be happy that he’d actually noticed me.

Yet…I wasn’t.

At least not any longer.

I was obsessed with the man, and I wanted so much more it wasn’t even funny.

“Well,” I hesitated, sounding nervous. “Be careful on the way home.”

Ezra winked and then started to back down the pathway back to my driveway.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I looked down at my hands, away from that perfect smile so I wouldn’t launch myself at him. When I next looked up, he was at his truck and climbing inside.

When he sat there watching me expectantly, I frowned.

He gestured with his chin, and I looked over my shoulder to see the opened door at my back.

I frowned.

“What?” I mouthed, seeing no need to actually say the words since he wouldn’t be able to hear them anyway.

Go. Inside.

He mouthed those words back at me, and I chafed inwardly.

Turning my back on the man of my dreams, I walked inside and shut the door before locking it tightly.

Once that was done, only then did I hear the roar of his truck start up.

Hurrying to the window, I looked outside and watched him back down my driveway, and then accelerate down the street.

Sighing in defeat, I flipped the lights back out, and then hurried to my bedroom.

After stripping off my beer and blood-stained pants, I walked to the shower and hosed myself off, hating that I had to wash the scent of Ezra off my skin.

Moments after getting out, I heard my phone ringing from my pants pocket where I’d left it, and hurried to it, putting it to my ear before I’d even looked at who was calling.

I smiled when I heard his voice, but frowned moments after that when I realized that he hadn’t meant to call me.

Had he meant to call me, he most assuredly wouldn’t have called me while also talking to another woman at the same time.

Ezra was a lot of things, but a mean person wasn’t one of them.

And it didn’t take a magic 8-ball to see that I cared for him.

“I’m sorry, Ezra,” an achingly familiar voice said quietly. “You look rough. Are you sure you don’t want to catch a drink?”

Shuffling noises sounded, and then I heard Ezra speak, but I couldn’t make out what the words were before the woman’s voice started to fill the line again.

“Or we can go get ice cream.”

And it was then that I realized that I was definitely a jealous hag.

Ezra and I hadn’t made any promises to each other whatsoever. However, whether he realized it or not, I’d given him one.

It was just sad that I would likely never get one from him.

“…Ice cream,” I heard Ezra reply.

I frowned, pulling the phone away from my ear, and wondering what I should do.

I, of course, had many options. One major one being hanging up and hoping he didn’t butt dial me all over again.

The other option was to listen to what was being said, and not say a word.

I did what any sane woman would do.

I listened.

To every. Freakin’. Word.

“I’m glad that you’ll come,” I heard Coach Casper say. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

My mind went wild as all the possible scenarios went through my brain, and the only logical one I could come up with was the one I kept going back to.

I’d heard Ezra agree to a date with Coach Casper, the one person in the entire school that I’d never get along with.

It was kind of hard to when Coach Casper—I refused to call her by her real name because it was stupid—picked on me all through my informative years.





Chapter 11


Eat more hole foods.

-Donut marquee sign

Ezra

“It’s a good thing that we get to go home early today,” I heard Raleigh say to another teacher, Ms. Holdenbrook. Ms. Holdenbrook was the art teacher and was clearly hanging on Raleigh’s every word.

Then again, Ms. Holdenbrook was the third-newest teacher at Gun Barrel ISD, and so new and green that she hadn’t even gotten her teaching certificate in the mail.

Lucky for her she was young, and likely wouldn’t be too traumatized by her class of students that she’d taken over when the old art teacher—Mrs. Rosemary—had retired after she’d had a major heart attack.

“Why is that?” Ms. Holdenbrook asked.