Hissy Fit (The Southern Gentleman #1)(44)

My casted arm hit the metal underneath the bull that controlled its movements, and I cried out as pain radiated up my elbow and into my heart.

“Owwww,” I whined, my drunkenness clearing the tiniest of bits. “That hurt!”

Then I rolled over to see a pair of black Under Armour wind pants with our school mascot on them standing next to my face.

I rolled over onto my back and looked up the long, lean body of Coach McDuff, and wondered if this was heaven.

Surely it had to be.

But then I got to his face and saw he was scowling at me.

It must be hell.

“Am I in hell?” I asked the coach that was glaring at me.

“No, but you might wish you were after I’m through with you,” he growled irately.

Oh, Coach McDuff was pissed.

He reached down for my good arm, and I slapped him away. “Don’t touch me, Coach Cheater McCheaterson.”

Ezra ignored me and hauled me up to standing beside him, causing my world to tilt on its axis for a few long seconds.

“Whoa,” I chortled. “That was fun!”

“Are you drunk?” he asked, sounding just as miffed as he had been when I was lying down.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Until today, I’ve never drunk a single alcoholic beverage before! What does drunk look like?”

“You,” my brother grunted as he stared at me. “I can almost see your boobs.”

I looked down at said boobs. “I have a t-shirt on.”

“You have a freakin’ tank top on, and you’re not wearing a bra,” he challenged.

I frowned. “I am, too.” I then pulled my bra strap out of my tank top to show the dumbass. “See?”

“Do something with her, she’s embarrassing me,” my brother ordered the man holding onto me.

I started to push away. “No! I have things to do!”

“No, you don’t,” Ezra disagreed. “In fact, you have to work tomorrow, so it’s probably best that you stop drinking now. With any luck, I can get some coffee and water in you and make you halfway presentable for tomorrow. You got Camryn?”

“I’m not going to work tomorrow,” I declared. “I quit!”

“You’re not quitting, hoe!” Camryn yelled. “If you quit, then who will I talk about all the great asses of the school to?”

“That’s gross,” the woman, Croft’s date, said. “Those are children.”

Camryn looked over at the woman, who likely shouldn’t be privy to this conversation. “I was talking about Coach McDuff,” she hitched a thumb in Ezra’s direction. “And the assistant coach. And the girls’ softball coach, as well as one of the science teachers—he’s new this year, and yowza, does he have one fine ass. It was a tossup between him and Coach McDuff this year, to be honest. Not children, you freakin’ loser.”

“What about Officer Flint?” I teased her.

Camryn’s mouth tightened, and her eyes narrowed. Her finger went straight as a board as she pointed it at me.

“Do not speak about that man in my presence again,” she ordered. “That man is a lying, despicable, no good, rotten, disgusting, arrogant, asshole, big, fat…”

Croft slapped his hand over Camryn’s mouth, but something in his eyes told me he was trying not to laugh.

Ezra scooped me up then, and in his haste to toss me over his shoulder, I knocked the beer that had miraculously appeared in Camryn’s hand onto the ground, half of the beer slinking down inside my cast as I did.

“Shit!” I hissed. “That’s cold!”

It wasn’t until we were outside, and I was on my feet next to Ezra’s truck, that he saw my problem.

“We’ll go get it changed,” he said. “Then we’re going home.”

He was true to his word, taking me to the twenty-four-hour emergency clinic to get my cast changed before taking us to my home.

“Keys?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t have any. I rode with Camryn.”

He grunted, his eyes never leaving mine. “So how are you going to get into the house?”

I turned to the door and twisted the knob. “I didn’t bother locking it.”

He muttered something else behind me that sounded like ‘stupid,’ but I couldn’t be sure.

“What?”





Chapter 16


Please do not pet the peeves.

-T-shirt

Ezra

I’d lost every bit of patience I had left, and it was all because of the woman looking at me with such fucking innocence in her eyes.

She had no clue what she did to me.

She also had no clue that her tears nearly brought me to my knees.

I hated walking out of the principal’s office today. I hated it even more to see her tears rolling down her cheeks after she realized that I’d be taking over.

It took me about two hours to find out why she’d been removed from the class, and once that had happened, I’d lost nearly all of my patience.

I’d talked to Mrs. Sherpa, letting her know that Raleigh and I were in a relationship. I’d also let her know in no uncertain terms that out of anyone in the school, Raleigh was the least likely teacher to do anything like that ever.