Hissy Fit (The Southern Gentleman #1)(47)
Then she turned her head on the pillow, with me still inside her, and started to snore.
I had no other recourse but to laugh.
Chapter 17
I’m mom’s favorite.
-Text from Raleigh to Croft
Raleigh
“Gotta go change and get to practice,” Ezra growled against my mouth. “Be good.”
I smiled into the semi-darkness, patting his muscular forearm, and falling right back to sleep.
At least, I would have had the words that I’d always wanted to hear not fallen from those perfect lips.
“Love you, Raleigh.”
By the time I processed them, and realized that I needed to return the sentiment, he was already starting that loud truck of his up and backing out of my driveway.
I reached for my phone to type out a text but realized it wasn’t by the bed.
Frowning, I got up, feeling something inside of my chest practically screaming in excitement, and started my search.
I found it all in the living room—my dress, shoes, and panties. My purse with my dead phone inside, and my Chapstick.
I made a girlish squeak of excitement as I snatched my phone up, leaving all the clothes where they were, and practically skipped to my room.
It wasn’t until I’d jumped on the bed and dove for the charging cable, knocking my newly casted arm on the bedpost, that I told myself that I needed to calm down. If not for any other reason than to not re-break my already healing arm.
That would be something I’d do.
Plugging it in and leaving it on the bed to reboot, I rushed to the shower and turned it on.
My eyes went to the green bottle of Irish Spring body wash that Ezra had brought over the last time he’d spent the night and inhaled deeply as I relished the smell of him in my shower.
Then I saw his razor and had a moment of panic that he’d done something crazy like shave his beard, but then I remembered that he liked to trim up his neck to keep it clean and tidy.
Panic attack prevented, I rushed through the rest of my shower, being sure to keep my casted arm in the air to prevent another visit to the doctor’s office today.
Once I was through, I quickly snatched my towel off the rack and walked to the mirror, smiling so fucking wide that I nearly cracked my face when I saw the note written on the glass.
It was written in a dry erase marker that I’d seen on the bar in my kitchen the day before. On it there were eleven words that made me impossibly happier than I’d already been.
You looked beautiful last night and this morning. Love you—Ezra.
Any happier and I just might burst.
This day was going to be perfect…I just knew it.
***
It wasn’t perfect. It was god-awful.
What I didn’t know was that while I was acting out last night, someone was videotaping me. And that video would be shared all throughout school by the time I arrived that morning.
I underestimated the power of a video, too.
Because by seven thirty, after I finished with the middle school drop off, I was the star of the high school campus—and not in a good way.
I hadn’t even made it all the way into school when I was stopped in the hallway by Camryn.
“Oh. My. God,” she whispered. “We’re on video!”
I frowned. “What?”
She pulled up her phone, and a grainy video of me and Camryn was on the screen, showing us rolling around on the mat with my head pressed to her breasts.
Moments after that, we separated, and I got on the bull.
The only reason I knew it was me was the bright goddamn blue cast.
I looked at the offending object and thanked God that I’d gotten it changed last night due to having some beer spill on it while at the bar.
Now the only thing on it was ‘I love Ezra,’ who’d signed it this morning on his way out the door.
I hadn’t even been aware that it’d been there until a middle school student that I’d helped out of the car started to giggle and pointed it out.
I’d grinned my stupid grin all the rest of the morning drop-off…until right now.
“Son of a bitch,” I whispered. “What the fuck?”
Camryn shook her head. “It’s too grainy to pinpoint either one of us. As of right now, it’s just speculation that it’s a teacher at all. I just wanted to warn you.”
The warning was a good thing, because I was able to more or less prepare myself when I was called into the principal’s office for the second time that week during my conference period.
I walked in like I owned the place and acted like I had no idea why I was there.
“Did I get another complaint lodged against me?” I asked, real worry in my voice.
Though not for the complaint, but for the video.
She didn’t know that, though.
Mrs. Sherpa’s lips twisted into a grimace. “No, I’m sorry. Quite the opposite in fact. Have you seen the video going around the school today?”
I blinked innocently at her.
“Ummm,” I hesitated. “No. What video? Is it of a fight?”
Oh, God. I was so going to hell.
Lying to the principal!
What had gotten into me?
“I have to say, Ms. Crusie, I’m quite disappointed in seeing this video,” Mrs. Sherpa noted. “I would’ve never expected these actions from you.”