Hissy Fit (The Southern Gentleman #1)(49)

“I heard you were seeing Coach Casper. How can you be with Coach Casper and Ms. Crusie at the same time?” another student, Rebecca, called out.

That was when I felt my stomach sour.

“Sorry, Becky. I’m not seeing anybody else but this hellion in my arms. Could y’all give us two seconds?” Ezra asked as he started to tug me out of the classroom.

“We guess so, Coach Duff!” another student called.

That one I couldn’t pinpoint who it was, but I had a feeling it was another one of his junior varsity players. The students that didn’t have him as an actual coach called him ‘McDuff’ while his players called him ‘Duff.’ It’d been something I’d recognized as I’d spent more and more time with the man.

The door closed in my face, and I sighed and turned, plastering my back against it. “Yes?”

I was still kind of pissed, but I was losing my ire rather quickly since he’d followed me, left Coach Casper, and then declared himself in front of my first period class.

By noon that’d be all over, that was for sure. Once lunchtime hit, there wouldn’t be a student in the entire school that didn’t know.

“Can I help you?” I asked, trying to hide my non-irritation when he only continued to stare at me with those all too knowing eyes. “I do have a class to teach.”

“Summer is almost here, woman.” He laughed. “You don’t have to teach shit.”

He did have a point. The only thing I really had to do with my class was go over the study guide I’d handed out yesterday, and make sure that they didn’t have any questions. Which, they likely wouldn’t. This was my smart bunch. My all A class that rarely ever needed anything from me other than to run their tests through the automatic scanner.

Now, if this had been my third period class, they’d be pounding at the door already asking for me to check their study guides.

“Whatever,” I muttered. “Seriously, what do you want?”

Ezra grinned.

Then he did the one thing I hadn’t expected.

He kissed me.

And my entire class behind me squealed—even the boys.

Ezra, laughing, left me there to deal with the havoc he’d created and sauntered down the hallway toward what I assumed was his office.

“That wasn’t nice, Mr. McDuff,” I called out to his back.

“It’s Coach McDuff, Ms. Crusie. Get it right.” He winked at me, then turned the corner to the hallway and disappeared.

My high lasted all of thirty minutes.

Why? Because one of my little turd-burglar students had posted a picture of Ezra giving me mouth to mouth, and I was reprimanded by Mrs. Sherpa to ‘keep it professional’ in front of students in a rather lengthy email.

I just knew that Ezra hadn’t gotten one, either.

My suspicions were confirmed when I texted him during the time between third period and lunch.

I was right.

He hadn’t gotten one.

But Coach Casper’s smug face, the first person I’d seen when I walked into the teacher workroom to grab my lunch, didn’t help.

“I hear that you were caught fraternizing,” she said stiltedly. “That’s quite unprofessional of you, isn’t it?”

I spilled balsamic dressing on my white shirt moments after that and then had to count to ten to keep myself from punching her in the nose.

It was Coach Casper giving me a mocking look that had what good mood Ezra had left me with disintegrating.

She’d sneered at me. “I just don’t know what he sees in you, but when he comes to his senses and comes crawling back, I’ll be here.”

“Crawling back?” I asked woodenly.

I didn’t want to know.

I didn’t want to know.

I should leave before she answered.

I didn’t leave, though.

Which proved to be part of my own stupidity.

I just couldn’t help myself, though.

I had to know what she was talking about.

Had. To.

“You didn’t know?” She snickered. “Ezra and I were a thing before you came along, tripping in front of him and giving yourself a bloody nose. That morning he’d spent the day in my bed.”

And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Carefully picking up my Tupperware bowl that still had half of my salad in it, I tucked it gently into my lunch box and started out the door.

It was Coach Casper’s laugh that echoed through my brain all the way to Ezra’s office.

Ezra was busy when I entered his office.

He had on a pair of reading glasses I’d never seen him wear before, and he was talking on the phone to someone while discussing a play that had become illegal between the upcoming season and the last.

He saw me and frowned when he got a good look at my face.

“I gotta go,” he said into the receiver. “I’ll give you a call back tomorrow once I get more info on the rule. Right. Bye.”

Once he hung the phone up, he stood and started toward me, but I stopped him before he could get too close by holding my hand up.

“Stop,” I ordered, sounding sad.

He did, tilting his head to look at me.

“What’s wrong?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and tried not to scream at him.