Hissy Fit (The Southern Gentleman #1)(56)

He’d found the receipt for his wrapping paper when we were moving, and today was officially the day.

“Sure,” Ezra yawned broadly. “I just gotta go take a shower.”

I glanced at him.

He was now leaning against the couch with his head buried between two couch cushions—oh, and his eyes weren’t open.

“Do you want to try that new place on High Road?” I asked about Poison Jacks, the newest bar/pub in town.

Ezra squinted at me for all of two point five seconds before shaking his head. “Nah. That doesn’t look like my type of place.”

I walked over to the back of the couch and leaned my hands on the cushions before leaning over so that our faces were lined up, though upside down.

He blinked open his eyes, and I felt my heart flutter in my chest.

“How about a movie?” I asked softly. “We can rent one on Amazon, and I can order pizza.”

His smile was soft. “Why are you so good to me?”

I bent until our lips were touching, delicately placing a single chaste kiss on his lips before pulling away. “Because I love you, Coach McDuff. Even when you smell like sweaty balls.”

Before I could so much as pull away, he had me around the waist and I was flying head over heels onto the couch.

My shriek of surprise had me shaking as laughter started to pour out of me.

Then, I got an up close and personal interaction with his crotch, and he most definitely didn’t smell like sweaty balls. He smelled like sexy man.

And before I knew it, neither one of us was thinking about much of anything but each other.

An hour later, we did indeed end up having pizza and watching a movie, which I guess worked out for us since tomorrow was our first official day back at school.

Ezra had technically been there for the last two weeks when he’d started two-a-days with the football team, but tomorrow would be our first day back as we got our classrooms ready for students.

“I’m not looking forward to tomorrow,” I groaned into his side. “I want to live like this forever.”

He ran his palm up my hip and settled it just underneath my breasts. “Maybe next year.”

I frowned and rolled until my head was resting on his thigh. “Why next year?”

His grin was slow but wide. “Because next year, you’ll be my wife, and I hope to have you knocked up before we’re home from our honeymoon.”

My brows rose. “You have to actually ask me for me to be your wife.”

Ezra’s eyes flicked back up to the screen. “Are you coming to my CrossFit class in the morning, or do you want me to let you sleep?”

I rolled my eyes.

Ezra and CrossFit.

Ezra had a new love affair with the class. And I’m not talking about ‘oh, CrossFit is awesome!’ I’m talking, ‘if I don’t do CrossFit, I might very well die.’

One of his students had urged him to go with him, and that was all it took. He was hooked. He’d started CrossFit at the beginning of the summer, and now, right before the start of the school year, he was planning how to continue doing it with his school schedule.

At first, I’d gone with him purely out of curiosity.

Now, I knew better than to think that CrossFit was for me. It wasn’t a joke, and honestly, I’d rather just stick to my occasional walk around the neighborhood.

After dropping a fifteen-pound wall ball on my face instead of catching it, and trailing blood all over the gym on the way to the bathroom like a murder victim, I’d come to the conclusion that things were just better when I didn’t participate in extreme sports.

But then he’d made me go a second time…and let’s just say that hadn’t been the best idea ever.

***

One month ago

“Come on,” Ezra urged. “Tomorrow is a partner WOD.”

I blinked. “What’s a WOD?”

“Workout of day,” he explained the acronym as if it was perfectly normal to shorten everything one was saying so that normal, non-CrossFitters, didn’t understand half of what was being said. “And I promise, I would not make you come to this if it was hard.”

I thought about my bloody nose this morning and cringed. “I’ll go if you don’t make me go to that same class time. Everybody in there has already messaged me on Facebook asking how my face is. I don’t think I could handle seeing them again so soon. At least if I go to a different class, they might think that you abuse me instead of me abusing myself.”

Ezra rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Seriously? You’d rather someone think that I beat you instead of them thinking that you’re a clumsy person?”

My laugh was my answer as I’d gone to bed that night, and now, staring at the workout on the whiteboard, I wondered what I’d gotten myself in to.

“Who is Diane?” I wondered aloud.

“Diane is the name of the workout,” Ezra murmured, his arms crossed over his chest as he listened to the coach explain what we’d be doing today.

“We’re going to do…” That’s about when I zoned out. The sheer amount of work he was wanting me to do was flabbergasting.

“You want me to do handstand push-ups?” I asked in surprise.

He looked at me like I was cute—the coach, not Ezra. Ezra looked at me like I was his.