Hissy Fit (The Southern Gentleman Series Book 1)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “Will do,” I verbalized. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  She gave an affirmative sound, and then hung up, losing track of what she was doing when her youngest son, Colton, asked her a question.

  Colton was autistic, and after struggling in school for three years, they decided that he needed a different school that would work better for him. That school was out two more days, meaning her other two had already started while Colton was at home with my mom.

  My mind was on Colton, so I wasn’t paying as much attention when I opened the door, but I didn’t miss the white streak of blond hair run past me as I tried to walk through it.

  Frowning, I turned to see a little boy, about three or four years old, sprint toward the parking lot, and every single protective instinct inside of me started to take flight.

  I ran after the boy and caught him before he could get past the stupid big red balls that lined the front walk.

  I turned and hefted him up on my hip just as the mother came running out.

  She took him from me, gave him a stern glare, and walked back inside without a word.

  I stood there, stunned.

  A thank you would’ve at least been nice!

  Glaring at the woman’s back as I followed her inside, I made my way to the men’s section. While I was here, I might as well get the underwear and undershirts I’d been avoiding getting seeing as I fuckin’ hated Target.

  I couldn’t walk into the damn store without running into someone I knew, and honestly, I was tired.

  The football season had been a long one, and I hadn’t gotten a chance to take a deep breath before I was forced to dive into baseball season. I had exactly two weeks before it was time to switch gears, and I wanted to take that time to recoup.

  Going into Target would mean I’d have to talk to someone, I knew it.

  Yet, my nephew’s health was more important than my privacy, so I trudged into the store and headed straight for the underwear.

  After finding the cheapest pack—I was a coach, not a millionaire—I snatched up a value-sized pack of white undershirts, and then made my way to the condom aisle. Once there, I snatched up the generic brand of condoms that was also the cheapest and made my way to the front of the store.

  Lucky for me, they now had that self-checkout, otherwise I would never consider buying condoms in this town.

  Hiding the offending box between the underwear and the shirts, I made my way to the middle of the store, spotting the wrapping paper in the middle of the aisle near the checkout.

  A little kid darted out in front of me—the same one from earlier—and caused me to growl in frustration.

  How hard was it to watch your kid? It was more than obvious that this one was trying extremely hard to be obstinate, and his mother was doing nothing to ensure that he was contained.

  When the kid grabbed a box of Little Debbies off the shelf and started helping himself to the contents of the box, I just shook my head and went around him.

  But, while my attention was occupied elsewhere, I hadn’t been paying attention to what was in front of me.

  One second, I was walking, and the next I nearly maimed myself on a roll of wrapping paper that’d slid under my foot.

  Seconds later, about two hundred other rolls joined the first, taking four people down in its wake. A woman with her coffee, an employee in a red shirt that I thought I’d coached at one point in time a few years ago, the town electrician and a young woman with inky black hair and a banging body.

  Unfortunately, the woman with the banging body got to be on the receiving end of my belongings, taking the box of condoms straight to the face, the pair of value-sized shirts acting like a hammer as it followed the box down.

  Blood instantly spurted, and the woman rolled to her feet and made a mad dash to the bathroom, trailing blood behind her.

  I stood there, stunned for about thirty seconds before all hell broke loose.

  “Goddamn that woman,” the employee said as he dragged himself up off the ground. “If there was a way to ban a person, I’d do it with her. I swear, every single time she comes in here, something happens.”

  I looked at the kid with a raised eyebrow. “Seems to me that you’re being a little bitch.”

  I was a football coach—being nice wasn’t really in my genetic makeup.

  The kid sputtered, “Coach! You can’t say that in here! Think of the kids!”

  The one and only kid that I could still see, working on his second Little Debbie, had probably heard worse. His mother seemed like the type to let the television babysit him—and not censor what he watched.

  I looked back at the employee, shook my head, and then took a step in the direction of where the woman had run, feeling a sense of urgency. I needed to know that she was okay.

  I didn’t know why, but I felt it, so I was going with my gut.

  I kicked something when I took a step, and saw a phone amongst the blood, knowing instantly that it belonged to the woman.

  Bending over, I picked it up and glanced at the lit screen.

  Words, likely from an e-book, scrolled across the screen, but I didn’t glance at them until I was leaning against the wall waiting for the woman to come out.

  When I did, my heart skipped a beat.

  He bent her over, trailing the blunt head of his cock down her spine, painting her back with his pre-cum.

  My belly clenched, and I suddenly felt a different urgency take me.

  Not willing to actually change the page, I read the screen over and over again, waiting for the woman to come out of the bathroom.

  And when she did, I’d practically memorized the words.

  Then I felt something tap me in the backside, causing me to turn.

  “Excuse me,” a husky, feminine voice said from behind me.

  “Are you okay?” I blurted, seeing her blood-filled towel in her hand.

  She nodded, but I didn’t hear the words that came out of her mouth when she replied, because I was too focused on her face.

  I felt terrible for hurting her, even if it was by accident.

  “Ma’am?”

  Then her eyes glanced down at the phone in my hand, and her face turned eight shades of red.

  I had to fight not to smile.

  I let the phone go when she reached for it.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  Then, she turned, skirted around me, and started running for the door.

  When the doors didn’t open fast enough for her forward progress, she ran into one of them, and I had to hold in the burst of laughter that threatened to slip free.

  That woman was a hot mess.

  And I wanted to know more about her. Now.

  Chapter 3

  I’m a virgin.

  (This isn’t an old shirt)

  -T-shirt

  Raleigh

  “What do you mean you want me to teach the sex-ed class this year?” I asked, appalled at the mere thought of having to have that discussion with teenagers when I hadn’t even experienced the act myself.

  The horror must’ve been evident on my face because Mrs. Sherpa hurried to explain.

  “Normally this is handled by the coaches,” Mrs. Sherpa explained. “But with the football team entering state finals last season, Coach McDuff had to roll straight from football to baseball. He doesn’t have time to teach the health class.” She exhaled. “And, you’re the only one with an opening for the time period that health class would normally take place.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  I mean, sure, that was the case with ‘Coach McDuff.’ The Gun Barrel Devil Dogs did, in fact, make it to state—and won.

  The mere mention of ‘Coach McDuff’—also known as Ezra Doran McDuff, sexy coach in my head—had my heart rate accelerating.

  But…sex-ed.

  I didn’t do sex.

  I didn’t have sex.

  I didn’t
know about sex.

  I didn’t even think about sex—okay, that last one is a lie. I thought about sex…with Ezra. I didn’t think about sex with anyone else, though.

  That, and I read about it. But reading about it and doing it were two entirely different things.

  “W-what age group are we talking here?” I asked, hoping that it was with a bunch of immature ninth graders.

  “Mainly, it’d be the junior and senior level. Grades ten and nine can move down to take health at the junior high, or we can put them off until next year due to availability. But the seniors don’t have the choice to put it off. So, it’ll be one class, with about thirty students in it.”

  That made me want to vomit.

  I worked with the ninth graders because they were still too young to have attitudes, and they weren’t so big that they could overpower me if they got pissed off. The upperclass boys—let’s just say that if they wanted to, they could take me down in a heartbeat.

  Just the idea of all those big football players in a class of mine made me nauseous.

  I knew, logically, that they weren’t going to do anything.

  But thanks to my first and only foray into senior level classes when I was a student teacher—I’d quickly realized that senior classes weren’t where I wanted to be.

  But that was thanks to a certain senior, that was now a convict, in a maximum-security prison.

  At the time, he’d only been a stupid seventeen, almost eighteen-year-old kid, that thought he’d be able to obtain an A by sexing up the student teacher. When I’d informed him that I was uninterested, he’d taken it as a personal affront, and had made it his mission in life to make my life hell.

  Shortly after the end of the year, Cramer Winters, my personal stalker, failed his Algebra class. When he’d received his grade, he’d come to the office to complain to the teacher. Only, the teacher hadn’t been there. I had.

  And he’d sexually assaulted me—though he’d not gotten as far as he’d been intending.

  Luckily, the actual teacher had walked in right about the time that Cramer had been about to penetrate me.

  I’d been unconscious and bloody, unaware of the horror that the teacher had saved me from until much later on that day.

  The bad thing was that another student had seen him assaulting me and hadn’t done a thing about it.

  That left a deep-seated fear in me when it came to the elder students that should’ve helped and didn’t.

  It’d taken everything I had to continue with my teaching degree. Then, when I’d tried to find a job with the younger age group, I’d hit hurdle after hurdle, until finally, I’d found a job working with the younger generation of high schoolers.

  It was a good fit for me.

  “I don’t know…”

  “Listen, Ms. Crusie. I’m going to be honest with you here. You’re already one of the newest teachers here, that means that most of the other teachers have seniority. You’re the most qualified. Either you take it, or we’ll find someone new that can. Coach McDuff is willing to give you all of his materials and sit in on the first few classes to help smooth the transition over,” Mrs. Sherpa was saying. “I know that you’re nervous with teaching the upper levels due to your previous…problems. But he promises that it’ll be okay. They’re good kids, and most of them are his ball players. He can ensure that they stay in line.”

  She didn’t have to say the words. I knew what she meant.

  Either I did what I was being asked to do, or I would be fired, and someone else would be hired that could just as easily do my job and teach the sex-ed class.

  “Fine,” I said, my voice shaky. “When do you want me to start?”

  She looked at her watch. “Now.”

  ***

  I arrived in the senior hallway and tried not to jump at the sound of lockers slamming, boisterous laughter, and the yells and shouts of the seniors all around me.

  Today was Friday, and it was the last class before school let out for the weekend, plus it was a game day. It was understandable that they were getting excited.

  That didn’t make my paranoia or nerves, react any better.

  I shuffled into the classroom and came to a sudden halt when I found nearly the entire room full to bursting.

  The bell hadn’t even rung yet, and it was this full?

  Why?

  Every single desk in the room was filled, and two older boys were standing.

  “Wow,” I murmured as I took everyone in. “I’m impressed that everyone is here and seated already.”

  “That’s because if we’re late, Coach McDuff kicks our a…”

  I gave Johnson a level look. “Don’t.”

  He pretended to zip his lips and throw away the key, causing me to roll my eyes.

  The kid was a sweetheart, and cute as a button. I remembered when he was still a boy and he had that head full of curls.

  I used to babysit him in the church nursery, and Johnson McDuff Berey had immediately curled himself in my lap the moment he’d entered the nursery doors.

  From there, I’d play with those baby soft curls and dream of one day having a little boy exactly like him.

  And now he was so grown and taller than me to boot.

  “I was under the impression that this was a senior class,” I said softly to Johnson.

  Johnson grinned. “It helps to have the coach be your uncle. He was able to work me into his class…before they decided to utilize his services elsewhere.”

  I frowned. “Utilize his services elsewhere?”

  He nodded. “Didn’t they tell you that he’s taking over helping the new track coach? That’s why he’s not teaching this class. Apparently, Coach Casper isn’t able to keep up with all the demands of the track team.”

  It kind of annoyed me that they’d lied to me about why Ezra wasn’t able to teach this class, but again, I was one of the newest hired along with the new track coach. A track coach who, might I add, wasn’t in the least bit unable to do her job. Likely, she was just pulling the overwhelmed card to get Ezra to help her.

  I swallowed and looked away, searching for something, anything, to get my mind off of those two.

  I hated Coach Casper. She was a douche canoe and hated me.

  I’d never done anything to her, but you trip a chick one time, causing her to drop her coffee on her new shoes, and she hates you.

  Coach Casper hadn’t even given me the chance to apologize.

  Using the time to collect myself, I pulled the chair out from under the desk at the front of the room and rolled it in Johnson’s direction. “Sit here until we can find you a new desk. You there, take that tall chair in the back of the room.”

  The other kid, a boy that’d been standing there talking to Johnson when I’d walked in, gave me a tight smile and headed in the direction I’d indicated.

  Once they were all seated, I pointed at the first desk farthest away from Johnson and said, “Introduce yourself.”

  They did so, one by one, until there was only one.

  “I know you, but go ahead so they don’t think I’m playing favorites this early in the semester,” I ordered Johnson.

  Johnson smiled, looking so much like Ezra that it made my heart hurt.

  “Johnson McDuff Berey. I’m the star of the Devil Dogs, and I play first base. I have a hot a—”

  “Johnson, you finish that sentence, and I’ll take your ass to the field house,” a dark, deep, menacing voice said from directly behind me.

  I squeaked and jumped, whirling around as I did, putting as much space in between Ezra and I that I could with the distance that the desk behind me afforded.

  He looked at me like I’d hurt his feelings.

  I kind of felt bad, but I couldn’t help my reactions.

  They were what they were, and there wasn’t a damn thing that I could do about it. I would know—I’d tried.

  “You scared the dickens out of me,” I whispered.r />
  He studied me like I was a bug.

  I knew he was trying to place how he knew me.

  Luckily, I’d done a damn fine job at covering my nearly blackened eyes.

  It’d been two whole weeks that they’d had to heal, and goddamn if they were taking their sweet ass time.

  It was pretty darn sad that his nephew knew me, but he didn’t.

  I mean, the man had practically seen me do the splits in front of him. Then he’d dropped a box of condoms on me making me bleed…how could you forget that?

  Then again, I’d taught Johnson just last year.

  I knew that Ezra still couldn’t place me, and I had a feeling it was likely due to my school attire, and the fact that my hair was down concealing my face.

  Then again, it could be that he didn’t recognize me without all the blood…

  “I brought you my notes,” he said. “Ms. Crusie, yes?”

  I nodded, taking the notes he handed me with shaking fingers.

  When he didn’t immediately let them go when I tried to take them, I dropped my hand.

  He frowned.

  What, was he expecting me to play tug o’ war with it?

  He shook the papers impatiently this time, and I resisted the urge to take them on general principle at this point. “You can set them down on the desk.”

  He narrowed his eyes.

  I skirted around the desk and walked to the door, waiting there patiently for him to leave.

  Once he was gone, I’d lock the door—just like school policy dictated.

  Until then, I waited while he stared me down like I was in trouble.

  “Is there anything I can help with?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  He blew out a breath. “In that case, I’m going to go.”

  Good for you.

  Instead of saying my inner thoughts aloud, I only smiled serenely.

  Or tried to.

  I think it came out more as a grimace.

  When he hesitated next to me in the doorway, I had to fight the urge to squirm.

  He was giving me his coach stare, the one I’d seen him pull out for wayward students that miss-stepped in his presence.

  I licked my suddenly dry lips and looked at him.

  I saw the moment that recognition lit his eyes, but then a woman called his name.