Hissy Fit (Southern Gentleman 1)

Ezra glared at me. “I loosened it.”

I snorted. “No, you fell for the crocodile tears.”

Ezra shrugged. “I fall for yours, too.”

That was true.

I smiled weakly.

“I don’t cry to get you to give me things, though,” I admitted. “I cry because I’m a klutz that can’t keep herself upright.”

Moira took the tooth I held out to her in her hand, and then ran out of the room without so much as a thank you.

Once the door slammed, another wave of nausea hit me.

That quick, I ran for the door, all thoughts of teeth and Ezra’s smile forgotten.

***

It was the phone call that woke me from a dead sleep.

“Hello?” Ezra growled.

I rolled over and stared at Ezra’s back. I could barely make him out, and the only thing in the entire room that was lit up was the alarm clock that read ‘3:03’ and the light from his phone.

“Gotcha,” Ezra assented as he stood up and made his way to the closet. “Don’t let them leave. I’ll be there in ten minutes, max.”

With that, he hung up and blew out a long breath.

“What is it?” I muttered into his pillow.

I was so tired. After the afternoon we’d spent watching Ezra’s niece while his sister took her son to the doctor in Dallas, I was not happy to find the phone ringing in the middle of the night.

The nausea had finally abated, but I could still feel traces of the food poisoning causing my system to abhor the thought of food.

Pairing that with the fact that we’d started school back three days ago, and I was practically a zombie, I was not doing well. Granted, we’d only had the students there for two of them, and it was now officially Saturday morning and I didn’t have to do anything tomorrow, but I just couldn’t rouse myself long enough to get out of bed and go with him.

“Couple of my players were caught loitering in the school parking lot. I’m heading there to take them home,” he murmured.

I moaned. “I’m going to kill them.”

I felt his phone hit the bed and blinked one eye open to see him quickly tugging a shirt over his head.

Ezra chuckled and bent over the bed, placing a quick kiss on my cheek. “I’ll do it for you on Monday at practice. Don’t worry.”

With that, he left.

I heard the sound of his truck start up, but even then, I was only conscious long enough to think that his truck was really quite loud at three o’clock in the morning.

It was the ringing of the phone that woke me up again.

This time when I blinked open my eyes, it was to find that the clock read three forty-one.

Son of a bitch.

Reaching blindly for the phone that I now realized Ezra left, I snatched it up and placed it to my ear, muttering a ‘hello’ that likely didn’t sound as coherent as I’d meant it.

“Got a kid of yours here, Coach,” I heard. “He’s drunk off his ass.”

I blinked open my eyes and stared hard at the wall in frustration. “Where is here?” I asked. “And this is the coach’s soon-to-be wife.”

He rattled off the address. “Sorry if I woke you. I normally call the coach when his kids are in trouble.”

I brushed off his apology and sat up, heading for clothes that had been hastily discarded onto the floor when we’d arrived home. “I’ll be there in ten. Don’t let him leave.”

He should’ve let him leave.

Why?

Because it wasn’t a player of Ezra’s that was drunk off his ass. It was an ex-player of Ezra’s, and the kid that scared the bejesus out of me.

Before I could tell him to find his own ride home, he climbed in my car and I had a choice to make.

It was the wrong one.

***

Ezra

I pulled into the driveway and stared at Raleigh’s missing car, a sense of foreboding overtaking me.

The moment I got inside, I searched for the phone that I’d left on the bed and found it amongst the hastily cast-aside sheets.

After looking up the last number to call, I groaned and headed back out to my truck.

As I went, I made the call back to Chocchie.

“Yellow?” he answered, sounding tired.

“Chocchie,” I said. “It’s McDuff. You got my girl there?”

Chocchie grunted. “She just arrived to pick up your boy.”

“Which one?” I asked, already heading back out to my truck.

“The one with the smart mouth,” Chocchie said as if that was enough for me to figure out who it was. Didn’t he know that they all had smart mouths as kids?

“That doesn’t really narrow it down, man,” I grumbled, getting into the vehicle and starting it back up.

“Hold on,” he paused. “I’ll go…oh, fuck me. Shit, shit! Call 9-1-1!”

I didn’t know who he was talking to, but by the time I arrived at his bar two and a half minutes later, I had a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. One that grew when I arrived to find Raleigh on the ground, holding a white bar towel to her face while she watched Chocchie try to keep Mackie on the ground.