Quit Bein' Ugly (The Southern Gentleman 3)

Camryn motioned for me to move over, and I did, scooting closer and closer to Croft until I was practically touching him from hip to shoulder.

“More,” Flint grumbled.

I rolled my eyes and gestured toward the kid that was taking up half of a cushion.

“No can do, bro,” I said.

Flint looked at the kid, tilted his head, and then lifted him up in one smooth motion.

J looked at Flint.

“I can’t believe in a few short weeks, you’ll have one of those.” Raleigh sighed. “Camryn, I love you so much.”

“I know, right?” Camryn started to cry around a piece of pizza.

“You’re going to choke,” I pointed out.

Croft scooted over on the couch until he was next to the arm, and then carefully lifted his bad arm up to place it on top of it before lifting his good one up for me to climb closer.

“Come on,” he urged.

I went, tucking my head under his chin and curling into his body.

He wasn’t the only one that’d had a long day.

In fact, if I could curl up right here and go to sleep…

• • •

CROFT

She fell asleep against me like it was the most normal thing in the world to do.

“She’s such a loser,” Flint grumbled. “I swear, she’s been doing that since she was born. All it takes is one lousy cuddle, and she’s out.”

“She’s sweet,” my mother admitted. “I’m excited for you, honey.”

“Excited about what?” Camryn asked around another bite of pizza.

“My brother finally pulled his head out of his ass and is dating the CrossFit queen.” Raleigh clapped her hands.

“She hates when you call her that,” Flint chuckled. “Why do you call her that?”

“Because when we started CrossFit, she was the woman we wanted to be,” Camryn said around a bite of pizza. “Seriously. She showed us how to do handstand pushups one day, and like just kicked up onto the wall and started knocking them out like it was nothing. Then, when we all try, we can’t accomplish shit. And she’s so fuckin’ pretty, too.”

“Amen.” Raleigh sighed. “She can wear those short shorts and rock them while the rest of us can’t even walk out of the house in pants.”

“You can pull off shorts,” Flint said, patting his wife’s thigh.

“Yeah.” She paused. “But not like she can.”

Camryn had a smoking body. She always had.

But she was right.

She’d never, not once, been able to fill out a pair of booty shorts the way that Carmichael could.

The first time I’d ever walked into their gym, I’d zeroed in on her.

She’d been bent over doing a deadlift with her ass to the door. She’d been mid-workout, her face sweaty, her shirt caught up in her shorts, and her legs quivering as she lifted a heavy barbell. But her ass. My God, her ass.

I had dreams about that ass.

“I know that look,” Ezra drawled.

I curled up my lip at him and flipped him off with my good hand. “I don’t want to know about you having these looks when it comes to my sister.”

“You’re just jealous,” Raleigh teased.

“I’m most certainly not,” I disagreed. “I have what I want. And I seriously don’t want to think about y’all. Just no.”

Ezra dropped a kiss to Raleigh’s neck, and I caught his eyes and narrowed my own, a nonverbal ‘watch yourself’ passing from me to him.

He grinned and looked to my parents to see my mother staring at me with hearts in her eyes.

“I want more grandbabies,” she ordered. “And to accomplish that, you probably should start working on it.”

I rolled my eyes, but the thought was planted.

Carmichael pregnant with my baby did sound really fucking awesome.

Like, so awesome that I just might get her that way. If she’d let me, anyway.

“We’ll see, Mom,” I teased. “Could someone go let the dogs out?”

Mom got up and did that, taking the now-empty pizza box with her.

Danger, huddled close to her side, stayed with her, surprising me.

“Maybe Danger will do good with her,” Raleigh said softly. “They don’t look like they hate each other.”

“No,” I agreed. “They don’t.”

CHAPTER 14

Kind of a lady. More of a pervert.

-Coffee Cup

CARMICHAEL

When I woke up the next morning, Croft was gone.

I was also asleep in my bed, with an obvious dent where Croft had once laid his head for the night, and the smell of him on my sheets.

After getting up, I walked through the house, finding that I was alone.

Danger was nowhere to be found, which obviously meant that she’d gone with Merida, Mrs. Crusie.

Lion was gone, too, which prompted me to look outside and take a look across the street.

Croft was nowhere to be found—or his car anyway—but there was a police cruiser sitting outside my house.

I looked at my watch and winced.

I was supposed to be teaching a noon class in about thirty minutes.

I’d better hurry if I was going to make it in time.