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“I’m in the room right next to the office. I’m teaching pre-cal this period,” I answered quietly.
“Do you want me to go let them in while you get cleaned up?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I won’t be a minute,” I said, trying not to sound like I wanted to spend any time with him when I’d like to spend as much with him as possible.
Hell, I’d take getting hit in the face again by his door if it meant that I’d get to spend another ten minutes with him. I was that obsessed with the man.
Then, as if she could sense that I was close to spending five minutes with the man, Coach Casper came up and put her hand on Ezra’s shoulder. “Heya, Coach!”
I didn’t wait around.
I hightailed it to the bathroom and tried not to cry.
What would it take for someone to notice me?
By the time I’d cleaned up in the staff bathroom, I headed hurriedly to my classroom, apologizing profusely once I arrived.
“Sorry, y’all,” I apologized to the students that were lining the wall outside my classroom. “Carpool was a pain in the bottom today.”
The students didn’t care. They were genuinely happy that they had five fewer minutes of class.
“Turn to page sixty-four in your textbook,” I said tiredly. “And did you study the chapter like I asked?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the class droned.
“Why do we have to go over this again? We learned this last semester.”
I looked up to find Quentin Jones, the star JV quarterback and resident funny guy, staring at me with a pained expression on his face.
“Well, if you know all of this, why are you in my class?”
“Because we’re required to be here to graduate,” Quentin popped off.
I snorted and moved to sit on the edge of my desk.
When I did, it caused the slit in my skirt to hike up slightly—which was of course when Ezra passed by with Coach Casper nipping closely at his heels.
I gritted my teeth as I watched them both sneak into the staff room, and turned back to my class, trying my best to ignore Coach Casper’s annoying nasally voice.
“Who wants to show me how to work the first equation?” I asked the class as a whole.
Nobody raised their hands, and I snorted.
“I have M&Ms!” I said, patting a glass jar on my desk that was filled to the brim with the sweet delicacies.
“I like M&Ms, Ms. Crusie,” came a deep male voice.
I startled and turned, nearly falling to my butt. I only caught myself just in time to look undignified.
“No way, Coach!” Quentin argued. “Those are ours. You go find your own M&Ms!”
Ezra’s lips peeled back into a genuine grin.
I looked past him to see Coach Casper glaring at me.
I would’ve given her a smug look had she not looked entirely too mad at me for some unknown reason.
“Aren’t you supposed to have your classroom door shut at all times, per the superintendent’s letter, Ms. Crusie?” Coach Casper asked sweetly, sidling up to Ezra’s side.
I swallowed the retort that came to my lips and smiled serenely.
Another student answered for me, though.
“We have one more student coming who’s in a wheelchair, Coach Casper. He can’t get in with the door closed,” Jasslyn, the resident goth, droned monotonously. “In fact, he’s right there behind you.”
Both Coach Casper and Ezra turned to find Morgan patiently waiting for both adults to move the hell out of his way.
Normally Morgan was very abrupt, but he looked off.
I instantly stood up and started walking toward him.
“Ezra, would you mind staying here for a moment?” I asked, for the first time specifically looking the man in the eye and asking him a question.
Ezra blinked, then nodded, looking taken aback that I’d actually addressed him and given him eye contact at the same time.
He stepped around me and into the room. “I’ll catch up with you later, Coach Casper.”
Coach Casper turned on her heels and headed back to the staff room, leaving me in the hallway as Ezra passed me in the doorway.
He went to lean on the desk where I was just leaning, and I took the time to move farther down the hall and gesture to Morgan as I did.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Morgan was a very blunt boy. He didn’t care about propriety, and that likely had a lot to do with the situation he found himself in at a very young age.
He was seventeen, and in a sophomore class that he had to retake.
At the age of fifteen, Morgan had been in a four-wheeler wreck that had nearly taken his life. When he’d woken up from the coma he’d been put in to help with the swelling, it’d been to find out that not only was Morgan very hurt, but he would likely never be able to walk again. He was currently paralyzed from the waist down.
