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  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.

  He’d missed more than a year of school and was just now getting back to his scheduled classes. So not only was he just now returning, but all of his old friends were seniors this year and leaving him behind.

  “I’m fine,” Morgan lied. “Can we go inside?”

  He looked away and fidgeted, clearly agitated.

  “What’s a soldier’s least favorite month?” I blurted.

  I wanted a smile out of this kid’s mouth more than I wanted to feel Ezra’s attention focused entirely on me.

  Morgan had suffered through quite a bit, and it was very rare that I saw the poor thing smile.

  “Ms. Crusie…”

  I grinned, knowing I had him.

  “Fine. What month?” he asked, a small smile popping out over his lips.

  “Allich.”

  He snorted, rolling his eyes like every teenager had before him.

  “That’s so corny,” he grunted. “You ready to teach me something new?”

  “Well,” I said, walking around the kid. “According to Quentin, there’s nothing that I’m teaching today that y’all didn’t learn last semester.”

  I rolled Morgan through the door and to the special table that was put into the classroom specifically for him.

  Ezra looked up, interest clearly written on his face, as we entered.

  He didn’t stop talking about this Friday’s baseball game against Center, though.

  “…game is at six. I think Ms. Crusie should go, don’t y’all?” Ezra asked cheerfully.

  “Nooooo!” every single one of my students replied, even Morgan.

  I froze for a whole two seconds, before shaking my head. “Y’all don’t want me there. I’m bad luck.”

  The entire room broke out in laughter, and they all took turns explaining just how bad of luck I really was.

  Seriously, every single game I went to, whether it be football, soccer, baseball, or volleyball, all turned into a loss for our school.

  I would not be attending any games in the foreseeable future.

  At least, the students didn’t want me to, anyway.

  I knew that just as well as they did.

  “There was this one time that Ms. Crusie walked through the door of the volleyball game,” Andrea started. “She entered through the right-side doors and tripped and fell on a rug. When she fell, the drink she’d been holding spilled, causing the mascot to slip and fall, too. The sign he was holding went sailing across the court and knocked our middle blocker out cold. She ended up needing six stitches.”

  Then it was Quentin’s turn.

  “Last year, Ms. Crusie went to our junior varsity game against Tidestell. Do you remember Coach Roby telling you about how that ‘dumb lady with the heart of gold’ knocked out his star player? That was Ms. Crusie’s fault. Apparently, she tried to toss him a bottle of water, and it slipped through his hands and nailed him in the throat. He couldn’t catch his breath the rest of the game.”

  Ezra’s eyes turned to survey me.

  “She caused an accident, eh?”

  I felt my face flame.

  I caused a lot of accidents.

  “All right,” I swallowed. “It’s time to get to work. Coach, thank you for sitting with my class for a moment.”

  Ezra got up from where he was leaning against my desk, and the entire thing creaked when his bulk was lifted free.

  I swallowed.

  Just standing beside it, my desk that seemed so massive to me looked quite tiny and delicate compared to him.

  He started walking toward me, and I went to move out of his way at the same time he grabbed my hand and tugged me with him.

  I gave my class a look over my shoulder. “Flip to the correct pages and start working the equation in Test 2B.”

  Groans followed my exit, and I was smiling when I finally came to a halt right outside the door.

  That was when I realized that Ezra McDuff was still holding my hand.

  His fingers wrapped clear around my wrist and overlapped themselves. Our skin couldn’t be more different. I had pale, pasty white skin where he had rough, tanned skin. He looked like he was outside all day everyday—which he was. I looked just like I stayed inside and didn’t dare venture out—which I didn’t.

  Venturing out meant accidents and running into people that called me the plague.

  That just wasn’t for me.

  That, and I really loved to read. It was hard to read when there was direct sunlight glaring across your screen.

  “Is Morgan all right?” he asked.

  I melted a little bit at the concern in his voice.

  “Yes,” I replied, smiling. “He’s okay. Well, he could be better, but I think he’s going to make it.”

  He blinked. “I haven’t seen him in months. Not since his accident…he looks bad, Raleigh.”

  I blinked.

  That was the first time I’d ever heard him use my name. I hadn’t even realized that he knew my name.

  He’d only ever called me Ms. Crusie.

  “I know. But each day he gets a little bit better. I’m keeping an eye on him, and hopefully he’ll trust me if he ever has any problems,” I murmured.

  I knew, better than anyone ever knew, what it was like to be an outsider in this very school.

  It was hard to be in the shadows, looking in while everyone else moved to a different beat all around you.

  I couldn’t tell you how many times that I’d wished it was me sitting beside Ezra and not the captain of the cheerleaders, Sonny Sharlin. I’d watched them go to prom and homecoming. I’d watched him give her a massive mum and her wear it with pride. I’d been that weird girl that sat outside to eat her lunch—if she even ate at all.

  So yes, I knew that Morgan felt like an outsider. I saw the girl that sat on the stairs during lunch instead of joining the kids at the picnic tables in the courtyard.

  I was them not so long ago.

  “If you need anything, or think he needs to talk to a man…you can let me know. I’m more than willing to help.”

  I smiled a little bit sadly. “I’ll be sure to let you know if he ever requests it.”

  Which he wouldn’t.

  I’d be lucky if Morgan ever said a word to me about anything that was concerning him.

  After today, I knew that I was going to have to watch him a little bit better, too.

  I didn’t trust that look in his eyes.

  Not even a little bit.

  “Okay.” He smiled and finally let go of my wrist.

  I looked down at my hand and wondered if the feeling of heat and comfort surrounding that small part of my body would ever feel the same again. I was betting not.

  I was touched, willingly, by Ezra McDuff.

  I would’ve snickered had that not been my fantasy.

  The poor guy had no clue that he’d just given me the world.

  He was paying attention to me, and I wasn’t embarrassing myself—being the reason he was paying attention.

  Win-win.

  His eyes changed. “Do you want to…”

  “Hey, Coach!” Coach Casper called from the break room. “Do you want some coffee to go?”

  When Ezra turned, so did I.

  Who was I kidding? I’d never be anything more than a last resort.

  Chapter 5

  I’m into fitness. Fitness taco into my mouth.

  -T-shirt

  Ezra

  “You do know, right, that the teacher that took over your sex-ed class is absolutely terrified to be in there with us, right?”

  I looked over at my nephew. “No. What are you talking about?”
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  “Just come watch her today. You’ll see. She’s like a tiny mouse in a room full of tomcats.”

  I frowned as I poured my coffee, wondering what exactly he was speaking about.

  She’d been covering my sex-ed class for a while now. Months. And she still hadn’t gotten used to it?

  “Okay,” I paused. “Are you planning on taking your gear or do you want me to bring it with me like I did last time?”

  Grady came into the kitchen before Johnson could answer and glared at me. “I made that coffee for me, fucker.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s my coffee pot.”

  Grady grunted and then pulled the coffee pod out of the Keurig and tossed it into the trash at the end of the counter. Moments later, he took another fresh pod out of the stand underneath the coffee pot and inserted it before turning to me.

  “If you don’t want to bring his gear, I will,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “I have to come pick up Moira from school around three, and then I can drop it off.” He leveled his son with a look. “If he’s got it ready to go that is.”

  Johnson set his bowl down into the sink. “Of course, I have it ready to go, Dad.”

  Then he calmly walked out of the room.

  I snorted.

  “Ten bucks says he hasn’t even pulled it out of the washer yet,” I commented.

  “Ten bucks says it’s still just as dirty right now as the day he took it off and threw it on the floor in his room after his game,” Grady countered.

  I snorted.

  He was going to lose that one. Mostly because when I’d seen my sister pick up his room, I’d given her my laundry to do, too.

  “I saw his mother picking up his floor for him,” I explained.

  “What’s this hullabaloo about a teacher being a chicken and your sex-ed class?” he asked, sighing when his cup of coffee finally finished brewing.

  I took a sip of my own coffee. “I asked for my sex-ed class to be taken over due to them tossing more responsibilities when it came to field maintenance on my shoulders. They found another teacher to take over the class. Johnson was saying that she’s scared to teach it.”

  Just saying it sounded as ridiculous as it was.

  Who would be scared to teach a sex-ed class? It was basic. Something that every single person in the world should know, even young, stupid kids in high school.

  “Who is this teacher?” he asked.

  I found myself smiling. “Her name is Raleigh…”

  “Crusie,” Grady finished for me. “Holy shit. I haven’t heard about her in a long time. Since when does she work at the school?”

  I frowned. “I don’t know…why do you know her?”

  Grady took a sip of his coffee and grimaced at the heat. “She graduated a year or two behind us. We shared the same homeroom class our senior year…remember?”

  No.

  No, I did not.

  “Are you sure?” I questioned.

  He nodded. “Sure as fuck. She was also in another class with us, but for the life of me I can’t remember which one. All I know is that you kicked her out of her seat, and the poor girl was blind as a bat and always used to ask me what was written on the screen.”

  I didn’t remember.

  But Grady had a mind like a steel trap. If he said it happened, then it did.

  “What’d she look like?” I asked.

  “Small, gangly, no boobs. Plain hair. Big glasses.” He paused. “She got her eyes fixed halfway through that year. I remember asking her why she didn’t wear them anymore. You remember them pulling a Carrie on her during prom, right?”

  I frowned, trying to think back to prom. I’d been drunk as fuck that day, and I couldn’t remember half of what had happened. Prom hadn’t been my favorite past time, but only because my high school girlfriend had told me she was pregnant, and she wasn’t sure who the father was. “What?”

  That’d been a bad day, but luckily a few days afterward, my prom date had informed me that she got her period and that we could continue on as we’d been doing before prom. I’d immediately told her to go screw the man she’d cheated on me with, Cody James.

  Speaking of the devil…

  “Cody James asked her to prom, and she went. Was dressed in that long Cinderella dress that Sonny spilled punch on, remember?” he pushed.

  Now that, I remembered.

  I didn’t remember the girl, so to speak, but I did remember the incident.

  My date, Sonny, had tripped. She’d fallen into the punch bowl and the bowl had tipped over, spilling its contents on a lower classman that had come with my rival, Cody James. I hadn’t paid her a second thought.

  But now I felt bad.

  I remembered the way that dress looked. I also remembered her hurrying out of the gym and not coming back. Cody James had started flirting with Sonny’s best friend, Eliza. Then Eliza and Cody had fucked in the janitor’s closet.

  “Ouch,” I acknowledged. “That sucks. I do remember that.”

  Mostly.

  “Yeah, heard she rented that prom dress and had to pay eight hundred bucks for it because the lace was stained red. Do you remember that time that that girl got ran over in the school parking lot?” Grady continued.

  “Yes,” I confirmed, a knot of worry filling my belly.

  “That was her—the one that was run over—not the one that was doing the running over. She was walking to her car and the school principal backed up and ran her over. Broke her hand and some kind of internal injuries,” Grady reminded me.

  I remembered that well. Principal French had gotten fired over that one.

  The girl had spent a month in the hospital and had returned looking like a scalded cat who looked like she’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson.

  “Holy shit,” I said. “How did I not know this?”

  Poor Raleigh. I felt awful. The poor thing sure the fuck didn’t have a great high school career, that was for sure—at least not that particular year anyway.

  “Because you were stuck up Sonny’s ass—literally and figuratively—and didn’t pay attention to anyone or anything but her and football in high school.”

  My sister came breezing into the room. “You were a pretty awful person.”

  I snorted. “You liar.”

  I wasn’t an awful person. I’d just been preoccupied at the time, trying to get a scholarship and take care of my family while also trying to make good grades, and have a social life.

  It definitely hadn’t been easy.

  “I’m not a liar. Grady, am I a liar?”

  Grady held up his hands in surrender. “Baby, that’s my best friend. You’re my wife. I am so not getting into the middle of this. And anyway, I’m tired as fuck.”

  Grady did look tired.

  He also was asked repeatedly to find a different job, but the money was good for this one, and it was kind of hard for a father of four to take a lower paying job when the one he had gave him two weeks off and gave him an extra two grand a month to blow how he saw fit.

  “Mom!” Johnson called, interrupting our discussion. “I can’t find one of my red socks in the washer. Did you happen to wash it and put it away already?”

  I held out my hand to Grady, and he slapped ten bucks into it, looking annoyed with his kid.

  “The last time I saw it, it was on the floor in your room. I put it on your desk so you wouldn’t forget about it.”

  Grady looked at me expectantly.

  “I’ll give you two back,” I countered.

  He shook his head. “I think it should be half. We were both right.”

  Truthfully, we were. And his son obviously had the same instincts.

  “I gotta get going,” I said as I walked to the front door. “Am I taking Moira today, or are you, Grady Goulash?”

  He flipped me off. “That was old in the sixth grade. Why do you insist on continuing to call me by that ridiculous name?”

  I grinned. />
  “Momma called you Grady God last night,” Moira came breezing into the room. “I heard her screaming it.”

  Everyone in the room took a few moments to digest those words.

  “That’s fucking disgusting.” Johnson gagged as he came shoving shit into his Gun Barrel issued school duffel bag. “I don’t even know what to say to that. I think my brain is broken. How the hell am I supposed to play while you’re talking about doing my mother?”

  “She was also talking about Daddy’s wood,” Moira continued as if she hadn’t done enough damage. “That she felt that he was as hard as a Louisville Slugger.”

  I bailed. “You can take your own kid to school. Tell her to forget the rest of it while I’m gone, for the love of all that’s holy.”

  Grady laughed at my back the entire way out the door.

  The slimeball.

  After using the trip to school to forget what I’d heard by cranking up the classic rock station on Pandora, I arrived at school and made arrangements with the lawn maintenance man to weed eat around the outfield fence. Went through the rest of my day half-assed, and genuinely worried about what I would find when the end of the day came. I wanted to see if what Johnson had said was true.

  Despite my hopes that what he’d said wasn’t correct, Johnson’s words were proven accurate.

  Raleigh did look absolutely terrified.

  At first, I’d thought that maybe Raleigh was just scared to teach the class.

  And, honestly? Maybe she was.

  But that wasn’t the root of her fear.

  She stayed up at the front of the class and asked questions, always being careful to keep the desk in between her and the classroom.

  At first, I couldn’t tell that there was anything wrong, really. At least not until a football player, Darnell, called Raleigh’s name.

  “Ms. Crusie?” Darnell called loudly.

  Darnell was a big kid. At six feet four inches and two hundred pounds, he was easily the biggest linebacker that we had. He was also about nine inches taller than Raleigh and had a hundred pounds on her.

  But, he didn’t use his size to intimidate anyone. In fact, he was one of the sweetest kids I knew, despite him having a knack for tackling other football players.

  When Raleigh jumped like she’d been slapped, my eyes narrowed.