Page 64 of Tight Spot

I stepped in, maybe not my place, but she wasn’t going to blow her top. Not if I could help it. “We’re new,” I said. “Only had a few dates. I’m sure she was going to get around to telling you.”

“And yet she stayed at your house last night, obviously.”

“Oh my god, Dad!” It wasn’t even an embarrassed groan. Furious. She proved it when she shoved a finger in his direction from halfway across her house. “You have never called any of my brothers or sister out on their behavior like this. This isn’t just humiliating, this is horrific. You being here doesn’t say anything about Dawson or me. It says everything about you, and I will not stand here, in my kitchen, listening to you question me or discuss my sex life or the choices I make with who I spend time with. I am twenty-four years old, and I have every right to fuck the entire Nashville Steel team if I so damn choose.”

“The hell you do,” I growled. Growled. An actual growl escaped my throat like I was some kind of wild animal. It rolled up deep inside my gut, let loose before I could stop it.

But there was no way in hell, even once this was all said and done, any of my teammates would go anywhere near her.

Fuck no.

Hailey rolled her eyes. “You know what I meant, Dawson.”

I knew the gifts she’d given me and the gifts she was going to give me and hell if I would stomach even the thought of her giving that to another man, much less a teammate. Ever.

Ken, possibly seeing the fight brewing between me and his daughter, wisely, or unwisely, changed the subject. “You’ve been arrested. Spent a night in jail.”

An accusation that had his lip curling.

And just…the hell with this. I hadn’t fully told Hailey all the shit about why I didn’t want a relationship. Why I didn’t trust women but if it got this man out of her home so I could take her upstairs and do things to her she’d never allow another man—especially a teammate—to do to her, then he could have it. They both could.

CHAPTER18

HAILEY

“Got a mom, or had one,” Dawson started and as he did, my dad’s gaze flicked to me.

I only had eyes for Dawson, even if he wasn’t looking at me. Even if his gaze was glued to my dad’s and his entire body was locked, ready for fight mode. He said Mom like a cuss word, the worst kind of cuss words.

“Also have a dad, and a sister, Crystal. She’s two years younger than me. Dad’s a pilot. Flies all over the world for his airline and so when we were kids, he wasn’t home all that much, but when he was home, he was a good dad. A great one. Totally into both of us and every time he left town, he settled his hands on my shoulders, chuffed my chin with his knuckles and said, ‘need you to be the man of the house, Daws. Got it? Need you to take care of your mom and sister. Precious jewels we have in them that need to be taken care of. Make sure they stay out of trouble and stay safe, okay, son?’ So I did. I was eight the first time my dad gave me that speech and every week, he did it.”

Dawson inhaled a breath, and he might have still been staring at my dad, but he wasn’t there. Not in my living room in my house or hell, I bet he wasn’t even in the town or the state of Tennessee.

He was somewhere else. Probably back to being that eight-year-old boy with a cute little statement from his dad that had become way too serious to him.

I hated Dawson’s dad.

“Every week, until I was fourteen, anyway, when he got back from a flight early, Crystal and I were at school, and he caught my mom in their bed cheating on him with the neighbor. His best friend since we’d moved in.”

Shit. “Dawson…” That was none of my dad’s business.

“Son,” my dad said, because he knew it too.

“Not your son,” Dawson clipped. Still as a statue, he continued, “Dad yelled at me that day when I got home, yelled at me for not letting him know it was happening. My mom was fucking some other man for who knows how long, and my dad blamed his teenage son for not doing his job. Did he get pissed at Crystal? Fuck no. Did he get mad at my mom? Kicked her ass out that very day, said he hadn’t married a whore and wouldn’t stay married to one. She moved out. That guy and his wife also got divorced and Mom moved Crystal and me right on in.”

I couldn’t take it. Dad’s jaw was tight. Eyes laced with pain, but it was the coldness coming from Dawson making me shiver.

“Hey.” I ran to him, set my hands on his arms but I might as well have been in Egypt for all he cared. “Crystal took after our mom. Apparently Mom liked Dad because he was a pilot, but this other guy was some COO. She stayed with him until she found the CEO of an even larger company. By the time I graduated, Mom had moved Crystal and me into five different homes, each one larger and richer than the previous and we went from seeing our dad every weekend to once a month until we barely saw him at all. Who knows who’s she fucking now, fleecing them for money and jewels. Crystal decided she wanted to be like our mom, so that’s what Crystal does. Causes drama, causes problems, fucks married men and gets them to be her sugar daddies until their wives found out. Three times I’ve paid off seriously pissed off, rich women, on her behalf.”

“This isn’t any of my business, son,” my dad said, and he flinched as soon as he said it. Given Dawson looked ready to tear someone’s head—anyone’s—straight from their body I didn’t blame him. It was his habit.

Dawson let that one go if he even heard my dad talk. I brushed my hands up and down his arms and still got no response from him.

“You wanted to know why I was arrested,” he snapped back. “You wanted to know so you could tell your daughter here, who already knows some of it, why I’m no good for her. Maybe I’m not. I won’t even argue it, considering it’s clear you love her more than your own life even if that love comes with crossing boundaries I don’t quite respect.”

At that, Dad’s jaw sharpened, and I rubbed my lips together. I didn’t know many men who told off my dad like that. Or who my dad would take it from, but before he could snap back, Dawson kept going.

“Crystal shows up, every couple of years, destroys my home, ruins my life, and I pick up all the goddamn pieces because Dad hasn’t spoken to her since she was eighteen and pulled enough shit on him he got sick of it, but me? I’m still that damn kid, looking at her like she’s my responsibility. So yeah, I went to jail. More bullshit of Crystal’s got out of control when she blamed that guy at the bar for doing shit he didn’t do but it was my sister, and I’d been conditioned to protect her since I reached my dad’s hip, but I didn’t mean to hurt that dude. Not lying there, either. The dude, slipped, both of us did, and it was bad fucking timing, bad damn luck, so yeah. That’s what you wanted to know.”

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