Page 5 of Tight Spot

I hadn’t heard from Dad since our first preseason game.

“I’m fine. Just got home and I'm not really sure what’s going on.”

“News is saying you’ll have to be suspended.”

“Probably.”

“Shit, Dawson. Why?” He cussed and then muttered something I didn’t quite catch. “Crystal,” he finally guessed. “She’s there.”

Awesome and smart.

“Yeah.” I shoved my hair back off my forehead and flinched. It was greasy and smelled, for some reason, like cigarette smoke. I was in desperate need of a shower. “Listen, I need to shower and call my agent and probably my coach. Hell, maybe our GM. Can I call you back once I know more?”

“Cut her loose, son. She won’t learn if you’re always there to pick her back up. Hate to say it, she’s my daughter, but just like you had to fight for your future, she has to learn someday. All these handouts you give her…”

I quit listening and turned on the shower.

“Gotta go. Bye, Dad.”

He might have been able to turn his back on her, but I had never been able to break that damn promise he had me make. He didn’t know the pain we went through. The fighting over us. Our mom telling Crystal she didn’t want her. That shit had to hit a teenage girl right in the prefrontal cortex. Imagine not having your brain fully developed and being reminded how unwanted and unlovable you were.

Back when Crystal and I were twelve and fourteen, we thought we had the perfect life. Not nearly as rich as I lived now, but it’d been perfect for us. That all changed the day Dad came home from work and caught our mom fucking the neighbor. His best friend. Who made twice as much money as Dad did.

Trent and his wife got divorced, and Mom moved us in with him before the ink was dry.

Dad sold the home and moved across town. We lived with Trent for a year before he kicked us out because he caught Mom cheating on him. That started the rest of the hell my mom put us through, and my dad avoided.

Crystal was never the same after that. Neither was I. I learned early on that love didn’t mean shit when those who were supposed to love you the most abandoned you as soon as shit got hard.

So yeah, I didn’t really like my sister, but for years, she was all I had.

She was my sister. The only one who understood what we went through. If I turned my back on her, she’d have no one.

But that was before her choices and shitty decisions threatened to ruin everything I’d built for myself.

My phone rang again. Looked like my shower might have to wait.

* * *

An hour later, I left Crystal pouting on my couch. Showered and shaved, I was dressed in dress pants and a gray T-shirt as I walked into Rick Marchand’s office.

Our general manager was a decent guy, a kind one, but we weren’t his friends or his buddies. We were his employees, and it was his job to bring in as much money to keep lining not only his pockets, but those of the owners and everyone who worked for the entire Steel organization. From the owner to the custodians, the team’s success determined the success of everyone else.

And right now? Right now, I was the walking red flag. The blemish.

I was the problem he had to fix. If it hadn’t been clear enough from the tone in his voice when he demanded I get my ass into management’s offices as soon as possible, it was definitely obvious in the way he glared at me as I entered.

“It was an accident,” I told him immediately.

I’d take my hits where I earned them, and last night might have started out as Crystal’s fault, but the shit that happened after wasn’t intentional.

“Reports say you assaulted a man inside the bar on Broadway, slammed his face into the bar. Unprovoked by him, you attacked him without cause and smashed not only his nose but his right cheekbone.”

“The floor was wet, and he slipped.”

“Is this funny to you, Dawson?”

Not a damn thing about this was funny.

---