Page 62 of Tight Spot

“No it’s not,” she scoffed. “Again, it was my own decision. To agree to this with you and to stay here. You didn’t twist my arm or manipulate me or force me to stay here.”

Outside me tying her up, I hadn’t, but my point remained. “What would be easier for you?”

“I don’t know.” She huffed and plopped her ass onto one of my barstools.

We had an excellent night. A damn good morning. If she didn’t get this taken care of, she’d be the one stewing on it all day and I was not letting her handle this on her own, not when her dad was pissed because of me.

“You drink coffee?”

“What?”

“Coffee. You drink it? Need some before you meet with your dad?”

“I’m not sure I want to see him.”

I waited, and she must have seen my impatience growing because she finally shook her head. “I don’t really drink coffee before I eat.”

“All right then. Let’s go.”

“Go?”

“Yeah. I’m going to throw on a shirt. We’re going to your house, and then we’ll deal with your dad. Then I’m taking you for breakfast before you need to get to your store. Whatever your dad wants to say, he can say it to my face, but he’s not ruining what we had last night or this morning.”

Fake or not, it’d been important to her. It meant something to me she gave me all she did. Especially this morning when she took control.

“Dawson…”

“You’re still not moving.”

She slid off the stool, lips twitching before lifting into a smile. She came straight to me and set her hand on my bare chest, right at my heart. “Thank you. You’re the best fake boyfriend a girl could ask for.”

My chest squeezed and not from her touch. Fake. I was anything but fake.

She rolled to her toes, I met her halfway seeing as how I didn’t have to dip very far and brushed my lips over hers. “Tell him you’ll be there in twenty, but you don’t appreciate the game he’s playing with his adult daughter. It’ll take me a second to grab a shirt.”

“All right.”

I ran up the stairs, skipping two of them in my rush and when I reached my room, took the time to brush my teeth and grabbed a hair tie for my hair. I changed my athletic shorts into pale-blue chinos and threw on a gray T-shirt.

I didn’t like what her dad was doing, but I wasn’t going to meet him looking like I just rolled out of bed with his little girl.

* * *

It took thirty minutes, not twenty, and based on the way Hailey’s dad popped off her swinging bench on her front porch, he didn’t like to be kept waiting.

His scowl was furious, aimed immediately in my direction even though Hailey was pulling in the driveway in front of me. Since she had to open her store after breakfast, I’d followed her in my Tahoe and with the F-150 at the curb, I pulled into the driveway behind her. I ignored him, like Hailey seemed to be doing, while she opened her garage door and pulled her car in.

I hopped out of the truck, waited for Hailey to climb out of her car and as soon as she reached me, took her hand in mine. She was trembling like a leaf, and based on the press of her lips and the fire in her eyes, it had nothing to do with nerves.

We headed up her front walk and her dad dropped his scowl as he caught Hailey’s gaze. Her hand in mine flinched. He spied our clasped hands and that scowl returned to me, softer this time, but noticeable.

“I’d like to speak with my daughter alone.”

“That’s funny because out of the two of us, I was the one invited.”

His eyes turned round, a complete mirror image of Hailey’s look earlier and she squeezed my hand again. “Good morning, Dad. How are you? Maybe before talking to Dawson like I’m not here, even though you are, as Dawson pointed out, on my front porch uninvited, you can at least tell your daughter hello.”

His nose twitched, and he licked his lips. The fact he cared was obvious. Dressed in an outfit similar to mine, he wasn’t a bad looking guy. Graying at his temples. Jet-black hair that had somehow skipped over Hailey entirely, but the rest of their features made it clear he was her father.

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