Page 75 of Tight Spot

Damn. What was going on with me? I hadn’t been inside her yet, but she had me more worked up than any woman I’d ever been with. Maybe it was because the woman I was with didn’t spend so much time talking, trying to understand me.

No, that wasn’t giving Hailey nearly enough credit. She was extraordinary, in all the ways.

She was as shaken as I was, and her hands trembled as she ran them through her still wet hair. “I should go home, actually. I have some work to get caught up on.”

I could go with her. Sit in her office. Probably wouldn’t be bored at all while she worked and ordered us some dinner. Go back to her place…

“Right.”

We didn’t have to do this anymore. Caldwell all but said it, in front of her. And maybe she was relieved, but I’d wanted to punch him. Then thank him. We could end this today, essentially, according to him. Before it went further.

I wasn’t ready.

A couple more weeks.

It wouldn’t kill me to have a date to Maggie and Davis’s wedding.

She was dressed, her damp hair thrown and twisted up into some kind of clip.

There was no reason to keep her there anymore. Not if she wanted to go.

“I’ll call you later?” It shouldn’t have been a question. I’d called her almost every night.

I’d called her. Not Hailey. I was the one reaching out.

Damn it. Was I the one getting caught up in this?

“Okay,” she mumbled and dug through her purse until she found her phone. It hit me that it was ringing, and she stared at the phone. “It’s my mom.”

“Answer it.”

“I can wait.”

The phone rang again. I was torturing myself, but I wanted to know why her mom was calling. Her dad had said something about dinner with the family. A week had come and gone without an invitation, but this might get me more time.

No, I couldn’t do that to her. Not to her family.

“Hey, Mom,” Hailey all but whispered, like she was trying to hide from me when I’d just had my hands and mouth all over her slick, sexy curves, and she wasn’t standing in my bedroom feet from me. “Oh. Yeah, I’d forgotten about that.”

She bit her lip, turned to me, and her face paled. That beautiful blush I put there seeped away as she continued staring at me.

“Maybe I can skip this one. Meredith or Sloane, or heck, even you can do it.”

She sighed. Unhappy.

“Yeah. I’m sure he’d be happy to.”

She glanced at me as she said it, before looking down to her toes on my carpet.

“Sure, bye, Mom. Love you too.”

Love. It rolled off her tongue so easily. So sweetly and purely. No one had ever said those words to me like that and an ache pinched the left side of my chest.

Hailey dropped her phone to her side. It was several beats of that ache in my chest before she lifted her chin. “I forgot, but there’s something…city recognition night for small businesses, mostly women-owned small businesses.”

“Okay…”

“It’s a big deal. They have it every year in May, around Mother’s Day weekend. I totally forgot about it, but Darrick and I obviously RSVP’d months ago.”

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