Page 77 of Tight Spot

She was too good to do that to her.

She was too good for me.

CHAPTER22

HAILEY

Ishould have backed out. I should have called my mom and told her there was no way I was going to this event. She could accept the award for me. She could say a speech, thank everyone who nominated me as one of the best women-owned businesses on Main Street and she could sip my champagne. Hell, I could have sent Misty or Sloane or Meredith.

I definitely should have called Dawson and told him he didn’t need to do this with me. That I didn’t want him to go through this with me. He was going to meet my mom. See my dad again. Hell, Dawson didn’t even know I was getting an award tonight, but I already knew as soon as he heard, he’d be on his feet, clapping louder than everyone else.

Selling this charade. Making my parents fall in love with him.

Making me fall harder for him.

It was an undeniable fact even if I’d been kicking my own butt for the past week. I was doing the one thing I couldn’t do. And the irony of it all hurt more than the reality.

I was falling for another man who wouldn’t have sex with me. Wouldn’t sleep with me. Wouldn’t stay with me.

I really needed better taste in men.

“You look mad on a night when you should have your revenge face on,” Meredith told me from my iPad screen. She called to make sure I was getting dressed and wasn’t halfway to Destin or something.

Her hair was done. Makeup beautiful as she stood in her and Tuevo’s kitchen sipping a glass of red wine.

A drink. That was what I needed. I grabbed my iPad and headed to my kitchen.

“I don’t need revenge.” Until my mom called on Sunday, I hadn’t thought of Darrick much at all. Certainly hadn’t cried over him. Definitely hadn’t gone to his or Bianca’s Instagram pages. It’d been weeks since I caught myself stalking them on social media.

At least Dawson had healed that for me.

“You don’t think so now, but it’ll feel good when it happens, I can guarantee that.”

I rolled my eyes and grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge. Pulled out the cork and filled my glass. One large one. That’d settle my racing nerves and the hornets swarming in my gut.

“This is stupid. I’m getting an award from an event his company hosts. It’s almost nepotism or something.”

Darrick owned, or well, was inheriting but currently worked at a commercial real estate firm in Friendswood.

“His parents will be there. He’ll be there. And you look hot enough to remind him of everything he’s lost.”

“Thanks.” It wasn’t exactly a compliment. He’d moved on to Bianca. Thinner, shorter, bustier. She looked like every Victoria’s Secret catalog cover model.

“And he’s totally going to shit himself when you walk in with Dawson.”

“Nice visual.”

She laughed, and Tuevo came up behind her on the screen, kissed the side of her neck and rested his chin on the top of her head, smiling at me.

“Hey, Tuevo.”

“Hey, Hailey. She is right, you know. Remember how that dipshit acted around me?”

“Yeah.” I sipped my wine and flinched, not from the crisp, fruity taste of it, but the reminder. When Meredith and Tuevo started dating, a random run-in at a bar in Nashville, Darrick all of a sudden decided he was the largest Avengers fan ever even though I knew he’d never watched a game. But suddenly, he and Tuevo were besties. Darrick was always hounding him, asking him for tickets.

That was probably a large enough red flag I’d missed.

“You are gorgeous. Dawson is a bigger star than even me. Darrick will not like it, and I cannot wait to see how he reacts.”

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