Sure she did. Ruining marriages was a full-time job for her.
Lucrative considering she usually walked away with some hush money.
“Fine. I’ll be back after practice.”
She was back to staring at her phone. I gave her time to respond.
Wasn’t surprised when I didn’t get one.
New Year’s Eve.
My team was at The Honky Tonk, a popular country bar on Nashville’s Broadway Street. The single guys like to go there after we won games, usually to sit and be seen in the VIP section, take home women or make out with them there or wherever.
I rarely joined them.
Country music wasn’t my scene. Most game nights I was too damn sore to do much other than sit in my sauna and watch a movie with an ice pack on whatever body part had been pummeled the worst during the game.
Tonight was no exception. We’d flown to Raleigh on Friday night. Saturday, we did a quick walk-through on their field before having a team dinner, watched film in the hotel’s conference room and then lights out by ten. We woke up, ate, played the game, and went straight from their field to the airport.
The sun was already setting by the time I turned down the street that would take me to my neighborhood and my sauna was calling my name.
My phone rang, and I glanced at the CarPlay screen on my Tahoe.
Security. Fantastic.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mr. Butler. This is Shannon calling from the security station.”
“What’s up?”
“We received a noise complaint from your neighbors this evening and I know it’s New Year’s Eve, so that’s to be expected, but two of our other security guards thought you were out of town tonight. Need us to go check on the place?”
Would have been nice if they would have checked the place before calling. What was I going to do on a normal day?
Except this wasn’t a normal day or night.
This was Crystal.
“I’m pulling into the front security post right now and have family in town. I’ll be home in a few minutes and will shut it down. Please tell my neighbors I’ve taken care of it.”
“Will do, Mr. Butler. Thank you.”
“Yep.” I stabbed at the End Call button on the screen and fisted the steering wheel.
Goddamn, Crystal. Two acres of land, granted it was because my yard was deep and not overly wide, but what in the hell was she pulling where I was getting noise complaints at seven o’clock at night?
Question answered as soon as I turned onto my street.
“Fucking hell.” A party. She was having a goddamn party.
There were so many cars parked in my driveway and on the street out front, I had to drive through my own front yard to get close enough to the garage. Lamborghinis. Ferraris. A McLaren and two G-Wagons took up a few of the spaces. It could have been my team’s parking garage for as wealthy as the cars were, but how in the hell had she found the richest people of Tennessee already?
“Jesus fuck.” I slammed my driver’s door and jogged up to the front door. It was unlocked, not a surprise, and I soon found myself in a crush of people decked in cowboy boots, Wrangler jeans, and my ears bleeding from the country music blasting through my home stereo. Gold and black decorations hung from the ceiling and every piece of available furniture and oh…she had to be kidding me…
There was a girl, legs spread, one thrown over the back of my tan leather couch. All I saw was leather and flesh and a guy still wearing a black shirt on top of her.
“Hey.” I grabbed the guy on the couch by the back of his T-shirt and tore him off the girl he was actually fucking on my couch. “Get the fuck out of here.”
His dick, wet, smacked against his stomach. Oh god. I was going to puke.
“Hey!” the girl cried out, covering her tits with his cowboy hat. “What was that for?”
“Get out of my goddamn house. Now.”
I was ready to tear them apart limb by limb. My face must have shown it because they both scrambled up, grabbing clothes and covering naked body parts faster than I snatched the football out of thin air.
Fucking kill me.
I cupped my hands around my mouth and lost my absolute shit. “Crystal!”
She had to be kidding me.
Of course she wasn’t.
Crystal was on the hot mess express train, and until I grew a pair of balls and did what my parents had done years ago, I was along for the ride.
For better or for worse.
Yee-freaking-haw.
CHAPTER 1
DAWSON
Six weeks. She’d been here for less than two months and this time, I was done. D.O.N.E. Done with my sister.
Giving her money was one thing. Taking an unknown amount of ibuprofen to deal with the headaches she caused was workable.
Spending a night in county jail because my sister was a batshit crazy freaking lunatic?
Unacceptable.
I slammed my front door behind me. I needed a shower. Wash away the stench from the bar the night before. I hadn’t been able to congratulate my teammate, Davis, or his girlfriend Maggie on a killer first showing on stage singing live music because my sister had, once again, caused a scene to make the night all about her.
I stunk like stale beer, piss, and vomit, thanks to the drunken assholes that had been hauled in at two o’clock in the morning.
And as I walked into my kitchen, Crystal was there, showered, made up, sipping what was most likely a mimosa, and smiled. Right before her nose scrunched up as she took in my wrinkled clothes.
“You’re late. You said you’d take me shopping today, and we need to get going.”
I dropped my keys to the counter and stared at her. “Are you serious?”
“Stores open soon.”
She was kidding. Had to be absolutely joking. I’d laugh, but the look on her face told me she was one hundred percent serious.
“I spent the night in jail over your bullshit last night, Crystal.”
“I know. That’s why I said you need to shower.”
She was right. I needed a shower. I needed a damn minute to calm down before I picked up my own sister by her skinny ass and chucked her straight through my glass front door.
“You’re a fucking piece of work,” I mumbled, but she was back to staring at her phone screen, ignoring me.
I headed up the stairs toward my bedroom, and my phone rang in my hand.
“Damn it.” This day kept getting worse, and I wasn’t sure that could happen after being arrested less than twenty-four hours ago. “Hey, Dad.”
“Tell me what I’m seeing on the news is false. An over exaggeration. Something. Anything, Dawson.”
“I haven’t seen the news.”
I’d barely seen my own face until I walked into the bathroom and caught my reflection. A night in county jail apparently made you look five years older. Great.
“What happened?” He bit it out and then sighed. “And are you okay? That’s most important, I should have started with that.”
Harrison Butler had been the best man in the entire world when I was growing up. At least, that was until my parents divorced, and he threw himself into work to avoid coming back to an empty home. That home was eventually sold, and Crystal and I barely saw him outside birthdays and holidays after Mom moved us into boyfriend’s one, two, three, four, and five’s houses while she went through the rich men of Tennessee, working to find someone to treat her right which for my mom meant, opening up his bank account.