Chapter 19 #3
He’d just pinned Cam to the first flat surface he could find—the little wall between the entry and the kitchen—tucking a thigh between Cam’s legs, swallowing his groan when he rubbed their dicks together, when a light went on.
For a single bewildered second he’d thought Cam had reached over and turned it on.
But then he was looking over, right into the eyes of a stranger.
No. Not a stranger. A guy who could be exactly how Cam would look in twenty-plus years.
“Shit!” Cam exclaimed and scrambled out from underneath Dawson’s grip. “Dad!”
That was the boner killer of the century right there.
Dawson would be disappointed by that fact, but the truth was, meeting Cam’s dad was definitely going to be better if he didn’t have a boner.
“Oh my God,” Cam continued as the man stared at where Dawson still had an arm wrapped around his son’s waist, “I can’t believe you’re here. You didn’t tell me you were coming in early!”
“I thought it would be uh . . .” The guy made a wry face and rubbed the back of his neck. “A nice surprise. So, surprise?”
“Dad,” Cam said a little hesitantly, and then he was detaching himself from Dawson and throwing himself into the older man’s arms for a tight hug.
“Can’t believe you’re here,” Dawson overheard Cam murmur into his shoulder. But even though Cam’s dad’s gaze flicked to Cam once, and then twice, he returned to staring at Dawson each and every time.
Well, fuck.
They’d just agreed they were dating. That they were together.
Dawson felt—well, he actually felt pretty fucking good about that.
But it was one thing to feel good about it, with Cam’s dad a shadowy amorphous figure still in the back wilds of Montana, and another entirely to face him, now, in Toronto. With half a boner, still.
Cam’s dad turned to him, and Dawson trying not to panic, panicked a little.
He could not face his brand-new boyfriend’s father, whose name he suddenly couldn’t remember, with even a little bit of a boner.
He thought about Aidan puking into the bush.
Thought about the gulp of rancid milk he’d taken once in college.
Thought about the moment he’d gotten a call from his forensic accountant last year.
And yep, that last one was the boner killer of the fucking century.
“You must be Dawson Hall,” Cam’s dad said, extending his hand.
Dawson shook it, trying to not shake anywhere else. Cam’s dad had the same warm, friendly brown eyes as Cam, but they were narrowed a bit as he took Dawson in.
Dawson didn’t blame him. Dawson came with baggage, capital B, and he was also older. He’d been lectured enough by Aidan and co to know how it might look, and he wasn’t sure what Cam had said to him.
“Shane Greene,” he said. And thank God, Dawson didn’t need to ask him what his name was. Armed with his boyfriend’s dad’s name and no boner, he was going to ace this shit.
“Great to meet you,” Dawson said, nodding. Trying to remember what he’d said and done with Ackerman, when he’d first met Brynn. But as soon as that thought crossed his mind, he froze. This wasn’t going to be the same. It wasn’t.
It was getting easier to recognize the sudden onset of fear and combat it. But it still happened. Dawson still didn’t fucking like it.
“Heard a lot about you,” Shane said casually, but the way he was eyeing Dawson was not casual.
“Dad,” Cam protested hotly, a flush rising on his cheeks.
Shane turned to his son with a mischievous grin. “Oh, but I have.”
And Dawson wasn’t totally relaxed about it, but he could breathe now, at least. It didn’t seem like Shane Greene had come to Toronto to interfere or, God forbid, intervene.
“Oh yeah? I wanna know everything he said,” Dawson said, trying to be casual too.
Cam rolled his eyes and elbowed Dawson gently in the ribs. “Come on, don’t encourage him.”
Dawson flashed a conspiratorial smile to Shane and was pleased to see a shadow of the same look appear on Shane’s face.
“Next time,” Dawson said. “It’s late. I should get going back to my own place.
” He was proud of pretending that he and Cam hadn’t been making out against the wall like they were on their way to the bedroom.
His voice barely wavered at all, even though the thought of going back to his own lonely apartment felt like hell.
There’d been a time, last year, when he hadn’t been so good at doing hard things, but he must be getting better at it, because it didn’t feel great, but it wasn’t the end of the world, either.
“Really?” Cam’s pout did make it a little harder.
And God, he did want to stay here. Did want to go to Cam’s bed the same way he had been every night since they’d started dating—and the irony of him finally seeing the light on that, tonight, when he couldn’t actually do it anymore, wasn’t lost on him.
“Yeah.” Cam drifted closer to him, a hand on his hip as Shane inclined his head and moved deeper into the living room, clearly trying to give them a little privacy.
“He’s not going to be weird about it,” Cam protested in a low voice. “And he’ll stay out here. The couch is a pullout.”
“Cam,” Dawson murmured.
“I’m just saying. I don’t want you to go.”
“Trust me, I don’t want to go either, but I also don’t want to start this thing with you the wrong way, especially with your dad here. I know you’ve missed him.” Cam had said it more than once, and Dawson remembered the wistful look in his eyes as he had.
“Yeah,” Cam agreed. “He really wasn’t supposed to be here for a few weeks. I thought we’d have time . . .to you know, talk about it.”
“Cam, it’s fine. It’s really fine,” Dawson reassured.
Cam tucked his head closer, into Dawson’s shoulder. Dawson pressed a kiss to the side of his head. “Really?”
“Am I disappointed? Yeah. A little bit. But it’s also okay. I get it.”
“At least . . .give me a goodnight kiss.” Cam pulled back, his chin tipped down.
“I thought I had already done that,” Dawson teased.
Cam leaned in closer, licking his lips.
And Dawson was only a man, he could only fight his inevitable desire so long, even with Shane Greene only half a room away.
Still, he kept the kiss relatively PG-13.
Slid a hand down to Cam’s hip and kept him anchored with at least an inch between them.
Couldn’t risk getting hard again, especially when it had been so difficult to fix that situation earlier.
But of course, he hadn’t anticipated that even a little bit of Cam’s clever tongue would make him want to use it everywhere.
He should’ve, based on prior experience, but Cam did something to his brain. Blew out all of his good intentions and any possible normal thought processes. Made him irrational. Desperate. Wild.
Dawson broke off the kiss, breathing hard.
Cam’s brown eyes blinked down at him. Soft and hot on his face. “I’m gonna miss you tonight,” he admitted quietly.
It was impossible not to bare his heart—or at least part of it—when Cam was looking at him that way, his own feelings written clearly across his face. “Ditto,” Dawson agreed. “But it’s not gonna be forever.”
He didn’t want to ask how long Shane was going to be staying, but he didn’t have to.
“Long enough,” Cam grumbled good-naturedly.
“We’ll find time, and after us being around for awhile, maybe it won’t be weird for me to stay,” Dawson said optimistically.
Cam reached up, cupping his cheek. “Gonna hold you to that.”
“You’d better.” Dawson had meant it to sound joking, but it came out earnest and heartfelt.
Cam smiled and took a step away from him.
Dawson nearly reached for him again, but he held back. Shaking his head a bit to clear it. The problem was he wanted to keep swimming in the ocean of Cam and never surface for air. Even though he knew he needed to.
“Hey, it was nice to meet you,” Dawson called out, waving towards Cam’s dad in the living room.
At least Shane seemed amused, not upset. “Yeah, you too. Don’t be a stranger.” He chuckled. “Not that I thought you would.”
Dawson pressed one last kiss to Cam’s cheek and headed out the door before he dragged out this goodbye any further.
Before he decided that he wasn’t saying goodbye at all.
Still, at least there was a silver lining. Cam’s dad clearly knew who he was, maybe even what they were to each other, and he hadn’t seemed like he disliked Dawson.
That was something. Dawson could work with that.
Maybe with time, he wouldn’t feel that fear slithering around in the base of his stomach when he thought about making nice with another romantic partner’s father.
Surely, that had to get better.
Especially when it was obvious, just from getting to know Cam, that Shane Greene was nothing like how Richard Ackerman had been.