Page 27 of The Blame Game

Matty arched an eyebrow. “Getting styled?”

There was nothing salacious about that phrase but it was Matty so Dom assumed everything came with some silly innuendo and waggle of eyebrows, whether he showed it outwardly or not.

“I do regularly make the best-dressed lists, you know?” Dom pointed out.

Matty grinned. “I know.”

“But, no, that isn’t … that isn’t all we do,” Dom admitted, his voice catching on the words.

“Fuck buddies?” Matty guessed.

“Mmm,” Dom said because he didn’t want to flat-out lie to Matty. It was true-ish. True enough.

If Dom was braver, if he had the luxury of finding guys to hook up with who he didn’t have to pay, he’d have gone for a guy like Shea. He could see them being friends.

If Shea’s hockey career hadn’t been torpedoed by his knee injury, Dom could imagine him as someone on the team, someone Dom had fallen into bed with after a boozy night at the bar.

Though Shea could certainly do better than a washed up NHL player with back problems.

Matty grinned. “I knew there had to be somebody.”

“Man cannot live by hand alone,” Dom agreed.

“Well, good for you!” Matty said, thumping him on the shoulder. And that was so Matty. He was happy for Dom. Happy he was getting laid on the regular.

“Yeah, well, now the damn public is speculating about it,” Dom said shortly. “So that’s not great.”

Matty’s happy expression fell. “True. What’s the plan?”

“Well, we discussed it with Kate this morning. She invited herself over for a meeting.”

“And your stylist guy was still there?” Matty raised his eyebrows.

“We went to my place after the fire last night, yeah,” Dom admitted. “He had some smoke inhalation so someone needed to keep an eye on him.”

Matty nodded. “Totally makes sense.”

Taking an injured person home was the sort of thing Matty would have done. Then again, if Matty was in Dom’s shoes, he would have handed over the keys to his sports car and invited Shea to move in too.

Neither of which Dom was willing to do.

Then again, Matty was both a better person, and less suspicious of humanity, than Dom was.

“So what’s the plan? Are you coming out now?” Matty asked.

“No,” Dom scoffed. “Why would I do that?”

Matty shrugged. “I dunno. Just wondering. So what happens now?”

Dom made a face. “Kate’s plan is that we should go on a few ‘bro dates’ and I’ll have a date-date with a beard.”

“Eww,” Matty said and Dom nodded, heartily agreeing with that sentiment.

Audra Morgan swirled her glass of wine, the deep red liquid inside nearly the same shade as her long wavy hair. She glanced over the rim of the glass and scowled at Shea. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

Shea rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Audra. Very helpful. Telling me that repeatedly is clearly working to change my behavior.”

“I’m just saying, if you weren’t in love with him, you wouldn’t have risked everything.” She curled her long legs under her until she was tucked into her armchair, the expression in her green eyes challenging.

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