“What about you?”
His dad blinked. “Of course it hurt me. You’re my son. Like I said earlier, if I did something that hurt you so bad you don’t want to be around me, then I was the one who screwed up. And I don’t want to do that again.”
“I don’t want to do that either,” Shea said quietly. “I want a relationship with you and Mom.”
“Then I’ll be as supportive as I can be. And you tell me if I need to work on things, okay?”
Shea swallowed, throat thick. “That would be—that would be great. And I’ll work on not assuming the worst, okay?”
His dad nodded, then turned back to the TV. They watched in silence for a few minutes before he said, “This about you and Olson?”
“Dominic Olson and I are friends,” Shea said firmly. “I’m his stylist and we hang out outside of work occasionally but don’t go thinking I’m going to bring him home to meet the family because we’re dating or anything. That isn’t going to happen.”
“Good,” his dad said. Shea shot him a sidelong glance and he held up his hands. “Just saying you can do better than that if you’re going to date a hockey player.”
Shea snorted. “He’s a two-time Stanley Cup winner and likely to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. How much better do you want me to do?”
“Well, an extra Cup couldn’t hurt.”
Shea laughed, relief flooding his body that this had gone so much better than he’d hoped.
Telling his mom would be a piece of cake by comparison.
And now he could relax and enjoy celebrating her birthday, knowing that the entire weekend would a lot less stressful than he’d initially feared.
Relieved, Shea grinned at his dad. “Well, if I do ever bring home an NHL player to meet the family, I’ll be sure to let him know that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Look, I know I shouldn’t have come over,” Dom said on Sunday night, the words a little muffled against Shea’s throat. “But I had to see you.”
It had been such a long fucking week.
And then Shea had gone silent on him for part of the weekend and Dom just … just needed this. Needed to breathe Shea in and feel the hard press of their bodies together.
“Yeah?” Shea sighed, slotting his thigh between Dom’s.
“Yeah. It’s been too long.” Dom pressed another kiss to his jaw, shivering at the scrape of facial hair against his lips.
“It has.” Shea’s palms were warm against his shoulder blades before he dragged them down to cup Dom’s ass.
“How was your weekend?” Dom tugged Shea’s shirt free from his jeans and slid a hand underneath, his nose filling with Shea’s scent, warm and familiar and so right. “How’d it go with your family? You were pretty quiet last night and this morning.”
“I know.” Shea closed his eyes, tilting his head, which gave Dom better access to his neck. “Sorry. I was trying to give them my full attention. It was interesting though, I’ll say that. It went a lot better than I expected actually. I’ll tell you more about that later.”
“Yeah?” Dom pulled back far enough to grin at him. “Have something else you want to do now instead?”
“I might,” Shea said, grinning back. “What about you? How was your weekend?”
“Mmm, had quite the discussion with the boys. I’ll tell you all about that later too.” Dom reached for Shea’s zipper and eased it down. “I think I have some other things to do first. Like tell you I did my homework assignment.”
“Oh, did you now?” Shea let out a little gasp when Dom slid his hand into Shea’s jeans and toyed with his cock through the fabric.
“Mm-hmm. You asked me to come up with something we could do that wouldn’t hurt my back that we’ve never tried before. Well, I want you to fuck me.”
Shea froze, wetting his lips. “Really?”
“Really. I mean, maybe it’s boring but—”