Page 66 of The Husband Game

“Hey!” he protested with a laugh. “You’re not supposed to agree.”

“You’re lucky Mom and Dad are in Italy right now or they’d have showed up on your doorstep to meet Charlie already.”

“Yeah, speaking of that …”

“You’re not meeting us there next week?”

“No.” He winced. That had been the original plan. His parents were spending a few months in Europe to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary and he and Emily were supposed to meet them in Italy for the final week of their trip. “Sorry. Look, I already called Mom and got chewed out by her. But I don’t want to dump Charlie here in Toronto, then jet off to Rome.”

“Hello, you could bring him with you! So the whole family could actually meet the man you’re married to.”

“He has a job!” Dustin protested. “Well, he’s about to start it soon, anyway. I feel bad enough he had to quit his position in Chicago. I don’t want to make it harder for him to get one here.”

Emily was silent a moment. “Huh. You’re surprisingly protective of him.”

“He’s my husband!”

“I didn’t even know you wanted a husband. You kept your involvement with men pretty low-key.”

It could be argued that Dustin kept his involvement with everyone pretty low-key, but yeah, he hadn’t exactly flaunted his bisexuality to the world.

Dustin sighed. “I didn’t know I wanted a husband or a wife. But Charlie is something else.”

“I can tell. I didn’t know him very well when he was a skater but his reputation has always been that he’s a firecracker. And his stuff on social media is thoroughly entertaining.”

“He is that,” Dustin agreed with a smile. “But, look, I don’t have a lot of time to talk. I’m meeting Matty and the boys for golf in a bit.”

“Fine.” Emily let out a huff. “But swear we’ll get to meet Charlie eventually?”

Dustin laughed. “Of course. Even if it’s just a quick trip, we’ll either get a flight to Chicago or you guys can fly here to Toronto.”

Money wasn’t the issue, it was time. They were all busy people and finding a few days where all of their schedules synced up was incredibly difficult.

“Good.”

“Love you, Em.”

“I’m still mad at you for keeping Charlie a surprise,” she grumbled. “But I love you too.”

Dustin grinned as he hung up.

That had gone better than it had any right to.

His family was—understandably—a little confused by this whole surprise-marriage thing but they loved him and so they were willing to take his word about how it had all gone down.

Dustin’s smile slid off his face.

He did feel guilty lying to them. And to his team.

That wasn’t like him at all and it felt unnatural to be someone who kept secrets. He might not have been public about his relationships with men but his family and team had known all about his sexuality for years.

But there was too much riding on the NHLPA code of conduct contract negotiation to risk coming clean now.

He’d had another meeting about it this morning and it hadn’t gone well.

There’d been a lot of back and forth about the contract terms and the longer they argued over small details, the more Dustin wondered if anyone was really committed to change.

He wanted to believe most people were trying to clean up the problems in the league, but the continued insinuations that it was the out guys in the NHL who were the problem left Dustin with doubts.

---