Page 68 of The Husband Game

“I do not,” Dustin protested, but he was laughing.

“You totally do.” Matty grinned at him. “It’s sweet.”

“I like him,” Dustin said lamely.

“Oh, buddy, everyone in North America can see that.”

Which was good, right?

Ignoring Matty, Dustin pulled up his Instagram app to skim the comments on a recent picture he’d posted of Charlie reading on the patio. Dustin winced at a few of the nastier messages, making liberal use of the block function because fuck those assholes.

But most were good. Plenty of people seemed into the idea of him and Charlie together. They were lots of heart emojis and “aww, sweet” comments and lots of people gushing about how they were #RelationshipGoals.

If Dustin forgot the relationship was fake, he could see it looked good from the outside. Charlie was particularly talented at using social media. The other morning, he’d even made a sweet little post about the tea Dustin had prepared for him.

“You coming, man?”

Dustin glanced up to see they were at the golf course and Matty was half out of the Jeep already.

“Shit. Sorry.” He scrambled out of the Jeep and grabbed his bag of clubs.

They walked toward the clubhouse where they both had memberships. Dominic and Jonah waited near the door.

Matty slung an arm around his shoulder. “It’s okay, I know your brain is totally scrambled by Charlie.”

“Hey, fuck you,” Dustin said with a laugh, shoving him off. “My brain isn’t scrambled.”

“Total mush,” Matty teased. “Your game is gonna be shit today.”

“You wanna bet?” Dustin countered and Matty’s eyes lit up.

“Sure, how much?”

They settled on terms and Matty held out a hand, then pulled away before Dustin could shake. “Wait, a thousand Canadian or American?”

Matty and Dustin might live in Toronto, Canada, but they were both American citizens.

“American.”

Matty shook. “Deal.”

Dustin lost the bet.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Within a month of moving to Toronto, Charlie had an appointment with a new therapist.

Her name was Bridget Peterson, she specialized in eating disorders, and she’d come highly recommended by the person he’d been seeing in Chicago.

Charlie was fairly certain someone had to have pulled some strings to get him in to see her so fast. Clearly there was some magic the Fisher Cats had worked to make sure he was put on Dustin’s insurance immediately and maybe Charlie’s former therapist in Chicago had said something to Bridget about getting him in as soon as possible.

But however it had worked out, Charlie found it hard to believe he’d gotten into a place that—according to online sources—had a six-month waiting list.

Still, it was good.

Charlie wasn’t doing terribly but his anxiety went up any time he thought about food. Plus, Dustin kept giving him weird looks every time he didn’t finish what was on his plate and he hated that.

Charlie spent way too long filling out the online forms and getting Bridget up to speed on his history. He gave her the bullet points of his family dynamic growing up, his eating disorder, competitive figure skating, and how they’d all tied together.

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