“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.
Chapter 20
Camwasimpressed.
His dad waited until the next morning, even until he was done with his breakfast and nearly done with his coffee, before he turned to him with a wry smile and said, “So you and Dawson Hall, huh?”
“Daaaaad,” Cam whined. He’d known it was coming. Had lain awake last night, alone in his bed for what felt like the first time in months, and not only missed Dawson, but wondered what his dad was going to say about it.
