“Even if I put a crimp into your relationship?”
“You aren’t,” Cam insisted. Even though he kind of had, already.
Still, he wanted to believe what Dawson had said, which was that in time, with Dawson and his dad becoming more comfortable together and Dawson and Cam growing more used to their relationship, it wouldn’t be weird anymore for Dawson to stay over.
Or for Cam to go with him to his apartment.
“Kinda am,” Shane said dryly. “Sorry about that.”
Cam decided he didn’t like it when his dad looked guilty. It was even worse when he sounded guilty. Like he was gate-crashing on Cam’s life, when he wasn’t, not at all.
How could he be when Cam was so genuinely happy he was here? When he’d missed him, too?
So he changed the subject. “What are you doing about the business while you’re gone?”
“You know it gets slow in the winter,” Shane said. “And there’s another vet in town, now, so it’s not just me. I’m . . .” He cleared his throat. “I’m not as needed as I was before.”
“Silver didn’t edge you out, did she?” Silver was the other vet in town—she was much younger than Shane, at least twodecades younger, and had been a few years ahead of Cam in high school, but they’d known each other. The town was small enough it was impossible not to.
“No, nah, nothing like that,” Shane argued, but there was an edge of melancholy to his voice that Cam didn’t know how to ask about. He’d never heard his dad sound like that, before.
“What did she do?” Cam asked. It was easier to focus on Silver than it was on Shane, who despite his silvering hair, had never seemed particularly old and definitely never defeated. But there was something now, and Cam didn’t like it.
“Nothing. Really.” Shane laughed, but he didn’t sound very amused. “It’s fine. Silver’s great. And her being around in town means I can fuck off and come to Toronto and visit you.”
“Alright, if you say so,” Cam said. But he didn’t really believe all that was true. There was something going on with his dad, and he was going to get to the bottom of it. “Iamreally glad you could get away. Come to Toronto. It’s a really cool city.”
“What happened to you being apprehensive about it?” his dad teased gently.
Cam flushed. “Well, Daws and I have been doing some exploring. Since, you know, he’s new to Toronto, too. And that’s been really cool.”
“Seeing it through the eyes of love, huh?”
“Shhh, you can’t say that shit, he’s going to freak out again, and I don’t want—”
Shane’s gaze sharpened and he interrupted. “Dawson is going to freak out if he finds out you’re in love with him? You mean, he doesn’t know?”
“Well, notyet,” Cam soothed. “Of course not yet. We just got together, officially. It’s . . .it’s a little fast for big love confessions.”
“Not when he’s in love with you, too.”
“Dad, you don’t know that’s true,” Cam argued, even though he was pretty sure Dawswas. There was a way he looked at him, like they were the only two people on the planet, and Cam had always imagined that was how someone in love might gaze at him.
“I saw him. I saw you. Definitely saw enough,” Shane teased.
“That’s just—” Cam broke off. He didn’t want to say it was just sex, because even he knew that it wasn’t. They hadn’t been apart for a single night in weeks, and they weren’t fucking every night. Alotof nights, sure, but not every night. And yet Dawson had never wanted to leave his bed, or wanted Cam to leave his.
“Cam, son, you can believe whatever you want, but you two are serious about each other.”
“I want us to be,” Cam agreed in a soft voice.
“You’ll get there.”
Cam had been believing that was true since the very beginning and nothing had ever made him sway from that belief. Maybe that was what made it easier to be patient, now.
“Anyway,” Cam said, “you’ll get to see how cool Toronto is, now. And you’ll have to come in, meet the guys.”
“I’d like that,” Shane said.
