Cam had known he should’ve prefaced this whole thing by explaining that it was casual. A friendly hookup. His dad wouldn’t have understood it, but that was fine. He was old and didn’t understand the breadth of the gray area between platonic buds and wildly in love.
When Cam didn’t immediately respond, trying to formulate exactly the right sentence to explain what he and Daws discussed, his dad groaned.
“No, don’t tell me you’re gonna do this casual business again.”
“It’s fine, Dad,” Cam argued.
“You know, youcanlike people. You can date people. If you wanted to, of course.” Shane tacked that last bit on, belatedly. Cam rolled his eyes, even though he was pleased, deep down, that his dad cared so much about whathewanted.
Still, of course, he was trying to fit Cam and Cam’s feelings into a normal-sized shape. But then, this morning Camkept trying tonotcram his own feelings into that normal-sized shape.
It had been hard, because even though Cam had never dated before, he imagined that might be what it would be like in the mornings.
Slow and sleepy and nice.
Rotating around each other like they were meant to be.
“Yes, Dad, I do know that. But it’s not like that. He’s . . .you said it yourself. He just got divorced. We’re both on a new team. It doesn’t have to be serious.”
Shane hummed under his breath.
“I just think, might be hard to feel that way about a guy, even a guy’s football skill, and then meet him and start uh . . .”
“Dad,” Cam said, his face flushing bright red. He was so glad they weren’t video chatting right now.
“You know what I mean. Would be hard tonotfeel some kind of way about it. So it’s okay if you do. You can tell me. Even if, uh, you can’t tell him.”
For a split second, Cam did consider telling his dad. Did consider spilling the half-baked feelings that were rumbling around inside of him. But Cam thought it would be worse if he said it all out loud. It might actually make them real.
For now, they were just amorphous floatingmaybes.
“No, it’s okay. I’m good.”
There was a long, pointed silence.
“Stop it, Dad.” Cam huffed with embarrassment. “I swear. It’s fine. I know how to do this. And it’s good.”
“As long as you think it’s good,” Shane said gently.
Cam rolled his eyes. He’d gotten way more than he’d expected, and from his vantage point, Dawson had acted without even really thinking about it. If Cam had asked for more, asked to stay even longer, he didn’t think Dawson would’ve turned him down. How could it be anythingbutgood?
“It’s better than good. It’s great,” Cam confirmed.
“And you’re okay about the punt from yesterday’s game.”
“I think you need to get out more,” Cam declared. “Obsessing about my personal life. Probably rewatching every punt a hundred times.”
“Stop it,” Shane said, laughing. But he didn’t deny it, either.
“You’re still coming for Thanksgiving, right?”
His dad’s voice was soft over the phone. “Couldn’t stop me, bud.”
Dawson had never, not once, thought what dating Aidan Flynn might be like.
He was beginning to think this was what it was sort of like, but in a super fucked-up, polyamory sort of way. Like maybe what those stupid dating shows felt like when they got down to the last few contestants and the girls kept eyeing each other suspiciously from across the room.
He’d not really thought about it one way or the other when Aidan had suggested they grab sushi tonight.
