Page 101 of The Blame Game

“Fair,” he agreed. And he felt another wash of affection for his sister because however complicated shit was with his parents, things with Emma had always been simple. He’d always trusted her to understand and never judge him.

“Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?” Emma asked.

Shea winced. “I honestly don’t know what the hell I’d tell them.”

“Tell them that you’re bi.”

“Ugh. Really? I mean, I’m not sure I am, exactly.”

“I get that. But it’s an easily digestible thing to explain. They have a frame of reference for what bi is.”

“True.”

“So, start with that, maybe.”

“Won’t it bring up questions about Dom though?” he said.

“It might,” she agreed. “But I think we can figure out a way around that.”

“Thank you,” he said, grateful he had her in his corner. “I’m so glad you’re here this weekend. Seriously.”

“Well, someone has to keep you and Dad from killing each other. God knows it’s not going to be Mom.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Hey, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done in bed?” Dom asked Matty under his breath as he pulled off his T-shirt. He hadn’t skated with the team today but he’d done some workouts under Eddie’s careful eye.

“What?” Matty said, way too loud as usual. “Why do you want to know what Antoni and I get up to in the bedroom?”

The entire locker room fell silent, guys frozen with their gear half-off, blatantly eavesdropping.

“Dude, no!” Dom protested. “I—never mind. Forget I asked. It was a stupid question.”

And why had he asked the biggest loudmouth on the team?

Matty never did anything around here at a quiet volume. He was perfectly capable of it—Dom had seen him do it when kids were around—but Dom should have known better than to ask something like that here.

He blamed it on lack of sleep.

It was impossible to get comfortable anymore and he’d been tossing and turning every night.

“No, why’d you want to know?” Matty asked, nudging him with his elbow.

Shit, Dom hadn’t thought through how to explain the question. Only, he hadn’t been having a lot of luck figuring out something he and Shea could actually do while his back was all jacked up. He was getting desperate.

“I was curious?” he managed lamely, his back twinging when he sat to pull off his socks. “Whatever. It’s not important.”

This wasn’t a locker room that talked about sex a whole lot. Guys got chirped for coming in late or with marks on them, but no one went into details.

Dom had been grateful for that when he got here.

LA had been the total opposite.

Dom’s former captain had been a fan of graphically dissecting every hookup at maximum volume and Dom had hated it.

He’d hated being forced to hear stuff he didn’t want to hear. Hated that he felt pressured to contribute and awkward and guilty when he had to lie about what he’d done.

“No,” Matty said slowly. “We can talk about it. If you want.”

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