Page 93 of The Blame Game

“Good. And there are a lot of other things we can do. We’ve had some perfectly hot times on the phone over the years while you’re on the road.”

“We have.”

“So if you think we can’t have great sex because of your back, you’re missing out on plenty of other things we can do.”

“Well, then you better get your ass to London and then back here to Toronto soon then,” Dom said teasingly.

“I guess I better.” Smiling, Shea said goodbye, then ended the call, feeling lighter than he had in the past few days.

Dom had been quiet recently and Shea had begun to wonder if he was pulling away because of the way things were shifting between them.

Then again, Shea wasn’t sure how much Dom had admitted to himself that things between them had changed.

With the specter of the money Dom paid him hanging over them, it was complicated.

Dom never paid him directly.

Shea’s “styling fee” was paid monthly to the company from all of Shea’s clients, and the company deposited money in Shea’s account.

Since Shea had stopped seeing any other clients, that money only came from Dom. And the minute it landed in Shea’s account, it went directly to charities that supported sex workers.

Because Shea was the first to admit that while he’d liked working as an escort, sex work wasn’t always a cushy gig.

As a man, he had a whole lot less fear of being victimized than someone like Audra. He had size and strength to his advantage and if that didn’t give him a shitload of privilege, he didn’t know what did.

Well, the fact that he was white didn’t hurt either. But even Audra had a lot more protection than many people.

The company they worked for was high-end. They vetted potential clients, required regular blood screening for both parties, and didn’t hesitate to boot out clients who crossed lines.

It wasn’t so easy for the kid turning tricks under the underpass or the women who traded blowjobs for a bump of cocaine.

Shea had always been as safe as could be expected, in charge of who he had sex with, and paid well for it.

The least he could do was make sure that the people who had it a lot rougher were taken care of. And it hadn’t felt right to keep taking Dom’s money.

Not when Shea was in love with him.

So the money went to charities that Shea believed in and allowed him to breathe easier.

But if things were actually changing between him and Dom—and Shea didn’t think it was his imagination or wishful thinking that they were—what did that mean for the future?

At what point would he need to come clean to Dom about all of it?

The dark highway stretched endlessly in front of Shea when he finally left Toronto’s outskirts, heading for London, Ontario. He’d been stuck in traffic on the way out of town after work and what should have taken two hours had taken two and a half.

Thank God Dom had called shortly after Shea got on the road and they’d been talking about everything and nothing for most of the drive.

“I’ve had a spinal X-ray and a CT scan already. Next week I’m scheduled for an MRI, and a Myelogram,” Dom groused. “What fucking more do they want from me?”

“What, they haven’t taken blood too?” Shea teased.

“No, they’ve done a ton of blood draws too.” He sighed. “I feel like a fucking pincushion. And I had wrist surgery a while back so it’s not like I haven’t been through this shit before but this is ridiculous.”

“I get it,” Shea said. “It’s frustrating.”

“It is.”

“Remember to be grateful that you’re not waiting weeks or months for results,” Shea reminded him.

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