CHAPTER THREE

A shrill blaring woke Dom again, but this time the sky was bright, the air was clear, and it was his phone ringing so impatiently.

"Fuck," he muttered into his pillow as the memories of the night before hit him.

Beside him, Sawyer— Shea , he corrected himself—stirred, mumbling a little, and Dom forced himself to roll over and grab his phone before it woke him.

The name on the screen made Dom want to chuck the device out the window and hope it landed in Lake Ontario. Unfortunately, he had to answer when the team's vice president of communications and public relations called.

"What?" he croaked.

"The scenario we discussed when you joined the team has come to pass," Kate Foster said, her tone crisp.

Ahh fuck , Dom thought as he stumbled out of bed, vainly trying to smooth his hair down and pull on clothing at the same time.

"Yeah, okay," he said hoarsely. "I'll meet you at your office in … half an hour?"

"I'd prefer to meet elsewhere. Until I can be sure how the leaks in the organization are happening, I'd like to avoid discussing situations like this where they could potentially be overheard. I'm in my car at the moment."

"Uhh," Dom said, rubbing his face. He absolutely hadn't had enough sleep or caffeine to make decisions. "Yeah, that makes sense. You can come here if you want."

"I'll see you in forty-five minutes with breakfast. Meet me in the lobby."

"Sounds good?" Dom managed before the call ended, still a little dazed by the direction the morning had gone.

Dom glanced over at Sawyer— Shea , damn it! —and debated if he should wake him so he could leave before Kate arrived.

But he was sleeping deeply again, mouth a little slack, clearly exhausted, and Dom didn't have the heart to disturb him. The smoke inhalation was no joke and Dom had woken a few times to Shea coughing.

Better to let him rest.

Dom stumbled into the kitchen, got coffee brewing, then made himself as presentable as possible on five hours of sleep.

He was waiting in the lobby as Kate walked through the front door of the building.

She had her laptop bag slung over her shoulder and carried a paper bag from a local café in one hand and a cardboard carrier with an alarming number of coffee cups in another.

He raised an eyebrow as they rode the elevator to his floor. "How many people are going to be joining us?"

"No one. I'm exhausted and from the looks of it, you are too. It seems you had a late night last night."

Dom winced. That wasn't a good sign. He'd been working hard to not think about what Kate was here to meet with him about but the fact that she'd shown up at his building instead of calling him into the office was concerning.

He'd hoped it was nothing more than her paranoia about the leak that had recently been discovered within the organization but clearly she knew about the fire.

They rode the rest of the way up to his floor in silence, and Kate didn't speak until they were in the apartment.

"Nice place," she said, glancing around.

"Thanks."

She made herself at home at the dining table he never used, setting out food before she opened her laptop. "Help yourself."

Too stressed to be hungry, Dom reached for a cup of coffee, remaining standing.

It wasn't a power move or anything. Kate was absolutely the one in charge here, but he knew he wouldn't be able to sit still to save his life.

A raspy cough came from the other room and Dom tensed.

"Is someone else here?" she asked, glancing up at him with a frown.

"Yes."

Kate arched an eyebrow at him. "Would you care to share the name of this person?"

Dom swallowed hard, trying to decide which name to go with. "Uh, Sawyer Barnett. My stylist."

She blinked, studying his face. "Is this the person you were spotted and photographed with at the High Park Towers fire last night?"

"Yes," Dom said. "How bad is it?"

"At this point, mainly speculation."

" JockGossip ?"

"Yes." She took a sip of coffee.

Dom made a face. "Of course it fucking is."

"They are nothing if not predictable." There was a touch of wry humor in her tone.

"So if it's mainly speculation, why this urgency to meet? I mean, no, I don't want to be outed to the public but c'mon. Half the fucking team is gay or bi." He strode over to the wall, pointing at the photo from the team's Stanley Cup win in 2021. "See exhibits A-E."

He pointed at Dustin, Nico, Felix, Jonah, and Matty.

A glimmer of a smile crossed Kate's face. "That's closer to a third and I believe Nico identifies as pansexual but yes, you are correct. It's hardly a scandal for a player on this team to be dating a man. But I was under the impression you wished to remain in the closet."

"I do."

"Well, then for one, I'm here to see how you want to handle the gossip. And I thought you'd appreciate a private meeting, especially since we haven't pinpointed who the leak is yet."

"I do appreciate it." He sighed, sinking into the chair across the table from her. "I'm sorry if I seem short. It's just been a weird twelve hours."

"I would imagine." Her expression softened. "I also wanted to see how you were feeling ."

Dom studied her face, gently furrowed with concern.

Unlike many of his teammates, he was actually a few years older than Kate. She was terrifying, yes, and wielded a lot of influence within the organization, but still, she was his peer on some level.

She rarely took the same motherly tone with him that she took with some of the other guys. Then again, he never caused her problems, either. Although, since the moment he'd signed with the Fisher Cats organization and disclosed his sexuality, they'd both known this day would come.

"Well, the apartment I was in caught fire last night. And I got about five hours sleep after, so no, it's not the best morning I've ever had."

Kate nodded, cradling her cup of coffee. "Fair enough."

"But I'm guessing you were asking how I feel about being ‘outed'?" He sighed, shrugging. "At this point, I have no idea. What exactly did they say?"

She pulled up something on her phone, then passed it over.

Dom read the headline.

Fiery Rescue: Fisher Cats Player Heating Up the Sheets with Handsome Stranger?

He made a face. "Jesus, who comes up with these headlines?"

"Some underpaid freelance writer, or, at this point, probably an AI program."

"Sounds about right." Dom shook his head and continued reading.

Following an apartment fire at the High Park Towers building in Liberty Village last night, Toronto Fisher Cats player Dominic Olson was spotted with an unidentified man.

The building fire was contained to the fifth floor where—according to firefighters from Toronto Fire Station 346—it began in one of the condo's kitchens.

Thankfully, only minor injuries were reported.

After being treated by paramedics, Olson escorted the unknown man to a black SUV and helped him inside before getting in himself.

Although they left the scene of the fire together, their destination is also unknown.

Traded to Toronto from the Los Angeles Suns, Olson was a major player in the Sun's 2013 Stanley Cup win.

But it appears father time has begun to catch up with the aging forward. Much maligned by the team's fans in recent years, it's become obvious that Olson is no longer the superstar he once was and he is no longer centering one of the team's top two lines.

But what exactly was Olson doing at High Park Towers in the wee hours of the morning with a strange man?

"Just friends," or something more?

Though Olson has been notoriously tight-lipped about his personal life, rarely choosing to attend events with a plus one, we all know the old adage: where there's smoke, there's fire.

Dom resisted the urge to throw Kate's phone across the room.

Fucking assholes . Like half the city's fucking fans, they hid behind their keyboards and talked shit about players without having a clue what it was like to live under that level of scrutiny.

"Honestly," Dom said, handing the phone back to Kate, "this pisses me off but it's not as serious as I thought it might be. It's certainly less salacious than the time I had a drink with that female model and they swore up and down we were engaged."

"Which time?" Kate asked drily.

Dom managed a small laugh. "Fair point."

She grew serious, leaning forward to look him in the eye. "I'm concerned for you. I know you want to keep your sexuality under wraps and this is the first time they've had any hints about you being anything but straight. The fact that your stylist is here in your apartment now isn't going to help the situation."

"I know." Dom sighed. "It was probably a bad choice but I … the fire started in the apartment we were in. He was exposed to it longer than I was and coughing a lot. The paramedics said someone needed to keep an eye on him overnight and get him to the hospital if it worsened."

"Plus, I'd imagine he couldn't exactly sleep in his apartment if there's fire damage there."

"Ahh, yeah. That's not his apartment." Dom fought the urge to fidget as Kate's gaze went sharp. "He doesn't live there."

"No?" She raised her eyebrows. "Then who does?"

"No one."

A perplexed expression crossed her face. "What do you mean?"

"Dom?" Shea croaked. "What's going on?"

Startled, Dom turned to face the bedroom.

Shea stood in the doorway, shirtless, wearing a pair of Dom's pajama pants that clung to his thicker muscles in a very distracting way. His hair was a mess and he looked thoroughly rumpled and, well, like he'd spent a very good night in Dom's bed.

Sure, Kate knew he had sex with men but this was … Fuck . Tired or not, Dom should have warned Shea that Kate was there.

"Sawyer," Dom said stiffly. "This is Kate Foster. She's the vice president of communications and public relations."

Shea managed an uncomfortable smile. "Um, nice to meet you, Kate."

"Nice to meet you too," she said politely. "I hope you're not suffering too many ill-effects from the fire last night."

"Thank you. No. Just a little lingering cough. I'll be alright." He glanced at Dom. "Umm. Can we talk, Dom?"

"Yeah. Give me a minute, please, Kate?"

She nodded. "Would you like a coffee, Sawyer?"

"Uhh, yes please," he said. "That would be great."

Dom snagged a coffee, then carried it into the bedroom with Shea on his heels.

"Fuck. I'm sorry," Shea said the moment the door was closed. "I didn't mean … I shouldn't have come out there. This looks bad and—"

"She knows," Dom assured him, handing over the coffee.

Shea blinked. "How much ?"

"Not everything. But she knows that I—I have sex with men."

"Sex you pay for?" Shea said under his breath.

Dom kept his voice low too. "No. Not that part. She knows you're my stylist and probably assumes we're … fuck buddies or something."

"Ahh." The tense lines of Shea's body softened, and he took a sip of his coffee. "Well, that's not terrible."

"No, it's not. But the reason she's here isn't great."

Shea rubbed his face. "Given her job title, I can probably guess. The news hit the gossip sites?"

"Yeah."

"Damn it!" Shea set the coffee on the dresser next to the inhaler. "This is exactly what I was afraid of, Dom!"

"What the fuck was I supposed to do?" Dom argued. "Leave you there to fend for yourself?"

"Well, yeah," Shea said. "It's what anyone else would have done."

Dom gaped at him. "Please tell me you're joking."

"I'm not."

Dom stared, trying to wrap his brain around what Shea was saying. "Are your other clients that shitty and heartless?"

"No. For the most part they were perfectly nice people. They had lives and careers that could be ruined if it got out they were hiring someone for sex."

"Yeah, I get that part," Dom snapped. "Believe me."

Because fuck, he certainly didn't want people getting wind of that. Not that he thought what they'd done was something to be ashamed of, but it made his skin crawl to imagine people discussing his personal life that way.

Judging him.

And Dom wasn't an idiot. He knew exactly how they'd react. How unhappy management would be. How much his coach, Michael Gilbert, would blow his top.

Dom didn't want to deal with any of that.

But when it came down to right and wrong, it was wrong to treat anyone so disposably.

Dom looked Shea in the eye. "I will never deny that I'm an asshole who looks out for my own best interest but there's a line I won't cross and if I could make the decision I made last night all over again, I'd do the exact same thing."