Chapter 3
September
It had been a great team win—everyone contributing to the thirty-four to ten victory over the Houston Texans—so Nate wasn’t surprised when Aidan announced they’d be going as a team to Vault.
Nate didn’t want to go to Vault. He’d done a fairly decent job over the first few weeks of the season avoiding Ramsey. Wes tended to bring him, but usually only in bigger groups and usually only when they all ended up at Vault.
There was no question if Wes would show. He was as much part of this team as anyone else, even if Aidan seemed determined to make sure he stayed on the sideline, holding his clipboard.
Nate stared at his reflection in the mirror in his bathroom and tried to justify to himself not showing up.
But it was the fourth game of the year and the Thunders’ fourth win.
It wasn’t a huge win streak but it was significant enough to be worth celebrating, and if he was absent, it would be noted.
Sterling would say something, and while they were both captains, both voted to the position by their teammates, Sterling was almost ten years older, in the twilight of his career. Everyone knew this was his last season, and next season, the defense would be all Nate’s.
Maybe Ramsey wouldn’t be there tonight; surely he had to have better things to do than trail after Wes.
Maybe he’d left Toronto and gone back to Buffalo. Maybe he was even back to playing hockey.
Nate pulled his phone out of his pocket and did something he never let himself do.
Googling Ramsey Andresen—when they’d run into each other in August, it hadn’t taken Nate very long after to search “Ramsey hockey” and find out his last name—was a dangerous proposition. But if he didn’t, he wouldn’t know if he’d be around. Wouldn’t be able to prepare himself for the possibility.
There was his face right there in the beginning of the results, that heartbreaking profile that Nate had begun to hate. His pulse always betrayed him when he saw it, racing even though the last thing he wanted was to still be affected by the asshole.
But as Nate scrolled down through the news about him, it didn’t look like Ramsey had come off the long-term injured reserve.
He stayed strong, clicking out of the search results before he could do anything more monumentally stupid like watch his highlights again.
Turned out that the guy was actually a damn good hockey player. Not that Nate would ever admit that out loud. Or admit to spending too many late nights on YouTube with his name in the search bar.
He’d go tonight and pretend, like every other time he saw him, that he didn’t like him. Because he didn’t. He didn’t.
Ramsey was a smug, egotistical dickhead, clearly enamored by his own charm.
Reminding himself of that fact, Nate headed out to Vault, catching a cab and taking it downtown.
Sure enough, there he was, in one of the corner booths with Wes again, looking cozy. Diamonds barely glinting out from underneath his collar.
It would be easier if Nate could believe Ramsey was involved with Wes. If he could even believe Ramsey was in love with Wes, even if it was unrequited. But he’d been around them enough that it was obvious there was nothing but platonic feelings there.
Well, at least on Wes’ side. Clearly, Ramsey didn’t have feelings. He was too shallow for them, like a puddle on the street.
Nate headed to the bar, and the bartender, catching his eye, poured him a few fingers of the sipping rum he favored.
He swirled his glass and glanced around, hoping that someone else would materialize so he didn’t have to go over there.
He got his wish, because a second later, Sterling arrived, sliding up to the bar next to Nate.
“Hey,” he said, nudging Nate. “Great game out there.”
“You said that already,” Nate said. Sterling had told him as the last few minutes of the fourth quarter had ticked by.
“Yeah,” Sterling said, nodding. He looked grimmer than he should, considering the Thunder were riding a four-game win streak to kick off the season.
“What is it?” Nate asked.
Sterling sighed. “I don’t know what to do about Jordan.”
Nate had been afraid it was about Jordan Atkinson, the Thunders’ rookie linebacker. He was aware of how Jordan had missed a meeting, had gotten benched for it for the first series today, and had been vocal about how that was a bullshit punishment.
It wasn’t bullshit. It was necessary, especially for rookies, because they needed to understand the commitment that was required to give to the team if you were going to play professional football. This wasn’t college, where coaches would let shit slide as long as a player performed on the field.
Both Coach Robertson, the Thunders’ head coach, and Coach Dell, the defensive coordinator, weren’t going to stand for Jordan fucking around, no matter how talented he was.
“You talked to him?” Nate asked.
Sterling shot him a look full of frustration. “Yeah,” he said, rubbing his bare head with one of his hands. “I fucking tried. He didn’t want to listen.”
“Of course not,” Nate grumbled. He sipped his rum. This was his fourth season in the NFL, and he’d been around long enough to know that talent only got you so far. He’d seen guys wash out, not because they couldn’t play, but because they couldn’t follow the rules.
Jordan was good, sure, but it was going to take more than some flashy play to stay on this team if he kept fucking around.
“I think you should talk to him. Friend him up. Look out for him,” Sterling said as he picked up the beer the bartender had just set in front of him.
“What?” This was not what Nate was expecting. “Me? Why?”
“He could do worse than using you as a role model,” Sterling said.
“What about you?”
Sterling rolled his eyes. “He thinks I’m a grumpy old man.”
“You are a grumpy old man,” Nate retorted fondly.
“Still your fucking elder,” Sterling teased back.
“So what, you think he’ll listen to me, because I’m younger? I doubt it.”
“I think he’ll listen to you because you’re going to become his friend,” Sterling said persuasively.
There were a lot of problems with that statement. “I don’t—”
“Think of what would’ve happened in that game today if he’d actually been in position to make a play on that ball, the one they scored the long touchdown on,” Sterling pointed out.
“We’d have still won,” Nate said. He did not want to spend a bunch of time and energy keeping up with Jordan’s twenty-one-year-old antics. Some guys got into the NFL and it was their first experience with money and fame and they went overboard.
Listening to Jordan boast about spending money in the champagne room of his favorite strip club pinged all of those for Nate.
“Yeah, but that’s not always going to be the case. You wanna win a Super Bowl?”
Nate rolled his eyes. “You mean, win another one? Yeah, of course I do.”
It had sucked to be traded away the summer after the Condors had done it. He’d understood why. But he hadn’t liked it, despite Toronto becoming home in the last few years.
“Then you gotta figure Jordan out. We’re gonna need him.”
Nate sighed. So not only did he need to go out of his way to avoid a certain hockey player who kept hanging around, his mentor was giving him a pretty much impossible task.
Control someone who didn’t want to be controlled.
No, actually, it was worse than that. Sterling wanted him to convince Jordan that he wanted to be different than how he was.
“You’re good with the guys. You can do this,” Sterling said, clearly trying to pep talk him.
Nate was not nearly so optimistic. “He even here tonight?”
But Sterling just shrugged, like he’d passed the problem onto Nate and he was ready to be done with it.
As Sterling took off to shake hands and greet some of the other defensive guys—notably, Jordan was not among them—Nate tapped his fingers against the bar. Trying to figure out how he could approach this situation the best.
He was so deep in thought about the Jordan problem that he didn’t even notice when someone slid onto the barstool next to his.
And of course it was the last person he wanted to see.
“Hey,” Ramsey said, all easy and charming, like they didn’t both wish they could avoid the other.
“What do you want?” Nate asked flatly.
He hadn’t been in the mood before, now he really wasn’t in the mood.
“Ouch.” Ramsey grinned obnoxiously. “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”
“In what universe would that be true?”
“The secret one, where deep down you’re obsessed with me and can’t leave me alone,” Ramsey said.
“You mean your imagination,” Nate retorted.
“I don’t need one,” Ramsey claimed. “Reality’s always better than anything I can think up.”
Nate knew that wasn’t true. He was blustering. It was obvious that Ramsey, as annoying and obnoxious as he was, did miss playing hockey. He didn’t want to be hanging around Toronto, crashing on Wes’ couch, and harassing Nate.
But of course, he was still pretending otherwise, because he couldn’t go five seconds without dissembling or even outright lying about something. Even if it was something as obvious as his frustration with his injury status.
“Don’t be stupid,” Nate said.
The guy thought he had everyone convinced all the time that he was happy and charming and their new best friend. Nate saw through it, and so knew it was all a fucking act. Why would he even bother? Ramsey didn’t know any of these people so it was a waste of energy to pretend.
Nate’s only conclusion was that he liked fucking around with people. That Ramsey liked pulling the wool over their eyes. Liked controlling them and their reactions to him.
And that, more than anything else, was what led Nate right back to the original conclusion he’d made the second time they’d met: Ramsey was a manipulative asshole.
Nate wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of lumping him in with all these other poor schmucks who salivated over him wherever he went. It didn’t matter how hot he was.
“Someone isn’t very happy about their big win,” Ramsey said lightly. “Someone is even grumpy. I wonder why.”