Chapter 10
Nate was getting ready for Tuesday’s practice, tugging on his jersey over his pads, when a loud voice cut through the low-level chatter of the locker room. “Yo, you guys should’ve seen the guy the Big Dog brought to the Wild Leopard last night.”
Nate froze.
He’d known this would happen sooner rather than later, especially with Jordan involved—the guy didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut, nevermind when he had a juicy piece of gossip to share—but wasn’t prepared for it to come out this quickly.
“What?” Levi piped up. Because of course it was Levi. “Nate brought a hot guy to the strip club?”
“And how do you know the Wild Leopard’s a strip club?” Aidan drawled softly but pointedly.
Levi just laughed though. “Babe, it’s called the Wild Leopard and it’s somewhere Jordan went. Not very difficult to put two and two together and get four.”
Yes, Nate thought, let’s talk about Jordan and his affinity for trashy strip clubs instead.
But then Wes piped up. “You took Ramsey to a strip club? A strip club with women?”
The cat was out of the bag now.
Levi catcalled. Mo shot him a knowing look. Lane exclaimed, “Are you fucking serious?”
And okay, that was fair.
“You took the hot hockey player out?” Dawson asked.
Nate flushed. “I didn’t take him out.”
“Kinda seems like you did,” Dawson pointed out.
“We stayed in, until . . .” Nate glanced over towards Jordan’s locker. “Until some people decided it was a good idea to cry wolf and fuck up the mood.”
“Oooooh,” Levi chimed in. “There was a mood to ruin?”
Just tell them the truth. Whether it was intended to be real or not, it felt damn real.
“Fuck yeah there was.” It wasn’t a lie. He’d been looking forward to watching the third period of the hockey game with Ramsey, even if it was a hockey game.
Frankly, he’d probably have been willing to watch a spelling bee if it meant Ramsey was next to him, his warm calloused hand fitting so perfectly in his, offering all his unexpectedly humorous, pointed analysis.
“Wow,” Lane said. “You finally melted the ice king?”
“He’s not cold,” Nate complained. He’d never been cold to Nate, even if Nate had been shitty to him. Turning Lane down, which Nate had most certainly noted with interest, did not make Ramsey icy or cold.
“Yeah, you’re a little bitter, bro,” Trevor chimed in.
“Fuck you,” Lane retorted fondly, glancing over at him.
“Ew,” Trevor said, but he didn’t sound as convincing as he should be.
Nate internally sighed, wondering when that was going to hit the fan—but then, even when it did, it would thankfully be Aidan’s problem, not his.
He had his own hands full, with Jordan.
“I thought you didn’t like the hot hockey player.” Dawson was clearly not going to let this go.
“Maybe he was just bitter the act wasn’t getting him anywhere,” Levi said, chuckling under his breath.
“Obviously that’s not it,” Nate said. He told himself Ramsey wouldn’t be mad if he sold this. That was the whole point, right? “Because he was on my couch last night.”
A chorus of oooohs echoed through the locker room. “Get it,” Mo called out.
“And maybe,” Nate added, mentally apologizing to Dawson, who’d only had eyes for the rookie punter, anyway, “he wasn’t interested in you because you kept referring to him as the hot hockey player.”
But Dawson seemed completely unbothered. “Fair,” he said. He exchanged a knowing glance with Cam. Clearly neither of them were too upset about Dawson striking out with Ramsey—if he’d ever tried, at all. Nate wasn’t sure he even had.
“So this is what, serious?” Lane asked.
Nate felt the question on the back of his tongue, bittersweet.
Forced himself to shrug, making the movement easy and casual. “We’re just having a good time.”
“And why shouldn’t you?” Lane said knowingly. He came up and slapped Nate on the back. “Congrats, man. You deserve it.”
Like Ramsey was a fucking trophy, to be passed around to the most deserving.
Nate tucked his desire to bare his teeth away. It would be so obvious how he felt, that his feelings ran deeper, if he said what he was thinking.
He shouldn’t have worried though, because there was another person in this locker room who gave a shit about Ramsey.
“Maybe it’s Nate who deserves him,” Wes said quietly.
Nate glanced up and met Wes’ interested gaze. Tilted his head, acknowledging Wes’ comment but not saying anything.
Wes must have seen what he was looking for in his expression because he just nodded back, approval blooming across his face.
He wasn’t surprised when halfway through practice, Aidan cornered him.
He’d known that wouldn’t be all of it. Not after Aidan had taken an especial interest in tucking Ramsey into the Thunder family. And especially after that conversation they’d had a few weeks ago.
“Hey,” Aidan said, approaching him on the sideline.
Nate was over here because the linebackers were working against the offensive line and he was keeping an eye on Jordan, because it wouldn’t be the first or last time he pulled a shitty move, even against a teammate.
Wes was in, taking the snap, because nobody wanted Aidan to get accidentally demolished in practice.
“Hey,” Nate said, trying to match Aidan’s easy tone, but not sure he did it. He knew what this was about, and it was difficult not to brace himself for it.
“So you’re dating Ramsey, now, huh?”
“Is that what we’re calling it?” Nate asked, despite knowing perfectly well what they were calling it. He and Ramsey had even gone out of their way to define what it was, just so they knew what to tell everybody.
“Why don’t you tell me?” Aidan still sounded perfectly friendly, but there was an edge to his tone now. Like he really thought he needed to defend Ramsey against Nate. Like Nate might fuck up Ramsey.
Well, news fucking flash, if anyone was getting fucked up here, it was Nate.
“We’re dating,” Nate said and if it came out a bit more bluntly than he’d intended, well, sue him.
Even after the charade was over, he’d know what it felt like to touch Ramsey. To hold his hand. To feel his lips against his cheek. Every single time he sat on his couch, he’d be able to look over and remember what it was like to have him right there, exactly where he wanted him.
“Ah.” Aidan looked like he had something he wanted to say, but he wasn’t saying it.
Nate sighed. “You can say it, you know.”
“Well, I had trouble getting you to even admit you liked the guy,” Aidan said. “And I know you two have a . . .well, a history.”
“Yeah.” Nate was not surprised that Aidan was going to tiptoe around the truth, even though it was just the two of them standing there.
“I don’t know which I’m more surprised about, that you got out of your own way, or that you managed to convince Ramsey to change his mind.”
“I’m not an idiot. Or incapable of charming anyone.” Nate knew how gruff he sounded.
Except I’m totally an idiot, because I stupidly agreed to his plan. The plan he had to come up with, because I couldn’t charm him.
“Of course not,” Aidan said and gave him an awkward pat on the arm. “Clearly you pulled it off.”
Nate decided he was done with this. He’d played really nice, before this. And he liked Aidan, but he couldn’t tolerate another moment of this. He’d only admitted the truth to Aidan to begin with because he thought it might get him off his back about Ramsey. But that had backfired, spectacularly.
“Kind of the way you pulled off Levi?” he questioned innocently.
Aidan made a disgruntled face. “I think the whole team knows I nearly fucked that up.”
“Exactly,” Nate said.
“You’re an asshole,” Aidan said, but he was grinning now. “Maybe I can see how you managed to charm Ramsey, even if he wasn’t interested in being charmed.”
That hadn’t been Nate’s point, but he wasn’t going to be mad that it had worked out unexpectedly well.
“Thanks,” Nate said smugly.
And okay, he might be fake dating Ramsey, but he was still dating Ramsey.
Seemed like an accomplishment worthy of taking a victory lap over.
Aidan opened his mouth, probably to give him some other variation of a hard time, but before he could say anything, a commotion on the field grabbed both of their attention.
Nate identified the source of the problem immediately. It wasn’t even particularly a surprise. There was a reason he’d been over here to begin with.
He was going to kick Atkinson’s ass from here until next week.
“Shit,” Aidan muttered, turning and taking in the situation instantly.
Jordan was facing off against Ross Acker, who was the starting left tackle who’d become the starting right tackle after Levi had taken his spot during training camp.
He hadn’t handled that transition particularly well, but now the line was much more solid.
Still, on top of Acker’s normally prickly attitude, Jordan had clearly bested him and was now getting into his face about it.
Shit was right.
Aidan turned to him, just as Jordan shoved Ross back. “You wanna handle this or—”
“I got it,” Nate muttered. He wasn’t going to send Aidan out there. Jordan wasn’t smart enough to avoid pulling something catastrophically stupid, like getting in the face of the Thunders’ Super Bowl winning QB1.
He stalked over, gaze pinned to where things were escalating between Jordan and Ross, despite several teammates, including Levi and Duke, attempting to separate them.
“Atkinson,” Nate barked out, voice as hard as he could make it. “What the fuck are you doing?”
But Jordan didn’t pull up. He was still running his mouth. Variations of old and fuck and total shit were being thrown around and Nate buried his wince and steeled himself, heading right into the fray.
He grabbed Jordan by the neck and used a good chunk of his strength to drag him away.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Nate demanded again. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
“He called me slow,” Jordan announced sulkily. “When he’s the slow one. Slow and old—”