Chapter 13
Ramsey decided it was weird because of how not weird it was.
He kept waiting for his freakout. When they ate the takeout on the couch, the Stars and Leafs playing hockey in the background, Nate’s arm slung across his shoulders casually. As if he hadn’t even noticed it, he just wasn’t ready to let go of Ramsey.
And, it turned out, Ramsey wasn’t ready for that either.
When the game finished, Nate looked at him.
Easy, still. In the back of his mind, Ramsey knew it was because Nate was still concerned he was going to panic and bolt.
It was difficult to blame Nate for that, though it was still a little embarrassing, because Ramsey kept waiting for it himself. And it kept not happening.
“So,” Nate said.
But even though Ramsey understood why Nate might be concerned, he wasn’t going to let him off the hook entirely. “You can stop looking at me like I’m a horse that’s gonna spook,” he teased, elbowing him gently in the side.
Nate flushed. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Ramsey admitted. “I keep waiting for it, too.”
“If you want to—”
“I don’t want to,” Ramsey said. And to his own surprise, meant it.
“Alright. So, you want to stay? I have to get up early.”
“I should too.” He had things to do. A workout to get in. Wes’ inevitable gloating to endure. Several resumes to review for the bar.
“But you want to stay?” Nate looked shocked.
Okay, that was fair, but Ramsey still made a face. “Why is that so hard to believe? I told you . . .” He trailed off. What had he said? It felt like he’d said too much, but also not enough, before they kissed.
Nate raised an eyebrow. “You told me?”
“I told you I wanted to be around.” Ramsey was having trouble meeting Nate’s dark eyes, because it felt like they saw all the way through him, like bolt of electricity right through him. Exposing all the tender, sweet parts of him that Ramsey hadn’t even been sure he possessed until this year.
But no matter how much he’d pretended they didn’t exist, no matter how hard he’d shoved them down, they were surfacing now.
Nate had brought them out, without even trying.
“Okay,” Nate agreed, and it was easier even than Ramsey had thought to trail after him back into the bedroom.
Not for sex, but for sleep.
Nate unearthed a spare toothbrush from his cabinet and they brushed their teeth side by side.
Such a domestic scene would have been enough to send him running and screaming, but then Nate nudged his foot, smirk on his face, and it was all the reminder Ramsey needed that he’d wanted and wanted and wanted and now he was here.
Why would he want to leave?
He’d done that once, and it certainly hadn’t worked. It had never made Ramsey want Nate any less.
They went to bed, to sleep.
Ramsey was sure at this point that the enormity of this action would hit him, and a hundred things would bother him enough to keep sleep at bay, but to his surprise, the steadiness of Nate’s breathing and the smell of him on the sheets combined with the exhaustion of a good day, the best day, to send him into drowsiness immediately.
Nate didn’t touch him, but the way he looked over at Ramsey, the foot or two of mattress between their bodies, was good as a touch.
The sweet, intimate kind.
“Night,” Nate said softly, and Ramsey didn’t think he was imagining the wealth of meaning in just that one word.
All the things he wanted to say, and wasn’t, because he was still afraid the heartfulness would send Ramsey running to the door.
Maybe in time, Ramsey could convince Nate—and himself—that none of it would.
He was still thinking about it as he drifted off into sleep.
Woke up to Nate’s alarm, gentle but insistent, and then the sound of Nate rolling over, shutting it off.
Without any more warning than that, a warm body was encasing his, and Ramsey sighed as Nate’s breath ruffled the curls at the base of his neck.
“You’re still here,” Nate said, tone gravelly with sleep and full of wonder.
“Don’t sound so shocked,” Ramsey said. But he was shocked, too.
He was still here. He’d stayed the night, and the world hadn’t imploded.
Nothing terrible had happened. He’d let someone that wasn’t part of a very select inner circle, friends who’d never let him treat them like any of the others, see him at his most vulnerable.
And even more shockingly, he didn’t feel freaked out about it.
Nate nuzzled his scruff onto Ramsey’s neck, and he shivered. “When you said you had to get up early—”
Nate just laughed, though. Laughed and his hand found Ramsey’s cock, hardening against his thigh. “Baby, I gave us enough time for this.”
By the time Ramsey let himself into Wes’ apartment a little over an hour later, he was feeling damn good.
Wes was in the kitchen and heard the door open.
“Hey,” he called out. Insistently.
Ramsey rolled his eyes. He knew what kind of conversation this was going to be, and he didn’t know if he felt better or worse about it happening, considering the last time they’d talked about this, none of it had been true.
But it was true now.
Ramsey gave in to the inevitability. Maybe if he didn’t avoid it, it would suck less.
“Hey,” Ramsey replied, sauntering into the kitchen. He grabbed a mug and poured coffee.
Wes leaned back against the counter, smirking. “Late night? Early morning?”
“We don’t have to do this, you know.” But there was no way Wes wasn’t going to do it. He’d probably been looking forward to it for weeks now, ever since Ramsey had told him he and Nate were casually dating.
“Oh, I think we do.”
“I don’t need a lecture on how to be safe.”
The look Wes shot him was a little galling. “Don’t we?”
“Please. I get tested. You know Nate gets tested. And there’s always condoms.”
Wes pushed off and Ramsey should’ve expected it, but he smacked him upside the head. “You idiot, I’m not talking about sex. No, you’re the last person I need to lecture about safe sex. I’m talking about your heart. Because apparently you have one after all.”
“That’s unfair,” Ramsey said automatically.
Wes’ expression softened. “You’re right. It was unfair. You’ve always had a heart. You’re one of my best friends. One of the most loyal. You’d give me the shirt off your back, if it came down to it.”
“I’d even brave the dragon in his cave and suggest you call Marcus,” Ramsey muttered under his breath.
“I heard that,” Wes said, drumming his fingers on the counter.
“I meant you to,” Ramsey retorted.
“Don’t change the subject, okay? Sure, you have a heart. But you show it so rarely, it’s like you wanted to pretend it didn’t exist.”
“It exists,” Ramsey ground out.
“And I’m glad it does. Glad that you’re showing it to someone who isn’t me. Who isn’t Brody. Someone who isn’t your teammates.”
“You mean romantically.” One hundred times out of a hundred, that word would’ve gotten stuck in Ramsey’s throat, but he actually managed to say it now without it feeling like it was choking him.
Nate was different; Nate made everything different.
“I do,” Wes said, nodding. “So that’s why I’m saying, are you being safe with your heart?”
“This sounds like the beginning of a terrible self-help book,” Ramsey said, sipping his coffee.
But Wes was not going to be deterred. “The harder you try to not talk about this, the more determined I’m going to be to do it.”
Ramsey did not say anything about Marcus—okay, he did not say anything else about Marcus—and thought that he should win an award for his hard-won discretion.
“That’s obvious,” he said instead.
Wes had the nerve to roll his eyes. “Really, I’m happy for you.”
“Good, ’cause it seemed more like you just wanted to lecture me.”
“I know how easy it is to just let things go along, when you’re happy. To let everything else fall away. But the everything else is the really important shit.”
Wes rarely sounded bitter. He would admit, usually under duress but never excessive force, how much he loved Marcus still. That he’d been the one to screw it up. He never even sounded angry at Marcus, for what Ramsey considered his half of the implosion.
But his voice was hard now. Implacable.
“What are you talking about?” Ramsey asked carefully. He wasn’t sure what Wes was about to say, but he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like it.
“Like how does this thing work when you go back to Buffalo?” Wes asked.
Ramsey froze. “I don’t know. I didn’t think—”
“Yeah, you didn’t think.” Wes shoved a hand through his hair. “That’s why I’m doing your thinking for you. Which, I have to say, is not a situation I saw coming, but here we are.”
Ramsey opened his mouth and snapped it shut again. “I’m skating, sure, but who knows when I’ll join the team again and we’re . . .it’s not serious.”
“You stayed the night at his place. You’ve never done that before. You’ve never wanted to do that before,” Wes said slowly. Carefully. And that was the thing that finally made Ramsey do a double take.
Wes saying it so carefully.
“It’s not a big deal,” Ramsey claimed but the words didn’t feel genuine, even to him.
Wes shot him a look. “You don’t even look like you believe that.”
That was fair. He didn’t. It was a big deal.
“It’s a fucking big ass deal. And I don’t say that to freak you out—”
“No?” Ramsey rolled his eyes, but Wes continued.
“I don’t say that to freak you out. I just don’t want you to carry on, blissfully happy, and then get the shit kicked out of you by life and circumstances out of your control.”
“Wes—”
“No, don’t,” Wes said stoutly. But Ramsey ignored him—the same way Wes had ignored him so many fucking times, when missing hockey had threatened to overwhelm him—and set his coffee down, wrapping his arms around his friend and hugging him tightly.
“I’m always gonna,” Ramsey said into his shoulder.
Wes shuddered out a breath, and it was only when he seemed calm again that Ramsey let go.
“Listen, I get this freaks you out. It freaked you out.”
“Real life destroyed my life,” Wes said quietly.