Chapter 15
“You gotta tell me,” Cam said, leaning into Dawson’s space as they settled in the suite seats above the ice, “was this your idea initially, ’cause it’s fucking brilliant.”
Dawson shot him an amused look. “No. It was all Wes. I think he’s having more fun than he should torturing Nate with all his comments about hockey being harder than football.”
When Clarissa, one of the PR reps, had come into the locker room with an offer to attend the Leafs game tonight, a handful of hands had gone up, including Dawson’s.
Dawson had shot him a look, and it had been easy for Cam to raise his, too. What else would he be doing tonight? He’d only planned on dinner and then some TV on his couch. Maybe convincing Dawson to watch the next Fast and Furious movie.
But a hockey game sounded like a good time, and they’d all be in a suite, Clarissa said. Free food and drink.
Hard to turn that down.
Cam had not seen Nate raise his hand, unsurprisingly, but then he’d shown up with the rest of them at the suite, a frown on his face and reluctance in every line of his body.
He and Dawson had taken seats towards the front of the suite, getting ready for puck drop, blue lights flashing across the ice, but he was pretty sure Nate was trying to bury his bulk in the back of the suite, like he could hide from where he was.
There was a big enough group of them that maybe Nate could hide, but not for long.
Aidan and Levi were chatting with him, Wes with them, while Jaden, Lane, and Trevor were seated in the row of seats across from where Dawson and Cam had settled in.
Cam couldn’t say he followed hockey much, but he knew the basics, and the game was fun—fast-paced and full of energy—and with Dawson a warm line beside him, he was having a great time.
Everyone else was enjoying themselves, too, even Nate.
At least that seemed to be the case, Nate talking and actually laughing, the handful of times when Cam ended up in the main suite area, to grab him and Dawson drinks or to fill their bowl of popcorn.
But in the first intermission, he and Dawson got up to stretch their legs, and that meant they were milling around the suite when the door opened and Ramsey walked in.
Next to him, Nate stiffened. Cam thought for a second he might duck away, but Dawson was on Nate’s other side and he nudged him back into their circle.
“Hey, guys, I heard you were around here tonight,” Ramsey said with a wide grin, making the rounds, shaking hands and giving bro hugs.
He was dressed in a suit, slate blue that matched his eyes, with a white shirt open at the collar, a diamond-studded chain peeking out, glinting against his skin.
Even though Cam was currently kind of obsessed with Dawson, it was hard not to look at Ramsey and keep looking, even if looking was all he was interested in doing.
The guy was gorgeous, like a model or a painting in one of those big fancy museums.
Nate’s mouth was drawn in a grim, annoyed line when Ramsey finally made it around to him.
“Nathaniel,” he said, dipping his head. Nate was the one guy he didn’t try to greet with a touch. Just kept his distance.
“Your name isn’t even—” Levi said, wide-eyed, glancing from where Ramsey was standing, corner of his mouth quirked up in wry amusement, to Nate, who was practically quivering with tension.
“He knows that,” Nate said flatly.
Ramsey gave a little self-deprecating shrug. “It suits you.”
“It does not.” Nate looked the opposite of amused.
Aidan cleared his throat, clearly aware of how tightly wound the tension was and trying to unwind it. “It was good of you to stop by.”
“I was already at the game,” Ramsey said. He gestured towards the ice. “That’s my team.”
“The Leafs?” Cam asked, because he hadn’t thought so.
“No, the Sabres,” Ramsey said and there was something cold and detached in his voice then. “And I played college hockey with a couple of guys on the Leafs. McCoy and Jones. On the third line.”
“Oh, yeah, they scored,” Levi said. “That was a pretty sick pass.”
Aidan shot him a look.
“What?” Levi exclaimed. “It was! I’ve been watching hockey more. I know what a good pass looks like.”
“It was a pretty good pass,” Ramsey agreed. Cam had half-expected him to avoid Nate—talking or even looking at the guy—once he’d greeted him, but his gaze shifted right to the guy. “What did you think, Nathaniel?”
“No clue,” Nate ground out.
“Oh, that’s right,” Ramsey said smoothly. “Hockey’s too good for you. Or you’re too good for hockey? I can’t remember which it is.”
“You did say you’d get him here, to Scotia Bank,” Lane pointed out. Trevor nudged him with an elbow, not very subtly.
“I did. You wanna get out there after the game?” Ramsey asked innocently. Or his version of innocently, anyway, because Cam had a feeling that guy didn’t have an innocent bone in his body.
“No.”
“I don’t know, I think you’d be okay out there,” Ramsey said.
Nate rolled his eyes. “Don’t fucking do that.”
“Do what?”
Cam had a feeling things were rapidly going south. He could feel Aidan on his other side, tensing, ready to step in if the situation soured even further.
But Nate only barked out a chuckle. “That look doesn’t work on me.”
He turned and walked out then.
Cam would’ve been so upset, but Ramsey didn’t even look bothered. Just beamed one of those bright supermodel smiles. “Not sure what he’s talking about,” he said conspiratorially.
The second period was starting shortly, and Cam grabbed him and Dawson another pair of beers and they settled back in their seats, this time Aidan with them.
“That was weird,” Aidan said, leaning forward to tuck his bottle of water into the cup holder in front of him.
“Was it?” Dawson asked.
Aidan made a face. “You were there; you know it was. Don’t even try to pretend it wasn’t.”
“Oh, I was there. I wouldn’t say it was weird though. Or even remotely surprising. Nate and Ramsey interacting? It’s been pretty much the same since the beginning. Maybe it’s even gotten worse. You shouldn’t have made him come.”
“I didn’t,” Aidan claimed.
“I don’t remember him putting his hand up in the locker room,” Cam pointed out. Maybe Daws was right and Aidan wasn’t that scary. Especially when he was so obviously terrible at reading the room. When he thought what had happened was weird.
It was, as Dawson said, not weird. And not particularly surprising.
“I just thought . . .” Aidan ran a hand through his hair and made a frustrated noise. “I want them to get along. Wes is always telling me how isolated Ramsey is. I want to include him.”
“He’s not your teammate, bud,” Dawson said.
It was a little harsh, even for one of Dawson’s grumpy moods. And Dawson must have known it, because he sighed and added, “I get that you want to help him. It’s admirable. It is. But he and Nate aren’t going to get along. Just . . .when you want to invite him, don’t invite Nate.”
“That’s not a solution,” Aidan said stubbornly.
Cam wondered if that was how he sounded right before he’d puked into the bush all those years ago. Determined not to be drunk and messy, and yet still knee-deep in a boxwood.
“Looks like a solution to me,” Dawson retorted.
“Nate’s one of the captains of this team,” Aidan countered. “I can’t just not include him. Besides, it wasn’t even me this time. It was Wes.”
“I didn’t have Wes picking up your worst-big-brother-tendencies on my bingo card,” Dawson said.
Cam cackled and Aidan glared. But not hard enough to make Cam regret laughing. Especially not when Dawson shot him a smug grin.
“I’m just saying, Wes is Ramsey’s friend, right? So if he invited him, it must be fine.”
“Bro, it did not look fine,” Dawson said.
Aidan sighed heavily. “I know. I know. Which is why I said it was weird.”
“No, your little arranged playdate between me and Mo was weird. This was . . .” Dawson hummed under his breath and then turned to Cam. “What did you call it the other day?”
“Pulling each other’s pigtails?”
Dawson snapped his fingers, nodding intently. “Yeah, that’s it,” he said. “Maybe they should hate-fuck about it.”
Aidan groaned under his breath. Apparently that noise was permanently on Levi’s radar now, because he appeared then, a crease between his brows. “Everything okay, babe?” he asked Aidan.
Aidan made a face. “If I say they’re ganging up on me, will you beat them up for me?”
Cam had never seen Aidan Flynn make puppy dog eyes before. If he wasn’t currently witnessing it, he wouldn’t have believed it was possible. But it was actually fucking happening.
Dawson had continually told him that one day, he’d see Aidan as a guy—kind of a stupid guy, at that—and not as Aidan Flynn, Superstar QB of the Toronto Thunder, and yep, this was it. This was the time. It had finally arrived.
“Bro,” Levi said in a wounded voice, “they’re like two-thirds of our special teams? Who’s gonna kick the extra points when you throw four touchdowns like you did on Sunday?”
“Two-point conversions?” Aidan suggested hopefully.
Levi just laughed, like Aidan was the most delightful person in the whole world.
Cam wondered if there would ever be a moment for him when Aidan came back down to earth and revealed he too had feet of clay.
But Cam realized that was probably never going to happen, because Levi already saw all of him and the magic was, he didn’t care.
Just like how Cam saw all of Dawson—his insecurities and his worries and his anxiety—and none of that ever fazed him. He was still just as hot for him, still just as eager to kiss him, the next time they were alone.
“Ugh, you’re no help,” Aidan complained. “Go back to your gossip fest with Trevor and Lane.”
Levi leaned down and whispered something into Aidan’s ear. Aidan went bright red, and well, whatever that was, clearly there was going to be no lack of magic in Aidan’s condo later tonight.