Hell or High Water (Toronto Thunder #3)

Chapter 1

June

The guy was hot.

He moved through the crowd at the bar with a confidence that said he knew it too. Knew everyone was watching him and he’d long since made his peace with that fact.

Nate hadn’t come out to the bar looking for a hookup, and even if he was into the hottest guy he might’ve ever seen, he had a feeling there’d be a line out the door for a shot in his bed.

Nate wasn’t into sharing. Might’ve at some point been into the casual hookup scene, but he was tired of putting guys into his phone as “big dick” and “even bigger dick” with no names to be found.

He wasn’t sure the whole marriage-white picket fence-happily-ever-after thing was for him either, but he thought maybe this year he could find some sort of happy medium. Something straddling the line between “big dick” and “monogrammed towels.”

And yeah, this guy, he was definitely more the former than the latter. Slid through the crowd like a hot knife through butter, gaze assessing even as he kept his expression blank, like he was allergic to giving himself away.

A guy who’d never give a thing away.

Nate would never even get his number to put in his phone as “hottest guy with the biggest dick.”

But even if he didn’t, that didn’t mean Nate couldn’t look.

Lane, a tight end and one of Nate’s best friends on the Thunder, had said he was coming out too, but then he’d bailed at the last minute, even when Nate had gone out of his way to mention that Trevor, Lane’s younger stepbrother, new to Toronto and to the team, would be welcome.

Lane had ended up blowing him off, claiming he had a hookup, but Nate had a feeling if he headed over to the apartment he was now sharing with Trev, he’d catch them drinking beer and playing Call of Duty, badly.

Nate had nothing else going on, so he sipped his beer and watched as the bartender flirted with the hot guy. Then poured him a drink.

Hot Guy just shrugged, casually, easily blowing him off. Doing it in such a way that Nate was fascinated, because he was pretty sure the bartender hadn’t even realized it had happened.

A girl approached him next, and she barely got a second glance.

The bar wasn’t full despite it being a Thursday. After Nate finished his beer, he didn’t worry about losing his table when he went to take a piss.

Sure enough, when he returned from the bathroom, his table was unoccupied.

Well. No. That wasn’t quite true either.

There was a fresh beer there, right at the spot where Nate had been sitting and a man in the barstool across. Not just any guy. The guy.

Nate hesitated. Maybe he was reading the situation wrong.

But then hot guy glanced up, meeting Nate’s eyes, and tilted his head towards the beer.

Nate hadn’t even realized that Hot Guy had noticed him.

He swallowed hard, reminded himself that he wasn’t really interested, even as his heart beat a little faster, and made his way over to the table.

“Hey,” the guy said. “I got you a beer.” He waved over towards the bar casually. “Nicky said this was what you were drinking.”

Nate didn’t know which part of this whole thing was taking him out more—that this guy had come over here, clearly planning it, and yet acting like it was all just casually accidental, or that, up close, he wasn’t hot after all.

He was beautiful.

Blond curls, tousled all over his head. Eyes that turned out to be an unearthly light blue.

A face that wouldn’t have been out of place in one of those ridiculous perfume commercials he’d tried not to get off to when he was a pimply thirteen-year-old.

And the body? He had broad shoulders, filling out his plain white T-shirt, and a narrow waist. Tanned biceps and forearms that made it clear he knew his way around a weight room.

Nate reached out for the beer and took a sip, despite that he almost never took drinks from strangers.

“Yeah,” Nate agreed, mouth suddenly very dry despite the beer. He had game. Hardly a slouch himself, plus he was fairly well known in this town, even though this was only his second year on the Thunder.

Had this guy come over because he thought Nate was an easy mark? Rich and famous?

Beautiful guy smiled, even white teeth flashing in his mouth. He was a little less startlingly gorgeous when he flashed them. It made him look more real, less like an underwear model on a gigantic billboard.

“I’m Ramsey,” he said. He didn’t extend his hand, and Nate didn’t go to shake it.

“Nate,” he returned, though he was about eighty percent sure the guy had clocked him and had come over here with a free beer only because he was Nate Bishop, defensive end and captain of the Toronto Thunder.

That was annoying, for sure, but Nate would be lying if he said he wasn’t used to it.

“You don’t sound very Canadian,” Ramsey said, who didn’t sound very Canadian either.

Nate didn’t do a double take, but he wanted to. Was it possible . . .was it possible this guy hadn’t recognized him?

“You don’t either,” Nate countered.

He was sure guys probably saw Ramsey sauntering over in their direction and fell to their knees, slobbering all over themselves for even a chance to touch his hand.

But that wasn’t Nate’s style. Never had been. Hot was great and all, but he liked a guy with a little substance to him. Even if all that substance ended up being was saved as “big dick” in his phone.

“Nope,” Ramsey said. “From all over, really. Spent some time in the Pacific Northwest. Now I’m in Buffalo.”

“This isn’t Buffalo.”

“Hot and smart,” Ramsey said with a smirk.

Nate shot him a look full of disbelief. He was good-looking, sure, but there were far more attractive people at this bar, Ramsey included.

Ramsey just shrugged, like he knew all of what had just flashed through Nate’s mind. “You’ve got a nice face.”

“Okay, sure,” Nate said, laughing now. “You gonna tell me what you’re doing in Toronto?”

“You actually want me to?” Ramsey asked.

Nate also hated the pointless exercise of small talk.

He’d never been good at it. Probably one of the reasons he was done with the hookup lifestyle.

Going through the motions of looking interested in something more than a guy’s dick when he wasn’t, at all, seemed pointless. Like a waste of everyone’s time.

“Not really, actually,” Nate admitted.

The smirk on Ramsey’s face deepened, like he enjoyed catching Nate in that little morsel of tasty honesty.

“I wasn’t going to tell you anyway,” Ramsey said.

“What lie were you going to tell me?” Nate wondered.

Ramsey’s eyes lit up, genuine interest there now.

Before, he’d been at least a little honest, but maybe more playing a part than anything else.

Nate’s heart quickened. He shouldn’t care if this was more than just two bodies in the dark, especially when one of the bodies looked like that, but he did.

“Hmm, that’s an interesting question. Businessman up here for work?” Ramsey suggested, and Nate shook his head.

“You can do better than that,” Nate challenged.

“Maybe I’m up here to cheat on my wife,” Ramsey offered.

“Your wife?” Nate asked in disbelief. “You barely noticed that girl who tried to hit on you. Am I supposed to buy the story that you cared enough about a woman to marry her?” He paused, glancing down at Ramsey’s hands.

They were bare, but well-formed. Ghosts of callouses visible in the dim light of the bar. “Plus, no ring line.”

“Caught me again.”

“I sure did.”

“How about, I’m in the city to do research?”

“For what?”

“Thinking about buying a business here,” Ramsey said.

“What kind of business? You want me to buy your story, you gotta offer a few details.”

“He’s a tough critic,” Ramsey observed, grinning. He sounded delighted. Nate was trying to feel less delighted by this fact.

This guy wasn’t anyone’s happily-ever-after.

But Nate was having a good time. And there was the added bonus of getting to look at him a little longer.

“You’re telling me you’re not capable of doing any better?” Nate wondered. But he knew the answer to his question before he even asked it. Undoubtedly Ramsey was used to getting by on his drop-dead looks. But he was smart too. That much was obvious, if you were paying any attention at all.

And Nate sure was.

“A bar. Considering buying into a bar. Cool place.”

“Not this bar then,” Nate joked.

“Nope. Not this bar. Maybe I’m doing some research, scoping out the competition.”

“Trying to lure the bartender away?”

Ramsey chuckled deeply and it pulled, sickly sweet, at the feeling at the base of Nate’s stomach. This guy was trouble.

Nate should walk away.

“You assume I could. Maybe Nicky likes working here, working the crowd, a bit.”

“He tried to work you,” Nate said.

Ramsey didn’t look even the tiniest bit sorry about this. There was only frank acceptance in his expression. “Yeah.”

“So are you gonna invest in this bar?” Nate asked.

“Jury’s still out,” Ramsey said. “I like the concept. It’s solid. Business plan’s good. But I wanna be a little more hands-on, and I’m not sure ownership would be into that.”

“Why?”

“Why are they against it?”

“Why do you want to be?” Nate shouldn’t find Ramsey fascinating. Or, maybe he should. Maybe he’d have to be dead not to find this guy fascinating. The problem was more extricating himself before fascination was all he felt.

Before he built a castle in the sky he’d be alone in once morning hit.

“Ah, well. Kind of at a loose end at the moment.” Ramsey fluttered his eyelashes. “How was that?”

“Pretty good. Decent enough.”

Ramsey pouted, which shouldn’t have been attractive, but with his face and his lips and his eyes, he could do anything he wanted and still make it attractive.

Nate wondered if that was ever a curse, or Ramsey only saw it as a blessing.

“How about this one?” Ramsey said. “I’m a professional athlete.”

Nate tensed. Maybe Ramsey knew what he was, after all. But he forced the tension out of his shoulders. “Yeah? Which sport? Professional eyelash batting?”

“Hey,” Ramsey retorted without much heat.

“Which sport?” Nate asked again.