Chapter 2 #3
Nate hadn’t been able to look away from him since he’d sat down. Since the revelation of his injury. But now it hurt to look at him. Because clearly Ramsey missed hockey.
Hated not being able to play.
“Come on, let’s play darts,” Wes said. He looked over at Nate, pointedly. “You too, Bishop.”
Nate wanted to tell him he was perfectly fine here, sitting back and just watching. But then Ramsey shot him a sideways look that said the exact same. That he’d be a lot happier if Nate didn’t join them, and well, Nate wasn’t going to make things easy on him.
Not when Ramsey had never made things easy on him.
It became very clear very quickly that Ramsey was exceptional at darts. He had a quick release and a great eye. Wes was not very good, and Nate was even, frustratingly, even worse, always throwing too hard. Feeling like he was bungling the slender darts in his big hands.
“Better luck next time,” Ramsey teased as he lost another game.
Nate scowled. The guy seemed practically designed to make his life difficult.
“Be nice,” Wes said, elbowing Ramsey.
“I’m being so nice,” Ramsey claimed. “Taking it easy on you guys and everything.”
“Doesn’t seem like it,” Nate complained. “Are you sure you’re not cheating?”
“Hey, I did say I was better at darts,” Ramsey said. He had the nerve to sound so innocent, when there was nothing innocent about him at all.
“Yeah, if you don’t like losing, don’t play him at cards,” Wes said seriously. And yeah, Nate could see that. Ramsey would be exceptional at cards. His entire self was a poker face, an extended con that never seemed to end.
“Noted,” Nate said.
“Hey, it’s almost like I’m in trouble for being awesome.
” Ramsey seemed delighted by this fact. He slung an arm around Wes’ shoulders, and Nate tried not to tense.
Tried not to catalog how easily Ramsey touched his friend and even some of the other guys.
How he’d gone out of his way to not touch Nate.
Not once. “But we better get you home, get you to bed. Big day tomorrow.”
Wes looked confused. “It is? I thought we had the day off.”
“Yeah, exactly,” Ramsey said, patting Wes supportively. “You have the day off before the run-through for your first big start.”
Did nobody else see how Ramsey was? Sure it was Wes’ start at QB, but Ramsey was acting like it was theirs.
Nate wanted to call him on how fucked-up that was, but Trevor spoke up first. “Dude, it’s a preseason game.”
Ramsey smacked Trevor upside the head, smiling easily the whole time. “Dude, I’m being a supportive friend, even though football sucks.”
It was impossible to be even the tiniest bit surprised at this confession. Maybe that was why Ramsey had high-tailed it out of Nate’s apartment. He’d realized Nate was that dreaded entity: a football player.
“What?” Ramsey said, shrugging, no self-consciousness whatsoever. “It does. It’s not hockey, that’s for damn sure.
Hockey, which Ramsey clearly was missing like an absent limb. Nate should feel some kind of sympathy for him, but he couldn’t find it.
“Can I get pissed at him now?” Nate wondered.
“No,” Aidan said firmly. Because of course he did.
“I like you,” Ramsey declared, moving his body from Wes to Aidan.
Nate tensed, envy surging through him even as he denied, denied, denied that he wished it was him, not Aidan.
“You’re not what everyone says you are,” Ramsey said. There was a knowing look in his eyes. Like he knew if he just kicked off this conversational topic, where it would head, and where it would end up.
“What does everyone say I am?” Aidan wondered.
Of fucking course he took the bait. Aidan had been designed to take the bait.
“Don’t listen to him, bro,” Trevor inserted earnestly. “You’re the best.”
“No, no I really want to hear this,” Aidan said with an unsurprising frown.
“Hey,” Ramsey said, “are you alright? I don’t have to—”
“No, tell me,” Aidan insisted.
Ramsey just shrugged. “Nothing bad. Just serious. Intense. Works hard. Never takes a break. No fun.” Then his face suddenly broke out into a grin, and it was blinding.
That smile should be registered as a weapon.
Or maybe it was just Nate who it affected that strongly. “But you’re kinda fun, actually.”
“Don’t tell him that, it’s just gonna go to his head, and his ego’s already big enough,” Levi teased.
“My ego’s the perfect size,” Aidan claimed.
Levi glanced at him, clearly delighted, and Nate knew then that they’d end up together. It was so obvious, the way they circled each other. The inevitability in the way they fit. Aidan quieter, more intense, Levi lighter and sweeter.
“Oh, it is, baby,” Levi said.
Ramsey glanced over at them and then back at Nate, his blue eyes suddenly burning.
Nate glanced away first. Couldn’t help it.
It was stupid he’d ever thought he and Ramsey might be something more. Like their first night together was the beginning of their journey, not the end.
They weren’t Aidan and Levi, everything laid out before them, all dazzling possibility.
The group split up after that. Aidan and Levi headed back to the former’s apartment.
Probably to flirt more and pretend that they both didn’t want so much more.
Lane wanted to try some other bar, and tried to get Nate to join him, but Nate was tired and grumpy.
Plus he knew from the way Lane kept eyeing Trevor that Nate wasn’t who he wanted to join him anyway.
He settled at the bar for a last drink, hoping to drink it in a melancholy silence.
But of course, that wasn’t going to happen. He’d just taken his first sip when Ramsey slid onto the barstool next to him.
Wes hadn’t wanted to head back to his apartment without him, but the thing about Wes was that he also knew Ramsey, so he also knew that Ramsey was going to do what he was going to do, and there was typically nothing Wes could do to stop it.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Wes said, and though he still didn’t know what had happened with Nate two months ago, it was like he had a sixth sense that something was going on.
That Ramsey wasn’t going to leave well enough alone and he wasn’t going to leave Nate alone.
Wes probably just thought Ramsey didn’t appreciate that Nate had apparently disliked him on sight, and he wasn’t going to correct Wes’ assumption.
“When have I ever done anything stupid?” Ramsey asked smoothly.
But Wes just rolled his eyes and tapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t sleep with him, okay?”
Ha. Ha.
And this was exactly why Ramsey hadn’t told Wes about what had happened in June.
He’d get this disappointed look on his face.
He wouldn’t say it, but he’d be thinking it.
Turned out that it was even worse in Ramsey’s imagination than it ever was in reality, but that didn’t mean Ramsey didn’t go out of his way to avoid it.
“I’ll do my best,” Ramsey said dryly.
“Good,” Wes said, nodding.
Then he was leaving, disappearing out the door, and there was nothing left to do but to walk up to where Nate was hunched over the bar. His shoulders seemed even broader from his perspective, the muscles in them even more prominent, his dark green henley clinging to them.
“Hey,” Ramsey said, sliding into the barstool next to him.
Nate shot him a look full of disbelief and annoyance. “What do you want?”
A more sane man might have led with, “Hey, I’m sorry I wasn’t upfront about my actual job two months ago and then freaked out when it turned out you were painfully close by association to my best friend.”
But Ramsey had never pretended to be particularly sane. There was always a point to the chaos, and an end goal in mind.
This time he wasn’t sure what the end goal was, so that was unusual, but Ramsey didn’t see any reason not to go with his normal shit stirring.
“Remember me?” Ramsey said with an easy grin.
Nate grimaced. “You lied to me.”
“Actually,” Ramsey said, “I told you the truth. You just didn’t want to believe it.”
“This how it usually goes with your hookups?” Nate demanded.
And okay, he was clearly pissed. Ramsey had known that before he’d come up to him.
Honestly, he’d known he was going to be pissed the moment Wes had told him that Nate was coming tonight, just another name on a list of them.
But Ramsey had underestimated just how annoyed Nate was going to be about it.
“Sure,” Ramsey said. That was a lie. This was not how they went, at all. First, he never let them get as close to the real him, not like he had that night in June. And on top of that, unless there was something to be gained from the connection, he rarely slept where he ate.
It was just easier to keep things neat and tidy.
The last time he’d made the mistake of hooking up with a guy too close to his actual life, it had been the Evergreens’ equipment manager, and the guy had sent him two years’ worth of sappy, pathetic texts before Ramsey had finally let him down as easily as he could and blocked him.
At the time, it had seemed simple enough—the guy had a lot of insider knowledge of the new coach. Info that Ramsey had needed.
But in the end, it hadn’t been worth it. Far too messy.
“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe a word you say,” Nate said bluntly.
“If I remember right, I was the only one who was completely, totally honest.” Ramsey shot Nate his most dazzling smile. The smile that had always gotten Ramsey, with a little work and effort, whatever he’d wanted.
But Nate seemed infuriatingly immune to it. “Bullshit.”
“I told you I was a hockey player.”
“You also told me you had a wife you were looking to cheat on. And that you were going to buy a bar.”
And okay, yes, the imaginary wife was bullshit. But it had been a test, one that Ramsey found worked really well at sorting the assholes from everyone else.
And not only had Nate not gone for it, he’d not believed it.
He hadn’t waited for Ramsey to tell him it was a lie, he’d told him it was a lie.