Chapter 2 #4
“And you decided I was Willy Nylander’s dog walker,” Ramsey said, using the smile again, more out of habit than the belief that it might actually work on this guy.
Nate actually had the nerve to look disgruntled he’d brought that back up. “It was more believable than what you were telling me.” He glanced down, into his glass. “Never met a hockey player who looked like you.”
“Probably never met another guy who looked like me,” Ramsey offered.
“Is everything for you a joke?”
Not even remotely. Nothing about Ramsey’s life was a fucking joke, especially now. But if he told the truth . . .no. He never told the truth. He’d told Nate already enough of the truth the first time they’d met, and now he was paying for that honesty.
“You seem to have me all figured out,” Ramsey said.
“And you seem way less pissed and inclined to run away than you did in June,” Nate said, frowning.
It was like he thought by claiming Ramsey was less of a man for taking off, he’d see red and word vomit up everything.
Ha.
Ramsey was made of much sterner stuff than that. He’d been called a cocksucker, a girl, a pretty princess, and far, far worse, by dudes a lot bigger and meaner than Nate Bishop for a lot longer.
He’d been formed in a blast furnace, and Nate tossing little grenades at him didn’t even dent his shell.
“Maybe I thought after all my graciousness, I deserved a slightly better lie than I work at Tim Horton’s.”
“Yeah, a real fucking gentleman,” Nate complained. He downed the rest of his drink. “I don’t even know why you’re here. You made your feelings clear before.”
There was that F word again.
It wasn’t like Ramsey didn’t have feelings. Everyone had feelings. They were an unavoidable symptom of being human. But Ramsey’s feelings weren’t for anyone else but him. He didn’t share them, ever, and he couldn’t see that changing.
“Maybe I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t have a few more of those and blurt out the whole pathetic story to anyone.” Ramsey gestured at the glass in Nate’s hand.
He didn’t know why he was being so combative when he’d theoretically come over here to smooth things over. To make nice in a way that only he could.
“Why do you even care if I do?” Nate asked.
The disdain in Nate’s eyes burned. Make him wish for things that weren’t ever going to happen, and that annoyed Ramsey.
“I don’t,” Ramsey said shortly. “I was only embarrassed for you. Getting a guy like me and then bungling it.”
He was fine with his life the way it was. He didn’t need anyone else interfering in it. Wes was plenty. He had Brody still, even if Brody felt further away from him than ever, preoccupied by medical school and his big, dumb NFL player boyfriend.
He’d had hockey. He’d have hockey again. He had other interests and diversions. The last thing he needed—or wanted—was this even bigger, even dumber football player who thought he knew Ramsey better than he knew himself.
He was not Brody.
A sick pair of biceps and wet dream abs weren’t going to be enough to sway Ramsey.
“Please,” Nate retorted. “I was there. I didn’t bungle shit. You were . . .you were on board. Not exactly demanding to leave after I fucked you.”
Ramsey clamped his lips together. That was the worst of it. Ramsey could talk a big game. Could talk around Nate the way he talked around everyone else he’d ever met, but he couldn’t magically insert himself into Nate’s brain and make him forget certain things about that night.
Like how into it Ramsey had been. How he’d let Nate romance him a little, and hadn’t tried to stop him even once. How he’d not been in a hurry to leave either. How he might have stayed the night, even, if Nate had never turned the kitchen light on.
Nate knew all those things, and no amount of pretending, no amount of posturing, no amount of maneuvering, was going to change his opinion.
“You’re sticking around Toronto, right?” Nate asked then, before Ramsey could land on a strategy that might work.
Magic was unfortunately out. The last two Etsy witches he’d tried out hadn’t panned out.
He hadn’t been particularly hopeful they would, but it was never a bad idea to have a ringer in your pocket.
“Why does it matter?” Ramsey asked. He wasn’t bitter. Bitter people had exposed weaknesses, and Ramsey’s weren’t, because he wouldn’t let them.
“’Cause Wes is gonna keep bringing you around.”
Ramsey wanted to declare that he wouldn’t be, not if Ramsey had anything to say about it. Not if Nate was going to be anywhere in the vicinity.
But to avoid Nate, he was going to have to tell Wes he didn’t like him. And Wes wasn’t going to believe that was true, unless Ramsey decided to confess the whole truth.
And he really didn’t want to do that. Imagining Wes’ aggrieved expression was bad enough, but then he’d want to interfere. He’d want Ramsey to get some mythical happily-ever-after ending, even if his had gone to shit. Especially because his had gone to shit.
“Yes,” Ramsey conceded. “Wes probably will want to.”
“And you’re not going to tell him no.”
“Probably not,” Ramsey said between gritted teeth. He didn’t like how this guy kept seeing right through him. How had he taken a look at him and Wes and then spent an hour in their presence and figured out Ramsey’s soft spot? It wasn’t okay, and it definitely wasn’t fair.
“So what are we gonna do about this?”
For a half a second, Ramsey wondered if he was suggesting they sleep together again. And for that half a second his body sat up and begged, saying yes please, but then he reminded it why that was a terrible fucking idea.
Before he realized that of fucking course that wasn’t what Nate was saying at all.
“You mean, how do we co-exist in the same universe?” Ramsey asked.
Nate frowned. “Why on earth would you have any trouble? Were you that pissed that I was a football player?”
To Ramsey’s own surprise, he found himself more than a little desperate to admit that had nothing to do with it at all. He had a strict no football player policy—but if he’d been a guy on the Bills or the Jets or the Giants, he’d have made a gracious exception.
But no, Nate wasn’t on the Bills or the Jets or the Giants. He was right here, on Wes’ team, and therefore unavoidable. And Ramsey knew himself well enough to know he’d definitely want to avoid him at some point.
He always did.
“Ask my friend Brody. I have a strict no football players policy. I love brawn, but even I need some brains,” Ramsey said flippantly, instead of any of the confessions he wasn’t going to admit.
“God, you kinda are a selfish, superficial asshole, aren’t you?” Nate said. Still frowning. Like he’d actually believed otherwise, and it was a kick to the gut to realize differently.
Well, the sooner Nate Bishop believed the Ramsey he presented to the world, the easier it would be to slough him off, same as Ramsey did everyone else.
“Sure, yeah,” Ramsey said, deploying the smile, again.
Nate just shook his head. “God, I was so wrong about you.”
Yes. Yes, you were.
Maybe if Nate believed it, he’d steer clear. Make sure when they did run into each other, unavoidably, that he didn’t bother even looking in Ramsey’s direction.
Ramsey nodded. “Yep, you sure were.”
Nate’s face freezing into dismissal shouldn’t have hurt. Him walking away shouldn’t have hurt. But Ramsey watched him go and thought, it doesn’t hurt.
But it did, deep down in a place where Ramsey shoved all that unpleasant and difficult emotion that he didn’t know how to parse.
The way it felt growing up without a single person who’d given a shit about him, lost in the foster system.
When he’d realized that Daniel Hood, his foster dad at nine, only gave a shit about him because he was good at hockey.
He’d never been a son to Dan, only a means to an end.
The incurable loneliness until he’d figured out that a hockey team could also be a family, but only if he always made sure he was in control of it.
The devastation when he’d lost the one thing he’d ever really wanted to that last concussion.
He was still determined to get it all back, but unlike people, Ramsey didn’t have control over his brain. He couldn’t force it to heal.
And even if it did, he’d never get these years—the best years of his career—back. He was comfortable financially now, but money had always come fairly easily to him. Even in juniors, he’d played cards to win. That hadn’t changed in college.
The new contract he’d signed a month before the last concussion had ensured he’d never worry about his bank account again, but Ramsey still thought he might trade that financial stability to be back on the ice.
But nobody knew that but him. Not Brody. Not even Wes.
Nobody, just him. And if he kept burying it down, kept reinforcing his walls so nobody could see deep enough within them, then even he didn’t have to know that either.