Chapter 5
Nate knew something like this was coming, but he was still surprised when Aidan cornered him in the hallway just outside the locker room after practice.
“Hey,” Aidan said, pushing off the wall, where he’d clearly been lying in wait for Nate to head out towards the cafeteria for lunch.
Nate glanced over at him suspiciously. “What do you want?”
“Maybe I just want to say hey,” Aidan said, making a face. “Why wouldn’t I want to say hey?”
Nate shot him a disgruntled look. “Because I know you?”
“Fair. That’s fair. I just wanted to grab you real quick and check in.”
They both knew what Aidan wanted to check in about, but Nate was annoyed enough they had to have this conversation at all he was going to pretend until there was zero plausible deniability. “Oh, you want to chat about Atkinson, too?”
Aidan frowned. “What’s going on with Atkinson?”
“Sterling didn’t tell you?”
“Oh, he did.” Aidan steered him, not towards the elevator that led to the floor with the cafeteria, but one of the empty meeting rooms. Again, it wasn’t surprising as much as it was annoying. “Told me you were taking care of it. Are you not?”
“I am,” Nate said. He’d been to three strip clubs in ten days, and he hadn’t hated it, though the whole point of it had been pretty lost on him.
“Good, good.”
Aidan leaned against the first row of chairs in the auditorium-style room. “I’m glad, but Atkinson isn’t why I wanted to check in.”
“I know,” Nate said.
“If you—” Aidan broke off, shaking his head. “You don’t want to talk about it.”
“I think you’d be the first person to get that,” Nate muttered.
“I am, but sometimes we gotta take one for the team.” Aidan gave him a hard look.
“He’s not on our team.”
“No, he isn’t,” Aidan said frankly. “He’s not really on any team right now, and that sucks.”
Nate wanted to say how that wasn’t his problem. He was desperate for it to not be his problem. But it had, inevitably, been his problem since June.
His problem because his brain and some other organs he refused to identify kept making it his problem.
“Yeah, it does,” Nate said instead.
“I talked to Wes a few days ago and he told me Ramsey’s not going back to Buffalo anytime soon.”
Nate had known it, but it still sucked to hear it, laid out in black and white like that. He needed Ramsey to be okay, not just because that would mean Ramsey would go back across the border, but because it meant he would be okay.
“Okay.”
Aidan made a frustrated noise deep in his throat. “Tell me what your deal is with him, because he’s not going anywhere. I want him around, even if you don’t.”
The last thing he wanted to do was tell Aidan Flynn about his sex life, but maybe he could . . .well, he could say something. “I met him before,” he said, hoping he could keep it nebulous.
“Oh yeah?” Aidan crossed his arms over his chest and just looked unamused.
“Yeah.” Nate still wanted to leave it there.
“So what? You hit on him and he turned you down and you’re bitter about it now?”
“Not even close,” Nate scoffed. Then realized a second too late that he should’ve worked a little harder to keep a poker face. But that was the problem with Ramsey—he blasted through any attempt Nate ever made at disinterest.
“Ah, so you slept with him and he ditched you.”
It had been so much more than that, but Nate supposed that if you had to boil it down to the basic series of events, that was it. He nodded.
“I worry about Levi if he ever has to keep a secret from you,” Nate added.
Aidan just laughed. “That’s the thing though—he doesn’t have any. That’s the beauty of a relationship.”
Nate’s heart ached. He’d pretended for so long that he didn’t want that, but he did. He still did. But Ramsey had taken up residence in his blood, and no amount of exorcisms seemed to be able to evict him.
Maybe if he wasn’t around, Nate could start to get over it, could go back to his intention of finding a boyfriend. Of falling in love. But how could he even think about that, when the only person he could think about was Ramsey?
But he wasn’t going anywhere. Aidan had just confirmed that, and now he felt stuck between a rock and a hard place.
“Yeah, I know,” he said shortly. “You good now?”
“Wait,” Aidan commanded, catching his arm as he began to turn away. “We’re not done.”
Nate could shake his grip off. It was strong, but Nate was stronger. Nate was a captain, same as Aidan. He could tell him to fuck off.
But this was Aidan Flynn. When Nate had been in high school, Aidan had been tearing it up in the NFL, winning Super Bowls. If Deacon ever found out that he’d brushed Aidan off, he’d never hear the end of it.
Even if Deacon didn’t necessarily like Aidan—too many years of healthy competition had made that a stretch—he would insist Aidan had earned respect. Especially in this scenario.
“What?” Nate asked testily.
“So you slept together and it was what, really good? And now you’re torn up about it?”
“No,” Nate retorted.
“He was shitty to you when he left?”
“You have a real future in interrogation after the football thing,” Nate grumbled.
“Thanks.” Aidan’s tone was dry. “So my brother keeps telling me.”
“Riley’s rarely wrong.”
Aidan’s blue eyes, burning brightly, bored into him. “Don’t change the subject.”
“I—”
“You were. Riley’s not a get out of jail free card.”
Nate sighed. “Sure yeah. He told me the score. I thought I could accept that, even though it wasn’t really what I wanted. But then after, I thought it might go differently. It was going differently. Then he figured out who I was.”
Aidan grimaced. “Ouch.”
“Yeah, it didn’t end well after that.”
“He seems to be trying to be friendly,” Aidan said cautiously.
“That’s just his way. He doesn’t like that I don’t like him.
” Nate wasn’t going to go into Ramsey’s whole ridiculously charming facade or how it was as flimsy as those old film sets they’d built on Hollywood back lots.
Nothing behind them. Or even worse, a bunch of bullshit that Ramsey didn’t want to be seen.
“You haven’t considered trying to bury the hatchet and becoming friends?”
Friends. That was fucking rich.
Nate didn’t dignify that with a response and Aidan winced. “Okay, yeah, I know it sounds stupid.”
“It’s fucking ridiculous,” Nate corrected in a hard voice. “I can’t be his friend. I couldn’t ever be his friend.”
He wanted him too much for that, the desire tearing through him with claws.
“But I want you to come around, and I want him to keep coming around,” Aidan said, like he was just going to pretend Nate hadn’t said that at all.
“Nothing stopping either of us,” Nate argued.
Aidan shot him a look. “You know it makes things difficult when you’re not even trying to pretend to be nice.”
“Is that what you’re asking me to do? Pretend?”
“Fake it til you make it? Maybe he’ll surprise you?” Aidan pretended false positivity it was obvious he didn’t feel.
And Nate shouldn’t feel guilty. He was allowed to not like a guy. He was allowed to show it, if he wanted to.
“Doubtful but I’ll think about it,” Nate agreed, finally.
“Was it serious?” Aidan asked. The one question Nate didn’t want to answer.
“Nah,” he lied. Or did he? Nate wasn’t even sure if he even knew the truth anymore.
Aidan sighed. “You know why I’m asking this.”
“Because he’s alone. And his team’s basically left him behind. Maybe we’re not his team, but we could be.”
“I thought you might,” Aidan said. “You do get it.”
“I’d be fucking blind not to,” Nate muttered.
“But, despite all that, if you . . .if it was a real problem, a significant issue, I would be willing to discuss it. Like, if you had feelings for him. If you loved him.”
Aidan had preached to him as the consummate leader before Nate had ever been traded to the Thunder.
He’d seen it up close and personal lots of times since then.
But he didn’t think he’d ever seen it done as deftly as Aidan was doing it now.
Being there for Ramsey, while also reminding Nate that he was most important.
That he was still, always, one of theirs.
He could lie; he could tell the truth.
Nate hesitated.
If he said he had feelings for Ramsey, Aidan would let it go.
If he said he loved Ramsey, if he actually said the shit out loud that haunted him deep into the night, then how would he ever get over it?
Besides, he didn’t love Ramsey. He didn’t know Ramsey.
But he might’ve, if Ramsey had ever let him.
“No,” Nate said. “No feelings, other than a bruised ego.” He didn’t say the L word out loud, because he wasn’t sure he could.
Wasn’t sure he should.
Aidan wasn’t the sharpest when it came to emotions, but if Nate stuttered, if his face looked as awful as he thought it might, then he wouldn’t be able to hide all the what-ifs that haunted him.
Aidan just nodded. “Okay, then.”
Nate should’ve expected that wouldn’t be the end of it.
But a week went by, and then another, and Nate didn’t get complacent, exactly, but he was distracted by the Jordan problem and losing himself in the rhythm of the season.
By late October, he thought Jordan might be warming to him, but maybe that was just because he was willing to go on a tour of Toronto’s strip clubs with him.
Tonight, they weren’t at the Wild Leopard or the Neon Light. They were at Vault, Jordan over by the bar, Nate keeping half an eye on him and half an eye on where Ramsey had just appeared.
Whenever the team came to Vault, he was always here, an undeniable presence Nate couldn’t avoid. Tonight, he’d expected that nothing would be different, and sure enough, there he was, sliding through the crowd, doling out his charming smiles like candy.
He met Nate’s eyes and Nate tried not to tense.
It was stupid, but he kept waiting for the inevitable moment when he saw Ramsey and his pulse didn’t race.
Today was not that day.
And even worse, Ramsey seemed heading in his direction. Taking an indirect route, but that didn’t matter, because every time Ramsey glanced over at him, it was obvious Nate was his ultimate destination.