Chapter 5 #2
Usually, Ramsey was not this obvious, and Nate buried the flash of concern that he wasn’t okay.
But then Ramsey was at his side, glancing up at him with those unearthly blue-ish silver eyes, sweater matching them almost perfectly, a glittering diamond-encrusted chain just peeking around his collar.
“Bishop,” he said, nodding at him.
Nate swallowed down the complicated soup of emotion that Ramsey always churned up in him. “Playing nice, huh?”
“I thought that’s what I always do,” Ramsey retorted mildly. Not bothered, like he never was, by the edge of Nate’s voice.
“Yeah, wonder if you can actually fucking stand any of us,” Nate muttered. He hated how he didn’t know if it was all an act or not. If Ramsey’s semitransparent interest tonight was even genuine.
And if it wasn’t, why was he even bothering?
“Oh, but you’re my favorite, Nathaniel,” Ramsey teased, like Nate hadn’t said anything at all.
That was new, and Nate hated it.
“Hey, Nate, I was going to ask you something,” someone said, and Nate glanced over, surprised that not only Dawson was standing there, but Cam, too. He’d been so hyper-focused on Ramsey, he hadn’t even noticed them walk up. “You got a minute?”
Maybe Dawson had been deployed by Aidan—he knew they were longtime friends, and it wouldn’t surprise Nate at all if Dawson had been tasked to make sure everyone stayed politely neutral—but Daws was a good guy, and Nate wasn’t going to tell him to fuck off.
Especially if Dawson actually had a legitimate question to ask.
Still, he’d barely gotten his carefully doled-out portion of Ramsey and he didn’t want to leave him just yet—even as he felt a desperate need to get away, to get clear, forever even, rising in him.
Dawson led him towards one of the empty high-top tables, and Nate resisted the urge to glance back at Ramsey once, twice, and then finally gave in as the desire hit him the third time.
It didn’t help that Ramsey was looking right back.
Nate tried to shake his mind clear of Ramsey’s spell but it was hard. It was always hard. “So, what’s up?” Nate asked.
“Uh, you might’ve heard I had to fire my lawyer.”
Nate buried his incredulity that Dawson had dragged him over here to talk about lawyers. Focused instead on the fact that Dawson had needed one at all.
He’d gotten royally fucked over by his ex-wife, then his ex-father-in-law, and now it seemed by his lawyer.
Poor dude. Nate would feel much sorrier for him, but he seemed very cozy with the rookie punter, so it was hard to feel too sorry for him.
“Yeah, I did hear. That sucks, man. Sucks that people keep taking advantage of you.”
“Thanks,” Dawson said, tapping his fingers on the tabletop. “I was wondering if you had any recommendations. Knew anyone who was really good at handling contract stuff. And wouldn’t be against seeing me through the rest of this trial with Ackerman.”
Ackerman was, Nate was pretty sure, the guy who’d stolen all his money. His ex-father-in-law.
Luckily, Nate did actually have a dynamite lawyer. A guy he actually trusted. “Yeah, my guy’s great. I’ll text you his number.”
Dawson smiled gratefully. “That’s awesome.”
“No prob.”
Nate told himself not to do it, but he couldn’t help it. He glanced back, to where Ramsey was chatting now with Wes and Mo.
“You seem like a real helpful guy,” Dawson continued.
That wasn’t what Nate was expecting to hear, though it felt good to hear that instead of the opposite that he usually got from Sterling. “I do?”
“Well, yeah. I’ve been through it, sure, but it sounds like that guy’s been through it too.” And of course, of fucking course, he waved in Ramsey’s direction.
He’d give Dawson a minimum of credit. At least he’d come up with a relatively legit question before he segued into what he’d clearly dragged Nate over here to discuss: Ramsey.
“Not you too,” Nate retorted.
“Listen, I don’t know what your issue is—”
But Nate was done hearing about it; he was definitely done talking about it. “Yeah you don’t,” he interrupted Dawson. “And you’re not gonna. Did Aidan suggest that you talk to me? I can handle my own shit.”
Yeah, sure, you can, but you haven’t been. That’s obvious, from how everyone’s jumping on you about this.
“Of course you can. And no, of course Aidan didn’t put me up to anything. Would Aidan do that?” This was all delivered in an especially soothing tone, like Nate was a spooked horse that needed calmed.
Well, fuck that.
“No. He’d never want someone to pull something off where he failed.” He didn’t mention that Aidan had already tried.
“Exactly. We’re just both saying similar things, because it’s so obvious.”
God, of course it was. Nate had known it, even as he hadn’t been able to hold himself back, to make his own feelings more opaque.
“What’s so obvious?” Nate challenged.
Dawson shot him a look brimming with sympathy. “That you want to go talk to him.”
It was like a hit to the solar plexus. Nate had experienced so many of those, over the years.
Was able to slough them off, now, almost always.
Like they’d never happened. But this blow had force and weight, thanks to Dawson’s blunt honesty, and it stung, too.
Humiliation blooming inside his stomach.
Everyone knew. Everyone knew, and everyone wanted to help.
“I absolutely fucking don’t,” Nate retorted.
Praying that if he said it with enough vehemence, that might make up for the obviousness of the lie.
“That guy is a menace. Always showing up and throwing his weight around, like anybody gives a shit about some washed-up hockey player who can’t get on the ice. ”
It was an objectively awful thing to say. Ramsey’s situation could’ve happened to any of them. They both played intensely physical professional sports. It was the root of why Aidan was trying to fold him into the team. It was why Wes had made sure he wasn’t alone.
It could’ve been Nate or Aidan or Mo. Any of them could’ve taken one hit too many, their careers balancing precariously after.
It had been too harsh and mean, and cruel in a way that Nate wasn’t.
He didn’t know who he hated more in that moment: Dawson for making him say it, or himself for saying it.
In the end, it was no question that it was the latter. Still, he wasn’t going to stick around to see the soft reprimand on Dawson’s face.
He picked up his drink and left, not watching where he was going. Ending up in one of the smaller private rooms, with a conveniently unlocked door, off a hallway that made up one of the spokes off the main bar.
Draining the rest of his drink, Nate set it on the empty side table and paced back and forth in front of it.
He’d known as soon as those words were out of his mouth that he shouldn’t have said them.
But he couldn’t go back to Dawson now and say that he hadn’t meant them at all.
That he hadn’t meant any of the heartless, spiteful crap he’d been spouting ever since he’d run into Ramsey again and realized who he was.
It wasn’t right. Part of him wanted to go apologize to Ramsey for how much of an asshole he’d been.
But if he did, he didn’t know which Ramsey he’d get.
The Ramsey from June, who’d let him see, even briefly, behind all those smooth, charming walls, or the Ramsey after, who’d seemingly been on a quest to prove to everyone that he was perfectly okay.
But Nate was cursed to see right through the act, torn between being pissed that Ramsey insisted on the lie at all and worried that Ramsey clearly believed the lie was necessary.
“What did Dawson say to piss you off?”
Ramsey had either entered the room silently or Nate had been so distracted by his unruly thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed.
He shut the door behind him, and Nate tried not to tense.
“What does it matter?” He’d just been feeling guilty for being shitty to the guy, and now here he was, doing it again. Why? It was so much easier to be shitty, to reduce this emotional stew boiling inside him down to annoyance and anger than it was to try to identify each individual ingredient.
Ramsey just shrugged, seemingly unbothered. “You seemed pretty upset. Dawson looked worried.”
Nate wanted to ask why he was here, and not Dawson, but the answer was obvious enough. Dawson knew he’d pushed too hard and would back up. Ramsey didn’t know where the line was—or he knew, and he didn’t give a shit.
“I’m tired of everyone telling me how I should act,” Nate finally said. He didn’t add, to you, but he thought it was pretty obvious that was what everyone kept interfering over.
“Ah,” Ramsey said. “They want you to be nice to me.”
“Don’t you want that?”
Ramsey looked at him, and there was a little more of the real Ramsey in his face, now. Not entirely, but Nate had spent the last two months memorizing each and every version, cataloging how much of the truth he was seeing.
Hating how miniscule the percentage was, each and every time.
“I don’t care either way,” Ramsey lied.
It made Nate want to stomp over to him, wrap his hands around his gorgeous neck and wring it.
“Lie to everyone else, but not to me,” he spit out.
Ramsey had the nerve to look surprised. “How do you know—”
“I know,” Nate interrupted.
“Oh. Okay.” Ramsey looked unnerved now, licking his lips and glancing away. “I . . .I guess so, yeah. It would be nice. I keep trying to be friendly.”
“Friends,” Nate barked out, an amused laugh punctuating the word.
“Yeah, it’s stupid, isn’t it?” Ramsey said, baring his teeth in a smile similar to Nate’s unamused chuckle.
“They’re just so persistent,” Nate said, giving in and sighing, relaxing a hip against the side table. “I had to endure Aidan’s lecture two weeks ago, and now Dawson.”
“They mean well.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not annoying as fuck.”
Ramsey’s smile was more relaxed now. More real. “If you think Aidan and Dawson are annoying, come hang out with Wes sometime when he thinks he can convince you to do something you don’t want to do.”
“Worse?”