Chapter 12
Ramsey had been thinking—and wishing and dreaming and fantasizing—about this day for a very long time.
He leaned over and pulled his skate laces tight despite doing it twice already.
Still, it was hard to believe that after all these months, these interminable, never-ending months, he was finally here again, gearing up and ready to get back on the ice.
“Take it easy, okay?” Marsha said to him. “You don’t have to rush it. You’ve got time. Just enjoy this, okay?”
Ramsey nodded.
She’d been his first phone call after the email had come through, Dr. Thompson confirming that he was getting back on the ice and that he had a standing practice slot at the Leafs’ practice facility every morning for the next month.
His second had been to Brody.
He’d texted Wes only a long string of exclamation points. He didn’t have to detail what he was so excited for, because Wes, front and center for almost all of Ramsey’s misery, would know exactly what he was talking about.
Next he’d opened his conversation with Nate. The last message Nate had sent was in response to, You okay there? He’d only said, Yeah, on our way home. Frustratingly cutting off their little flirtatious banter.
Nate was smarter than Ramsey sometimes. Because Ramsey hadn’t wanted to stop, even though he’d known better. He’d wanted Nate to show up at Wes’ door with his friend and say, we’ve got somewhere better we need to be. Like my bed.
But of course he hadn’t. He was becoming that guy. That embarrassing, obvious guy who he’d cautioned so many other guys from being.
All it had taken was pretending that Nate was his boyfriend for it to not only feel like it was true, but for the desire for it to be true to sit real and undeniable, under his breastbone.
Ramsey finished tucking his lace in and stood, letting out a deep breath.
He was ready. He was really fucking ready.
Marsha was standing by the entrance to the rink. “Hey, bud, you good?”
Ramsey looked over at her, and that was the only warning he had before no-nonsense Marsha hooked her arm around his shoulder pads and tugged him into a quick hug.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hugged by someone who wasn’t Wes. Brody, sure, when he’d seen him briefly this summer, but that was it.
The football guys all gave him bro hugs, brief and thoughtful maybe, but not the same.
Easy casual affection was the one thing he’d found in the hockey world when his foster dad had dragged him into it at nine but since he’d come to Toronto, he’d been missing it and hadn’t even realized it until Marsha was tugging him close.
She held him for a longer moment than he expected, not letting him go, fingers digging into his sweater.
It was an old Wolves practice jersey, goldenrod and red and black.
Finally she pulled back, something soft lurking in that frank brown stare of hers.
Ramsey was suddenly very sure that she knew more about him than he realized. Maybe she’d even known this whole time, and she’d managed to bury that knowledge down deep. Didn’t let it impact any of their interactions.
From the beginning he liked her, but now, there was a bone-deep appreciation and affection. Both that she knew and also that she never said anything.
“Proud of you,” she said, and he opened his mouth to say something typically self-deprecating, but before he could, Marsha continued, her tone firming. “But that doesn’t mean you’re back on the ice and everything’s all hunky-dory now. You still gotta work hard. Keep working hard.”
Ramsey swallowed hard. “I can do that.”
She nodded sharply. “You’d better.”
Patting him one last time on the arm, she gestured towards the ice. “You’d better get out there, bud.”
Ramsey didn’t need another invitation. He took his first step, hesitant but sure, and then he was skating, again, cold breeze whistling in his ears.
The ice was fast and smooth, his blades cutting through it like nothing.
Like it wasn’t a big deal, like he hadn’t been dreaming about this for months and months.
Sure at some point that he wouldn’t get it again.
For the first rotation around the rink, he just let himself feel. The wind. The ice. The chill. The blades beneath his feet, slicing sharply.
Joy filtered through his whole body.
He knew what people liked to say, sometimes, when they got catty and mean. That he only wanted hockey because of what it could do for him. That he’d only played to get into his foster dad’s good graces. That he’d only excelled so Daniel wouldn’t send him back into the system.
But from the first time he’d stepped onto the ice, Ramsey had found a home that he’d gotten lucky enough to experience in the first nine years of his life.
It wasn’t just the ice. Or the game. It was the team, which became his family.
It was one of the reasons he’d resisted leaving college, though the Wolves had told him they wanted him after his junior year.
He’d just begun to amalgamate into his new Wolves family when the second concussion had hit him, hard.
The doctors had never been able to explain why he’d been able to shake off his first one, his senior year of college, so easily, but the second one had sidelined him and sidelined him and sidelined him.
Until he’d genuinely begun to wonder, in the dark corners of his mind, the shadowy parts he couldn’t hide from, if he was never going to make it back again.
But here he was. Back again, and fighting to stay back.
He and the Wolves training staff had discussed certain drills that they wanted him to do. Easy things, really. But as Ramsey rediscovered skating again, everything felt new and beautiful and exciting again.
By the time he got off the ice, he felt lit up with joy. Practically glowing with it.
Marsha gave him one look and said, “Had fun out there, huh?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Ramsey felt wild with it, almost like he was nine again and he was high on the thrill of finding something he loved that much.
Or, in this situation, finding something he loved that much again.
The joy spiraling through him made him reckless. Made him crazy.
Made him pull his phone out when he got back to the locker room. Before he even started shedding his gear, he unlocked it. Pulled up his convo with Nate.
It was precisely the kind of text he’d unequivocally tell everyone he knew not to send. An excuse to open dialogue. No purpose in it whatsoever except to get attention, and Ramsey had never begged for anyone’s attention in his whole life.
But he felt dangerously close to begging for Nate’s.
Had a really fucking good day.
He forced himself to put the phone down. To take off his gear carefully, piece by piece. Head to the showers.
Wouldn’t let himself pick it up again until he was dressed in a pair of loose sweats and big thick sweatshirt, bundled up against the November chill.
When he did, Nate had replied.
Yeah? You wanna tell me about it?
And that was the biggest problem. The one that Ramsey was wrestling with, the one that he turned over and over in his mind and couldn’t seem to find an appropriate solution to. Maybe the only problem he had never found an appropriate solution to.
What to do about Nate and how he seemed to be the first person Ramsey always wanted to talk to.
It didn’t make any fucking sense. Nate wasn’t his oldest friend or his best friend, or really any kind of friend at all. But he felt drawn to him in a way he couldn’t explain. Couldn’t quantify.
The situation at Aidan and Levi’s the other day had just solidified all those feelings into something hard and inescapable inside him. Something he couldn’t avoid, even if he wanted to.
Did he even want to, anymore?
Ramsey tapped his fingers on the screen. Useless. Not sure what to say. Knew what he wanted, desperately, if he was being honest with himself. In the end it was the fear that made him text back.
I’ll bring over takeout?
That was better, right? More casual. More like the “dates” they’d already done, and less officially date-like.
Not that Ramsey had any real idea of what a real date might be like, besides the obvious stuff.
Dinner and a movie. Holding hands. Making out in the back of the theater.
Well, he hadn’t done any of that stuff. Well, mostly any of that stuff.
A second later a text came in. Sure.
Then, another one. We can practice our hand holding again. Stars v Leafs on tonight. Thought you might wanna watch it.
Before he could think, before he could overthink, Ramsey typed out, more interested in practicing something else. But before he could—before he could even think the phrase, maybe we’re done with practicing and ready for the real thing now—he deleted the message.
In the end, he took a page from Nate’s book and kept it simple. Sure.
But his whole walk to the car, and on the drive to the sushi restaurant to pick up food, Ramsey was thinking about it. Didn’t want to be, but was.
Still thinking about it, if he was continuing the trend of being a little too honest with himself.
In June, Ramsey slept with him because he’d wanted to, sure, but also because he’d hoped by shoving Nate into a conventional box, he could deal with him. But that had never worked, had it?
Even shoving him into an unconventional box by suggesting they pretend to date hadn’t worked.
Nothing had worked, and now here he was, knowing better than to send stupid texts but doing it still. Knowing better than to go over to Nate’s condo, a complicated pool of desire and affection in the base of his stomach, but definitely doing it anyway.
He was feeling too fucking good to be cautious.
He’d skated today.
That thought buoyed him all the way from the restaurant to Nate’s building and up to his door.
To the point that he wasn’t even sure anymore that the fizzing happiness bubbling away inside of him wasn’t just about the progress he’d made on his recovery but maybe who he was going to get to tell about it.