Chapter 18 #3
“You’re not—”
But Jordan wouldn’t let him, interrupting him right back. “No, I am. I fucked up. I . . .I’ll be better. During games. And other times too.”
Nate didn’t know what to say to him. He wanted to believe it, and Jordan’s words were everything he’d hoped he might embrace if they made it out of there. But he also knew it wasn’t that easy. Jordan was going to have to put the work in.
“You’re not a bad dude,” Ramsey said, “you’ll get there.”
“And shit, Big Dog, your watch and your chain.” Jordan sounded genuinely remorseful. “I’ll . . .I’ll take care of you, guys. I promise.”
“Don’t worry about that right now,” Ramsey said soothingly.
He seemed unbothered by it.
Nate was a little more bothered, but he was also just plain fucking grateful that nothing worse had gone down.
“Okay.” Gratitude obvious in his tone, even with the single word. Jordan breathed out, unsteady.
He was going to be okay. They were all going to be okay.
And Nate let himself take a deep breath.
They’d been in the cab for almost five minutes before Jordan started to shake.
“You’re gonna be okay,” Nate told him firmly. They’d put him between them on the bench seat and it was a tight squeeze, but Ramsey had slid in too instead of taking the front seat because he hadn’t wanted to be too far away either.
Jordan’s teeth chattered and he trembled. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, but his voice wasn’t steady. Not even remotely.
Ramsey pressed his thigh harder against Jordan’s and hoped that the added pressure would prevent worst-case scenario from happening.
Not Jordan shaking out of his skin, but Ramsey.
He squeezed his hand into a fist, and even despite the way his fingernails curled sharply into his palm, he could feel the tremble on the surface, all of his nerves vibrating with tension.
He’d been through so much shit in his life, so many times he should have lost it like this, but he never had. His foster dad had always told him, approvingly, he had ice in his veins, and for so long Ramsey had believed that was true.
He was super fucking good at removing himself emotionally from basically any situation.
That skill had never failed him, not through thick and definitely not through thin.
He’d navigated half a dozen foster homes in childhood, most of which had been shitty, at best. He’d kept his composure bailing multiple teammates out over the years.
He’d faced down guns before and knives before.
Once, he’d gone toe to toe with a guy, his notorious fucking temper and a baseball bat.
He’d even survived the bullshit concussion situation, sanity basically intact.
But this scenario, a scenario in which Ramsey had felt he’d had at least ninety-seven percent control over, was apparently the one that was going to remind him that he was still human and could feel things.
A lot of fucking things, apparently.
Ramsey would also have to be a whole lot stupider to not realize exactly why that was.
Sure, it hadn’t been Nate being threatened, but he’d been directly involved, and the worst-case scenario hadn’t needed to happen for Ramsey to know exactly how terribly Nate would’ve reacted.
He was personally responsible for Atkinson, and he’d take it personally if anything had gone sideways.
But just because Ramsey knew why didn’t mean he had to like it.
Actually, he really fucking hated it.
The cab pulled up to Atkinson’s building. Nate turned to him. “Give me five? Then we can head back to my place?”
Ramsey nodded. He’d cleaned out his regular cash for the cab driver already, giving the emergency stash he kept on him at all times to the guy at the strip club, and it had been enough he probably wasn’t going to protest that they were going to idle here for a few minutes before making one final stop.
Eight minutes later, the cab door opened again, and Nate slid in.
Ramsey gave the driver Nate’s address and they pulled out in the late night Toronto traffic.
“He’s okay. Still shaky,” Nate said, before Ramsey could ask.
“I was going to make him some hot tea. Load it up with sugar or honey, but of course he didn’t have any tea in the place So instead I made him a protein shake with lots of frozen fruit.
Poured him into the shower. I offered to stay, but he brushed me off. ”
Ramsey had already known that Jordan wouldn’t want Nate to stay. Wouldn’t want his mentor and his idol to witness him falling apart.
“He’s got to lick his wounds, so let him do that. He’ll come out of it better than when he went in.”
Nate still looked worried, so Ramsey put a hand on his knee. Squeezed.
He was still shaking inside. Worried, a little, that he might go back to shaking on the outside. Then Nate would see and then he might know.
Ramsey had never shied away from any truths, no matter how uncomfortable, but his mind skittered away from what exactly Nate might know, even as his heart said, yes, this one.
Nate was quiet on the drive to his place, and Ramsey met his quiet, unsure what to say, and afraid he might say too much.
Not something he’d ever worried about.
But with Nate it was like he was figuring out how to be a person for the first time. He’d thought earlier that he hated it. But that wasn’t really true. He didn’t like feeling out of control or out of his depth, but he didn’t dislike the feelings.
How could he, when they filled him with so much unexpected warmth and sweetness?
They were halfway up the elevator ride to Nate’s condo when he finally turned to him.
“Thanks for coming with me tonight. You were . . .” Nate trailed off.
Ramsey let him lean more fully into him.
Hoping that the way Nate wanted to finish the sentence was something like helpful or necessary and not controlling or cold-blooded.
He could be, yes, and Ramsey had always seen it as a positive. But he didn’t want Nate to see him that way.
He wanted Nate to see the man inside.
“Yeah?” Ramsey said.
“God, I didn’t know what to do. And you handled him. You’re . . .well, you gotta know. You’re fucking amazing.” Nate glanced sideways at him after he typed in his door code. “You do know that, right?”
“Yes,” Ramsey said, because what else was there to say? There’d always been something that had set him apart from anyone else. Made the distance between him and others feel insurmountable, but he didn’t want that between him and Nate.
He’d never wanted that between him and Nate.
“You were so fucking cool about it.” Nate led them into the kitchen, shaking his head as he went. Ramsey had never regretted his exceptionally good poker face as much as he did right now. “Like you had him in your hand and he didn’t even know it. So fucking locked in.”
It was a compliment. Ramsey knew it was.
Why was his whole body rebelling against it?
“No,” he said lowly, stopping in front of the kitchen island.
Nate glanced over him, a quick little thing as he perused the fridge.
“No, I wasn’t locked in. I mean, I was, but . . .” Ramsey didn’t want to admit it. It felt like dredging something unwilling, fighting the whole fucking way, out of his sternum. “But I was fucking terrified.”
As soon as he admitted it, he started to shake again.
It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t okay.
But he was doing it anyway.
Couldn’t stop it, even if he’d wanted to, and it turned out he didn’t really want to.
Nate’s eyes widened and a second later, he was at Ramsey’s side, wrapping his arms, firm and strong, around him. And Ramsey just shook, endlessly.
“You’re okay,” Nate soothed in a soft voice, murmuring the words into Ramsey’s neck, just under his ear.
He believed them. And he didn’t.
But whether they were true or not, Nate needed to understand.
Ramsey pulled back, looking him straight in the eye.
He was still shaking, fine little tremors rolling over his skin.
“I’ve never lost it this way. Never. Not once.
I . . .” He shook his head, like he could clear it.
Like he could dislodge the confession Nate needed to hear out of it. But the words were stuck inside him.
Nate’s hands cupped his cheeks, and his eyes were so fucking warm. “It’s really okay,” he promised.
But it wasn’t. Not if Ramsey couldn’t be stronger than this stupid, irrational fear of being really seen.
Because it was obvious that Nate really saw him. Saw all the disparate parts behind the smooth walls, and maybe he didn’t like all of them, but he appreciated all of them.
Nobody else had, ever. Not Wes. Not Brody. Not his foster dad. Certainly never anyone he’d ever slept with.
“I was fucking terrified, okay?” The words came out again, even harsher than he’d intended, but maybe that was the only way Ramsey could figure out how to get them out.
But even then, Nate’s gaze was soft. Understanding. “Me too.”
Ramsey wrenched himself out of Nate’s embrace. “No, no, no,” he insisted as he began to pace back and forth.
“No?” Nate still sounded amused. Not upset. Like he knew he just had to wait Ramsey and his inevitable meltdown out. That wasn’t that crazy. What was actually crazy was that Ramsey was having a meltdown at all.
“No,” Ramsey repeated again. “I’m not ever like this. Not ever. I’ve dealt with so much shit and I was never afraid. Not once. But I was today. You . . .you’re different.”
Nate smiled, soft and sure. “Yeah?”
Ramsey didn’t want to be, but he couldn’t help it, filled with an intoxicating mix of exasperation and affection.
Ramsey shot him a look. “You know you’re different,”
No. Not just affection. Love.
Distantly, he’d known what that feeling, pressing inevitably against his breastbone, was. But he hadn’t wanted to admit it, even to himself.
“I was hoping,” Nate said. It was impossible to miss that look in his eyes.
Ramsey realized, belatedly, that he’d never worried about Nate returning his feelings. He’d only worried he wouldn’t be able to square with them.
But he’d done it. Well, okay, he was doing it. Or he was fucking trying.
“You make me feel . . .” Unhinged, fond, enamored, like myself for the first time ever.
Nate caught him by the arm and stroked up it, reeling him in. “You know you’ve always done that to me,” he admitted in a soft voice. “Always. It was why I was such an ass. You wouldn’t stay in the box I put you in.”
Ramsey tilted his chin back. Found a well of determination. The same well that had seen him through so many shitty circumstances. “Because I wanted to be in the box with you.”
“God.” Nate threaded his fingers through Ramsey’s hair and tugged him down into a kiss. It was hot, because he’d never not want Nathaniel, but it was more than that too. Sweet and soft and inevitable.
Full of love, Ramsey realized.
Nate pulled back and murmured against his lips. “You know I love you, right? That’s what that is.”
Ramsey nodded, wordless.
Nate tucked him into his chest. He’d never let anyone else bother about keeping him safe, only cared about how safe he could keep himself. That wasn’t going to change, not in any significant way, but once in awhile, if he needed it, Ramsey knew Nate would.
Knew that he’d never even need to ask.
“I do love you,” he whispered into Nate’s chest.
He wasn’t sure if Nate heard him until his embrace tightened just a little more.
It was funny because it wasn’t anything that special, and yet it was extraordinary too.