“I shouldn’t have done that, I know, but it was fun, and a joke and it didn’t feel real, even as you felt like the most real thing I’d run into, in so long . . .” Ramsey trailed off, blue eyes intent and serious on Nate’s.
Nate wanted to reassure him that no, he wasn’t mad. That he didn’tlikeit, that he would’ve much rather Ramsey had come clean that night. That he’d not run out of his condo the moment he’d realized that Nate was Nate Bishop, defensive end of the Toronto Thunder. But that heunderstoodtoo.
Ramsey didn’t share all the parts of himself with anyone. Nate didn’t know why yet, though he knew there must be an overriding reason, tucked away somewhere in Ramsey’s history. Maybe Wes was the only one who knew. Maybe Wes was the only person Ramsey truly let in.
And Nate had been painfully adjacent to Wes.
The play life that had seen Ramsey pretend that the thing he was wasn’t the truth at all, but a joke, had been about to collide with hisreallife.
“You were the most real thing I’d run into in awhile too,” Nate admitted. “Come here, okay? I’m really not mad. I wish you’d told me—”
“I did tell you,” Ramsey said, a trace of his usual impudence back in his tone, even as he slid closer, tucking himself into Nate’s arms like he belonged there. And that was for Ramsey’s benefit, Nate realized, not justhis.
“You didn’t mean to,” Nate corrected, but so gently. He knew it had been a slip up. That much was obvious. But yes, hedidbelieve that Ramsey would’ve told him about it at some point.
“I . . .I’m not so sure about that,” Ramsey confessed, so quietly into Nate’s shoulder.
Nate pulled back, just so he could see Ramsey’s face. “What do you mean?” He thought he understood, but he wanted to be sure.
“Sometimes I . . .sometimes I can’t get out of my own way. I’ve been doing it so long, on my own. Protections between me and the world, it just feels natural. I don’t even realize I’m doing it, a lot of the time. Most people can’t see through it.”
“But I did.”
Ramsey nodded. “You did. Even from the first night. I’d never met anyone who could see through me, the way you did. Well, no. That’s not true.” He huffed out a breath. “Wes did.”
“You said—” Nate’s mind raced back to that June night. “You said it wasn’t a single guy. You said it was a couple.” As soon as he said it, realization dawned, hard and bright and inescapable.
“Yeah,” Ramsey said, “itwasa couple. But they broke up, and I got Wes in the divorce.”
“Jesus,” Nate said, more than a little shell-shocked. “And the other guy—”
“Gone.” Ramsey said it succinctly. “Those are Wes’ secrets to tell.”
“I get it.”
Ramsey relaxed another fraction into Nate’s embrace. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Nate paused. “What did you mean when you said you hadn’t meant to tell me the truth about your position here tonight?”
“I mean, sure, I didn’tmeanto. It did slip out. But don’t you wonder how sometimes we subconsciously protect—or unprotect—ourselves?”
“You think that big brain of yours wanted to tell me and so it did?”
Ramsey’s teeth bit into his lower lip. “Not my brain. No. That would stop me. For sure.”
There was only one thing that might override that enormous chess master brain, and it was Ramsey’s heart.
Nate felt his own lodge deeply in his throat. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Ramsey leaned in, and it wasn’t hard at all—maybe one of the easiest things he’d ever done, in fact—to kiss him about it. They didn’t need to talk about it. Not yet. Maybe Ramsey never could. If it was only this, forever, then Nate would accept that.
Ramsey telling him,I was so fucking happy. And you were the first person I wanted to tell.
How could he ever be disappointed if that was true? And itwastrue. Nate could feel it in the tentative but sure way Ramsey met his lips. The way he lost himself to kissing him back. Tipping his head, Nate’s hand reaching up to cradle it.
They kissed for a long time, until Nate felt breathless and mindless with the feel of Ramsey’s mouth on his mouth.
It had been so good that first night, but the intensity of now, the way heknewRamsey now and was beginning to see even more of the real guy behind the facade, made it even better.
