“Beer? Water? Gatorade? Something stronger?” Nate asked, flicking the kitchen light on as he headed towards the fridge.
If Ramsey’s mouth had been dry before, it turned into the fucking Sahara Desert now.
Because the kitchen and the living room were really one big space, taking up the lion’s share of the apartment and now that the light was on, Ramsey could see why he owned this place. Why he wore the Rolex on his wrist.
Opposite the massive flat screen TV, there was a whole row of framed jerseys.
Not hockey, but football.
Even worse, Ramsey recognized the colors on the last one on the right—the blue and white that matched his friend Wes’ team—and the last name.
Bishop.
Wes had mentioned a Nate Bishop more than once.Great defensive player. Leader on the team.Even, once, in a damning memory Ramsey wished he could exorcise from his brain,a nice guy. You’d probably even like him.
Yeah, he sure fucking had. At least until Ramsey had discovered all of this.
His heart rate picked up.
“Ramsey?” Nate asked, poking his head out of the fridge.
When Nate had been nobody, when Nate hadn’t been someone this close to his circle, to something that mattered, it had felt . . .well, notokayto relax his rules, but safe enough.
Nobody would ever know.
And Ramsey could control it.
“Ramsey?” Nate was suddenly right there. Looking at him, while Ramsey stared at the jerseys. The truth of his identity laid bare. But Nate had never lied. Or he had, but not well.
Nate, the hot guy from the bar who’d looked into Ramsey’s eyes like heknewhim, was one thing. Nate, who claimed he managed Tim Horton’s for a living and didn’t even eat their donuts.
Nate Bishop, the defensive end for the Toronto Thunder, was something else entirely.
An entity that Ramsey couldn’t control. Smashing into his life. Except no, he was already fucking there, because Wes knew him, and probably if Ramsey was still around Toronto in the fall—a nightmare that Ramsey couldn’t even put into thoughts, nevermind words—Wes would probably want him to come around the team with him. He’d expect it. He’d be confused if Ramsey refused.
Panic streaked through him in a nauseating wave.
He’d never be able to keep this guy contained. Not easily. Probably not at all.
“Oh. Well. Yeah. By the way, yeah, I do play football,” Nate said, shrugging awkwardly and then having the nerve to look worried, like this changed something.
He was fucking crazy. It changedeverything.
Ramsey knew he should say something. Something easy, breezy. Make his exit. He’d done it a hundred times before. Wes was always marveling at how effortlessly he could extricate himself from a hookup’s place.
But his normal skills seemed to have deserted him, and Ramsey wasn’t sure why. Had it been the unsettling and extraordinary sex? Or the unexpected reveal of who Nate really was?
“Don’t tell me this is fucking you up.” Nate looked like it was half a joke, half a serious concern.
Be easy, be easy, be easy.
“Had a good laugh at my expense, huh?” was what came out instead.Fuck. It was one thing to be affected and it was another to reveal it.
Nate looked surprised. No,shocked. “Uh, no?”
“I should go.” It wasn’t the easy, charming exit he was known for, but at least it was an exit.
“Are you serious? Because I didn’t tell you I’m a football player?” Nate frowned.
