“I didn’t tame him,” Nate interrupted.
Three sets of eyes swiveled towards him, and to Nate’s own surprise, the set that looked the most astonished was pale blue and belonged to his boyfriend.
“What?” Ramsey said.
“I didn’t tame anyone. You’re still wild. You’re still amazing. Just not by yourself, anymore,” Nate said, suddenly awkward. He hadn’t been prepared to make a confession like that,especially in front of Dean Scott, but the truth was, he’d never ascribed to any of that bullshit masculine conformity.
If Ramsey needed Nate to stand up in front of the whole goddamn world and proclaim how fucking amazing he was, then Nate would do it gratefully, and with the awe that Ramseydeserved.
For a second, nobody at the table said a word. Then Ramsey’s hand reached out and squeezed his thigh again and then didn’t let go after.
Then Brody said, quietly, “Wow.”
“Told you, he was a good one,” Ramsey agreed.
“Knew I liked you,” Dean added in his own understated way.
“Wait a second,” Nate said, finally beginning to catch up. “Was that atest?”
But Brody just shrugged, a glimmer of a smile on his face.
“You’re going to have to forgive these two,” Dean said to Nate. “They’re both too smart and know it, and sometimes they just can’t help it.”
Brody scoffed. “Not true. I could’ve helped it, but I had to know.”
“And what were you going to do about if you were right?”
“Not if I was right,” Brody said to Ramsey, “if I waswrong.”
That seemed to take most of the wind out of Ramsey’s sails. “Oh.”
“Exactly,” Brody retorted fondly. “Oh.”
“After this, we want to see your bar,” Dean said.
“We can arrange that,” Ramsey said.
“You toldthem,” Nate complained, but he wasn’t really mad. He wasn’t going to date a guy like Ramsey and expect to know all his secrets. As long as he gotsomeof them—as long as it was him who Ramsey was coming home to at night, he didn’t mind any of Ramsey’s chess-mastering. It was kind of hot, in fact.
He’d bet too that he wasn’t the only football player at the table who found a big brain attractive, considering that Brody was about to graduate from medical school.
Ramsey just shrugged, a bit of a self-conscious smile on his face. “Yeah, I did. Sorry.”
“Just giving you shit, babe,” Nate said and felt the warmth inside him grow at the exact same rate as Ramsey’s smile spread across his face.
Like Ramsey liked Nate calling himbabeas much as Nate liked doing it.
Their appetizers came, and Brody and Ramsey started chatting about guys they’d known in college. Mutual friends. Other guys who’d been on the Evergreens hockey team. Nate listened, enjoying learning more about Ramsey, not even from things that he said, but things that Brody volunteered.
“And Ell and Mal are still getting along?”
“Fucking blissful,” Ramsey complained. “They couldn’t be happier. Except that they moved Ell up to another line for a bit, and you know how they feel about that.”
“They’re gonna have to learn to play with other guys.”
“I know,” Ramsey said with a reluctant sigh. “But they’re just ridiculously happy just being on the same team.”
Brody chuckled. “Remember when we were half-convinced they’d kill each other?”
