“I want to go home.” Jordan surprised him by speaking up. His voice didn’t sound exactly steady, but it was steady enough. He slumped back against the seat, fingers drumming on his knee.
Nate rattled off the address, then turned to him.
But before he could ask what the fuck he’d been thinking, Jordan just crumpled like a piece of paper. “Shit.” He exhaled hard. “I shouldn’t—we shouldn’t—”
Nate decided the lecture could wait for another day. Maybe Jordan wouldn’t even need it. He was hoping that this whole shitshow was the wake-up call Jordan needed to get his life together.
“You did good,” he only said, patting Jordan on the leg.
Jordan looked shocked. “What?”
“Don’t get me wrong, you shouldn’t have been in a place that fucking sketchy,butit seems like you actually did something good while you were there.”
“He was roughing her up a bit,” Jordan mumbled. “I stopped him. When he wouldn’t listen, yeah, I fucking punched him.”
“Good,” Ramsey said approvingly from Jordan’s other side. Around the man between them, Nate met Ramsey’s eyes.
God, they’d made it out of there. Not without a cost, but the cost wasn’t nearly as high as he’d been afraid he’d be paying.
“What else?” Ramsey asked.
“Gave her some money. Told her to get out. I think . . .I think she did. And then they grabbed me. I only had a second to send you that text.” Jordan sighed. “I know I’m a fuck-up—”
“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.”
“Andshit, 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 alittlemore 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 becausehehadn’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, butRamsey.
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.
