Wes put his arm around him and Ramsey let himself be pulled in. “You wanna tell me about it?” Wes asked.
Weswouldwant to talk about it. “No.”
Humming under his breath, Wes tugged him closer.
“You know how I usually complain you’re pathetic?” Ramsey asked. He felt guilty. He’d felt guilty all the way back to Wes’ building. So guilty that half a dozen times he’d nearly gone back to Nate’s place and told him the whole truth. Something he was never tempted to do.
Wes had the nerve to laugh about that. “Oh, yeah.”
“Maybe it’s not just you.”
Same as getting angry, there never seemed to be any benefit to feeling sorry for himself, so Ramsey just didn’t do that. He always just kept pushing forward. It wasn’t relentless optimism, more like Ramsey betting that something betterhadto be on thehorizon and if it didn’t happen naturally, then he’d figure out a way tomakeit happen.
“You really don’t want to tell me about it? I didn’t think you had hookups go bad.” Wes said it easily. Too easily. He wasn’t even half the actor Ramsey was, despite all the times Ramsey had attempted to coach him.
The problem was Wes didn’t have any good reasons to hide, so he was never motivated to pretend.
Ramsey didn’t want to talk about Nate. Okay—that was also a lie. He desperately wanted to tell Wes all about Nate, but he couldn’t. Hewouldn’t. So he changed the subject instead.
“You ever think about what would’ve happened if you and Marcus had actually slept with me that night?”
Wes tensed.
Ramsey almost never said Marcus’ name, if he could help it. Same as Wes, these days. If Wes was more like Ramsey, he’d have already figured out that Ramsey had done it to distract him. But Weswasn’tlike Ramsey, which was probably a blessing all around.
“No,” Wes lied, unconvincingly.
“Come on,” Ramsey wheedled. “You do. I know you do.”
But Wes’ eyes were clear when he looked over at Ramsey. Maybe hewastelling the truth. “I don’t, actually. It would’ve been a garbage fire, and then we wouldn’t be friends still, because you’d have ghosted us, like you always do.”
Ramsey wasn’t sure if it hurt more because itwashonest. Maybe the lie would’ve been easier for him to swallow.
“And don’t even say you don’t,” Wes continued. “I know you, remember? You’re my best friend.”
Ramsey let himself settle back into the couch. Into the comfort of Wes’ arm around him. “Yeah,” he agreed.
“You’re really not going to tell me how it went bad? Did you actually fail at charmingly making your exit?”
“Something like that,” Ramsey said.
“Huh.” Wes looked over at him. “What else?”
“He wasn’t who I thought he was,” Ramsey said, and, of course, Wes laughed.
“Oh, that must’ve been fun. Two of you lying to each other. Was it weird sex, too?”
Except that Ramsey hadn’t lied. Not really. Nate hadn’t believed him, of course, because the shit he’d saidhadbeen unbelievable. But it had still been true.
“No,” Ramsey admitted.
“Good sex, then?”
Ramsey was genuinely worried if he started, he’d just word vomit the whole evening up. So he just said, “Why are you always trying to get me to give you the deets, Matthews?”
“Maybe because only one of us is actually having sex,” Wes said wryly.
“You could be having it if you wanted to,” Ramsey reminded him.
