“You were so fucking cool about it.” Nate led them into the kitchen, shaking his head as he went. Ramsey had never regretted his exceptionally good poker face as much as he did right now. “Like you had him in your hand and he didn’t even know it. So fucking locked in.”
It was a compliment. Ramsey knew it was.
Why was his whole body rebelling against it?
“No,” he said lowly, stopping in front of the kitchen island.
Nate glanced over him, a quick little thing as he perused the fridge.
“No, I wasn’t locked in. I mean, Iwas, but . . .” Ramsey didn’t want to admit it. It felt like dredging something unwilling, fighting the whole fucking way, out of his sternum. “But I was fucking terrified.”
As soon as he admitted it, he started to shake again.
It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t okay.
But he was doing it anyway.
Couldn’t stop it, even if he’d wanted to, and it turned out he didn’t really want to.
Nate’s eyes widened and a second later, he was at Ramsey’s side, wrapping his arms, firm and strong, around him. And Ramsey just shook, endlessly.
“You’re okay,” Nate soothed in a soft voice, murmuring the words into Ramsey’s neck, just under his ear.
He believed them. And he didn’t.
But whether they were true or not, Nate needed to understand.
Ramsey pulled back, looking him straight in the eye. He was still shaking, fine little tremors rolling over his skin. “I’ve never lost it this way. Never. Not once. I . . .” He shook his head, like he could clear it. Like he could dislodge the confession Nate needed to hear out of it. But the words were stuck inside him.
Nate’s hands cupped his cheeks, and his eyes were so fucking warm. “It’s really okay,” he promised.
But it wasn’t. Not if Ramsey couldn’t be stronger than this stupid, irrational fear of beingreallyseen.
Because it was obvious that Nate really saw him. Saw all the disparate parts behind the smooth walls, and maybe he didn’t like all of them, but heappreciatedall of them.
Nobody else had, ever. Not Wes. Not Brody. Not his foster dad. Certainly never anyone he’d ever slept with.
“I was fucking terrified, okay?” The words came out again, even harsher than he’d intended, but maybe that was the only way Ramsey could figure out how to get them out.
But even then, Nate’s gaze was soft. Understanding. “Me too.”
Ramsey wrenched himself out of Nate’s embrace. “No, no,no,” he insisted as he began to pace back and forth.
“No?” Nate still sounded amused. Not upset. Like he knew he just had to wait Ramsey and his inevitable meltdown out. That wasn’t that crazy. What wasactuallycrazy was that Ramsey was having a meltdown at all.
“No,” Ramsey repeated again. “I’m not ever like this. Not ever. I’ve dealt with so much shit and I was never afraid. Not once. But I was today. You . . .you’redifferent.”
Nate smiled, soft and sure. “Yeah?”
Ramsey didn’t want to be, but he couldn’t help it, filled with an intoxicating mix of exasperation and affection.
Ramsey shot him a look. “Youknowyou’re different,”
No. Not just affection.Love.
Distantly, he’d known what that feeling, pressing inevitably against his breastbone, was. But he hadn’t wanted to admit it, even to himself.
“I was hoping,” Nate said. It was impossible to miss that look in his eyes.
