But Wes only smacked him on the arm. “For the millionth time, I don’t want to sleep with you. You’re my best friend.”
“Dumbass. Who wouldn’t want to sleep with me?” Ramsey retorted, though by this point, they both knew there was no way they could ever sleep together. Wes wasn’t thelastperson on earth that Ramsey would ever have sex with—that honor went to Wes’ ex-boyfriend, Marcus, who was undeniably attractive, but Wes would kill him slowly with a dull, rusty knife if he ever went there—but still solidly in the top three.
It was because Wes knew him so well. Better than anyone else. Better even than his other best friend, Brody.
Maybe that should’ve been a hint that he should’ve listened to the concerned voice in the back of his mind and not gone there with Nate tonight. Just walked away.
“I’d say you’re an egomaniac,” Wes said, glancing over at him, “but I know better.”
“Ugh, I hate you.”
“You don’t.” Wes was smug. Knowing. “You like that I actuallyknowyou. ’Cause if it wasn’t for me and Brody, you’d be even more pathetic than you are now.”
“Maybe I hate that you know that,” Ramsey suggested. There’d been a time that he had hated it. Been equally horrified and fascinated by Wes’ knowledge. With Wes, he’d learned to live with it.
He wasn’t sure he could’ve ever dealt with Nate.
Maybe what had happened was for the best.
“You don’t,” Wes said loyally, squeezing him harder. Wes was too good. Probably too good for a friend like Ramsey, but he’d attached himself like a barnacle, and now that Marcus was gone, the chances of Ramsey dislodging him were close to zero.
He was more than okay with that—at leastusedto it—if only his proximity to Wes didn’t automatically mean proximity to Nate.
Maybe fate would actually do him a solid and he’d be recovered from his concussion and back in Buffalo by September, playing hockey again. If that happened, Ramsey could put this whole thing behind him—his interminable stint on injured reserve and Nate, both.
He wouldn’t even be in Toronto, and so it wouldn’t matter if Nate was around.
That was the solution: get better and then none of this would matter.
Chapter 2
August
“This better be worth all the theatrics,” Nate muttered under his breath as they walked down the dark alley towards God knew what bar. Wes had insisted that he knew the best place to take the group to, and Nate had gone along with it because that was what he was doing these days.
Not just floating along, not necessarily, but all summer Nate had felt one step removed from the world around him. Like the only thing that had been real had been the blond man he’d met at the bar. Ramsey had turned out to be exactly like he’d thought he was, but even having his initial suspicions justified hadn’t stopped Nate from thinking about him.
From replaying that night over and over in his mind, even when he shouldn’t.
Sterling, the other defensive captain, had pulled him aside more than once during camp, making sure he was okay. Making sure his head was on straight.
Well, it wasn’t on straight.
“It’s worth it,” Wes reassured him. “It’s just down here.”
Nate supposed he shouldn’t be all that surprised when Wes led their group further into the alley and then down a set of stained concrete steps set into the ground.
“It’s like we’re descending into hell,” Lane said, sounding delighted.
“Only you,” Trevor, the other demon twin, muttered.
There was a black wooden door at the bottom of the stairs, its surface unexpectedly shiny and new. A key, outlined in gold, shone to the right of the door.
That was apparently the only sign they were going to get.
“We’re gonna get killed,” Cam complained behind him. “Our organs harvested. That happens in big cities, right?”
Nate chuckled under his breath.
