“Are you kidding me? When he gets home from the office, I’m gonna show him. You said this guy’s ahockey player?”
“I know, right?”
“Shit,” Deacon said appreciatively. “And he was good in bed?”
Nate swallowed hard. He’d tried very hard not to think about Ramsey and a bed—or a couch or a dirty bathroom or any possibly conveniently horizontal or evenverticalsurface—but that was like asking water to not be wet.
“Yeah,” he said.
“No wonder you’re fucked up about him,” Deacon said.
“That doesn’t help,” Nate complained. “I don’t want him, but he won’t leave me alone.”
“Seriously? That’s what you’re going with?” Deacon chuckled under his breath. “How’s that working out for you?”
Fucking terrible, that was how it was working out for him.
“That’s what I thought,” Deacon said when Nate didn’t answer. Didn’t trust himself to answer.
“I know the team guys want us to get along. But every time I think about it—about playing nice—I . . .” Nate trailed off.I think about playing way too nice.But it was obvious that Ramsey didn’t want that. He’d been so charming, but also keeping Nate at a distance. Like he didn’t want Nate to get any ideas. Well,Natewanted to stop getting ideas.
“You don’t like it. I’ve been there, trust me,” he said wryly.
And yeah, he probably had. Deacon’s final season had coincided with Nate’s rookie season—and also the season when Deacon and Grant had finally stopped circling each other and had gotten together for real.
“I’d ask you what you did to get over it, but we all know you never did.” Even thinking about that fact was entirely unhelpful.
Nate couldn’t say he was pining after Ramsey, but he was doing enough ofsomethingthat the very presence of the guy, even around the periphery of his life, made him tense.
The Jordan situation wasn’t helping that either.
“No, I didn’t,” Deacon agreed. “Are you—”
“No.No. I’m not anything. I just . . .he’s just there, all the time. An irritant.”
“Sure,” Deacon said easily. But Nate wasn’t sure Deac actually agreed with him.
“Nothing I can do about it. Just try to avoid him, I guess.” Though he’d already been doing that. Notthatwell, and if he wasn’t mistaken, he had a feeling the longer Ramsey spent hanging around Toronto, the more likely it was that he was going to end up getting a lecture from Aidan. He couldfeelAidan worrying about it, wanting to fold Ramsey into more of their team functions, making sure he didn’t feel alone or abandoned, even though he wasn’t playing.
Maybe Ramsey wasn’t on Aidan’steam, didn’t play Aidan’s sport, even, but none of that mattered. Aidan was the most aggressive team captain in the history of team captain-ing, plus he had all those big brother genes.
“You could trynotavoiding him,” Deacon said, far too reasonably.
Nate laughed, but he wasn’t that amused. “Why would I do that?”
“Because fighting the inevitable is still fighting.” Deacon was still saying all this in this fucking calm ass tone, like what he was saying was not only sensible, it was valid.
“And then I stop fighting and what?”
Deacon hesitated.
“Exactly,” Nate said. “He’s not magically going to want me. He’s just going to keep hanging around, being tempting and infuriating.” Nate could imagine it. Nate woke up from nightmares in cold sweats, thinking about how shitty it would be if he gave in to his feelings and Ramsey only kept taunting him. Not wanting him the way Nate could want him, if he let himself.
“Okay then. Keep fighting the good fight then?”
Nate snorted. “Yeah. Okay.”
“And don’t be a stranger.”
