“It was good you dropped by the suite tonight,” Wes said.
Ramsey looked up from his spot, where he was reclining on his guest room bed. Well, it was basicallyRamsey’sbed now, he’d spent so much time here.
“Yeah,” Ramsey said. It had been weird, the Wolves coming to town, but he’d known it was coming, too, and that he wasn’t really any closer to getting on the ice than he’d been before. With enough time, he could mentally prepare for anything, could build his walls high enough, smooth enough, impenetrable enough, that nothing could ever really touch him.
Wes kept a closer eye on the Wolves schedule than he did these days—though Ramsey had most definitely known thatthisgame was coming up—and there was no way it was a coincidence that Wes had made sure the Thunder contingent came to the arena for this particular game.
“Did it help at all, or did you want to just lick your wounds in peace?” Wes asked. He pushed off the doorframe and came into the room, settling down on the corner of the bed.
It had been obvious before that Wes had wanted them here for Ramsey, even if they weren’t Ramsey’s team—and it was even more obvious now. It was a kind gesture, even if Ramsey wasn’t entirely sure it meant anything, in the end.
He was still up in the suite, not down on the ice.
His team was still playing without him.
“It was good.” Nothing would’vereallyhelped, but just having Wes so transparently give a shit about his emotional state helped.
“Don’t lie to me,” Wes said. “I saw you talking to Nate.”
Wes did not know any ofthatstory yet, though it was clear enough something else had happened, even to Wes, and Ramsey kept expecting to be asked about it.
But Wes kept pretending.
Hard to say if that was better or worse.
“Yeah, well, maybe I haven’t given up on getting on that guy’s good side,” Ramsey said. Not a lie. Not exactly. If he did somehow end up on Nate’s good side, he wasn’t sure he’d survive it.
“Maybe you should,” Wes said, sighing. “I was surprised he came.”
Wes was not subtle. He should have just admitted, out loud, that he would’ve strongly suggested that Nate not show up to the game with the other guys.
“I’m not,” Ramsey said. He could always feel Nate’s eyes on him. He felt a lot of guys’ eyes on him, but they weren’t ever like Nate’s. It was obvious Nate didn’t want to be looking. That he’d rather be looking anywhere else.
But he still looked anyway and then resented Ramsey the whole time for the fact he couldn’t help himself.
Wes shot him a transparently concerned look. “He’s a good guy. I don’t know why he hated you basically on sight.”
Ramsey sighed. He knew he should tell Wes the truth, but at this point if he did it, Wes would know why he waited so long. And after that exception piled on yet another exception, so many exceptions he’d made for Nate, that hekeptmaking for Nate, Wes might finally figure out why he drove Ramsey crazy.
Having to see him, his presence a forcible reminder of how it had felt that one night, and then put that aside every time, was not easy. Compounding the problem was that it had always been easy before.
“Are you ever gonna tell me why?” Wes pressed.
Ramsey hesitated.
“There’s nothing,” Ramsey said. Hating himself. Hating lying to Wes. The further into this that they got, the more he knew he should have told him the truth in June.Sorry, bud, I accidentally picked your teammate up and it was really good. Until I realized who he was, I thought there was a chance he might be the exception to a lot of my rules.
Wes sighed. “I know there’s something. You’re gonna tell me someday.”
“Yeah,” Ramsey agreed, despite not knowing if that was true, especially not with how things were going.
Wes stood, shooting Ramsey a wry look. “Don’t spend too much time on screens tonight, okay?”
Ramsey had nearly reached his screen time limit for the day looking over the books for the bar this afternoon, so he just nodded.
Wes flipped off the overhead light on the way out, just the dim lamp on the table next to the bed on.
Once, a few weeks ago, after a few drinks, Levi had insisted on air-dropping him the contact info of basically everyone on the team. “Just in case you need someone,” he said, “and Wes isn’t around.”
