“Exactly,” Nate said.
“You’re an asshole,” Aidan said, but he was grinning now. “Maybe Icansee how you managed to charm Ramsey, even if he wasn’t interested in being charmed.”
That hadn’t been Nate’s point, but he wasn’t going to be mad that it had worked out unexpectedly well.
“Thanks,” Nate said smugly.
And okay, he might be fake dating Ramsey, but he was stilldatingRamsey.
Seemed like an accomplishment worthy of taking a victory lap over.
Aidan opened his mouth, probably to give him some other variation of a hard time, but before he could say anything, a commotion on the field grabbed both of their attention.
Nate identified the source of the problem immediately. It wasn’t even particularly a surprise. There was a reason he’d been over here to begin with.
He was going to kick Atkinson’s ass from here until next week.
“Shit,” Aidan muttered, turning and taking in the situation instantly.
Jordan was facing off against Ross Acker, who was the starting left tackle who’d become the starting right tackle after Levi had taken his spot during training camp. He hadn’t handled that transition particularly well, but now the line was much more solid. Still, on top of Acker’s normally prickly attitude, Jordan had clearly bested him and was now getting into his face about it.
Shit was right.
Aidan turned to him, just as Jordan shoved Ross back. “You wanna handle this or—”
“I got it,” Nate muttered. He wasn’t going to send Aidan out there. Jordan wasn’t smart enough to avoid pulling something catastrophically stupid, like getting in the face of the Thunders’ Super Bowl winning QB1.
He stalked over, gaze pinned to where things were escalating between Jordan and Ross, despite several teammates, including Levi and Duke, attempting to separate them.
“Atkinson,” Nate barked out, voice as hard as he could make it. “What the fuck are you doing?”
But Jordan didn’t pull up. He was still running his mouth. Variations ofoldandfuckandtotal shitwere being thrown around and Nate buried his wince and steeled himself, heading right into the fray.
He grabbed Jordan by the neck and used a good chunk of his strength to drag him away.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Nate demanded again. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
“He called me slow,” Jordan announced sulkily. “Whenhe’sthe slow one. Slow and old—”
Levi, who had ahold of Ross now, suddenly struggled as Ross tried to break free and come after Jordan, who had apparently never heard of staying quiet while you were fucking ahead.
“Fuckingshut up,” Nate said and risked Jordan overcoming him by removing one of his hands from around Jordan’s bicep and slapping it across his mouth. “Are you stupid? I don’t care what he said to you, or what he is, you don’t fucking do that. Ever.”
Jordan mumbled angrily around Nate’s hand.
Nate wasn’t willing to risk removing it though.
“What’s going on here?” Shit. It was Coach Dell, the defensive coordinator, who’d come over to see what the fuss was about.
Now he was going to have to hear from Sterling that he hadn’t quieted Jordan quickly enough or got to him fast enough to get him to shut his fucking mouth.
“We got it handled,” Nate said.
“Yeah,” Levi agreed. Thankfully, Ross had seemingly gone quiet, all the fight seeped out of him, and he wasn’t even being held back anymore.
Coach Dell looked from Nate to Jordan. “Tell me,” he said anyway.
Jordan opened his mouth but Nate just smacked him. “Whatyouhave to say doesn’t matter,” he said flatly.
