Chapter 1 #2
Avery responded quick. Like he’d already typed out this response. Knowing Avery, he probably had. you know he’s under a ton of pressure from a lot of people. for a long time. maybe while you’re there you can help him relax some.
Personally, Ethan didn’t think that was going to happen—maybe the only person Charlie might listen to was Max—but he could try.
He sent a thumbs-up and shoved his phone into one of the storage shelves in his stall, pulling out his warmup stuff.
Charlie was already ahead of him. Even if Ethan hadn’t been texting, he probably would’ve still been ahead.
He was crazy efficient like that.
“I’m gonna go warm up some with Max. Play some sewer ball,” Charlie said, toying with the strings of his hoodie. “You wanna come with us?”
And spend more time watching dumb and dumber make googly eyes at each other? Ethan didn’t think so.
“Nah, I’m just gonna go do some stretches. Maybe do a few minutes on the bike,” Ethan said.
Charlie began to frown, like he didn’t like Ethan doing his own thing.
But Ethan wanted to do his own thing, especially today.
He didn’t want any of the front office or the coaching staff—or God forbid, his new teammates—thinking that he couldn’t do anything without being surgically attached to Charlie.
“Seriously, bro, it’s fine.” Ethan shot him a look like, we talked about this. Which, they had.
“Alright,” Charlie said, “but if you need anything—”
“I know where to go, and who to go to, thanks to Max,” Ethan said.
“Right. Right. Okay.”
Charlie finally left with Max, which was a relief, honestly, and Ethan finished getting changed.
He only got lost once trying to find the gym.
But eventually he walked in and after greeting a few of the guys he hadn’t met yet—that was Matt Daniels, or Danny, as he was better known, on the leg press, and Gabriel Robles, another winger, doing deadlifts—took a spot on the mat and began to stretch out.
He was bending into a deep stretch, trying to keep his breathing steady, when a shadow crossed over his body and then didn’t leave.
Ethan flicked his eyes up to look and then kept looking.
The guy was tall—definitely even an inch or two or maybe even three over Ethan’s six feet—and was built but slim. All long, pale legs, slender but unquestionably muscled. Filling out his shorts and T-shirt well.
He had messy dark red hair, almost auburn, curling against his neck, and bright hazel eyes that were currently squinting at Ethan.
“Hey,” the guy said, “you must be the baby Barnes.”
Ethan made a face. Straightened up out of his stretch. “Yeah, hey. I’m Ethan.” He extended his hand and the guy shook it. Ethan got a brief impression of a calloused palm sliding against his own. Nothing particularly special but he felt a weird electric surge anyway.
“Hank Tucker,” the guy said.
“Nice to meet you,” Ethan said, and to his own surprise, meant it.
It didn’t take more than a second for Ethan to put the name to the face. Hockey was a small world anyway, but when he’d been drafted by the Bandits, he’d looked over their roster, as well as their list of recent draft picks.
Henry Tucker, a defenseman, had been drafted two years before also in the first round. His first season after that, he’d gone back to juniors and then, the year after, had spent some time between the Bandits and the Syracuse Black Knights, the Bandits’ AHL team.
Ethan wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t recognized him. But this guy, and the gangly, slightly awkward redhead who he’d seen pictures of, felt like they barely resembled each other.
He’d scanned right over Henry Tucker as just another guy on his future team, but Hank made him sit up and pay attention.
“You’re at Portland U, right?” Hank crouched down so they were more on the same eye level, every movement of his long limbs shockingly graceful.
Thighs, Ethan thought stupidly, thighs thighs thighs. Even though he’d never been particularly into a guy’s thighs before. But Hank’s were right there, and they were so, so . . . well, something. Pale and muscled and thick and crazy strong. It was hard to pretend he was normal about them.
Ethan experienced a brief and very fleeting moment of sympathy for Charlie before shoving that annoying thought away. He wasn’t gay, and he wasn’t going to be weird about Hank Tucker.
No way.
“Yeah,” Ethan said.
Hank raised an eyebrow. “And heading back there, yeah?”
He felt a momentary urge to pretend that it wasn’t already decided and he wasn’t going back there. That he wasn’t nineteen and so fucking green.
But he was all those things. Ethan swallowed hard, nodded. “Yeah.”
Hank rose to his feet, gaze flicking to the next person in the room, like he’d only come over here because Ethan was just another box he needed to check off.
Ethan wouldn’t have liked that, even if Hank wasn’t . . . well, whatever he was. He didn’t want anyone catering to him, deciding he was important just because of his last name. Just because he was Charlie’s younger brother and Charlie wore an A.
“You played up some last year, yeah?” Ethan said.
Hank paused, those light hazel eyes returning to Ethan. “Yeah, some,” he said.
“And in the playoffs the year before that.”
Ethan had a brain that picked up insignificant details and hung on to them.
And then there was the near-constant recital Charlie had been performing since June, telling Ethan everything about every single one of his future teammates.
Sure, Charlie’s favorite subject was Max Meier, but there’d been other guys in there, too.
Notably, the “up and coming offensive d-man” that was Hank Tucker.
“Yeah,” Hank said. His face had settled into stiff lines. Bored, maybe? Already tired of bothering with the guy who wasn’t even going to be the rookie, yet?
“Hot shit, huh?” Ethan teased.
That startled a laugh out of Hank, who reached out and shoved at his shoulder. “You’re kinda a brat, aren’t you?”
“Nope,” Ethan said, grinning back. “Just call it like it is. Too good for the rest of us. Too good to slum it.”
Ethan had been around hockey players forever.
He couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t been.
His mom had played in college, and for the US women’s team.
Won two gold medals with them at the world championships.
His dad worked for one of the biggest hockey equipment manufacturers.
Charlie and Avery, obviously, who’d both been drafted in the first round, just like Ethan.
Then there was his sister, Olivia, who was coaching in the AHL now, rumors flying that Seattle would eventually bring her up to coach for them. The first female coach in the NHL.
So yeah, Ethan knew hockey players.
Knew exactly what to say to get their attention.
And he’d grabbed Hank’s now.
Didn’t really know what to do with it, but he had it, and that was the most important thing.
“Oh, yeah? That’s what you think?” The corner of Hank’s mouth tilted up. “That I’m too good?”
“First-round big-shot draft pick.” Once he’d started, he didn’t want to stop. Wanted to keep Hank’s eyes on him all the time. Just like this. Like Ethan was an unknown entity that he couldn’t quite quantify but was dying to pick apart.
“Says the first-round big-shot draft pick.” Hank rolled his eyes, but he still looked amused. “Says the first-round big-shot draft pick named Barnes.”
“Hey,” Ethan retorted. It wasn’t like he’d asked to be named Barnes.
Hank cackled. Straightened again. “Can dish it out, but can’t take it?”
“Oh, I can take it,” Ethan promised. He was the youngest, right? He’d been taking it forever, until he’d figured out exactly how to return it, in spades, to his brothers. Not Livvy, but then Livvy was a sweetheart. She’d never really given Ethan shit. Not like Charlie and Avery, anyway.
“Guess we’ll see about that,” Hank said.
He walked away then, continuing to make his rounds, but Ethan felt the unmistakable weight of a gaze on him more than once.
Finally, Ethan finished up stretches and was warming up on the bike when Charlie walked in, Max only half a step behind him.
Ethan did not say anything about it, though it was hard not to be tempted, considering how it turned out that as weird as he’d assumed Charlie was about Max, Max was actually even weirder about Charlie.
“We’re just about ready to start practice. You ready?” Charlie asked.
“You know there’s a clock like, right there?” Ethan pointed to the one on the gym wall, right above the double doors.
He had fifteen minutes to get his gear on, which was plenty of time.
“I just . . .” Charlie made a face. “I don’t mean to micromanage you—”
“Yes, you do,” Ethan retorted.
Charlie’s face got worse, and Ethan had to remind himself of what Avery had said—something he’d already known.
When he’d been a kid, he hadn’t even understood why all these guys hung around Charlie’s games, always wanting to talk to him and their parents after. But as he’d grown up, he’d realized they were all there to scout Charlie.
There’d been an unbelievable pressure on Charlie to be good—to be great—since he was single digits. And then he’d been drafted first overall by the Bandits, and that pressure had only grown and grown and grown.
“I’m sorry.” Charlie looked contrite and like he wished he could do more than just apologize. Guilt swamped Ethan.