Chapter 3
November
“Good win, guys,” Coach Blackburn announced as he walked in the room, closely followed by their assistant coach, Zach Wheeler.
“Love to see the fight. You guys pushed back, after going down in the first, to tie it, and then . . .” Coach paused and looked over at Ethan.
“Then Eth goes and nails that shot in OT. Great work, kid.”
“Thanks,” Ethan said, grinning, as the rest of the team shouted their agreement.
It felt good to bring the win home for the Evergreens, again.
He was having a pretty damn good season so far, and it almost made the fact that Hank hadn’t texted him back the two times he’d reached out feel at least less shitty.
He’d thought they’d really formed a good connection during the three days Ethan had been in New York for development camp. Of course, Hank hadn’t directly given him his number, Ethan had gotten it the roundabout way, by demanding Charlie send it to him.
It was unclear whether Hank liked that or not—because while he’d sent Ethan a single thumbs-up to the first text, he hadn’t responded to the second.
And well, that was a little annoying. A lot annoying, actually, because Ethan was evolved enough, with two queer older brothers, to be pretty sure that he might be too, and the guy who’d made him realize that was Hank Tucker.
He’d thought Hank might be interested back, but so far, that didn’t seem to be the case.
There were the two unanswered texts, and the hot and slightly cold way he’d acted towards Ethan at camp.
Hot on the first day, cooling after that.
Until on the last day, when they’d shared lunch together and knocked their knees together under the table the whole time.
He’d complained to Wally, his best friend here, and Wally, a great winger and a decent guy to hang out with, had just shrugged and reminded Ethan that there were so many fish in the sea.
“We should go to that frat party tonight,” Wally said, leaning over and nudging Ethan’s knee with his own. “Heard good things about who’s gonna be there. Could be a good time.”
This was probably Wally’s way of nicely suggesting that Ethan shouldn’t hang around his room, sulking about the fact that Hank wasn’t into him.
Hadn’t even bothered to text him, even though he’d sent him another message two and a half weeks ago.
He’d worked his ass off to sound casual and yet just flirty enough, workshopping a whole variety of openings, and all that effort had been useless, because Hank hadn’t even bothered to reply.
“Could be,” Ethan agreed. There was part of him that wanted to send a nice fuck you to Hank. To tell him that he wasn’t that cool or that special, and Ethan definitely wasn’t constructing castles in the sky that, instead of being real, had only turned out to be wisps of his own fucking imagination.
Wally shot him a look. “You’re not going to sit in your room, staring at your phone hoping that that stupid guy is gonna text you back. He’s not gonna, okay?”
Ethan finished untying his skates. “Oh, are we saying it out loud, now?”
“Yes,” Wally said bluntly.
Sighing, Ethan nodded. “Okay, we’ll stop by.
Maybe I’ll . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence because he didn’t really think he would find another guy that piqued his interest like Hank had.
And maybe that was okay. Maybe he’d find a pretty girl, too.
There were always pretty girls around, who wanted to hook up or more, thinking that Ethan was their best fast-forward option to money and success.
It just sucked, because Ethan just wanted to be seen for who he was, not what he was. For a second, he’d thought there was a tiny possibility that might be Hank, but clearly, he’d been wrong there.
“Stop looking for your next girlfriend or your first boyfriend, and just have fun,” Wally suggested. He stood up. “I’m gonna shower. Get your ass moving, Eth.”
“Fine, fine, alright,” Ethan agreed. Told himself that he’d try to do exactly what Wally suggested.
After he showered and dressed, there were the standard messages he’d come to expect. Texts from his parents. Three texts from Livvy. A whole chain of them in the bro-chat.
Charlie: woot! baby bro go go GO
Avery: what a sick goal
Avery: don’t think we missed that absolutely fire move you pulled in the third too, to keep them scoring
Charlie: yeah, you should’ve heard the way V yelled about it
Avery: did not
Charlie: did so
Avery: im gonna text Max and be like your A is still mentally thirteen
Charlie: *glare emoji*
Charlie: don’t you fucking dare
Ethan chuckled under his breath and typed out a response. thx! wasn’t that impressive.
Charlie: lies. fucking lies.
Charlie’s answer was almost immediate, which probably meant his game was over. Ethan switched over to his sports app, and sure enough there was a notification that the Bandits had lost. Again. Three to one, to the Rangers.
Whoops.
Well, that explained why Charlie had been on the phone with Avery when they’d been watching his game.
Avery: the goal was super fucking impressive and so was your d-man quality move in the third. don’t front.
Charlie: plz tell me you’re going out to celebrate
Ethan: yeah. wallys dragging me out to some frat party.
Charlie: sick
Avery: be safe
Charlie: ignore V he wouldnt know a good time if it came up and bit him in the ass
For a split second, Ethan considered saying something to Charlie about the game, but decided it was better to message him directly, instead of saying it in the bro-chat.
Charlie could be prickly, especially when he was reminded how the Bandits were not tearing it up this year, not the way he knew his brother had hoped for.
He switched to his private convo with Charlie and texted: tough breaks, barney
Charlie sent back a shrugging emoji which meant that Charlie didn’t want to talk about it. It stung a little that Charlie had clearly called Avery to talk about it, though, and now he was brushing Ethan off, like it wasn’t any of Ethan’s concern.
Well, it was definitely his concern, because next year, if everything went according to plan, he’d be playing for the Bandits, too.
“Come on,” Wally called out, and Ethan slipped his phone into his pocket as he looked up at his friend, hanging by the double locker room doors.
He hadn’t seen a notification from Hank, but he hadn’t looked either, hadn’t even gone into their painfully brief text convo to verify that there wasn’t some magical response that he’d missed.
Because of course there wasn’t. There wasn’t going to be.
He needed to come to terms with that and be okay with it by the time they both headed back to New York next summer for camp.
Maybe then, they could be friends.
On their way to the Gamma Sigma house, Wally asked, “You talk to your brothers?”
“About the game? Yeah. You know they’re always texting me about them,” Ethan said.
For better or worse. He couldn’t say, necessarily, that even though Charlie was on the East Coast and should be focusing on his season with the Bandits, that he’d actually relaxed much when it came to Ethan.
But he had, a little. Probably only because Ethan suspected Avery had pulled him aside and told him to cut it out.
“Not the game,” Wally said. “That guy.”
“Oh come on,” Ethan complained, kicking away a stick that was lying on the sidewalk. Out of frustration or because it genuinely needed moved? He wasn’t going to guess. But it might have been both. “You know what Hank’s name is.”
“Yeah, only ’cause you say it all the time,” Wally complained. Wally didn’t care much that Hank was a guy—Wally was queer, too—it was clear his annoyance was more that Ethan wouldn’t shut up about him.
Well, that was fine, because Ethan didn’t have anything else to say about Hank.
“Don’t worry, I’m shutting up about him forever.” Not forever, probably, but at least for now. At least until they were back in the same city and Ethan could figure out what the hell Hank’s problem was.
“Sure, okay,” Wally said, not sounding convinced. “But I mean it, did you talk to Charlie and Avery about him?”
Ethan frowned. “What would I even say to them about him? Tell Charlie to use his magical alternate-captain powers to force him to text me back? Not fucking likely.”
Hank Tucker hadn’t done anything wrong. He just was exactly what Ethan had guessed at the very beginning, when they’d first met, and that was a guy who thought he was too cool to hang around a nineteen-year-old who was still in college. That was annoying, but not a capital offense.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Wally complained. “I’m not talking about him not texting you. I’m talking about that you want him to. That you’ve been mooning about him ever since you got to Portland.”
Oh. Ethan hesitated. “He didn’t text me back, so there’s nothing to say.”
Wally elbowed him hard in the side and Ethan let out a half groan, half gasp.
He had a nasty bruise there from the Denver game, two weeks ago.
He’d think that Wally accidentally hit it, but he had a feeling that Wally’s aim had been anything but accidental.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. So you haven’t told your two queer brothers that you are, also, in fact, queer. ”
“Why would I do something stupid like that?” Better to brazen this out, Ethan decided. “All they’d do is become living, breathing PSAs and Charlie’s already like that, about me, and me playing with him. Don’t need to make it any worse.”
“You don’t know they’d be overprotective about it,” Wally said, the statement of the blissfully ignorant only child.
“Sure, I do,” Ethan said. “Besides, I don’t know that I’m queer. I haven’t ever liked a guy, not like that, not until . . . well, until the guy whose name we’re not saying.”
“You mean the guy whose name we’re pretending we’re not saying?” Wally asked archly.
They turned into the path that led to the Gamma Sigma house. There were already crowds spilling out of the front porch and onto the lawn, along with the pulsing beat of the music.