Chapter 4 #2
Hank was lying in bed too, in what looked like a hotel room. Not that Ethan had gotten many views of his apartment in Syracuse, but this looked like a hotel room. Like the impersonal shiny sameness that they all had in common.
That didn’t make sense until Hank said, suddenly a wide grin breaking over his face, “Guess where I’m at?”
“Uh,” Ethan said. Partly he wanted to change the subject and demand to know what had finally broken this FaceTime embargo, and partly he wanted to guess.
Even something stupid. But his mind was blank, lulled into a state of bloodlessness by the three inches of flushed bare chest that he was seeing on his phone screen.
“You’re not guessing,” Hank teased, running a hand through his auburn curls, and if it was possible, there was now even less blood in Ethan’s brain.
“Um,” Ethan hesitated. “You decided to fly out here for Valentine’s Day?”
It was the stupidest thing he could’ve guessed, even if it was something he’d not even thought to hope for.
“That’s a good one,” Hank said, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Maybe not quite as good as that. But I’m in New York. I got called up. That’s why I was quiet all day. Packing up and traveling and then I wanted to surprise you.”
Hank had said it wasn’t quite as good as them being in the same city, but honestly, after how hard Hank had worked all season to get his ass onto the Bandits’ roster, he was wrong, because this was better.
“Oh, that’s fucking awesome,” Ethan said, meaning it. “I’m so proud of you. You did it.”
“Yeah,” Hank agreed, still smiling like he couldn’t quite get himself to stop. “I can’t believe it, but it’s happening. And Inverness says for the rest of the season, through the playoffs, if the Bandits make it there.”
“They’re gonna make it there, if you’re on the team,” Ethan said, before he could stop himself. Even though he believed it was true, he hadn’t necessarily wanted to give away how fucking incredible he thought Hank was.
On the ice. Just on the ice.
Hank huffed out a laugh. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do,” Ethan said. “They need some good d-men, clearly. I know you’re gonna kick ass. Convince everyone you’re there to stay.”
“Oh yeah?” Hank smiled. “What about you? You gonna come join me?”
God, Ethan wanted to. There had been a handful of messages exchanged between Barty, his agent, and Inverness, about Ethan coming up to the Bandits if the Evergreens didn’t make the NCAA playoffs.
“We’ll see,” he said noncommittally, not wanting to promise Hank anything.
Not wanting to promise himself anything, even though he already wanted it.
He loved playing for Portland U, but being on a team with Charlie?
With Max and Danny and all the other guys?
With Hank, now that he’d been called up?
He couldn’t pretend he didn’t crave that so fucking bad.
“I guess we gotta win some games, really get into the thick of the playoff race,” Hank said.
That was the truth; if there was no hope of making the playoffs this year, then Inverness wouldn’t bother suggesting Ethan sign his contract. He’d keep him in college and just bring him to camp next fall, like the original plan had always been.
“Yeah,” Ethan agreed. “I should text Charlie—oh, and Max.”
“I already got a message from Max.” Hank paused. “He’s a solid captain.”
“Seems like it.”
“But I’m sure Charlie’ll be welcoming too,” Hank said, though he sounded a bit more cautious.
Like he wasn’t sure where or how he wanted to step around the Barnes brothers’ business.
And that was fair. It wasn’t like Ethan had told Charlie that he and Hank talked all the time.
Charlie didn’t know that they’d talked at all since meeting up for development camp in September.
Which . . . clearly now that Hank was in New York, with the Bandits, it was time for Ethan to tell him.
But what to tell him? If he told Charlie about Hank, then Charlie would want to know why he’d kept it a secret and that would open up that whole other queer kettle of fish. Then Avery would inevitably get involved, and once Avery was involved, there was no way it wouldn’t be A Thing.
“Uh, about that,” Ethan said, hesitating.
But then there was the problem with telling Hank that he’d kept their convos a secret, because Hank was important.
“What?” Hank just smiled at him, easy and carefree in a way Ethan already knew he wasn’t, most of the time, anyway. But right now, he’d gotten pretty much everything he’d been working towards for the whole freaking season.
He didn’t even know that Ethan was sitting here, suddenly sweating it out.
“You know how everyone’s always like, ooooh Barnes bros love each other so much and tell each other everything and like, can’t wait to play on the same team?”
Hank’s eyebrow hiked up closer to his hairline. “Not really, but I’ll take your word for it.”
Of course Hank didn’t pay attention to the nonstop media circus. Ethan had already thought he was fucking perfect, but now this confirmed it.
“Yeah.” Ethan waved his hand. “It’s a whole thing.”
“That sucks.” Hank’s tone had gotten more careful. Like he’d already guessed what was coming, and frankly, he probably had. Hank wasn’t an idiot, which again, was why Ethan had already mentally declared him to be the perfect guy.
Hot and smart and funny and really fucking good at hockey.
Nobody could blame him for having his queer awakening at the hands of a guy like that.
“Yeah, it does. But also it’s like . . . not true,” Ethan said. “Not entirely anyway. Not all the time.”
Hank didn’t say anything. Just waited Ethan out, who groaned a little.
“I didn’t tell Charlie, okay? That we’re friends.
” Friends was a pretty innocuous term for what they were doing, but it was still technically the truth.
Wally was right. Neither of them had crossed the gay chicken point of no return yet.
Maybe they still would, but they hadn’t yet.
At least Hank didn’t look pissed when Ethan finally admitted it. He looked . . . like nothing. Like this was all normal. Like he hadn’t expected anything else.
Ethan couldn’t help but frown. “Like, that’s not okay, right? That I didn’t tell him.”
Running a hand through his hair again, Hank just sighed. “It’s not anything, Eth. You’re not required to tell your brothers everything.”
“Yeah, but you’re gonna be on a team with him.”
“And I’m gonna be on a team with you,” Hank reminded him. The way he said it filled Ethan with an astonished kind of exhilaration. Like for Hank, playing with Charlie Barnes was fine. Expected and normal. But playing with Ethan would be the real treat.
Ethan believed it; he really did. But it was hard to just accept it. For his whole life, it felt like he’d been an afterthought. Avery and Charlie, first, especially Charlie, who’d been seen from the beginning as having the talent and the drive and the skill to go the furthest.
“But—”
“Bud,” Hank said, “I promise. It’s fine. I get it. Charlie’s kinda . . . well, intense about shit, isn’t he?”
“He is,” Ethan agreed.
“Then it’s not a big deal,” Hank said.
Maybe Ethan should let it go, like Hank said, and keep pretending that them texting nearly every day was no big deal, like hearing his phone vibrate in his pocket hadn’t started to become one of the most important parts of his day. But that wasn’t true. And Ethan didn’t really want to let it go.
“It’s a big deal though, to me, us talking,” Ethan said quietly.
Hank’s expression softened. “Yeah. We talk a lot.”
“I like it,” Ethan said, a little stubbornly. Maybe they couldn’t say it. Maybe neither of them was crossing the gay chicken line, but he didn’t want Hank to think he thought it was nothing, either.
“I do too,” Hank said quietly. “A lot.”
For a second, they both sat there, in their respective beds, in their respective states and respective time zones, and just . . . well, Ethan knew what he was doing. He was wanting. Wanting so much it felt like it might crawl up his throat and choke him. But in a totally normal way. So normal.
Maybe Hank felt the same way, too. It kinda looked like he might.
“Would be really good if you ended up in New York before next fall,” Hank added.
Ethan wasn’t going to disagree, but he also had no control over that situation, either.
If Inverness told him to stay put in Portland, then he’d stay put in Portland and finish out his sophomore year.
He couldn’t call up the Bandits’ GM and demand to be brought to New York.
Though, as the weeks passed and the Bandits lost more games than they won and the Evergreens looked like they’d probably make the Frozen Four but not exactly be winning it all this year, Ethan was really tempted to do that. More than once.
“I don’t know what you expect me to do,” Charlie said in March.
“Yeah you do,” Ethan retorted as he tucked his phone between his ear and his shoulder and hated, acutely, how fucking cold and wet it was.
On top of being on the opposite side of the country from New York, Portland was also fucking miserable in March.
Drizzling rain and forty-degree temps that felt at least twenty degrees colder.
“Dude, Eth, I’m not just gonna march up to Inverness and be like, hey, sign my little bro to his entry-level contract now. He’s tired of being in Portland. It rains a whole lot there.”
Charlie didn’t even know why yet. Ethan hadn’t told him. Knew the clock was ticking down on saying it, but he and Hank had come to this wordless agreement that Charlie didn’t need to know what was going on. That they were friends. That they talked all the time.
Hank was up with the Bandits, now, but apparently he was also the odd man out so he was getting a room to himself. So nobody had to know that it felt like most nights now he and Ethan ended up FaceTiming.
“Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me that you talk to Inverness all the goddamn time?” Ethan complained. “Just last month, you were bragging about how you have lunch with him once a week.”