9. Chapter 9
October
“You sure you’re good?” Charlie asked as he parked in the arena garage, in the blocked-off part of the lot just for players and staff.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Ethan retorted.
“It’s a big thing, your first real NHL game,” Charlie said, so fucking reasonable, even though he was actually rarely anything resembling reasonable. The tone fit on him so weirdly, like a mask that wasn’t the right size.
Certainly it wasn’t convincing.
“Right, and I’m good with it,” Ethan said. “Excited, even. I’m not freaking out, I swear.”
“You’ve been . . .” Charlie paused.
“Don’t,” Ethan said. “I didn’t want to talk about it after it happened and I don’t want to talk about it now.”
“Are you at least talking about it with Tuck?” Charlie asked, still overly solicitous. Ethan wondered if he hadn’t absolutely banned Charlie from telling Max what was going on, if Charlie would’ve convinced Max that it might go over better with Ethan if someone else asked.
If he’d have ended up cornered by the Bandits’ captain, his big dark eyes full of worry. Worry that Charlie had fucking put there.
“We’re talking,” Ethan said, opening his door and heading towards the entrance. Not really waiting for Charlie, not because he wanted to be shitty, but because if he did, Charlie would keep pestering him. Would want an actual rundown of his conversations with Hank.
And really, that wasn’t any of Charlie’s business.
He and Hank were fine.
In the week and a half since Hank had left New York and headed to Syracuse, they had talked.
Every single day, in fact. About Bo’s meditation and his new dedication to continued abstinence.
About Charlie rearranging the fridge four times and how he’d bought a new shoe rack for the entryway and then insisted Ethan put it together.
They hadn’t really talked about what had happened the night before Hank left, but they hadn’t avoided it either.
It had come up in passing a few times, but Ethan got it.
What was there to say? Maybe he’d thought that there would be more sexy FaceTime calls now that they’d kissed and shared an orgasm.
But that hadn’t happened. Admittedly there hadn’t really felt like much opportunity, though if Hank had seemed interested, Ethan would’ve found a way to make it happen.
Hank wasn’t playing in his first game until tomorrow, so when Ethan had woken up from his pregame nap, he’d had half a dozen texts waiting on his phone.
good luck tonight
not that you need it
you’re gonna be just fine
but if you wanna talk I’m here
talk to me and not charlie (if you want). you know he’s gonna be weird.
That was true and had been true. Charlie, who’d been varying levels of Charlie-ness leading up to tonight, was being extra Charlie right now.
Hank had sent one last text.
you do gotta send me a pic of your fit. even if it sucks I wanna see it.
It was one of the first times Hank had gone out of his way to ask for a picture of Ethan. Usually it was Ethan sending them, and occasionally Hank would even reciprocate.
He’d gotten three over the last eleven days.
One of Hank shirtless in bed, his silly face and thumbs-down he gave to the camera keeping the photo from being any kind of thirst trap.
The next, Hank’s face had been partially obscured by a gigantic to-go cup of coffee.
In the third, he hadn’t even been the focal point of the shot, his eyebrows raised, one cut off by the edge of the frame.
Taking up the majority of the screen had been Bo, lying there, mouth open, clearly snoring, with his earbuds in.
You don’t even wanna know how fucking loud his meditation was, Hank had messaged right after.
So, zero sexy shots of Hank. Of course, Hank probably didn’t know just how down bad Ethan was, because all of those had been somehow sexy in their own way, because Hank was just plain fucking sexy.
Still, Ethan had felt less stupid taking a photo of himself in his floor-length mirror only half an hour ago.
The NHL had finally banned dress codes, and nobody seemed to know what to wear—Charlie had been obsessing about it for weeks now—but Ethan had thrown on one of his suits with a polo shirt under and added one of his many pairs of white sneakers.
Thought the blue plaid fabric of his suit brought out his eyes, anyway.
But so far Hank hadn’t said anything about it.
Standing by the player entrance was one of the security guys, who gave Ethan an approving nod, and also one of the social media assistants that Ethan was still getting used to.
They’d had someone who ran PR at Portland, but they’d been unobtrusive and non-demanding.
Tina, the head of PR for the Bandits, was the opposite.
She was both obtrusive and demanding, and Rachel and Ben, who worked for her, had apparently been hired because they were made of the same kind of stuff.
“Hey,” Ben said, phone already at the ready. “You ready for your first game, Eth? Just act normal, I’m going to get a bunch of shots. Wait, where’s Barney? He should be here. Tina wanted to make sure we got a few of both of you together, walking in.”
Ethan did make a face and then regretted it because no doubt Ben would snap a photo and it would end up as some kind of embarrassing meme on the Bandits’ Instagram feed.
“He’s coming,” Ethan said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his expression, because if he looked pissed off, that would also end up on the Bandits’ Instagram.
“There he is,” Ben said, nodding in approval as Charlie finally appeared. “Okay, guys, just look normal, not like you’re posing.”
Even though we’re fucking posing, Ethan wanted to say. But he didn’t, because Ben at least was the most chill of the trio.
“Why’d you take off so goddamn fast?” Charlie complained. “You knew they were gonna want to get some pictures of us.”
“I didn’t think about it,” Ethan mumbled. “I’m not used to this yet.”
“Well, get used to it,” Charlie said and not surprising, while he didn’t love the media who were always giving him shit for not meeting the sky-high expectations everyone had of him, he did seem to love Tina.
Probably because she fucking doted on his brother, who was a first overall pick and handsome and could, if you didn’t know him too well, actually be charismatic and charming.
“Can you please not be annoying for five seconds?” Ethan asked as they headed down the hallway towards the locker room.
He caught the hurt flash across Charlie’s face and regretted it. Maybe he wasn’t nervous, even though this was his first regular season game, but clearly Charlie was. All that pressure, coming to rest on his shoulders.
Ethan didn’t apologize, because Charlie would only brush him off, but he did do something else. Something nice.
“Where’s Max?” Ethan asked, even though he would normally rather pry his fingernails with a dull implement than see his brother wax rhapsodic about their captain.
“Oh, doing some media with Tina, before the game. He had to get here early. And he knew that they were gonna want to get just the two of us.” Charlie hesitated.
“Max and I carpooled a lot last year, and usually, they were getting pics of the two of us together. Tina thinks it’ll be good to change it up some. ”
Privately, Ethan was pretty sure Tina had also probably added some variation of, if you don’t want everyone to think you’re fucking, stop gazing at each other like you’re Romeo and Juliet and stop going everywhere together, like you’ll die if you’re apart for even thirty fucking seconds.
Tina might’ve even made it blunter, because that was Tina.
“Right,” Ethan said. “You know, we can keep carpooling with Max, I don’t mind.”
He kinda did mind, but he’d already hurt Charlie’s feelings once today, and as frustrating as his brother was, he loved him.
“I know,” Charlie said, sliding a look over at him. Like he wanted to say something else but wasn’t.
Ethan had a feeling he knew what it was, and he wished he could give Charlie kudos for holding his tongue, but that would have defeated the purpose.
Because he, too, had imagined in a diverging reality where he might have ended up carpooling in with Hank instead, leaving Barney to do what he really wanted to do, which was to plaster himself to Max twenty-four seven.
“Just throwing that out there,” Ethan said. “I really wouldn’t mind.”
“I’m sure it’ll happen,” Charlie said.
“I just know you like your routine,” Ethan said, aware, even as he’d been trying to ignore it, how much Charlie had been forced to adjust his routine because Ethan was here now.
He’d thought it would be better to not bring it up, to avoid making Charlie even more anxious, and then there was his own weird share of guilt about it.
“Oh, you’re being nice about it now?” Charlie asked archly as he swiped his keycard, letting them into the locker room.
They were early—see Charlie’s aforementioned love of routine—and there were only a handful of guys in the room yet.
Max was not one of them.
“Well, yeah, I wasn’t going to say you’re downright fanatical about it, though you can be,” Ethan retorted.
Charlie rolled his eyes. “You’re such a fucking giver, Eth.” He flopped down onto the bench in front of his stall, but then before he could get settled, the locker room door opened again, and Max walked in.
Ethan had been about to pull his phone out, to check to see if Hank had responded to his selfie, but something soft and vulnerable in Max’s face as he caught sight of Charlie stopped him.
Even though Charlie was three stalls away, he still heard Charlie’s sharp intake of breath.
And sure, yeah, Ethan was kind of obsessed with Hank and the way he looked, but he wasn’t stupid. Max was a good-looking guy, too. Tall and broad, with well-muscled shoulders. What Livvy would’ve teased was Disney Prince Hair, and those big soulful brown eyes.
Ethan wasn’t attracted to him, but he knew Charlie was.
Even if he hadn’t had to listen to Charlie rant about that one night three summers ago, drunk and clearly crushing so fucking hard, he’d have known.
Charlie just wasn’t that subtle about it, not when Ethan had spent the last twenty years being one of Charlie’s best friends.
From the way Max was gazing over at Charlie, clearly whatever Charlie had finally chosen to wear was Max Meier–approved, too.
Ethan sighed and pulled out his phone as Max made a beeline for Charlie like they were two magnets who’d already been apart for too long.
“You look good,” Max said in that soft, sweet voice. He could be a hard-ass—Ethan had heard it on the ice plenty over the last few weeks—but he never was with Charlie.
“Oh. Um. Yeah.” Charlie gazed up at Max like he was the only air he needed to breathe for the rest of his life.
Ethan opened his convo with Avery. you sure we can’t do anything about this charlie max situation, he sent before switching back to his thread with Hank.
Hank had responded to Ethan’s selfie.
hot. kind of unfair, don’t you think?
What Ethan thought was that it was totally fucking unfair that Hank had chosen this moment to say something even borderline sexy.
just fair enough, Ethan responded, because as far as he was concerned, it was. He’d been making do with Hank’s not-sexy selfies for eleven days now, when he wanted so much more. When he wanted it all. And maybe they couldn’t have that, not yet anyway, but at least he could have something.
ouch, Hank responded. you guys going out tonight?
Ethan felt a frisson of heat work its way up his spine at Hank’s question. He knew exactly why Hank was asking, and God, he was so ready for Hank to give in.
Give them both something good.
yeah, but I can be home early.
He was half expecting Hank to tell him, no, that it was his first real NHL game and he should take the celebration, but to Ethan’s surprise, Hank sent a thumbs-up and then, ok let me know when.
“Come on,” Charlie said to him, impatiently leaning towards Ethan’s stall. “Stop talking to Hank and get changed. We’re doing sewer ball in a bit.”
Not like Charlie hadn’t spent the last five minutes cooing and preening over Max. Ethan didn’t say anything, because if he did, it felt like he’d never stop.
Like he knew just how Ethan was feeling, he finally got an answer from Avery.
no, was all he said.
And it wasn’t like Ethan really disagreed on principle. Charlie would kill someone, slowly, if they interfered in his business, especially his business with Max, but honestly, it was painful watching this day in and day out.
“Alright,” he said instead and, after setting his phone on do not disturb, put it up on the shelf. Pulled down a pair of shorts and Bandits’ branded T-shirt and started to change.