11. Chapter 11 #2
Inverness had been talking a big game forever, promising that Hank was the future of the Bandits’ defense core. But maybe it wasn’t just talk; maybe he’d actually meant it.
And if that was true, then it was kinda hard to keep feeling so goddamn sorry for himself. Right before he finally fell asleep, Hank rolled over, picked up his phone and sent Ethan not just one heart back, but three.
It was a stupid thing to be annoyed about. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
But Ethan was sitting on one of Charlie’s barstools, watching as his brother and his captain flirted over mashed potatoes.
“We need to get them whipped, you know?” Max said, glancing over at where Charlie was wielding the masher clumsily, because Charlie might be good at a lot of things, but not at cooking. A fact that Ethan had unfortunately discovered since moving in with him a few months ago.
Naturally, he’d talked up his life skills to a major degree, and in the summers, they all kinda got by, with Avery usually taking the lion’s share of the kitchen work, because Avery gave more of a shit what he ate than he and Charlie did.
But it was obvious now that Charlie had been majorly exaggerating his culinary expertise every time he talked to the media about it.
Ethan had yet to call him out on it, but he was seriously considering it, the longer he had to watch him and Max banter over a Thanksgiving side dish.
“What’s going on here?” his mom asked, sliding into the barstool next to Ethan’s.
Charlie had just lifted the masher from the pot and flicked a bit of mashed potatoes at Max. They landed on his cheek, in the thick dark scruff along his jawline, and both of them were practically giggling over it.
“Watching these stupid mating rituals,” Ethan muttered. He wasn’t sure he’d said it loud enough for her to hear—he’d been trying to avoid Charlie hearing, because Charlie would get pissed.
He was already on edge because their dad was here, and even though it had been less than twenty-four hours, he’d already brought up how the Bandits were currently out of playoff contention, even though it was still really early in the season and anything could happen.
“Oh, honey, your brother’s just . . .” Charlotte Barnes looked over at Ethan, blue eyes sympathetic. “Well. You know how he is.”
“Yeah,” Ethan agreed wholeheartedly.
God, didn’t he? He’d thought he’d had a pretty decent idea, before this, because they did spend all their summers together, but they’d not lived together during the rest of the year since Charlie went to the US development program at fifteen, and Ethan had only been twelve.
They’d both changed a lot since then.
And he was grateful, he was. Grateful he got to see his brother and live with him and play hockey with him. But God, he could be annoying. Especially when it came to Max.
Max wrestled the masher away from Charlie, which Ethan was pretty sure was a move that he’d pulled on Hank a time or two, just to get Hank to touch him more.
“You two seem like you’re doing pretty well, though,” his mom said, nudging him.
He looked over at her then. More because he wasn’t sure he could take any more secondhand embarrassment at whatever antics Max and Charlie were indulging in, all while pretending they were “just” friends.
He and Hank had never been this dumb. Never.
“Yeah,” Ethan said, trying to dredge up some enthusiasm.
Maybe what he was frustrated about wasn’t just Charlie and Max’s flirting, but the fact that his guy wasn’t here, too, to meet his parents and to flirt with him over a pan of his mom’s famous yams. To stretch out with him after dinner on the couch, stuffed to the gills.
“Avery said you’d gotten close to a defenseman, but he wasn’t here? I thought he might be.”
“Avery shouldn’t be talking shit about stuff he doesn’t know about,” Ethan said righteously. Though it wasn’t like he wouldn’t have loved it if Hank had been able to spend the holidays here, instead of in Syracuse.
“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. “You’re not close?”
“No, no, we are.” Ethan hesitated. It wasn’t like his parents hadn’t been supportive when Charlie and then Avery had come out.
Charlie had done it, almost defiantly, at eleven, declaring that he was never going to be into girls, not like that.
Avery had waited a few more years, and his confession had been more Avery-like, quiet and sure.
Confident, still, but in a very different way than Charlie.
His dad had grumbled a bit, when Avery had come out, but had been ultimately supportive, probably because at that point, he’d realized that it wasn’t the death knell for their careers that he’d worried about when Charlie had come out.
“What’s his name? Do you like him?” Charlotte asked.
“Hank. Hank Tucker. He’s from Toronto. Um.
Yeah. I met him at dev camp a few years back and we talk a lot.
He’s . . .he’s probably my best friend.” There wasn’t any probably about it, not any longer.
“And yeah. I do like him. A lot. If he hadn’t gotten sent back to Syracuse, I think we would’ve . . .”