12. Chapter 12 #2
Hank had a legitimately good agent; he was a first-round pick, so it wasn’t surprising that he did. If Hank’s agent hadn’t corroborated any of this, then it might be just the bizarre speculation of a guy who wanted another reason his team was letting him languish in the AHL.
“Yeah, and he said that was his guess, too.” Hank winced. “You’re not happy.”
“I’m—” Ethan didn’t know what he was. “But we can’t tell Charlie about this. He’s already upset enough.”
Hank shot him a look, and okay, yeah, it wasn’t like Hank and Charlie were all buddy-buddy. It wasn’t like Hank was calling up Charlie to have a nice friendly chat. “I wasn’t going to. I didn’t even tell you about this, Eth.”
“Right. Duh.” Ethan still didn’t know what to say.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t ever thought about it.
He had. Hank was right, someone always asked, because they were three brothers playing in the NHL and two of them were already on the same team.
They all said the same rote shit, over and over again.
Sure, we want to play together someday. No, not any current plans. Just enjoying when we play each other.
Though the much-vaunted “Barnes Bowl” when they did actually play each other hadn’t happened yet. Wasn’t scheduled to happen until the end of January.
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say Avery hasn’t mentioned any of this,” Hank said.
Ethan shook his head. “And even if he suspected, even if he thought it might be happening, he wouldn’t say until it was settled. Avery’s . . . well, he’s a little like you, that way.”
“Hey,” Hank defended, making a guilty face. “I had my reasons.”
“I know,” Ethan said, sighing. “But Charlie’s gonna be—”
“Well, it is Charlie,” Hank agreed.
And then something else, something awful, occurred to Ethan. “Wait, did you hear anything—did your agent say—what about Max?”
Hank frowned. “What about Max?”
“Do you think he’s trade bait?”
Charlie would be inconsolable. Max was his best friend, his security blanket, in the way that everyone had been worried that Ethan would lean on Charlie himself, but never really had. It would be the worst double-edged sword if Charlie gained Avery, but lost Max.
Hank’s frown deepened even further. “No? I wouldn’t think so. Max’s the captain. Everyone goes as he goes.”
“I know, but—”
“Charlie would lose his shit?” Hank grimaced. “Yeah, no shit. But Claude, my agent, seems to think they’re really looking for a d-man-to-d-man trade, with some extra draft picks thrown in for good measure. Niko’s young and has some upside and that’s why he’s attractive.”
“Okay. Okay.” Ethan let out a shaky breath. “I can’t imagine. I don’t wanna imagine. Not that you getting traded wouldn’t be fucking terrible. It would.”
Ethan didn’t know how to explain how Max getting traded would be even worse for Charlie.
At least he and Hank hadn’t gotten together yet because they’d been geographically challenged; Charlie and Max weren’t together because they were both too fucking stupid to see what was right in front of their faces.
The regret, if they got separated and had never done anything?
Ethan thought it might be literally crushing.
The kind of hurt you couldn’t come back from.
“Yeah, I get it. They’re—they’re just really dumb about each other,” Hank agreed in a hushed voice. “How was tonight?”
“Oh, you know. The typical.” Ethan rolled his eyes. Maybe it was weird that in one second he was desperately worried about both of them, and in the next, he was exasperated. But maybe it was the same kind of flavor of caring; he just wanted them to get their heads out of their asses, finally.
“That bad, huh?” At least Hank was appropriately sympathetic.
Avery and Livvy were, too, to a point. But every time, without fail, they wanted to remind him of how difficult Charlie’s situation was.
How much pressure everyone had put on him.
How much pressure he’d subsequently put on himself.
Ethan didn’t need that particular lecture; he was front and center for Charlie’s bid to single-handedly drag the Bandits to the playoffs.
But Hank always said something that made Ethan feel like he wasn’t losing his mind.
“God, you don’t even know. When I left them, they were sharing a single couch cushion.”
Hank hummed under his breath. “I’d share a single couch cushion with you.”
It wasn’t that unusual for Hank to say quasi-sweet things. He was actually deeper and softer than anyone else would’ve expected—than Ethan had expected, if he was being honest—but it was unusual enough that Ethan felt a blush rising up his cheeks.
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah,” Hank said, grinning. “You’d better earmark one for us, just in case Max and Charlie want to leave their cooties all over all the others.”
Ethan barked out a laugh. “I fucking will.”
“Good.” Hank actually looked smug about it. “I do feel good about January, in case I didn’t say, though.”
“I always feel good about each and every freaking day,” Ethan said, and he wasn’t exaggerating. He woke up every single morning hoping that today might be the day that Hank made it back to New York. So far it hadn’t been, but Ethan hadn’t stopped hoping.
“Yeah, I kinda feel like you guys need a stouter set of d-men,” Hank said.
He didn’t need to persuade Ethan that he had a point; if he counted the games where a better defense would’ve won them the game, he would easily be on two hands at this point.
They were better in December than they’d been in November. They were right in the playoff hunt, now, but they wouldn’t stay in it, wouldn’t make it in the end, if they didn’t get better in that area, and in about half a dozen others.
“We fucking do. We need you.” Ethan didn’t add, I need you, but he thought Hank probably knew it, anyway.
“I know you wanted it to be December; I wanted it to be December, too,” Hank said, sighing.
“If you had, what would it be like?” Ethan finished the last pot and set it on the drying rack, picking up the phone and heading back to his bedroom.
Shut the door behind him and flopped down on the bed.
“What would what be like?”
“Like, tonight,” Ethan said. He thought about this kind of shit all the time; he’d wondered if Hank did too, but he’d never said. “Charlie and Max are in the other room, practically canoodling. What would we be doing?”
Hank raised an eyebrow. “I thought we weren’t—”
“I don’t mean sex,” Ethan said. His pulse leaped at even the word. There was so much he wanted with Hank; so much they hadn’t done yet. Either of them. So many firsts, and he needed them to experience them together.
“No?” There was a matching flush creeping up Hank’s cheekbones now.
It was adorable how obvious his arousal was; Ethan wanted to strip his T-shirt off and see how low his reddened skin went.
He didn’t have a lot of regrets about how that night in September had gone, except that he’d never gotten any of Hank’s clothes off.
He’d never gotten to see him in all his glory, and Ethan had gotten enough brief glimpses—even though he’d always tried not to look in the locker room—to know it would be glorious.
“No, like what would we be doing?”
Hank leaned back against his pillow cushion. “Well, I’d have helped you do the dishes.”
“Yeah?” That shouldn’t be sexy, but it was. Sexy and adorable. “I like that. Hip to hip at the sink. You washing and me drying.”
It had been nice to talk to Hank while he’d been doing his chores, but it would’ve been even better to do them with Hank.
“Who says it would be me washing and you drying,” Hank teased.
Ethan couldn’t help his smirk. “Well, I kinda thought we’d try it both ways, see what we liked the best.”
Hank flushed even redder. “I’d be down for that.” He dropped his voice. “I’d be down for anything, if it was with you.”
“Same.” Ethan made a sharp bark of incredulous laughter. “How did we end up talking about sex again?”
“Were we?” Hank tried to pretend innocence but there was a knowing edge to his grin. “What would we do after the dishes? Not sit there and watch your brother and Max cuddle, that’s for sure.”
“The holidays are coming up. Maybe we’d do our own kind of cuddling. Share my laptop. Do some online shopping for gifts.”
“I’m terrible at gifts,” Hank admitted.
“Me too,” Ethan said. “But maybe if we combined our miniscule powers, we’d be better together.”
Hank’s smile was soft. Approving. “I kinda think that’s gonna be true of a lot of things.”
Ethan thought so too. He’d thought it for a long time, but the closer he and Hank grew, the more sure of it he became.
“Maybe I’d even convince you to order something sweet for dessert,” Ethan said. “And we could share it, tucked up in my bed. After.”
For a long, taut moment, they just stared at each other, across the hundreds of miles. A lump grew in Ethan’s throat, and he couldn’t seem to clear it. Did he want the sex? Sure he did. He’d been wanting it for awhile.
But more than any sex, he just wanted to be with Hank. To do dumb chores with him, and scroll through , joking about stupid gifts to buy his brothers, Livvy, and Hank’s sister. To just lie together in bed, head on Hank’s chest, listening to his heart beating, solid and real and present.
“That sounds . . . yeah.” On Ethan’s phone screen, Hank swallowed hard, like he had a twin lump in his own throat. Twin wants being denied.
“It’s gonna happen,” Ethan said, because he had to believe it was true. If he didn’t keep the faith, he was gonna lose his fucking mind.
“I gotta think so,” Hank said with a reluctant sigh.
“January,” Ethan repeated with a fervency that he felt but didn’t need to explain. Not when Hank felt the exact same goddamn way.