15. Chapter 15
The moment Avery picked up, face blurry on Charlie’s phone screen, Ethan said, “If you say anything about Max or Max’s line, I’m going into my bedroom and locking the door.”
Avery shot Charlie a look. “Is he being like this all the time?”
“I barely said anything!” Charlie exclaimed.
“You said enough,” Ethan retorted. “You both said enough.”
“He’s just pissy because first game up, his boyfriend said the same thing,” Charlie said to Avery.
Ethan compressed his lips. He and Hank hadn’t had the boyfriend conversation yet.
They’d had practice yesterday and they’d ended up getting roped into the weird quasi-double date that Max and Charlie had wanted the day before.
They’d eaten at Max’s place, and then Charlie had picked a movie.
A horrible movie, not surprisingly, but unlike the bad TV that Charlie liked to watch, he and Hank hadn’t even gotten to make out through it.
And after, Charlie had dragged him back to their apartment like he was five years old.
After their game, they were leaving on a road trip for a couple of days, and honestly, it couldn’t come at a better time, because Ethan was very ready to be alone with Hank again. He still wasn’t convinced Charlie was against him and Hank, more like he kept trying to slow down the inevitable.
“He didn’t. Not really,” Ethan hedged. “He just doesn’t like seeing guys get aggressive with me on the ice. But I can handle it.”
Avery rolled his eyes. “Like any of us like seeing that. I’ve been thinking it—and saying it—for at least a month now. You’re doing great at center, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea to let Max protect you some.”
“Jonas protects me,” Ethan argued.
“Oh, please,” Charlie said. “Jonas is barely bigger than you are.”
“Jonas is bigger than both of you,” Ethan said, because he couldn’t help himself any longer.
“Kinda mean,” Avery retorted and Charlie made a face.
“It’s true,” Ethan muttered under his breath, refusing to feel guilty about it.
“Maybe Hank’ll protect you next time, especially after you dished him that gorgeous pass,” Avery suggested.
“Don’t encourage him,” Charlie said, handsome face still creased into unpleasant lines. “It’s already hard enough watching the two of them slobber all over each other.”
Ethan opened his mouth and then snapped it shut again. He met Avery’s eyes, and a knowing look passed between them. Maybe Charlie and Max weren’t “slobbering all over each other” but what they were doing might actually be worse, and both Ethan and Avery knew it.
But Ethan was already feeling the lingering guilt from the height comment, so he kept his mouth shut. Charlie didn’t have any freaking clue how nice he could be.
“Fine, I won’t, then,” Avery said.
“Besides,” Charlie barged right ahead, like their oldest brother hadn’t said anything, “we’re not talking about Ethan and his new boyfriend. We’re talking about you.”
“Wait, what?” Ethan asked at the same time as Avery groaned.
Charlie’s face did that reprimanding-slash-demanding thing it liked to do when he thought he knew best. “Tell Ethan what’s going on. Tell him what you told me.”
“I told you—” Avery broke off, muttering a quiet fuck under his breath. “I told you. I didn’t want to worry Ethan about it.”
“Yeah, because Charlie doesn’t stress about anything, ever,” Ethan inserted, trying not to be butthurt that Avery had told Charlie something he hadn’t wanted to tell Ethan. He knew it happened, but he didn’t want his face rubbed in the fact that both of them still saw him as a kid.
“Hey,” Charlie retorted, elbowing him in the side.
Ethan was just spouting truth after truth here, and all he was getting for his trouble was abused. So much for brotherly fucking love.
“So,” Avery finally said, rubbing his face with his hand, “yeah, I guess Barty’s been talking to the GM here.”
“Wait, what.” Ethan had known that everyone was all salivating over the very slim possibility that the Mavericks might trade away their future star and captain in Avery, but even though everyone was talking about it—mostly the media, but some players too, like Dom and Hank and once even Danny, but he’d done it within Max’s hearing and Max had shot him a surprisingly strong glare about it so he’d shut the fuck up—Ethan hadn’t thought it was actually a serious thing.
But if their agent was talking to the Mavs . . .
“Barty says that even though I don’t have any trade protection on my contract, the Mavs want me to have some say over where I might go.”
“Or you could stay where you’re at,” Charlie said.
Avery huffed out a breath. “Or I could stay where I’m at. The Mavs are asking . . . they’re asking a lot. I don’t think very many teams are gonna be willing to pay it.”
“You don’t know that,” Ethan said stoutly. It was right there, on the tip of his tongue to ask: what if the Bandits trade for you? Would you want to come here? Would you want to come play with us?
But of fucking course Avery would. He wouldn’t turn down a trade to the Bandits. They’d been talking, the three of them, about playing together forever. It had always been a pipe dream, though less of one these days, once Ethan had been drafted by Charlie’s team.
“I’ve thought about telling Pete that I’ll sign his new extension,” Avery said quietly, referring to the Mavs’ general manager. “I don’t want anyone to think—”
“You’re not abandoning anyone,” Charlie interrupted.
“Well, kinda yeah, I am.”
Ethan frowned. He didn’t like that tone in Avery’s voice; like maybe if nobody else did blame him, he’d still blame himself.
“You want to win,” Charlie said, like that explained everything. “You don’t want to spend your whole career on a team that doesn’t win. That doesn’t do what it takes to win.”
Avery looked into his screen, empathy brimming over in his eyes. Not for him, though, for Charlie. And yeah, Ethan understood that. Charlie wasn’t just talking about their older brother; he was talking about himself.
“If I stay, if I sign the extension, they’ve talked about trading for someone I could really play with. Someone else.” Avery sighed. “But I don’t know if it’s enough.”
“What does Livvy think?” Ethan asked.
Their sister would have an opinion; a whole lot of opinions if he knew Livvy and he did.
Avery took a deep breath. “She thinks I should tell the Mavs that I want to leave. That I’ll take their trade. But put exactly one team on the top of the list.”
Ethan didn’t say anything; he didn’t know what words even were right now.
“I thought this all was going to wait longer, go down closer to the trade deadline,” Charlie said flatly.
As expected, he was being neurotic about this. Torn, Ethan would bet. Everything Charlie had ever wanted—suddenly his other beloved brother there, on his team—but upsetting all the natural systems and culture that he and Max had spent so long building.
Avery would shake things up. Good and maybe even bad. It was impossible to say which, until it happened. If it happened.
“I don’t know,” Avery said. “I guess the teams that are interested don’t wanna wait too long, wait until it’s too late for me to make a difference in this season.”
He didn’t need to say the Bandits and their d-men issues, but Ethan knew they were all thinking it.
“What are you thinking?” Ethan didn’t want to push his brother one way or the other.
Whatever happened this was Avery’s decision.
Well, mostly Avery’s decision. If he did decide to go ahead with a trade, he wouldn’t get any kind of final say who he was traded to.
He could make requests. He could turn down teams. But when it came down to it, he didn’t have any protections.
Not even a list of ten teams he didn’t want to go.
He could go to any team in the NHL. Anyone who was willing to pay the price the Mavericks were asking.
“I don’t know.” When Charlie made a scoffing sound in the back of his throat, Avery shot him a half-hearted glare.
“I’m serious. I don’t know. I didn’t think it would ever get this far.
I thought . . . I thought I’d have more time.
I guess, what I really thought was we’d be better this year, and it wouldn’t even be a question. ”
“That could still happen,” Ethan said, probably giving the Mavericks and their anemic offense, their questionable goaltending, and hot-and-cold defense too much credit.
“Yeah, okay,” Avery said, not looking convinced. “But sure. Maybe.”
“Did you see Livvy’s game last night?” Charlie asked, changing the subject in a way that was probably pretty fucking obvious, but they all let him do it.
They talked about Livvy’s team for a bit. About how they’d scored three power play goals on four attempts, and how they were leading the league in percentage.
“She’s gonna get a head coaching job at some point,” Avery said.
“I don’t think I’d ever take her off special teams,” Charlie said.
It was Ethan’s turn to elbow Charlie.
“I mean it,” Charlie retorted, “she’s fucking amazing at drawing up a power play and coaching the players to execute it.”
“Yeah, and that doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve any other opportunities?” Ethan asked archly.
Charlie just grumbled something under his breath.
“Well,” Avery interrupted. “I gotta go. But I wanted to give you guys an update.”
“Keep us posted,” Ethan said, even though it was kinda stupid because if anything, they should be keeping him posted, if what was theoretically going to happen ended up being reality.
“’Course,” Avery promised. “You guys will be my first call. I promise.”
He hung up, and for a second, neither he nor Charlie moved.
Charlie seemed frozen in place, only his fingers drumming against his knee relentlessly.
Ethan thought he should say something—maybe even about the elephant in the room?—but he didn’t know how to start.
Finally, Charlie broke the silence by standing up and saying in a voice that felt both raw and tender at the same time, “I’m gonna go see Max.”