15. Chapter 15 #2
It occurred to him that even though he and Hank had worked through that logically Max wouldn’t be included in a trade for Avery, maybe Charlie hadn’t been able to set his emotions aside enough to do that.
“You know he wouldn’t—they wouldn’t,” Ethan stuttered out. It was not the smooth way he’d have wanted to say it, but the point was he’d said it.
Charlie turned to him. “Who wouldn’t what?”
Ethan swallowed hard, forcing himself to think through what he was going to say. Forcing himself to be calm about it. “Inverness wouldn’t offer Max for Avery.”
“That’s what you think I’m upset about?” Charlie asked incredulously.
Leaving Ethan wishing that he’d never said anything at all. Honestly, sometimes Charlie could be a real asshole.
But before he could tell him that—deservedly—Charlie’s face softened. “No, no, it’s okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. This is just . . . this is just a lot. Of course they wouldn’t trade Max for Avery. Were you worried about that?”
“That would be stupid,” Ethan said, because other than a single bad moment, he hadn’t worried about it.
“Okay. And you’re not worried about Hank either, right?” Charlie asked.
Ethan huffed. “No. I’m worried about you, you fucking idiot.”
“Don’t worry about me—worry about Avery,” Charlie retorted, still sounding weird, but like he was trying to hide it. Pretend like he was fine, but Ethan knew better.
Still, if Charlie wasn’t going to tell him, at least he could tell someone. Better to let Charlie go upstairs and hopefully talk to Max.
“I am worried about Avery,” Ethan retorted.
“He’s gonna be fine.”
Ethan considered telling Charlie that he was going to corner the market on fine, but that would only piss him off—more—and there was no benefit to that. Not now.
“Sure,” Ethan said, pulling his phone out. Shot Hank a text. what are you doing? charlie’s heading up there hot—you should come down here.
Hank shot him back a ???? message.
Ethan sent another, the message going through just as the front door shut behind Charlie. hanging out with me would be better than listening to dumb and dumber cry on each other’s shoulders before they take their pregame nap.
He gave it about three minutes. And then, sure enough, a knock on the door got him off the couch.
He opened it to Hank, who was making a face. “You were not kidding. Sometimes I wonder how you and Barney are brothers. He’s so . . . ugh. Way too freaking dramatic.”
“You’re welcome,” Ethan said and didn’t hesitate to reach down, tangle his fingers with Hank’s. “Come on. Let’s go watch something on my iPad and fall asleep.”
“You wanna pregame nap together?” Hank asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Do you not want to?” Ethan asked as he led him to his room. The blinds were already closed—he’d never opened them this morning before he’d dragged his ass out of bed for morning skate—and it was warm and cozy.
“No, I do,” Hank said. He wiped his palms on his sweatpants-covered thighs and looked around. “I just—I didn’t know if we were doing that. I wanted to.”
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Anything you want, I probably wanted it first.”
And maybe he should feel ashamed about that. Maybe he should be less open and honest about how much he craved Hank, but that would be dumb and would probably also mean that they’d end up both wanting so much and not getting any of it.
One of them had to be straightforward, and clearly that person was going to be Ethan.
“It’s kind of hot, how clear you are about this stuff, the stuff you want,” Hank admitted settling down on the bed next to Ethan.
“Good, ’cause I’m gonna keep doing it.” He yanked Hank higher up, cuddling up against Hank’s chest as he reached for the iPad. “You wanna watch another episode of Charlie’s terrible TV show while we fall asleep?”
“Probably not, but sure,” Hank said. His voice had grown drowsy too, as one of his hands found its way into Ethan’s curls, messing them even more. He’d have to wear a beanie over them tonight, for walk-ins, but that seemed like a good tradeoff.
Hank let ten minutes of the episode play before he turned to Ethan, curiosity gleaming in his hazel eyes. “What was up with Barney?”
“What isn’t up with Barney?” Ethan asked.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell Hank what the three of them had discussed about Avery’s situation, but it felt . . . sensitive. Too many feelings and emotions and worries balancing on a precipice and Ethan didn’t know which way the whole thing would fall.
And when it fell, if everything would crash and break.
“If you don’t wanna talk about it—or you can’t—you don’t have to—”
Clearly Hank had guessed what it was about. Which made sense, since Charlie had a voice that carried and Hank’s presence in Max’s apartment had overlapped Charlie’s by about two minutes. Plenty of time.
“It’s not that I don’t want to, or that it’s a secret.” Ethan paused the show and set the iPad down. Curled more tightly into Hank’s side, enjoyed the way his arm went around Ethan’s back, pulling him in even closer.
“Then?”
“I’m worried,” Ethan said. “About them. About me. About what this means. Charlie’s gonna freak out if he ends up here, and he’s gonna freak out if he doesn’t.”
“I would say that sounds like Charlie’s problem, but we all know that Charlie’s problems are your problems, too, kinda,” Hank said softly. “But there’s something else too.”
“Hmm?”
Hank dropped a light kiss onto Ethan’s curls. He exhaled in a noise that sounded very much like a surrender to the inevitable. “Your problems are my problems now, too.”
Ethan hadn’t expected him to say that. His heart went all gooey soft in his chest. He was a hockey player.
A tough guy. He’d fought hard to make it here, despite so many people who believed he’d skated by because of his last name, and he could hold his own against anyone.
Against the Crosbys and the Mackinnons and the McDavids of the league.
He could take anything that anyone could dish out and shove it right back in their face.
Or he would, anyway. Give him another half a season, and he felt confident about that.
But Hank made him feel . . . well. Soft. Vulnerable. But protected.
“You really want to sign up for all these Barnes-sized issues?”
“Want to?” Hank chuckled under his breath, his chest rumbling with the sound. “But will? For you? Absolutely.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” Ethan said.
“I hope you do.”
For a minute, Ethan just lay there with that knowledge.
It wasn’t like he’d ever felt alone; it was impossible for the youngest child of four to ever feel alone.
But even though there’d been brothers and a sister in his corner forever, it was different with Hank.
Like they were both in Ethan’s bubble, together, and Ethan had never wanted anyone in there, with him before.
That space, which had always felt precious and hard-won, was one he’d already ceded to Hank.
Given him without a second thought.
He fell asleep with that feeling, ripe and perfect and right, rolling through him like a wave, reminding him that no matter what happened, he would be okay, because he and Hank were in this together.
Barney had been in a bad fucking mood when Hank had seen him before the game.
He’d been quiet in the locker room, entirely focused on the task ahead of him and the team, though often before games Max could get him to loosen up and smile.
Ethan always could, but Ethan was giving Barney a wider berth than normal today, probably because of whatever had gone down before Hank had come downstairs.
When the puck dropped against the Avs, it was like Barney found a new gear, a new well of determination.
He scored a hat trick in the first ten minutes of the game, overwhelming the goalie with a half dozen expertly aimed shots, half of them sliding underneath the goalie’s pads, his arm, and one of them going bar-down, hitting the back of the net in a breathtaking spell of skill that Hank didn’t feel was even fucking real.
In the first intermission, Hank sidled up to where Ethan was fixing the tape on his stick, leaning back in his stall with the relaxed demeanor of a guy whose team was up four to zero.
“You good?” Ethan asked, glancing up at him.
And yeah, Hank hadn’t been up very many games yet—this was only his second this season—but he’d tried to keep to his side of the room.
Not linger by Ethan’s stall. They hadn’t told anyone on the team yet, though it was obvious that a lot of the guys suspected or had outright guessed the truth. Still, he was trying to be cautious.
“I’m good,” Hank said. “But Barney—”
Ethan just chuckled under his breath. “You know how he can get. You were up last year.”
Barney could do that sometimes: take over a game with a dazzling display of skill that nobody else could touch.
But Hank, who’d been up for twenty-seven games the season before, had never seen Charlie on fire like he was tonight.
“Yeah, but—”
Ethan snorted under his breath. “He’s a wonder, my brother.” He said it softly, earnestly. “Guess it doesn’t even surprise me anymore.”
Hank thought it would be easy to just watch Charlie do incredible shit like that and take it at face value, but he couldn’t.
Are you sure he’s okay? he wanted to ask.
But before he could, Ethan tilted his head towards Barney’s stall.
Next to Max’s. Their heads were tipped together again—always, always, always—and the intensity that Hank had seen on Charlie’s face during the first period had relaxed, and he was smiling now.
“He’ll be okay,” Ethan said knowingly.
And sure enough, while he played great during the second and third, notching an assist on Max’s power play goal in the last ten minutes, that fire burning under his skin seemed to have abated.
Still, with a four-point night under his belt, there was no way Max wasn’t going to get everyone together.
“My place,” he yelled out in the locker room after the game ended. “Be there or be square.”
“Max, nobody says that,” Charlie said, rolling his eyes affectionately at their captain.