17. Chapter 17
“Eth, Ethan,” the voice above him hissed.
But Ethan ignored the voice, because Ethan was asleep.
Ethan was asleep and he was very warm and very cozy, and he didn’t want to wake up.
It had been a short road trip—only four days, but they’d had two games and gone from Dallas to Salt Lake and then back across the country late last night, after they’d beaten the Mammoth.
They’d gotten in at two a.m. New York time but it had felt more like five a.m.
Ethan had dragged himself groggily off the plane and into Charlie’s car and they’d gotten home, Ethan barely even having the energy to give Hank a second glance and a quick “good night” before he and Max went five floors up to his place.
There was no practice this morning. Not even an optional skate. And Charlie couldn’t get him to wake up, no matter how much he wanted him to. If Ethan wanted to, he could sleep all fucking day. That was his prerogative, as the youngest.
“Eth,” Charlie hissed again, and this time had the fucking nerve to shake him. Ethan groaned and wrapped himself more firmly around a pillow that he was mentally beginning to refer to as Hank pillow.
It wasn’t quite as good as Hank. Not as big or broad or warm, but it worked in a pinch. He wished he’d thought, screw it and told Hank to come home with him last night—or early this morning—but he’d been too tired to even attempt the debate that would have ensued.
Hank was still being a little weird about staying over when they were at home and not on the road.
That was fine, Ethan could work on that. He’d come around, eventually.
But what was not fine, and what Ethan could not work on, was the voice appallingly close to his ear.
“Ethan,” Charlie said again, louder this time. Or closer. Or maybe both.
Ethan finally gave up and rolled over, squinting at his brother’s face in the dimness of the bedroom. He was tired, sure, halfway to exhausted, but he wasn’t too worn out to see the warring joy and anxiety in his brother’s face.
Something had happened. Something good but bad, too.
Something that had woken Charlie up and convinced him it was a good idea to wake Ethan up, too.
Ethan’s sluggish brain tried to sort through the options—he knew there was something big, something he was missing, something that was really fucking obvious, that he’d get if he could actually think clearly . . .
And then it hit.
“Shit,” Ethan said, bolting upright. “What happened?”
Charlie frowned. “Avery got traded.”
And before saying anything fucking else, he turned on his heel and waltzed right out of Ethan’s bedroom.
Ethan was still mostly asleep, so it took him a second to parse Charlie’s words, and then to yank the covers back, feet hitting the hardwood floors, and follow.
In the kitchen, Charlie was pacing.
Muttering to himself, as the coffee machine made grinding noises that Ethan absolutely sympathized with right now. The coffee machine shouldn’t be needing to make coffee right now. They shouldn’t be fucking awake, not after sleeping for barely six hours.
After Ethan squinted at it, the microwave currently read 7:48 a.m.
“You gonna tell me?” Ethan asked.
Charlie looked over at him. Then ticked four points off his fingers. “Niko, naturally. Nathan. This year’s first-round pick. Next year’s first-round pick.”
“Shit,” Ethan said, exhaling heavily. “But he’s coming here. Avery’s coming here.”
Charlie’s face was drawn and white. Something complicated lurking in his light blue eyes.
Happiness, certainly, but something else, too.
And it wasn’t fair, really, for Charlie to worry that Avery coming here was going to fuck everything up, that he was going to draw all the attention away from Charlie.
Charlie was practically a celebrity as hockey players went.
With his pretty face and good body and hockey skills, as well as his last name he could have anything he wanted.
Well.
Everything but a Stanley Cup and Max Meier.
And truthfully, honestly, the only thing Avery was gonna do was get the Bandits closer to the former.
“Yeah,” Charlie finally said. “Yeah. He’s coming here. Oh my God, he’s coming here.”
It felt like second nature to pull Charlie into his arms. To hug him tight and then not let him go. “Avery’s coming here,” Ethan said, the reality of it only just beginning to dawn on him.
The three of them, all together again.
Every childhood dream they’d ever had, coalesced into one moment.
Charlie pulled back after a long minute.
“I talked to him. He’s . . . he’s happy.
Of course he’s happy.” Charlie didn’t have to say I’m happy too, even though Ethan thought he was about five seconds away from vocalizing it, like if he said it enough times, that would mean it was all the way true, no other shoes to drop.
“Okay. Yeah. He’s coming here, right?”
“They have to fly him in. He was in Minnesota when he got traded.”
“Oh God,” Ethan said, exhaling sharply. “He wasn’t even back home, in LA?”
“Nope. We only talked for a minute, but I got the impression he didn’t think it was going to go down then. Or at all, actually.”
“Wait, what?”
Charlie’s face did that complicated thing again. “He texted me last night when we were flying home that he was thinking of agreeing to the Mavs’ extension.”
“And they still traded him? Did he tell them that?” Ethan couldn’t believe this, but then he was still practically sleepwalking. Maybe there was something he was missing, a key factor that he was overlooking, because from where he was standing, that seemed like really fucking shitty behavior.
“I think so? I don’t know,” Charlie said, throwing his hands up.
The coffee machine finally stopped percolating, and he headed over, grabbing two mugs from the cabinet above.
“We’ve barely had time to talk. He’s happy but he’s like .
. . spinning, almost. Like he doesn’t know which way is up anymore. ”
“Avery would hate that,” Ethan said, and Charlie nodded.
“Almost as much as you would,” Ethan added.
Charlie grimaced, pouring the coffee out. “I guess we’re going to find out,” he said.
“Oh, so we’re talking about it now?” Ethan wished that Charlie had been more interested in talking about this when he was well-rested and not after less than six hours of sleep.
“Don’t,” Charlie warned. “I just . . . I’m happy. I am. I love Avery. I’ve missed him. He’s a great fucking hockey player and he’s going to make this whole team better.”
“How do I know there’s a but on the end of that sentence?” Ethan asked, pulling creamer out of the fridge and adding a bigger than normal glug of it. He could use the sugar, as well as the caffeine. Especially if he was going to have to deal with both brothers potentially having a meltdown.
“You don’t know there is,” Charlie argued.
But there so clearly was.
“Don’t fucking pretend with me. Not now,” Ethan warned.
Charlie sighed, leaning back against the counter with his coffee cradled in his hands. It hadn’t escaped Ethan’s notice that he hadn’t taken a sip yet. “I’m worried about my place on the team, sure, because it’s like, now Avery’s here, to like fucking rescue us all.” He said it a little bitterly.
“Come on,” Ethan said, trying—praying, really—for patience.
“All Avery being here is gonna do is make it so you don’t have to hold all the fucking weight on your shoulders.
You and Max both. It’s gonna distribute that weight.
Make it easier on everyone. And hey, imagine that, we have a great d-man now, and we needed a great d-man. ”
Charlie’s lips compressed together, like he was trying to hold the word vomit in. And that, Ethan thought, was like ninety-nine percent of his problem.
“Tell me,” Ethan said flatly.
Charlie gave a half-aborted shake of his head, but then, thank fucking God, he opened his mouth and said it.
“But what if that means that everyone believes I couldn’t have done it on my own?
” His voice was small. Defeated. Like he’d been at eleven.
At thirteen. When he’d scored all those goals and somehow his team had still lost. When he’d been everyone’s fucking savior, and that had still never been good enough.
When he’d been the miracle that was Charlie Barnes, and still everyone on planet Earth had questioned if he could be the player they wanted him to be.
Ethan had been afraid this was it. Because of course this was it. “Don’t be a complete dumbass,” he said, reaching out and smacking his brother on the side of the head. “You can’t do it all by your-fucking-self. You play a team sport.”
Really, it was extraordinary how similar Charlie’s and Hank’s neuroses were. Ethan almost wanted to thank Charlie for preparing him so well for dealing with his boyfriend, but he had a feeling that wasn’t going to go over very well. Not right now, anyway.
“You wouldn’t get it,” Charlie tried to argue, but Ethan shut that down too.
“I do get it. You don’t think I do? You don’t think I know what it feels like to have everyone watching you and piling their own expectations on you?
To wonder, in the worst corners of your mind, if you’re ever going to live up to them?
To your own? I fucking always know. I’m the youngest, remember?
I watched you and Avery and Livvy, and so did everyone else.
I watched you all succeed, more than anyone could’ve expected.
And by the time they got to me?” Ethan didn’t even say it. Didn’t think he really needed to.
Because Charlie knew.
“Oh,” Charlie finally said, uselessly. “I didn’t think.”
“No shit,” Ethan muttered.
“I just—” Charlie broke off. “You’re so chill about everything.”
“Yeah, well, I gotta be the normal one in this family,” Ethan said.
Charlie actually barked out a laugh at that. “Oh, is that what you think you are?”
“Yep,” Ethan declared.
But Charlie just laughed again, lighter this time. Thank God, lighter. And he finally took a sip of coffee, then another.
That was when there was a knock at the door.
“I’m assuming that’s not him,” Ethan said. He could already guess who it was.