17. Chapter 17 #3
He wasn’t blind; he couldn’t exactly miss the glances Charlie and Max exchanged.
The we’ll wait him out looks. No doubt they were already planning on how to get Avery on their side.
Hank, too, probably, but at least Hank would be straightforward about it.
And at least Hank would go along with it because he was worried about Ethan’s safety on the ice.
Not because he was used to getting his way about fucking everything—fuck you very much, Charlie.
“How about we table this for a little bit?” Max said gently, smoothing things over in a way that only he could do.
It was a talent and a skill that Ethan didn’t even understand, but he was great at it.
Perfect at playing peacemaker, at making guys who didn’t like each other at least tolerate each other, long enough that they could keep playing together.
That, among many other reasons, was why he was such a great captain.
“Sure,” Ethan muttered. He wasn’t going to assume he could get away with tabling it forever. Possibly Silas would move him to Max’s line, anyway, because now there was a spot and neither of the guys Ethan was playing with on his own line were that good.
But it would be one thing for their coach to talk to him and then move him, and another thing entirely for Charlie and Max to conspire to get their own fucking way about it.
Max pulled out a pan for the eggs and shoved a pan full of bacon into the oven. “You got fruit?” he asked Charlie, who just nodded towards the fridge.
Ethan decided to focus not on his annoyance with his overbearing brother but on the amusement that Max was nearly as comfortable in Charlie’s kitchen as he was in his own. Max emerged from the fridge again with a clamshell of strawberries.
“Tuck, come wash and cut these,” Max said to Hank, who wasn’t dumb enough to ignore an order from his captain.
He gave Ethan one last squeeze to the back of the neck and headed towards the sink.
A phone beeped and Max pulled his out of his pocket. “I think that’s me,” he said, sliding it across the counter towards Charlie. “You wanna check it?”
Ethan didn’t even know why he was surprised that Charlie had Max’s passcode. He should’ve just assumed he did.
“Sounds like Avery will be here around one p.m.,” Charlie announced. “They’re taking him to the practice facility first.”
“We’ll meet them there, then,” Max said confidently.
Ethan didn’t ask if they’d been invited; Silas and Inverness had to assume that if he told Max about it, he would be there to greet a new member of the team, and that Ethan and Charlie would be, too, to welcome their brother.
Charlie made a sound in the back of his throat.
“It’s going to be good, you’ll see,” Max reassured Charlie. “I promise.”
And as good as he was at reassuring the rest of the team, Max was really fucking amazing at putting Charlie at ease. Nobody else could work the magic he did.
“Yeah,” Charlie agreed. “I texted him we’d see him there.”
“Good, enough time to eat breakfast and go back to bed,” Ethan said, and Hank laughed.
Hank was not surprised that the car ride into the practice facility in Jersey was tense-ish.
He’d told Ethan he didn’t need to come—and there was no real reason to.
He could easily meet Avery later tonight in Barney’s apartment or tomorrow morning at skate before the game.
Besides, if they were coming back with Avery in the car, even Max’s luxury SUV wasn’t big enough for five hockey players. Even two that were sort of undersized.
But Ethan’s hand had gone around his arm and squeezed hard enough, nails nearly digging through the thick cotton of his sweatshirt, making it clear he wanted Hank there.
So after he and Ethan had moved a bunch of his stuff up five floors to Max’s guest room, they’d headed out, Max and Charlie in Max’s SUV and Ethan driving Charlie’s car.
Hank had wondered why Charlie hadn’t driven him and Ethan, but he hadn’t voiced that out loud, because of course, everyone on earth knew that Max and Charlie were weird about each other, and if Max’s presence relaxed Charlie enough that he wasn’t vibrating out of his skin, that wasn’t a bad thing.
When they’d gone to move Ethan’s stuff, Charlie had been scouring the sink, Max trying gently to convince him that the kitchen was plenty clean enough.
So, yeah, things were tense.
Ethan had asked Hank once if he really wanted to sign up for the Barnes experience—and that had been before Avery was coming to New York—and he’d said yes, without even hesitating. He wasn’t exactly hesitating now, but it was a lot.
Ethan must’ve known it too because he shot him a worried glance as he pulled out of the parking garage under their building. “You good?”
“I should be asking you that, shouldn’t I?” Hank asked.
Ethan made a face. “Maybe we should be asking Charlie that. Pretty sure I saw Max pry a mop out of Charlie’s hands.”
“It’s good they have each other.” In whatever capacity that was, Hank wasn’t sure. Before, he hadn’t quite believed Ethan’s assertion Max and Charlie weren’t romantically or sexually involved but now after getting a front-row seat to them, Hank thought he agreed with Ethan’s assessment.
They weren’t, but they probably should be.
“You don’t think . . .” Ethan broke off. Looking like something else had just occurred to him that he wasn’t sure he liked.
“What?”
“What if Avery changes things enough that they—”
“He’s not going to. He’s only going to make everything better. The team better. You guys love him. You’ve wanted this, you’ve been talking about it for ages.”
Ethan let out a hard breath. He was quiet for a moment after that. “I think we kinda forgot that. It’s just . . . change.”
“Sure it’s change, but it’s a good kind of change,” Hank reminded him.
“Thanks. I needed that.” Ethan shot him a grateful look. “Maybe you can remind Charlie of that, too.”
Hank just snorted. “Yeah, okay.”
“I’m serious. He’s not scary.”
Okay, sure he wasn’t. Charlie wasn’t scary; he was fucking terrifying.
But in the end that didn’t really matter, because Charlie didn’t need him. “Do you really think Max isn’t in his car, giving Barney his own version of this pep talk?” Hank asked archly.
“Oh. True. I didn’t think about that. God, I just want . . . well, you know what I want.”
“Yeah.” Hank knew, and he got it, too. When you were happy, you wanted everyone around you to be happy too, but it wasn’t like Max and Charlie seemed particularly unhappy. “But you also know they’re complicated.”
“So you and Avery keep reminding me,” Ethan said. He pulled into the parking lot of the practice facility.
After parking he pulled out his phone. “Parents are freaking out,” he said, scrolling through his phone. “Oh, and Livvy called and I missed it.”
“You could call her back.”
But Ethan was already craning his neck, glancing around the parking lot. And yeah, that was Inverness’ BMW and Silas’ Range Rover. “Later,” he said, getting out of the car.
Hank had told himself to hang back, but he could see the tenseness of Ethan’s shoulders, even though he was walking fast through the parking lot, so he kept pace.
Over the years, Hank had played a handful of games against Avery Barnes, but there’d never been that many, with his up-and-down-again path to the Bandits’ roster, and Hank had never met him off the ice.
Still, he’d have recognized him anywhere.
Got a glimpse of his face before Ethan threw himself into his brother’s arms.
Dark hair, more wavy than curly, in need of a trim and falling over his forehead. Darker eyes than his brothers—not blue, and not gray, but more . . . greenish brown. Not quite hazel.
And for how much he dominated the ice, surprisingly not big or even broad.
In fact, Ethan nearly wrapped him up entirely.
Ethan liked to joke that he was the tallest of the three, but it was not a joke. It was the plain, honest truth.
“So glad you’re here,” Hank heard Ethan tell Avery. “So fucking glad.”
Hank wasn’t sure that Ethan noticed the barest pause before Avery pulled back and said, with his whole chest, “Me too.”
But Hank noticed. Didn’t think it was bad, even. As much as Charlie, and to a lesser extent, Ethan, had been panicking over what a big adjustment this would be for them, it was going to be an even bigger adjustment for Avery.
Not just a new team and a new city, but a whole new coast. New coaching system. Everything mostly different—and a little bit the same—from what he’d spent the last three years doing.
Not an eternity, but long enough.
“Hey,” Ethan said, turning towards Hank, “come meet my boyfriend.”
“Tucker,” Avery said, his gaze sweeping over him briefly but completely. He held out a hand and Hank shook it.
None of this surprised him. Avery was a little tougher to read, generally, than Charlie or Ethan. More closed off. Quieter.
But on the ice, he was a demon.
Hank could admit that he was pretty fucking glad Avery was going to be in a Bandits sweater going forward, not someone he was going to have to figure out how to play against.
“Good to meet you.” Avery’s voice was quieter, too. Pitched lower.
But seeing him and Ethan next to each other, nobody would ever doubt they were brothers.
Behind him, the door opened and he only had a split second to move out of the way before Charlie was shooting in, throwing himself into Avery’s arms.
“Bro,” Charlie crowed, “I cannot fucking believe you’re here.”
Like he’d never angsted out about the trade. Like he’d never had a complete cleaning meltdown this morning.
Max came up next to him, and he and Hank exchanged a rueful glance. “Well,” he said, taking in the two of them, and then the three of them as they pulled Ethan in, too.
“Welcome to the Barnes circus?” Hank asked, raising an eyebrow.
Max huffed out a breath. “Yeah, no kidding. It’s going to be fucking insane tonight. You ready for this?”
“Can you even be ready for all this?”