18. Chapter 18
Ethan knew what everyone expected with Avery’s trade—and by everyone he meant the fans, the other Bandits players, the Bandits leadership, and, naturally, every single sports media commentator on the fucking planet.
They expected that somehow Avery’s presence would fix the Bandits’ defensive problems, and they’d never lose a game again.
Except that wasn’t how anything worked.
Ethan watched, with frustration mounting, as Jonesy and his brother had another miscommunication, allowing the Canucks player to steal the puck and head over into their offensive zone.
“Shit,” Charlie muttered, four guys down on the bench. Dom stopped the shot, but it had been close. Too close. They needed to be better.
Max and his line hit the ice for a quick shift change and Charlie glanced over at him as Max grabbed the puck and gave a sharp pass to Lars, playing instead of Nathan, and then he bobbled it.
Charlie didn’t need to tell Ethan that should be him, on Max’s line. He already knew how Charlie felt. How Max felt. How Hank felt. How pretty much everyone fucking felt, except for him.
Avery hadn’t started in yet, thank God, probably only because he was still trying to get his feet under him with the new defensive scheme of Silas’.
But Ethan wasn’t expecting that to last all that long. Someday soon, Avery would join the loud voices claiming that he needed to play wing to Max’s center.
So far the coaching staff had been pretty quiet about it, at least, but then that wasn’t even fated to last, because when the Canucks scored two goals right before the end of the second period, pulling ahead, Silas cornered him right before he went into the locker room.
“Eth,” Silas said, “I know we haven’t talked about this—”
Ethan liked his coach. He did. He knew Charlie liked him too, but then Charlie mostly liked him because Silas let him get away with murder and also listened to pretty much everything Charlie had to say.
Despite these personal failings, Silas seemed to be a solid guy.
He didn’t yell in the room. He didn’t make a bunch of knee-jerk-reaction changes to the lineup.
He never lied and he didn’t insult anyone to their face.
Honestly, it seemed that the bar for coaching was pretty low these days, but Silas cleared it, every time.
Still, he wasn’t about to stand here and let Silas do exactly what Charlie—and Max and Hank and probably Avery too, frankly—wanted.
“Coach,” Ethan protested. “No. I can handle it.”
“’Course you can, kid. You’ve been handling it. Why do you think I haven’t moved you before? But you’re better than those guys. Max’ll do a great job setting you up for goals. You’re wasted on the third line and Max’s playmaking is wasted on Lars.”
He said it gently, but there it was. That radical honesty.
“I don’t want to,” Ethan said stubbornly.
“But you will,” Silas finished for him. “We’ll try it out for the third period, at least.”
“If it doesn’t work . . .” Ethan trailed off meaningfully.
But Silas only laughed, clearly amused. “I know the whole team thinks that Barney controls me.”
“We’d never think that,” Ethan said, trying for earnestness. Even though it was pretty much true; the whole team thought that.
“But he doesn’t,” Silas finished emphatically. “I make the lineup decisions. Besides, Barney didn’t even suggest this one.”
“Because he knew I’d kill him,” Ethan muttered.
“Even better,” Silas said with a sharp nod. “Maybe everyone’ll finally believe that Charlie doesn’t run this team.”
“Max is the captain,” Ethan pointed out, but Silas just raised an eyebrow.
And okay, fair. Charlie pretty much ran Max, too. If Charlie asked Max to jump, he’d only ask how high.
“I think this is going to be a good change for you, Eth. I know you’ve worked hard on your faceoffs, but you’re a great goal scorer. You’re going to like this, in the end. Especially the flexibility it gives you.”
“Okay,” Ethan said. Even though he didn’t think Silas was right at all.
He was a center.
He’d prove it too, though he wasn’t going to do that today, obviously. He still wanted them to win the freaking game.
Si patted him on the shoulder and Ethan headed into the locker room.
Intermission was almost over when Max came over to him, since Si had clearly talked to him, too.
“You good with this?” Max asked, leaning in, bracing himself with a hand above Ethan’s stall.
“Would it matter if I wasn’t?”
Max’s expression went all concerned. “Of course it would matter. I’d talk to Silas about it, if you were really unhappy, but for this game . . .” He trailed off.
He didn’t need to finish his sentence for Ethan to understand. Max was the gentle type of captain. He’d make sure that you knew what you needed to do, but in such a specific way that you genuinely thought it was your idea.
“It’s cool, Cap,” Ethan said, giving him a nod. “I’m good.”
Max looked relieved. And Ethan didn’t always give him the kind of credit he should, but he kept his earnest dark eyes glued to Ethan and didn’t glance over, not once, towards where Charlie was no doubt monitoring this whole conversation.
Max was scrupulous like that; giving a shit about Ethan not just because he was Charlie’s brother, but because Max was the captain of this team and he just plain cared.
It was weird taking the ice for their first shift together, watching Max as he skated over to the faceoff circle.
Gabby glanced over at him, giving him a little nod, and he liked Gabby.
He was a good guy and a better hockey player, perpetually skimmed over because he was one of the first Hispanic hockey players.
He was meant to be a wing, and played like it, in the top three of the team this year for points and second in goals.
With Max centering them, he and Gabby could probably make some good shit happen.
If he thought about it that way, instead of thinking of how he needed Max’s protection, then he hated it less.
It wasn’t a perfect first shift. He hadn’t played that much with either Max or Gabby—not even in practice, because he wasn’t even on the first team power play, which they were both on—but slowly, as the period went on and Ethan took one shift and then another, he began to see better how Gabby moved. How Max led them both.
On the bench, he shifted over to sitting next to Gabby, who tipped his iPad in his direction. “Hey,” he said, “look at this.”
Ethan wasn’t a big iPad guy during games. Unlike Charlie, who practically had it surgically attached to his hands whenever he wasn’t on the ice, Ethan thought he could usually get more out of watching the game than watching his last few shifts.
But he looked anyway, because he was new to their line, and he could use the familiarity.
Gabby repeated the play again, and Ethan saw it. If he’d gone the other way, he’d have had a good shot on goal.
“Shit,” he muttered. He’d felt good about going that other way, but he was thinking more about setting up his guys for goals, not setting himself up for goals.
He was going to have to slightly adjust his thinking.
Gabby patted him on the knee. “You’re gonna get this. You’ve got the instinct, Eth.”
Ethan rolled his eyes, but the next time they were on the ice together, Ethan tried to shift his mindset and found more lanes open up.
He had a really good opportunity near the end of the third—they were down 2–1 still, and Ethan was hungry for the chance to tie them up, maybe even giving the Bandits a chance for overtime and to make everyone’s expectations a reality—when Gabby caught a sick pass from Max and he and Ethan kept pace, crossing over mid-ice.
Ethan had just gotten into position, trying to find the right angle around one of the d-men, and Gabby shot him the puck.
Ethan took the shot, putting some real muscle into it, hoping that he’d gotten enough elevation on it to hit between the goalie’s shoulder pad and the top of the goal.
But instead it barely glanced off the crossbar.
“Fuck,” Ethan muttered, but he shook it off, Gabby shooting him a quick look and a sharp approving nod.
“Great shot,” Max said, too, as they headed back to the bench for the shift change.
It wasn’t a resounding success, and it felt even less like one when the game ended, still 2–1, eight minutes later.
In the locker room after the game, Charlie didn’t have to say that was a game they should’ve won. Instead he kept his eyes down, lips compressed into silence, and Avery was similarly silent, face blank.
Ethan hated that everyone under the fucking sun thought that adding Avery to the team would just automatically mean wins.
But it was an adjustment for everyone, and it felt like the Bandits were still trying to find their identity, even though they were more than midway through the season.
“We’re gonna get the next one,” Max said fervently, both looking and sounding like he believed it. “We’ve got a day off tomorrow, so let’s enjoy it, alright?”
A few guys nodded, but everyone was quiet as they finished changing and headed to the bus that would take them to the airport. At least the flight down to Seattle was quick.
“Hey,” Hank said, sliding next to him on the bus that would take them to the hotel in Seattle.
They’d sat together the whole time, but they’d both been quiet.
Ethan hadn’t wanted to talk—playing that shot he’d missed over and over in his head, even though he knew it wasn’t productive—but he knew Hank was only going to leave him to stew for so long.
He wouldn’t leave Hank to sulk either, and that was only one of the reasons why Ethan loved him.
Why he was pretty sure Hank loved him, back.
“You good?” Ethan asked, nudging him in the shoulder.
“I should be asking you that question,” Hank retorted quietly.
Ethan shrugged. “It sucks. I shouldn’t have missed it—”
Hank just gave him a look. “Don’t,” he said. “And I was asking more about how you felt about the move to Max’s line.”
“It’s a good opportunity.”
Hank nudged him even harder back. “Don’t bullshit me. Bullshit Charlie or Max or Si, or anyone else, but not me, okay?”