Page 124 of Ethan

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 sayI’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 tellthemthat?” 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’mhappy. Iam. 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 Iknowthere’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 withbothbrothers 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, nowAvery’shere, 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 holdallthe fucking weight onyourshoulders. 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 weneededa 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 andsaid 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.