Page 132 of Ethan

“Not gonna be easy.”

“But he’s a good addition,” Max claimed softly. “And good for Charlie, no matter how he’s freaking out about it.”

“He’ll see that it’s good too—Charlie just needs a whole bunch of evidence he can analyze before he’ll decide if something’s working or not working,” Hank said.

Max sighed heavily. “You are not wrong. One of his best parts—and one of his worst, too.”

“Oh, are we talking about Charlie’s worst parts?” Hank asked archly, raising an eyebrow.

Max flushed. “Not inhishearing, no.”

“I didn’t think so,” Hank said, and that was the closest he’d gotten—the closest he’d ever get—to calling Max on his whole thing with Barney.

Max was a great captain and a really fucking good hockey player. He’d earned the right to be weird about one of the Barnes brothers if he wanted to be. Hank understood, because he was plenty fucking weird about hisownBarnes brother.

Chapter 18

Ethanknewwhateveryoneexpected 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 thatshouldbe 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’vebeenhandling 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.”