Page 18 of Ethan

Hank wanted more of it.

Ethan took them to the left, instead of continuing forward, like Max’s group. He moved quicker, too, peeking around the corner of each successive room before plunging ahead.

“Hey,” Hank muttered as Ethan peered around another half wall. “Be careful. There’s stuff in the middle of this one.” There was. Several large boxes stacked together that absolutely couldhide a small-ish hockey player. A Charlie-sized hockey player, probably.

Not Pavel, for sure, or Brock. Willy, either. He was about Hank’s size, and Hank was pretty sure he couldn’t pretzel himself to fit behind the barricade, but maybe Willy was more flexible.

“Yeah,” Ethan said and did pause, thankfully. Then his hand went right around Hank’s wrist again. It was big and warm and the feel of it was inescapable against his skin. Hank wanted to shake him off, but in fact, didn’t. Didn’t even move away when Ethan leaned in closer, mouth right next to Hank’s ear. That was even warmer, and Hank told himself that the way his neck was heating up was purely coincidental, and even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter because at least it was too dark in here for Ethan to see the telltale flush against his pale skin.

“You wanna go first?” Ethan murmured. “You could go check it out while I cover you.”

“So I could just get blown away if thereissomeone there?”

Hank felt rather than heard the rumble of Ethan’s laughter. Because of course he was laughing about eventhis. And Hank couldn’t even be annoyed about it, because Ethan was so . . . so . . . so . . .something.

Hank pushed away the half dozen words that he could use to fill in that particular blank. This was not the time to be freaking out because he liked, a little too much, Ethan’s body pressed against his.

“What do you think, then?” Ethan asked.

Humming under his breath, Hank took in the problem. Analyzed it. Everyone was always telling him he had a big brain and that he should use it more, especially on the ice. This wasn’t the ice, but it was similar, wasn’t it? This wasn’t all that much different than when the opposing team was trying to run a play and there were so many unknown factors and Hank had to makethe best educated guess before he committed to a defensive strategy to stop them from scoring.

“You’re right,” Hank finally admitted. “Only one of us should go.” Same as when one of a defensive pair always committed to the net, while the other hung back, just in case they were needed elsewhere.

“I can go,” Ethan said, but just as he started to, Hank grabbed the collar of his T-shirt and yanked him back.

Ethan glanced up at him, grinning. “No?”

“We gotta be smart about this,” Hank said. “Don’t just recklessly move ahead.”

“Why not?” Ethan wondered.

That felt like a very Ethan-like question, and Hank supposed it was a veryHank-like answer when he retorted, “Because we gotta think about it first.”

“Oh, boo,” Ethan teased. “You’re all brain, huh?”

Hank told himself firmly that this was the worst possible time to flirt with Ethan. Not just that—Ethanwas the worst possible person to flirt with. If he was flirting. Which obviously he wasn’t.

But he couldn’t swallow it down.

“Notallbrain,” Hank said pointedly.

Ethan let go a gust of a breath. “For real, dude,” Ethan said, “you’re built like a tank. Deceptive, really.”

“Maybe that’s what we need to do,” Hank suggested. Tried to refocus their energies on figuring out how to get past this hiccup instead of sitting behind this wall, teasing each other. Thinking about how Ethan had noticed he’d put on a lot of muscle and bulk over the summer. Didn’t let himself think at all that Ethan hadn’t just seen it, butfeltit.

“Oooh,” Ethan said, “deception. I like it.”

“We’re gonna pull back,” Hank murmured into Ethan’s ear. “See if maybe that tempts them into exposing themselves and following us.”

“Smart,” Ethan said, giving him an approving look. “Not just a pretty face.”

Hank was not touching that, either.

“Come on,” Hank said. “Follow me.”

He glanced over his shoulder, and then walked back to the last room, keeping an eye on the pile of boxes.

And sure enough, a moment later, right before they got behind the corner of the prior room, a barrel of a laser gun emerged between two of the boxes.