Page 24 of Ethan

Charlie:did so

Avery:im gonna text Max and be like your A is still mentally thirteen

Charlie:*glare emoji*

Charlie:don’t you fucking dare

Ethan chuckled under his breath and typed out a response.thx! wasn’t that impressive.

Charlie:lies. fucking lies.

Charlie’s answer was almost immediate, which probably meant his game was over. Ethan switched over to his sports app, and sure enough there was a notification that the Bandits had lost. Again. Three to one, to the Rangers.

Whoops.

Well, that explained why Charlie had been on the phone with Avery when they’d been watching his game.

Avery:the goal was super fucking impressive and so was your d-man quality move in the third. don’t front.

Charlie:plz tell me you’re going out to celebrate

Ethan:yeah. wallys dragging me out to some frat party.

Charlie:sick

Avery:be safe

Charlie:ignore V he wouldnt know a good time if it came up and bit him in the ass

For a split second, Ethan considered saying something to Charlie about the game, but decided it was better to message him directly, instead of saying it in the bro-chat. Charlie could be prickly, especially when he was reminded how the Bandits were not tearing it up this year, not the way he knew his brother had hoped for.

He switched to his private convo with Charlie and texted:tough breaks, barney

Charlie sent back a shrugging emoji which meant that Charlie didn’t want to talk about it. It stung a little that Charlie hadclearly called Avery to talk about it, though, and now he was brushing Ethan off, like it wasn’t any of Ethan’s concern.

Well, it was definitely his concern, because next year, if everything went according to plan, he’d be playing for the Bandits, too.

“Come on,” Wally called out, and Ethan slipped his phone into his pocket as he looked up at his friend, hanging by the double locker room doors. He hadn’t seen a notification from Hank, but he hadn’t looked either, hadn’t even gone into their painfully brief text convo to verify that there wasn’t some magical response that he’d missed. Because of course there wasn’t. There wasn’t going to be.

He needed to come to terms with that and be okay with it by the time they both headed back to New York next summer for camp.

Maybe then, they could be friends.

On their way to the Gamma Sigma house, Wally asked, “You talk to your brothers?”

“About the game? Yeah. You know they’re always texting me about them,” Ethan said. For better or worse. He couldn’t say, necessarily, that even though Charlie was on the East Coast and should be focusing on his season with the Bandits, that he’d actually relaxed much when it came to Ethan. But he had,a little. Probably only because Ethan suspected Avery had pulled him aside and told him to cut it out.

“Not the game,” Wally said. “That guy.”

“Oh come on,” Ethan complained, kicking away a stick that was lying on the sidewalk. Out of frustration or because it genuinely needed moved? He wasn’t going to guess. But it might have been both. “You know what Hank’s name is.”

“Yeah, only ’cause you say itall the time,” Wally complained. Wally didn’t care much that Hank was a guy—Wally was queer,too—it was clear his annoyance was more that Ethan wouldn’t shut up about him.

Well, that was fine, because Ethan didn’t have anything else to say about Hank.

“Don’t worry, I’m shutting up about him forever.” Not forever, probably, but at least for now. At least until they were back in the same city and Ethan could figure out what the hell Hank’s problem was.

“Sure, okay,” Wally said, not sounding convinced. “But I mean it, did you talk to Charlie and Avery about him?”