Page 45 of Ethan

“I don’t have to.”

“So, how’sMax?” Ethan asked slyly. “I hear he and Morgan Reynolds are pretty fucking chummy these days.”

“You are not gonna piss me off,” Charlie said knowingly. “I’m in thechillestmood, despite the crap that V is laying down.”

“You should’ve just gone to that camp,” Avery said, always so fucking reasonable. “You could’ve seen Max.”

“And I’d have to see Reynolds. And then I’d probably have told him that he was full of shit and made me break two sticks at practice, and . . .” Charlie trailed off, lifting one shoulder. “Nobody needs to hear what a fucking mess I was last year.”

“I don’t think Reynolds needs to hear it to know it,” Ethan pointed out dryly, and knew he’d taken it a step too far when Charlie’s whole face tensed and Avery got that constipated look onhisthat always told Ethan he’d fucked up.

“Listen, you don’t even know—” Charlie broke off.

“Eth knows enough,” Avery said gently. “Two Frozen Fours. A national championship in his first season. He gets it,enough.”

“Enough,” Charlie muttered, but Avery’s point was made.

Ethan knew he couldn’t apologize to Charlie. He’d scoff and brush it off, and so it wouldn’t stick. But he’d get up earlier tomorrow and make pancakes. Blueberry pancakes, just like Charlie liked and wouldn’t ever admit to.

August

Hank didn’t think it would ever stop being weird, coming back home and staying in his old room. A room he hadn’t lived in foryears and years, now. A room frozen in time, when he was barely fifteen, and about to head to the OHL.

He shifted on the twin bed and tried to pretend that the mattress was long enough to contain his six-foot-three frame. He should finally just man up and tell his parents that he’d get an apartment, or at the very least, anew bedthe next time he came back to Toronto.

His phone vibrated on the bedside table, on its charger. Hank leaned over and fumbled for it, nearly dropping it on his face three times before he managed to get it unlocked.

He’d gone out with some of his old friends tonight—who he fit with just about as well as he fit into this twin bed—and to make up for the awkwardness in that theyallknew everything going on in each other’s lives and also looked at Hank like he was a mixture of alien abductee and celebrity—he’d taken more shots than he normally might. Had three beers after. Was definitely buzzing.

It was Ethan. Of course.

For a split second, Hank nearly didn’t answer the FaceTime call. Thought,I’m gonna be smart. I’m gonna be good. But the problem with taking those shots and drinking those beers was that he absolutely did not want to be good. He wanted to think and say and do all the things that he usually never let himself.

Ignoring that there was a very good reason he didn’t let himself.

But halfway-to-drunk Hank wasn’t even thinking about all the reasons why he’d normally hold back. Halfway-to-drunk Hank just wanted . . . well, he justwanted.

“Hey,” he answered breathlessly, clicking onto the call.

Ethan was in bed too, and the screen was dark-ish, almost no light at all, but what Hankwasseeing was enough. Rumpled curls. Bedroom eyes. All that bare chest and even a hint of abs.

Normally all things that wouldn’t do it for Hank—had never done it for him in the past—but Ethan’s version? Hank already felt winded, like he’d taken a too-long shift or a hard check to the boards.

“Hey back,” Ethan teased in a low voice.

Not that these calls didn’t always feel intimate. They did. But Hank knew he went out of his way to try to make them less. To turn on lights. To not let his mind wander to places he wasn’t quite sure he was ready to go, yet.

But tonight, there was no stopping it.

“You have a good night?” Ethan asked.

Hank realized that he’d just been lying there, phone held in front of him,staring. Wondering what that tanned skin would taste like, if he was insane enough to put his mouth on it.

Something he was most emphaticallynotdoing—in fact,could notdo, not while Ethan was in Michigan and Hank was in Toronto—but for once he didn’t stop his mind from wandering, from stumbling right over it.

Good, he decided,it would taste good.Like sunshine.

“Yeah,” Hank said. Still probably a second too delayed. Which, really, that wasn’t his fault. It was all Ethan’s. For having skin that seemed like it might taste as good as it looked.