Page 74 of Ethan

“Are you at least talking about it with Tuck?” Charlie asked, still overly solicitous. Ethan wondered if he hadn’t absolutely banned Charlie from telling Max what was going on, if Charliewould’ve convinced Max that it might go over better with Ethan if someone else asked.

If he’d have ended up cornered by the Bandits’ captain, his big dark eyes full of worry. Worry thatCharliehad fucking put there.

“We’re talking,” Ethan said, opening his door and heading towards the entrance. Not really waiting for Charlie, not because he wanted to be shitty, but because if he did, Charlie would keep pestering him. Would want an actual rundown of his conversations with Hank.

And really, that wasn’t any of Charlie’s business.

He and Hank werefine.

In the week and a half since Hank had left New York and headed to Syracuse, theyhadtalked. Every single day, in fact. About Bo’s meditation and his new dedication to continued abstinence. About Charlie rearranging the fridge four times and how he’d bought a new shoe rack for the entryway and then insisted Ethan put it together.

Theyhadn’treally talked about what had happened the night before Hank left, but they hadn’t avoided it either. It had come up in passing a few times, but Ethan got it. What was there to say? Maybe he’d thought that there would be more sexy FaceTime calls now that they’d kissed and shared an orgasm. But that hadn’t happened. Admittedly there hadn’t really felt likemuchopportunity, though if Hank had seemed interested, Ethan would’ve found a way to make it happen.

Hank wasn’t playing in his first game until tomorrow, so when Ethan had woken up from his pregame nap, he’d had half a dozen texts waiting on his phone.

good luck tonight

not that you need it

you’re gonna be just fine

but if you wanna talk I’m here

talk to me and not charlie (if you want). you know he’s gonna be weird.

That was true andhadbeen true. Charlie, who’d been varying levels of Charlie-ness leading up to tonight, was beingextraCharlie right now.

Hank had sent one last text.

you do gotta send me a pic of your fit. even if it sucks I wanna see it.

It was one of the first times Hank had gone out of his way to ask for a picture of Ethan. Usually it was Ethan sending them, and occasionally Hank would even reciprocate.

He’d gotten three over the last eleven days. One of Hank shirtless in bed, his silly face and thumbs-down he gave to the camera keeping the photo from being any kind of thirst trap. The next, Hank’s face had been partially obscured by a gigantic to-go cup of coffee. In the third, he hadn’t even been the focal point of the shot, his eyebrows raised, one cut off by the edge of the frame. Taking up the majority of the screen had been Bo, lying there, mouth open, clearly snoring, with his earbuds in.

You don’t even wanna know how fucking loud his meditation was,Hank had messaged right after.

So, zero sexy shots of Hank. Of course, Hank probably didn’t know just how down bad Ethan was, becauseallof those had been somehow sexy in their own way, because Hank was just plain fucking sexy.

Still, Ethan had felt less stupid taking a photo of himself in his floor-length mirror only half an hour ago. The NHL had finally banned dress codes, and nobody seemed to know what to wear—Charlie had been obsessing about it for weeks now—but Ethan had thrown on one of his suits with a polo shirt under and added one of his many pairs of white sneakers. Thought the blue plaid fabric of his suit brought out his eyes, anyway.

But so far Hank hadn’t said anything about it.

Standing by the player entrance was one of the security guys, who gave Ethan an approving nod, and also one of the social media assistants that Ethan was still getting used to. They’d had someone who ran PR at Portland, but they’d been unobtrusive and non-demanding. Tina, the head of PR for the Bandits, was the opposite. She was both obtrusiveanddemanding, and Rachel and Ben, who worked for her, had apparently been hired because they were made of the same kind of stuff.

“Hey,” Ben said, phone already at the ready. “You ready for your first game, Eth? Just act normal, I’m going to get a bunch of shots. Wait, where’s Barney? He should be here. Tina wanted to make sure we got a few of both of you together, walking in.”

Ethan did make a face and then regretted it because no doubt Ben would snap a photo and it would end up as some kind of embarrassing meme on the Bandits’ Instagram feed.

“He’s coming,” Ethan said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his expression, because if he looked pissed off, that wouldalsoend up on the Bandits’ Instagram.

“There he is,” Ben said, nodding in approval as Charlie finally appeared. “Okay, guys, just look normal, not like you’re posing.”

Even though we’re fucking posing,Ethan wanted to say. But he didn’t, because Ben at least was the most chill of the trio.

“Why’d you take off so goddamn fast?” Charlie complained. “You knew they were gonna want to get some pictures of us.”

“I didn’t think about it,” Ethan mumbled. “I’m not used to this yet.”