Page 107 of Ethan

“Sobad,” Ethan agreed.

For a moment they were quiet. It was peaceful, Hank decided. The kind ofbeingthat he’d fantasized about so much when he was in Syracuse and Ethan was here, and it seemed, from what Ethan had said earlier, that he felt the same.

They were more, obviously, but they still had this rock-solid foundation of friendship, too. Hank didn’t think there was anyone he’d ever liked as much as he liked Ethan Barnes.

“You know,” Ethan spoke up, breaking the silence, “you’re probably going to be by yourself on the road. No roommate. We don’t have anyone else on an ELC who doesn’t already have a roommate.”

“Oh.” Hank had been rooming with Bo so long—tolerating his weird eccentricities he didn’t know how he’d feel, being alone. Though he wouldn’treallybe alone, because there was Ethan, but naturally Charlie had demanded that Ethan room with him, even though he had a contract that meant he didn’thaveto share.

“What that means,” Ethan added with a smirk that Hank couldfeel, “is that I’m totally gonna crash your room. Like all the time.”

“Is Charlie—”

“Please don’t ask me if Charlie is gonna be okay with that,” Ethan huffed out.

Hank smiled. “Okay, then I won’t.”

“So what I’m saying is expect this,a lot,” Ethan said. He made it sound like a pseudo-threat, even though it was really more like a promise.

“Trust me, I will,” Hank said, and Ethan laughed.

It wasn’t like Ethan had expected everything about the Bandits to change the moment they brought Hank up from Syracuse.

Pre-Hank, the defense had issues, and Hank wasn’t enough to change everything, not overnight.

But Ethan had still expected better than this.

In the first, they’d scored three goals. Ethan had notched one of them, and Charlie the other two.

This wasn’t amust-win game, though in January, with the playoffs starting to really loom on the horizon and the Bandits in a tough division and an even tougher conference, they could use all the help they could get to stay in the hunt.

But then, despite their solid lead, the Bandits had come out flat in the second, and only Dom standing on his head in goal had prevented the Panthers from roaring back in a major way.

And now, in the third, despite Max pinning everyone with sad, frustrated eyes and reminding them that they needed to playthreeperiods of hockey, not just one, during the last intermission, they’d just given up two goals in forty-three seconds.

Ethan leaned forward on the bench and tried not to make a face as the Panthers celebrated their second goal. If he did, there was no question if the broadcast would catch it.Barnes dramatics again, they’d say, andyes, Ethan was definitely pissed, especially because the second goal had happened because of a pretty shitty defensive move by Niko, compounded by Jonesy being not quite in position.

It was mistakes heaped on mistakes, and they looked like fucking amateur hour out there.

“Shit,” Emil muttered next to him.

“Yeah,” Ethan agreed.

He didn’t need to look down the line of guys to see Charlie’s expression to know how it had flattened out. Two-goal night for him, and the Bandits were still going to possibly blow the game. Ethan had watched enough of these on his laptop last year, and that had been shitty enough, but participating in them was so much worse than Ethan had expected.

Losing always sucked, but the inconsistencies were just killer.

Of course, it didn’t help that Ethan and his line felt like it was under constant attack. It wasn’t new, but that didn’t make it any easier. Hard to get a play together when Ethan was just trying to stay alive out there.

Charlie leaned over, talking right over Emil, Joey, and Gabriel. “Watch it, okay?”

It was hard, but Ethan didn’t roll his eyes.Hisline hadn’t been giving the puck up. They hadn’t created as many opportunities in the offensive zone as he wanted, but they hadn’t been the problem, either.

“Tell Gian that,” Emil muttered.

And Gian had been struggling lately. Too many turnovers, too many shifts without a shot on goal. On one hand, Ethan had been pleased to get up to the third line, but it had sucked for Gian to be shifted down.

“They should put you on Max’s line,” Charlie complained. “He’d protect you.”