Page 42 of Ethan

But that was what made Charlie so good.

Which meant even more that he’d out-strategized him. That, and the way Ethan was going to smile at him when Hank relayed the whole drill to him, later tonight.

Chapter 5

July

“Hey,” Avery said, plopping down in the chair opposite Ethan’s.

The fire had just begun to burn down, still a little smoke wafting through the air.

“Where’s Charlie?” Ethan asked.

Avery tossed Ethan one of the beers in his hands. “What do you think?”

“No way he’s calling Maxnow. What is it, like three in the morning?” Ethan scoffed, opening his beer and settling back into his Adirondack chair.

They’d had a good day, just the three of them, out on the lake in the boat Avery had bought two offseasons ago. Grilled steaks out on the patio after. And now, a fire down closer to the water, dusk falling around them. It definitely wasn’t anything worth complaining about. Charlie and Avery kept threatening that Ethan would have to eventually buy into their lake house, where the three of them spent their summers living and training, but Ethan would believe it when they actually made it happen.

But for now, he didn’t ownanyof this, despite that he had his own room, and that meant that at the end of the season, when the firepit needed cleaned out and the grill scraped down, that wasn’t going to behisjob.

“Something like that. I think they’re like seven hours out? But no, Max isn’t in Germany right now. He’s in Florida, at Morgan Reynolds’ camp.”

“Oh, the one Charlie refused to go to. How’s he taking it thatMaxwent?”

Avery rolled his eyes but had an expression of unmistakable fondness on his face. “What do you think? Charlie’s in his room right now, FaceTiming the guy like it’s going out of style.”

“IfI’dgone,” Ethan scoffed.

“He wouldn’t have talked to you for a month. Or a year, maybe,” Avery finished for him with a chuckle as punctuation. “I know. We just have to accept that Max is . . . well, a lot of exceptions.”

“Every exception,” Ethan grumbled.

“Everyone’s allowed to be weird about a person.” Avery looked thoughtful about this.

“That’s ridiculous. You’re not weird aboutanyone,” Ethan pointed out. “I’mnot weird about anyone.”

Avery looked over at him pointedly, and okay, maybe that wasn’t entirely true. Hewasweird about someone, but he and Hank weren’t anything like Charlie and Max.

“Okay, maybe notasweird about someone as Charlie is about Max,” Ethan corrected.

“Bud, I don’t believe you,” Avery said gently.

“Ugh, Charlie told you, didn’t he?” Ethan was going to kick his brother’s ass when he came out here, after making goo-goo eyes at Max and rhapsodizing about the fact that Max had actually gone to the camp after Charlie had refused—and only because during an ESPN broadcast of his show at the end of last season,Morgan Reynolds had had the nerve to offer up a pretty justified criticism of the Bandits falling short of the playoffs.

Didn’t matter if Reynolds was right; he’d been practically Charlie’sidolgrowing up—him and Crosby, too—and that meant that Charlie wouldn’t be forgiving him anytime soon.

“Told me what?” Avery asked innocently.

“About me and Hank.”

“Hank?”

“Don’t even. You’re a terrible fucking liar. Is Charlie even in his room talking to Max?”

“Uh yeah. Unfortunately I had to overhear them before I shut the door.”

“Gross,” Ethan retorted. “I thought maybe you’d both decided it was time for you to have your big Avery queer-is-okay pep talk.”