Page 46 of Ethan

Ethan raised an eyebrow. “A really good night, it seems,” he teased.

“Yeah. Um.Yeah.” Hank grinned, letting himself smile as wide as he wanted. As big as he wanted. “It was, actually. Though it didn’t really start that way. I kinda hated it, at first.”

“Really? I thought these guys were your friends.” Ethan frowned, like he wanted to go knock some sense into them and even that was hot. No. Not even.Actuallyreally, stupendously hot.

“I mean, yeah, they are. Theywere. When I was like fifteen.”

“Aw, baby Hank,” Ethan said coyly.

“Shut up,” Hank said, but he knew it was painfully obvious how much he didn’t want Ethan to shut up. That he never wanted Ethan to shut up. “Anyway, it’s just been a long time, and maybe we all played hockey together, at one point, but they’ve all got real jobs now and two of them aremarried. One of them has a kid—”

“Like we don’t know plenty of guys who got married young and had families.Hockeyguys.”

Hank shrugged, because thatwastrue. They did know a lot of guys who’d settled down crazy young. But they weren’t his stupid friends. Who had rent and responsibilities and a regular nine-to-five job they went to every day. And then there was Hank, still trying to make it full-time on an NHL roster. Still trying tomake it, period.

“It’s just weird that it was weird,” Hank said. “I don’t really feel like I fit in here, not anymore.”

“In your bed?” Ethan asked archly, staring into the screen.

Hank felt his heart hiccup. Ethan wasn’t offering to beinhis bed. Though he wasn’t sure hewasn’teither. He’d only remembered that a few weeks ago, Hank had been complaining about how the bed was too small for him, now.

“Yeah, sure,” Hank said.

Ethan looked like he wanted to call him on it, but he didn’t, which was the most important thing.

“We had a pretty chill day out on the lake.”

“Oh, you mean likeeveryday,” Hank teased, swallowing back the uncertainty and the way his skin didn’t feel quite like his own, not anymore. At least since he’d been back home.

“Not every day. Sometimes we go golfing. Sometimes I go help my mom, or go see Livvy.”

“Oh,sorry,” Hank joked. “Was it not a golfing day?”

“You know, you should come out to Michigan next year,” Ethan said.

He’d made the invitation casual, but Hank wasn’t nearly drunk enough to miss the eagerness written on every line of his face.

“Just to Michigan? The state in general?” It was easier to deflect than to take Ethan’s invite seriously. Than to think about howgoodit would be.

Ethan right there. Ethan close enough to touch, if only Hank could find the courage, buried deep inside him.

“Come on,” Ethan scoffed. “You know what I mean.”

Hank swallowed hard. He was too close to honesty for this conversation, but the problem with riding that line, those shots and the three beers bubbling away in his system, was that he didn’t want to swerve away from it, either.

“Maybe you should wait until we’re in the same zip code for more than a few days. You might hate me, then.” He framed it like a joke, like that wouldn’t fuck him up.

But if that happened, it would totally fuck him up.

Usually he could convince himself it was because Ethan was his friend. But tonight, it was hard to deny it was because Ethan wasmore. Or at least because Hank wanted to know whatmoremeant, so badly sometimes it felt like he might choke on it.

Ethan shot him a look full of reprimand, which wasn’t hot. Not at all.

Hank forced his body not to squirm on his too-small bed about it.

“You know that’s not true,” Ethan said.

The not-squirming thing got harder. Because Ethan hadn’t just denied it; he’d correctly pointed out thatHankdidn’t even believe it. It was awesome and almost devastating to be seen like this.