Page 87 of Ethan

“They’re not like that, and neither is Inverness,” Hank protested.

“Sure, sure. ’Cause Inverness isn’t gonna dangle the whole fucking roster at the Mavs to get the oldest one there, too. Imagine the jerseys they’d sell if they had all three on the same team. Inverness wants to win championships, sure, and Avery’s not a bad way to go about that—”

“Not a bad way,” Hank interrupted, grimacing. “Avery’s a fuckinglegithockey player, man.”

“Better d-man than I’ll ever be,” Bo agreed. “But sometimes it’s not about that, you know?”

“You are absolutely full of shit,” Hank said. But secretly, deep down, he wasn’t sure that Bo actuallywas. After all, even a broken clock was right twice a day. Was Bo right about this? Would Inverness go out of his way to get Avery on the Bandits’ roster?

He’d told Hank that he was going to use Niko as trade bait. Would he useHanktoo?

If he was going to use Hank, Hank would already be on the Bandits’ roster. The Mavericks weren’t going to want some AHL guy in trade forAvery fucking Barnes.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Bo shot him a knowing look. “You wanna stay off Inverness’ trade radar? You’re doing it. Be glad, ’cause I have a feeling he’ll do whatever it takes to get the third one to New York.”

Hank thought about it as they finished their beers and headed back to the hotel with the rest of the team.

He pulled up his text convo with his agent, Claude, and sent a quick message.hearing some weird rumors about the bandits trading for avery barnes. legit?

Claude answered almost immediately.rumors are legit. not sure he’ll get it done. be glad you’re in syracuse. keeps you off the trade radar.

And as Hank lay there in the bed, sleep elusive, he wondered if that was really why Inverness had sent him back to Syracuse and kept Niko, instead. He was willing to trade Niko, but not to trade Hank.

Inverness had been talking a big game forever, promising that Hank was the future of the Bandits’ defense core. But maybe it wasn’t just talk; maybe he’d actuallymeantit.

And if that was true, then it was kinda hard to keep feeling so goddamn sorry for himself. Right before he finally fell asleep, Hank rolled over, picked up his phone and sent Ethan not just one heart back, butthree.

It was a stupid thing to be annoyed about. Stupid, stupid,stupid.

But Ethan was sitting on one of Charlie’s barstools, watching as his brother and his captain flirted over mashed potatoes.

“We need to get them whipped, you know?” Max said, glancing over at where Charlie was wielding the masher clumsily, because Charlie might be good at a lot of things, but not at cooking. A fact that Ethan had unfortunately discovered since moving in with him a few months ago.

Naturally, he’d talked up his life skills to a major degree, and in the summers, they all kinda got by, with Avery usually taking the lion’s share of the kitchen work, because Avery gave more of a shit what he ate than he and Charlie did. But it was obvious now that Charlie had been majorly exaggerating his culinary expertise every time he talked to the media about it.

Ethan had yet to call him out on it, but he was seriously considering it, the longer he had to watch him and Max banter over a Thanksgiving side dish.

“What’s going on here?” his mom asked, sliding into the barstool next to Ethan’s.

Charlie had just lifted the masher from the pot and flicked a bit of mashed potatoes at Max. They landed on his cheek, in the thick dark scruff along his jawline, and both of them were practically giggling over it.

“Watching these stupid mating rituals,” Ethan muttered. He wasn’t sure he’d said it loud enough for her to hear—he’d been trying to avoidCharliehearing, because Charlie would get pissed.

He was already on edge because their dad was here, and even though it had been less than twenty-four hours, he’d already brought up how the Bandits were currently out of playoff contention, even though it was still really early in the season andanythingcould happen.

“Oh, honey, your brother’s just . . .” Charlotte Barnes looked over at Ethan, blue eyes sympathetic. “Well. You know how he is.”

“Yeah,” Ethan agreed wholeheartedly.

God, didn’t he? He’d thought he’d had a pretty decent idea, before this, because they did spend all their summers together, but they’d not lived together during the rest of the year since Charlie went to the US development program at fifteen, and Ethan had only been twelve.

They’d both changed a lot since then.

And he wasgrateful, he was. Grateful he got to see his brother and live with him and play hockey with him. But God, he could be annoying. Especially when it came to Max.

Max wrestled the masher away from Charlie, which Ethan was pretty sure was a move that he’d pulled on Hank a time or two, just to get Hank to touch him more.

“You two seem like you’re doing pretty well, though,” his mom said, nudging him.