Three Is The Luckiest Number

by Catherine Cloud

  Three Is The Luckiest Number

  by Catherine Cloud

  Copyright © 2020 Catherine Cloud

  Cover design © 2020 Karolina Polasz / karoldraws.tumblr.com

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are reused in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is purely coincidental.

  For Julie

  Chapter One

  The day before the Draft, they agree that this will be the last time.

  It’s a decision that’s made for them, by life, by common sense, and by however many miles will be between them once the next few days are over.

  They could spend the rest of the summer together, in a neatly-kept backyard in Connecticut, or in a basement with black marks on the wall in Ontario, but they’ll be training in different places for what comes next, for what will likely be the next twenty years of their lives.

  God, Blake hopes it’ll be twenty years.

  Twenty years of hockey. It seems impossible. He’s eighteen. He hasn’t even made it through twenty whole years. Elliot’s a few months younger than him, a gigantic pimple blooming on his forehead, hair hiding it badly. He’ll play twenty years of hockey, too. Hell, he’ll play twenty-five if they let him.

  Elliot Cowell is a prodigy. He’ll be an All Star, a leader in the room, and maybe, one day, a captain.

  Sometimes Blake can’t believe that Elliot is the same guy who’s been kissing him whenever he’s sure that no one is looking, who’s been stealing his shirts, who’s been slipping into his bed, quiet laughter in the air, lips always eager, and his hands even more so. They never talk about it, never say a word, it’s just dark corners wherever they can find them, shared rooms on the road, sleepovers that end with them on the same mattress, with hands under shirts, with them shushing each other, and there’s no room for conversations in between.

  They don’t talk about it until the day before the Draft, when they’re in a dark stairwell in a hotel in Ottawa. First it’s Elliot’s lips on his, then it’s, “This is the last time we’re doing this.”

  Blake says, “I know,” because he did know. He knew all along. He heard the way Elliot was talking about the NHL, about what he thought his life would be like, and Blake never had a place in the future he was imagining. Elliot wants to play until he drops dead on the ice, he wants five Cups and three gold medals, wants everything the hockey gods will grant him. There’s no room for Blake between all that. There’s no room for error. No room for rumors, for scandals, for PR disasters. So, yes, Blake knows. It doesn’t take him by surprise.

  Elliot is going to go second or third, there’s no consensus, really, all they know is that he won’t be first, because Yuri Petrov will go first, to the Texas Wildcats. So for Elliot it’ll be New York, if he’s second, or Hartford, if he’s third.

  “Where do you want to go?” Blake asked him this morning.

  “It’s not my choice to make,” said Elliot and tugged his fingers through his hair, like that would tame it somehow. It’s starting to curl a little at the tips. Blake overheard Elliot’s mom say that he should have gotten a haircut and Elliot looked at her like she’d gone insane, because how could she possibly think of something as mundane as haircuts at a time like this. She muttered at him in Spanish and Blake had no idea what she was saying, but going by the look on Elliot’s face, she was telling him off.

  “But if you could?” Blake asked.

  “I can’t,” was Elliot’s reply and that was it for their conversation.

  Blake would choose if he could. For him it would be the Cardinals, always the Cardinals. Somewhere in his grandma’s basement is a box full of old Cardinals gear that Blake would never let her throw away, even when he’d long outgrown it. But the Cardinals are picking third, a pick that wasn’t even theirs until last season’s trade deadline. The Cardinals don’t need a goalie. And Blake isn’t going third. Maybe he’ll go in the third round. That’s probably his most realistic outlook, even though Elliot is dead-sure that he’ll go in the second. He doesn’t mind speculating about where Blake might end up, but as soon as it’s about him, he starts shutdown procedures. He’s scared, but he won’t say it. Elliot remains cheerful, smiling at everyone, but there’s other stuff going on underneath that he won’t let anyone else see.

  If Blake was getting the kind of attention from the media that Elliot is getting, he probably wouldn’t want to talk about anything anymore either. It’s all stats, the tiniest of flaws being compared, speed and puck movement, every little weakness laid bare for the world to see as they try to figure out which team should pick him.

  The two of them in a dark stairwell in a hotel in Ottawa the night before the Draft? Another weakness, but not one that anybody knows about.

  Nobody will know about it.

  Because this is the last time.

  Elliot kisses him the same way he always does, like they snuck away again, like there’s no significance to any of this. His touches are featherlight against Blake’s sides, skimming along the hem of Blake’s shirt, reluctant, like he knows he shouldn’t take this too far, not when they’re hiding in a stairwell, dark as it may be. In the beginning, Elliot always kissed him like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to, slow and reluctant, but Blake quickly figured out that Elliot just wasn’t ready to take things further.

  Blake tried to be patient with him, waited for Elliot to make up his mind, could tell that Elliot was constantly torn, never sure what he wanted. Elliot was scared of someone finding out, but he always came back to Blake. It’s his choice, though. It was his choice from the start.

  Now Blake is much too aware that this is the last time he gets to kiss Elliot and for weeks he’s been wishing they had more time, but the days kept slipping away and now this is it and Blake can’t decide where to put his hands, a knot in his stomach because he wants to remember everything as much as he wants to forget it all the second they go their separate ways.

  Elliot pulls away with a sigh, ducking his head.

  “Hey,” Blake says, his hand still on Elliot’s back, “don’t…” He doesn’t quite manage the don’t go yet, but he doesn’t have to anyway.

  Elliot tilts his head, bumps into Blake’s chin. Blake kisses his temple. It occurs to him now that he’s never done that before, or at least he doesn’t remember ever doing it. There are so many things he wishes they could have done together, so many things they did that he’ll miss.

  “I should go,” Elliot says.

  He kisses Blake again. And Blake starts to count. That’s one.

  “Already?” Blake asks.

  “I’m sorry,” Elliot mutters and then his lips are back on Blake’s, careful, gentle, hands in Blake’s hair.

  This time, when they pull apart, neither of them says a word.

  That’s two.

  Another kiss, one that lingers, and that’s three.

  Elliot always had this thing about kissing Blake three times for good luck before games. There was never a fourth, so Blake knows that this is it. Blake takes Elliot’s hand before he can walk away. “I…” He takes a deep breath. There’s nothing he can say now that’ll make a difference. He wouldn’t know how to say any of it anyway. “Good luck tomorrow,” is what he settles on. It’s easy and it’s safe.

  “Thank you,” Elliot whispers, like his voice might crack if he said it any louder.

  He steps away and the moti
on sensor catches him and the lights flicker back to life like they did when Elliot first pulled him out into the stairwell.

  Blake doesn’t want to look at him, forces himself to look down anyway. Elliot’s always smiling, only now he isn’t, and it’s not Blake’s fault, not really, but he hates that he had a part in this.

  “Don’t forget about me when you’re a big star,” Blake says.

  It tickles the smallest of laughs out of Elliot. “Never,” he says. He means it, Blake can tell.

  Then Elliot tugs his hand out of Blake’s, and they’re done.

  #

  Elliot tells himself that he’s relieved when the New York Ravens select him with their first round pick. No other feelings. He isn’t happy, he isn’t sad, just relieved. He goes second and his mother hugs him and his dad has tears in his eyes and Elliot walks up onto that stage and plasters a smile on his face and shakes hands with important people whose names he knew five minutes ago and can’t remember now that he’s standing right in front of them.

  He’s handed a black and red jersey and a baseball cap and he smiles for the cameras and tries not to think about why he’s so lost.

  This was supposed to give him direction. He finally knows where he’s going to spend the next few years of his life. And maybe a few more years after that. He wonders if Blake can see him right now, if he’s taken one look at Elliot’s face and seen right through him. He barely remembers it after, sees a replay on TV and silently congratulates himself for looking 100% delighted and 0% terrified, when it was, in fact, the other way around.

  Once he’s off the stage, someone hands him a phone and his fingers only shake the tiniest bit when he takes it.

  “Elliot, I just wanted to say welcome to the Ravens,” says someone extremely French-Canadian on the other end of the line.

  Jacob Desjardins. Captain.

  Elliot is glad that he managed to remember his name. He thanks him, tries to retain all the information he’s given during that two-minute phone call and forgets everything as soon as he’s said goodbye.

  He’s whisked away to take pictures with the Wildcats’ first rounder, Yuri Petrov, who looks about as lost and confused as Elliot feels, and David Santana, who was selected third by the Connecticut Cardinals and who looks so delighted to be here that Elliot finds himself smiling when Santana pats his back in passing.

  That could have been him.

  Elliot could have just as well gone to Hartford. He tried not to think about it before, didn’t want to pick a favorite, because he didn’t want to end up being disappointed, but he can’t help but wonder now how Blake would feel if Elliot had gone to the Cardinals. He gave Blake a Zach Goldman shirt for his birthday once and he wore it so much that it literally fell apart. The Cardinals aren’t a bad team. They got their pick in a trade and Elliot might have had a better chance to at least make the playoffs with them, but the Ravens have potential, too, especially if they make the right moves in free agency. They have already signed a new coach for next season and they have drafted some good players during the last couple of years, so Elliot is tentatively excited.

  Blake finds him later and hugs him and Elliot doesn’t want to let go, wants to pull him with him, but last night in that stairwell was the last time. Elliot’s stomach turns, thinking about hiding a secret that big and they don’t even know where Blake is going yet. He might end up on the other side of the country.

  No, they made that decision and he’s not going to take it back. It wouldn’t be fair for either of them.

  #

  Blake goes in the second round.

  He goes in the second round and he almost laughs, because Elliot was right, and because it’s the New Jersey Knights who pick him, and they play in Newark, across the river from the New York Ravens.

  It’s almost a blessing that Blake already knows that he’ll be spending some quality time with the Knights’ AHL team in upstate New York, because that way he won’t be thinking about how bad of an idea it would be to visit Elliot in New York on a daily basis. Because Elliot is definitely going to New York. The Ravens need a guy like him on the roster, don’t have time to send him down.

  It’s not like Blake is desperately in love with Elliot. He didn’t let himself fall desperately in love with a boy who would have refused to love him back. Whatever they were until they kissed goodbye in that stairwell had an expiration date so bold and glaring that having any feelings whatsoever would have been nothing but torture.

  So, no, Blake is not desperately in love, but it’s easier to be somewhere that’s not just across the river. Rivers are too easy to cross, with all those bridges and ferries and tunnels.

  After he’s drafted, Blake gets a call from Jason Renwick, one of the Knights’ alternate captains. He’s thirty-five, just signed a one-year extension, and he gives Blake his phone number, his address, and invites him over for dinner, “Whenever you’re next in town, kid. We’re glad to have you on the team.”

  Honestly? Blake is glad that he ended up in New Jersey. People don’t usually have too many good things to say about the place – Blake has never been, except for the airport – but looking at the team they have actually gives him hope. They made the playoffs last season, none of their players are outright assholes and their management seems to be at least somewhat competent. Jersey has a good room that welcomes new guys with open arms. Blake’s phone is blowing up with messages all day – the Knights’ new captain, Brian Kelly, and their starting goalie, Jake Matthews, other teammates, coaches and trainers.

  There’s one from Elliot in there, too, a very formal congratulations, and not a word about the river, or the bridges and ferries and tunnels. Of course not, because they broke things off the other night. Being so close to one another won’t change a thing; they could be on the same team again and it wouldn’t change a thing.

  He wonders for how long he’ll think about Elliot, about how small he seemed when he leaned against Blake in that stairwell after Blake told him that he knew, that he’d known all along that this was it for them. There were wrinkles in the shirt Blake was wearing from where Elliot’s fingers were clenched in the fabric, like he didn’t want to let go. He did let go, though, and so all Blake gets is congratulations.

  His grandma hugs him tightly when they know that he’s going to New Jersey and she pats his cheek and Blake lets her, because she’s the only one around to be proud of him, except for his brother, Evan, who insists on giving him “the highest of fives”. They’ll probably be here again, two years from now, to see where Evan will end up.

  Blake tries not to wish his Mom and Dad were here. No point in that. He knows that by now.

  Blake leaves Ottawa without exchanging another word with Elliot. Which is fine. What would he say anyway? Goodbye? They’ve said goodbye.

  On the way to the airport, on the flight home, he can’t shake the thought that he forgot something important.

  Chapter Two

  Elliot spends his summer working harder than he’s ever worked before. He was the second overall pick and there’s a good chance that he’ll end up on the Ravens’ opening night roster, but he doesn’t want to show up acting like he already has a place on the team.

  The Ravens had an abysmal previous season, hence the second pick, one of their forwards retired at the end of the season, two moved on to greener pastures. The Ravens signed a bunch of new guys during the off-season, so it’s a weird locker room to walk into for training camp, although Elliot is really just excited to be here. He’s in his gear before everyone else, eager to get on the ice.

  As guys get sent down and the rest of them are fitted into the lineup, Elliot ends up on a line with Magnus Nyström on his left wing and Adam Ishida on his right. Magnus has been on the roster for three years, Adam has been a more recent addition, spent the past season on the farm team. Elliot gets along with them, jokes around with them on the ice, laughing when Adam tries to find nicknames for him.

  “El. No, that’s weird. Wellie.”

&
nbsp; “What did people call you in juniors?” Magnus asks.

  “Elliot.”

  “They did not, that’s way too boring,” Adam says, shaking his head at him, or maybe at the lack of creativity on his junior league team. “There has to be something we can do with Cowell. What about… Hm, Cowie.”

  Magnus slaps the back of his head. “No.”

  “Yeah,” Elliot says, “that’s definitely a no.”

  “Oh,” Magnus says. “What does the cow say?”

  Adam’s eyes light up. “Moo.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Moo,” Magnus says softly. “Beautiful.”

  Two days later the entire team is calling him Moo and there’s no escaping it anymore. Some of the guys will still call him Elliot every now and then, but he likely won’t get rid of that nickname any time soon.

  He’s weirdly okay with it. Things are okay. New York is okay. Adam lets on that he has an unused room, in case Elliot needs one after the preseason. He fits right in. Things are okay.

  They’re okay until he plays his first preseason game against the New Jersey Knights and Blake Samuels is in goal, on the other side for the first time in their lives. Elliot doesn’t score on Blake, disgruntled when he heads off the ice, because he should have been able to sneak one past him in his sleep.

  He finds Blake after the game, talking to someone in a hallway outside the visitors’ locker room. Once he lays eyes on him, he realizes that he didn’t actually mean to find him, just wanted to take a quick peek to see if Blake grew his hair out like he said he would – he did – and, well, maybe to see if he looked happy – he does. The Knights play in dark blue and it does things to Blake’s eyes that Elliot doesn’t know how to explain, same goes for the suit that Blake is wearing right now, a blue that seems to match his eyes exactly.

  Blake freezes when he spots Elliot, excuses himself, and walks over very slowly, like he’s not sure if he even wants to.