Chapter Six
When Elliot gets selected for the All Star Game, he’s not sure if he deserves it.
Adam, when they drive home that day, lays it all out for him, all the stats that likely contributed to that decision, and Elliot knows the stats, knows he’s overtaken Morozov in scoring, knows he’s leading the team in points, but maybe Swanson would have been more deserving. Sure, his save percentage has suffered, but that’s just because the rest of the team was playing like shit in front of him for the first three months of the season.
They’ve recovered a little, keep slipping in and out of a wildcard spot, but Elliot shouldn’t even be thinking about making the playoffs right now, except he thinks about making the playoffs every single second of every single day.
He can tell that Natalie isn’t too happy with him constantly on edge, but when he apologizes she’ll always say something along the lines of it’s fine and she understands and she’ll support him, like he supported her when she had to finish a paper before Christmas and didn’t talk to him for three days straight. But there’s an edge to her voice when she says it, like it still bothers her and she won’t say it for some reason and it has something simmering low in Elliot.
The All Star Game is somehow more fun and also more exhausting than Elliot remembered from the last time he went, but he gets to play with people he’s been looking up to for years, so you won’t find him complaining for a single second. It’s a lot of talking to the media, some of which is about as boring as it is at home, some of which is a great deal more fun. They let him play with puppies, they let a little girl interview him and he somehow makes it home with four sticks signed by other players. One of them is Josh Roy’s. When they swapped sticks, Elliot asked Josh if he could sign a shirt for him, because– He doesn’t really know why. It’s not like he’s going to give it to Blake for his birthday, because they’re not talking, and this long stretch of silence makes it pretty clear where they’re at.
But he takes it home and puts it in the back of his closet, together with some other things that’ll likely stay in there and never come out.
He wishes he could say that the season goes better for the Ravens after the All Star break, but they still only barely manage to hold on to their wildcard spot.
Then Jacob gets injured and the mood in the locker room goes from bad to worse.
Elliot isn’t on the ice when it happens, can barely even see it, just sees one of the Wolves jam his stick between Jacob’s legs and maybe it’s an accident, maybe he didn’t mean to trip him, but Jacob falls and goes hard into the boards.
And then he doesn’t get up.
Elliot is on his feet, along with the rest of the bench, all leaning forward, the guys on the ice hovering close by as one of their trainers is bent over Jacob. He waves for a stretcher.
The arena has never been this silent since Elliot started playing here.
It’s only the beginning of the second so he has to keep it together, no matter how much his hands wants to shake. Adam, white in the face, eyes wide, lets out a shuddering breath as they carefully get Jacob on the stretcher. That’s their captain out there and they don’t even know if he’s conscious, because there’s so many people in the way and Elliot wants to jump over the boards and check on Jacob himself.
It looks like Jacob waves, only the tiniest bit, when they wheel him off the ice and the crowd cheers and Elliot taps his stick against the boards like everyone else, numb, knowing that they’ll have to finish this period, and they won’t have news yet during the intermission, and then they’ll have to make it through the third, and after that someone might be able to tell them what’s going on.
“Elliot, I want you out there with Adam and Kenny.”
Kenny’s usually on Jacob’s wing. Elliot, still rattled when he climbs over the boards, lines up for the face-off. The Wolves don’t give them too much trouble for the rest of the game and the Ravens walk out of it with a 4-2 win, but they don’t celebrate after they return to the locker room.
Nobody goes back out for the three stars of the game, they all gather in the locker room, and the look on Coach Warren’s face doesn’t bode well.
“We don’t know enough yet…” he starts and is interrupted by questions and buts and guys talking over each other until Warren yells at them to shut the fuck up. “As I just said,” he continues on, the before you so rudely interrupted me going unsaid, “we don’t know enough to say how bad it really is, but we’re looking at weeks.”
They’re all smart enough not to ask how many weeks and Coach Warren tells them to hit the showers.
Elliot ends up talking to the media, doesn’t know what to say when they ask him how he felt when he saw Jacob getting injured. He tries to pull out something generic, how it was hard to see that, how it’s always hard when a teammate gets injured, that they hope he’ll be able to come back to them soon. He doesn’t know what his face is doing as he says it, if they can all see that he’s shell-shocked.
They let him go sooner than they might on any other given day and Elliot is pathetically grateful.
The next day, the Ravens announce that Captain Jacob Desjardins will undergo surgery and will be out for four to six months.
#
Blake isn’t a hundred percent sure what’s going on when Evan texts him a fuckton of exclamation points. Blake is at practice when he gets it, so he isn’t exactly quick to reply.
The exclamation points are followed by, aw shit do u hav the day of.
Then, ur asleep aren’t u.
And, THEY CALLED ME UP!! STOP SLEEPING!!!!
And then a few more exclamation points.
I was at practice you dipshit, Blake replies.
Before he can say anything else, Evan is already calling him, which means he must be really excited. “Dude, I just got here,” he says. “You’re not playing tonight, right? Because I am. Can you come?”
“Sure, I’ll–”
“I’ll get you a ticket,” Evan practically shuts. “Elliot said we could do that. So you can pick it up… somewhere.”
Someone mumbles something in the background.
“Oh, do you need more than one? You wanna bring someone? Girlfriend? Teammate?” Evan falls silent for a moment. “It’s probably too late for you to go pick up grandma, right?”
Blake glances at the clock. They had an 11:30 practice and he stayed on the ice as long as he could and then had a few meetings, so it’s the afternoon and it’s definitely too late for him to drive up to Norwalk and pick up their grandma. “Sorry, man.”
“No, it’s okay. But you’re coming?”
“I am…” Some of the guys are still hanging around, but they’re all supposed to hate the Ravens with every fiber of their being, so he’s not asking anyone to come. He sure as hell won’t ask Mattie, because they’re home for a week and he’ll want to spend as much time with his family as he can.
Maybe Bram would come with him if Blake asked, but then Bram would probably also get into a fist fight with a Ravens fan and Blake doesn’t need that tonight.
“One ticket is good,” Blake says.
“Sweet,” Evan says. “Come see me after, yeah?”
“No.”
“Blaaake.”
“Do you want me to die?”
“You’re gonna be there as my brother, not as, like, the enemy.”
“He’s still gonna be the enemy,” someone shouts.
“I heard that,” Blake says.
“Please.”
Shit, has Evan ever said please to him in his entire life? “Fine,” Blake says.
“Yay,” Evan says and hangs up before Blake has a chance to say goodbye.
“Who was that?” Paulie asks.
“My brother,” Blake grumbles. “He’s playing his first NHL game tonight and I apparently just agreed to go.”
“He close?”
“Ravens,” Blake says and Paulie laughs at him as Blake packs up his shit.
Mattie laughs at him too when
Blake tells him an hour later. Blake is sensing a pattern here.
He makes sure not to wear anything with the Knights logo on it as he heads out for the game. He digs up an old baseball cap that has his junior team’s logo on it, because that’s probably safe enough and pulls on a gray hoodie that can’t be mistaken for any team gear.
Blake gets there early enough so he can watch warmups, but only from afar. He keeps his head down and tries not to look directly at anyone. Someone made a sign for Evan, which Blake tries to snap a picture of for their grandma and Evan throws a puck over the glass for whoever made it. Elliot gives his head a pat in passing.
Now on the first line, Elliot is still a joy to watch. With Desjardins on IR and Morozov probably having the worst season of his career, all the lines got shuffled. Elliot scores a goal and sets up two others, his smile bright when his teammates rush in for a hug.
During the first intermission, Blake goes and buys a burger, because he’s a bit hungry and also prone to stress-eating. Who would have thought that watching his brother play would make him so nervous? Evan isn’t getting a ton of ice time, but Blake’s still waiting, at the edge of his seat, hoping he’ll at least get an assist.
While he waits for his burger, he looks down at his phone, his teammates chirping him because, haha, rip Blake, he isn’t dead, he’s just at a Ravens game. A little girl, waiting with her mom next to him, is staring up at him and when he catches her looking, he smiles at her. She smiles back at him and waves. Blake waves back, because who the fuck doesn’t wave to a little kid?
The mom notices, frowns at Blake, and he can actually pinpoint the second she recognizes him. Blake tries to keep smiling, then his order is ready and he quickly goes to grab it, waves at the little girl before he leaves, because she’s still watching him, and then escapes back to his seat.
Evan does get an assist in the third period and Elliot’s on the bench waving to one of his teammates to grab the puck, which is swiftly delivered to the Ravens’ equipment manager. Blake cheers for Evan, but for nobody else. He didn’t show too much enthusiasm for the Ravens’ other goals, but when it’s Evan, he’ll make an exception.
After the game, he goes down to the locker rooms as promised and they let him pass when he gives them his name, some of the arena staff going a little bug-eyed when they see him. He waits outside the locker room and Evan comes out a moment later, sweaty, only half out of his gear, and jumps right into Blake’s arms.
“You came,” Evan shouts.
“I said I would.”
Evan squeezes him.
The locker room door opens and Elliot peers outside while Blake is still hugging Evan. It takes embarrassingly long for Blake to convince himself to at least wave at him. He pushed off apologizing to Elliot until it was too late and now Elliot probably thinks he’s the biggest douchebag to ever walk the planet. Elliot, with some reluctance, waves back at him, then disappears again.
“Some of the guys are taking me out for drinks,” Evan says and lets go of Blake. “You wanna come?”
Blake doesn’t comment on Evan being underage, because that’s none of his business, and shakes his head. “I have a game tomorrow. Also not really in the mood to supervise your underage drinking.” Okay, so he did say something. Like he wasn’t the king of underage drinking, like, two years ago.
Evan grins and punches him in the arm. “Thanks for coming, though.”
Blake nods, gives him another hug and escapes before he can think too much about whether or not he should ask someone if they can find him Elliot.
#
Blake is almost convinced that he’ll get to the other end of the season without playing a single game against the Mariners. He’s mostly okay with that, although he’d like to get a few more starts in general, which is unlikely now that it’s almost playoff time.
When they wrap up their season series against the Mariners, the Knights have already clinched their playoff spot, but they have a chance to get home ice tonight, so the way this game ends is still important. Noah grins at him during warmups, but it’s fleeting, in passing, not enough to be a distraction. Blake is on the bench until Mattie, after over twenty minutes of being a brick wall, absolutely fucking falters in the second, letting in four goals in a matter of minutes.
“Blake,” Coach only says and Mattie comes off the ice, glaring daggers.
Someone needs to score right the fuck now, which Coach is probably shouting about on the bench right as Blake gets settled in the crease. He hates coming into games like this, after sitting on the bench for ages, but when he saves the first shot, which, admittedly, just goes right into his glove and doesn’t require any acrobatics, Blake is more grounded.
The game goes on like nothing happened and the Mariners pepper him with shots and Blake is mad. He’s mad, because they have their playoff spot, but they still need to win this game, and his guys need to get off their asses and the next time he gets his stick on the puck, he hurls it down the ice, and somehow, miraculously, Kells is right there in the back, taking he hell off with that puck. The Mariners’ goalie never stood a chance.
The Knights manage to get another one, and in its execution the goal isn’t pretty, but Blake doesn’t care if it’s pretty as long as it gets them closer to tying up the game. They don’t.
Not in the second.
The third starts with two guys in the box with matching minors. The Knights score on the 4-on-4 and their entire bench is jumping up and down.
The Knights score another one, get it taken away because it’s offside, and with four minutes left in the game, Blake is ready to murder someone. He wants to win this. He can’t go out there and score a goal himself, so one of the guys needs to do him that favor now.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Noah says as he glides past him before a face-off.
Blake gives him the evil eye and the smile drops right off Noah’s face. A strange wave of satisfaction washes over him, but he doesn’t examine it any further, because he needs to focus on the face-off.
Blake doesn’t know how they win the game. Well, objectively he does know. He doesn’t let in any other goals and his team scores four, and it’s that kind of ridiculous comeback that happens maybe once a season. Brammer barrels into him no two seconds after the final horn and Blake lets it wash over him, the taps, the hugs, while the Mariners’ crowd quickly disperses.
As they head down the tunnel, Blake hears that the Mariners gave him second star, and someone pats his back, and Mattie is actually smiling at him in the locker room, despite the murder eyes earlier. “Well done, kid,” Mattie says.
“Hey, Fish!”
Blake turns around just in time to find himself face to face with Paulie, who hands him the knight helmet they’ve been passing around the locker room all season. Blake puts it on because someone will put it on him if he doesn’t, says thank you and good game, boys, but takes it off again quickly, a little embarrassed by all the eyes on him.
Before Blake can get out of his gear, before he can get put on media duty, Mattie comes shuffling back over, already mostly out of his pads, and drops a puck in his hand.
“Wait…”
Blake has had his first win, he has the puck at home on a shelf. He frowns down at the writing on the tape and realizes it says nothing about saves or wins. 1ST NHL POINT, it says.
Because he got a point. When he passed the puck to Kells and Kells scored. He didn’t even notice at the time.
“You didn’t realize, did you,” Mattie says, deadpan.
“No.”
Mattie snorts and walks away, leaving Blake to get eaten alive by the local media. Except they’re not so bad today and one of them congratulates him on his performance and PR takes pictures of him and his first point puck.
He takes his time changing – most of the guys are probably going to hit the city to celebrate, because now their last game of the season is pretty much a formality, but Blake has other plans. A game in Brooklyn isn’t as much of a road game as, say, a game in
California, so they don’t have a curfew and if they want to make their own way back to Newark, no one will bat an eye.
Blake does check his phone, because maybe he will go back on the bus with the team. It’s up to Noah.
There’s a text from his brother – shit u have ass many points in the nhl as i hav – and there’s so much to unpack there, starting with the ‘ass’ and ending with the two different ‘haves’, his grandma sent him one as well – So proud of you, Blake! Love, Nana!! – and he smiles about that one a little bit. He keeps scrolling until he finds the text from Noah he’s been looking for.
come 2 mine? pity bj?
Blake tells him that he’s on his way, takes a cab, and finds that Noah is already at home, already out of his suit, waiting for Blake. They don’t do this a lot, only when they both happen to have at least half a day off at the same time, when Blake is in Brooklyn, not when Noah is in Newark, because Blake lives with Mattie, and it’s not like he can bring a guy home and hide him in the basement.
It works well enough, meaning that Blake has someone’s hands on him often enough that he doesn’t have time to think about how fucking lonely he is when he’s sitting in Mattie’s basement on his own. This is pretty much as good as it gets for him. Noah gets him, gets the situation they’re in, and he never asks for more than Blake is willing to give. They’re not boyfriends, they don’t owe each other anything, although if asked, Blake would probably say that they’re friends.
Noah texts him all the time, pictures and jokes and whatnot that Blake more often than not rolls his eyes at, but he’d also miss those texts if Noah wasn’t sending them, so he won’t complain.
Before Noah pulls Blake into his bedroom, he asks him if he wants anything to eat, hangs up Blake’s suit jacket and then starts chirping Blake’s teammates. There’s no way around that, and Noah doesn’t really mean anything by it, just runs his mouth until Blake shuts him up. Blake enjoys shutting him up; maybe he’s a little smug about it.
Noah peels him out of his clothes, pushes him into bed, but Noah isn’t the kind of guy who takes his time and it’s not like they lovingly gaze into each other’s eyes or anything, they’re not… that. Noah does usually tell him to stay, doesn’t kick him out in the middle of the night, but they don’t cuddle or anything. Sometimes Blake will wake up with Noah’s leg hooked over his, sometimes they’ll bump into each other during the night, but it’s not like Noah wraps himself around Blake like… certain other people that Blake has shared a bed with.
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