“What gave it away?” Noah asks.
“Mostly that you asked if we could talk.”
Noah sighs. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. This doesn’t work for you anymore. I get it, honestly. Don’t even… Don’t worry about it.” Blake gives him a nudge. “We had a good time.”
Noah grins at him. “We sure did.” He puts down the bag with the baked goods on Blake’s coffee table and sits down next to Angus. “Sup, dude.”
Angus eyes him with suspicion.
“I should explain,” Noah says.
“You don’t have to.”
“I’ll feel better if I do, though? I know this isn’t really about me feeling better, but can I?”
Blake nods, sits down next to him.
“I know we said that we’d keep feelings out of this and that you and I were gonna be strictly professional or whatever, but maybe I had a few feelings along the way and… Anyway. I was sad, but that’s beside the point. So I met this guy. He’s… a piece of work, but I really like him. And, like, we were never exclusive, but I can’t do this with you and like him at the same time. It wouldn’t seem fair to anyone.”
“You never said–”
“Blake, let me stop you right there,” Noah says, hand on Blake’s knee. “If I’d told you about whatever feelings I was having, what do you think you would have done? Asked me to be your boyfriend? I think the fuck not. Because you’re still hung up on Elliot Cowell, and that’s okay, I knew that from the start, so we’re all good here.”
“I’m not hung up on Elliot.”
“Really? When you think of him, don’t you get all warm and fuzzy inside?”
“I…” Blake thinks about Elliot, about seeing him the other week, about Elliot dragging him to the Empire State Building like they’re tourists, not even letting Blake pay for the ticket, and what he’s feeling is not warm and fuzzy. Maybe warm. Definitely not fuzzy.
“Yeah,” Noah says. “So you see why I never said anything. I’m not him.”
Blake remains silent. He’s not in love with Elliot. It’s been six years. He wasn’t in love with him six years ago either. He was eighteen, for fuck’s sake. He didn’t know what love even is. He still doesn’t.
“We’ll still be friends, yeah?” Blake eventually asks.
“Dude, you’re never getting rid of me,” Noah says.
Noah definitely means that.
He still texts him afterwards, the exact same amount of silly shit that Blake is used to receiving from him.
Blake eventually goes back to Norwalk to help Evan sort through what’s left at the house and donate some of the things they won’t need anymore. They meet with way too many lawyers to sort out who owns what, at the end of which he isn’t in the mood to deal with his contract negotiations, even though his agent will do most of the work.
If he doesn’t re-sign with the Knights, he’ll be a free agent in July, except he’d rather stay in Newark for the rest of his career, although a part of him, the smallest, tiniest part, wonders if the Cardinals might be interested. If he could play in Connecticut, the way he always wanted to.
He doesn’t even tell his agent about it.
He inks a contract with the Knights in the end. Five years, five and a half million AAV. They work in a no-trade clause and he gets to hand in a list of teams that he wouldn’t mind getting traded to. He puts the Cardinals on the list.
He goes on vacation with Evan. Warm and sunny, lots of days at the beach, cocktails, not a lot of talking. Just for a week, otherwise they’d kill each other.
He returns to Newark with Angus and Squid and his apartment is the same it was before. He agrees to put in a few appearances at the Little Knights camp while he’s in town. He makes an Instagram account for Angus and Squid when he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He watches Elliot win the Lady Byng trophy on TV, two cats judging him as he shoves chips into his mouth and drinks too much beer.
Since he has nothing better to do, he keeps an eye on the Draft and on the free agency madness that follows. It’s more entertaining when you’re not involved.
Charlie Trainor, previously a D-man for the LA Lions, ends up signing with the Knights. It’s a big one. Trainor was one of the Lions’ top D-men and for some reason wasn’t willing to stay. Blake is pretty sure that the Lions didn’t offer Trainor much less than what the Knights offered him.
Kells is already typing in the group chat when Blake grabs his phone.
Trainor comes to town about a week later, and Blake is the only one around, or at least the only one who’s been on the team for longer than a year or two, so he offers to pick him up at the airport. Five minutes later he also offers up his guest room, with a warning that he has two very loving cats, one of which likes to sit on people he’s just met. Trainor is a huge guy, smiley, but a little shy.
“Dude, thank you so much for picking me up,” Charlie says when he finds Blake at the airport. “I’m fucking useless with this kinda stuff.”
“No worries,” Blake says. “Let’s head to mine, yeah? Or do you wanna grab a bite on the way?”
They decide to go to Blake’s first and that Blake can show Charlie the culinary hotspots afterwards. As soon as they’re in through the door, Charlie asks about the cats, and then follows Blake around his apartment as he gives him the tour, both cats cradled against his chest. Blake snaps a picture of it, for the group chat, and maybe for Instagram, if Charlie doesn’t mind.
They pretty much spend the next two weeks in each other’s pockets, except for when Charlie goes apartment hunting, recounting the pros and cons of the ones he saw. One day he leaves only to look at an apartment one floor above Blake’s. He likes it. Later he asks Blake how he’d feel about being neighbors. “I’ll come by to borrow ingredients twice a week, but I’ll also share the cookies when I’m done.”
“You bake cookies?”
“I’ll bake you cookies right now,” Charlie says and then does exactly that.
He ends up picking the apartment upstairs.
They meet up with a bunch of the guys – a total of three of them are in town and they all congregate at their favorite pub, not too far from the arena, and they buy Charlie welcome drinks and also welcome onion rings and fries, so Blake doesn’t have to carry him home. They go to a baseball game, then Charlie abandons him to go to a few museums – Blake is most certainly not a museum kind of person. They try a bunch of restaurants, one of which looks like it’ll give them food poisoning. They survive, but decide that it might be in their best interest if they never go back.
Charlie eventually leaves to spend some time with his relatives in Toronto, where he’s also staying for camp. Probably the same camp that Elliot goes to every year. Blake has found himself a trainer in Newark, so he’s staying for the rest of the summer.
He drives Charlie back to the airport and gets a hug for his troubles.
#
Elliot goes from the NHL Awards to being a groomsman in Adam’s wedding, to Natalie’s parents’ summer house on the Cape in the span of about a week, then has to make it through drinks, a barbecue, meeting the neighbors, and several conversations about boats before he can finally go to bed.
He’s pretty sure that Natalie says something to him before he falls asleep, but he doesn’t reply. He’s exhausted and is honestly looking forward to a few quiet days on the beach, but Natalie’s family apparently doesn’t really do quiet. They play tennis. They have afternoon tea, they play board games, they talk about boats even more than the night before, and they organize parties and big dinners.
Elliot has obviously met Natalie’s parents before, but this is the first time he’s seeing them outside of the city, with no one having to run off to meetings or other appointments or work and Elliot… doesn’t fit in.
He doesn’t know shit about the stock market. Natalie’s dad works on Wall Street. Her mom is a successful lawyer. Elliot is painfully aware that he never even went to college. He’s out of place here. Especially
when they talk about boats. Many of Elliot’s teammates love fishing, but he is definitely not one of them.
“I’m sorry,” Natalie says, looking amused after her mom held Elliot hostage with a conversation about porcelain for half an hour. “They get excited about weird stuff.”
Elliot has never met anyone who was excited about porcelain.
He’d be more certain that he’s absolutely capable of making it through a week of this if Natalie’s parents weren’t also constantly mentioning childhood friends and cousins of Natalie’s who were just so happening to be getting married and having babies this summer. It’s all, did you hear about this friend who tied the knot, and did you hear about that cousin who just gave birth. The baby’s called Banjo.
Who the hell names their kid Banjo? Banjo and his brothers, Piano and Trumpet?
This is so not part of Elliot’s world.
The worst part is that every time the words marriage and babies are mentioned, someone, usually Natalie’s mom, throws a meaningful glance in Elliot’s general direction.
“Is your mom trying to tell me something with all the baby talk?” Elliot says as they crawl into bed together halfway through the week.
Natalie doesn’t reply. Doesn’t even laugh.
Elliot was cracking a joke here, he wasn’t trying to insult Natalie’s mom, which is what he tells Natalie, too.
Natalie still isn’t saying a word.
“What?” Elliot asks.
“Elliot, no one’s trying to pressure you,” Natalie replies.
“Okay?”
Natalie gives him a look, and he should probably know what it means, but Elliot is too tired to figure it out.
The next day, Natalie is acting weird around him, pulls her hand away when Elliot tries to take it, keeps her answers short and leaves Elliot on his own as he struggles through a few more conversations about things he knows absolutely nothing about, including wine, investment portfolios, and caviar.
“Did I do something wrong?” Elliot asks in the evening.
Natalie hasn’t said a word to him since she asked him to pass the bread during dinner.
“No,” Natalie says, but it was clearly meant to be a yes.
“Are you sure?”
“Are you sure you want to have this conversation right now?” Natalie asks.
“Uh… what’s the conversation?”
“Every time anyone brings up getting married, you act like it’s somehow a big mystery to you why anyone would think that we might get married one day,” Natalie says.
“Well…” Elliot shrugs. “It’s mostly that they’re acting like we’ll get married… I don’t know… tomorrow.”
Natalie gives him that stare she always does when she’s trying not to roll her eyes. “Humor me for a second,” she says. “Have you ever thought about getting married? Not that I’m saying that I want you to promise me that you’ll propose soon or anything like that. I’m asking about your general stance.”
“On getting married?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” Elliot says.
“I mean, is that something you can see in our future?”
Elliot should say yes. He knows that there’s only one right answer to that question. Because if he doesn’t say yes, it means that…
“You look freaked out,” Natalie says, eyes turning towards the ceiling, definitely annoyed with him now. “Please stop looking freaked out. We’re adults, we’ve been together for three years and it’s something you talk about when you’re in a relationship. Getting married, having kids… It’s not in our immediate future, but, you know, it might be relevant one day.”
“Right,” Elliot says. He needs to say more than that. His face is burning hot. He’s about to fucking panic. About getting married.
“Elliot.”
“Yeah?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I sort of assumed that this was the direction we were headed in?”
Elliot can’t really blame her for assuming that, because that’s usually the direction that you’re headed in when you love each other and you’re in a serious relationship.
Natalie gets back out of bed, which means that shit’s about to hit the fan. She’s better at arguing when she’s standing up. It must be some sort of lawyer thing. In any case, Elliot’s in trouble. “Listen,” Natalie says, “I’m going to be straight with you here. I want to get married. And I want to have kids. And I want those things with you. I love you, Elliot. But if we’re looking at two different futures here, I don’t know if…”
Elliot looks at her, that girl he met while he was buying a ridiculous amount of dumplings. He knows what this is. He can recognize an ultimatum when he sees it. If he doesn’t tell her that he wants to get married eventually, this is it for them. Natalie has obviously been waiting for him to propose and never said a word about it until now, and maybe Elliot should have known, but he didn’t even think about it. He thought he had more time.
He should have an answer to all this. He should know if he wants to spend the rest of his life with her, but he doesn’t. He should tell her that he loves her, too, that he needs a little more time, but will he know in a month? In a year?
Does he even want kids? Most of the guys have families, a kid, or four. Dima’s wife is often at their games with their son, who waves at Dima through the glass and it’s cute, but Elliot can’t really see Natalie behind the glass with their kid. It’s not even that he thinks he’d make a bad father, he’d probably be a decent one, at the very least, but the idea is still foreign to him.
“Nat, I…” Elliot bites down on his bottom lip. He can’t even tell her that he loves her right now, because he’d say it to deflect, to somehow make things right.
Natalie nods. “I see.”
“I’m sorry, I just… This is a lot right now.”
“Just tell me if you want to get married,” Natalie says. “Yes? No?”
Elliot doesn’t know.
“Yes, but not to me?”
Oh. This is bad. Because… what if she’s right?
“Okay,” Natalie says when Elliot says absolutely nothing, because this is only just sinking in for him now, too. She has tears in her eyes and it’s his fault. She nods. “Okay.”
“Nat.”
“You should go.”
“No, come on, let’s talk about this,” Elliot says, even though there’s no fixing this. He can’t make himself love her enough to give her what she wants, and he also can’t promise her something that he doesn’t really want. He can’t propose to her to end an argument.
“Elliot, I don’t think we have anything to talk about.”
Maybe they don’t.
“You want me to leave?” Elliot asks. Hell, he wants to leave. He’s wanted to leave ever since they got here.
Natalie nods.
Three years together and now he’s packing his bags, pulling his clothes back on. His car is downstairs, so he can drive… somewhere. It’s almost ten, so he won’t make it that far before he gets tired. It’s like he’s on autopilot, throwing his stuff back into his suitcase, Natalie sitting in the window seat, wearing a silk robe, watching him, tears running down her cheeks.
This was the worst time to have this conversation.
“I’ll explain things to my parents,” Natalie says. She takes him to the door, like she wants to make sure that he’s actually leaving, the house quiet. That’s the last thing she says to him.
The last thing he says is, “I’m sorry.” Not that it does much good, not that it fixes anything.
He goes back to New York for a few days. He doesn’t hear from her. He flies to Toronto like he was supposed to, stays with his parents, and takes two weeks to tell them that he and Natalie broke up when they won’t stop asking about her. She was supposed to join him while he was training, but she’s obviously not coming.
When he gets back to New York, Natalie’s stuff is gone from Elliot’s apartment, and her key is on the kitchen counter without a note.
The first time Blake sees Elliot’s apartment is a week before training camp starts for both of them. Elliot just got back into town and asked him if he wanted to hang out. Blake has been in town all along, mostly hanging out at Mattie’s house.
He invited him over for dinner the other day. Told him he’d retire at the end of the season. Mattie’s wife said he’d probably change his mind another twenty times, but Blake knows that Mattie’s made his choice. He hasn’t forgotten about what Mattie told him all those years ago, about seeing it coming. Blake is going to miss Mattie like hell, but he understands why Mattie told him.
So Blake will see it coming.
The invitation to Elliot’s is a good distraction, because otherwise Blake would spend another day wondering how he’ll deal with being on a team that doesn’t have Jake Matthews on it.
Elliot’s apartment is uptown and Blake takes the train, because he isn’t insane enough to drive, takes a book and reads on the train. He’s never been a huge reader, only picked up a book here and there and mostly stuck to audio books, but Charlie asked for the closest bookstore when he first came into town and they went and Blake has gone back there twice over the summer, looking around, picking up a bunch of fantasy novels.
Some kids recognize him at Penn Station and he stops to take pictures with them, other people looking at him like they’re trying to figure out who the hell he is, eventually wandering off when they realize that he’s not a Hollywood star.
Elliot meets him at the Subway, about ten minutes after Blake texts him that he made it and Elliot drags him to a takeout joint that sells Chinese food. Elliot walks in there with the confidence of someone who comes here more often than would make the Ravens’ nutritionist happy. He orders thirty dumplings.
“Seriously?” Blake asks.
“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”
“Have you invited ten other people?” Blake says drily, then remembers that Elliot has a girlfriend. “Oh, wait, is your girlfriend gonna be there?”
“Oh, uh, no. She’s kinda… not my girlfriend anymore,” Elliot says quickly and then turns away to order even more food, like the thirty dumplings, which are apparently just for the two of them, aren’t more than enough.
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