“Ohhh, suuure, there’s someone at the door.”
“There literally is someone at the door,” Blake says as he yanks the door open.
Charlie waves at him with one hand, holds up a plate of cookies with the other. Blake waves him into his apartment, pointing at his phone.
“Who’s at the door, then?” Noah asks.
“It’s Charlie,” Blake says and kicks the door shut. “I gotta go.”
“I swear to fucking God, if you’re making up–”
“What, do you wanna talk to him?” Blake says.
“Can I?”
“No,” Blake says. “I’ll see you in two weeks.”
“Can’t wait. Bye, babe.”
“Don’t–” Blake shakes his head. No point in telling Noah to stop calling him babe. “Bye.”
Charlie isn’t quite frowning at him, probably more confused than anything else. “I can go, you know? I just wanted to drop these off.”
“No, don’t…” Blake nods at the living room. “Noah was just being a dick, it’s cool.”
“Noah?”
“He plays for the Foxes. He, uh… got into a bit of a scrap with Pierce Martin, I wanted to make sure his head was still on straight.”
“He fought Piercer?” Charlie asks, eyebrows raised. “Fuck.”
“Yeah, apparently he was saying some shit…” Blake trails off, not sure if he should mention what kind of shit exactly, because with stuff like that guys can surprise you, and not in a good way. You’ll think that a guy you’ve been playing with for years is great, because he’s been nice to little kids, throwing pucks, helping out with charity stuff, inviting people over for barbecues, and then he’ll turn out to be a homophobic asshole.
That particular guy retired two years ago, but still. Blake has learned his lesson. Just because someone’s nice doesn’t mean they’re a good person.
“Ah,” Charlie says. He grabs Squid when he comes to investigate. “He’s always been…” He shrugs. “Let’s say we weren’t friends.”
Blake hums.
“He was…” More shrugging. “LA wasn’t… It’s not a good room… Anyway…”
“Hey, if you wanna talk about it…”
Charlie pulls a face. “There were a bunch of really shitty people in that room. Like, people who could really get you down. You could tell that those guys didn’t like each other much. And they’re still good players and the Lions, I mean, if you look at the on-ice performance, the Lions are a great team. But in the locker room? None of that.”
“That sucks.”
“You know how it is in our room? The guys chirp each other, but it’s… it’s fun. It’s not actually hurting anyone. And the shit Piercer was spewing sometimes… It was bad. I don’t know if you know Leon Danvers?”
Blake nods, he’s met Leon. He was the Lions’ backup goalie and got traded to the Comets in the summer.
“His sister’s gay. And she came to a game. With her girlfriend. And Piercer was all… weird about it.”
“Weird as in…”
“Weird as in I nearly punched him in the face,” Charlie says.
Blake grins.
Charlie grins back at him, then gets serious again. “That’s why I wanted to leave. The guys here aren’t like that. They wouldn’t… I don’t know. Like, I don’t have a gay sister, but I have a gay uncle and he couldn’t give less a shit about hockey, but what I’m saying is, I wouldn’t be scared of introducing him to you guys, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I get it,” Blake says. He doesn’t know why he’s so eager to change the topic. Maybe because it’s hitting a little too close to home.
He still hasn’t told anyone on the team, even though the guys probably know. They have to know. He doesn’t have a girlfriend, never had one, not a single one of them ever saw him flirt with a woman. They used to chirp him, especially when he still used to disappear after games to meet Noah, jokingly and loudly whispering about Blake’s secret girlfriend, but no one’s said anything in a while.
Sometimes he wants to ask Mattie. If he knows. If he’s figured it out. Sometimes he wants to find out if Mattie will look at him differently if Blake actually tells him. To his face.
Blake gives Charlie’s leg a flick. “Glad you came to the Knights.”
“Me too,” Charlie says. He chews on his bottom lip and looks around Blake’s apartment, at Angus, who’s sitting on top of the cat tree, glaring in their general direction. “You wanna hang out tonight?”
Blake was pretty sure that that was what they were already doing. He laughs. “Sure.”
#
It’s a supremely bad idea to get wasted after a game, even when you have the following day off. Because they don’t get a lot of days off. And Elliot doesn’t want to spend the entire day in his bed, convinced that he’ll throw up all over his entire life if he moves even just an inch. He’s been there. He should know better.
He still lets the guys drag him to a club after the game.
It was a good one, an 8-2 victory over the Mariners. They fucking hate the Mariners. The guys are overjoyed, the media is less nasty than usual and Elliot doesn’t even dread talking to them after the game. The boys want to go out after, Elliot promises to buy all the goal scorers a beer, but then they decide that a bar is too boring, and then suddenly Andreas and Crab are talking about this club they like, and Crab’s not even twenty-one yet, so what business does he have, having favorite clubs?
Elliot tries to talk his way out of going with them, but it looks like half the team is going, pretty much everyone who doesn’t have kids at home, even one guy who does have kids at home, so Elliot’s feeble protests are ignored and he’s going with them after all.
He doesn’t mind clubs so much, except it’s loud and he hates dancing, so he stays at a table with Adam, who also doesn’t like dancing, and Moby, who tells them that he has to get drunk before he goes dancing.
He orders three rounds of shots to start with and Elliot hasn’t even moved on to the second one when he starts to regret that he agreed to any of this, especially because the Elliot who’s had three shots doesn’t protest when Moby drags him on the dance floor with him.
Elliot does not dance.
He can’t.
He sways back and forth awkwardly in a gaggle of his teammates and… a bunch of other people. He recognizes a wife and two girlfriends, but doesn’t know any of the other people. It’s not until someone’s hands land on his ass with keen interest that he makes an escape, finding Adam exactly where he and Moby left him, somehow not drunk enough to give in to Moby.
“Had enough already?” Adam asks when Elliot scoots back into the booth.
“Someone touched my ass. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an accident.”
Adam cackles and pats his shoulder. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
Elliot does not need another drink right now, but he doesn’t tell Adam that, so he can’t exactly blame Adam for getting him one anyway.
While Adam is gone, Elliot fiddles with his phone and pulls up his latest text conversation, which was just him telling Blake that he can’t wait to wipe the floor with the Mariners. He could tell Blake something like hey, we actually did that, but ends up sending, help they dragged me to a club :(
Blake replies within the next minute, says, not coming to ny to rescue you, which is honestly just mean.
Elliot tells him exactly that. they made me dance, he adds, so Blake will see how terrible of a time he’s having right now.
Then Adam returns, hands him a drink and Elliot forgets about his phone for a bit.
Elliot isn’t very good at getting drunk. He doesn’t drink a lot, and if he does, it’s a beer, on some occasions two, but that’s usually it. He gets clingy when he’s drunk, always wants to lean not against something but someone, because people are generally more comfortable than things.
He’s also a lightweight.
“You okay, buddy?” Adam asks, with the shit-eating grin of a best friend who kn
ows that Elliot is currently having at least a dozen regrets.
“Fine,” Elliot says. “Where’s Lou?”
“Asleep on the couch,” Adam replies. “Can’t wait to be asleep on the couch with her, to be honest. But she thinks it’s important that I do stuff with the team. Like I didn’t want to stab every single one of these fuckers after our last roadie.”
Elliot snorts. He gets it. The guys can be… a lot. Moby was calling everyone mon cher by the end of it and Chris and Dima kept stealing each other clothes. Elliot nearly lost his shit when Dima tried to hide Chris’s jockstrap in his bag.
Adam tilts his head, which means he’s about to ask something personal. “How are… Have you been seeing anyone since you broke up with Natalie?”
“She broke up with me.”
“Either way…”
“Nah,” Elliot says.
“You want to?”
“I don’t know.” Elliot thinks about going out on dates and getting to know another person and being awkward around them before you settle into the whole relationship thing and… nah. Then again, his apartment is really quiet. And he thinks a lot about his apartment being less quiet. He doesn’t know how to make it less quiet, because it’s not like he’s going to put another person in it from one day to the next.
“You miss her?” Adam asks.
“No. Yes. No. I… I miss having someone around.”
“We can find you someone… to have around.” Adam wiggles his eyebrows. “The entire world is at your feet, Moo. You’re a hot guy in your twenties. You’re a millionaire. This shouldn’t be hard.”
“I… I don’t know. I fucked things up with Natalie. It was my fault.”
“Because you didn’t want to get married yet?” Adam asks.
Elliot told him the whole story. He sort of had to explain what happened. The thing is, it wasn’t so much about getting married now. It was more about… “Because I didn’t want to get married to her.” Elliot scrunches up his nose. “Do you think there’s like… you know, in romcoms and shit… there’s always, like, that one person that’s exactly right for you. But that’s bullshit, right?”
“Yeah, probably bullshit. They’re trying to scare us.”
“But don’t you think Lou is the one?” Elliot asks. “How did you know you wanted to marry her?”
See, he would not even be asking this if he was sober. Sober Elliot would be too polite to ask questions that personal.
“Moo, I know that you know that relationships are hard fucking work. And with Lou… I guess she wanted to do the work.”
“And I guess I didn’t want to do the work with Natalie?”
“It’s not always just about doing the work, though,” Adam says. He shrugs and gulps down the rest of his drink. “Sometimes it’s about other stuff. You can’t make yourself love someone more just because you want to make it work.”
“Is this a weird conversation to have?” Elliot asks.
“No, dude, it’s not. You guys were together for a while and then you suddenly weren’t.”
“I tried to call her after and she didn’t pick up.”
“Can’t make her want to do the work either,” Adam says. “Here…” He takes Elliot’s empty glass. “I’ll get us another one.”
Before Elliot can protest, Adam’s gone. He returns remarkably quickly, handing Elliot another drink. “There were cute girls at the bar.”
“Good for them.”
“Okay, not in the mood for that. I get it. But right now you’re moping and that’s sad. Moo. You–”
They’re interrupted by Moby, who’s come to drag Elliot back on the dance floor and Elliot goes, because if he sits next to Adam, he’ll mope and it’s too early to go home. He has to be a good captain. Adam follows them, with great reluctance, hovering at the edge of the dance floor, slowly shifting his weight from one leg to the other.
Unsurprisingly, Adam is the first one to beg off, followed by Moby and his girlfriend, then the rest of the guys head home one by one, some on their own, some with a girl in tow. Elliot heads out of the club with them and hails a cab. He miraculously manages to stay awake until they’re at his apartment building and he somehow makes it into the elevator and somehow makes it through the door, tugs his shoes off and then faceplants into bed.
He’s not as wasted as he feared he would be.
Maybe he should set an alarm. He’ll get up before noon, so he won’t waste his entire day off.
When he fiddles with his phone to set an alarm for a reasonable time, he finds a text from Blake. Two, actually. The first one says, I think dancing is one of your duties as their captain, the second one says, try to have fun for like a second I dare you.
It makes Elliot smile.
It also makes Elliot call him. For some reason. He can’t explain it to himself.
“You’re so lucky that I’m in Seattle,” Blake says.
“Sailors tomorrow?” Elliot asks. It doesn’t come out steady.
“Yeah. Did you just get home?”
“Mmm, I made it. Finally.”
Blake coughs. Hiding a laugh. What an ass. “You’re an old man.”
“So what?”
“No, I mean, I get it, I’d choose a pub over a club at all times,” Blake says. “Did you have fun for a second, though?”
“No.” Elliot sighs. “Someone touched my butt, Blake.”
“Well, I’m sure that person had a great time.”
“You’re not funny.”
“That was the worst chirp ever,” Blake says. “Go to bed, Elliot. But drink a glass of water first.”
“No.”
“Seriously. You’ll thank me tomorrow morning.”
“S’already tomorrow.”
“Maybe where you are.”
Elliot groans. “Blake…”
“Yeah?”
“I…” Elliot squints and tries to remember what he was going to say. “Did I wake you up?”
“No… Seattle, remember?”
“Yeah. Right. I’m gonna cook for you when you’re back in town.”
Blake laughs and it’s soft and it makes a knot unfurl somewhere in Elliot’s stomach. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t wanna call you but I wanted to.”
“Makes perfect sense,” Blake says and there’s some amusement in there. “You’re all good, Elliot. Don’t forget to drink water.”
“Water sucks,” Elliot mumbles.
“You’re about to fall asleep right where you are.”
“Bed.”
“Yeah, I hope that’s where you are.”
“Mmmm.”
“Good night, Elliot.”
“Hm.”
Elliot barely notices when the line goes dead, doesn’t look up when his phone gives one last chime.
In the morning, after half an hour of groaning, he reads the text that Blake sent him last night – do you regret that you didn’t drink any water.
fuck off, Elliot replies.
But, yes, he does regret it.
Chapter Thirteen
The first time their schedules line up again, they meet for dinner in the city. Elliot has a matinee game that day and after games he’s usually not in the mood to play masterchef, but he wants to hang out with Blake. So he tells Blake there’s a restaurant he wants to try and then spends an hour finding a restaurant that he actually does want to try.
Blake goes on a roadie the day after; Elliot plays one more home game and then leaves for two games in Canada.
When he comes back, Blake is still on the road in the West, but they set up a dinner date – well, not a date, but an informal meeting – for when Elliot has time to cook for Blake. Blake has a day off on a day that coincides with a day when Elliot only has practice in the morning and no obligations in the evening.
Elliot makes lasagna the first time Blake comes over for dinner, because he’s made it so many times that he can cook it in his sleep. Not a lot that can go wrong there. He can prep it in advance before Blak
e even gets to his place. Blake said he’d bring dessert and he promised that he wouldn’t try to make it himself.
Elliot does remember Blake cooking him eggs and bacon for breakfast when Elliot came to visit him during a summer many years ago, but maybe eggs and bacon aren’t exactly hard, so he doesn’t have much of a grasp on Blake’s cooking skills. Elliot can’t imagine that Blake’s grandma would have let him move into his own place without teaching him the basics, though.
Blake arrives carrying a box that probably has pie in it, snowflakes melting in his hair, after walking through an early December flurry. His hair is not in a bun today, just loosely falling down to his shoulders, ink-black, soft.
“Hey,” he says.
Elliot stares, only for a moment, before he, too, says, “Hey. Come on in.”
Blake hands him the box, takes off his boots, hangs up his coat, and then he’s standing in Elliot’s hallway in jeans and a blue sweater that matches his eyes exactly and Elliot is probably having some kind of aneurysm, because he saw Blake not too long ago and he didn’t want to stare at him for an hour like he does right now.
He doesn’t know what changed.
“Thanks for… this,” Elliot says and lifts up the lid of the box. It’s cherry pie.
“Still like cherry?” Blake asks.
Elliot nods, can’t believe that Blake even remembered.
Blake is clearly pleased with himself. “What’s for dinner?”
“Crispy lasagna,” Elliot says and wanders into the kitchen, Blake at his heels.
Elliot pushes the lasagna into the oven with Blake looking on like he still isn’t sure if he trusts Elliot’s abilities, which is fair, because Elliot’s first attempts at cooking pretty much anything ended in at least minor disasters. He had to buy some new pans and pots when he ended up burning food and there was no scrubbing those black marks away.
“Where do you wanna eat?” Elliot asks. He has a small table in the kitchen that seats three and another table around the corner where dining and living room share the same space. The dining room table is too formal, too big, would put them too far away from each other, but then he thinks about knocking his ankles against Blake’s under his small kitchen table and suddenly he wants that space between them.
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