Not his choice, though, because he just asked Blake.
“Uh, wherever is easiest for you,” Blake says. “I’m not… you know. No need to pretend you’re fancy or anything.”
“Hey, I can be fancy.”
Blake grins and nods at the kitchen table. “That one’s fine.”
“Okay,” Elliot says and the demon that possessed him when he saw Blake with snowflakes melting in his hair on his doorstep wholeheartedly agrees.
It takes a while for the lasagna to heat up and for the cheese to melt, so Elliot throws together a salad in the meantime, Blake being extremely helpful by eating all the grape tomatoes before Elliot can even put them in the salad bowl.
“Stop it,” Elliot says and swats at Blake’s hand when he goes for another one.
“They’re good.”
Elliot sighs at him, grabs a handful and washes them, puts them in a bowl and hands them to Blake, who’s leaning against the counter, eyes gleaming like he’s a small child who got handed a bowl of freshly baked cookies.
“Do you want wine?” Elliot asks.
Blake wrinkles his nose.
“I guess that’s a no.”
“If your lasagna is only good with wine, I’ll have a glass, but…”
“My lasagna is good no matter what you have with it, thank you very much.”
Blake smirks and shakes his hair out of his face.
“How’s Evan doing?” Elliot asks as he turns his attention back to his salad.
“He’s okay,” Blake says. “He’s… He spent some time in Norwalk in the summer, even after I left and… I think he misses Grandma a lot. Like, not that I don’t miss her, but he was even younger when Mom and Dad died, so he has even fewer memories of them and now she’s gone, too, and…” Blake shrugs. “It’s not that I’m worried about him, because he’s all grown up and I’m still around, you know, if he needs anything, but…” Another shrug. “Sorry, that was a lot of family drama.”
“No, I mean… I asked,” Elliot says. He realizes that it’s been about a year since Blake’s grandma died. He doesn’t mention it.
Blake looks at him for a long moment. “It’s weird…” Trails off again.
“What?”
“No, it’s… it’s depressing.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Well…” Blake considers his bowl and eats a tomato. “I usually went home for Christmas, but then last year, I obviously couldn’t and Evan came over and it was… so fucking sad. We had the worst Christmas of all time. And this year I’m going to Mattie’s, because I’m his charity case, and maybe it won’t be sad, but it’s weird, because I’m only just starting to realize that every Christmas is gonna be like this from now on. It’ll just be me. I’m basically on my own now.”
“I’m sure you’re more than a charity case,” Elliot says.
Blake chews on his bottom lip. “I mean… yeah. I guess.”
“But, yeah, it’s… I’m sorry, Blake. That she’s not around anymore.”
Blake ducks his head. “Told you it was depressing.”
The thing is, though, Blake never talked about jackshit. Never even mentioned his parents to Elliot, other than that they’d died. Blake always liked to pretend that he’d never had a feeling in his entire life, and now he’s in Elliot’s kitchen, actually talking about this. Elliot wants to hold him as tightly as he possibly can right now, but that’s the worst idea he’s ever had and he has a salad he needs to work on.
“How are your folks doing?” Blake asks.
“Oh, they’re okay,” Elliot says. He doesn’t keep himself from talking about his parents anymore. He used to. Especially when they came to their games.
“Yeah? Are they coming down for the holidays?”
“They’re coming a week before Christmas. For those two home games we have before the break. And they’ll stay here for Christmas, and they’ll come up to Boston for that one away game we have and they’ll fly back from there. And I’ll come back here for the New Year’s game.”
“Matinee?” Blake asks.
“Yeah, thank fuck. Are you playing?”
“Nope. First time since I started playing in the NHL that I get to sleep in my own bed on New Year’s Eve.”
“Seriously? Where were you last year?”
“Edmonton.”
“Ew,” Elliot says, with feeling.
Blake laughs.
The demon that possessed Elliot never wants him to leave.
#
The second time Elliot cooks for Blake, it’s Blake who has the matinee game in Brooklyn and Elliot who has the day off because he came back from a roadie the night before.
Blake isn’t sure if he actually wants to go to Elliot’s after a game, is convinced that he’ll be terrible company, especially if he ends up losing the game, but then Elliot sounds so excited when he tells Blake that he found another day when their schedules might match up that Blake doesn’t have the heart to say no. He has a day off the next day, the first one in a while. He’ll sleep in.
At first Elliot only asks if Blake wants to hang out, then he calls him a few days before and says, “I’ll cook for you again, but you’ll have to come to mine.”
“You’re just saying that you’ll cook for me because you don’t wanna hike all the way over to my place, aren’t you?”
“I like cooking,” Elliot said, defensive.
Anyway, they could have met up somewhere in Manhattan. Would have been easy to get to from the Mariners’ arena. It’s also easy to get to Elliot’s, so Blake isn’t really complaining.
He leaves the arena in high spirits, after a shutout, technically on the road, even though it’s just Brooklyn. They’re having a great season so far, are at the top of their division. They’ve had to deal with some injuries in November – Blake missed four games, Kells missed six, Charlie missed three – but they quickly got back on track.
Blake takes a cab to Elliot’s. He isn’t insane enough to go on the Subway after a game, not when their fans are making their way back to Jersey. A bunch of them recognize him when he heads out of the arena, even though Blake did his best not to look like he’d just played a game. He left his suit with Mattie, put on jeans and the most nondescript hat he owns, but they somehow figure him out, so Blake takes a picture with them, signs their jerseys and then quickly flags down a cab before anyone else has a chance to get a good look at him.
When he gave his suit to Mattie, he grinned and said, “You got a hot date, kid?”
“If I had a hot date, I’d keep on the three-piece suit,” Blake deadpanned.
Brammer, next to them, was howling with laughter.
Mattie chucked a ball of tape at him that hit him square in the eye, so Brammer shut up pretty quickly after that.
“I’m hanging out with a friend,” Blake said, more quietly, so only Mattie could hear.
Mattie hummed, like he didn’t quite believe him. “Old friend on the Mariners?” he asked.
“Uh… no.” It did dawn on Blake eventually why Mattie had asked. Blake used to disappear very regularly after their games against the Mariners to hang out with an old friend. “Different friend.”
“I’m surprised you have more than one,” Mattie said drily and wandered off with Blake’s suit, but not without inviting him over for dinner the next day.
The ride to Elliot’s place takes longer than expected and when Blake gets to his apartment, Elliot is already in the middle of making dinner. When he opens the door for Blake, he’s wearing an apron. Striped. Like his shirt. But different stripes.
“Hey, you’re, uh… stripy,” Blake says, which is probably not the best greeting. He didn’t even bring pie this time because he came straight from the game.
Elliot grins and waves him into the apartment. “Nice game today. Don’t tell anyone I said that, though.”
“Thanks,” Blake says as he hangs up his coat. “Hey, do you want me to go get something for dessert, or…”
“No worries, I’ve got
it covered. I found something at the bakery that I wanted to try.”
“Oh. Cool.”
“Come on, sit down.”
Blake doesn’t sit down, because it’d be weird, watching Elliot cook from the kitchen table. So he leans against the counter next to the oven and watches from there. It’s an unfamiliar sight, seeing Elliot flit about the kitchen like he actually knows what he’s doing. It looks like they’re having steak tonight and if it’s even half as good as the lasagna Elliot made last time, Blake has a real treat to look forward to.
“I made fries, too,” Elliot says, like he does this every fucking day. “I’ll leave them in a little longer, so they get crispy.”
“Thanks,” Blake says. He starts digging through Elliot’s kitchen cupboards for plates and glasses, so he’s not completely useless.
Elliot’s done with dinner not too much later and the steak is amazing, but Elliot won’t tell him what exactly he put on it, just keeps grinning and telling him that it’s a secret. Elliot bought cupcakes for dessert, two with white chocolate and raspberries and two with dark chocolate and mint. Elliot seems to like the dark chocolate one so much that Blake lets him have the second one.
They end up on the couch, with a game on TV. Elliot’s couch is huge and he has one of those footrests that you can push around, so they can both put up their feet. Blake definitely needs this today, although he’ll probably nod off halfway during the game, so he tells Elliot to wake him up if he does. It’s the Cardinals against the Grizzlies. Likely to be a bloodbath. Neither of them would have picked a movie over this.
The score is 1-0 in favor of the Cardinals when they turn it on.
Elliot frowns at the TV for a second, head tilted.
“What?” Blake says. “Don’t tell me you’re rooting for the Grizzlies.”
“Please…” Elliot says, shaking his head. “I just remembered something. I’ll be right back.”
Elliot vanishes and returns a few minutes later, carrying a balled up… something. He drops it in Blake’s lap.
“What’s this?” Blake asks and holds it up. It turns out to be an All Star Game shirt from a few years ago.
“Turn it around.”
Blake does, finds that it’s a Josh Roy shirt. It’s signed. “No way.”
“He gave me a super weird look when I asked him to sign it for me.”
“I bet he did,” Blake says. He’s met Josh Roy before, took a picture with him, tried to be cool. Josh is only a year older than them, was made captain when he was only twenty. He’s been so valuable to the Cardinals ever since they got him. The thing with this shirt is that Elliot got it for him when he was still mad at him. They weren’t even talking at the time when that All Star Game happened. Blake almost wants to give him a hug, but they’re pretty much lying next to each other on Elliot’s couch and Blake doesn’t want this to turn into some kind of awkward full-body thing, so he says, “Thank you,” and leaves it at that.
Elliot smiles.
They watch the game and Elliot mumbles about how much he hates playing against Santana. Blake also hates playing against Santana, because he scores too much for a defenseman, at least in Blake’s humble opinion. He doesn’t care so much when it’s Charlie who scores a ridiculous number of goals, but Charlie isn’t putting the pucks in Blake’s goal. Only at practice.
Blake falls asleep before the game is over. He doesn’t mean to but there’s a commercial break and he wants to close his eyes for a second, which should be a sign for him to get up and go home, but tells himself that he can stay awake until, what, 9:45?
He can’t.
When he wakes up, the light in the corner is still on, but the TV is off. Elliot is next to him, curled up on his side, fast asleep. Blake doesn’t exactly stare at him, but he spends at least a few seconds considering Elliot’s eyelashes before he scoots forward to grab his phone from the table.
It’s 1:20 in the morning. Are there even still trains running? Probably. Maybe not as frequently as during the day. He could take a cab home. He doesn’t want to think about how much that would cost, despite him being… a millionaire. Basically. It’s still a waste of money.
Blake gives Elliot a nudge. “Hey…”
Elliot blinks at him and frowns. “Time’s it?”
“Past one,” Blake says.
“Ugh…” Elliot pats the couch. “No worries, just stay here.”
“Yeah?”
“Hmm.”
Blake lies back down, grabs himself a blanket and scoots away a little, wondering if he should get a blanket for Elliot, too, because he clearly isn’t in the mood to get up and sleep in his actual bed. He’s gone right back to sleep. Blake snatches a second blanket off the back off the couch and drapes it over Elliot as best as he can.
In the morning, Elliot wakes him up with a gentle shake, holding up a cup of coffee in front of Blake’s nose.
“Sorry,” Elliot says, “I need to head out for practice in a bit.”
“Oh…” Blake sits up quickly and takes the cup of coffee. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”
“It’s fine,” Elliot says, waving him off, like it’s nothing, like they do this all the time. But Elliot says it’s fine a lot and that usually means that it’s not.
#
Elliot makes omelets for breakfast, even though Blake tells him twice that he doesn’t have to, that he can buy something on the way to the Subway, that he’ll get out of Elliot’s hair.
That would only make things awkward, though. Elliot doesn’t want Blake to think that he wants him out of his apartment or that him sleeping here was a problem. Because it wasn’t. People sleep at Elliot’s place all the time, mostly teammates, but that’s basically what Blake is anyway, except he’s on a different team.
“You want some coffee for the way back?” Elliot asks when Blake is getting ready to leave.
Blake shakes his head.
Elliot should be ready to go already, but Adam will forgive him if he’s five minutes late. Adam is five minutes late all the time, so he might not even notice. He leaves the dishes in the sink and grabs his jacket. Might as well head downstairs with Blake.
“Hey, uh… thanks again for dinner and… for the shirt,” Blake says before they part ways. “And I guess we won’t see each other before Christmas so… Merry Christmas.”
“Thanks, you too,” Elliot says. He gives Blake’s arm a nudge before he walks away, towards the Subway. When he looks the other way, he finds Adam’s car, pulled over a few spots away.
Elliot sincerely hopes that Adam was too busy looking at pictures of puppies on his phone to look at the entrance of Elliot’s building, but Elliot’s hopes are squashed when he gets into the car and Adam says, “Is there something wrong with my eyes or was that Blake Samuels?”
“It was,” Elliot says, which is all the information he’s willing to offer.
“How did you never mention that he lives in the same building as you do? That’s fucking weird. It’s a bit of a commute to Newark.”
“He doesn’t live here.” Elliot can’t start a rumor that Blake Samuels lives on the Upper West Side. Shit like that travels fast, especially when it’s to make fun of an opposing player.
Adam looks at him, shaking his head. “Moo. What’s with the extra short sentences? Explain?”
“We’re friends,” Elliot says with a shrug.
“You and Blake Samuels.”
“Yeah.”
“And you had a sleepover?” Adam asks.
Elliot very sincerely hopes that Adam won’t come to a conclusion that’s not even the right one, because Elliot has mentioned to him that he used to see a guy in juniors and Adam is pretty smart and has an extremely active imagination. They haven’t talked about it ever since, but Elliot hasn’t forgotten that Adam knows.
“You sleep at my place all the fucking time,” Elliot says. Anyway, It’s not like he’s the only hockey player in the world who has friends on other teams. Which is also what he tells Adam.
&nb
sp; “Okay, but…” Adam narrows his eyes at him. “Wait, is he the friend you made the lasagna for?”
Elliot’s cheeks are hot. He hates everything about this. “So what?”
“Where’s my lasagna?”
Elliot snorts. Thank fuck. It’s just about food. “Are you jealous?”
“Yes? Because Blake Samuels apparently gets all the good food. Make me food, Moo.”
“You’re such an idiot. Start driving.”
Adam huffs at him, but does start driving, muttering about ribs and burgers and steak. Elliot does not mention that he did, indeed, make steak last night. Adam would never forgive him.
“Honestly…” Adam says ten minutes later, when he’s done giving Elliot ideas for their next dinner together, “I can’t see you being friends with a guy like Blake Samuels.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you’re all sunshine and he’s all… gloom and murder eyes.”
“He’s a really nice guy,” Elliot says.
“He’s hiding it well.”
“Dude, you’ve never even talked to him.”
“Yeah, because he’s scary.” Adam cackles. “Is he… secretly like a puppy?”
Blake really couldn’t be any less like a puppy, he’s more like an old dog who’s done with everyone’s shit, but still cuddly if you ask nicely. There’s something about Blake that makes Elliot want to be close to him. He knows it’s because he’s sort of lonely and because Blake is familiar and Elliot won’t turn it into a huge thing. It can’t be.
He just managed to figure things out with Blake and he’s so glad to have him in his life again and he won’t ruin that because he needs a hug.
“Sorry,” Adam says before Elliot has a chance to reply, “I don’t wanna be mean or anything, I swear. I’m sure he’s a great guy.”
Elliot only nods and makes a mental note to cook dinner for Adam at some point soon so he doesn’t have to be jealous of Elliot’s other friends.
“Hey,” Adam goes on, “if I get a puppy, will you help me convince Lou that Skywalker is a great name for dog?”
One of these days, Lou is going to murder Adam and Elliot won’t even be surprised.
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