Elliot nods and, with some reluctance, makes himself comfortable on Blake’s bed, Blake next to him, making sure there’s some space between them. He lets Elliot pick the movie. They don’t say much, only mumbling to each other now and again to comment on how terrible the movie is.
Blake isn’t really expecting Elliot’s finger to land on his arm.
“Did those hurt?” Elliot asks, tracing a line of waves on Blake’s forearm.
“Yeah,” Blake says, because they really did. Took a long time, too. He didn’t get them all at the same time.
Elliot hums, fingers curled around Blake’s wrist, turning over his arm. “I like them a lot.” He nods at the sleeve of Blake’s shirt. “Can you…”
Blake pulls it up as far as it’ll go. This isn’t the first time that someone’s looking at his tattoos; he’s used to it. Brammer lost his shit the first time he saw the full sleeve, kept turning Blake’s arm over until Blake told him to knock it off, grabbing Mattie’s stick to poke him until he escaped across the room. Loads of people have asked to see it. But when it’s Elliot’s fingers on his skin, it’s different. His cheeks turn hot with Elliot’s eyes on him.
“What about the other side?” Elliot asks.
“You want me to turn over?”
Elliot shrugs. “You don’t have to.”
Blake shifts, lies on his side so Elliot can see the other arm, his fingers quickly finding Connecticut, the line of trees above it.
“Your parents birthdates?” Elliot asks when the tip of his finger stops on the line of numbers that is hiding in the feathers on Blake’s forearm.
Blake nods and turns his arms so Elliot can see the others.
“And your grandma’s?”
Blake hums.
“And… Evan’s?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s nice,” Elliot says. His fingers linger on Blake’s arm for a moment, then he pulls them away, lies down on his side as well, facing Blake, and says, “I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
“About… this,” Elliot says.
Ah. Yeah. This.
“I shouldn’t even have to make a decision,” Elliot says. “It shouldn’t be… How can you even still want to be with me when I can’t say, ‘Yes, Blake, I want to be with you,’ right now?”
“Because it’s not that easy. I know it’s not that easy.”
“Aren’t you scared?” Elliot asks. “That someone could find out? And then…”
Blake has to think about it for a moment, because the thought of someone finding out doesn’t sit well with him at all, but is he really scared of it? “I think the chances of someone finding out are relatively slim,” Blake says. “And I think that our teams would probably mind their own business if they knew…” He bites his lip, another thought about to slip out. He’s not sure if he wants to put it out there. “Half my team probably knows that I’m gay.”
Elliot frowns. “How?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend. I’ve never had one. And they stopped asking after a while and they stopped trying to set me up and all that. So the guys that have been around long enough… They probably know.”
“But they haven’t said anything.”
“No.”
“And you haven’t said anything.”
“No,” Blake says. “I was thinking about telling Charlie. And Mattie. I just… never did.”
“I don’t know how I managed to tell you,” Elliot mumbles.
“Was it because of the lesbians?” Blake asks. His grandma was friends with two lesbians who frequently dropped by. One of them still lives across the street. Elliot met them the first time he was at Blake’s house, a little taken aback when his grandma told them that the lesbians were coming over for dinner.
Elliot laughs. “Yeah, it was probably because of the lesbians. What happened to them?”
“One of them died a few years ago. Martha,” Blake says. “I think she was eighty-seven. And Gladys is still alive and Evan said she came by when he was home during the summer and brought him a casserole.”
“That’s nice of her,” Elliot says. He yawns and curls in on himself a little.
“Yeah.”
“That was a good summer.” Elliot is starting to sound sleepy, eyelids fluttering. “When I was there… and we were…” He smiles.
Blake should kick him out before he falls asleep, because he knows he won’t if Elliot falls asleep in his bed. “Have you been to Iceland yet?” Blake asks.
“No,” Elliot says.
“Seriously? Why not?”
“I don’t know.” Elliot’s eyes are definitely closed now. “You should go with me.”
“I…” Blake sighs. “Elliot?”
“Hmmm.”
“Elliot.”
“Hm.”
“You’re fucking killing me,” Blake says. “Go back to your room.”
This time he doesn’t even get the vaguest of sounds in reply.
#
When Elliot wakes up, it’s three in the morning and he’s still in Blake’s bed.
He knew he was starting to get tired and could have left, and then didn’t. And Blake clearly didn’t wake him up. Elliot wouldn’t have woken him up either if he’d fallen asleep in his bed. He gets up slowly, careful not to shake the mattress, grabs his phone and his room key, pulls on his shoes, and then tiptoes around the bed, tripping over one of Blake’s shoes.
Blake doesn’t wake up when Elliot curses loudly. Blake is on his back now, snoring quietly. Elliot wants to lie back down next to him so badly, pretend that he didn’t wake up and just sleep here, with a few inches between them, but then he’d hope that he’d roll against Blake in the night, that Blake would put his arm around him and that he’d wake up with Blake’s breath tickling the back of his neck.
Most of the time, sleeping that close to someone isn’t that great anyway, it gets too hot and you end up with someone’s knee jamming into your thigh or someone’s elbow in your ribs, and it’s really not that romantic. But Elliot still stares at Blake for at least a minute, contemplating how cross he’d be with himself in the morning.
He really needs to go.
At least he manages to get out of Blake’s room without tripping over anything else and the door shuts behind him with a quiet click.
He’s halfway down the hall to the elevators – his room is one floor up – when a door opens behind him and Noah Andersson not-very-stealthily slips out into the hallway. He freezes when he sees Elliot, who’s also frozen to the spot, because there’s really not a good explanation for sneaking out of someone else’s room at three in the morning. And, okay, Elliot is standing in the hallway, but there’s also no good explanation for standing in the hallway at three in the morning.
Noah walks up to him, somehow managing to look casual about it. His shoes aren’t tied and his shirt is buttoned up the wrong way.
“Headed for the elevator?” Noah asks.
“Yeah,” Elliot says and starts walking again, with Noah following at his heels.
“What a coincidence,” Noah says, “so am I.”
Elliot pushes the button for the elevator and it takes forever to come, and they’re only going up one floor, both of them, Elliot nodding when Noah hits the button for the fifth floor, and it still seems like the longest elevator ride in Elliot’s life.
“Hey, uh, if I don’t mention this to anyone and you don’t mention this to anyone,” Noah says, “it’ll sort of be like it never even happened.”
“Yeah,” Elliot says. “Great. Let’s… never mention this to anyone.”
The doors glide open, Noah nods at him and quickly struts away.
Elliot follows, but walks the other way, to his room, fumbles with the key card, nearly drops it, and then jams it into the slot with a little too much force, eager to get out of this hallway.
He lets out a deep sigh when he’s finally in his room and then lies awake in bed for half an hour.
Elliot doesn’t have a chance to tal
k to Blake the next day, at least not in private. They’re around each other and they do talk, but there’s always someone else there. Someone asks for a picture of the two of them, since they were on the same team in juniors and Elliot sees later that their junior team retweeted the picture, adding another one from when they were still on the team. Elliot doesn’t remember that picture even being taken – it’s just him and Blake on the ice, probably after practice, Blake covering Elliot’s head with his catching glove.
“Do you remember this?” Elliot asks when he shows Blake.
“Yeah,” Blake says, “I have that one at home somewhere.”
“Huh,” Elliot says and looks down at it again.
They’re interrupted by George Tremblay’s kid, who’s been making her way around the locker room with a jersey and a sharpie, asking them very politely if they could please sign her jersey. Her dad, probably one of the biggest and scariest D-men in the league, is looking on fondly. He doesn’t usually look fond on the ice and Elliot is happy that he’ll be on their team tomorrow.
There’s some interviews, then the skills competition, and Elliot borrows Tremblay’s kid for the breakaway challenge and apparently he’s her new favorite person after that, because she won’t go back to her dad and sits with Elliot until her dad forcibly removes her. She finds Elliot again afterwards and tugs him with her so her mom can take a picture of them.
Then there’s more interviews.
That night, Elliot goes to sleep in his own bed and he doesn’t ask Blake if he can come to his room again.
They win the game the next day and Elliot scores twice with Morgan Boyle on his line. They exchange sticks after the game, and then Elliot takes one of his other sticks over to Blake, who’s in the middle of taking off his pads, and gives him a tap.
“You wanna exchange sticks?” Elliot asks. It’s ridiculous, because they’re good enough friends that Elliot can ask Blake for a stick whenever he wants and Blake would probably give it to him, but this is a special occasion and if there’s anyone’s stick that Elliot wants to take home with him, it’s Blake’s. “If you still have one left.”
“Yeah, I only promised one to Morgan,” Blake says and gets up to grab one of his sticks. “Want me to sign it?”
“You have to do the fish,” Elliot says.
“I always do the fish, but I’ll make it really big for you and give him a face, okay?” Blake says with the straightest face imaginable and then turns around to ask someone for a sharpie.
Elliot signs his stick for Blake in the meantime and Josh Roy comes by to give each of them a pat and to thank them for playing well.
They end up on the same flight back to New York, but Blake’s sitting next to his teammate and they’re talking about how weird it was to be on different teams when Elliot passes them to sit down behind them. Paul Mooney nods at him, and Blake smiles, just a little.
Elliot sits down, buckles in, gets his headphones and goes right to sleep, because that’s really the only way of dealing with sitting behind Blake for several hours.
Chapter Seventeen
The Ravens clinch their playoff spot in their second to last game of the season, on the road, in Hartford, of all places. They haven’t won a game against the Cardinals all season and the boys are in good spirits in the locker room after. There’s a good chance that they’ll be playing against them during the first round, unless the Knights knock them out of the first seed. If the Knights win their game on Saturday and the Cardinals lose their last game of the season, the Ravens will be seeing the Knights early on.
Elliot keeps telling himself that he has no control over the outcome anyway, that it doesn’t matter who they end up playing against, because they’ll try to win either way. There’s no way of telling which opponent will be easier, there’s no guarantees during the playoffs. Teams that won the President’s Trophy sometimes don’t make it to the finals, teams that had to claw their way into a wildcard spot sometimes end up taking their opponents by surprise. Elliot daydreams about being one of those teams, season after season fighting for a playoff spot, barely making it, and then going far one year, giving the team some confidence.
He knows it’s really just that. A daydream.
They’re lucky they’re making the playoffs at all.
Elliot goes out for drinks with the guys after the game, but he doesn’t stay for long. He’s tired and he blocked a shot during the game, his thigh throbbing dully now, and he wants nothing more than to curl up in bed and stay there for a week, but he doesn’t get that kind of luxury.
They’re going to Boston tomorrow, to play their last game of the season on Saturday. They already had their last game at home, a 7-2 loss against Toronto. It wasn’t exactly a great way to close out the season at home, but at least they’ll be back for the first round of playoffs and they’ll have more than one chance to redeem themselves.
“Hey, Moo, wait for me.”
Elliot turns around and finds Adam speed-walking up to him. “Hey,” Elliot says. “Heading back, too?”
“Yeah, not gonna lie, I’m tired as fuck,” Adam mumbles.
Elliot nods and gives him a pat on the back.
They’re mostly silent as they walk, until Adam clears his throat and says, “Are you ever scared that we’re just… never gonna win the Cup? Like, what if it’s just us barely making it for the next ten years or something?”
It’s not like Elliot hasn’t thought about it. There are so many variables to this sort of thing. Of course, you can always sign with another team, or even ask to be traded when you think the team you’re on isn’t going anywhere, but then maybe the next year is your team’s year and you’re somewhere else, watching your former team win the Cup from afar.
It’s not like Elliot is unhappy in New York. He loves his team, he loves the city, their fans, and if someone asked him if he wanted to leave right now, Elliot would say no, absolutely not, he’ll stay as long as they’ll have him, but he knows where Adam’s coming from. And Adam only has about a year left on his contract.
“Are you thinking about leaving?” Elliot asks.
“No, not really,” Adam says. “Just… Don’t you think about it sometimes?”
“I do. Sometimes.”
“There are so many players that are so, so good, like… Blake MacDonald? Hasn’t won a Cup with the Sailors. Or Ian Grey with the Lions? No Cup. How is that fair?”
Elliot only shrugs, because he doesn’t have an explanation for it either.
“I’m not going to leave you, though, Moo, I swear,” Adam says. “You’ll never get rid of me. Unless the Ravens get rid of me.”
“They wouldn’t,” Elliot says. He can’t even imagine being on a line with someone other than Andreas and Adam. They’re his guys. They work together, they produce, they get along well off the ice, too. They’ve had a couple of coaching changes over the years, but every single coach they’ve had saw that they were better together.
That doesn’t change that guys come and go, though. Magnus was great on his line, too. He still got traded.
“Maybe this year is our year,” Adam says.
Elliot nods, says, “Yeah, maybe,” his stomach in knots when he realizes that he doesn’t actually mean it.
“Hey, Moo…”
“Yeah?”
Adam smirks. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Sure,” Elliot says.
“Don’t tell anyone, yeah?” Adam leans closer, like he does sometimes when he pretends that he has something important to say and then just flicks Elliot’s nose and cackles. This time, he doesn’t. He says, “I’m gonna be a dad, Moo.”
“For real?”
“Yeah, Lou’s pregnant.”
Elliot has never been told how to react when your best friend tells you that he’ll be a father, so he hugs Adam and says, “That’s great, Adam.” He’s pretty sure that Adam is excited about this. Adam sounded excited.
It’s such a grown-up thing to do. And it’s not that Elliot can’t see Ad
am as a dad, but the thought simply never occurred to him. That this is an imminent development in their lives.
Elliot’s parents have been asking him if he’s seeing anyone and Elliot has so far evaded those questions, changing the subject whenever anything relationship-related came up. His mom did ask him if he’s looking not too long ago and Elliot said something non-committal. He knows his parents want grandchildren, talk about it whenever a major holiday rolls around and it gives Elliot anxiety, because he’s too young to even think about having children, although Adam, who’s only about a year older than him, is about to become a dad.
“But, seriously,” Adam says, “don’t tell anyone yet, the thing has only been hanging out in there for like seven weeks and Lou doesn’t really want to spread it around yet.”
“The thing?”
“I don’t know what it is yet,” Adam says with a shrug. “It’s a thing. Cell Blob. Lou hates it when I call it that, but she calls it an alien, so who the fuck is the worse parent here?”
Elliot laughs. “So you are gonna find out what it is?”
“Probably. Lou likes knowing stuff like that. Maybe she’ll know and I won’t. I don’t know. I kinda really want a girl. Which is weird, because all the guys always want boys, but a girl would be nice, I… Not that I’d be disappointed if it’s a boy.” Adam groans. “I’m such a terrible dad already.”
“Nah, you’ll be fine,” Elliot says.
Adam reaches over to pat his head. “How does it feel to be an uncle?”
“I’m not actually an uncle.”
“You will be in a couple of months.”
Elliot gives Adam another hug. The Ravens would be a much worse team without him.
#
The last game of the season actually means something for the Knights this year. There are no call-ups on the ice. It’s their regular roster that gets dressed for the game, it’s Blake in the crease.
Mattie, in the stall next to him, looks a little wistful when he puts on his baseball cap. He’s played his last game of the season, maybe even the last game of his career. Blake doesn’t know what he’ll do without him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Mattie grumbles.
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