“Same,” Blake says.
Noah winks at him. “I’m the guy who kept taking your net off.”
“Yeah, as if I could forget,” Blake says.
“Here, let me get you a drink and we’ll call a truce until tomorrow morning,” Noah says and nudges him further into the house. Brammer has disappeared to fuck-knows-where. “What’ve you been up to?”
Blake shrugs. “Hockey, training, you know…”
“Yeah, hockey, training, winning the Calder Cup… That kinda stuff, huh?”
For some reason, Blake’s face goes hot under Noah’s scrutiny when he doesn’t reply right away. There’s something sheepish about Noah’s smile. “Yeah, stuff like that,” Blake eventually says.
“Did you have a good day with the Cup?”
Blake nods. “I took it back home. Put some ice cream in it.”
“Where’s home?”
“Norwalk.”
Noah’s eyebrows twitch. “Connecticut?”
“Yeah,” Blake says. Noah would know it, of course, because he spent a little over two seasons playing for the Mariners’ farm team in Bridgeport. They played against each other quite a bit and Noah somehow took his net off every time they played against each other, until the Mariners’ entire D-corps completely fell apart last season and Noah got called up and never got sent back down again.
Blake follows Noah through the kitchen and a set of doors and then they’re next to the pool, where they instantly get soaked by one of Noah’s teammates – if Blake remembers correctly – who is chasing one of Blake’s teammates around the pool with a water gun. Blake and Noah get caught in the crossfire.
“Oh, great,” Blake says gruffly.
Noah laughs and grabs a drink from a table that’s probably supposed to be safe from the fighting in the pool area. The drinks are very blue. “Try these. Brammer’s girlfriend made them and they’re amazing.”
A light breeze ruffles Noah’s hair. He has a scar that cuts through his eyebrow and it makes him look a little like a pirate. Who’s also a Disney prince. And a model. All at the same time.
“What did you do this summer?” Blake asks, mostly to distract himself.
“Went to the Caribbean with some of the boys, said hi to my mom. She lives in LA, because Dad used to play there way back in the day and after they got divorced, she didn’t want to stay in Vancouver, so she went back.”
Ten minutes later they’re deep into a conversation about how Noah wouldn’t call himself Swedish, having grown up in Canada, with a few trips to Sweden sprinkled in here and there. His dad is working in Vancouver, for the local broadcast crew, but it seems that Noah isn’t too keen on talking about his famous hockey player dad and quickly changes the topic back to his mom. She is probably a model or a movie star, and that’s why Noah looks like he should be playing a character on Baywatch.
They watch the water gun battle come to end with all parties jumping into the pool, splashing everyone who hasn’t managed to duck behind something. Blake is only fast enough to shield his drink, but ends up getting splashed from head to toe. Noah, next to him, has somehow mostly stayed dry.
“Great,” Blake says again. He’s wearing swimming trunks, but his shirt is pretty much soaked through.
“Sorry, Fish,” Henny shouts from the pool. Going by the shit-eating grin on his face, he’s not sorry at all.
“Fish,” Noah echoes.
Blake waves him off, because he doesn’t want to explain the salmon thing again. He wipes a few wet strands of hair out of his face.
Noah gives him an approving look, eyes dipping to the sea monster tattoo on Blake’s arm. “You know, that’s a good look on a guy whose nickname is Fish.”
“Thanks,” Blake says dryly.
“Maybe we should hop in, too.”
“Huh…” Not the worst idea. Blake, pale even after spending a decent number of days in the summer sun, looks like a ghost next to some of the other guys, but he’s used to it. He’s never been self-conscious about the way he looks. His height was an issue for a while, but he literally grew out of that.
When Noah tugs off his shirt and leaves it by the side of the pool without a care in the world, Blake can’t help but feel… something. Blake quickly looks away, spreads out his own shirt on a chair so it’ll dry in the sun while he’s in the pool, and jumps into the water alongside Noah.
Blake ends up on a floating unicorn, feet dangling into the water, then someone puts heart-shaped sunglasses on him that likely belong to someone’s girlfriend, next is a drink in his hand and then Brammer is snapping a picture, cackling as he keeps fiddling with his phone, probably putting that picture on Instagram for the entire world to see. Blake quite likes the unicorn and stays where he is, but gives back the sunglasses when a blonde girl at the side of the pool asks if she could please have them back. She blows a kiss his way when he hands them over.
Noah eventually tips over his unicorn and takes off, legs kicking, but Blake catches him quickly and pulls him under, laughing when Noah tries to retaliate but goes under again because he’s not tall enough to stand.
“You always look so serious on the ice, I didn’t realize you even…,” Noah grins, “know how to smile.”
Blake huffs.
“Honestly, your murder eyes are scary.”
“I don’t have murder eyes,” Blake protests.
“Yeah, you do,” Henny throws in, now chilling in the hot tub at the side of the pool. “I’d be so scared if we weren’t on the same team.”
Noah nods. “Now imagine how I felt.”
“Next time you come at me with the puck, I’ll smile,” Blake says, even though he has no
