“I also love my girlfriend,” Elliot says and it comes out almost petulant.
“Good for you.” Adam slaps Elliot’s back this time and it doesn’t hurt as much. “Can you help me with the ring?”
“I’m not sure if you’re asking the right person for help.”
Adam makes a face. “I don’t want help picking the ring, I want moral support.”
“Oh.”
“See, you’re exactly the right person for that.”
Elliot can’t really argue with that. He is pretty good at the moral support thing.
#
It almost seems too easy how early the Knights clinch their playoff spot, how little they have to fight for home ice. Mattie is going to get the start during the first round, despite Blake sitting on the bench less often. There were some mumblings around the trade deadline, about Mattie getting traded, about the Knights having Blake as their starting goalie for good, but Mattie gets to stay. He might re-sign at the end of the season and Blake will likely be the Knights regular starter next season with Mattie as their backup. Or at least those are Mattie’s musings.
Blake isn’t surprised when they give Mattie the nod for the first round of playoffs.
They end up playing the Mariners and Blake and Noah still chirp back and forth, never really go silent, even though their texts become less frequent. They mostly talk about the weather, and food, and Noah’s insane neighbor. Not hockey, never hockey.
The first game is going remarkably well for the Knights – after the first period they’re up 4-1. Blake isn’t one to be suspicious when things go too well, because that’s just life. Sometimes everything goes well. On other days everything goes to shit. Sometimes it’s both.
On the day of their fifth playoff game, it’s definitely both.
They have a chance to win this series, in front of their fans in Newark. All they need is one more win.
Then, during the second, Mattie takes a knee to the head, one of the Mariners barreling into him, tripping in front of the net. It takes a while for Mattie to get up, the guys quiet as he walks down the tunnel, leaning heavily against one of their trainers.
Blake tries not to think about what they’re looking at here. A concussion? Hopefully nothing worse. Whatever it is, Blake can’t think about it right now, he needs to make sure that they walk out of this with a win, one save after the other.
The clock runs down and they win, only barely, after an empty netter with a score of 5-3. Three guys jump into Blake’s arms as soon as the final horn sounds, shouting into his ear.
The next morning, it’s just Tanner and Blake on the ice, no Mattie in sight. One of the kids gets called up from the Raiders. Mattie has a concussion, will likely be out for a few weeks. No one says it out loud, but they all know it’s a bad one. “It’s all you now,” Tanner says to Blake. He’s not trying to scare Blake; he’s telling him the truth.
They make it past the Comets in Round 2, take it to seven games, three of which end in overtime.
Then it’s Round 3, Conference Finals, against the Grizzlies.
They lose the first, win the second, win the third, lose the fourth, lose the fifth, and somehow manage a win in the sixth, in double OT, after which Blake is so tired that he wants to sleep for a fucking week. They lose Game 7 in Boston, fall to the Grizzlies, just like the Bobcats and the Ravens did.
Blake knows that his grandma is in the crowd with Evan, and they both meet him after the game and Evan gives him a hug and says, “Sorry, man. Been there. Sucks.”
Blake only nods and lets his grandma hug him, too.
In the room, the guys are all quiet and subdued, although they keep patting Blake’s back as he moves around and when Kells talks to him later he says, lowly, “I hope you know that we wouldn’t have made it this far without you.”
He wasn’t really thinking about it.
It’s nice to hear.
Chapter Nine
Blake is two months into his sixth season of playing professional hockey when things go to shit fast and unexpectedly.
It’s a day off for the Knights because they just got back from a roadie in California and Nevada and he’s on his way home from the grocery store when his phone starts to ring. He almost ignores it, but then finds that it’s Aunt Beth – his grandma’s sister, so she isn’t really his aunt – and Aunt Beth never calls him, so he answers. “Aunt Beth? What’s up?”
“Blake, honey,” Aunt Beth says and she sounds all choked up, which is when Blake knows that it’s bad, so, so bad, and he stops dead in the middle of the fucking sidewalk, someone walking into him, grumbling at him in passing.
“What happened?” Blake asks.
He must sound like he’s scared shitless. He is. This is his worst nightmare. Blake is already running through all the things that could have happened. His grandma tripped over one of the cats and hit her head, she fell down the stairs, had a car accident on the way to Aunt Beth’s house.
Aunt Beth takes a breath on the other end of the line.
“How bad is it?” Blake presses.
“I got worried when she didn’t answer the door this morning, we were going to have breakfast together, and you know how she keeps a key under that pot out front and… I found her. Blake, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”
“She’s…”
“She didn’t wake up this morning.”
Blake is going to– He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s
