Noah rings his doorbell not too much later, carrying four bags full of Chinese food that they’ll never be able to eat, which is what Blake tells him when Noah drops them all on the living room table.
“I figured you could use some leftovers, I don’t know… when my sister died, I didn’t really feel like cooking for… a while.”
“Your sister died?”
“I was twenty, it was before… We didn’t really know each other yet, so you wouldn’t know.” Noah shrugs. “Anyway.”
“I’m sorry,” Blake says.
Noah squeezes his wrist, then he says, “Uh… Fish?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s a cat, like, right there.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s Squid. He was my grandma’s, and Angus, too, and they sort of needed a place to go, so I took them with me.” Blake frowns at him. “You’re not allergic, are you?”
“Nope, just a dog person.” Noah sits down on the couch, eyeing Squid warily. “No worries, we’ll stay out of each other’s way.” He points at Squid. “No scratchies. No attackies.”
Blake snorts. “Weirdo.”
“Shut up. Eat these amazing mini spring rolls I brought you. Mostly dough, minimal veggies, just the way you like them.”
“Thank you.”
“Sure.”
“For coming over, too.”
Noah winks at him and grabs one of the cartons, probably something with fried beef. Squid seems to be more interested in whatever Noah is eating and starts climbing into his lap.
“Uh…”
“Squid, come on,” Blake says and tries to lure him away, but he seems to be having an excellent time in Noah’s lap. “Guess he likes you?”
“Orange beast, if your claws get anywhere close to the goods, I’ll take issue.”
“He’ll be good,” Blake says.
Noah huffs and starts eating his food, Squid in his lap, eyes closed. “I guess he’s okay,” Noah eventually says.
#
“Hey… Hey, Moo! Where do cows live?”
“If you say Moo York, I’m gonna fucking strangle you,” Elliot mutters. He’s trying to get off his practice jersey and it got caught on his pads somewhere and now he’s wiggling around like an idiot.
“Here,” Adam says and frees him. “But fuck you for hating on my joke.”
Elliot huffs at him and starts pulling off his pads, putting them back with a little too much force.
“You okay, dude?” Adam asks.
“Yeah.”
“You wanna go grab a bite?”
“I’m fine,” Elliot says.
“No offense, Moo, but, like… You’re not subtle. And you’re the happiest, sunshiniest person I know and right now you look miserable and also kinda mad and it’s unsettling, so… let’s go grab a bite. Actually, come to my house, so we can talk. I have food.”
Elliot doesn’t say yes, because Adam is going to drag him with him anyway. He tried to keep it off the ice, but he clearly didn’t manage to keep it out of the room, and he’ll be the first one to tell his guys that it’s okay to have a bad day, but he doesn’t want to have a bad day and he’s angry at himself for– What? Allowing himself to have emotions?
Yeah, sounds about right.
He showers, angrily, and he gets dressed, angrily, and then they head out together and Elliot follows Adam to his place. Adam makes them steaks and veggies and they talk about their game against the Bobcats tomorrow and for a while Elliot isn’t even in that terrible of a mood. At least until Adam says, “So, what’s wrong?”
“It’s not… It’s personal shit.”
“Well, tell me about the personal shit. Unless it’s… Is it, like, weird sex stuff?”
“Dude,” Elliot says. He’s pretty sure that he’s blushing; his face is on fire. “No. It’s nothing like that.”
“So?”
“I had a fight with Natalie last night after I got home.”
Honestly, who picks a fight with their boyfriend when he just got home from a fucking matinee game in Boston? That they lost? And it wasn’t even close, the score was 7-1. They lost 7-1 and Natalie decided that it was a good time for a fight. Breaking news: it wasn’t.
“What’d you do?” Adam asks through a mouthful of steak.
“I didn’t do anything,” Elliot snaps, indignant.
“Okay, but… What was the issue?”
“I don’t know, she was talking about this friend of hers who got engaged the other day and I was fucking exhausted, so maybe I wasn’t really… receptive to any of that? And I guess I wasn’t excited enough? So she got mad because I wasn’t really listening and… I wasn’t, I’ll give her that, but then she sort of…”
Adam tilts his head, clearly willing to let Elliot figure out the end of that sentence.
“I don’t know, it happened really fast, first she was saying I never listen and it’s like I don’t even care and then suddenly it was about us and our future and… yeah. So she’s mad at me.”
“I mean, I get exhausted after games, too, it’s not really the best time to talk about serious stuff,” Adam says with a shrug.
“Exactly.”
“But you also said that you weren’t listening.”
“Because I was tired.”
“Did you tell her that?” Adam asks, eyebrows raised, like he knows that Elliot didn’t.
“No. I sort of figured that’d make her mad, too.”
Adam chews on his bottom lip. “It shouldn’t. But I guess…”
“What?”
“No, I don’t want to, like–”
“Just say it.”
“Don’t be mad at me now,” Adam says, “but you kinda always tell people you’re okay and that everything’s just peachy and… I guess what I’m saying is maybe you should say when you’re not okay, and when you’re tired and shit, because then people know where they’re at.”
“I don’t do that.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t.”
“Earlier you tried to tell me that you were fine. You’re not fine, Moo.”
Elliot takes a deep breath and silently continues to eat his steak, because maybe Adam has a point. He probably could have avoided that fight yesterday if he’d apologized and
