“Your place is nice,” Elliot says.
“You want anything?”
“Water is good.” Elliot wanders into the living room, looking around. “Where’s Angus?”
“Probably hiding. He’ll come out eventually.” Or at least Blake hopes so. He gets two bottles of water, then excuses himself to get out of the suit. When he’s in a pair of sweatpants and a shirt, he returns to Elliot and sits down next to him. He’s made himself comfortable on the couch, with Squid still in his lap, looking up, offended, when Elliot stops petting him.
“Sorry,” Elliot whispers to Squid and start scratching his head again.
Blake watches them for a moment, trying to see the kid he was friends with. Elliot is bigger than he used to be. Not really taller, but… he’s clearly been working out. He doesn’t have as much of a baby-face anymore. And he’s figured out how haircuts work. The smile is the same, though.
“Blake,” Elliot says and the smile vanishes.
“Yeah?”
“Can we talk about this?”
“This.”
“You know what I mean,” Elliot says, soft. “Can we talk about how we… ended up here?”
Blake knows how they ended up here. He knows that it was his fault. Because he remembers the last proper conversation he had with Elliot and it ended with Elliot walking out of his life for a couple of years. He wants to tell Elliot all that, too, but what comes out of his mouth in the end is, “I’m sorry. I said some stupid shit.”
Elliot sighs. “It’s f–”
“No, don’t do that,” Blake says. “Don’t say it’s fine because you feel bad for me, because my grandma died or whatever. It’s not fine. What I said wasn’t okay.”
Elliot chews on his bottom lip, eyes fixed on Blake. “Okay, you’re right, it wasn’t. I didn’t need to hear that shit from you,” Elliot says, voice level.
“I know. I don’t even know… I was drunk and I guess I missed you. Not really an excuse, but…” Blake shrugs. Sometimes he’s an ass, sometimes he doesn’t think enough before he talks. None of that, of course, makes this any better. “And then I didn’t say sorry and… yeah. I’m sorry.”
Elliot leans his head against the back of the couch. “Do you think we can be friends again?”
Blake’s heart flutters dangerously. “We can try.”
There’s something so soft about Elliot that Blake can’t really describe. It’s funny, because Elliot, at first glance, mostly looks like a little shit who’s here to wreak havoc, but as soon as he smiles it’s all sunshine and rainbows. “I was mad at you,” Elliot says and even that sounds soft.
“I know.”
“I’ll stop now. We’ll start over,” Elliot says, determined, like that was the plan all along. “Clean slate?”
“Yeah?” Blake asks. It seems too easy. Then again, Elliot wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t willing to forgive him for what he said.
“Yeah.” Elliot looks at him for a long moment, like he’s chewing on something and doesn’t know how to say it, but he eventually dips his head down to coo at Squid again, which Squid replies to with a loud meow.
It’s weird to have him sitting in his apartment after only really seeing him on the ice for the last few years.
“Elliot,” Blake says.
Elliot looks up.
Blake has no idea what he was going to say. Maybe thank you, for being willing to talk and to fix this, for being better at this than Blake will ever be. He probably wouldn’t have reached out.
Elliot nods, even though Blake didn’t say a word.
“Hey,” Elliot says, “look who’s joining us.”
Angus has made it as far as the living room door, watching them from afar, but at least he came out of the guest room.
Elliot sticks around for another half hour, eventually handing Squid to Blake so he can coax Angus onto the couch with them. He hugs him to his chest, like he used to, and smiles down at him, cooing a little more.
“I should head home,” Elliot says eventually. “My girlfriend was kinda mad at me when I left, so I have to go and… grovel.”
“Is that why you showed up early?” Blake asks before he can stop himself.
“Yeah,” Elliot says. “I’m not the best boyfriend sometimes.” He frowns at Blake when he follows him to the front door. “Where are you going?”
Blake, one shoe already on, the other one in his hand, looks up. “Oh. I’m driving you to the station.”
“No, Blake, it’s fi–”
“It’s cold,” Blake says, and Elliot doesn’t argue.
Chapter Eleven
Being in the NHL for nearly six years, Elliot knows that the rollercoaster doesn’t only go up.
After the Olympics, after playing for Canada with the best in the league, after winning that gold medal, Elliot gets back to New York and life goes on. In the first game back, Elliot gets high-sticked in the face and comes home with a huge cut on his cheek. A few days later, Evan Samuels gets traded to the Wildcats.
They’re on the road when it happens and Evan gets pulled off the ice during morning skate one day before the deadline. They’re sending him straight to Dallas. The Ravens got a pick and a prospect in return, so no one new is joining the team right now. They’ll call someone up from the farm team, but they’ll still miss Evan in the room. He was one of those universally liked guys and Andreas looks like a lost puppy when they get on the plane after their game in Calgary. He sat next to Evan on every single flight.
Since Elliot doesn’t really have a plane buddy, he sits down next to Andreas.
“I know this happens a lot,” Andreas says, voice low enough that none of the other guys will hear him. “But it’s…”
