Kells is already typing in the group chat when Blake grabs his phone.
Trainor comes to town about a week later, and Blake is the only one around, or at least the only one who’s been on the team for longer than a year or two, so he offers to pick him up at the airport. Five minutes later he also offers up his guest room, with a warning that he has two very loving cats, one of which likes to sit on people he’s just met. Trainor is a huge guy, smiley, but a little shy.
“Dude, thank you so much for picking me up,” Charlie says when he finds Blake at the airport. “I’m fucking useless with this kinda stuff.”
“No worries,” Blake says. “Let’s head to mine, yeah? Or do you wanna grab a bite on the way?”
They decide to go to Blake’s first and that Blake can show Charlie the culinary hotspots afterwards. As soon as they’re in through the door, Charlie asks about the cats, and then follows Blake around his apartment as he gives him the tour, both cats cradled against his chest. Blake snaps a picture of it, for the group chat, and maybe for Instagram, if Charlie doesn’t mind.
They pretty much spend the next two weeks in each other’s pockets, except for when Charlie goes apartment hunting, recounting the pros and cons of the ones he saw. One day he leaves only to look at an apartment one floor above Blake’s. He likes it. Later he asks Blake how he’d feel about being neighbors. “I’ll come by to borrow ingredients twice a week, but I’ll also share the cookies when I’m done.”
“You bake cookies?”
“I’ll bake you cookies right now,” Charlie says and then does exactly that.
He ends up picking the apartment upstairs.
They meet up with a bunch of the guys – a total of three of them are in town and they all congregate at their favorite pub, not too far from the arena, and they buy Charlie welcome drinks and also welcome onion rings and fries, so Blake doesn’t have to carry him home. They go to a baseball game, then Charlie abandons him to go to a few museums – Blake is most certainly not a museum kind of person. They try a bunch of restaurants, one of which looks like it’ll give them food poisoning. They survive, but decide that it might be in their best interest if they never go back.
Charlie eventually leaves to spend some time with his relatives in Toronto, where he’s also staying for camp. Probably the same camp that Elliot goes to every year. Blake has found himself a trainer in Newark, so he’s staying for the rest of the summer.
He drives Charlie back to the airport and gets a hug for his troubles.
#
Elliot goes from the NHL Awards to being a groomsman in Adam’s wedding, to Natalie’s parents’ summer house on the Cape in the span of about a week, then has to make it through drinks, a barbecue, meeting the neighbors, and several conversations about boats before he can finally go to bed.
He’s pretty sure that Natalie says something to him before he falls asleep, but he doesn’t reply. He’s exhausted and is honestly looking forward to a few quiet days on the beach, but Natalie’s family apparently doesn’t really do quiet. They play tennis. They have afternoon tea, they play board games, they talk about boats even more than the night before, and they organize parties and big dinners.
Elliot has obviously met Natalie’s parents before, but this is the first time he’s seeing them outside of the city, with no one having to run off to meetings or other appointments or work and Elliot… doesn’t fit in.
He doesn’t know shit about the stock market. Natalie’s dad works on Wall Street. Her mom is a successful lawyer. Elliot is painfully aware that he never even went to college. He’s out of place here. Especially when they talk about boats. Many of Elliot’s teammates love fishing, but he is definitely not one of them.
“I’m sorry,” Natalie says, looking amused after her mom held Elliot hostage with a conversation about porcelain for half an hour. “They get excited about weird stuff.”
Elliot has never met anyone who was excited about porcelain.
He’d be more certain that he’s absolutely capable of making it through a week of this if Natalie’s parents weren’t also constantly mentioning childhood friends and cousins of Natalie’s who were just so happening to be getting married and having babies this summer. It’s all, did you hear about this friend who tied the knot, and did you hear about that cousin who just gave birth. The baby’s called Banjo.
Who the hell names their kid Banjo? Banjo and his brothers, Piano and Trumpet?
This is so not part of Elliot’s world.
The worst part is that every time the words marriage and babies are mentioned, someone, usually Natalie’s mom, throws a meaningful glance in Elliot’s general direction.
“Is your mom trying to tell me something with all the baby talk?” Elliot says as they crawl into bed together halfway through the week.
Natalie doesn’t reply. Doesn’t even laugh.
Elliot was cracking a joke here, he wasn’t trying to insult Natalie’s mom, which is what he tells Natalie, too.
Natalie still isn’t saying a word.
“What?” Elliot asks.
“Elliot, no one’s trying to pressure you,” Natalie replies.
“Okay?”
Natalie gives him a look, and he should probably know what it means, but Elliot is too tired to figure it out.
The next day, Natalie is acting weird around him, pulls her hand away when Elliot tries to take it, keeps her answers short and leaves Elliot on his own as
