“Oh. Cool.”
“Come on, sit down.”
Blake doesn’t sit down, because it’d be weird, watching Elliot cook from the kitchen table. So he leans against the counter next to the oven and watches from there. It’s an unfamiliar sight, seeing Elliot flit about the kitchen like he actually knows what he’s doing. It looks like they’re having steak tonight and if it’s even half as good as the lasagna Elliot made last time, Blake has a real treat to look forward to.
“I made fries, too,” Elliot says, like he does this every fucking day. “I’ll leave them in a little longer, so they get crispy.”
“Thanks,” Blake says. He starts digging through Elliot’s kitchen cupboards for plates and glasses, so he’s not completely useless.
Elliot’s done with dinner not too much later and the steak is amazing, but Elliot won’t tell him what exactly he put on it, just keeps grinning and telling him that it’s a secret. Elliot bought cupcakes for dessert, two with white chocolate and raspberries and two with dark chocolate and mint. Elliot seems to like the dark chocolate one so much that Blake lets him have the second one.
They end up on the couch, with a game on TV. Elliot’s couch is huge and he has one of those footrests that you can push around, so they can both put up their feet. Blake definitely needs this today, although he’ll probably nod off halfway during the game, so he tells Elliot to wake him up if he does. It’s the Cardinals against the Grizzlies. Likely to be a bloodbath. Neither of them would have picked a movie over this.
The score is 1-0 in favor of the Cardinals when they turn it on.
Elliot frowns at the TV for a second, head tilted.
“What?” Blake says. “Don’t tell me you’re rooting for the Grizzlies.”
“Please…” Elliot says, shaking his head. “I just remembered something. I’ll be right back.”
Elliot vanishes and returns a few minutes later, carrying a balled up… something. He drops it in Blake’s lap.
“What’s this?” Blake asks and holds it up. It turns out to be an All Star Game shirt from a few years ago.
“Turn it around.”
Blake does, finds that it’s a Josh Roy shirt. It’s signed. “No way.”
“He gave me a super weird look when I asked him to sign it for me.”
“I bet he did,” Blake says. He’s met Josh Roy before, took a picture with him, tried to be cool. Josh is only a year older than them, was made captain when he was only twenty. He’s been so valuable to the Cardinals ever since they got him. The thing with this shirt is that Elliot got it for him when he was still mad at him. They weren’t even talking at the time when that All Star Game happened. Blake almost wants to give him a hug, but they’re pretty much lying next to each other on Elliot’s couch and Blake doesn’t want this to turn into some kind of awkward full-body thing, so he says, “Thank you,” and leaves it at that.
Elliot smiles.
They watch the game and Elliot mumbles about how much he hates playing against Santana. Blake also hates playing against Santana, because he scores too much for a defenseman, at least in Blake’s humble opinion. He doesn’t care so much when it’s Charlie who scores a ridiculous number of goals, but Charlie isn’t putting the pucks in Blake’s goal. Only at practice.
Blake falls asleep before the game is over. He doesn’t mean to but there’s a commercial break and he wants to close his eyes for a second, which should be a sign for him to get up and go home, but tells himself that he can stay awake until, what, 9:45?
He can’t.
When he wakes up, the light in the corner is still on, but the TV is off. Elliot is next to him, curled up on his side, fast asleep. Blake doesn’t exactly stare at him, but he spends at least a few seconds considering Elliot’s eyelashes before he scoots forward to grab his phone from the table.
It’s 1:20 in the morning. Are there even still trains running? Probably. Maybe not as frequently as during the day. He could take a cab home. He doesn’t want to think about how much that would cost, despite him being… a millionaire. Basically. It’s still a waste of money.
Blake gives Elliot a nudge. “Hey…”
Elliot blinks at him and frowns. “Time’s it?”
“Past one,” Blake says.
“Ugh…” Elliot pats the couch. “No worries, just stay here.”
“Yeah?”
“Hmm.”
Blake lies back down, grabs himself a blanket and scoots away a little, wondering if he should get a blanket for Elliot, too, because he clearly isn’t in the mood to get up and sleep in his actual bed. He’s gone right back to sleep. Blake snatches a second blanket off the back off the couch and drapes it over Elliot as best as he can.
In the morning, Elliot wakes him up with a gentle shake, holding up a cup of coffee in front of Blake’s nose.
“Sorry,” Elliot says, “I need to head out for practice in a bit.”
“Oh…” Blake sits up quickly and takes the cup of coffee. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”
“It’s fine,” Elliot says, waving him off, like it’s nothing, like they do this all the time. But Elliot says it’s fine a lot and that usually means that it’s not.
#
Elliot makes omelets for breakfast, even though Blake tells him twice that he doesn’t have to, that he can buy something on the way to the Subway, that he’ll get out of Elliot’s hair.
That would only make things awkward, though. Elliot doesn’t want Blake to think that he wants him out of his apartment or that him sleeping here was a problem. Because it wasn’t. People
