“Who do you wanna bring? Your girlfriend?” Mattie asks.
Blake rolls his eyes. “No.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Jake,” says Katie, voice muffled.
Blake really needs to think of something to say, and eventually goes with another, “No,” because it was obviously a joke, Mattie didn’t mean anything by it, but it caught Blake off guard. He tries to laugh it off, and says, “I wanted to bring Charlie.”
“Oh, Choo Choo. Yeah, you can bring him. Doesn’t look like he knows how to even make a Kraft dinner, poor kid.”
“Thanks, Mattie.”
“Sure thing. I’ll see you later. Same time as usual.”
Blake thanks him again and hangs up, texts Charlie and then rests his head against the window with a sigh, still hung up on the boyfriend comment.
He considers calling Noah, then decides to wait until he’s home, because he can’t say shit on the train where people might be listening. At home, he flops into his bed, where he’s immediately joined by Squid, who meows at him accusingly. Right. Food. Blake gets back up again, takes care of that and then flops back down, this time on the couch, because it’s the closet comfortable surface.
He’s eternally grateful that Noah answers pretty much immediately.
“Couldn’t wait to see me in person tomorrow, huh?” Noah says.
“Can I talk to you about something?”
Noah sighs. “I hate that you’re even asking me this question. What’s up, babe?”
“Are you alone?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong?”
Squid hops onto the couch, making himself comfortable on Blake’s stomach. “Do you think…” Blake stares at the ceiling for a moment, trying to find the right words, even though he knows that with Noah he doesn’t really have to talk his way around the issue. “Do you think my entire team knows that I’m gay?”
“I don’t know, have you told your entire team that you’re gay?”
“No, but… I’ve never had a girlfriend. Doesn’t that make it pretty obvious?”
“Okay, but… Think about it this way… Most of those guys haven’t even known you for your entire career. Some of them have maybe only been around a year, two years… There’s barely anyone who’s known you from the start. And the guys who did know you from the start are probably, like, the core guys, like your captain and Matthews, and, honestly, I don’t think they’d feel like it’s any of their business.”
“I think Mattie knows,” Blake says lowly. He’s still convinced that the boyfriend thing was a joke, but, in all honesty, how could he have not figured it out by now?
“Listen, if anything, he suspects. Is he being a dick or something?”
“No, he’s not.”
“Then what’s the issue?”
“I don’t know,” Blake says. Everything’s off-kilter and this secret is getting too big for him. There’s nothing he can do about it, though. “How’s your, uh…” Noah said there was someone, but Blake never asked, figured Noah would tell him if there was anything to tell, but Blake is somewhat desperate to change the subject, because he thought he knew how to talk about this, but, as it turns out, he doesn’t.
“Ohhh, wait a second, are you deflecting?” Noah says. “I’m working on my… whatever it is. We’ll get there. I’m an optimist. Now back to you.”
“No.”
“Yuh-huh. You called me, Fishy. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I…”
“Out with it.”
“I stayed at Elliot’s last night.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Nothing happened, my ass,” Noah says, gleeful. “You slept there? How’d you end up there in the first place?”
“We had dinner and I fell asleep, it’s not a big deal, but…” Blake covers his face with his hand, because he’s pretty sure that his cheeks are flaming red and it’s not like Noah can see him, but Blake is so embarrassed that he doesn’t even want Squid to see. “Fuck.”
“Oh, Fish.”
“He’s still Elliot, you know?” Blake says, like that explains anything at all.
“I wish I could help you with this, but I don’t think you have too many options here.”
“I have options?”
“Well, either you get over him, or you… don’t. But if you choose not to get over him, you’re either going to suffer or you need to talk to him.”
“Yeah, no.”
“Is he seeing someone?” Noah asks.
“That’s not even… It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want to be with… a guy. We broke shit off before the Draft. He didn’t want to take the risk. Which is… It’s what he wanted and I said it was okay.”
“But that was years ago.”
“So?”
“So people change their minds,” Noah says.
Blake blows out a long breath.
“Listen,” Noah says, “I need to head out in like two minutes, but here’s my incredible advice on this… Figure out what you want and either take yourself out of this or jump right in.”
“I don’t think that’s helpful.”
“Never said I was helpful. Love you, Fishy. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Okay,” Blake says.
Doesn’t really matter what he wants. He’s fucked either way.
Chapter Fourteen
Blake gets invited to three New Year’s Eve parties.
Three.
He doesn’t want to go to a single one.
One of them isn’t even a party. Mattie invited him over, but Blake already spent Christmas at his place, so he can’t impose on Mattie and his family any more than that. The other two are parties, though. The rookies are having a party at their house, which Blake, even though he’s not even one of the oldest guys on the team, is way too old for, the other one is a party that Brammer’s girlfriend’s friend is throwing. It’s in the city. Blake isn’t going to that one either.
He’ll hang out with Squid, and maybe Angus if he’s having a good day, and go to bed at ten.
In all
