“I won’t say a word if you leave me the fuck alone,” Elliot says.
“Fine,” Adam says and leans back.
Elliot eventually loses Adam when he leaves the safety of the couch he was sitting on to get some more food. He finds chicken sliders and is still working on his third one when a girl sidles up to him.
“Hi,” she says. That’s it.
Elliot doesn’t immediately know what to do with that. “Hi,” he says. “Sorry, am I in your way?”
“No, don’t worry,” she says. She’s sparkly, too, but not as much as some of the other girls. Her hair is really long. Really long. He almost wants to tell her that he’s impressed, but then she asks, “Are you here on your own?”
“Uh, with friends.”
“Friends,” she echoes, like he told her a secret. Maybe he did. “Are you one of the hockey players? Carly said that her boyfriend brought some friends.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Awesome. Thought you looked like a hockey player,” she says. Then grins. “My sister’s actually a goalie. She plays in Michigan.”
“Oh, that’s great.”
“They tried to get me into it, too, but I was always more of a runner. You know, solid ground and all that.”
Elliot laughs, can’t help it.
They talk for a while. She’s nice. At some point, he realizes that he never even asked for her name. Probably too late now. They keep talking. Adam catches his eye at some point and gives him a thumbs up. Elliot doesn’t dignify it with a response. He enjoys talking to this girl, but only about as much as he’d enjoy talking to literally anyone else.
Eventually he says, “Sorry, I think I saw someone I know. Just wanna say hi real quick.”
“Oh, of course,” she says.
Elliot escapes before she can look too disappointed.
He does say hello to Crab, who has a blonde girl sitting in his lap. Her cheeks are red and her words are slurred when she tells Elliot to sit down and teach her friends about hockey.
Elliot tries to give them some interesting facts, then someone’s hand ends up on his thigh and he excuses himself to get another drink before someone ends up in his lap, too. He eventually sneaks into the kitchen, where they’re hiding even more food. He’s not the only one in here. A girl is crying quietly in a corner, another girl, presumably a friend of hers, is whispering to her. Over by the counter, the guys he met earlier are mixing drinks.
“Hey,” one of them says, “I didn’t catch your name earlier.”
“I’m Elliot,” he says.
They introduce themselves as Marcus and Jayden. They mix him a drink and share their plate of appetizers with him.
Jayden, the one who was undressing Elliot with his eyes earlier, says, “So, how do you know Chrissie?”
“Oh, my teammate’s girlfriend knows her. Carly. She invited us all.”
“Teammate? What do you play?”
“Hockey.”
“Like, not to be too forward, but do hockey players all have… glutes like you do?”
“Jay, shut the fuck up.”
“Uh,” Elliot only says. “I guess?”
“You’re straight, right?” Jayden says, already looking devastated.
Elliot could say no. Except he can’t say no. What he does say is, “Sorry.”
“Aw, too bad.” Jayden winks at him. “If you change your mind–”
“Idiot,” Marcus says and turns to Elliot. “Ignore him. You have a girlfriend?”
“No, but my teammates think they need to change that.”
“They trying to set you up?”
Elliot shrugs. “I think I got them to stop.”
“It’s okay, you can hide with us,” Jayden says. “You’re pretty.”
“I swear to God, Jay.”
“Are you uncomfortable? I promise I’ll stop if you’re uncomfortable.”
“No, you’re fine,” Elliot says. Honestly, he doesn’t mind so much. Jayden is clearly just having fun and he’s keeping his hands to himself, which is more than he can say for the girls he was talking to. It’s nice to be flirted with.
“Marcus, did you hear that?” Jayden whispers. “I’m fine.”
“That’s not what he meant.”
“I know.” Jayden nods at Elliot’s glass. “Drink up, darling. I’ll make you another one.”
“Stop flirting with him.”
“You’re not my mom, Marcus.”
“Yeah, thank fuck for that.”
Elliot laughs. He likes these guys.
It’s where Adam eventually finds him, on to his third drink with his new Broadway friends. “Dude, there you are. Come on, some of the guys just got here.”
“Gotta say hi to my guys,” Elliot says.
“Oh, your guys?”
“I’m the captain.”
“Nooo, you didn’t tell us you were the captain.”
“Hey, if you ever want to come to a game, tell Carly to let me know and I’ll get you tickets, okay?” Elliot says as Adam tugs him away.
“Thank you, Captain,” Jayden says and blows him a kiss.
Adam laughs. “Who were they?” he asks when they’re out of earshot.
“New friends,” Elliot says.
#
The party they’re invited to is… a party.
They get there pretty late and it’s exactly as bad as Blake was expecting, but at least they have good food. Like those tiny burgers. He loves the tiny burgers. He eats about ten of them and is only mildly disgruntled when Charlie hands him a beer.
“How do you talk to girls?” Charlie asks.
“I…” Blake is distracted, because he’s pretty sure that he saw Brammer talking to Adam Ishida. Who plays for the Ravens. On Elliot’s line. “I don’t know,” Blake eventually says, because that’s the truth. “You just talk to them.”
He tries to find Brammer again. Yeah, that’s definitely Adam Ishida. Elliot mentions him a lot. Obviously, that doesn’t
