“Hey, Blake,” Elliot says. “This is Lou, she really wanted to meet you.”
“Hi,” Blake says and shakes Lou’s hand. “Nice to meet you…” His eyes flicker to Elliot for the briefest of seconds, then back to Lou.
“She’s Adam’s wife.”
“Yeah, he’s having a breakdown right over there,” Lou says and points at where Adam is sitting, glaring at them.
That tickles a laugh out of Blake.
“Could we take a picture?” Lou asks.
“Yeah, sure,” Blake says.
Lou hands her phone to Elliot, beaming when he snaps the picture. “Thank you so much, Blake, I’m from Jersey, so I sort of root for you guys. I’m very conflicted. My mom loves you, by the way, she thinks you’re the best goalie we’ve had since Frank Parrish.”
Blake smiles, his cheeks faintly pink. “That’s very nice of her to say.”
“She’ll absolutely lose it when I tell her that I met you. Oh, could you…” Lou pulls a notebook out her bag. “Would you sign this for her? Her name is Jane.”
“For sure,” Blake says and takes the notebook from her, writes, Thank you for your support, Jane, then signs it and puts a 33 and a drawing of a little fish next to it.
“Oh no, the fish. It’s so cute,” Lou says. “Thank you so much.”
“My pleasure,” Blake says.
Lou thanks him one more time, gives Elliot’s arm a squeeze and then returns to Adam, who only sighs, resigned, and leans over to kiss her temple.
“Adam told me he wasn’t sure if he could date her when they first met because she was a Knights fan,” Elliot says.
“Seems like it worked out in the end,” Blake says.
“Yeah, I think he eventually realized that she’s a catch.” Elliot gives Blake a nudge. “Didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”
“I didn’t expect to see me here tonight either,” Blake mutters. “Charlie needed someone to hold his hand. For like three seconds. So I came here with him. The food is good.”
“So good,” Elliot says.
“The next time you cook for me, you have to make tiny burgers.”
“Who said that I’m cooking for you again?”
Blake pulls a face. “Sorry, shouldn’t have assumed…”
“No, I mean, I totally will. Tiny burgers sound good. I might try to make some of that other fancy stuff, too. Quiche or whatever.”
Blake grins. He looks good tonight, but he always does. He’s wearing a sweater that looks incredibly soft and that Elliot would want to bury his face in if he’d had more drinks.
“Did you have a good time with your parents?” Blake asks.
“Yeah, it was nice to have them around. I miss them sometimes.” Elliot kinda wants to kick himself for that one. Blake doesn’t even have parents anymore. “Sorry, that was–”
“Elliot, come on, it’s okay. You know it’s okay.”
Elliot lets out a soft breath.
“I’m glad you got to see them,” Blake says and taps Elliot’s back with his knuckles. “Hey, uh–”
“Blake.” Blake’s teammate has appeared behind them, looking apologetic. “Hey, sorry, do you have a minute?”
“Yeah, sure…” Blake nods at Elliot. “I’ll talk to you later?”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Elliot says.
He tries really hard not to be mad at Charlie Trainor for stealing Blake away.
He doesn’t manage.
#
It takes Elliot over half an hour to find Blake again.
Adam calls him over right after Charlie tugged Blake away, then Adam introduces a girl to him and her only interest seems to be finding someone to kiss at midnight, because she mentions it about half a dozen times in the five minutes that Elliot spends talking to her. Elliot slips away, quite rudely, when she’s distracted for a second, saying hello to a friend who walked past them.
Elliot wanders around the party, starting to wonder if Blake might have gone home, or maybe to another party. He can’t see Charlie anywhere either. Blake probably doesn’t owe him a goodbye or anything; it’s not like they came here together, but the thought of Blake being gone leaves him weirdly disappointed.
He’s on his way back to Adam when a glass door ahead of him opens and two girls come stumbling into the hallway, accompanied by a gust of cold air. Elliot peers outside, at a mostly deserted balcony. They’re still over an hour away from midnight and it’s freezing out there. Two people are making out, leaning against the wall a few feet away, barely visible in the low light, and a group is huddled together over by the edge of the balcony, cigarettes lighting up orange in the night. And then, as far away from them as possible, there’s Blake, face illuminated by his phone screen, hair mostly hiding his features. He’s bundled into his coat, his breath clouding in the winter air.
“I thought you might have left,” Elliot says. It takes some focus to make the words come out the way he wants them to.
Blake looks up, his phone screen going dark a second later. “I’m about to, but…” He shrugs. “Charlie left and he gave me permission to go home. I was trying to find you, but I must have missed you in there.”
“And then you decided to hide on the balcony?” Elliot asks. “It’s fucking freezing out here.”
Blake huffs and shrugs off his coat to drape it over Elliot’s shoulders. “It’s not so bad,” he says. “Anyway. Happy New Year, Elliot. If I’m not totally wrong, I’ll see you in three weeks.”
Yes, they’ll see each other in three weeks, but Elliot wants to see him before that and he doesn’t want him to go home either. He’ll stand out here for the rest of the night if he has to, but he wants Blake to stand here with him. And because Elliot’s had too many drinks and has therefore managed to convince himself that he doesn’t
