Elliot hates that he hurt Blake. They were just kids back then and he did what he thought was right for them, thought Blake didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks either. He gets why Blake doesn’t want to take this too far now. He gets it. And Elliot would never hurt him, not on purpose.
As much as Elliot would like to say that he can deal with this, the hiding, the lying that would come with being with Blake, as much as he wants to say that he’s already made up his mind, that he wants to try, Blake is right. Elliot isn’t sure. He’s scared of what the repercussions might be if someone found out, he’s scared of even just telling his teammates that the person he’s dating is a man.
Blake is trying to give him an actual choice here, is offering to wait for him to figure out what he wants. But for how long is he going to wait? A month? Two?
“Elliot…”
“Yeah?”
“You’re…” Blake drags his hand up and down Elliot’s back. “Tense.”
“I was just thinking…”
“About?”
“You said you wanted me to think about this.”
“Yeah.”
“You also said we should give each other a break.”
“Yeah.”
“So, are we… basically hitting pause?” Elliot asks. “Or are we… hitting stop?”
“Both?”
Elliot huffs. “No, it’s not the same thing.”
“Then what’s the difference?”
“The difference is that in the first case we’re sort of on hold, but we’re not… I don’t know. Are you gonna see other people?”
“What?”
“While we give each other a break, are you gonna–”
“No,” Blake says.
“What if I still don’t know what I want in a year? Are you willing to wait for that long? Even if I…” Elliot trails off, because he doesn’t want to say, Even if I realize that I can’t do this.
Blake fingers are back in his hair, soothing. “How about we talk about this again at the beginning of summer?”
“Okay,” Elliot says. Time passes fast once the season starts to wind down and then suddenly you only have ten games left to play, and then you’re getting your playoff schedule and then it’s just game after game after game until you’re done, or until you win it all.
He can figure this out for himself before the summer. He has to.
Elliot falls asleep sometime during the third period and when he wakes up, Blake is asleep, too. He doesn’t wake up when Elliot sits up. The game isn’t on TV anymore. Fuck knows who won. Elliot leans down to kiss Blake’s forehead, drags his fingers though his hair. “Hey…”
Blake’s eyelids flutter, lashes dark against his pale skin. “Come here,” he says and reaches for Elliot.
They kiss, lazily, without a care in the world, limbs tangled, Blake’s hand on the small of Elliot’s back, thumb dipping under his shirt, smoothing over his skin and Elliot is clinging to him like he can somehow get closer to him and keep him here.
Blake doesn’t stay for dinner, and maybe Elliot expected as much, but he’s still disappointed when Blake says he needs to go. “Gotta feed the kids,” he says.
“Give Angus a hug from me,” Elliot says.
Blake grabs his sweater, then looks down at the shirt he’s wearing. Elliot tells him to keep it and Blake doesn’t smile when he pulls on his sweater over it, but he also doesn’t not smile. It’s one of those weird Blake things. He somehow manages to look happy without a real smile on his face.
Elliot kisses him before he pulls on his coat, then kisses him again before he buttons it, then kisses him one more time before Blake leaves, gently squeezing Elliot’s hand before he goes. Three kisses, because three has always been his lucky number, and when he was seventeen there was nothing as lucky as kissing Blake Samuels.
When Blake is gone, when the door is closed, and it’s just Elliot and his apartment is suddenly quiet, he stands in the hallway, probably for a few minutes, entertaining the absolutely insane idea to run after Blake and tell him to come back, that they’ll figure it out somehow. Today.
He knows it’s ridiculous.
He still goes hunting for his phone, which he hasn’t looked at in… a very long time. He has five missed calls from Adam and a text. im gonna assume ur hungover but lemme know if ur ded ok?
Elliot calls him back, because he sort of went off the grid and while he doesn’t understand why people should be available to others day and night, it sounds like Adam might have been worried about him.
“Oh, hey, you’re not dead,” Adam says. “Or are you calling from the afterlife?”
“Sorry,” Elliot says. He’s grabbing his charger, because he has seven percent battery left and now is not a good time for Adam to think that Elliot hung up on him.
“Did you leave before midnight?”
“Maybe.”
“Did you leave alone?”
It takes Elliot a second too long to say, “Yes.”
“Are you lying to me right now?” Adam asks. He gasps. “What the fuck?”
“I figured you’d chirp me either way,” Elliot says, which is probably a good enough excuse.
Adam tuts at him. “Sooo, did she just leave? Is that why you didn’t touch your phone all fucking day?”
“Can we not talk about this?”
“So I’m guessing you’re not seeing her again?”
Elliot only sighs in reply.
“I’m just invested in your wellbeing.”
“This has nothing to do with my wellbeing,” Elliot grumbles.
“Moo.”
“What? Stop being overdramatic.”
“I’m not. I want you to be happy. Are you happy?”
Elliot is not happy. He still has memories of Blake tugging at him – Blake in his bed, Blake’s lips on his, Blake’s fingers pulling at his hair, Blake’s stubble rubbing against the skin of his thighs. Maybe you could still see it. Maybe he
