“I’m okay,” Blake says. “Thanks for calling.”
“Always, boo. Always.”
“Have fun with the guys.”
“Thank you. I’ll talk to you soon.”
Blake hangs up, replies to Charlie and goes to his conversation with Elliot. They haven’t actually sent texts back and forth during the last three days. Nothing would really indicate that everything changed last night.
Hi, Blake types.
He deletes it.
Hey, he tries next.
Deletes it.
He looks down at Squid. “I don’t care what Noah says, I am an idiot.”
Squid looks up at him, blinks, and then goes back to sleep.
“Not helpful,” Blake mumbles. “Angus… Hey, Angus, buddy…”
Angus, on the other end of the couch, is looking at him like, What, me?
“Come here,” Blake says and wiggles his fingers at him. “Come here… that’s a good kitty… the best…”
Angus comes over slowly, lets Blake scratch his head, and then makes himself comfortable on a pillow next to Blake, which is great, because now Blake can snap a picture of him.
He sends it to Elliot and says, Angus says hi :)
Elliot sends back a bunch of hearts and says, pet him for me.
“You’re the best cat,” Blake says as he gives Angus a pat. Then he does the same with Squid. “And you are the best cat, too.”
Chapter Sixteen
Blake gets invited to the All Star Game that season.
“You got too many shutouts, it was inevitable,” Charlie says when they announce the roster.
Elliot is going, too, because of course he is. So is Noah, because… yeah. That’s just how Blake’s life is going these days.
He and Elliot talk. Not a lot. Blake sends pictures of the cats when he misses talking to him, and Elliot sends pictures of his food. They won’t play against each other again until the middle of February and Blake isn’t even close to New York for two weeks while they’re in the West. His cat sitter sends him pictures of the boys, so Blake still has something to send to Elliot, other than photos of palm trees and cacti.
Blake plays against Evan on the road. Evan doesn’t score on him and Charlie nearly murders Evan when he nudges Blake after another scoring attempt.
“Call off your dog, dude,” Evan shouts.
Blake doesn’t, because Charlie probably wouldn’t actually punch Blake’s brother in the face. They go out for drinks after and Charlie buys the first round and ten minutes later he and Evan are telling each other jokes, Blake sitting between them in silence, thinking he should have probably seen it coming, wondering why he didn’t prevent it.
A bunch of girls join them at their table, one of them basically in Evan’s lap, and he eventually excuses himself, gives Blake a hug before he goes, and Blake and Charlie wander back to their hotel for curfew.
“Your brother is a bit of a ladies man, huh?” Charlie says.
“I guess. We… don’t really talk about that stuff.”
“Oh…” Charlie stubbornly stares straight ahead, which probably means that he has something else to say that’s currently working its way to the surface. “I still don’t know how they all do it.”
“Do what?”
“Meet girls,” Charlie says. “Do they just walk up to them and talk to them?”
“Uh…”
“How do you do it?” Charlie asks.
“I don’t really…” Blake shrugs. He talks to girls because he doesn’t want to be rude, but that obviously never goes anywhere. “I was in a relationship a while ago and… I don’t really want to get back into one right now.” It’s not a total lie, because he and Elliot technically were in a relationship, and he and Noah technically were also in some sort of relationship, although it’s likely not what Charlie is imagining now.
“Oh, sorry,” Charlie says.
“You know, I’m sure the guys wouldn’t mind helping you out,” Blake says. Brammer loves to play Cupid; he’d be delighted.
Charlie ducks his head. “I don’t wanna ask, they’re gonna be mean about it.”
Blake gets it. He was surprised when Charlie asked him to come to that New Year’s party with him. Stuff like that leads to excessive chirping when you ask the wrong guy.
He wouldn’t, especially not when it’s a guy like Charlie, who looks genuinely hurt when the guys are getting a little too mean in the locker room and blushes when their resident innuendo squad is having a field day. Charlie’s great, though. In the room and in front of Blake on the ice.
When Blake is on the bench for the second half of back-to-back games, Charlie is in front of him in the tunnel and holds out his hand.
Blake bumps it with his blocker and Charlie laughs.
“Oh, wait… So Mattie and I hold hands when we go out. We started doing it like a week ago and I’ve been having really good games and…” Charlie’s cheeks turn pink. “You don’t have to.”
Blake holds out his catching glove and Charlie curls his gloved fingers into it.
Charlie scores a goal and gets two assists and then happily tells the media that it was because Blake held his hand before warm-ups when they all crowd around him after the game. Blake listens to the interview with half an ear, hears one of the reporters asking if Charlie has had an easy time adjusting to a new locker room.
The answer that follows is basically just Charlie going on and on about how kind Blake was to him when he first came into town and how easy he made it for him. “My only complaint is that he didn’t keep the guys from giving me ridiculous nicknames,” Charlie finishes and Blake chucks a ball of tape at him.
Things are good for the Knights before the All Star
