“Really?”
“Really,” Elliot says. He’ll probably fall asleep anyway.
Blake’s fingers sneak into his hair, then Blake leans forward to get the remote. At first there’s silence, then the telltale sounds of a hockey game, skates on the ice, sticks hitting the puck, then the voice of an announcer, telling his audience Josh Roy’s goals per game average in the playoffs. It’s more than one goal a game. Elliot’s is more than one goal a game, too, but he hasn’t played as many playoff games as Josh Roy.
Elliot drifts in and out of sleep, squinting at the TV whenever the goal horn goes off, the Cardinals lighting up the Eagles. Elliot grumbles at Blake when he gets up during the second intermission, almost disappointed when he doesn’t get to put his head back in Blake’s lap afterwards, but Blake’s hand is back in his hair a moment later, barely even moving, just there.
Blake wakes him up after the game, the TV already off when Elliot sits up.
“Who won?” Elliot asks.
“Cardinals, six-two,” Blake mumbles and stands up. “You wanna go to bed?”
“Sure…” Elliot has no idea how he can be this tired after dozing on Blake’s couch for three hours, but here they are. “I can sleep on the couch if you want.”
Blake hums. “Because you totally want to sleep on the couch, right?”
“I’m not trying to…” Elliot sighs. “I feel bad for showing up here out of the blue and I’ve already imposed on you enough, so I don’t want you to–”
“Elliot,” Blake says and gently nudges him towards the door. “Just come to bed with me, okay?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Elliot just looks at him for a moment, then he says, “Blake?”
“Hm?”
“Thank you.”
Blake only nods.
He finds Elliot a toothbrush and a towel and then slips into bed with him later, keeping a few inches of space between them.
Elliot doesn’t like it. He can’t stand it. “Blake?” he says.
“Yes, you can come over here, but only if you promise that you won’t kick me during the night.”
“I’ll try,” Elliot whispers.
“I guess that’s good enough,” Blake mutters and wraps his arm around Elliot once he’s scooted against him, and Elliot wishes, more than anything, that he could come back to this after every loss.
Chapter Eighteen
Elliot plays his heart out at Worlds.
While he’s in Europe, Blake is nominated for the Vezina and the Knights tear through the Cardinals in five games. Blake plays his first game of the Eastern Conference finals against the Boston Grizzlies the day before Elliot plays in the gold medal game in Prague.
The Grizzlies win Game 1.
Elliot wins the gold medal.
Blake somehow finds the time to call him after, sounding tired in the message he leaves. Elliot doesn’t hear it until later, when he’s already in bed, smiling as he listens to Blake’s voice. Then he listens again. And again.
“Hey, I just saw that you won gold.” A short pause. “Well done.” A long pause. “I didn’t manage to watch all the games, but I did my best.” A longer pause. “Anyway, congrats and…” The longest pause yet. “I miss you. Let me know when you’re back in New York, okay? Have fun celebrating.”
Elliot smiles.
Listens again.
It’s the part where Blake says that he misses him, quietly, like it’s a secret, that he wants to hear over and over again.
Elliot misses him, too.
He falls asleep while listening to the message for what must be the twentieth time. He’s drunk and he’ll have the worst headache of his life in the morning, he’s sore all over, bruises blooming all over his body, but he’ll go home with a gold medal, and Blake misses him.
Elliot flies back to Canada with the team and then goes to Oshawa. His parents were in Prague for two games, but couldn’t stay for the finals, so when he’s home, his mom takes a few days off and they cook together, dig up old recipes, slipping back into Spanish while they cook. His grandma taught his mom Spanish, so his mom insisted on teaching Elliot as well. He wasn’t the most diligent student and he doesn’t exactly get to practice very often these days, so he keeps trailing off, his mom mumbling the words he’s looking for. He learned some Swedish from Magnus while he was still on the team, but he’s forgotten most of it. Andreas has been trying to teach him German and Elliot can at least have a basic conversation now. He knows how to order a beer. They saw each other at Worlds, too, but didn’t end up playing against each other.
It’s nice to be home now. It’s nice to take a break, sleep in every day, eat whatever he wants, just for a few days, before he goes back to running in the morning and watching what he eats and going to the gym. A bunch of the regular Toronto guys are already in town, those whose seasons ended early, some of the guys who played at Worlds with him, and they meet up for scrimmages, and sometimes Elliot plays in the street with the neighborhood kids.
His parents watch the playoffs, cheering for Blake. The first time Elliot sees his mom cheering for the Knights is jarring. Then he remembers that Boston beat Toronto, so of course his mom wouldn’t cheer for the Grizzlies in a million years. His dad is from Vancouver, so his loyalties lie elsewhere. Elliot quietly supports Blake, his mom clearly in the know, because she looks over at him every time Blake makes a save.
“Are you boys still in touch?” his mom asks during Game 4. It looks like the Knights are about to tie up the series.
“Huh?”
“You and Blake Samuels. You were
