“Oh, yeah, we’re… yeah.”
“I remember going to your games, you know, we could already tell back then that he’d be big one day. And look at him now. He’s basically winning those boys the game.”
“Yeah,” Elliot says.
On TV, Blake just threw himself onto the puck, like a starfish on the ice, his teammates pushing away Grizzlies players. Blake gets up when the whistle goes, slowly, grabs his water bottle, leans against the net, gives the crossbar a pat.
Elliot has been thinking about calling him. The last time they talked was a few days ago, when Elliot told him that he’d be staying in Oshawa for a while. Elliot misses hearing his voice. He watched a few interviews, Blake looking tired, but seemingly in good spirits, not really smiling, but not scowling either.
“That’s nice, that you stayed friends,” Elliot’s mom says. “How’s his brother? I didn’t really follow him much when he wasn’t playing with you anymore.”
“Oh, last I heard, he was doing pretty well,” Elliot says. All he knows about Evan, he knows from Blake. He should probably text him to catch up, ask him how he’s doing.
During the next intermission, Adam sends him five texts in a row, the first one about car seats, the next one about high chairs, then wtf how do people have babies, and i’m not even the one who has to have the baby, and then, helppp.
“Everything okay?” Elliot’s mom asks.
“Yeah, Adam’s just having a crisis about becoming a dad, I think,” Elliot says and tells Adam to take a deep breath.
not helpful, is the reply he gets a minute later.
“Tell him that nobody knows what they’re doing,” Elliot’s dad pipes up. “I didn’t know what to do with you either. Neither did your mom. We managed.”
“You were crying a lot,” his mom adds.
“All the time.”
“We didn’t sleep.”
“I’m sorry?” Elliot says.
“Oh, sweetie, don’t worry, that’s what babies do. Don’t tell Adam that, though.”
“Or do tell him, so he’s prepared.”
Elliot’s mom shakes her head. “Don’t let us scare you, though,” she says. “It’s rewarding to watch a child grow up. I mean, look at you now. Captain of your team. Just won a gold medal.”
“Yeah, we didn’t think they’d even draft you,” his dad says, voice mocking.
“Dad…”
“Come on, I’m a little bit funny.”
“No,” Elliot says and tells Adam to please be a cool dad and lay off the Brandon Cowell humor.
plz i love your dad, Adam replies.
“Are they having a boy or a girl?”
“I don’t know. Because Adam doesn’t know.”
“Oh, a surprise. Lovely.” Elliot’s mom reaches over to pat Elliot’s arm. “When you have children one day, do you think you’ll want it to be a surprise?”
“Isa,” Elliot’s dad says. “Leave him alone.”
“It’s just a question.”
“Let’s not act like you didn’t try to set him up with the neighbors’ daughter two days ago.”
“She’s a very nice girl.”
“Elliot doesn’t need our help to find a very nice girl. He’ll do fine on his own.”
Elliot silently thanks his dad for his support.
“And maybe he and the very nice girl will decide that they don’t want children and that’ll be fine with us, too.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Brandon.”
Elliot really wants to remove himself from the room before this turns into a discussion about his future that he won’t even be part of. He’s really not sure if he wants kids. He’s really not sure if he’ll ever want to be with anyone as much as he wants to be with Blake, no other man, no other woman.
“Excuse me,” Elliot says quietly, his parents barely noticing over their bickering.
He slips out the backdoor and sits on the porch. The game’s second intermission is over now and he gets a goal notification on his phone no two minutes after he’s sat down. Goal for the Knights, scored by Paul Mooney.
He takes a deep breath.
Sometimes he wants to tell his parents about Blake. Or maybe not even about Blake, just that he’s not straight, that he might come home with a guy one day.
Elliot’s phone chimes with another goal notification.
The Knights just scored again.
#
The series against the Grizzlies goes to seven games.
With Games 5 and 6 going into overtime, Blake nearly lies down on the ice when the final buzzer sounds after Game 7.
They won it.
Somehow.
He has no idea how he made it to the end. His teammates come crashing into him, and they take off the net, and Blake ends up with his back against the boards, hands patting his head, everyone shouting.
They’re going to the finals, most of them for the first time in their careers. Charlie is still clinging to him when the other guys start to detach themselves for the handshake line. Charlie plants an unmistakable smooch on the side of Blake’s mask and then grabs him by his catching glove and tugs him along to shake hands with the Grizzlies.
They’ll be facing San Diego in the final round. Nobody thought the Seals would make it this far, a third-seed team that fought its way through two seven-game series and then through a six-game series, hungry, ready for the final round. The media call them dangerous, unstoppable, the secret favorite.
The Knights will have home ice, but home ice means little. The Grizzlies had home ice, too, and now they just lost Game 7 at home.
They shake hands.
The Knights get the Price of Wales trophy and Kells puts his hands all over it and so does everyone else. They take it to the locker room and Brammer loudly suggests that maybe they should lick it. He settles for rubbing his cheek against it, which isn’t much better, but at least they can all go to bed knowing that Bram didn’t slobber all over it.
