When Elliot pulls away, Blake is still leaning against the wall, mouth slack, lips wet, breathing uneven.
“I’ll sleep in your bed,” Elliot says.
Blake nods, a smile tugging at his lips.
“I told Adam that I’m in love with you.”
The smile that was barely there to begin with disappears quickly. “You what?”
“I didn’t tell him it was you, just that it was someone. Who happens to be you.” Elliot doesn’t think he’s ever seen that look of Blake’s face. “Did I fuck up?”
“No,” Blake says. “Just… You did that.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because… I am.”
Blake swallows. “You’re what?”
“In love with you.”
Blake reaches for him then, just for his hand, curls his fingers around Elliot’s and holds on.
It’s an I love you, too, if Elliot has ever seen one.
#
“Hey… Blake?”
Blake scrunches up his nose.
“Did you go back to sleep?” There’s a pause, then there are lips on Blake’s forehead, fingers in his hair, and a whispered, “Sorry.”
“I’m awake,” Blake says and blindly reaches for Elliot.
“It’s okay if you wanna go back to sleep,” Elliot says, right next to his ear. Elliot kisses his temple and Blake leans into it, cracks an eye open and sees Elliot, in all his early morning glory. Curls messy, cheeks vaguely stubbly, sleep in his eyes. He’s completely naked and he’s kicked off the sheets. He has freckles on his shoulders.
“No, really,” Blake mumbles and leans over to kiss the top of Elliot’s shoulder, “I’m awake.”
Elliot hums, breath hitching when Blake reaches out to touch him. Elliot moves quickly, straddles Blake’s hips, only a thin sheet between them, but Elliot doesn’t push it out of the way yet.
He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry this morning, keen on taking his time. He finds Blake’s hands and pushes them down against the mattress, grinding against him, slowly, Blake impatient under him, burning up with every touch, every single one of Elliot’s movements drawing a sound from him, until Elliot takes pity and crawls down, takes the sheet with him, lips finding the inside of Blake’s thigh.
Elliot sucks a mark there, teeth sharp against Blake’s skin. “You’re so beautiful,” Elliot says and presses a kiss to the bruise he left yesterday. Blake is pale as a ghost, especially compared to Elliot, bruises easily. He still has some lingering marks from the playoffs, mostly faded now, but Elliot found one of them last night and put his lips on that one, too.
Last night wasn’t this lazy, last night was about getting off their clothes and getting to touch skin, Elliot taking whatever he wanted and Blake more than willing to give, fast and desperate. This morning, there’s time to linger, and they have all the time in the world, all the time they never thought they’d have. Blake is pretty sure that Elliot said, “I always wanted to do this,” three times last night.
They stay in bed all morning, the sheets tangled around their feet. Elliot mumbles something about breakfast and Blake nuzzles into his hair. Blake loves him a lot, so much that he doesn’t even know how to say it, because I love you sounds too cheesy, and at the same time like it’s not enough.
It doesn’t matter what he told Elliot in January.
It’s too late anyway.
He’s in love with him, was in love with him even before they kissed on New Year’s Eve, and it’s going to hurt either way, whatever they decide to do. If Elliot wants him, in whichever way he chooses, well… he can have Blake. Elliot probably knows that. He must know.
When Blake asked him to come here, he basically asked him to forget what he said before. People always get hurt, no matter how hard you try, and when he asked Elliot to make up his mind first, he hurt him, too. There was no winning for either of them.
They take another nap before they get up, Elliot plastered against him, sticky, sweaty, breath hot against Blake’s skin.
Blake wakes up when Elliot moves away and slips out of bed. “Where are you going?”
“I just remembered something,” Elliot says. He bends down behind the bed to grab his briefs and then pulls on the shirt Blake was wearing yesterday.
Blake frowns at him.
“I don’t want the cats to see me naked,” Elliot says before he disappears into the hallway. He obviously doesn’t close the door fast enough, so Squid flits into the room, hops onto Blake’s bed and meows at him accusingly.
Right. Food. “In a minute,” Blake mumbles. He holds out his hand and Squid accepts a few gentle pats.
When Elliot returns he nearly trips over Angus, who’s sitting by the door, judging them silently. “Here,” Elliot says and drops something brown and fuzzy on Blake’s chest.
“Um…” Blake holds it up. “It’s a moose.”
“You told me to bring you a moose.”
“You’re so stupid,” Blake says, grinning despite himself. He pulls Elliot down for a kiss. “Thank you. I’ll give it a name and everything.”
“Good,” Elliot says. “It took me forever to find a good one.”
“A good moose?”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t believe you went moose shopping.”
Elliot shrugs. He flops back down next to Blake, leg thrown across Blake’s. “So…”
“Hm?”
“What’s the plan for today?”
“I don’t know,” Blake says. “This?”
“Bed? Sex? Cats staring at us?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” Elliot says. “And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow you can pick.”
“I told Adam I’d swing by at some point.”
Blake pulls a face, because he doesn’t want to share Elliot, but Adam is Elliot’s best friend and he just got traded and he might not be in town anymore when Elliot comes back again, so Blake gets it. “Okay.”
“You could come.” Elliot taps his finger on Blake’s chest. “He said he
