Page 81 of Hitting the Goal Line
“Nothing, let’s go say hi to your friend,” he tells me, his voice having a coldness to it that I don’t like. I really need to get to the bottom of what is going on with him, because I don’t know how much more I can take.
Trying to ignore his tone as best that I can, I continue to make my way down to the ice. Thankfully, Blake catches sight of me, and the guys, and stops at one of the openings to wait for us.
He throws a wave in our direction and gives me a small grin when I close the distance between us.
“You stick handling skills could use some work. I wonder what Coach Martinez would say if he was here,” I tease, both of us knowing that his stick moved perfectly today, even he even got an assist.
“Probably not to listen to his loudmouth daughter because she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about,” Blake teases back, the grin on his face growing a bit.
“Shut up. I know more about hockey than you do. Or did you forget who was raised by the hockey player and who wasn’t?”
“Yeah, yeah, keep rubbing in my face,” he says giving me a playful eye roll before nodding to the guys behind me. “Who are your friends?”
I give Blake a smile and introduce him to Elijah’s friends first, since they look like the most excited to meet him. When that is all said and done, I turn over to my boyfriend with a smile, hoping to see that he is excited to meet an important person in my life, but my smile disappears when I see little to no excitement on his face.
This is definitely not going to be a great first impression.
Might as well get this over with.
“Blake, this is Elijah, my boyfriend, and Elijah this is Blake, my best friend,” I say, waving a hand between the two.
“It’s nice to meet you, man. Soph has told me a lot about you. I’m glad I can finally put a face to the person.”
Blake, being the good friend that he is, puts a smile on his face and extends a hand out to Elijah over the door separating us, because he knows how much Elijah means to me.
My boyfriend on the other hand looks like a petulant child being dragged by his parents to say hi to one of their friends.
Seeing the look on his face makes me want to cry.
Here are two individuals, who at the moment, are important to my life beyond belief, meeting for the first time and I can already tell that they won’t be getting along.
“Yeah, nice to meet you too,” Elijah answers, but instead of shaking Blake’s hand, he slides his hands into the pockets of his pants.
Cue the heart break.
In the months that we’ve been together, he has never acted this way. He has always been happy and cheery whenever I introduced him to someone in my life. Yet, I introduced him to Blake, and he acts like this? Whatever is effecting his mood better be good.
The two men continue to look at each other without saying a word, sizing each other up, eventually after a few seconds, Blake breaks the stare down and turns to look at me.
“I’ll see you at home later?” he asks, because that’s a normal question between us, but the way Elijah’s jaw is ticking, it’s as if this is the first time he’s finding out I live with Blake.
It isn’t. He’s known about it since date two.
After giving my boyfriend a quick look, I shake my head at Blake. “I’m going to stay at Elijah’s tonight.”
Blake gives me a tight smile, one that tells me that he is trying hard to like my boyfriend nut failing and gives me a nod. “Alright, then I will see you tomorrow. It was nice meeting you guys.”
With that, he skates off and heads through the tunnel to the locker room.
The second that Blake is gone, Elijah’s friends start heading up, talking about how cool it was to meet one of the Knights.
I look over at Elijah, silently asking why he’s acting the way that he is, but all I’m met with is a distant expression that gives me nothing.
When we get to his place I’ll ask him. I don’t feel like having a screaming match in public.
I slide my hand into his when he offers it and let him drag me up the stairs and out of the arena. The whole time my hand is scramming at me to be released from the death grip that its currently in, but I leave it where it is, not wanting to make Elijah’s mood even worse.
Once we are out of the arena, Elijah walks over to his friends and tells them that we are heading home instead of going with them to grab something to eat.
