The night we met
I said I wanted to cause chaos and I messaged @raysofcrosby about it and she didn't tell me not to so I did
Warnings: Mentions of drinking
WC: ~2.1k
This is only partially proof read because it's 2:30 in the morning and I need to go to sleep, so that's the only thing I'm sorry about. Have fun! ____________________________________________
The patio of the restaurant was loud with the laughter of your friends, the music blaring from the band your fiance found, the stories being told as you and Erik reminisced about your relationship up until that point. You couldn’t believe that you were set to be married in a matter of months, the engagement party you had waited to have until after his season was over finally happening.
The restaurant was covered with photos, from the selfie you took on the first night you met, both of you way too drunk to even remember taking it, the picture from your graduation when he surprised you by flying home from his road trip early so he could be there for you, a picture from when he met your family for the first time, holding your baby cousin like he was part of the family already. Everything you saw brought you joy, Erik especially.
You felt a hand wrap around your waist, pulling you close to him as Erik nuzzled his chin on your shoulder, placing a soft kiss against your neck. “What are you thinking about?” he whispers.
You reach up, your hand gently grazing his cheek as you turn to kiss him. “The first thing we’re going to do when we get home," you tell him, giggling against his lips as he kisses you again.
“Oh? What’s that going to be?” You feel his grip tighten around you, pulling you as close to him as he can.
“Open all of the presents and start writing the thank you cards,” you tease him, pulling a laugh from him, listening to him mumble about all the things that were 'more fun' that he wanted to do instead. “Go talk to your friends, there are some people I want to say hi to.”
He waits for another moment before he releases you, trying his best to hold on to you for as long as he can, pouting like a child the entire time. You can't help but smile as he mingles with everyone around him, looking proud as he kept gesturing over to you with every person he talked to.
You walk around, pulling different friends from different points in your life into conversation; friends you haven’t seen in a while asking to see the ring Erik got for you in person, your friends from work in awe of Erik's teammates and asking which of them were single for their own purposes, your family who couldn’t stop gushing about how happy they were for you after watching you go through partner after partner that ended in heartbreak. You finally get over to Erik’s teammates, finding Cale standing in the corner with a box in his hands, wrapped to perfection in silvery-white paper.
“Hey!” you greet him, pulling him in for a hug. “Look at everything you’ve done,” you tell him. He was the one that had introduced you to Erik all those years ago, encouraging you to date him, ensuring you that your friendship wouldn’t get complicated if you were dating one of his teammates, helping Erik plan his proposal, even agreeing to be on your side of the wedding party instead of Erik’s because of how much you loved him. Cale was your favorite person on the team besides Erik.
Cale lets out a nervous laugh, nodding as the two of you watch everyone having fun around you. “Yeah, it’s great. I’m really happy for you guys,” he says, the fake cheeriness unable to hide in his voice.
You look at him, his cheeks more red than normal, clearly something off about him. “What’s up with you?”
“What?” he looks at you, obviously panicked. You knew this boy almost as well as you knew Erik. You knew how he showed his emotions on his face, you knew what he was feeling when he was feeling it, you knew when he was hiding something from you, just like he is now. “Oh, nothing. I’m just tired. Didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Cale,” you try to press, knowing he wasn’t telling the truth.
“I brought you this,” he says, changing the subject as he thrust his gift at you.
“Oh, um,” you start, clearly taken off guard. “I’ll go put this with the others.”
“No,” he says, his hand on your arm to stop you from turning away. You both look at his hand as it lingers, Cale ripping it away before you could process anything else. “Could you open it now? I want to see your reaction.”
You don’t argue with him, bringing him over to one of the tables with your free hand so you can sit and open it. You knew he didn’t wrap it himself, the work done too nicely for it to be his, the bow tied in too pristine a manner for anyone who wasn’t somehow trained in the art of bow tying to do ti themselves.
Inside the box were hand towels in your favorite color, your initial and an E, a J in the middle for both of you. “Towels?” you ask him, a confused look on your face.
“Do you remember the first night we met? You were so drunk that-”
“You took me home with you so that you knew I was safe,” you finish his sentence. You remembered that night like it was yesterday; you had way too much to drink and had only met Cale earlier that day, but you immediately felt close to him. You felt like you had known him forever despite your forever only beeing a few hours. He took you home with him, let you take his bed and made sure that you were safe instead of trying to find your own way home when the rest of your friends were already long gone for the night.
Cale lets out a laugh. “You kept asking me for a towel, over and over again. I have no idea why.”
“I think in my mind that was the way I was going to clean up whatever mess I was.”
The two of you laugh some more over how ridiculous you could get when you were really drunk, which happened much more often than you would like to admit back when you were younger. Cale was always the first one to be by your side when he thought things were going south for you, slowly being substituted with Erik as the two of you became closer and closer as you fell in love. Cale was still always there for you.
“I figured you would need towels now that I won’t be there to get them for you,” he tells you.
You look at him as he stared at his feet, unable to make any eye contact with you. “Thank you, Cale. For everything,” you say to him, pulling him in for a hug.
He hesitates for a second, his arms staying by his sides before he finally pulls you close, holding you as if letting go for him meant losing you forever. He knew that he was going to anyway.
You pull away from him, staying there with him for a moment as you scan the venue. Your guests were in their own worlds, enjoying the party that you and Erik had planned to celebrate the impending nuptials.
“I still can’t believe I’m getting married,” you break the silence between you and Cale, wrapping and unwrapping one of the ends of the towels in between your fingers, the plush material feeling comfortable in your hands. “Especially to a guy like Erik.”
“You deserve it.”
“How did you know that he and I would work so well?”
Cale looks at you, then to Erik, then back to you before inhaling. ‘You both care about others in a way that you even the best writers couldn’t begin to put on paper. You can read people and get to know them better than they know themselves. You both make sure you put others first but you know to make sure you’re fine as well. You both have that balance of care for others and care for yourselves. He loves you.”
“I love him, too.”
Someone starts clinking the edge of their glass, signaling that they wanted to make a toast. You see Erik get up on a chair, scanning for you in the crowd. His face lights up when he sees you, waiting for everyone around you to to quiet down enough for him to talk.
“Five years ago today, I was introduced to someone who didn’t know how much alcohol should be consumed in a signel night, and always managed to take it one drink too far,” he starts, earning a laugh from everyone around you as you rolled your eyes at him, not hiding the smile that was growing on your face in the meantime. “I met the person that would become my best friend, the one I cared about the most. You were the first person I would say ‘I miss you,’ to and actually mean it. You made me forget all the hurt that was caused by other people because everytime I look at you, I can’t imagine a time in my life when you weren’t the person I wanted to spend all my time with.”
Erik continues to talk, standing above everyone by only looking at you. He breaks eye contact at one point when everyone around him can’t stop laughing, him unable to stop beaming as he talked about you. You look over at Cale, a pained look convering his face.
“Hey, will you please tell me what’s up with you?” you whisper to him. “I know you’re not just tired.”
“I can’t tell you.”
You stare at him, trying to figure out what would be so secretive to him that he couldn’t tell you when he told you everything. “What do you mean? Cale, are you ok?”
Cale swallows, still unable to look you in the eye. “I don’t want to ruin what you and Erik have.”
You could feel the panic setting in. “What did he do? Did he cheat on me? Did he lie to me about something else?” you start asking, trying to figure out what he could mean.
“No, no!” Cale says quickly. “Erik would never do that. It’s not about Erik at all.”
“Then who?”
“Me.”
You look at him, searching his face for any indicated as to what he was talking about. “What could you possibly do that would ruin what Erik and I have? Cale, you’re my best friend. You can talk to me about this.”
“That night we met.”
“What about it?”
“Do you remember everything about it? And I mean everything? Because I do.”
“I was lucky that I remembered who you were after the twelve drinks they somehow served me that night.”
“When I got you back to my place, made sure you were ok and all that, you told me you thought I was cute. That you couldn’t get over how sweet I was and how you always thought that I was the type of guy you would end up with.”
You had no idea you said any of that. You didn’t even remember that night the next morning, let alone almost five and a half years later. “Ok. So? How does that potentially ruin what Erik and I have?” you ask him jokingly. If you had mentioned potentially liking someone else one time before you even knew him, there was nothing wrong with that. What happened before him didn’t matter when you had to look forward to everything with him.
“That always made me regret introducing you and Erik.”
You can’t help but laugh, partially out of confusion. “Really?”
“I regret not asking you out instead.”
“Oh,” was all you could let out. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because when you care about someone, you have to do whatever is best for them. Even if it sucks for you.” You couldn’t think of anything else to do but stare at him. You didn’t even notice that Erik was done with his speech, down from the chair and approaching you.
“Hey, babe,” he says, pulling him close to you as he did earlier that night, the way he had been doing for five years. You had no idea that in those five years, your best friend, his teammate, someone who was like his brother, was wishing that he was the one pulling you close instead. You couldn’t help but wonder what your life would be like if Cale had actually asked you out, if he had introduced you to Erik later in your life.
“I can’t be in your wedding. I can’t come at all,” Cale lets out, leaving both you and Erik standing there, unable to say anything else.
