NHL Imagines

Being Friends to Lovers With Elias Lindholm Would Include:

A/N: He's staying on Carolina for this, okay? Okay.

You first met Elias in Raleigh his rookie year.

You worked for the Canes so you were around the team a lot.

You normally didn't hang out with the players, but the rookie was drawn to you and you found him cute so you spent more time with him and your "coworkers" status moved to "friends," which, as the months went on, moved to "best friends."

You had a crush on him in the beginning, but that crush died out as the two of you became friends.

The same was said for Elias, or so he thought.

He totally had a huge crush on you, which was why he always talked to you, but as the two of you became friends, he didn't want to risk losing that, so he never brought it up and he thought that it had died out as time went on...

You guys were friends, best friends, for years.

You guys were inseparable.

Always over at each other's place.

You went to all of the Canes' home games, always dressed in your Lindholm jersey.

Elias never had an "I'm in love with you" moment because his supressed feelings slowly started to come back.

It wasn't a tsunami of feelings, but soft waves.

His crush came back, then actual feelings and as the months went on, he knew that he loved you.

But he kept those feelings a secret from you because he didn't want to ruin your friendship.

Small things changed though, like the way he looked at you.

And the feeling of his hand on your back or on your thigh.

He got more domestic, which you didn't think was possible.

He got softer.

And all of those things pulled your own feelings back to the surface. You started to get a crush on your best friend again.

You told your other friends about your feelings and they were like "...I thought you had been in love with him this entire time...?" Because they genuinely thought that.

"Love."

Them saying you were in love with him made you spiral and you had the "oh my god I'm in love with him" moment, which your friends laughed at.

Your feelings ended up coming out when you got drunk and drunk you told Elias that you loved him.

He debated whether or not to bring it up the next morning, but he was in love with you and he had to know if drunk you was telling the truth.

You were.

Neither of you had to say anything to the team. You walked into practice hand in hand and the whole team was like "FINALLY!"