David supposes he understands that, to some extent, since by all rights they’re supportive of him, accepting. But that’s one thing David doesn’t understand — not that his family could be supportive of him, David knows families can be, though he can’t imagine they’d be happy that Jake didn’t have a girlfriend instead, given that he has the option, given what’s on the line if he’s found out.

But if they are fine with it, as fine with it as Jake thinks they are, he can’t see why they wouldn’t tell other people. The things you don’t talk about are the things you don’t want to talk about, the things you’re ashamed of. The things you don’t talk about are the things you can’t say.

“What’s the matter?” Jake mumbles, like David woke him up with his own insomnia.

“Nothing,” David says. “Go back to sleep.”

Jake slings an arm around David’s side, warm and heavy, and does.

*

Maybe David would have been able to drop it if they had training the next day, something to focus on that wasn’t the contradiction inherent in a family that would be supportive and secretive at the same time. David can’t untangle the threads of it, figure out how to make sense of it.

Maybe he’d have been able to drop it if Jake hadn’t looked so disappointed when David suggested he should head back to the hotel that morning, so disappointed that David couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t really want to either. The time’s slipping away so quickly, and it doesn’t make sense to be alone right now, not when he’ll have no shortage of time alone once he heads back to New York.

It’s a nice day. The weather, David means, though it’s too hot, but also the day itself. They go downtown, wander around like the tourists David supposes they are, eat dinner at a brewery, sampling a flight of the beer. David wouldn’t usually drink more than one beer with dinner, let alone half a dozen, but the samples are small, and he doesn’t like the majority anyway, Jake laughing and drinking the ones David dismisses.

“Snob,” he says, not quite a chirp, more gentle than that.

“I just like what I like,” David says.

“Uh huh,” Jake says.

It’s late when they get back, the sun fading in the sky, and David brushes his teeth while Jake showers, examines his too-pink cheeks in the mirror. He forgot to wear sunscreen. It’s unlike him. He supposes he’s preoccupied, but still.

David takes a short shower after Jake’s done, finds Jake on the couch flipping through channels, hair curling damply around his eyes.

“You want to watch something, or early night?” Jake asks.