“I don’t know,” David says, sitting beside him. “Maybe something short?”

“Okay,” Jake says, continues to flip through the TV listings.

“Jake?” David says, after Jake’s landed on an episode of MythBusters he’s seen before.

“Hm?” Jake asks.

“If your family is really okay with you being, you know,” David says. “What you are.”

“Into dudes?” Jake says. “Into you?”

“Um,” David says, flustered. “Sure.”

“They are,” Jake says. “I mean, I haven’t told them about you specifically, but yeah.”

“But if they were okay with it, wouldn’t they talk about it?” David asks. “About you being — you know, then — why.”

“You’ve totally lost me,” Jake says, sounding apologetic about it.

“You said they wouldn’t tell anyone if you told them about us,” David says.

“Yeah,” Jake says. “They wouldn’t.”

“But if you had a girlfriend—” David says. “They wouldn’t hide—”

Jake waits him out, but David’s not sure how to continue. It doesn’t even make sense in his head, so it’s probably impossible for him to say it in a way that Jake would understand.

“If they were actually okay with it, why wouldn’t they talk about it?” David tries finally.

“Like, me being with a guy?” Jake asks.

“If you told them about me,” David says. “You said they wouldn’t say anything to anyone.”

“I mean, they know how the NHL works,” Jake says. “That it could turn into a whole thing if people know I’m with a guy, especially if it’s you, so. They’ve got my back.”

He says it like he isn’t talking about a worst scenario situation, like it isn’t his own personal nightmare. David doesn’t know how he can say it so casually, how he can say it at all.

“So they wouldn’t say anything,” David says.

“No,” Jake says. “Like, if I asked them not to say something, they’d take it to the grave. That’s like, family stuff, you know?”

David wouldn’t, but then, a lot of Jake’s ‘you know’s seem to be rhetorical.

“Sure,” David says anyway.

“Look,” Jake says. “I get that you’re not — no pressure, you know? If you don’t want me to tell them, I won’t tell them.”

“Okay,” David says.

“Okay,” Jake says, then, when his phone starts buzzing with an incoming call, “Shit, sorry.”

“It’s fine,” David says.

“Can’t talk long, I’m hanging out with a friend,” Jake says, and David flinches, even though it’s unfair to, that there’s no other way for Jake to describe him, not if David doesn’t want Jake to tell his family.