“No,” David says. “Um. That’s okay.”

“Cool,” Jake says, and then neither of them are saying much of anything after that.

*

Jake’s time in New York seems to go by as quickly as Detroit dragged. They don’t leave David’s apartment. They don’t need to, thanks to David’s grocery trip, and when David reluctantly asks if Jake wants to go somewhere on the second day, figuring Jake might be going a little stir crazy, Jake’s dismissive of the idea. They eat, and sleep, and watch movies, and it’s so much like Toronto it aches a little, capturing something David thought was lost.

It aches more when it’s their last night. They’re sitting on the couch, idly watching the Blue Jays trounce the Pirates, David tucked under Jake’s arm. David’s tired, but he doesn’t want to go to sleep yet, doesn’t want tomorrow morning to come.

“Hey, before I leave,” Jake says, sounding uncharacteristically serious.

“Hm?” David asks.

“I want to talk about, like, us,” Jake says. He looks uncharacteristically serious too, when David meets his eye, but then he laughs.

“Why are you laughing?” David asks.

“You made this face like I said we should talk about, like, I dunno, eating ice cream for dinner or something. Like your worst nightmare.”

“Eating ice cream for dinner isn’t my worst nightmare,” David says, though it is an objectively bad idea. “And I didn’t make a face.”

“You totally did,” Jake says. “I know it’s like, not something you really want to talk about, but—”

David can hardly deny that.

“I just — we should talk about the season?” Jake says. “Like, I want to keep in touch, I don’t know if that’s something you want to do.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” David asks.

“Does that mean you want to?” Jake asks.

“I assumed we were,” David says. “Was I — do you not want to?”

“I just said I did,” Jake says.

“Oh,” David says. He mentally backtracks through the conversation, realises Jake had, in fact, said that. “I mean. Yes, I’d like to.”

“Cool,” Jake says. “And like, would it be okay if we hung out after games and stuff? I’m going to be in New York for more than just the Isles games, you know? So it’d be like, pretty cool if we could see each other if I’m playing in Manhattan or Newark or something. Like. If you’re in town. The schedule’s kind of all over the place.”

David doesn’t know if he means in general, or if he’s looked at the Islanders schedule specifically, compared it to the Panthers schedule, checking whether David would be in town when Jake came to play the Rangers, the Devils.