“What’re you doing for the off-days?” Jake asks.

David blinks. “I don’t know?” he says. “Maybe I’ll hit the gym or something.”

“I’m going to a Jays game with some friends,” Jake says. David didn’t know he had friends in Toronto, but then, of course he does. He seems to have friends everywhere. “You want to come? We’ve got an extra ticket.”

“No, that’s — no,” David says. “I should head up.”

“Tomorrow, then,” Jake says.

David nods, jerky, gets out of the car. He looks back once to see if Jake’s gone, but he’s still there, lifts his hand in a wave before he pulls away.

Once David gets to his room, he goes straight to the shower, because he needs one anyway. The fact that he jerks off with his hand braced against the tile, his lip, still tender, between his teeth, is purely incidental.

*

Jake drives him home the next night as well, but he doesn’t suggest hanging out before dropping him off, not David coming over or getting a drink or anything, and the tension David’s held, the fear that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, pulls tight.

David spends the two days off doing some workouts that aren’t in his schedule, pure endurance work that leaves him satisfyingly drained, enough that he almost doesn’t have the energy to jerk off at the end of the day. Almost, but it’s a losing battle to fight the urge, so on edge that no amount of pushing himself can wring it out of him.

The camp provides free ice-time for the hour running up to the official start time, and there are a two players already on the ice when he arrives forty-five minutes before camp: the goalie their team’s been handed, an AHLer who’s trying to break into the back-up position for the Canadiens, and Jake, taking potshots at him.

David skates closer, and Jake looks up, grins when he meets David’s eye. “Want to make it a contest?” he asks.

“That’s okay,” David says. “What’re you doing here so early? You’re usually late.”

He doesn’t mean for it to sound like an accusation, just a statement of fact, but Jake’s smile dims.

“Yeah,” he says. “I dunno, I was adjusting to the schedule, I guess, my trainer tends to work me later so my schedule’s closer to the season’s. No reason not to use the extra time, though. And give Vinny the practice.”

“I got enough practice playing you in the O,” Vincent says. “Leave me some dignity, Jake.”

“C’mon,” Jake says. “First one to get ten past him buys the other guy dinner.”

David hesitates.

“Sure,” Vincent says. “And what do I get? Pucks flying at my face.”

“Okay,” David says. “But no junk food, it has to be good for you.”

“You are actually a robot,” Vincent says. “Do you remember your creators? Have you learned to love?”

David ignores him, taking off his glove to reach out and shake Jake’s outstretched hand. David notches the tenth, ignoring Vincent’s increasingly creative chirping, right after Jake gets his eighth, but Jake just grins at him like that was his plan all along.