“Holy shit, man,” Vopni says, just as David sits down, looking down at his phone. “You know how that Leafs guy got caught kissing a dude?”

“Breaking news, Vopni,” Hamilton says dryly, while the rest of the room ignores him.

“Yeah but the dude he was kissing was Marc Lapointe,” Vopni says, and now he’s got everyone’s attention.

Riley’s no one important, a bottom six grinder, but Lapointe is one of the reasons the Leafs won the Cup last month, played hot all season and didn’t let up when the playoffs started. Even if people were willing to brush off Riley, they’re not going to do the same for Lapointe.

“It’s probably just some bullshit rumour,” Hamilton says. “You subscribed to Deadspin or something?”

“No,” Vopni says, waving his phone for emphasis. “My sister has a huge crush on the guy, she follows everything he does. Apparently he held a press conference. That dude’s his boyfriend.”

That has a few players reaching for their own phones. David keeps his head down, focuses on untying his skates, putting all his attention into it, trying to mask the way his hands have started to shake, his heart has started to pound in his chest.

Almost everyone has filtered out of the room by the time David’s managed to strip out of his gear. Jake comes to sit in the stall next to him. “You okay?” he asks quietly, and David looks pointedly toward the remaining players before he finally looks at Jake, noticing the phone in his hand.

“Is it true?” he asks, as low as he can.

“Looks like,” Jake says. “C’mon, let’s get some lunch.”

David hesitates.

“David, no one’s going to assume you’re gay for eating lunch with me,” Jake says, and David looks around again, sharp, but they’re the only ones left in the room.

“Not with ‘Ladykiller Lourdes’,” David allows.

Jake frowns. “I hate that fucking nickname,” he says. “Let’s go, Davey.”

“You can’t call me that either,” David says, and Jake reaches out, ruffling his hair before he can duck his head.

“You buy a guy dinner and look at how he treats you,” Jake says, and David rolls his eyes, his heart slowing for the first time since Vopni spoke up.

“You lost that fair and square,” David says.

“Yeah,” Jake says, grins at him, all teeth. “I’d happily do it again, too.”

David scowls, but it makes Jake grin wider.

*

It’s easy enough not to talk about it at lunch, even if David can’t stop thinking about it, because Jake never runs out of things to say, pulls David into a discussion on how the latest draft should have actually gone that piques David’s interest, since he has to admit Jake knows more about the OHL than he does, and he seems to have the picks pretty well pegged. Vincent jumps into the conversation halfway through, running a constant editorial on Jake’s predictions until Jake’s hitting him every second word, and David can’t help but laugh at them.