Instead he goes back to his hotel room, stares up at the ceiling until his eyes finally get heavy. He's tired and grumpy when Jake picks him up, snappish, but if Jake notices, he doesn't say anything about it.

*

The last few days are less individualised routines and more of a standard training camp, the practice groups being trained like a team. They have the game for the public coming up, giving Toronto kids, starving for some hockey by this point in the offseason, a chance to watch professionals, the proceeds going to a local children’s charity David isn't familiar with.

They put Jake on David's opposite wing, and he fits there, feels right there, seems to know what David's going to do, puts himself between David and anyone gunning for him in the half-friendly scrimmages they play in the lead up to the game.

Jake drives him in on the final day, keeps glancing over at him until David has to resist snapping at him to keep his eyes on the road. "What're you up to when this is over?" Jake asks, finally.

David shrugs. "Going to New York."

"Not home?" Jake asks.

David shrugs again, glances out the window. "I have to keep training," he says finally. Dave’s arranged a trainer for him when he gets there; he doesn’t even have to take a day off, can get right back to it.

"Yeah, but—" Jake says, before going quiet, and David keeps watching the city fly by.

"I'm going to text you, okay?" Jake blurts out after a minute, and David looks over at him. Jake's finally watching the road, but his neck's gone pink.

"Okay," David says, finally.

"Okay," Jake repeats, and David watches him for another minute before he goes back to looking out the window.

*

David’s team wins the game 4-2, the game winner a goal from Jake in the second. It was a pretty little top-shelf shot that isn’t really his style, will be an ugly new thing for goalies to face in the upcoming season, the camp clearly paying dividends, at least for Jake.

David should head back to his hotel room after the game, should pack. He needs to be out by ten tomorrow morning if he doesn’t want to pay for another night. But when Jake raises his eyebrows at him, unsubtle, David follows him back to his car, lets Jake drive him to the condo one last time.

“That was a pretty goal,” David says when they’re a couple minutes out.

“Yeah?” Jake asks, slanting a grin at him. “You think so?”

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t,” David says.

Jake’s grin doesn’t drop, just gets wider, as he says, “It gets you hot, doesn’t it?”

David can feel his cheeks heat. It does, honestly, watching a pretty play, watching Jake making a pretty play. Before this summer it burnt him up from the inside out, but not in a good way. He’d choke on it.

Now he finds himself wanting to choke on it, stretch his mouth around Jake, unravel him so he can understand even a fraction of what David wants from him. Though even David doesn’t understand a fraction of what he wants from Jake, he just knows it’s too much.