It’s Jake, and David relaxes a little, but not much, trying to think back through the last series of texts, wondering if he said something he shouldn’t have. Their most recent texts were about the upcoming basketball playoffs, so David doesn’t think so, unless Jake’s passionate about the Pistons. He’s really intense about the Detroit Lions, considering how terrible they are, so David can’t discount that as a possibility.

“Okay, so I can’t do this by text,” Jake says, “and like, phone kind of sucks too, but you’re like, a thousand miles away, so.”

“So?” David asks.

“You know how we’re playing each other in a couple weeks?” Jake asks.

David thinks that might be a rhetorical question, but he answers, “Yes,” just in case he’s wrong.

“So that’s one of the Panthers’ last games,” Jake says. David bites back telling him he knows that. It seems like it’s revealing too much, though it’s not exactly hard to look at a team schedule.

“Okay,” he says instead.

“Can I take you out?” Jake asks.

“You want to get drinks or something?” David asks.

“I — well, yeah, but.” Jake says, exhales hard. “I’m screwing this up. Okay, what are you doing the day after we play?”

“I don’t know,” David says. “Practice, probably.”

“Then could I take you out after that?” Jake asks. “For dinner, or drinks, or whatever?”

“Don’t you have to go back to Florida?” David asks. The Islanders game is the last game of the Panthers’ road trip, and he realises immediately, embarrassed, that he just revealed he knows that. “You’re the captain.”

“I will,” Jake says. “But there’s three days between that and the next game, and just. Dude.”

“Dude,” David repeats, dry.

“You’re the worst,” Jake says, and David might take offence if Jake didn’t say it like it was a compliment. “Do you want to go on a date?”

“A date,” David repeats slowly.

“Yeah,” Jake says. “A date. You know what those are, right?”

“Fuck off,” David says reflexively, then winces, but Jake doesn’t seem to take it personally, laughs, low and warm, into the receiver.

“A date,” Jake repeats. “I want to date you. Is that cool?”

“I—” David says. “Yes. That’s cool.”

“Cool,” Jake says.

“I was just getting ready for practice,” David says awkwardly, when the silence stretches.

“Oh, am I interrupting the David Chapman routine?” Jake asks. “I can go.”

“No,” David says. “I mean, you are, kind of, but. That’s fine. I can keep talking.”

“Cool,” Jake says, and maybe David’s imagining it, but he thinks he can hear Jake smiling.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN