Jake was right about it being a nice day. It’s hot out, but the good kind of hot, the kind that’s pleasant rather than the kind that makes him sweat through his shirt in five minutes, makes the air thick and smoggy, like most Toronto summer days. That’s probably why he doesn’t make excuses once they get outside, that and the fact that the only place he’s been but the arena or Jake’s apartment this week was a pool, and that was conditioning.

Jake insists on public transportation, and it’s thankfully quiet midday on a Sunday. David ducks his head down, Jays cap low, and hopes that no one recognises him. No one does, and no one recognises Jake, who has a Lions hat tugged down as well, sitting across the aisle from him on the first streetcar they take, the second, until they’re outside High Park.

“Why’d we come this far?” David asks, a question that’s been tugging at him since they got onto the subway. There’s no shortage of parks in this city.

“It’s got a zoo,” Jake says, waggling his eyebrows, like David has any interest in wild animals, and David rolls his eyes. “Tennis courts too.”

David eyes the bag Jake’s been carrying the whole way. “Is that what’s in there?”

“Maybe,” Jake says, and when he makes his way further into the park, David follows.

He seems to settle on a patch of grass, half in the shade, with only a few people in view. It obviously isn’t a tennis court, but David’s not going to bother pointing that out, because Jake will just laugh. “What’re we doing?” he asks, instead.

Jake opens his bag, pulling out a blanket, then kneeling down and spreading it out. “Sit,” Jake directs, and David does, while Jake goes back into the bag and pulls out sandwiches and bottles of water.

“It’s kind of a shitty spread compared to last time, but I owed you a proper outside picnic,” Jake says. “We can play tennis after if you want. I brought rackets. You’ll definitely kick my ass, I suck at tennis.”

David played a lot of tennis growing up. It was the one interest he and his father had in common, and when he was younger, it was one of the only things they did together. They quit playing right around the time David stopped finding his father a worthy opponent, would beat him every time, and David isn’t entirely sure whether that was his choice or his father’s. It doesn’t really matter, he supposes; his father moved out to Alberta not too long after that.

He looks at the sandwich, wrapped in plastic. No different than the sorts of offerings they get on flights or for catered lunches, turkey and cheese and tomato, plenty of lettuce. He unwraps it slowly.