Coming in First Place (Between the Teeth Book 1)

by Taylor Fitzpatrick

  “It’s really nice to finally meet Jake’s boyfriend,” Jake’s father says, and David can feel his face go red. It’s not a word they’ve used. It’s not even a word David uses in his head. They’re — they’re something, he knows that, but they’re not that.

  Except he’s here, travelled hundreds of miles to meet Jake’s family, and David’s pretty sure that’s a boyfriend thing to do.

  He’s given them the wrong impression. NHL players don’t have boyfriends. They can’t. Marc Lapointe is the exception that proved the rule; David tried not to listen to the guys in the Islanders room before they played the Leafs, but he still heard things. It’s never kind. But then, no one’s ever kind to their opponents, so perhaps that’s not the right word. The things they say make him feel sick. He feels sick every single time, because he knows they’d say the exact same things about him if they knew, if not worse.

  Dinner is uncomfortable, even more uncomfortable than he expected. Jake’s father serves a roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, a side salad dripping with dressing. It’s not right for the hot weather, and the sort of food he’d find unpalatably heavy even if he wasn’t so on edge he felt nauseated.

  Jake puts his hand on David’s knee after everyone starts to eat, and David jerks his leg away, tries not to see the hurt look on Jake’s face, can’t look at him for the rest of the meal. He focuses on biting, chewing, swallowing. He eats everything on his plate. It’s only polite, and when his mouth is full, he doesn’t have to answer any questions.

  “It was very good, Mr. Lourdes,” David says when his plate is taken away.

  “Greg,” Jake’s father says, not for the first time.

  “Greg,” David corrects himself, returns Mr. Lourdes’ smile with a weak one of his own.

  There’s ice cream for dessert. It’s weather appropriate, at least, if also far too heavy. Jake’s mother gives him a bowl with two scoops without asking first if he wants it. He can only manage one, the chocolate lingering, sickly sweet, in the back of his throat. He asks for the washroom, is directed upstairs, and isn’t surprised to find Jake waiting in the hall when he opens the door.

  “You okay?” Jake asks.

  “I’m fine,” David says.

  “You don’t have to be so nervous, they’re like, super low-key,” Jake says.

  “I’m not nervous,” David says.

  Jake gives him an incredulous look, which David supposes he deserves.

  “I’m doing my best,” David says.

  “I know,” Jake says, and he doesn’t have to say David’s best is pathetic, David is already well-aware. “We were going to watch a movie, if that’s cool.”

  David certainly isn’t against it, since watching a movie means there won’t be talking. Except he’s wrong about that: it’s clearly a movie they’ve all seen more than once, and they alternately talk through it and recite the lines along with the actors. Jake’s sitting too close to him, thigh pressed up against his, but then, he’s sitting just as close to his sister Allison, who’s on his other side. With four people crammed onto one couch, there simply isn’t enough room.

  David tries to follow the movie. It’s hard, considering the interruptions, the way he’s holding himself as upright as possible so he and Jake are touching in as few places as possible. When the credits roll, Jake elbows him lightly in the side.

  “You look a thousand miles away,” he says.

  “I’m just tired,” David says.

  “Well, you travelled today,” Jake says, like he’s making excuses for him. “Want to go to bed? I’ll head up with you.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t have to,” David says.

  “We’re heading to bed, guys,” Jake says, and David goes red. The way Jake says it sounds — well, like they’ll be going to bed together, though no one else seems fazed by it. David mumbles a general ‘good night’, follows Jake upstairs and into what turns out to be his room. David is assuming, but the number of hockey trophies on the shelves makes it fairly obvious. David’s bag is sitting on the end of the bed.

  “Sorry it’s super over the top hockey, my parents won’t let me like, ditch the trophies,” Jake says.

  “That’s fine,” David says. “Where am I sleeping?”

  “Here,” Jake says.

  “Then where are you sleeping?” David asks.

  Jake frowns. “Here.”

  “That’s—” David says. “That’s disrespectful to your parents.”

  “They really don’t care,” Jake says, then, like he’s seen something in David’s expression, “You care, though. That’s fine. That’s cool.”

  It doesn’t sound like it’s cool. It doesn’t sound like it’s fine, either. There’s something in David that wants to cede the point, sleep with Jake that night, a big part, but it isn’t bigger than the part of him that just — can’t.

  “I—” David says. “I can just sleep in the guest room or something.”

  “Uh,” Jake says, “We don’t have one, so.”

  “Oh,” David says. “Then I — I can sleep on the couch?”

  “No, you’re the guest,” Jake says. “I’ll take the couch.”

  “It’s your room, though,” David says. “And you won’t fit on the couch.” Neither will David, honestly, but Jake really won’t.

  “My bed’s big enough for both of us,” Jake says, then at whatever David’s face is doing again, “It’s fine, I’ve slept on the couch before, it’s pretty comfy.”

  David’s pretty sure Jake’s lying, but he is actually tired, and everyone else is still downstairs. And the idea of the Lourdes coming downstairs in the morning, walking past him while he sleeps, seeing him like that —

  “Okay,” David says.

  “You want to chill for a bit?” Jake asks. “We can watch a movie on my laptop or something?”

  David does, but he can imagine what the Lourdes would assume.

  “No, I’m —” David says. “I’m really tired. I got up early.”

  “Okay,” Jake says. “I’ll um. I’ll leave you to it, then?”

  He brushes a kiss to David’s cheek, one David struggles to accept, eyes cutting to the door, which is thankfully closed, before he retreats.

  David changes into pyjamas. He turns out the light, even though, as tired as he is, he isn’t sleepy yet. He gets between the sheets. They’re cold, a little rough. Jake can certainly afford better.

  Jake’s probably angry at him. David would be, in his place. He didn’t expect it to be this hard. Or maybe he did, because he wasn’t even considering coming before the distance between him and Jake felt like a thread that was close to snapping.

  He didn’t want it to be this hard. It’s not the Lourdes, he knows it isn’t, they’ve been nice and welcoming, if overwhelming. It’s David who’s messing this up.

  Just one more night after this, David tells himself, alone in Jake’s bed. The pillow and sheets smell like detergent, not like Jake. Not even like the detergent Jake uses. He can hear someone talking in the hallway, nearby but not near enough to hear the words themselves, then Jake’s voice, muffled. David wonders if they’re talking about him. If Jake’s apologising for David being a terrible guest.

  David knows the right manners — they were drilled into him from a young age — but the Lourdes aren’t anything like the people who’d come by their house when David was growing up, or his apartment with his mother after his father went west, aren’t anything like the people they’d visit. His parents usually socialised without David, but sometimes they brought him when other children were coming, or sometimes if the events were on Sundays, which his nanny Mary Anne had off. They either took him along, or they hired a babysitter, someone who worked in the government under his mother, an intern, David thinks, who ignored David the entire time and let David ignore her.

  The disconnect reminds David a little of his billet family in Québec City, but at least with them there was a language barrier; they spoke good but not perfect English, and David spoke adequate but not g
ood French. Well, eventually he spoke adequate French. He went to Québec armed with As in his French classes and thought that meant he’d be able to communicate effectively, but he was wrong.

  He had As in his English classes too. He’s still missing something, always missing something, in a way other people don’t seem to. Jake probably got Cs at best, but he still seems to understand things in a way David doesn’t, doesn’t even think he’s capable of. What people mean, maybe. David has a hard time with that. No one ever means what they’re saying. Neither does he, he supposes. People wouldn’t like him if he said what he meant. Not that people like him anyway: he knows they don’t.

  The door opens almost silently, and David sits up in bed, pulling the covers over his chest, even though he’s wearing a shirt.

  “You good?” Jake asks, peeking his head in the door. “Need anything? Another pillow? Towel for the morning?”

  “I’m fine,” David says. “I brought my own towel.”

  “Of course you did,” Jake says. His face is shadowed, backlit by the hall light, but David can see the crooked white of his grin. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  “Okay,” David says, fast, before he falters, asks Jake to come in, to stay. David is aware Jake’s family knows they’re…whatever they are — of course his family knows — but it’s one thing to know, another to be confronted with it, have your nose rubbed in it. It would be inconsiderate. Disrespectful, as he told Jake.

  “You want me to stay?” Jake asks.

  For a moment, sharp, David hates him for always knowing.

  “I—” David says. It’s hard to say no when he doesn’t want to say it, and David hates him a little for that too, for making him say no when he doesn’t want to.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” Jake repeats, like he understands, or maybe like he thinks David wanted to say no, but couldn’t manage it. David isn’t sure.

  “Good night,” David says, but Jake’s already closed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  David doesn’t sleep very well that night. He’d tell himself it was the unfamiliar room, unfamiliar bed, but he sleeps in those so often they’re familiar in their own way. Maybe it’s that it isn’t a hotel room, generic and interchangeable, but Jake’s room, the place he grew up. David’s had more trouble sleeping since he met Jake than he ever had before, so he supposes it isn’t surprising, but it never grows any less frustrating.

  David’s surrounded by his old trophies, medals, too many to count, the cheap plastic ones they give you when you’re young, growing steadily more substantial, a framed picture of Jake in his early teens, C on his jersey, hoisting a giant trophy from a tournament David vaguely remembers playing in. One David must have lost. The Gold medal is here, followed Jake back home from Florida at some point. David can’t look at it, sitting beside the silver, like they’re even close to the same.

  David wakes early, but after he uses the bathroom he returns to Jake’s room, scrolling blindly through news on his phone for hours, the same stories over and over, just from different sources, waiting for Jake to wake up, come get him so David isn’t forced to make conversation with any of the Lourdes without him as a buffer. That’s probably pathetic. Well. It’s definitely pathetic. He knows it’s pathetic, but he still can’t make himself leave the relative safety of Jake’s room.

  Jake pops his head in just after nine, after a short knock that makes David tense. He relaxes when he sees Jake, sleepy-eyed, hair mussed from the couch, like he’s just woken up, came straight to David when he did. Well, of course. All his things are in here.

  “Hey, sleeping in?” Jake asks.

  “I guess,” David says.

  Jake shuts the door behind him, comes to sit on the edge of David’s bed. His bed.

  “Coffee downstairs,” Jake says.

  He leans in, and David can’t help but flinch away before Jake can kiss him.

  “Door’s shut,” Jake says. “No one would come in without knocking.”

  “I know, I just—” David says, unsure how to finish.

  “I get it,” Jake says, though he doesn’t look like he does.

  “Sorry,” David says.

  “No worries,” Jake says. “You want first shower, or—”

  “You can,” David says. He regrets it once Jake leaves, the smell of coffee overwhelming now that Jake’s mentioned it, and he changes out of his sweats and old t-shirt to go downstairs, even though it doesn’t really make sense to before he showers, and it was nearly the mirror image of what Jake was wearing. Still, this is Jake’s house, not David’s.

  It was probably foolish not to expect anyone to be in the kitchen, but he still can’t help but be disappointed when he finds one of Jake’s sisters already there, leaning against the counter and sipping a cup of coffee. At least it’s just one Lourdes.

  “Good morning, Natalie,” David says. She’s in the way of the coffee pot, and he’s not sure if it’s ruder to ask her to move or to retreat, wait until she’s gone before he pours himself a cup.

  “Morning,” Natalie says.

  “Is that coffee?” David lands on as a polite way to indicate she should move, but she doesn’t, just gives him this look like he’s particularly dim. “May I have some?”

  “Be my guest,” Natalie says, in a way David thinks is sarcastic, but thankfully she moves away from the pot, tells him where the mugs are when he opens the wrong cabinet.

  “So how’d this happen?” Natalie asks, as David pours coffee into a chipped blue mug.

  “What do you mean?” David asks.

  “You and Jakey,” Natalie says. “How’d all this come about?”

  “Um,” David says. “Jake didn’t tell you?”

  Natalie shrugs. “Maybe I want to hear your version.”

  “I—” David says. “Is there milk? For the coffee?”

  “In the fridge,” Natalie says, again like she thinks he’s stupid. Everything she’s said to him — and it’s not a long list, she’s been by far the most quiet person in the house, with the exception of David — has had that bite to it, like she decided not to like him from the get-go and he’s done nothing to change her mind.

  “Thanks,” David says, and figures that’s permission to look in the fridge himself. He finds cream, whole milk, adds just a splash of the latter rather than enduring whatever look he’d get from Natalie if he proceeded to just drink his coffee black as opposed to adding it. He’s used to skim milk, maybe one percent if he doesn’t have a choice. Jake preferred one percent, so they had both at his condo. There wasn’t any one percent in the fridge, though. David looked.

  His coffee tastes off. He’s not sure if that’s from the milk or not.

  “So, like I was saying—” Natalie says, but she’s thankfully interrupted by Jake walking into the kitchen. David wonders if he rushed, worried David would do something wrong in his absence. He doesn’t take long showers, necessarily, but he was gone for less than ten minutes, for all that it felt like longer.

  “Hey, you found everything,” Jake says. “Getting along?”

  “Sure,” Natalie says, and David thinks he hears sarcasm in that too. Maybe that’s just the way she talks. He doesn’t know, really. Jake’s told him a lot about his sisters, but David can’t remember any of it right now. One of them is sarcastic, he thinks. Maybe both. Maybe he’s just making that up, hoping that’s true, that it’s something that’s always the case, not David-specific.

  “Shower’s all yours,” Jake says. “Feel like an omelette?”

  “As long as it’s egg—”

  “—white, I know, I got you,” Jake says.

  “Thank you,” David says, and beats a retreat to the bathroom. The room’s muggy hot, the mirror still steamed up from Jake’s shower, and it’s little absurd that seeing the echoes of Jake feels almost intimate, considering he’s sleeping in Jake’s bed, has literally shared a shower with him before on days off when neither of them had to be anywhere right away, but maybe it�
��s because this is likely the closest to Jake he’ll be for the interim. And that’s not Jake’s fault, he knows Jake would leap at a chance to close the door behind them and — well, he already had.

  He forgot to gather the travel sized shampoo, conditioner, but he doesn’t want to go back out there, potentially run into someone else. He recognises Jake’s brand in the shower, crowded amongst a half dozen other bottles, and decides to use that. David wants to stay in the shower longer than he does, but it starts going cold when he’s washing his hair, and even when he turns the hot water higher, it’s barely endurable. That’s not something he’s experienced in a long time, between apartment buildings and hotels. Maybe that’s why Jake was back so quickly. Maybe it wasn’t about David at all. Or, if it was, it was just Jake trying to save David some hot water.

  David shuts the water off when it goes from cool to cold, towels off and hastily dresses, shirt clinging damply to his back, decides to fix his hair in Jake’s room so he isn’t preventing anyone from using the bathroom. He doesn’t know how five people can share one bathroom.

  His coffee is lukewarm now, still tastes off, and he leaves it in Jake’s room when he goes downstairs, finding Jake and Natalie in the kitchen, along with the rest of the Lourdes. It’s crowded in there with so many people, and they all stop talking, like they had been talking about him. David’s familiar with that feeling.

  “Good morning, David,” Mr. Lourdes says after a pause. “Sleep well?”

  “Yes, thank you,” David says.

  Breakfast is cereal for everyone but David and Jake, and David has a feeling Jake would be eating cereal too if David wasn’t there. It’s quieter than dinner, at least, whatever talk there is muted and morning soft.

  “I’m going to show David around the neighbourhood,” Jake says during breakfast, and David would be annoyed that Jake didn’t check with him first, but he’s too grateful to be leaving the too crowded house to mind.