Runner-Up - 12. Chapter 12

Friday finally came around. For Kyle, the day off came at the perfect time as he felt like staying in bed all day long. However, he knew it wasn’t an option.

He had to do some laundry, his bed sheets at least, and clean around the house in preparation of the visit he was getting later on.

Kyle still managed to take the time to relax. Having all of his classes condensed into three days and an afternoon meant rocky weeks, even more so in the last stretch of the semester.

All the afternoon, Kyle was eager for his friend to arrive. He didn't have a plan made for the evening, he knew they would most likely end up staying in, talking, watching a movie, but that was the beauty of it. It was what he was looking forward to the most, spending the night close to one another.

Kyle was finishing making the bed when David texted him, advising that he was waiting at Berri. He took one final look to make sure everything was in order, then looking at the time to realize he didn't have time to meet his friend at the metro, he left his condo without grabbing a coat.

By the time Kyle reached the lobby, David was walking in.

"Hey!" David said with a smile.

"Had a good week?"

It was more a rhetorical question from Kyle. Having kept in contact all week, he already knew the answer.

"Yeah, not too bad. You know, I could have taken the elevator by myself!"

Kyle answered as they were getting in the empty elevator.

"I know, but it wouldn't be the same thing."

Arriving at his place, Kyle gave David the time to remove his coat, boots and let him get in the living room before bugging him.

"Did you eat yet?"

As much as it was understood, when David was coming over for the night, that it also includes dinner, the fact that it was already past seven made him doubt.

"Yeah, I ate with some friends before coming over."

"But... We always eat together when you come over!"

Kyle was disappointed, but was more wondering if it was alright for him to eat his dinner in front of his guest.

"Sorry!" As if David could read mind, he reassured his friend. "Don't worry about me, eat whatever you had in mind, I'll be fine."

Kyle had first planned to make one of his specialty, pork chops with rice, but, since the portion he had was just perfect for two, he opted to find something else to eat and put back the pork in the freezer for another time.

Avoiding the headache of cooking for himself while having someone in the other room, Kyle got in front of his Mac and, after a couple of clicks, ordered himself a pepperoni pizza.

While he was waiting for his delivery, the two of them started to talk about their last minute trip to Switzerland, with a stop in the UK. Kyle saw no issue with the cities choice David had discussed with his friends.

David had already agreed that Allison and Lucas would take care of the plane tickets, while Kyle and him would make the hotels reservations.

It didn’t need to be mentioned that Allison and Lucas would be sharing their room, but it didn’t take much time either for David and Kyle to agree that they would share a room.

Kyle was quite happy about it as it meant he would be able to be sleeping close to his cute friend day after day.

While the two of them were looking at hotels in London, the pizza arrived. Leaving his guest alone for a couple of minutes, Kyle came back at the desk with a couple of slices.

He correctly read David’s face.

“Do you want a slice?”

“Yes, pretty please!”

Kyle gave him his own plate. Moments later, he was back with a couple slices for himself.

“Look at this one!”

David showed the listing of a hotel.

“It does look quiet and cosy. Where is it?”

“It’s right by the Earl’s Court Station and the price is quite reasonable too.”

Kyle took the time to look at the map to see where the location of the hotel was compared to the attractions. Knowing it was unlikely they would find a better price-location ratio, he was immediately sold.

“Can we book it right now?”

It was already a given that they would be spending two nights in London, however it was yet to confirm if it would be to start their vacation or on their way back to Montreal.

“Yeah, we can keep it in mind, but we should wait until Lucas confirms the dates we’ll be staying in London.”

“Do you know when they’re planning on reserving the plane tickets?”

“They were talking about doing it this weekend. Let me text and remind them.” David pulled out his phone and, as he said it, sent a quick message to Lucas asking him to take care of the plane tickets.

Growing tired of just looking at hotels and attraction websites, the two guys decided to call it a night and put on a movie.

As they were now used to, David installed himself in Kyle’s arms and they were set.

By the time the movie ended, they were both tired enough to be ready for a good night of sleep.

Kyle let his friend go in the bathroom first to get ready for bed. While he was waiting for his turn in the bathroom, he took the occasion to clean the living room, lock the door and turn off the lights. When David left the bathroom, it was his turn to rapidly get ready for bedtime.

When he got in the bedroom, David was already in bed waiting, his clothes laying on the floor by the foot of the bed.

Kyle was pleasantly surprised to notice, as he got closer to his friend and feeling his bare ass, that David was naked under the covers just like he was. Kyle couldn't resist to make a comment about it.

"You're naked!"

"I knew you'd ask me to remove my undies if I wasn't, so I saved you the trouble."

David reached and grabbed his friend's arm and held it close to him.

A while later, as David was about to fall asleep, Kyle woke him up.

"David, thank you!"

David was puzzled.

"You're welcome, but what for?"

"For everything, for being there with me. For making me happy."

It might have been due to the fact that he was half asleep, but David was lost for words.

"Aww!"

David raised his friend's hand, still under his grasp, just enough so he could gently kiss it.

As it was regularly the case, Kyle had trouble finding his sleep. He couldn't stop thinking about Ryan. He had conflicting emotions in his head.

The faint noise of David's snores helped Kyle to calm himself and eventually to make him fall asleep.

The following morning, David suffered the consequence of having stayed overnight. At five thirty, David woke him up. He, however, couldn't complain as he was made fully aware from the start that Kyle had to work the Saturday morning and he had agreed to it.

While Kyle didn't waste any time to get ready, his friend was more relax about it. David fully intended to get in his own bed the moment he would arrived home.

Even if Kyle was used to getting up at the early hours and was already almost fully awake, with a sleepy friend on the passenger side, the drive to work was quiet. There was only the music Kyle had put on from his iPod, at low volume to break the silence.

Being the weekend, Kyle was able to save on the parking as, when they arrived at the hospital, he was able to find a parking spot right at front of the entrance.

After turning off the engine, Kyle broke the silence.

"I guess you’ll go back to bed as soon as you get to your room?"

“Probably.”

Kyle got ready to get out of the car. Outside, Kyle managed to ask one final question before his friend could walk away.

“Alright. Well, I need to get going. We can do this again next weekend?"

David didn't mind seeing his friend again the following week, but ideally not if it meant waking up this early again on a weekend. David was used to get up fairly early, but never that early.

"You won't be working Saturday nor Sunday, right?"

"Right."

David already knew he'd say yes, but since he didn't know yet what his friends would be up to, he decided to keep his options open.

"Yeah we could, we'll see about it later on this week."

Kyle wished he had something more concrete to go with, but he accepted the answer.

"Okay, have a good day."

"Yeah, same for you." David said as he walked away.

For Kyle, it was one of those days, the ones where he really didn’t feel like going to work. A day where he’d rather do anything other than being confined to his office.

It wasn't so much that the day was long or boring, it actually went smoothly enough; Kyle simply would have preferred spending the day with his friend.

After work, Kyle went directly back home, but he didn't stay home a long time as he left an hour later for his parent's place. They had called him on his lunch break and guilted him into spending the evening with them.

He ended up enjoying the evening, they invited him to the restaurant and afterwards went to the movies. In retrospective, he would have skipped the movie. The Hunger Games, his dad's choice, failed to spark his interest and, since it was just released, the theatre was too packed to his liking.

***

David had been standing in the heavy snow, Sunday afternoon, as Kyle walked out of work. Kyle wouldn't have noticed him if it wasn't for the fact that his friend started walking toward him.

"David! What are you doing here?"

His friend greeted him with a hug.

"I needed to run some errands downtown. When I got outside, I saw the time and thought to stop by and say 'hi'."

Kyle had nothing specific planned for the rest of the day. As soon as he heard that David still had some errands to do, it was set in his mind that he'd go with him, at least if he'd let him come.

"Aww, you didn't have to!" After a short pause, Kyle continued, "Have you been waiting here long? You've got snow all over you!"

David tried to brush the snow off is shoulders the best he could.

"Actually, not that long. It's letting me get my first real taste of the great Canadian winter."

"You'll see, soon enough you'll like it better on postcards."

The two of them walked pass Kyle’s car. When David noticed that, it made him wonder.

“Where are we going? Ain’t your car over there?”

Kyle shrugged it off.

“Yeah, but didn’t you say you had to run some errands? I don’t have anything to do for the rest of the day. I wouldn’t mind some shopping.”

David didn’t answer; they simply went on and continue their walk towards the shopping district.

"I take it you're not a big fan of cold and snow,” David stated.

"Not really, no. But, at least, when it's snowing, it's usually not that cold."

"I guess so."

"It can't be much worse than Chicago.”

“Last time I checked, it's usually four five degrees warmer in Chicago during winter."

"Alright, but you get used to it rapidly."

"I never said otherwise."

David had to get a new pair of jeans and some socks. Following Kyle's recommendation, they first made a stop at the Winners of the Montreal Trust mall. As Kyle explained, their discounted clothes might be outdated, and of low quality, but socks are socks and twenty bucks a dozen is good.

Once that was done, the two friends headed up toward the American Eagle Outfitters where David rapidly found a pair of skinny jeans to his liking. Kyle, who didn't really need anything, got tempted by a nice shirt with the eagle appliqué on top of an American flag.

David first thought that it was weird for a Canadian to be wearing a t-shirt with an American flag on it, but once he saw Kyle trying it on, he was forced to admit that the shirt was really nice on his friend.

"So, what's next?" Kyle asked, looking at his friend, as they were getting out of the store with a growing amount of bags.

"I've got everything I needed. I'll need to get back to my dorm. I still have some work to do."

Kyle didn't think about arguing about it. He himself was sure he could find some studying to get done.

As they were getting closer to David's residence hall, Kyle remembered they hadn't decided on when his friend would stay with him next.

"So, you'll be coming to my place Friday after your classes?"

"Mm, no I can't; it's my friend Allison's birthday Thursday, we're probably gonna go out, celebrate, Friday night. Saturday will be good."

After having walked to the residence building, Kyle got back to his car and made his way back home. By then, a good amount of snow had already accumulated on the ground, which made the drive painful with some drivers way too fast for the roads conditions and others like grandpas on their way to the mass.

Back home, despite all his desire to do anything else, Kyle convinced himself to start reviewing for his finals that were coming at a fast pace.

As he was reading his note from his micro-economy class, he realized that there was some part that was more than fuzzy to him. It dawned on him that it will take some time before he'll feel ready in micro-economy and that it would most likely be the same for his other classes. The silver lining was that he still had time, he'll just need to be careful not to waste it.

Kyle ended up spending the rest of the day, or almost, studying.

***

"We're all getting together Saturday night at Mike's place, are you coming?" Lucas asked.

It was already Thursday afternoon and David had met his friend at the coffee shop on the way to their class.

The week was passing by so fast, two weeks before the start of the finals, the daily grind of classes, homework and reviews. In every class the teachers seemed to be rushing to cover the remaining chapters.

"Saturday? I thought it would be Friday night!"

David wasn't panicking, but he certainly wasn't thrilled. He remembered he was already committed on Saturday to hang out with Kyle, but didn't want to miss the birthday party of one of his best friends.

“Nah, we wanted to have the Friday night just the two of us alone. Beside, Mike couldn’t do it on Friday.” Lucas noticed his friend’s facial expression change. “What’s wrong?”

“I already have something planned for Saturday."

"But I'm sure you can have it work out correctly. You wouldn't miss Allison's birthday"

Lucas didn't want 'no' for an answer. He made it quite clear. David knew it and he himself didn't want to miss it.

"I should be able to be there."

He didn't know how he would get it done just yet.

After finally getting their double-double, they managed to get to their class on time.

On his way back to his dorm after his class had ended, David had one thing on his mind. What would he be doing about Saturday night? He didn't want to go with the easy option of changing nights with Kyle. David didn't want to make a decision right then, and so, he let himself forget about it, or at least for a couples of days.