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One of the things David had picked up on almost straight away when he moved to Schitt’s Creek was the way the other people his age talk about money. Or, rather, talk about their lack of it. Apparently, it was funniest or most relatable to joke about not stretching their salaries to the end of the month or blowing all their cash on passion fruit martinis, no matter what their actual monetary status was.
David knows they don’t mean anything by it. If anything, it’s kind of comforting being in the presence of people who, y’know, get it. There’s a gentle sort of camaraderie in the way he’ll sometimes blow off plans with Stevie and the friends she introduced him to, citing being broke as the reason, and having them immediately understand.
But that’s the thing. They don’t get it. Not really. They have enough to plan and budget and splash out. They have enough so that when they do blow their cash on passion fruit martinis, they’re only really blowing the weekly allowance they set themselves for going out and getting drinks. There’s a difference between having no money and having no money, and David is living in the stark reminder of that every day. The thought of it splashes down on his head in cold water every time the heating breaks in the motel.
That’s why, despite the crushingly undeniable attraction and the borderline desperate desire to put that smile on his face as much as humanly possible, something about Patrick struck a nerve with David right from the off. He was so…competent. So organised. He had eyes that were made for scrutinizing spreadsheets and probably bought those Target 5-for-5 shirts after reading an article in Reader’s Digest that said some of the richest entrepreneurs in the world wear the same cheap clothes every day.
And though he has no idea how Patrick feels about him – to be honest, it’s bold of him to assume that Patrick will have given him another thought since he offered to get him the grant money – David knows he must appear a sort of dichotomy. How did someone like him, all $1000 monochrome angles and choppy experimental skirt pants, start cutting about in a town like this?
David is going to have to tell him at some point. That the comment about needing a lot of help hit a bit closer to home than he would have liked. Or maybe telling people when they’ve offended you is only for people you’re friends with. And Patrick wasn’t really a friend. Was he? They were in business together. David can’t believe he was so naïve to assume that –
“Hello?”
David jumps at the distant voice, followed by the door of the soon-to-be Rose Apothecary shutting with a half-jingle of the bell. He really needs to get that bell fixed.
David heads round the corner from the backroom into the main body of the store. “Patrick?”
Patrick smiles warmly, and God. That smile still feels like turning on a heater in a sub-zero room.
“Hey. I was just coming by to let you know that I submitted the grant application last night. Oh, and to see if you needed any more help today.”
David narrows his eyes, waiting for the catch, but Patrick doesn’t say anything more.
“O-oh,” David says, in a sort of delayed double take. “Actually, yeah. I just got the pieces of a new shelf delivered that I need a hand with.”
Patrick puts a thumb up, then looks around and points towards the flat-packed pieces of shelf when he sees them. “Got it.”
After a few minutes of hovering awkwardly as he watches Patrick open the box and wrestle with the large instruction manual that reminds David of the menus at Café Tropical, he says, “So the grant, huh? When do you hear back about getting the money?”
“Should be about five to six days,” Patrick says. David pretends to look away from the slip of skin that’s peeking out from where Patrick’s shirt rode up when he reached across to take the full length of the shelf in his arms.
“Hm. And I know you said the other day that you were going to get it or whatever, but…confidence aside, what if you don’t?”
Patrick stops measuring and turns around, hands on his thighs. Thick thighs.
“Then it isn’t ideal, but plenty of businesses go without,” Patrick says. “I don’t know if you put any savings aside to prepare for that, but it isn’t that much more money in the grand scheme of things. Probably only like three or four.”
“Three or four what?”
Patrick shrugs. “K?”
David can't believe he actually just said K. Cute dumb business nerd.
“Thousand. Three or four thousand.”
“Mm.” Patrick turns back around, oblivious. “So how long are you staying in the motel, David?”
“What?”
“The other day at our meeting, you mentioned you were staying in a motel. Are you getting house renovations done, or…?”
Right. Ugh. This just went from a Potentially Avoidable Money Conversation to Definitely One of Those Money Conversations.
It’s a perfectly polite question, but that’s not the point. It irks David, the way casual talk about money rolls off other people’s tongues like they don’t even notice. He used to be one of those people who could do that. Maybe he wasn’t carefully indulgent and budgetary like the people he knows now, but he grew up in a world where fines were just how much it cost to park somewhere and yachts were christened with crystalline bottles of Roederer smashed over the hull. He knows what money feels like and he knows what very-much-not-money feels like.
“Well actually, I – I live there,” he says. “I have for the past two years. It’s –” Would he say it was home? Probably not – “home,” he finishes without thinking.
Patrick tilts his head at David. “I – oh, before I forget, there are a couple more forms you need to sign, I’ll fetch them from the office in a minute. Just something about legally being able to call this lot a ‘business’, nothing to worry about.”
David hums in agreement and watches Patrick finish off the first part of the shelf construction in silence. They chat idly here and there about how the weather is warming up and about the perils of working in retail, but apart from that nothing more is exchanged. When Patrick leaves to fetch the forms, David sits behind the counter on his new stool – still covered in cellophane wrap – and chews his lip, an odd feeling in his stomach.
He returns a couple minutes later than David expected, the explanation sitting in his hands: two cups of coffee from the Café. He winces as he hands David’s over.
“Okay, I think I got this right…caramel macchiato, skim, one sweetener and a sprinkle of cocoa powder?”
David melts inside, but not as much as he would have done if he just added another little sweetener.
“Two sweeteners,” he almost whispers, taking a sip before pretending to gag. Patrick laughs and sets the other coffee down on the table before getting back to work.
“You know, I’m gonna need to get some compensation for all his hard labor I’m doing for you,” he jokes. “When’re you gonna take me out for dinner – uh. Ahem.”
It seems like Patrick hears the words as soon as he says them, and David watches the backs of his ears flush bright pink. It’s funny, having that little part of Patrick that he can’t see. He’s the only one in the world right now who knows where Patrick blushes when he gets flustered. The thought of that makes David feel pathetically giddy.
“You know what I meant. I’ll take anything if the tab’s on you,” Patrick laughs.
The giddiness is replaced by the same twinges of dread that had started making their tracks that morning at the first offhand mention of money. Patrick’s not trying to be ignorant, David knows that. David gets it. Patrick’s a business-minded person. He has his entire life boxed away in little cells on Excel, even if something about him makes David think he’s waiting for someone to come along and mess up all the hard drives. He’s careful enough about money to not have to worry about it every minute of the day.
“Okay, um…I think I need to talk to you about something first, Patrick.”
Patrick turns around so quickly that his neck cricks and he winces.
“Oof, I bet you heard that,” Patrick says, rubbing his neck. David watches a million different emotions course their way through Patrick’s face – hope, disappointment, panic, doubt, then all the opposites of those things. It’s strange, but David lets it slide for the sake of the moment.
Patrick half-seats himself on the counter.
“So, when I talk about having no money, or not being able to afford things, I’m not just saying it in the way other people say it. I’m not trying to do that whole relatable millennial thing. I literally have no money. And I can afford nothing.”
It feels like telling Patrick he has chronic jock itch in his ass crack. He knows he should rise above the classist expectations of being ashamed of having no money, but he can’t help it. He saw the way his dad had been embarrassed about applying for unemployment a few years ago, and now he's realizing that he understands the feeling. After that day, he and Johnny had the first real, heart-to-heart conversation they had since they got to Schitt’s Creek, about how it was hard not to feel like the world was racing away from you while you were stuck in a damp motel.
Patrick’s eyebrows crease in that sympathetic way that should feel condescending, but really doesn’t. “David, listen, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed anything. This is probably a lot more difficult for you than I’m imagining, so I should stop –”
It’s so earnest, so sincere, that David closes his eyes and holds up a hand gently. “It’s okay. You’re probably not used to dealing with people like me in business, and whatever. If you don’t want to risk business and aren’t gonna – I don’t know, stick around, or something –”
“Oh, I’m gonna stick around.”
Fuck. Okay.
Before David has a chance to ask why, or say anything to try and get that quite frankly delicious tone of voice out of Patrick for a third time in 48 hours, Patrick smiles sheepishly and turns back towards the half-constructed shelf.
“And hey, I was joking about the dinner. But…if you’re alright with it, I’d still like to do something. You know, outside of business. There’s plenty we can do without – you know, paying for things. Could be fun, I don’t know.”
David ducks his head, playing with the tips of his fingers nervously. He realizes that for the first time in his life, he isn’t waiting for a catch.
“Um…okay. What did you have in mind?”
****
“David! Harsh!”
“I’m not being harsh, I just can’t believe you haven’t seen this movie! Like, not even once?”
“You said I probably shouldn’t bother with the rest of my sad life unless I’ve seen it.”
“Okay, but that’s a generalized ‘sad life’. Life without Moonstruck is not worth living.”
David pointedly looks away from the fond stare Patrick is giving him. He thinks that if he looks back, he might not be able to look away and this very-much-platonic night will end in a very different place. They put on the movie, which they decided to start a few minutes before their pizzas were due out of the oven. In a painfully, adorably earnest attempt to make good on his no-money promise, Patrick suggested that they make pizzas from scratch instead of ordering them (even if they did destroy Ray's kitchen with a flour fight in the process).
David pours them both a glass of wine and they sit back, with David idly wondering if Patrick finds Cher’s iconic bardot dress and black curls as hot as he does.
After getting their pizzas out and continuing to watch the movie in companionable silence for about half an hour, Patrick turns to David and says quietly, “I just wanted to apologize again for the other day. I shouldn’t have kept assuming you just had random tons of money put away. It was insensitive.”
David smiles at him. “Honestly, it’s okay. I wouldn’t be surprised if my whole…vibe kind of threw you off a bit.”
Patricks huffs out a little nervous laugh. “I think it was the rest of your family that cemented it for me.”
David had bumped into Patrick while the Roses were having breakfast at the Café a few mornings ago. Coincidentally, they were being more themselves than ever; Alexis in her biggest hat and one of the old summery dresses she used to wear in the Hamptons, Johnny rattling on about business ventures, Moira being – well, Moira. David had almost offered Patrick an apology for the sight before he took one look into those kind, brown eyes and very suddenly decided he wanted to stop apologizing for who he and his family were. He just smiled at him and warned him against ordering the bacon.
“You know, I don’t think I ever told you about where we came from,” David says. Patrick fully detaches his attention from the movie and turns to David in full, plucking one of the mini bocconcini off his pizza as he listens intently. “We, um…we used to own Rose Video before we came here,” he continues. “I was the heir of Rose Video.”
“No way.”
“Way. Very much way. It was a whole thing. Anyway, my dad fell into some trouble with his old business partner and he ended up committing multiple charges of fraud and embezzlement before running off with everything.”
He rushes the last part of the sentence, as though if he’d said another word then his voice would have cracked on it. While he should know by now that Patrick couldn’t be insincere if he had a gun to his head, David still braces himself to say something weird. He’d once told someone in a bar in Elmdale about his situation after one too many Moscow mules, and while he hadn’t been expecting the blasé, eat-the-rich attitude he got in return, it was enough to shut him up about his problems for the unforeseeable future.
“I’m sorry, David,” Patrick says, his voice thick with empathy and what sounds like genuine sadness for David’s situation. “I can’t even begin to imagine what that was like for you.”
“It’s been…different,” David hedges, only just working through the emotions as they spill over his tongue. He’s never had the chance to properly talk about it with anyone other than his family or Stevie. It’s nice. Like he’s finally peeled off a load of old bandages that he’s been piling on top of each other and replaced it with a fresh, clean one. “I suppose things are better with my family now. Better than they ever were before. But my past life…that was all I knew, you know? Even if it wasn’t the best. It was hard to break away from it and start living inside something I didn’t know I could ever be accommodated to. That life was all I knew, and suddenly…it was all gone.”
There’s a deep silence on the other side of the couch that David doesn’t dare look up and investigate. When he finally chances a glance at Patrick, his breath catches in his throat. There are tears glistening in Patrick’s eyes, his lips pressed tight together in barely contained emotion.
David immediately tries to set the damage right. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to –”
Patrick waves him away with a hand, breathing in quickly. “No, no, it wasn’t you. I mean, it was you, but. I guess that just hit closer to home than I expected.”
David smiles warmly, his heart evening out into a gentle rhythm again. “Maybe we’re more similar than we think.”
Patrick’s mouth quirks up into a smile. David feels like he’s somewhat relieved that David didn’t press for details. He would never. Not if Patrick wasn’t ready to talk about it.
They finish watching the movie in silence, commenting on the taste of their home cooked pizzas and letting each other take slices from each other’s to taste test. Under the guise of controlling the amount Patrick gets to take, David manages to feed him half a slice of pizza, the thrill of it giving him the confidence to settle himself much closer to Patrick on the couch once they’ve finished laughing. David’s knees are curled up and sideways, very lightly brushing against the fabric of Patrick’s jeans, and he’s more than aware of the arm that’s come round to the back of the couch.
For what is admittedly the first time since it was put on, David starts to pay attention to the movie.
“Cher looks hot in this scene, don’t you think?” he says, taking another bite of pizza.
And maybe, maybe he imagines Patrick's fingers ghosting over his shoulder, but maybe he doesn't.
“If you say so.”