Chapter Text
Based at least partially on how fellow contestants made cakes for the wedding of Series 5 baker Martha Collison
“You may now kiss your husband.”
Jack stepped closer to kiss Bitty, cupping his jaw the same way he had that first time, kissing behind the crew van five years ago.
This time, the kiss wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment impulse, an effort to erase the sadness and threat of tears from Bitty’s face. This time, it had been planned for, rehearsed even.
There were still tears wetting Bitty’s eyelashes, but they were tears of joy, Jack was sure. And maybe relief that the wedding planning was finally over.
Bitty still went on his toes to meet Jack’s lips, a move that thrilled Jack no less for all its familiarity. Bitty was still the sweetest person — literally and figuratively — that Jack had ever known, still spreading warmth and joy to the people around him.
The past five years had been good to them. Jack had finished a master’s in history, used his experience behind a camera to get a couple of jobs working on History Channel shows, and had made a couple of documentary shorts. He had plans for a full-length documentary in the works, with some backing from his parents, and some adjunct teaching, partially to feel like he was putting some work into helping with the bills but mostly because he enjoyed it.
Bitty … Bitty had blossomed. Jack stepped back from the man in his arms, still six inches shorter than him but broader across the shoulders and chest than he had been five years ago. Jack’s parents had fallen in love with Bitty almost more quickly than Jack had, and Bitty loved them right back. That might have helped him have the confidence to come out to his own parents just before his season of the bake-off had aired.
“I feel like such a fool for making a big deal about it with Holster,” Bitty told Jack when he explained his decision. “But now — especially since I won — I know people are going to be asking about me, and I’m out to pretty much everyone at school. This isn’t exactly flying under the radar here.”
Coming out to his parents had gone better than Bitty expected, mostly, despite some misunderstandings and hurt feelings on both sides. Jack had been with Bitty when he did it, and the Bittles had accepted Jack as their son’s boyfriend pretty much as soon as they accepted that their son wanted a boyfriend. Both families were here to celebrate their wedding; Bitty’s mom was only a little star-struck by Jack’s parents.
The rest of the room was filled with friends on both sides. There were plenty of professional hockey players, between Jack’s honorary ‘uncles’, Kent and a couple of other teammates from juniors, and even a friend of Bitty’s from Samwell, Connor Whisk.
“With a name like that, you’d think he’d be the baker,” Bitty said when he introduced Jack.
There were also their shared friends from the bake-off, Lardo and Shitty and Ransom and Holster, even Atley and Hall. Tater and Marty came, too, and so did nearly all the bakers from Bitty’s season.
The bakers not only came, they all brought cakes. The dessert table didn’t have one four-tier white tasteless monstrosity; it had a coconut layer cake from Cait, a four-level chocolate tower from Will, a rainbow ruffle cake from April, pink princesstarta from March, and something called a Lane cake from Derek, that he said he learned how to bake just for Bitty. There was a carrot cake, a salted caramel cake, and a red velvet cake, all decorated with frosting and flowers, and Jack wasn’t sure what all the others were.
He did know he wasn’t going to have more than a forkful of any of them. When they’d started planning the wedding, Bitty (bake-off winner, baking vlogger, cookbook author, Food Channel host Bitty) wanted to make the cake. Jack (and Suzanne, and Alicia) had done their best to talk him out of it. He’d have far too many details to fuss over, the mothers pointed out. Jack wanted Bitty to fuss over him, though he did not actually say so.
It was Lardo who came to the rescue, with an innocent question about whether Bitty’s baking tent-mates would be invited, and, if so, wouldn’t they want to contribute something?
She got in touch with them, and soon the calls and texts were pouring in, begging to be allowed to contribute a cake to Bitty and Jack’s wedding. How could Bitty say no?
But he didn’t give up on baking completely. Jack knew that when the party was finally over and they got to their hotel suite, there would be a perfect maple-apple pie waiting.
“Just for us,” Bitty said. “We can make it together.”
So they had, the last thing before they separated the night before the ceremony.
The meal was over, as were the toasts. Jack and Bitty circulated among the tables greeting the guests, and then sliced into each of the cakes so the catering staff could take them back and plate them for the guests.
“Ready for our first dance?” Bitty said, sliding into the circle of Jack’s arms. They’d agreed early on to just dance (“Like we do in our living room,” Jack said) to ‘Halo’, one of Bitty’s favorite Beyonce songs.
As soon as their dance was over, other couples took the floor, starting with Chowder and Cait and — was that Will and Derek?
“Ready to get out of here, bud?” Jack whispered.
“Absolutely, sweet pea,” Bitty said.
They were waylaid by Shitty and Lardo, the unofficial best couple, before they could sneak out the service door.
“We’ll get sections of all the cakes boxed up and frozen for you,” Lardo said. “For when you come back.”
“Go have fun, you crazy kids,” Shitty said. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Like that’s really possible,” Bitty said. “Enjoy the rest of the party.”
Finally they were out of the room.
“Ready to start the rest of our lives?” Jack said.
“I can’t wait,” Bitty said. “Don’t forget — there’s pie.”