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5 Times Shitty Called the Zimmermanns and One Time They Called Him
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1. February, Freshmen Year
It’s strange to think that Alicia Zimmermann used to be one of those people who kept her phone on silent. Not even on vibrate. Sure, the light would flash at her if she got a text or email but there were no alerts or ringtones or alarms. People were always surprised when she told them but, as she told the story often enough, at a certain level she found the beeping and the buzzing entirely too much. It was all she could do to get through ordering a coffee uninterrupted. And even when some of her friends in the fashion industry told her to just buy a second phone--one for work she could keep silent, one for her personal life--she had laughed. She had grown to hate her phone and buying a second seemed completely ridiculous. She would check her messages and emails when she had the time and if people needed her, well then they could just leave a message.
She and Bob had worked out a system. She knew he called her two hours before any game that he had and she called back (and expected to be answered) forty-five minutes after the game. Win or lose. He also called her before and after any plane travel and she liked to text during her lunch break and Jack never was much for talking on the phone but he knew to try Bob’s phone first and she knew that if he were going to call, it would be around 8PM.
That was before, though.
Now… Now Alicia keeps her sound on the highest setting at all times and even if they go to a show, she keeps it on vibrate and in a pocket where she can feel it because she needs to be near her phone, always, because if she’s not, she might miss the call, miss it like she missed the last one that something is wrong, that her life has changed, that Jack has--
She doesn’t think she will ever forgive herself, really, for missing the call from the hospital. And missing the first four from Bob. When she finally called him back (14 minutes after the first call came in), he had been panicking and Jack had been unconscious and both of them had needed her and she was 14 minutes late because she didn’t like being interrupted.
(She’s lucky it was only 14 minutes. She’s lucky she had wanted to look up that one guy’s name from His Gal Friday at that particular moment. Now, she can’t decide if she hates that movie or loves it.)
So as she sits across the counter from Bob, who is narrating his cooking as usual and her ringtone starts blaring from her purse, it’s no longer unusual. People do call her a lot. Bob goes quiet and Alicia glances at the screen (because her ringer is on but you better believe she screens) and its Jack.
It’s 8:45. A little after his usual window, but not too late.
“It’s Jack,” she tells Bob.
“Remind him we land on Wednesday,” Bob tells her, turning back to what she thinks is going to end up as soup at some point.
“Hey, Jack,” she says, nodding and lifting the phone to her ear. “How are--”
“Uh, Mrs. Zimmermann?”
The voice on the phone is not Jack’s. This voice on the phone is young and high and fast and Alicia doesn’t know what her face does but Bob is by her side in an instant because she doesn’t recognize the voice on the phone and the last time that had happened--
“It’s Shitty. Jack’s friend. I- um- I- something is--”
He is panicking. Next to her, Bob spins to find his keys but can’t seem to locate them. Alicia needs to not panic.
“Shitty,” she says. She remembers him. She met him when she went to Parent’s Weekend. Young, shorter than Jack. Funny. Loves her son. Polite at first around adults. Then gets comfortable. Made her laugh. Made Jack laugh. “Where’s Jack? Tell me what’s wrong. Is he breathing?”
Please let him be breathing. Please, God, not again. Let him be breathing.
“He’s right here,” Shitty says. “Yes, he’s--” She hears Shitty take a deep breath and calm himself down. “Jack is sitting next to me and he’s like… breathing too much and too fast and I don’t know what to do. He managed to say Call Mom so I grabbed his phone and I did and he is having like a panic attack, I think? And I just… he said to call you. I don’t know what to do.”
Jack is breathing. Jack is not passed out. Jack has not overdosed.
Jack is having a panic attack. The relief that hits her is so staggering, she doesn’t know what to do for a moment.
“It’s getting really bad,” Shitty had not actually stopped talking. “I don’t-- am I supposed to touch him? Or not touch him? He’s not answering questions anymore and I--”
Shitty is only 19. Alicia is going to have two panic attacks on her hands if she doesn’t pull herself together.
“Okay, Shitty,” she starts, grateful that her volume is on loud enough that Bob heard. He stops looking for keys at least. “Jack is just having a panic attack, okay? He gets them sometimes. It’s going to be okay. You’re gonna help him through it, alright?”
“Okay,” Shitty says. “Okay, yes. Just… tell me what to do.”
Alicia reviews. Jack-- Jack is usually okay with touching during a panic attack. At least, he lets her and Bob grab his shoulders or hold his hand and based on their interaction when she met them--the two of them always tangled together, Jack reached out and steering Shitty like it’s nothing, Shitty constantly grabbing and pulling her son to fit his needs--she is going to guess Shitty is on that level too.
“Alright. Put me on speaker and put the phone down. Take his hands. Talk to him while you do it so he knows it’s you.”
She wants to talk to Jack directly but he won’t hear her right now. Not over the phone.
There’s a scuffle and then a beep and then she can hear Jack’s labored breathing. Bob is pressed to her side now. She would put her phone on speaker but she doesn’t want to take the time to pull it away from her face and hit a button.
“Hey, buddy,” she hears Shitty say. “It’s me, Shitty. Just gonna grab your hands. That’s right, gotta get you to stop messing up your hair there. There you go. I’m coming closer. Oof, well now I’m straddling you a little bit here. At least I’m wearing clothes, right?”
“Okay,” Alicia says. “Now you just wanna try to slow down his breathing. Have him match you. In for three, out for three.”
“Alright, Jacky-boy. It’s gonna be okay. We’re all gonna be okay. Just… here breathe with me for a second here. That’s right-- look up at me. I’m beautiful. You’ve said so yourself. Okay, okay. Here we go. In for three.” Shitty takes an exaggerated breath then and Alicia hears Jack try to mimic it but only get to Shitty’s count of two and then hiccup and go faster and her heart breaks because she should be there but there’s no time to offer advice because Shitty seems to know what to do, now that he has a bit of a directive. “Hey, wait up now. It’s okay if you can’t do it on the first try. Let’s just try again, Ready? Alright, there it is. Nailing this now. Look at us go.”
After about five minutes (maybe, Alicia doesn’t really know), Jack gets the hang of three seconds and she prompts Shitty to try for five and the worst has passed now, she knows that but maybe it’s comforting her, listening to Shitty’s steady stream of counting interspersed with stories of Yeah, we’re doing this. We’re even better at this than that piggy-back race we entered and I still think we technically won that. I mean, sure, I was falling over, but I threw you forward so we had that and suggestions like Out for five. Just think of the two of us on a beach somewhere. You, under the umbrella and whining how it’s too hot. Me, probably sunburned building sandcastles. The rest of the beach, looking at that ass of yours. Especially when you come help me with the sandcastle.
Shitty’s style is different from hers. Alicia goes for the more direct, it’s going to be okay approach. Repeats it like a mantra. Shitty… sometimes she’s not sure the counts are perfectly even because he rambles through them but--
“I bet a polar bear wouldn’t even fight you. Like it would eat me for sure, but you-- you’d just get this nod of respect, you know? Like fucking Canadian beauty to Canadian beauty. Meanwhile, I’m being fed to the cubs as a training exercise--”
There. A sharp little intake of breath that could be a laugh. Jack’s laugh.
“Oh, sure, laugh it up. You could have at least tried to save me, asshole.”
Jack is still keeping his breathing in tight control but, “Would-- Save-- You.”
“Well, I would hope so!” Shitty brings Jack into the conversation as if he hadn’t spent the last 15 minutes monologuing while Jack panics. “All the pranks I’ve taught you. Do you want some water? I’m gonna get some water. Here, talk to your mother.”
Another scuffle. Then, “Hi, Maman. Sorry.” Jack’s voice sounds gravelly and slightly slurred and he’s tired. She knows that.
“Oh, baby, it’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay. You did the right thing, telling Shitty to call.”
She wants to ask him so many questions. She wants to ask what brought this on (though she knows it’s probably the upcoming playoffs) and if he’s been talking to his therapist and taking his meds and is this the first one? Or has he been feeling this way for a while? Does he want them to come there? Does he want to come home? Can he please, please come home?
“Are you feeling better?” is what she settles for.
“Yeah,” Jack says. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just tired.”
“Of course,” she says. “Of course. You get some rest.” Jack lives in a single, she remembers. He will go to sleep and be alone and it would be ridiculous, right? Ridiculous to ask Shitty to stay with him. He’s a grown man. The worst is over. He can--
“Water delivery!” she hears. “I even put it in your favorite green water bottle. Drink up.”
She listens as Jack does and then there’s a thud through the line as Shitty helps Jack up and there’s a garbled few sentences that she misses and Jack’s quiet huff of laughter. Then,
“Alright, dude, I’ll just-- uh, head out now.” Shitty says and suddenly he’s awkward again. “Uh, bye, Mrs. Zimmermann!”
“Shits,” Jack says. “It’s late. Why don’t you stay over?”
It is not late. By Alicia’s glance at the clock, it is only 9:33. But there is no beat of hesitation.
“SNUGGLE SLEEPOVER!!!” Shitty all but yells and then there’s a crash and a yelp and from the sound of it Shitty has already launched himself into Jack’s bed.
They are going to have to snuggle. Alicia knows how big those beds are and her son is not a scrawny person. She can’t stop smiling.
“You have to wear clothes,” Jack says and he’s still tired, Alicia knows, still exhausted even but he sounds like he might be smiling too.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says back into the phone.
It’s been a horrible moment, but Alicia leans her head back into Bob’s shoulder and doubtless whatever he was making is ruined but they’ll order takeout or eat ramen and it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.
“My phone will be on.”
*^*^*^
2. May, Freshmen Year
Alicia’s first thought, when the noise wakes her up, is that it’s the fire alarm. Specifically, she thinks she’s in college again and someone has burned popcorn in the microwave for the thousandth time and it’s really only when she shoots up and opens one eye and sees Bob lying next to her that she remembers (sort of) that she is in her forties and married and in a very nice house and no one is making popcorn.
No, it’s just her phone ringing. She opens one eye to squint at the glare of her screen. Her phone is ringing. At… 2:42 in the morning?
Why is her son calling her at 2:42 in the morning?
She is so tired she forgets even to panic about it. Probably because the hockey season is over and finals were turned in earlier this morning (Jack had texted) and her son seemed fine and happy and--
“Hello?” she croaks, feeling Bob sit up next to her. “Jack?”
“Mrs. Zimmerma-mann! Zimmer. Man. Mrs. Man.”
Alicia blinks. “Shitty?” She’s not too concerned about this turn of events. Jack had another panic attack that she only heard about afterwards because Shitty was there to handle it and so he clearly knows what to do now. His voice doesn’t have to equal horror. Which is for the best, because Jack has taken to calling them and then throwing the phone at Shitty while he conveniently realizes he needs to run to the bathroom at that exact moment. She thinks Shitty is too smart to fall for the trick but he’s not quite ready to give up the pretense. He’s always stammering and apologizing for the first few minutes before he seems to remember that they love talking to him.
This time, though, “You’re awake!” Shitty sounds delighted. Shitty is giggling into the phone. There is a grumble or maybe a mumble in the background that Alicia thinks might be Jack. “Oh, I’m so glad you are awake, Mrs. Z.”
Shitty is… not sober. He’s not incoherent, not slurring his words completely, but they are definitely rounded around the edges and he is talking a little too loud and like her answering the phone is the best thing to happen to him, maybe ever, and--
“How are you? What’s up? Are you and Mr. Z doing anything fun?”
Yup, he is speaking to her as if it is an acceptable time for humans to converse with each other.
“Well,” she says, smiling despite it all. “We were sleeping.”
“You were-- oh shit! Jack, Jack, they were sleeping!”
“Sleeping?” That’s definitely Jack now. “They were not. They never go to sleep early. You can call them anytime!”
“That’s right,” Alicia says. Her son doesn’t sound quite sober either. “Was there something you wanted to talk about? Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yes,” Shitty replies. “Everything is great. We were over at the hockey house and Jack turned in his final paper today! Did he tell you? It was really good. I read it. Your boy is a genius.”
“We took our geography final yesterday!” Jack pipes up from the background. “And Shitty probably got a hundred. He gets a hundred on everything!”
“Well that’s not--”
“He does! All As! On everything!”
“Oh my god, Jack. Stop.”
“So you boys are done finals, right?” Alicia says, even though she knows the answer.
“Yup!” Jack says happily. “I’m coming home on Sunday, remember?”
“I do,” she says, smiling. Next to her, Bob is beaming. “We’re very excited.”
“Yeah. My flight is like early in the morning I think. Or maybe the afternoon. I don’t remember. I’ll have to check the email. Did you send me the email?”
“Hold on- why am I holding the phone? Here, you take the phone,” Shitty’s voice comes through. And then there’s a few thumps and - “No, you hold it.” “Dude, you are trying to talk to your mom.” “No, no we’ll stop talking about boring stuff.” “It’s oka--” “You hold it.”
“Are you boys on the way home?” Alicia asks to stop the scuffle.
“Yes!” Jack sounds like she has just told him he’s getting a new pair of skates. He is definitely not sober. She doesn’t think he’s too drunk to remember this conversation; he’s just… he’s silly. Her son is being silly. And loose and relaxed and happy. “Shitty is crashing at my place.”
“Crashing?” Alicia says, putting on her best mom voice. “This isn’t because you boys have been drinking is it?” Bob is practically shoving his fist into his mouth to stop from laughing.
“Oh no,” Jack says. “I mean. Um. I think I had a beer?”
“Just one,” Shitty says. “Don’t worry Mrs. Z. We are safe.”
“And sober. I was just calling to say hi!”
“Well, I’m glad you did,” Alicia says. There’s a bit of silence and she’s just decided that she doesn’t want this conversation to end, so “Tell me about the rest of your finals, you two. Which was the hardest?”
“Alright, well, technically,” Jack starts, voice lowering into something a little like when he starts talking about hockey. “On a memorization scale, geography--”
“Brah. No. C’mon. Don’t be ridiculous. That gothic lit essay was--”
That’s all it takes. The two are off, interrupting each other and pausing and laughing and talking, talking, talking, only sometimes to her and Bob, more often to each other and there is a moment, about ten minutes in when Jack looks at the clock and realizes it’s almost 3AM and points this out to Shitty (in not quite enough of a whisper) and it appears her boys had been tipsy enough to not bother checking the time because both of them suddenly try to get off that phone as if they could pretend this never happened but--
“No, no,” she tells them, waving a hand they can’t see from where she is curled against Bob, who is shaking her with his booming laugh. “It’s fine. We’re up. Finish the story. Then, your professor did what?”
They’re off again and she smiles and, she is going to call at 7AM tomorrow, oh yes she is because she is a mother after all, but… well. They are already up.
*^*^*^
3. December, Sophomore Year
They hadn’t sent anything the year before. Which is strange to think about now. Because this year, they had sent over no less than six presents in four different packages. Because she had sent a record from the both of them, only to find Bob had already ordered three different lawn games, and then she found the perfect designer floral snapback that she could just see him wearing that would make Jack sigh at the both of them, and then at the last minute Bob had come home with a book of puns that had him dying laughing and they’d had to overnight that one. Oh well. They finally managed to include a card in the last package so she supposed it all worked out.
The problem is, Alicia decides as she has the slight thought that perhaps it isn’t normal for your friend’s parents to send over six gifts for your birthday, the problem is that Shitty is just very easy to shop for. Unlike her son who appreciates things only if they are useful, Shitty seems to just… delight in everything. In clothes and games and hockey and her son… Shitty delights.
His birthday is so close to Christmas that Jack mentions his parents sometimes combined the holidays for ease which seems completely ridiculous to Alicia because she already has three more gifts for him.
“I’m going to be angry,” Bob grumbles, pacing around the counter. “I really am, Alicia. I’m going to be grumpy.”
He’s saying it like he has to convince himself. Probably because he does. Her husband doesn’t have the disposition for bad moods. He has to plan them out.
“Don’t worry,” she says, trying to focus on making sure their chicken doesn’t burn. Bob usually does all the cooking, but he is too busy talking half to himself, half to her. “Jack said he would handle it.”
“It’s almost ten o’clock,” Bob mutters. “It’s getting late.”
“They are in college,” Alicia says, rolling her eyes. “And finals are over. Ten is not late at all.”
“It’s late for us,” Bob insists, as if the two aren’t just getting back from a benefit where the food was awful and that’s why they are up cooking dinner as they often do. “I’m going to be mad at him.”
Alicia giggles in part because Bob is ridiculous and in part because… he is talking about getting mad at Jack. They are… they can get mad at Jack.
For so long Jack had been tense and serious and perfect in a way that was unnatural, really, for teenagers and there was nothing, really, to get mad about. And then… then they were both too scared to get mad at him for anything, to sad and shaken to be mad at anyone but themselves. And then there was last year where they were still scared, when having a Jack who was anything less than 100% prepared and courteous was still too new, and now--
Now her husband is grumbling about getting mad at her son as if that is an option. As if that’s something they can do.
“You should yell at him,” she says, giving the chicken a stir. “Call him up and give him a stern talking to.”
“I just might!” Bob says, sticking one finger in the air. “We said it was important to us and that’s the reason he stayed a few days after finals and we let him because he promised!”
“Irresponsible is what it is,” she declares, egging him on. They are going to be mad at Jack. Maybe even for a whole ten minutes.
“Exactly,” Bob agrees. “Irresponsible.”
He frowns for a second off into the living room, then glances back at her phone on the counter, then reaches into his pocket and checks his own.
“Though,” he says and his vow of anger at Jack has already faded. “It is a bit ridiculous we don’t have his number. I mean… really, the amount we talk to him you would think--”
“Usually Jack just throws him on,” Alicia says. “Those two are always together.”
“We should still get his number,” Bob says, taking the spoon from her and stirring the chicken himself.
“Alright,” Alicia says, reaching for her glass of wine. This all sounds lovely to her. They are going to get mad at Jack and get Shitty’s number.
“10:30,” Bob tells her. “I am going to give him until 10:30.”
“Sounds fair.”
Of course, it’s in that moment that Alicia’s phone rings and she lunges for it.
“I am just-- Jack what are you-- Don’t throw your phone at m-- Hello?”
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” Alicia isn’t even sure Shitty heard her over Bob’s booming voice but she starts the song and she hears Jack join in on the other side.
“Aw, th-thank you,” Shitty says and he’s blushing, Alicia can tell. Blushing and probably grinning at Jack in that way he has.
“Hold on,” Jack says faintly. “Hold on. We have--”
“Oh my god,” Shitty says. “You guys got me presents?”
It sort of breaks her heart, just a little, to hear how amazed and young he sounds.
“Of course, sweetie!” she says. “Sorry we didn’t get a chance to wrap all of them!”
“They’re still in the boxes, Maman,” Jack assures her.
“I don’t--There are so many!” Shitty says. “You guys really didn’t--”
“Here! Open them!” Jack interrupts and he sounds excited. Alicia leans further into Bob. “I’ll hold the phone so they can hear!”
“But. This is too much.”
“Stop being an idiot.”
“Jack,” Alicia says, mother-voice on. “Be nice to your friend.”
“It’s his birthday!” Bob adds.
“Now, stop being an idiot, Shitty,” she adds. “Open ‘em!”
Jack holds the phone close enough that they can hear Shitty opens the presents and he stops being awkward once he gets going and “Maman, you didn’t. This hat is--” “BEAUTIFUL!!!!” and Bob dies laughing when Shitty reads some of the puns and Shitty thanks them a thousand times before Jack is dragging him away to go set up the cornhole set and try it out and they forget about the chicken and it burns and--
Thank you, Jack texts them later. He loved all of them.
We love him. She texts back. And it’s easy and quick and she means it.
*^*^*^
4. April, Junior Year
The call comes at 7PM and it’s short and quick and exactly what Alicia needs:
“He’s upset, but I got him,” Shitty’s voice says through the small speaker of her cell phone. Samwell had just been knocked out of the playoffs. “We’re going for a walk for a bit but then we’ll be back at the Haus to be with everyone else.”
Wordlessly, Alicia nods. Selfishly, she wants him to come to their hotel room and hang with them, but she knows this will be better for him.
Thank God it’s not his senior year. He’ll get another chance.
“I’m with him,” Shitty says. “Don’t worry.”
And, what’s really amazing is that she doesn’t.
*^*^*^
5. October, After Graduation (Note: You must read Shitty, Year 3 for this to make sense)
“Hello!” Shitty sounds like he’s trying. Shitty sounds tired. And small.
It breaks her heart.
“Um… hi,” he says and Alicia realizes she should have said something, but she was too busy smiling with relief while almost crying at the same time.
“Hey, Shitty,” she says, hoping she can somehow convey what needs to be conveyed. “We hear you are living with Jack again.”
“Y-yeah,” Shitty says. “Yeah, he offered me a place while I, uh--”
“Figure things out,” Alicia fills in for him. She hears him let out a sigh of relief. Probably that he didn’t have to be the one to tell her. That he’d decided to drop out of Harvard Law School because he was struggling and depressed and Jack didn’t so much offer him a place to stay as demand that Shitty stay with him the moment he realized just how bad it was. “Yes, Jack told us.”
“Yeah,” Shitty says, still too soft for him and so she fills the silence for a while. She tells him about her latest shoot for Glamour and the way GQ has been hounding Bob and then she tells him about Bob’s latest kitchen remodel that is driving her crazy because they have been living off of takeout but he’s happy and at least next time he is going to do the guest suite so that won’t affect her too much.
She had been alone when he called, but Bob gets home and she waves him over to the sofa she is sitting on and puts Shitty on speaker and Bob picks up on her strategy instantly. He talks without asking too many questions and, obviously, they both notice that Shitty doesn’t interject nearly enough (because how can they not?) but neither of them acknowledge it aside from Bob’s hand reaching to hers to give it a squeeze.
Even with Bob there to tell a few tales, they only make it half an hour before the silence gets too noticeable and she hears Shitty yawn once or twice. It’s 3PM. He shouldn’t be tired, but he is.
“Ha, that’s great Mr. Z,” Shitty says. Alicia hadn’t even really been paying attention to Bob’s story but she knows that in any other circumstance, Shitty would have given it more a reaction than that.
“Okay, Shitty,” she says. “We’ll let you get off the phone.” It’s not what she wants to do, but it’s probably what he needs right now.
She and Bob have done this before.
They can do it again.
“Okay,” he replies. Then lingers. “Uh, um. I wanted to say… Well, I’m sorry. For not calling sooner. I probably should have, I know, but I wasn’t…. I mean--”
“No, no,” Alicia says, cutting him off. “No, Shitty. Don’t be sorry. We made a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“Yes, we did,” she says and it’s as she says it that she realizes how true the statement is. How ridiculous it was that after everything they knew, after Jack, that once again she had let things slide just by just because he wasn’t technically hers and just because she thought maybe it was natural for friends to slip away after college and she won’t forgive herself for this one, not really, but she’ll make it right, just like she made it right with Jack and--
“We made a mistake,” she repeats, clearing her throat. “We should have called you.”
*^*^*^
+1 -
Yo, the text reads from Jack. Could you give Shitty a call?
Alicia frowns down at her phone. She and Bob call Shitty all the time. Unless, of course, he is calling them. Jack hasn’t really managed their relationship in a long time. Maybe something is--
Not an emergency, Jack texts as if reading her thoughts. He’s just being an idiot.
Alicia nods to herself. Of her (now) three boys, Shitty is the most prone to sometimes being an idiot. Sure, Jack can still be a bit dense and Bitty still panics about which baked good she and Bob want the most when they to visit but Shitty… yes, Shitty would be the one to work himself into a lather about nothing. She leans closer to Bob on the couch and shows him the texts. He puts down his phone and focuses.
On it, she texts Jack and then turns on speaker phones and hits dial before she’s even sure the text goes through.
It rings only once which makes her think that Shitty is literally in front of Jack, panicking, as her son texted her.
“Hello?” Shitty answers the phone as if he hadn’t even looked at the caller ID.
“Hey, Shitty,” Alicia says, smiling. Next to her, Bob booms his own greeting as well.
“How did you guys-- Jack! You told them to--”
“Yes,” Alicia hears her son’s voice from a distance. “I did. Now just… tell them!”
Jack sounds giddy. And excited.
“Ask,” Shitty clarifies into the phone. “I’m asking, Jack! I’m not going to just presume that--”
“Oh my god--”
“Asking us what, Shitty?” Alicia cuts in because she’s been dealing with the circular conversations of Jack and Shitty for going on 7 years now and she knows when to cut in.
“Ah, uh, well,” Shitty starts and Alicia thinks this is about to be quite a long conversation when he suddenly clears his throat and starts again. “As you know, Lardo and I are expecting a child.”
“Yes, we are aware,” Alicia says, fighting to keep her voice as serious as Shitty’s has just become. Clearly this is a planned speech. And a bit of a ridiculous one as she and Bob have known of Lardo’s pregnancy for the past 7 months.
“Yes, and as such,” Shitty continues. “We are expected to name the aforementioned child.”
Also a debate she and Bob are intimately familiar with. She has listened to plenty of rants about gender-neutral names, Shitty’s explosive final fight with his father when he informed the man that the child’s last name would be Duan, not Knight, and had herself had to talk Shitty out of naming his unborn child “Fabler” (apparently he had lost a bet to Jack and felt morally obligated to hold up his end of the bargain before she put her foot down).
“Of course,” she says. Next to her, Bob nods.
“Well, we have-- we have a first name,” Shitty says. Lardo has sworn him to secrecy on that, Alicia knows, thought she also knows they have already told Jack and Bitty. And maybe Ransom and Holster. And she can’t help but think that if she and Bob went down and saw them in person and asked, they would also find out in two seconds. “And you know about the last name. We have that too. Which leaves. The middle name.”
“Lardo said I could pick it,” he says, voice gaining a little speed now. “Because of the last name thing so like… you know, her last name, we both agree on the first name, my choice of middle. Which I told her wasn’t necessary but she insisted and well, I did have an idea, I guess, which she also liked and so uh I guess, I’m choosing the middle. Or well. I’m asking about the middle. You. I’m asking you sort of about the middle--”
“Shitty--” Alicia starts because she has no idea where this is going anymore.
“Zimmermann,” Shitty blurts. “I’d, uh, I’d really like it if the middle name could be Zimmermann.”
Alicia blinks, her mouth twisting to the side as warmth spreads across her chest. He… he wants the middle name to be Zimmermann. That’s… well that’s their name.
Bob reaches for her hand and squeezes it.
Shitty hasn’t stopped talking.
“And I know that… well, I’m not a Zimmermann but, well, Jack is my best friend and you two… uh, you’ve always been there for me? You know? So, I’m just… wondering if that would be okay. With you.”
Alicia is already nodding yes (has been nodding yes) even though Shitty obviously can’t see her and she would say something but her throat is a little tight and--
“Of course!” Bob says. She doesn’t remember the last time his grin was so wide. “Shitty, that’s… we’d be honored. Absolutely honored.”
“Really?” Shitty’s voice sounds so young. So hopeful. It reminds her of when he and Jack were just becoming friends and Jack would throw the phone to him mid-conversation and Shitty was just 18 years old and awkward and young.
“Another Zimmermann!” Bob says and, oh goodness, this child is going to be so spoiled. It’s already a disaster. “They’ll have to play hockey, you know.”
“Of course!” Shitty says and he’s laughing. “I promise! I mean with Jack and Bitty as the godparents, that was a given, Mr. Zimmermann.”
“Smart man,” Bob says.
“Oh, Shitty,” Alicia says. “This is… thank you so much.”
“No, you guys, you… thank you,” Shitty says and, knowing him, she would guess he’s about to cry. “I just… Thank you. Really. For everything. And you’re really okay with this?”
“Obviously. But only if you’re sure,” Alicia adds. “I mean, we don’t expect--”
“I am!” Shitty says. “Oh my-- LARDO! LARDO THEY SAID YES!”
There’s a crash and a yelp and maybe he’s dropped the phone because everything gets a little softer but she hears another thank you and more yelling and then Jack is on the phone and she can hear the laughter and joy in his voice too--
“Hey, guys, Shitty is… he’s running to get Lardo now,” Jack tells them. “He’s-- we’ll talk to you later, okay?”
Alicia nods and curls into Bob, who assures Jack they’ll be around, and, yes, she and Bob will talk to them later.
END.