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"Zimmermann is known for being cool under pressure, but this might be too much even for the seasoned Samwell veteran."
"Very true, my friend. He's faced a lot on and off the ice for the last four years, but nothing quite like this."
Jack looked up to see Holster and Ransom in the doorway to the kitchen, using an upside down solo cup and Shitty's hairbrush, respectively, as fake microphones.
"Are you guys narrating my breakfast?" Jack asked, glancing between his bowl of cereal and his teammates.
"No," said Holster, "we're narrating Bitty's coffee date, but he kicked us out of the living room."
"Oh," said Jack.
"Something about being creepy and weird and scaring people off," Ransom said, shrugging.
"Bittle's on a date?" Jack asked.
"Uh," said Ransom, rubbing the back of his neck, "no?"
"Maybe?" said Holster.
"Kent Parson's in town again," said Ransom.
"Kent Parson's sitting on our couch again," said Holster.
"Right," Jack said.
He looked back down at his half eaten cereal. Bitty had convinced him to buy some kid's brand the last time they'd gone to Shop n' Save, quoting the health benefits of a sugar high in the mornings. Jack had given at the time just to get Bitty to stop making up statistics in the middle of the grocery store, but he was regretting it now. The mushy, sugary mess sat heavy in his stomach.
"Uh oh," said Ransom, dropping the hairbrush to his side and coming to join Jack at the table. Holster was a step behind him, setting his solo cup down on the table with a plunk. Ransom sat on one side of Jack while Holster took the other.
"Look," said Holster, waving a hand through the air and pushing his glasses up his nose, "this is hard, bro. We get that."
"We totally get that," Ransom agreed, reaching across the table to fist bump Holster. "This is some Romeo and Juliet shit. Or maybe Hamlet or something, I haven't read Shakespeare since high school."
"This," said Holster, nodding with gravity, "is some grade A angst we got here."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Jack said, tipping his bowl from side to side and watching the cereal squelch around in the milk. It was too soggy to finish now, so he got up from the table and emptied it in the sink
There was half a pie covered in saran wrap on the counter, with a note next to it: "Salted Rose & Honey Pie - Frogs get first dibs!"
In the living room, someone laughed. Jack felt a little sick. Too much sugar before noon.
"Look," said Ransom, appearing at Jack's side and swinging an arm over his shoulders, "you don't need to pretend with us, man."
"Yeah," said Holster, bumping his shoulder into Jack's from the other side. "We're your d-men. We've got your back."
"We can run interference if you want?" Ransom asked.
"Yeah!" said Holster. "Get you upstairs without them seeing? They'll never know you were here dude."
"I live here," said Jack. He didn't know what Holster and Ransom were talking about.
Bitty laughed again in the living room, a throaty, hysterical laugh that Jack had never heard before. The low murmur of Parse's voice threaded through Bitty's giggles.
"Whatever," Jack said. "I've gotta go to class."
"Do you need a hug?" Holster asked, throwing his arms open.
"Do you need your backpack?" Ransom asked.
"I'm going out the back door," Jack said.
"We support you," Holster yelled out from the kitchen as Jack left the Haus very calmly in a way that absolutely did not resemble fleeing no matter what Lardo insinuated later. She wasn't even there, anyway.
"Hey," said Bitty, sliding into the seat next to Jack in the small classroom.
Weak spring sunlight filtered in through the large windows, reflecting off Bitty's hair and shiny lips. Jack nodded, and turned back to drawing in his notebook. Were shiny lips normal? Was that a date thing? Or a Bitty thing that he'd just never noticed before? Maybe Bitty had put on lip gloss for his date?
Jack's stomach protested his unfinished, unpalatable breakfast once more. He was never listening to Bitty's cereal suggestions again.
"I looked for you before I left for class," Bitty was saying, as if it was totally normal for Jack to zone out staring at his lips for several minutes at a time. Maybe it was and Jack just didn't realize how often he stared at Bitty's lips. Maybe that was why Bitty didn't tell Jack he was dating someone, was dating Parse - because he knew Jack was secretly completely, creepily in love with him. Maybe Bitty was trying to spare his feelings.
Maybe Bitty was... staring at him expectantly from the next seat over.
"What?" Jack asked. Around them, the classroom filled up as students trickled in. Jack had been about 45 minutes early, even including the time it took to wheedle Shitty into retrieving his backpack from the Haus and bringing it to him.
Bitty's face broke out in a smile. Jack very successfully avoided whimpering, because he was an adult.
"Oh my gosh, Jack, are you that wrapped up in next week's game? I said, Kent wanted to say hi to you before he left, but we couldn't find you anywhere in the Haus. Holster told us you were gripped by despair, and Ransom kept saying something about Hamlet and Romeo? Johnson even tweeted me, which was weird."
Bitty pulled out his phone and scrolled until he found what he was looking for.
"Here," Bitty said, shoving the phone in Jack's face.
"'You gotta have conflict, bro, even if it's as contrived as this. Keeps the narrative going,'" Jack read. "What does that even mean?"
Bitty lowered the phone and frowned down at it for a second.
"I don't know," he admitted, "just one of those Johnson things I guess. Besides, we don't have any conflict, right?
Jack looked at Bitty. Looked at the wide brown eyes, the wrinkle in his forehead, the piece of hair that always fell in front of his face even with his short cut.
"Of course not.”
Jack’s tone was too serious, and his face had to be giving away everything. He’d never been a good liar.
"I just,” Jack said, looking down at his hands. “I'm happy for you, Bittle. Eric. I want you to be happy."
Bitty's rocked backwards and blinked, before leaning in close to Jack.
"Jack, I-"
"All right, class," said Professor Atley, walking through the door with her briefcase in hand. "Who's ready to talk about Puritan gender roles and views on sexuality?"
Jack leaned back in his seat, wondering when he'd gotten so close to Bitty.
Bitty grabbed his arm before he could shift to face the front of the class.
"We're going to talk," Bitty said. "Later."
Jack swallowed and nodded, letting the shape of Bitty's palm burn into his arm even after he took his hand away.
Later turned out not to be after class, when Jack faked a call from Shitty and ran over to "meet" him in the "library."
Later wasn't after Jack got back to the Haus from hiding out in the stacks for three hours, when Lardo dragged Jack out to go to the Super Target two towns away with her for "important team manager business, and also because you look sad."
Later wasn't at practice the next morning, or team breakfast, or during the day, or at dinner, or at official team bonding by Mario Party that Shitty dragged Jack out of his room for.
Later didn't seem to ever be coming, and Jack told himself to get over it.
“It’s fine, you know, it is,” Jack told Shitty, laying his head back on Shitty’s pillow and closing his eyes. He felt Shitty’s unimpressed glance all the way from where Shitty was sitting at his desk.
“Yes, Jack, you seem totally fine,” Shitty said. Jack opened his eyes and sneaked a look. Shitty had his arms crossed and his legs gathered up underneath him in his desk chair, blessedly fully dressed for once.
“I am,” Jack said. “I mean, I basically confessed to Bitty that I’m embarrassingly in love with him, immediately after he finally started seeing someone. And now he won’t talk to me. It’s fine.”
“First of all bro,” Shitty said, rolling his desk chair over to the bed a holding his pointer finger in front of Jack’s face, “nothing about that sounds fine.”
“Second of all,” Shitty continued, holding up a two fingers, “did you ever consider that maybe he can’t talk to you because you’re avoiding him?”
Jack shrugged, turning over and burying his face in Shitty’s pillow. It smelled like must and pot. Jack wasn’t sure if Shitty had washed this pillowcase since they moved into the Haus sophomore year. It was kind of comforting. He immediately vowed to never tell Shitty that.
“Jack,” Shitty said, reaching over to lay a hand on Jack’s back, “unrequited love sucks. Telling someone you like them when they don’t feel the same way sucks. But you and Bitty… you guys are friends, and teammates, before anything else. Did you ever think about what it’s gotta be doing to Bits, for you to tell him that and then avoid him? I’m not saying you guys are gonna talk and everything's gonna magically be okay, but you can’t leave this up in the air.”
Jack groaned into the pillow. He considered replacing Shitty as his best friend with this pillow.
Then he sat up.
“I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” Jack said.
“’Swawesome,” said Shitty, patting Jack’s shoulder.
“I really do just want him to be happy,” Jack said, “I just want him to be happy with me.”
“I know, buddy.”
Jack went to bed earlier than usual that night, claiming senior stress to Lardo and Holster when they tried to tempt him into a violently competitive Jenga tournament that was going on in the basement. He meant to sleep, he really did, but he couldn’t stop think of what he was going to say to Bitty in the morning, what Bitty would say back, if he’d still have his friend at the end of the day.
Someone pounded on Jack's door at two in the morning, jerking him out of a fevered dream where he'd been Simba from the Lion King only he'd been human and he'd been trying to open a bank account. The person knocked on the door again, more quietly this time.
If this was Shitty, high and demanding Jack make him a smoothie again, Jack was not going to be responsible for his actions.
"I swear to God, Shits, if you're naked out there..." Jack said while he opened the door.
"Oh," Jack said.
"Hi," said Bitty. He waved.
"You're not Shitty," said Jack.
"Nope," said Bitty.
He was in a faded t-shirt and sweatpants so long they pooled at his feet. Jack wondered if they were Parse's. Were Bitty and Parse at the clothes sharing part of the relationship yet? Did Parse sleep over? Did Bitty bake him pies and joke about pop culture with him and ask him what it was like to play in the NHL?
"Hello?" Bitty asked, waving a hand in front of Jack's face. "You in there?"
"Sorry," Jack said automatically. "Tired."
"Right," Bitty said, scratching at his face, "it's late, I know. I just- I said later, you know, and we never talked."
"It's okay," Jack said, "We don't have to talk." He felt sweat start to drip down his back, even though it was unseasonably cold and he'd gone to sleep with two extra blankets tonight.
"I think we do," said Bitty, leaning forward into Jack's doorway. Jack moved back, keeping a hold on the door to try to keep Bitty out of the room. Bitty couldn't possibly expect to have this conversation in the hall, so if Jack kept him out there everything would be fine.
"Jack," Bitty said.
Jack stared at Bitty's door, across the way from his. It looked a little crooked on the hinges. He wondered if that helped the heat escape Bitty's room in winter. He wondered if Bitty was warm enough over there. He wondered if he could fix the door, or if they would need to call someone.
"Jack," said Bitty again, his soft accent biting down on the syllables. "Look at me, please."
Jack lowered his gaze slowly, taking in Bitty's flat hair, the pillow creases on his face, the fond exasperation in his eyes.
"I'm not dating Kent," Bitty blurted out, flushing red as he said it.
"What?" Jack said. He couldn't feel his toes.
"Holster made a joke earlier tonight about my new boyfriend, and I thought- well I didn't know what to think, so I asked, and I found out basically everyone but Lardo thought I was dating Kent but I'm not. I'm not."
"You're not?"
"No," Bitty said, shaking his head.
"But he comes up here every other weekend," Jack said.
"He has some sponsorship deal that he's negotiating, he has to come up to Boston every couple weeks right now."
"He doesn't have to sit on the green couch and drink coffee with you and make you laugh."
"Jack," Bitty said, trying to look disapproving even though he couldn't stop smiling, "we're friends. We drink coffee and hang around the Haus and talk."
Bitty paused, hid his face in his heads for a moment before resurfacing.
"We talk about you, actually, most of the time," Bitty said, blushing so hard Jack could almost feel the heat radiating off him.
"You what?" Jack said.
"We talk about you. And hockey, and figure skating - he's surprisingly knowledgeable, ya know. But mostly, yeah, we talk about you."
"Why?"
Jack was going to be able to speak in full sentences again one day. He was working up to it. Just as soon as Bitty stopped smiling at him like that and his stomach stopped flipping over on itself.
"Because we both care about you, ya big dummy. He used to be a little bit in love with you, I don't know if you knew that? And I'm-"
Bitty cut himself off, blushing and waving a hand through the air.
"You're what?" Jack asked, eyes snapping to Bitty's.
"You said, the other day, that you wanted me to be happy. I want you to be happy too, Jack. I just- I want to be the one who makes you happy."
"Oh," Jack said, trying to remember how to speak.
"Oh?" Bitty fidgeted and wrung his hands. He looked even smaller than usual in his oversize sweats.
"Okay, that's okay," said Bitty, nodding and taking a step back. "I misinterpreted, that's fine, I'll just-"
Bitty hooked a thumb behind him, back toward his door, and turned to go.
Jack got himself together just in time to snag the back of Bitty's t-shirt and reel him in.
"You didn't misinterpret," Jack said, resting one hand on Bitty's shoulder and placing the other, very gently, on his cheek. “I wanna be the one who makes you happy too.”
"Oh," Bitty said, leaning in to Jack's touch.
"Yeah," said Jack, pulling Bitty closer and leaning down to kiss him. They bumped noses on the first try, and Jack was pretty sure his breath was terrible, and they were still halfway out in the hall where anyone could see them. It was perfect.
And it was still perfect when Ransom stumbled down the stairs from the attic and shrieked at the sight of them, waking the whole house and initiating an impromptu “Jack and Bitty are done moping now” party, which Jack and Bitty snuck out of after half an hour because, yes, they were done moping, and now they had other things to do.