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Jack doesn’t talk to Bitty the day that he leaves for Pyeongchang, though he knows that he should.
Have a safe flight, the note by their lamp reads. Call me when you touch down!
He keeps the piece of paper folded, tucks it away in his shirt pocket. When the plane takes off, he runs his fingers over the dried ink, feeling the ridges and the corners, its unevenness from all his attention.
Playing for Canada in the Winter Olympics doesn’t come as a shock, though Jack has considered turning the offer down, until his agent had to talk him out of it with a few reminders. It’s not that he doesn’t consider it an honour—he does. But he likes the false impression of having any sort of autonomy over his career. There’s never any guarantee in hockey.
“I liked the idea of saying no,” Jack said to his father. “That I’m doing this because I want to.”
“It’s ultimately your decision,” was the reply, but it sounded like it was apparent that Jack would agree to play. Hop on a flight halfway across the world because this was what he set out to do two decades ago. But these days the line between passion and obligation grows stranger and stranger.
Jack unfolds the note again, studies the slow loops of Bitty’s handwriting. He was tired when he wrote this, the letters are a little further apart than the norm, and it’s not as neat. The cooking show Bitty has just started hosting takes up a lot of his time—not that Jack’s in any position to talk. He remembers asking his therapist if this was what they were meant to be. A healthy relationship. Knowing each other’s schedules and the limitations of their conversations.
In Samwell everything was a short distance away. It was easy to slip into Bitty’s room, even when they weren’t together. Talking in circles and feeling happy with the words neither of them bothered to say. He doesn’t know if he misses it. The uncertainty. Now he looks at Bitty and thinks, I love him. So assuredly.
In the same conversation with his father, Jack said, “I wasn’t in control for a lot of things in my life.” He could have phrased things a little differently, he knows now. That wasn’t meant to hurt. It was just the truth, and Jack wasn’t accustomed to speaking it so plainly. He was just trying to keep the impression up.
It’s easier to dissolve an addiction when it’s still young.
If Jack had injured something awful when he first started out hockey—maybe he wouldn’t grow to love it the same way he does now. He’d miss it, yes. But the ache probably wouldn’t be so great. Now even the thought of losing it burns. The panic when he had his first concussion, knowing that he would probably never survive the second.
You have to be more careful, someone said. Jack doesn’t remember who. Maybe it was his anxiety speaking directly into his ear. But he knows that just wasn’t true. He combs through conversations. Stares at tape until he has the game ironed over in his brain. The PR training is a default state for him to return to. If anything—he’s living his life too carefully. Always afraid that it would break.
“Sorry I didn’t wake you,” Jack whispers into the phone, the minute the seat belt sign switches off. He’s a little surprised that he had the time to pick up. “I didn’t want to disturb your sleep.”
It’s not a lie if it’s true.
“It’s alright,” Bitty says, like clockwork. “Did you catch any on the plane?”
“Not really,” says Jack, then changes the topic. “How are the negotiations coming along?”
Bitty laughs, a little bitter. “Going great. I think they’ve just forgotten that I’m not here to give out cupcakes, bless their heart. It’s as if they don’t know how a TV show works.”
“I’m sure they don’t,” Jack agrees. “Wanna tell me more?”
Bitty hums. “It’s a boring topic. Shouldn’t you be getting off the plane?”
The plane’s almost empty. “Right.” Jack shoulders his bag and starts moving towards the exit. “I’ll call you when I get to the village?”
“I think I’ll be busy, honey,” Bitty says, and apologises. “Why don’t you try and do something about the jet lag, first?”
Jack pauses, faltering a little. “I’ll call you later, then.”
“Yeah,” Bitty says, and it sounds like a smile. “Go. Bring me back a medal.”
Jack’s talked to his teammates before—he’s played against them, too, in the NHL. It’s exactly how he expected this to go: smooth, well-rounded, fluent. He speaks French more often than he would have in the Falcs, doesn’t realise he misses chirping people in French at the locker room.
“They’re all a bunch of good guys,” one of his teammates tell him. “We’re happy to have you here.”
Jack says, “It’s all I ever wanted.”
“Just like the rest of us, huh,” Strand shrugs. “As a boy it was all I could think about. Playing hockey for Canada.”
Jack asks, “How’s that working out for you?”
“I don’t know,” Strand rests his elbows on his thighs, leaning forwards. “I guess the thrill of it tapered off. I wish it hadn’t.”
His mother calls him after a game lost to the Russians, one that Jack played well in but ultimately couldn’t save. “Good game.”
It’s nothing that Jack hasn’t heard before—but it feels different with him here, his mother staying up later than usual to catch him in time. “Thanks, Mama.”
“How’s the team?”
“They’re good,” Jack shrugs, even though she can’t see him, and flicks through the channels. There’s a rerun of a show that she starred in, once, and it’s alarming to see her so young, and talk to her at the same time. Like all the pictures of him in his oversized jerseys, standing next to his father when he still played.
“I remember when you were four,” his mother says. “You kept on breaking your sticks, and you still wouldn’t get off the ice. You just pushed the puck around with your skates.”
Which was, incidentally, what he did in the first period. Jack laughs. “Maybe I’ll just do that for all the games against the States.”
“I was always bitter you couldn’t play for them,” she sighs.
“I would have switched nationalities if I wasn’t on Canada’s roster,” Jack says, a little surprised that the words come out a little more sincere than he’d meant them to.
“Well,” his mother muses. “We do a lot for the things we love.”
In between everything—he finds the time to head to one of the historical museums, reading the English translations aside everything. He’s walking with his cap pulled down low. In here nobody knows who he is—but when he turns—
“Kent,” he says, feeling a little betrayed by the shake in his voice, the urgency to look past him.
Kent pushes his hands into his pockets. “Hey, Zimms.”
“What are you doing here?” is Jack’s question when they sit down at one of those overpriced cafes. It’s the kind that Bitty likes to frequent, idyllic and quaint and out of the way.
“Playing in the Winter Olympics,” Kent rolls his eyes. “How ‘bout you?”
“Me too,” Jack says, piles on the earnestness, and watches Kent stifle a laugh, easy.
They talk about their teams, a little, brief, nothing for Kent to really sink his teeth into. Hockey. What they thought about the draft prospects, and everything else in between, because there isn’t much else to say. It’s strange; because Jack never thought about what falling out of contact with him would feel like, but here they are. Strangers trying to pass for best friends. It was strange to realise that losing your grasp on friendship came this early on in adulthood; that you could work on it and still have it slip away.
“But tell me about your life,” says Kent, after the conversation inevitably winds down.
Jack presses his hand into the condensation. “I thought we were already doing that.”
“Your life, Jack,” Kent repeats, and Jack shuts his mouth, hears the click of his own jaw.
He watches Bitty’s vlogs when he gets back to his room, reintroduced to the knowledge that he’s in Pyeongyang alone, no one to share a house with, no parents and no boyfriend and no one he really knows.
(Does Kent count? Did Kent ever count?)
In the window, Bitty introduces the recipe he’s modified, why he’s chosen the ingredients. It’s easier to watch him like this, now, after so many years of living together. Knowing that the background is their kitchen. If he books a ticket and goes home this is what he’ll see.
“The funny thing is that, sometimes I run out of things to say. I know I started this as a way to talk about life, but, well, I suppose this is the part where it slows down, demands you to find a rhythm. Or newer things. Newer people. But all that’s just hard to find. For now. It always is, isn’t it?”
On-screen Bitty sighs, looking down to the kneaded dough.
“Sometimes we make a decision, add it into the mixing bowl,” he mutters, picking his work back up again. “And then we think twice on it. If that was really what you want. I guess that’s the danger of making newer choices. You never know what comes out of the oven.”
My boyfriend’s camera-shy, is Bitty’s response every single time someone asks about Jack. This time it’s no different—even the understated smiley face he adds to the end of it. Almost written like a commitment. Maybe I’ll get to convince him some time!
Canada wins gold. There’s a heart emoji accompanying Bitty’s congratulations, when he finally checks his phone, heart still thumping quick. Something urgent about his desire to kiss him, or maybe even trace the line of his jaw. These days he doesn’t want much, just reassurance and the laughing eyes and a lilting drawl.
“I miss you,” is the first thing Jack says when Bitty picks up. He’s not with the other guys at the bar; he doesn’t feel like drinking, just wants to go home and reward himself with a slice of pie. “I miss you so much.”
“Jack,” Bitty exhales, the vowel in his name stretching out. “I miss you too, sweetheart.”
“We haven’t spent a lot of time with each other lately,” Jack blurts out, catching Kent’s eye across the hall. They smile at each other, a little forced, before Kent turns away, slings his arm around a teammate. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” Bitty says, and Jack knows the taste of Bitty’s forgiveness already; is familiar with the sourness in his chest. “You’re bringing back the medal, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” Jack breathes. He presses his fingers into it, feels the heaviness. I worked for this, he thinks. Mine, now.
He loves hockey: there was never any doubt about that. Jack doesn't know if it's a conscious choice or not; falling in love. With a city or with a sport or with a person. Except—waking up early and wanting somewhere to go—that's his heart, and it may not be reasoned out, thought about—but it's what keeps his eyes looking. That's what makes him fly back, halfway round the world to a place he already knows. Carefully circumventing a way around everything because of the life he wants, already has. It's not delicate, not in the way he thought it was. But it's precious all the same.
When Jack stands in front of the departure boards, it’s not the medal he raises to his lips but a ring.
“Hope I didn’t wake you,” Jack says at half past seven in the morning, when Bitty must have been asleep. “I’m coming home.”