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1. Samwell
The very first time Bitty gets hit on by a guy - other than the ones Ransom and Holster tried to set him up with - he's not really expecting it. He's heading to the Pond for a skate date with Jack, thinking about how it'll probably turn into checking practice, and it's nice to touch Jack in public but also he's not really afraid of being checked anymore and not super excited to accidentally go flying without boards to catch himself on, when a frisbee flies past his face.
He stops instinctively. This turns out to be a good choice when the guy chasing it tries and fails to jump over a snowdrift, sending what seems like a wall of frozen water into Bitty's face and falling on his ass on the sidewalk. He lies there with his eyes closed for a minute, feeling his left wrist like he's afraid it might run away. Bitty kneels down to make sure he's OK, which is the exact moment frisbee guy chooses to open his eyes.
Then he opens his mouth.
"Did it hurt?" he says, eyes bright and self-deprecating laughter on his lips, and Bitty snorts.
"Falling on the sidewalk?" he asks. "You tell me."
"No," says frisbee guy, propping himself up on his elbows, "when you fell from heaven."
"I think you might have hit your head. Are you feeling dizzy, nauseous, headachey at all?"
The guy gives him a grin. "Man, I'd hope I wouldn't have to be concussed to notice someone as-" A shadow falls over them, and they both look up.
It's Jack, two pairs of skates slung over his shoulder, smiling at Bitty and completely ignoring the dude lying semi-prone in front of him.
"There you are, Bittle," he says, in the warm voice Bitty usually only gets to hear in private. "Ready?"
"You alright?" Bitty asks frisbee guy, just in case.
"Oh," he answers, frowning a little. "Yeah, I'm fine. Did you see where my frisbee went?"
2. Verizon Center
In the week after he and Jack and Kent get together for the first time, their baking video blows up. That's why, when the two of them head to Vegas for the NHL awards, Bitty goes too. He spends most of the flight composing a list of ingredients he's going to need, staring out the window and ignoring Jack and Kent bickering next to him.
"I'm sorry, which one of us won both scoring titles this year?" Jack is saying when he's finally finished.
"Three points! One fucking goal!" Kent replies, slightly too loud, "And I missed two weeks with that concussion."
"Y'all are both great," Bitty interrupts, recognizing the same dumb argument they've been having for the last three days. "Now which one of you is gonna come over here and kiss me first?"
--
Bitty looks around the massive commercial kitchen and says a quick prayer of thanks to whoever set this up, and made the Bee Gees postpone their Vegas show so he could have a kitchen all to himself, and lined up a couple of Montreal Canadiens for him to bake with. Probably Falcs PR and Aces PR and Habs PR and NHL PR and the remaining Bee Gees, really.
He sets up the camera and a couple baking stations, leaving his cooler of homemade pie dough on the counter between them, and heads upstairs to wait for the Gallys. It's a good spot; he can see all the hockey players as they gradually wander in, giving interviews and signing everything under the sun for their fans. They look happy and grateful in a way that's really pretty touching, and Bitty is definitely kind of sucked into it. This is probably why he doesn't notice the giant hockey player coming up behind him.
"Hello, cute baker," a voice says, and Bitty turns around. The guy's wearing a nice suit, but his build and his beard and his sleazy grin all scream fuckboy. When Bitty gets a good look at his face he realizes he's probably right, because this guy is Tyler Seguin.
"I'm Bitty," he says, distantly polite, and shakes his hand, mindful that one day soon he might get the Stars to send him some players to bake with and that Seguin would likely be one of them.
"No way!" says Seguin, and Bitty is about to ask how he knows him when Seguin keeps talking. "You're the one who makes the orgasmic pies! Parse wouldn't shut up about you at the All-Star Game."
"Is that so?" Bitty asks, thinking of all the ways he can chirp Kent about this later, but Seguin apparently takes this as flirting, which - surely he knows about Bitty and Jack at least? If he does, he apparently doesn't care, or doesn't think it's serious, because he's crowding into Bitty's space just a little too much. He dips his head, probably to make some ridiculous suggestion or whisper something uncomfortably dirty into Bitty's ear.
Bitty opens his mouth to try and stop him before he can start. This is how he ends up with Kent's tongue in it.
They probably shouldn't be doing this, but between the door and Seguin and some sort of decorative glass thing they're actually pretty much blocked from view. Anyway Kent is really good at kissing, and Bitty is perfectly happy to let it happen for as long as possible.
Seguin cocks an eyebrow and grins some more. "Zimmermann know you're hot for his baker?"
Kent breaks off to respond, which sucks but also is probably a good idea, cocking an eyebrow right back, spit-slick lips in a smirk as he asks, "Captain Bennie know you're hot for our baker?"
Seguin's expression travels through 'huh' and 'wait, what?' and 'holy shit!' and 'actually, that makes sense.' "There he is, let's ask him," says Kent, and they watch 'let me say something dumb' slam into 'guilt' and 'fuck, he's gonna make that disappointed face at me' before Seguin pretty much runs in the opposite direction to the one Kent was looking.
"Was he really there?" Bitty asks.
"Nah," says Kent, and Bitty drags him into the kitchen.
3. Grocery Store
The Falconers are having a preseason bake sale to fundraise for the children's hospital. They ask Bitty for ten apple pies.
Bitty says he'll make ten apple and ten blueberry.
Blueberries are still in season, barely, so he can go to the farmer's market and some local blueberry patches for those. Apples are starting to show up too, but nobody's going to have good quality baking apples for another month or so. That, plus the need for twenty disposable pie tins, means he has to go to the store.
Bitty sends Jack and the grocery list to shop for their regular stuff, because he's going to be feeling up apples for a long time if he wants to find enough for ten pies.
The first hurdle is actually just him debating whether he should go red or green before choosing to do five of each, then debating whether the red should be Honeycrisp or Braeburn, eventually deciding the Honeycrisp are too summery to go well in MooMaw's recipe. Actually finding good apples takes him hardly any time at all, comparatively. Jack isn't even back by the time he's done.
Bitty sets out to the baking aisle so he can grab the pie tins, passing Jack on the way. He's in a quiet but intense discussion with the guys at the meat counter, so Bitty doesn't interrupt, just waves and keeps going.
The pie tins are on the top shelf.
Bitty has to stand on his toes to reach them, and he's already getting annoyed by the time he gets the fourth one down. As he's reaching for the fifth, a little old lady comes up and asks him if he can grab two for her, and he puts on his politest smile and hands her two of the ones he already has, and now he has to get seventeen more down and why does the shelf have an edge guard on it, anyway?
He almost has the sixth when someone grabs the whole stack.
"Not sure how many you needed, will that be enough?" says the guy, all tall and friendly, and Bitty smiles at him distractedly, counting the tins in the stack.
"Are there three more up there?" asks Bitty, and tall dude reaches up and counts out three more tins onto the tower in Bitty's arms.
"Cooking for family?" he asks, like he's genuinely interested, and Bitty's thankful this guy helped and doesn't have anything else he needs to do right now. A conversation sounds nice.
"Charity bake sale," Bitty says, and tall guy's smile gets a little bigger and a little softer.
"It's a really great feeling, helping people," he agrees. "Maybe I could offer you a hand sometime?"
Bitty says, "You could come in handy," and they both laugh a little at the awful pun.
"Nick," says the guy, holding out a hand for Bitty to shake.
Bitty puts the tins in the cart and shakes it. "Eric," he says, "but everyone calls me-"
"Bitty, do you have all your ingredients?" Jack asks, wrapping his arms around Bitty and resting his chin on his head.
"If you got the butter I put on the list, we're good!" Bitty says, looking up at him. "Jack, this is-"
"Nick," says Nick, and shakes Jack's hand.
--
Nick is much better at slicing apples than Jack is, but Bitty doesn't say so.
4. Club
Bitty is in New York, filming a baking segment with Lundqvist. By the end of it, Lundqvist can already do a perfect pie lattice, and won't stop talking about how much better the experience was than his stint on Martha Stewart, which is incredibly flattering. On his way out, Bitty wishes him good luck against the Aces that night; he snorts like he knows exactly how much Bitty doesn't mean that.
It's the first time Bitty and Kent will have alone together, and Bitty really wants the Aces to win so Kent can enjoy it. Theirs has always been the weakest leg of the triangle, with no history between the two of them to build on, and this weekend is supposed to be a step towards strengthening it.
Kent gets the lone goal in a 1-0 Aces win, so technically he guesses Lundqvist did have a good game. More importantly, Kent is happy. When he meets Bitty outside MSG, he's already a little drunk off the goal and the win, going on and on about what a great idea he has for what to do without actually saying what it is.
"Man, this is gonna be so much fun without Zimms!" Kent says, and Bitty can't think of anything Jack could possibly make worse.
"What-" Bitty starts, but Kent still refuses to shut up.
"Clubbing!" he says, and drags Bitty down the street.
--
It's actually a pretty good club, in Bitty's opinion. The drinks are sort of reasonably priced, for New York, and there's a solid amount of Beyonce being played, and the dance floor isn't gross and sticky underfoot. They dance, a lot, and he's not really sure what he expected it to be, but it's just fun. Kent's not super grabby and he doesn't act like the only move he knows is grinding; they just dance. It's nice.
Kent's not wrong about Jack, though. He would've come with them, but he wouldn't have enjoyed it, just stood around awkwardly - or worse, tried to dance. Bitty tells him as much and it makes him laugh.
"This round's on me, then," he says, and goes to the bar.
Bitty keeps dancing, but he gradually becomes aware of someone encroaching on his personal space. Bitty turns, ready to tell him to go away, but the guy gets there first.
"Those are nice pants," the guy says with a leer. Bitty folds his arms and shoots him his best 'don't even say it' look. It's about as effective as a puppy's bark. "They'd look even better on my floor."
Bitty is incredibly unimpressed. He doesn't really want to dignify that with a response, but he also doesn't want to turn his back on the guy because he's pretty sure he'll take that as an invitation Bitty's really not interested in sending. Fortunately, his dilemma is solved when Kent comes back with their drinks. Bitty half-turns towards him, relief evident, and the personal space invader melts back into the crowd without causing any more trouble before Kent can offer to fight him.
And if, when Partition comes on, Bitty decides he maybe feels a little like grinding after all, that's his own decision.
Kent certainly doesn't mind.
5. Park
Walking in the park with Jack and Kent, now that their relationship isn't a secret anymore, is pretty much everything Bitty dreamed of having, back when dreaming was the only thing he could do.
Well, not the 'dating two guys' thing, or the 'that woman over there just took a picture of you (and it's probably because you're all famous-ish)' thing, but being able to walk through a public place without having to pretend the man he's with isn't his boyfriend and not worrying about it is amazing.
He's so caught up in the whole idea of it that he almost forgets to enjoy that it's actually happening until he nearly trips on his shoelace. Jack looks about two seconds from dropping the picnic basket to catch him, and Bitty gives him a look because that's not necessary and also would probably ruin the pie, which he made with the last of the peaches he brought back from Georgia and would be worth worse than a skinned knee to keep whole. Besides, Kent is right there too, and he's only holding a blanket and a frisbee, both of which will eventually end up on the ground anyway.
Bitty sends them ahead to actually get a decent picnic spot, because there's a good one next to a tree up ahead but there's an angry woman on a cell phone who looks like she might take it if they don't get there first, and gets to work on his shoe. The force of his near-fall managed to pull the shoelace partway out, so Bitty figures he'd better just re-lace the whole thing.
Kent and Jack already have the blanket set up, when he looks, and they're wrestling because of course they are. Bitty snorts at them and finishes tying.
Someone reaches down into his field of vision. "Need a hand?"
Bitty takes it, and then wishes he hadn't, because the guy won't let go.
"You want to come have a good time with me instead of third-wheeling it?"
"No thanks," says Bitty.
"Come on, bro, you know you want to," the guy says.
"Let go, please," Bitty says, barely holding on to his patience.
"I'm so much better it would blow your mind."
"He asked you to let go," says Jack, as Bitty finally jerks his hand free.
"Yeah?" the guy asks. "You gonna fight me over it?"
Jack rolls his eyes, and Bitty's kind of ridiculously proud of him.
"He won't," says Kent, coming up on Bitty's other side, "but I might."
"You wanna go, then?"
"That's what I said."
"Then let's go," the guy says, and lunges at him. Kent dodges, gets his feet planted, and cracks the guy one in the face that makes him stagger back and trip over a recumbent college student. It seems to make him reconsider.
"Yeah, well, fuck you then," says the jerk as he turns to leave. He eyes Bitty again. "You're probably not even a good lay anyway."
Jack catches Kent before he can go after the guy. "That's enough, Kenny," he says, running fingers through Kent's hair as Bitty presses soft kisses to his knuckles.
+1. Home
The house smells like baking when Bitty gets home, which is weird, because he hasn't baked anything since last night. He heads to the kitchen to investigate, but Jack rushes out and cuts him off, ring glinting on its chain against the bright red of one of his old Samwell shirts.
"Kenny says you're not allowed to come in yet," he says. There's a little smear of icing at the corner of his jaw, and he's so darned cute Bitty has to get up on his tiptoes and kiss it off.
"I won't," he promises, and watches Jack walk back to the kitchen.
There's flour on his ass again.
--
Bitty has just finished putting the laundry away when Jack comes to get him, which is definitely good timing since his curiosity was about to get the better of him.
The first thing he notices is that they haven't ruined his baking sheets, thank goodness. Next, he sees the sugar cookies, but he doesn't have time to really pay attention to their decoration because the third thing is Kent.
Kent is wearing an apron, and a pair of boxers, and his ring on its chain, and a cheesy grin.
"Is there some kink here that y'all didn't tell me about?" asks Bitty, because this is definitely unusual, even for Kent.
"Did you sit in a pile of sugar?" Kent replies, which doesn't actually answer the question.
"What?"
"Because you have a sweet ass!"
It's really not even the most obnoxious thing Kent's said this week, so Bitty just laughs, and shakes his head, and kisses him. He tastes like he's been eating more icing than he put on the cookies, all sugary sweetness. It makes Bitty melt a little, the way this boy is so ridiculous.
Jack comes up behind him, bracketing him with heat, and Bitty loves it even though the kitchen's already a little too warm. "Bittle?" he asks, low and rough, breath tickling his ear, and Bitty shivers.
"Yes, Jack?" he manages in between kisses.
"You can make any dessert you want, there's nothing sweeter than you."
Thirty seconds later, they're in the bedroom.
"Is that a banana in your pocket?" Bitty can't stop himself from asking.
"Aprons don't have pockets," Kent tells him, and those are the last words anyone says for quite a while.