Jack waited in the locker room after practice, watching for Bitty to emerge from the coaches’ office. The first practice had been… not great, with Bitty hitting the ice harder than he’d seen before without a hit, even in those early days of last year. He kept his eyes on his library book, trying to look casual.
He was too successful, as Shitty stood in front of him and started talking, loudly, about the day’s practice. He missed the office door opening, but caught the slam of Faber’s back door.
“Shits, I love you, but I gotta go,” Jack said, cutting Shitty off mid-sentence.
“What? Oh…” Shitty nodded. “Yeah, holler if he needs my kind of help.”
Jack gave him a worried, wry half smile and said, “I think I’ve got this, maybe.”
He left his bag on the bench, went down the hallway, and pushed the door open gently, but it only cracked open a little, and then stopped against something soft.
“Go ’way,” came a broken-sounding sob.
Oh, Bitty.
“It’s just me,” Jack said. “Fair’s fair, you helped me last time. Can I open the door?”
There was silence for a long moment, then a little shuffling noise, and the pressure against the door disappeared.
Jack pushed the door open enough to slide out, toed the doorstop over with his foot so that it wouldn’t lock them out, and left the door just barely cracked.
Bitty was curled into a tiny ball against the railing, sobbing into his knees.
Jack put his hand up, hovering over Bitty for a moment, and then let it rest on the shoulder nearest him with a gentle squeeze. “That bad?”
“I have to, to get over this…” Bitty took a gasping breath, “stupid phobia or I can’t stay on the team. I need my scholarship to go here. If I lose my scholarship, I can’t afford to stay.”
“That… what exactly did they say?” Jack asked, frowning.
“Hockey’s a contact sport. That if I can’t get over this thing, it might not be in my best interest or the team’s best interest for me to stay on the roster.”
“Is that all they said?” Jack asked. It didn’t sound right. He knew the coaches, knew the rules, and there had to be more to it than that.
“They said it was the same problem as Freshman year, that I was still having physicality issues.” Then Bitty took a breath. “They suggested I could talk to someone, I don’t know, like therapy, I guess? But it didn’t sound too hopeful.”
“I mean, therapy is a good idea,” Jack said. “Just, in general, I mean. It sounds like you might have had some stuff growing up, I mean, sports-wise, maybe, or… other stuff?”
Bitty snorted a dismissive laugh. “I mean, no one knew I was gay, but I came to Samwell for a reason, and a big part of it was that it wasn’t Georgia.”
“Were you bullied?” Jack asked. “I thought high school was no-contact?”
Bitty sighed, and then nodded. “There were a lot of football players. I was a figure skater. It didn’t get better until I was the captain of the hockey team. You know my dad’s a football coach, right?”
“He wanted you to play?” Jack asked.
“Right up until I nearly got squashed flat by a bunch of giant boys in peewee. Mama put her foot down then and figure skating won.”
“You don’t want therapy?” Jack asked.
Bitty winced. “I tried it, when I was 14. The counselor was this little old lady the church recommended. She recommended praying.”
Jack laughed out loud at the image and then quickly apologized. “Sorry, Bits, it’s just… you don’t need a church lady, you need a therapist with training in handling trauma, phobias, and queer issues.”
“I’m fine being gay, here, anyway,” Bitty said. “I don’t need help with that.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “No, but you need a therapist who won’t clutch her pearls if she finds out you’re gay, and if you’re going to talk to someone, you need someone you trust not to be… how would Shitty put it? A bigoted jackhole?”
“You really think I need therapy?” Bitty asked with an edge to his voice.
“It helps me,” Jack said. “I can give you my therapist’s number if you want.”
Bitty’s face went a funny color, and he blinked, like all brain function had momentarily ceased. “You go to therapy?”
“You think less of me for it?” Jack asked, but with a soft, almost teasing note, not a trace of affront.
“No, I mean, if it helps, if you need it, but how could I possibly afford to go to the same therapist? Oh god, and they’d send the bill to my parents… or I’d have to pay it, and I can’t afford more than I’m paying right now—”
“Breathe, Bitty,” Jack said, and waited until Bitty caught his breath again. Then he said, “Student health has a clinic, I went there my first semester, before my dad insisted on paying for someone with more experience. It’s free, but you’ll get grad students, mostly. They’ll do a full eval, find someone who can work with the specific issues you need to work on. Look, even my dad saw someone after my… a few years ago. My mom, too. Sometimes things happen that hurt you, and we don’t always have the tools we need to fix the damage.”
“You think I’m damaged?” Bitty said in a half-whisper.
“You think I’m not?” Jack shot back. “I’m operating under the assumption that your phobia of checking didn’t come from the air. There are a lot of different tools for dealing with trauma and anxiety, and if they didn’t work, I’d still be curled up in a ball in my parents’ house in Montreal, or dead.”
Bitty took a sharp breath in. “Oh, no, I didn’t… I mean, yeah, it’s not rocket science. Weird queer tiny kid with great big cousins and classmates tries contact sports and gets run over by a herd of giants. Probably getting shoved in an actual goddamn closet by a bunch of giant teenagers didn’t help. But, like, is it a phobia if the fear isn’t irrational? I got a goddamn concussion from that asshole last spring.”
“Does it matter if it’s irrational or not if it’s making you curl up in a ball on the ice?” Jack asked. “I mean, I’m happy to do checking clinic with you again, I was already planning on offering, but I think checking clinic would probably go a lot faster if you also worked on the underlying, you know, stuff.”
“Is it remotely possible that it could work fast enough to do me any good?” Bitty asked.
“I don’t know. I know my biggest breakthrough changed most of my general anxiety drastically in a single session. It didn’t fix everything, but it shifted my perspective on the old stuff and that made the new stuff easier. But regardless, you have a scholarship, and NCAA rules mean that if you are injured and can’t play, they can’t take your scholarship away.”
“But the concussion is healed,” Bitty said.
“There’s healed, and there’s healed. Pretty sure the mental health stuff counts,” Jack said. “Today seemed… worse… did you actually black out?”
Bitty stuck his nose between his knees, and then nodded. “Everything went grey for a bit.”
“Look, at least call student health, okay? I’ll get you up for checking practice on Sunday.”
Bitty sighed, and then nodded. “I will.”
Jack asked the next day, Thursday, if Bitty had called. Shockingly, he hadn’t.
Friday morning skate, in the locker room, Jack put a card in front of Bitty and said, “Call now, if you’re going to. Just ask for an intake, they’ve got a process.”
Bitty looked up at him dubiously.
“Look, just…” Jack looked around and raised his hand and his voice. “Show of hands how many people have seen a shrink?”
Nursey raised a bored hand, so did Lardo. Shitty enthusiastically raised both hands, and a foot, and then almost fell off the bench. Jack’s hand was already up, Chowder raised his, and Dex looked around, blinked, shrugged, and raised his. Over half of the other players raised their hands.
Jack tapped the card and raised his eyebrows. “This is your captain speaking.”
“Jaaaack,” Bitty whined, but he was already thumbing over to the phone app on his cell, and punching in numbers.
“Just ask for the intake,” Jack mouthed.
Bitty rolled his eyes and started talking into the phone.
“It’s all your fault,” Bitty said, dropping his books on the table across from Jack in the library with a resounding thud.
Someone shushed them.
Bitty sat down and hissed, “There were seven. hundred. questions. It took HOURS. And then they didn’t even say anything, they just said, ‘We’ll get back to you in two weeks.’”
“They have to score the eval,” Jack said. “It takes time.”
“It was worse than physical therapy, you know, the kind where they just keep poking you and pushing and pulling and asking if this hurts. Of course it hurts, or I wouldn’t be there, would I?”
Jack raised an eyebrow, bemused. “It’s not a test you can fail. It will help you in the long run.”
“You owe me coffee for this, Jack Zimmermann,” Bitty said, grumpily suppressing a yawn.
Jack snorted. “Tell you what. You go to therapy, I’ll get you coffee after.”
Bitty blinked. “I was joking, you don’t have to… not every time.”
“No, look, it’s basic behaviorism. You like coffee. I want you to go to therapy because I think it will help and you’ll play better and that’s good for the team. I’m going to reward you for going to therapy with something you like so you won’t put it off like your math homework.”
“But it’s not necess—”
“Bittle, is it necessary for you to have made 187 pies for the Haus?” Jack asked.
“Yes,” Bitty said instantly. Then he frowned. “Was it really 187?”
“I’m guesstimating last year’s tally,” Jack said. “You made our favorites. You could have made your favorites.”
“But I like making things people like,” Bitty said. “It calms me down.”
“I like making my team work better. Let me buy you coffee after therapy.”
“For the team?” Bitty asked.
“If that’s what you need to say yes,” Jack shot back.
Bitty sighed. “Fine. But it’s going to be fancy coffee.”
“I would expect nothing less,” Jack said.
“Annie’s?” Jack asked, two weeks later, as Bitty emerged from Student Health.
“God, please,” Bitty said.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Jack said as they started walking. “I mean, you can if you want but it’s up to you.”
“I have diagnoses,” Bitty said. “Multiple.” Then he lowered his voice. “Issues.”
“Welcome to the club,” Jack said dryly. “And I mean it.”
“I feel like it’s more like finally having someone tell me what club I’ve been in all along,” Bitty said. Then he sighed. “I can tell you, I guess. It’s not really shocking. Multiple anxiety disorders, including the obvious specific phobia and general anxiety disorder.”
“Oh, I’ve got that one,” Jack said.
“Twins,” Bitty said, dryly, and then smiled. “Also, shockingly, ADHD.”
“It’s more shocking that you weren’t diagnosed already,” Jack said.
“I think my variety of ADHD fits too well with my mother’s love of baking and my father’s love of people who can go fast,” Bitty said. “I don’t think they considered it a problem, not as such.”
Jack chuckled. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“ADHD?” Bitty asked.
“No, the whole ‘my neurodivergence didn’t look like neurodivergence to parents who expected me to be a hockey nerd.’”
“Neurodivergence?” Bitty asked.
“Big umbrella for things like autism and ADHD and a variety of other issues that make brains just work—” Jack waved his hands, “differently. You know. Weird. Neurodivergence is to those things what queer is to LGBTQ etc.”
Bitty sighed. “Why didn’t they teach me the useful words when I was being stuffed into closets?”
Jack held the door for him as they arrived at Annie’s.
“Thank you, sir,” Bitty said with a smile.
“PSL?” Jack asked. “It’s the season.”
“Oh fuck yes,” Bitty breathed.
Jack ordered, and they sat down to wait.
“So what’s next?” Jack asked.
“Another dad-blasted eval for the ADHD,” Bitty said. “Like they didn’t already turn my entire life history inside out.”
“If it’s anything like my intake, they haven’t even started to turn your history inside out,” Jack said.
“And you thought this was a good idea?” Bitty asked, looking distressed.
“You can’t even start to address your problems until… no, wait, I’ve got it. How the hell do you know what you can bake if you don’t know what’s in your cupboards and fridge?” Jack asked triumphantly.
Bitty’s mouth opened and closed and opened and closed and then he said, “I am not a pie, Jack Zimmermann. And I can’t believe you’re chirping me with BAKING analogies.”
Jack just raised an eyebrow at him.
Bitty sighed. “No, you’re right. I know you’re right, but I don’t have to be happy about it.”
It turned into a weekly thing. Jack would wait for Bitty after therapy, they’d walk to Annie’s, and Bitty would explain why it was all so unnecessary until Jack finally got him to admit that maybe, just maybe, things were already getting better.
“That’s just it, we haven’t even really started yet and I haven’t gone down in two weeks!” Bitty said.
“You’re still flinching in checking practice,” Jack said.
“But you’re—” Bitty gestured at Jack. “And I’m—” he gestured at himself.
“Do you think I’m so scary?” Jack asked.
“You’re a softie, Jack Zimmermann. You wouldn’t hurt a fly unless it landed on your hockey puck. Or had the hockey puck and was on the opposing team.”
“And yet, you flinch.”
“I’m a small gay man, and you are a large jock. It’s a reflex.”
“You’re a jock, too,” Jack said. “I’m more a Jacques, though, according to Shitty.”
“Oh god,” Bitty said, and buried his head in his arms. “Don’t crack jokes.”
“Maybe it was a joque,” Jack said with a soft French J.
Bitty wadded up a napkin and threw it at him, earning a wide grin.
Their coffees arrived and Bitty buried his nose in whipped cream. Not the most effective hiding spot, but cute, anyway. Jack didn’t even think twice about handing his own napkin over.
“Jack, how do you have time for this?” Bitty asked, in late October.
“This?” Jack asked.
“Coffee, weekly. For like an hour.” Bitty stared at the sidewalk in front of his feet as they walked. “You’re insanely busy.”
“It’s a worthwhile investment,” Jack said.
“You… You don’t have to. I’ll keep going anyway,” Bitty said softly.
“My therapist says it’s good for me to take time when things are so crazy,” Jack said.
“Oh, if your therapist says so… He? She? They? Must be right.”
Jack laughed. “She. Yours?”
“They,” Bitty said. “Singular. Chillest person I’ve ever seen. Chiller than Lardo. Weirdly soothing, even when I’m talking about being stuffed into closets. They’re a grad student.”
“Still in personal history mode?” Jack asked.
“We finished today,” Bitty said. “Next week, we discuss treatment options.”
“Oh boy,” Jack said. “The good stuff.”
“It’s not the good stuff until I’m over my phobia.”
Bitty seemed dazed the next week, and Jack didn’t know whether to marvel at or be worried by how quiet he was.
When the coffees arrived, Bitty toyed with the whipped cream with a straw, and finally said, “They think that there’s a technique that might work really well for helping me with some of the worst of the old trauma.”
Jack blew on his plain black coffee. “That’s good, no?”
“It’s probably going to mean that I have to face the thing that’s currently giving me the most anxiety, though,” Bitty said, shoving the straw into the coffee and folding the paper into a tiny accordion.
“We’re working on the checking thing,” Jack said. “That’s the whole point.”
“Ha, if only,” Bitty said, his voice light, quiet, stressed.
Jack lifted an eyebrow and waited.
“We… I mean, the checking thing is stressful. If I can’t resolve it, I might have to leave. I might have to go back. And, you know, closets.”
“Actual or metaphorical?” Jack said.
“I… my parents don’t know,” Bitty said. “I haven’t… Shitty was the first time I ever said I was gay to anyone.”
“He gets that a lot,” Jack said, nodding. “You’re worried about how they’ll react?”
“I mean…” Bitty waved a hand.
Jack waited.
Bitty sighed. “Coach is… he’s a church-going man. I think he’s voted Republican as long as I’ve known anything about it. His family… God. I don’t know. I’m so close to my mother but Mama is all about family and doing the right thing and her family’s right thing is really, er… Right. As opposed to Left, not as opposed to wrong. They live in Georgia by choice.”
“Have they said anything?” Jack asked.
“I… I don’t usually stick around for that kind of conversation,” Bitty said. “I can’t… I don’t want to know if I’m right. Anyway, next week, we’re going to talk through my anxiety about coming out to them.”
Jack was quiet for a long moment, and then said, “One of the things my therapist told me was that it was okay, when I knew a hard conversation was coming up, to mentally put that conversation in a box until it was time to have it.”
“Lord knows I’m good at procrastinating,” Bitty said with a self-deprecating side-glance.
“They didn’t say you have to come out, did they?” Jack asked.
Bitty shook his head. “They specifically said that coming out isn’t a goal anyone else can set for me, and that I’m the only one who gets to decide when I feel safe enough to do it.”
Jack nodded. “That sounds right. I mean, we’re not talking irrational fear here, but a reasonable potential threat assessment.”
“Next week,” Bitty said.
Jack held up his coffee, as if toasting. “Next week.”
It was blowing cold and rainy the following week, and Jack waited outside Student Health with an umbrella and a soft, quilted flannel jacket over one arm.
Bitty stepped out of the building, oozing tension, wearing a thin hoodie and no jacket, and instantly shivered. Jack grinned, and handed him the jacket.
“I’m going to look like a grade schooler in my big brother’s coat,” Bitty said ruefully, but he put it on.
“Yes, but you’ll be a warmer, drier grade schooler,” Jack said.
Bitty elbowed him, but smiled a little.
They walked quickly across to the coffee shop. Jack kept glancing down, but Bitty kept his hands in his sleeves, his whole body radiating tension, his eyes fixed forward like a soldier.
Bitty got the door, flinging it open with a little more force than necessary before he started to head to the counter to order. The barista asked, “The usual, guys?”
And Bitty sighed, nodded, and turned to the table they usually took by the window, looking out over the street.
Jack handed his card to the barista and sat down. “That kind of session?”
Bitty looked up at the cafe ceiling, then blew out a breath through loosely closed lips, and took a deep, shuddering in-breath.
“Ah,” Jack said.
Bitty mashed his lips together in a line, took a deep breath through his nose, and finally said, “I’m probably going to cry.”
“Okay,” Jack said.
“I mean, I don’t even… They probably won’t… It’s just…” Bitty sighed.
Jack pulled a pad of paper and a pen out of his backpack.
“You taking notes?” Bitty asked.
“No,” Jack said. “But it’s good to be prepared.”
“My therapist wanted to know all the reasons why I might want to come out to my parents, and all the reasons I was afraid of coming out.”
Jack nodded, and then looked up as the barista handed him his card and the receipt after putting down their usual order. He signed it and turned back to Bitty.
“And?”
“And there’s like this huge convoluted knot of ‘If I fail at hockey, I’m failing at something my father likes that I do, but also I might have to go home and be in the closet, and if they find out that I’m gay or I come out to them they might kick me out and I’d be homeless.’” Bitty took a sip of his latte and then winced because it was too hot. “And of course, I could come out to them and they’d refuse to pay for my extra expenses here even if I keep my scholarship and keep my academics up and I’d have to leave, only then I wouldn’t have anywhere to go.”
Jack made a listening face and sipped his black coffee.
“I mean, I think I can keep the scholarship and you’ve been really amazing helping me with everything,” Bitty said. “But there are still expenses. Butter. Food. Clothes.”
“Beyoncé posters,” Jack said dryly.
“Hey now.”
“Okay, so how likely is it that they would cut you off?” Jack asked.
Bitty deflated. “I… I want to say that my mother wouldn’t cut me off for anything but, like, I know that one of my cousins was forcefully ejected from a family event and my father wasn’t one of the ones doing the forcing but my folks didn’t stand up for my cousin either? And my dad, I just don’t know. He’s really quiet. We don’t talk much.”
“You know, if you did get cut off, the Haus is an option in the summer, and I bet my dad would help fund your living expenses for the rest of school,” Jack said.
Bitty’s eyes went wide. “Jack, I couldn’t… I can’t take your dad’s money!”
Jack rolled his eyes. “You’re on scholarship, right?”
Bitty side-eyed him and said warily, “Sooo?”
“So you’re already using his money for tuition. My folks funded a set of scholarships before I started here. They like helping kids.”
“But I’m not a hockey prodigy. I mean, I’m not bad, but there’s no way I’m going pro or anything,” Bitty said. “I mean, I guess I was good enough to get the scholarship in the first place, but why me?”
Jack leaned back in his chair, and said, “Why not you? You’re fast, you have soft hands, you’re really nimble on the ice, you support the team. I have it on good authority that I play better when you’re around.”
Bitty started to open his mouth, but Jack leaned forward, voice low, and said, “Look, Dad likes you. And supporting queer youth is important to him. Ever since…” Jack hesitated for a moment and then said, “Ever since he figured out about me, he’s been pretty gung ho about making sure kids are safe.”
Bitty blinked at him, opened his mouth, shut his mouth, frowned, looked at his coffee, and said, “Did you just… Are you… No, hang on…” Bitty looked around. “Are you comfortable talking here, or should we go back to the Haus?”
Jack blinked back, then his eyes widened and he said, “Ah, yeah, let’s get these to go.”
They waited while the barista transferred the coffee from mugs to to-go cups, Bitty stealing glances up at Jack, looking like there were a dozen questions he wanted to ask all at once.
When they were out of the cafe and walking down by the river, Jack said, “He caught me… with someone… a guy… when I was sixteen. I was afraid— Well, I was afraid of everything you’re afraid of, but he pointed out the condom stash and started trying to change hockey culture from the inside out. When You Can Play started, he was one of the first people to get on board. Like, scarily supportive. Told me he’d stand by me if I came out, but that if I could wait a few years, the odds of it affecting my career would be less.”
“You went to Winter Screw with Camilla?” Bitty said. “Are… was she a beard? Or…”
Jack shrugged. “I guess I’m bi? Sorta? Mostly I’m too…" he waved a hand, "too hockey to bother with dating. And like, I know people are superficial and I could probably get laid if I wanted to, but that kind of superficial…” He shook his head and was quiet for a moment while they walked.
Then he said, “It takes a lot of energy for me to want to be close enough to someone to fuck, or date, and it’s not worth the energy to make those connections casually. And a serious relationship wouldn’t be fair to anyone when I don’t even know which country I’m going to be living in seven months from now, let alone what team I’m going to be playing for. So I just kinda tabled the whole thing for a while. Camilla is a friend, but mostly at the ‘Hey, get my roommates off my back about fixing me up with someone level’ mutual relief society.”
“You don’t have to justify it, I was just… I thought you were straight,” Bitty said.
“Everyone’s supposed to think that, but I’d be a goddamn hypocrite if I was sitting here telling you, ‘oh, come out, it will be fine’ when I’m pretty fucking far in the closet myself.”
“But not to your parents,” Bitty said.
“Here, the only person who really knows is Shitty,” Jack said. “You’re ahead of me there. Lardo’s probably guessed because Lardo’s gaydar is like… next level.”
Bitty laughed a dry, rueful laugh. “My potential costs here aren’t as high as yours, and you’ve got supportive folks. I never gave my parents a chance to catch me at anything back home.”
Jack sighed. “Yeah, I was drunk and he was… well, that’s his story too, so I…”
“No, of course not,” Bitty said. “I really don’t need to know who or what or how unless you have a burning need to tell me but it’s not… you don’t owe me that.”
“I’m just saying, you’ve been careful and that’s smart, but if you need to come out to them, please don’t make the financial thing be the reason you don’t. We’ve got your back,” Jack said.
“I’ll think about it,” Bitty said.
They walked up to the front door of the Haus and Jack said, “Oh, that reminds me, are we still on for that baking session for our final projects next week?”
Bitty grinned. “Of course!”
Bittle was looking at him strangely, there in the Haus kitchen, while Jack rambled on about expansion teams, half-covered in flour, feeling weirdly happy about failing miserably at making pie lattice. “Bittle, what’s wrong? If there’s something on my face you put it there.”
Bitty blinked, and said, “What?”
“You’re the one who threw the flour,” Jack said, smiling.
Bitty flushed pink and pinker, and looked away. “Providence is close enough for coffee,” he said softly. “I know y’all are going off to the ends of the earth after graduation, and I know things can’t stay… I just… It might be easier staying in the area, where your friends can have your back, starting something new. I mean, for your mental health.”
“Providence isn’t that far,” Jack said. “And they really want me.”
And there was that look again. Jack laughed. “No, really, if there’s something on my face, just brush it off, my hands are covered in flour.”
“It’s just flour,” Bitty said, looking away.
Bitty was quiet for a long moment, and then pulled a clean kitchen towel out of a drawer that Jack wasn’t sure he’d ever seen opened before Bitty showed up, wet a corner of it in the sink, and said, “Come here.”
Jack turned and bent forward, and Bitty reached up and swiped the towel over his nose and cheek, and then briskly dusted his hair, not meeting Jack’s eyes. Their faces were close, and Jack had a sudden vision of kissing the focused look off of Bitty’s face, and he froze, poleaxed.
“Is there something on mine?” Bitty asked when he was done. “You’ve got a funny look on your face now, too.”
Jack blinked. “What?” Then he looked. “No, your face is perfect.”
Bitty coughed and turned away. “Well, I’m not sure I’d go that far.”
“What?” Jack played back what he’d just said, and felt his cheeks flame. “I just meant… I… You don’t have any flour on your face.”
And then Bitty looked back up at him with a new expression Jack had yet to categorize and said, “So it’s not perfect, then, Mister Zimmermann?”
And suddenly Jack knew which game they were on the verge of playing, could see a feint that might clarify the situation… “Well, if you want flour on your face,” Jack said, and brought up one floury hand to leave a streak down Bitty’s cheek. It was not quite a caress. It was not quite not a caress, either.
And then Bitty did the most amazing thing. He actually turned and shoulder-checked Jack, saying, “Oh, YOU.”
Jack let it rock him back a little and grinned. “Did you just CHECK me, Bittle? In your kitchen?”
“I’m supposed to be working on my physicality,” Bitty said, scrubbing at his cheek with the cloth.
“I’m very proud,” Jack said. “You missed a spot, by the way.”
Bitty wiped his cheek again. “Did I get it?”
Jack reached out and touched Bitty’s nose, leaving a white dot on it. “Nope.”
“JACK!” Bitty squawked, and then reached out, swiped his finger along something, and suddenly there was something slick and—
“Did you just smear butter on my face?” Jack asked, sticking his tongue out and tasting the streak to the side of his mouth.
Bitty’s eyes got wide, and he dodged one of Jack’s floury hands, and the next thing Jack knew they were chasing each other around the green couch.
Bitty put another streak on Jack’s ear, and then bolted up the stairs, Jack on his heels. Bitty darted into Jack’s room and then froze.
“Truce?” Jack said from the doorway.
“You said my face was perfect,” Bitty said, not looking at him. “You said that less than a minute after I realized that I… that this… I don’t know how not to hide. I don’t know how to ask what I want to ask… I don’t know what I want to ask.”
Jack stepped past Bitty into his bathroom, ran water until it was warm, grabbed a clean washcloth, and then, without really looking, took Bitty’s wrist and tugged him over to the desk. Jack sat down in the desk chair and said, “Come here.” He held up the washcloth.
Bitty bent a little, wide eyed and silent.
Jack wiped the flour streaks he’d managed to put on Bitty’s face off with gentle slow strokes. “I like your face,” he said. “Looks better without the flour. But I like it, because it’s your face, flour or not.” He very deliberately met Bitty’s eyes, and though eye contact had never been his favorite, it was okay, because it was Bitty.
“When you say like, do you mean… what do you mean?” Bitty asked. “I… you’re the best friend I think I’ve ever had. But it could be… I might be…” And then he blinked, seemed to realize something, and smiled. “You have butter on your face.”
“You put it there,” Jack said.
Bitty took the washcloth, looked at it, looked at Jack’s mouth, looked at the washcloth again. He wiped the butter on his fingers carefully onto the washcloth, re-folded it, and put a now-clean hand on Jack’s cheek, as if to steady it, lifting up the washcloth. Then he leaned forward, and kissed Jack on the corner of his mouth, his tongue darting out and tasting the butter there.
Then he pulled back, suddenly shy, and Jack stared up at him wide-eyed.
There was butter on Bitty’s lips. “There’s butter on your mouth, now,” Jack said inanely, and then, because that seemed a wholly inadequate response, reached out and tugged Bitty a little closer.
Bitty smiled, said, “Best clean it off, then,” and leaned back in to kiss him again, more confident now.
Jack pulled away a few minutes later, breathing hard, and said, “We should make sure we’re on the same page before… before taking this any farther.”
“I… Jack, I don’t know what I’m doing,” Bitty said.
Jack smiled. “We can figure it out as we go along.”
“I don’t want to add to your stress,” Bitty said. “I don’t know how to… I’ve never…”
“Shhh. It’s okay, Bits,” Jack said softly. “I’m happier with you than I can remember being with anyone else. You’re good for me. We’ve got time to figure it out.”
“I like kissing you,” Bitty said.
Jack grinned radiantly, and then said, “Once we finish our project, we can do more of that.”
“Oh, I see how it’s going to be,” Bitty said, with mock indignation.
“I’d be a terrible boyfriend if I distracted you from your academics,” Jack said.
Bitty rolled his eyes, stood up and said, “Fine, but you’re doing the dishes.”
Jack laughed. “Obviously.”
Then Bitty blinked and said, “Boyfriend?”
“If you… if you want,” Jack said.
“Oh, I want,” Bitty said, with much enthusiasm.
The next few days were strange, but their busy schedules and the fragile newness of it meant that the biggest change was that the verbal back and forth they’d been doing for a while notched up into flirting, and they stole kisses when they were in private, but nothing more.
After therapy, Jack waited for Bitty as usual, and the smile Bitty gave him warmed him down to his toes. They both held the umbrella together, their hands touching, walking in a pleased silence to Annie’s. When they were seated, Bitty said, “I have a favor to ask you.”
“Yeah?” Jack asked.
“I’m going to talk to Mama tonight, and I’d like you to be in the room when I call. Not in the call, just… there. In case.”
“Call or skype?”
“I… I don’t know? Which do you think?” Bitty asked.
“Papa always says that phone calls are lousy for anything emotional because you can’t see their face,” Jack said.
“If she’s disappointed, I’m not sure I want to see her face,” Bitty muttered.
“No, I know. But you’ll have an easier time knowing the difference between surprised, shocked, and disappointed if you can see her. They might all sound similar. And I’ll be there.”
“Can you hold me to calling her tonight?” Bitty asked. “It’s too easy to put it off. My therapist said that with something hard like this, it’s good to have a backup to avoid procrastinating.”
“Of course,” Jack said. “When?”
“7:30. She’ll be done with dinner and Coach will be in his study.”
Jack nodded. “Will do.”
Bitty smiled, then blushed, and looked down into his coffee.
Jack grinned. “What?”
“Look at me, asking for help,” Bitty said.
“I noticed. Good for you, bud.”
That evening, Jack’s phone went off at 7:25 with a reminder and he looked up from his homework at his desk to say to Bitty—who was lying on his stomach on Jack’s bed, listening to music while looking at a recipe—”Five minutes, Bits.”
“Five… oh! Yeah. Um. We should probably—my room.” Bitty took out his earbuds, wrapped them around his phone, folded up his laptop, and rolled off the bed in a single graceful movement, then spoiled the effect by stumbling a little on the rug.
“Easy there,” Jack said with a smile.
“Sorry, just… nerves. You know.”
“Yeah,” Jack said.
A moment later, Bitty opened his laptop on his desk, gestured for Jack to take the bed, and thumbed in a message to his mother on his phone requesting a call.
Less than a minute later, the skype notification came in, and Bitty answered it. “Mother!” he said with what Jack could now easily peg as false enthusiasm.
“Dicky, what’s up? Is it an emergency? Do you need money? Should I get your Daddy?” Suzanne looked concerned.
“We talk all the time!” Bitty said. “It’s not… I don’t need money, I’m not sick, and please don’t get Coach right now. I want… I want to talk to you.”
“I know, but you usually only skype on weekends. So baking emergency, then? Although you haven’t really had one of those—”
“Mo-ther!” Bitty said. “Can you… Can you listen? I want to tell you something.”
She opened her mouth, and then shut it, and then blinked at him, eyes wide.
Jack sat out of the view of the camera, but where he could see the screen, and Bitty reached out, low and careful, to take his hand.
“Mama, can you promise not to get mad?” Bitty asked.
“Eric Richard Bittle, you know I can’t promise that without knowing what’s wrong, but I can promise you that there is nothing you could possibly do that would make me not love you.”
Bitty took a deep breath, glanced at Jack (who nodded encouragingly) and said, all in a rush, “MamaI’mgay.”
She blinked at him. “And? Why would I get mad about that?”
He breathed. “You’re not… I didn’t know if… Y’all never said…”
“We’ve been figuring something like that for a while now,” Suzanne Bittle said gently. “We wanted to give you a chance to come out on your own terms.”
“We… you and Daddy?” Bitty asked.
“Who else? He’s been taking some CLEs on supporting LGBT students these past two years. We’ve been working with the administration and school district on anti-bullying policies. Just… I wish we’d been able to do more when you were younger.” She smiled.
Jack watched as tears tracked down Bitty’s cheeks, as his breathing came ragged with relief, as his free hand came up to cover his mouth. Jack squeezed the hand he was holding, and realized his own eyes were damp with the shared relief.
“Baby, are you okay?” Suzanne asked, looking a little alarmed.
“I’m… I’m happy, Mama,” Bitty said. Jack handed him a tissue box, which Bitty took with his left hand.
“Oh, is someone there with you?” Suzanne asked.
“Ah,” Bitty said, with a nervous laugh, glancing at Jack.
Jack shrugged and mouthed ‘Your call…’
“Mama, can you keep a really big secret?” Bitty asked.
“Good secret or bad secret?” she asked.
“Good, but just… my boyfriend is here. And we’re not public as a couple. For safety reasons.”
“At Samwell?” she asked, looking startled.
“It’s not… It’s not Samwell we’re worried about,” Bitty said. “Can you?”
She nodded, and mimed zipping her lips, locking them and throwing away the key.
Jack leaned over, and wrapped an arm around Bitty’s shoulder. “Hi, Mrs. Bittle.”
“Please, call me Suzanne,” she said like it was a reflex, and then she gasped. “Dicky, are you dating a future professional athlete?”
“Mama,” he said, sounding slightly irritated, but also amused, “I’m dating Jack.” He whispered to Jack, “My aunt had this thing about your dad way back when, I’m so sorry if she gets weird about this.”
“I heard that,” she said. “Jack, Bitty talks about you all the time, he just never mentioned…”
“It’s pretty new,” Jack said.
“Well, he never mentioned a lot of things, but it makes sense.”
“Mama, there’s something else,” Bitty said.
“I’m listening,” she said.
“I’m in therapy,” Bitty said softly. “And this time I think it’s really helping.”
At that, she smiled. “Good. Can’t be worse than Mrs. Greene was. Tell me it’s better?”
He laughed, a nervous, almost crying, relieved laugh, “Yes, Mama, it’s better.”
“Good. Your daddy got her card from the community board at church and I told him she was too old and uptight for a boy your age to be confiding in, but he thought we should give it a try.”
He laughed. “We talked exclusively about baking and nothing else, the time I went, and I couldn’t go back because she thought margarine was fine for pie. I couldn’t have talked to her about bullying, let alone being gay. She told me that I’d make some girl a fine husband some day, but that I should consider going hunting, too. And there was a pray the gay away poster in the waiting room.”
“Oh Lord,” Suzanne said. “No wonder you were nervous, I had no idea about that part.”
Then she turned, and they heard Coach in the background, say, “Is that Dicky?”
“You can… You can tell him,” Bitty said.
She called out, “You come talk to your son, now.”
And then his father was peering in at an awkward angle, the fisheye webcam stretching his face oddly. “Junior? Y’alright there?”
“Pull yourself a chair over,” Suzanne said, scooting to one side.
Coach settled into one of the kitchen table chairs and nudged the camera over a little. “What’s up, son?”
Bitty took a deep breath, and said, “Daddy, I’m gay. And I’m seeing someone.”
Coach stroked his chin and studied the screen. “That Jack there with you?”
“Yessir,” Bitty said. “I mean, yes, I’m dating Jack.”
“You figured out what team you’re playing for next year, son?” Coach said to Jack.
Jack smiled. “Nothing’s final yet. Providence keeps sending me offers, though.”
“Oh, that’s not too far, then, is it?” Suzanne asked.
Jack nodded. “Not too far. Forty minutes, give or take.”
“You keepin’ up with your schoolwork, Junior?” Coach asked Bitty.
“Jack helps keep me on task,” Bitty said, glancing a smile up at Jack. “That’s actually how we started. He’s been getting me over my checking issue.”
“You do the work,” Jack said. “I just, what did they call it? I scaffold your executive function.”
“He means to say he’s been bribing me with coffee to go to therapy,” Bitty said. “And getting up obscenely early to check me into the boards.”
Suzanne coughed.
“Not like that, Mama!” Bitty yelped. He turned and hid his face behind Jack’s shoulder.
“Jack, honey, you should come visit this summer,” Suzanne said. “Come see the fireworks, they put on a nice show for the whole county.”
Jack grinned. “I’d love to.”
“Have you told your parents yet?” Coach asked Jack.
“Oh, they’ve known about me for years, and I told them about Bitty like the day it started.”
“I didn’t know that,” Bitty said.
“Maman texted me that day, and I just texted her back,” Jack said.
Bitty blinked. “Let me guess… she said, ‘Jack, darling, how are you doing?’ and you answered, ‘I’m good. I’m now in a relationship with Bittle.’”
“I said Bitty,” Jack muttered.
“And what did she say?” Suzanne asked.
Jack thumbed his phone over to the texting app and said, “Heart, three hearts, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, hearteyes, shock face, hearteyes, you must bring him to Montreal for a visit.”
Suzanne laughed. “I’ll have to tell her that we both know.”
Bitty blanched. “Oh my word, Jack, they’re going to… they’re going to be in cahoots.”
“Yes, but they’re on your side,” Coach said. “We all are.”
Bitty clutched his hands to his chest and said through a sob, “I know, Daddy. Thank you.”