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“I’m sorry,” Georgia says, her voice soft, and she does sound it. She must be going off script. She clears her throat and continues, businesslike, “We would like to thank you for all your contributions to the Falconers. You will be missed in Providence. We wish you all the best with the Houston Aeros, and know that you will have a great career there. They’ll need you in Houston for tomorrow night’s game. Expect a call from their GM very soon.”
This is probably when he’s supposed to say something. Instead, he twists his free hand hard into the probably-grimy bedspread of his generic Anaheim hotel bed, and breathes out.
“Well.” Georgia says finally. He can’t blame her, really. He wants to. But her job isn’t to look after players, isn’t to coddle him. Her job is to help build the best hockey team she can, and if the Falconers think that whoever this Ryan Westinghouse is (plus a second round pick) will help make the team better than he could… “I know we’ll speak again soon, Jack. Good luck.”
When she hangs up, the click of the phone sounds like a gunshot.
It’s just hockey, he knows. Nothing personal.
…
Jack doesn’t move in the eleven minutes it takes for his phone to ring again, with an unfamiliar area code.
“Yes.” He answers, and doesn’t say hello.
“Hi, Jack? This is Terry Miller, I’m an assistant GM over here with the Aeros. I’d like to be the first to welcome you on board! We’re very excited to have you, and we know that you’re going to be a very valuable addition to our team.”
If Jack was on camera, he would have to say, Thank you, would have to say, I’m very excited for this opportunity and Houston has a great program, I’m looking forward to going all the way with these guys.
He’s not, so he doesn’t.
“Uh,” Terry continues, sounding a little less jovial now. Jack notices that his southern accent fades when he says, “Well, Ryan Westinghouse has offered to let you stay in his apartment until you can work out some other living arrangement. Or you could stay with another player for a while, if you’d prefer, I’ve had several of the guys already step up.”
Jack imagines moving into a stranger’s guest room, and says, “I can stay at the apartment, that sounds fine.”
Terry doesn’t answer right away, and Jack thinks maybe this is when he’s supposed to say that Ryan can stay at his place, too. But he doesn’t. He can still picture the way he left his apartment: bed unmade, two toothbrushes in the bathroom, a pair of Bitty’s shorts just shy of the hamper. On his nightstand is a picture of the two of them that he shuts into a drawer when the guys come over. His kitchen has an oven that he’s never used himself.
He’s not going to let some random rookie from Texas into that part of his life.
“Well,” Terry continues, when it’s clear that Jack is finished speaking, “I’ll send you his address in an email then, and your plane ticket as well. We realize it’s short notice, but we have a game tomorrow night and we’d like you to attend practice in the morning. You’ll probably have to get to the airport as soon as you can. At least you’re packed already, eh? Benefits of being traded on a road trip, I guess.”
Jack bites his cheek. There’s no benefit to this situation.
“Well,” Terry says again, and stalls out. “I’m looking forward to meeting you, Jack, we all are. Check your email. Bye, now.”
“Bye,” Jack says robotically, once the call has already disconnected.
…
His flight leaves in three hours.
He thinks about knocking on Tater’s door, but if it’s a normal night for him, he’s probably got five other guys in there playing video games, and Jack doesn’t know if he can take that all at once. He won’t have to say anything to the coaches, they’ll have been the first to know.
He wants to call his mom. He wants to call Shitty. He wants to call Kent.
He wants to call Bitty.
He calls a cab.
…
Jack knows the news has broken, and also that Bitty hasn’t turned off the google alert on Jack’s name like Jack asked him to, because when he’s through security and lingering at gate C24, his phone rings.
He lets it ring four times, just staring at Bitty’s smiling face. At the last moment, he clicks accept and lifts the phone to his ear. Eric Bittle, the contact says. Generic, just a teammate, in case he calls when people are around.
“Jack,” Bitty says when he picks up. The terminal is loud, and Jack’s throat is tight, and he can’t say anything right away.
“I’m at the airport,” is what he comes up with eventually. He’s got a hat on, but his team just beat the Ducks a few hours ago and his name is probably in the top stories on hundreds of different sports sites and there’s a man across the terminal who won’t stop staring at him. He really hopes he doesn’t get asked for an autograph, right now.
“I just… Houston?” Bitty says plaintively, and Jack knows. In his worst nightmares, he wouldn’t have been traded to a different conference the week after Bitty had gotten a job in Providence.
“Yeah,” he says roughly, because there’s nothing else to say. There’s nothing to do. Players are traded. They both know how this game works.
“Jack,” Bitty says again, and Jack can’t bear the wet sound of his breathing through the line, to know Bitty’s crying in his room back at the Haus and Jack’s in this hellhole of an airport waiting to fly to fucking Texas to play hockey with thirty guys he’s never met.
“They’re boarding,” he lies. “I’ll… I’ll call you later.”
…
They don’t board for another thirty minutes, and Jack gets almost as many messages.
There’s a bunch from the Samwell guys, some agreements that trades suck, but mostly wishes for luck with his new team.
From Shitty, just a dude, and then call me soon bro.
Tater is indignant that Jack left without saying goodbye, and probably rightfully so, but he was traded once, too. He’ll understand eventually.
His father sends a few platitudes in French, and then says You’ll be great Jack, don’t worry.
His mother just says they’ll be watching his game the next night.
From Kent: Just saw the news, Jack, I know it’s rough but you’ll kill it in Texas. We play the Aeros next week, let’s get dinner, huh?
He’s been closer to Kent, this past year. It’s been slow and occasionally painfully awkward, but he’s never been so glad they’re talking again as he is now, because he doesn’t know when he’ll be back home to Providence again, and if Kent’s willing to ignore the rivalry between the Aces and Aeros, than Jack’s willing to take all the friends he can get.
Okay, he sends Kent, and ignores the rest.
It’s a relief to turn his phone off for the flight.
…
He’s ready to call a cab when he lands in Houston, but there’s already someone there holding a sign for him.
Jack hadn’t been particularly close to O’Brien, back when he was playing in Providence, because he’d been traded to Boston and then quickly again to Houston only a few months into last year’s season, but it’s good to see at least a semi-familiar face.
“Hey, man!” Obie says, stepping forward to clap Jack on the back and shouldering his duffle before Jack can protest.
“Hey,” Jack says, “I can carry that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Obie says, waving him off, and leads him to the oversized baggage claim so Jack can pick up his hockey bag.
Obie tries valiantly to make small talk, chatting about Jack’s flight and the weather forecast for Houston, but Jack’s head is still in Providence, is still in Anaheim getting that phone call, and he knows he’s not making very good company.
“I hear you’re gonna stay over at Westy’s place,” Obie says finally, “It’s a pretty nice apartment, kid had us over a few times.”
“Yeah, just until I can find another place,” Jack answers. A permanent place, he thinks, and refuses to say. His bag comes through finally, and he savors the familiar heft of it on his shoulder. Hockey. That’s what he has right now.
“So, uh, my wife picked up some steaks for dinner tonight, if you wanna come over. She’d love to have you, I know the kids would like to see you again.”
Jack remembers Obie’s daughters, vaguely. A lot of the Falconers had kids and it was hard to keep them all straight, those first few months before Obie was traded, but Jack thinks there are two of them, a toddler and a kindergartener, maybe.
He should probably go. It would be healthy to be with people, to start making friendships.
“I’m pretty tired from the flight,” Jack says, “Thanks for the offer, man, I’ll definitely take you up on that another time. I’m just beat right now, though.”
“Sure,” Obie says easily, and points out his truck to Jack. It’s a massive pickup. Maybe that’s what they drive in Texas.
He must sense that Jack’s not in a very talkative mood, because he just hums along to “Sweet Home Alabama” when it plays on the radio and doesn’t try to engage him anymore.
When he pulls up to the curb in front of a new looking apartment building, he slides the truck into park and turns to Jack. “I’ll pick you up for practice tomorrow, okay? Then if you want to go see about leasing a car or something, we can do that.”
“Yeah, sounds good,” Jack says.
“Hey. Jack. Look, I know trades… they fucking suck, man. I hate being traded. My wife hates it, my kids do, but… I’ve played for five NHL teams now, and I gotta tell you that this is a good group of guys. Good staff, fun in the locker room, hard workers on the ice. It’ll be an adjustment, but I think you’ll do great here, okay? I know the team is really excited to have you.”
Jack nods. It’s probably what they tell every rookie, every guy who gets traded in, but he has to admit it’s still nice to hear.
“Alright, Zimmboni. Key’s under the mat.”
Jack’s throat tightens. He knows most guys come up through the system with their nicknames, keep them as long as they play. O’Brien’s probably been Obie since juniors. But Jack’s never… in the Q, he was Zimms, at Samwell, he was just Jack. Zimmboni was his Providence self, and it’s too raw.
“I can’t… I don’t want to use that nickname,” Jack says, opening his door, and Obie frowns.
“Okay,” he says slowly, “Well. Sleep well, kid.”
“Sure,” Jack says, and slams the door before Obie can say anything else.
…
Ryan’s—Westy’s—apartment is new looking, tidy, but clearly lived in. He would have had more time than Jack to pack up his things, getting the call while the Aeros were on a homestead, and he’s left a scattering of sticky notes around for Jack, including one on the counter with his phone number and a note that says, Call me if you need anything!! It’s a great bunch of guys and you’re going to have a killer season! Watch out for the next door neighbor—kinda a grump. P.S. feel free to use anything in the kitchen or wherever!
Jack’s never met the guy, but unbidden, a mental image of Chowder pops into his head and he feels almost fond despite himself.
He pokes his head into a bathroom, a guest room that’s been repurposed as a workout room, and finally through a door with a note that says ‘Don’t worry I changed the sheets!’ that he rightfully assumes is the master.
It’s just the bed, a dresser, a pair of end tables—one of which has a collection of photos that Jack assumes are of Westy himself: a few of him and some teammates, a family photo, one of him hugging a girl that Jack thinks must be his sister, since she looks identical to him and is also in the family portrait.
Most of the dresser drawers have been cleaned out, and Jack opens one of the nightstand drawers apprehensively—some change, a TV manual, an unopened box of condoms, but luckily nothing worse. Nothing like he keeps in his own, anyway.
He sighs, and tosses his duffle onto the end of the bed.
Home, for the forseeable future. He’s never felt more like he’s living someone else’s life.
…
When Jack wakes the next morning, he has a few messages on his phone from Bitty—he’d forgotten to text him he’d arrived safely the night before—some twitter notifications for an account that only Falconer’s PR has ever actually used on his behalf, a text from Obie reminding him he’s going to pick Jack up in a few hours for practice.
At the top of his Instagram feed is a picture of Tater and Westy together, both beaming happily, and the caption says welcome to team rookie )))))))
Tater’s the captain, and of course he has to welcome the new guy. Jack tries not to let it sting too much.
He follows a helpful pink note with instructions about how to operate Westy’s coffee pot, stays off social media, and waits for Obie’s text that he’s idling at the curb below.
They’re early to practice, and the only other people in the locker room are the captain—Mitch Cunningham—and a business-like woman who introduces herself as Grace from PR.
They have to do new promo, of course—take a few official headshots of him in his new jersey, a video of him looking into the camera for the starting lineup sequences, a few fluff piece interviews of him with teammates that Grace says they’ll shoot after practice.
In the meantime, he shakes Cunningaham’s (“Call me Hammy”) hand, quickly suits up for practice, slips on the game-day jersey they’ve hung in a stall where Westy’s name has been taped over and Zimmermann scrawled in sharpie—he’ll have to get used to playing in green, now. At least he can keep his number.
It’s… it’s hockey, he reminds himself.
Nothing personal.
…
Obie must have told Hammy how weird Jack had been about his nickname last night, because when he comes back into the room to change into a practice jersey after Grace is finally satisfied with the way he turned his head to glare into the camera, Hammy introduces the guys to him, tells them all matter-of-factly, “This is JZ. Jack, these are the guys.”
So he’s JZ now. A new name for a new city. At least Bitty will get a kick out of this one.
It’s impossible to memorize all their nicknames, to keep them all straight immediately, though Jack of course knows most of them at least by number and position from watching so much game tape.
“It’ll come,” Obie assures him, and Jack tries not to look so overwhelmed that the guys think he needs coddling.
He keeps his head down and centers the line coach tells him to center, runs the drills coach tells him to run.
In some ways, it’s the best he’s felt since he last stepped off the ice wearing a Falconer’s away jersey.
It’s still hockey, and hockey still makes sense, even when nothing else does.
…
They play the Blues the same night, and Jack is desperately grateful they’re at home and St Louis will have to play in white, because he’s not sure he can trust himself just yet not to pass to someone in a blue sweater.
The arena screams for him when he steps onto the ice, and he raises his stick and he can’t breathe.
The goal song is different. The chants are different. The plays are different and his teammates are different and the ice itself is different and the last time he was in this building he was passing to the visiting team, but…
When he scores, that’s the same. Four guys collapse around him into a celly like they’re all old friends, though Jack can only remember two of their names off the top of his head.
It’s still hockey.
Nothing personal.
…
They win, and Jack’s glad because he doesn’t like to lose and he doesn’t want people to say that Providence won the trade and because it’s hockey. But he’s not glad like the other guys are, not because it’s for his team.
He can’t quite manage that one, yet.
He gets second star of the game for his goal and his assist and back in the locker room, after the guys have all cheered for him and slapped him on the back and ass as he walked to his stall, Hammy gives him a heinous jacket covered in fringe for being team MVP. Obie must see on his face how he feels about wearing the thing, which is four sizes too big even for him and frankly smells like a gear bag plus decades of sweat from guys putting it on before they’ve showered, because he just shrugs, and says, “Dallas already had the cowboy hat.”
Jack puts it on, because this is what the Aeros do, and he’s an Aero now.
…
He never ends up texting Westy, but one of the Falconers must give him the right number, because Jack’s back at his apartment—Hammy had looked at him somewhat disapprovingly when Jack said he didn’t want to go out to celebrate the win, but hadn’t pushed it—when he gets the text from a 713 area code: Hi Jack!! This is westy sorry to bother you but do you think you could maybe ship me some of the rest of my clothes and stuff? I can’t come back to get it until we play you guys in March but I’ll totally pay for shipping : )
Jack thinks bleakly about the fact that he only has one duffle full of his own clothes here. He’ll fly up to Providence in a few weeks for Christmas, but they still only have a few days off—just enough time to pack up some of his essentials. Bitty had originally been planning on staying a few days at Jack’s apartment before he had to fly home for the holiday, but now Jack won’t see him at all. He’ll be in Georgia before Jack manages to make it up on Christmas Eve.
No problem, he texts Woody back, and goes to empty what’s left in the dresser drawers into a cardboard box he finds in the back of one of the closets. Don’t worry about the money, dude.
The shipping address Westy gives him is to Thirdy’s place.
It shouldn’t matter, but somehow, it does.
…
They fly out to play the Aces a few days later, and though Jack usually suffers through the constant airplanes and busses and hotels, he’s never been more ready to board a flight.
Kent doesn’t acknowledge him on the ice, but he never did before, either—contrary to his played up media image, he’s all focus on the ice and always has been.
They lose, but Jack doesn’t feel as bad about it as he probably should. The Aces are the reigning Stanley Cup Champs, Kent is, as one announcer recently put it and Jack chirped him about for the next month, “aging like a vintage wine, only getting better and better,” and Jack’s new on this team, still struggling to find chemistry with his lineys. He’s on the second line for the moment, so he doesn’t play many shifts against Kent, though it is gratifying to get an assist on the Aero’s only point of the game.
Jack showers quickly and goes to wait outside the home locker room, shooting Bitty a quick text to let him know he’ll be out for the night and probably won’t be in touch. Bitty’s worried about him, Jack knows, and still feels pretty marginal about Kent himself, but all he says back is have a good time, honey! You’ll get them next game : )
The door slams open before Jack can reply, but it’s not Kent—just a group of other Aces with wet hair chatting to each other about where to meet later on. A few of them give Jack strange looks, but most nod at him, and one—Swoops, Jack thinks his nickname is, because he’s tagged in most of Kent’s Instagram photos—gives him a fist bump and says, “Good game, Zimmermann.”
Kent comes out a few minutes later, still tightening the knot on his tie. “Sorry,” he says, and pulls Jack into a quick embrace, “Got tied up doing media stuff.”
Kent drives him to a nice steakhouse off the strip, which Jack is grateful for. He’s not up for the Vegas scene, at the moment, and when he tells Kent that, he just laughs and says, “I’m never ready for the Vegas scene, dude.”
They don’t look out of place there in their suits, but it’s not so fancy that Jack has to feel bad about the way he can put away two servings of food after playing a hard game.
Kent orders them a bottle of wine and Jack orders a steak the size of his head, and when the waitress leaves, Kent says, “So, you’re playing for Houston now.”
Jack grimaces. “It’s…”
Kent grins, but not in a mean way. “You don’t have to lie to me, dude. I don’t need your media answer.”
“Yeah, it sucks,” Jack says before he can stop himself. “It’s just… I know trades are part of the game. But.”
“Yeah,” Kent says.
“I’m still adjusting,” Jack admits. “Maybe it’ll get better once I’m used to the guys, the new coaching, the new style of play. It’s just. Everything. And it happened really fast. Honestly, I didn’t even know there were trade rumors.”
Kent nods. “You were new in Providence, too, once,” he says slowly, “You made it work there. You’ll do it again, Zimms. It’s just hockey, at the end of the day.”
It’s true, that Jack had needed to adjust there, as well. But he’d chosen Providence.
And Providence, it turns out, hadn’t chosen him back.
His face must say as much, because Kent says carefully, “It could have been worse, right?”
It could have been. It could have been Pittsburgh or Montreal, where Jack would never have escaped the comparisons to his father. It could have been Toronto, where Jack honestly doesn’t think he would have been strong enough to stand up to the media scrutiny. It could have been a dying market, or somewhere they didn’t really need him, where he could have been stuck on the third or fourth line, fighting for ice time. It could have been the Aces, though Jack doesn’t say this to Kent, because he knows how viciously proud Kent is—and rightfully so—of his team. But just because things are getting better with them doesn’t mean Jack would want to be so close to him again. Not yet.
So he just nods.
And he doesn’t say that anything was worse than Providence, really. He’d chosen the Falconers because they’d needed his skills, because they’d been a strong Cup contender, because he liked the front office staff. But he’d also chosen it because it was close—close to his parents, but not too close, and close to Samwell.
And now he’s in fucking Houston.
The waitress brings the wine, pours it for Kent to taste, which he does pretentiously just for Jack’s benefit, swirling the glass and taking a tiny sip, making the waitress squirm before he declares that it will do, though the way he winks at her lets her know she’s in on the joke.
It’s a very Kent moment, trying to make Jack feel more comfortable at the expense of looking a little ridiculous, but it also means that Kent is worried about him, too.
“To the worst fucking part of the game,” Kent says, once the waitress has gone, raising his glass for a toast, “And to playing the Aeros more than I play the Falconers.”
Jack grins despite himself, takes a sip.
“Hey, you want some advice?” Kent asks, and Jack knows that if he says no, Kent will shut up, but Kent continues, “Look, I know I’ve never been traded, but I’ve seen a lot of guys come and go the last few years.”
“Sure,” Jack says. Kent’s about the least likely guy in the entire league to be traded at this point—besides being captain and the undisputed franchise superstar, he’s just signed a league record contract: eight years, more money than Jack likes to think about, no-move and no-trade clauses to boot. But the way he swallows and looks at his hands, Jack thinks that it must be hard in its own way, to be that one point of consistency. To see countless teammates—friends—come and go over the years, to befriend the new guys and watch them be traded, too. To have your core disappear and be a stranger on your own team.
“Just,” Kent says, and hesitates, “Be angry, dude, if you want. It’s shitty. It’s always shitty, no matter where or when or for who. But the guys who win the trade are the guys who try, who work to find a place in the locker room and on the ice. I’ve seen guys stay bitter, and nobody fucking blames them. But they’re not happy, Zimms.”
Jack breathes out sharply. He is angry, is the thing. He hasn’t put the words to it, until now. He’d gone to Providence of his own free will, had chosen them over countless other teams who’d offered, and they’d used him, fucking flipped him. Taken the liability who was too old for a rookie year and proved he could play NHL hockey and then shipped him into the desert for a no-name rookie and a prospect they can hope on. And Jack hadn’t fucking deserved that. He’d never given them a problem, on or off ice. It wasn’t a character problem, wasn’t a playing problem.
It’s just hockey. Nothing personal.
“You don’t have to like it yet,” Kent continues, “But those are your guys now. Let them be that, for you. I can guarantee they’re more excited to have you in their locker room than the Falconers are right now to have a rookie and a second round. I know you don’t read your media, and you shouldn’t. But Aeros fans are ecstatic, everyone’s saying the Falconers got fleeced.”
“Yeah,” Jack says tightly. He’s angry, but he’s not angry at Kent, and he doesn’t want to be, but it’s so easy… it’s easy to lash out, and it’s easier to lash out at Kent. It’s what he always used to do. An old habit he’s still working to shake.
It’s probably a blessing that the waitress comes by with their food then, because it gives him just enough time to pull himself back together.
“Bitty’s upset,” He tells Kent, after he’s cut and chewed a bite of his steak. He says it in French, partly because Kent’s a household name in Vegas and because people still sometimes recognize Jack when he doesn’t expect it and he doesn’t want to out himself here, in this way, and partly because it’s comforting for him. In Providence, there were a few guys, especially Snowy, with whom he could slip back into Quebecois. He doesn’t know if that will happen in Houston, at least not until he knows the guys better.
Kent wrinkles his nose just a bit, an old, familiar expression from the days when Jack would tutor him until Kent would give up and snap that he felt stupid, not understanding anything. He’d spent two years in Quebec, was virtually fluent by the time he’d left, but Jack is guessing he hasn’t had much opportunity to practice over the past few years; when he responds, though, albeit slowly and carefully, he’s using French, as well. “Trades are sometimes hardest on the families.”
“He just got a job in Providence,” Jack admits, “His dream job. It’s in a bakery. Nobody else he knows at school has a job lined up so early.” He knows he sounds proud, and he is, but it’s breaking his heart.
“So what are you going to do?” Kent asks, and Jack just shakes his head.
“We still haven’t talked about it, really. I want him to do it, though. I was going to ask him to move in with me. So he wouldn’t have to find an apartment. I still have the old one, but I know he won’t stay there and let me pay for it if it’s not for both of us. I’d like him to, but he won’t.”
Kent hums. Jack knows he’s still not as conscious about money as he should be, because he never had to spare a thought for it growing up. Bitty—and Kent—are different, more sensitive to Jack lavishing them with things, and Jack knows he used to unintentionally make Kent feel inadequate more than he should have, back in the Q. “My mom can barely afford her mortgage and my hockey,” Kent had shouted at him one night, “I can’t just buy whatever I want like you can.”
“Are you going to… stay together?” Kent asks after a moment, and Jack swallows hard.
“I… of course, I want to. And we’ve been dating long distance so far, and it’s been okay. But the distance hasn’t been so big. He would come down some weekends, or I would. We were going to see each other before Christmas. Now I don’t know when I can see him next. Not Christmas. Maybe the All-Star break, if I don’t go. We only play the Falconers once more this season, and they’re coming to Houston. It’s…”
“Yeah,” Kent says in English.
Jack had never said it like that before, had never thought it to completion. In its entirety, it’s almost too much—this summer, five or six months from now, that’s the next time he’s going to get to see his boyfriend. Even then, they’ll have to fit it around playoffs, the NHL awards, a million promotional obligations, and Bitty’s new job.
They’ve never simultaneously dated and lived in the same zip code, but this is worse. Long distance dating was always hard, and this is going to be harder.
“Hey, Zimms,” Kent says alarmed, and Jack realizes he’s breathing harder than he should be, takes a deliberate bite and chews slowly to calm himself down, and Kent slips back into French for what Jack knows is his benefit as Jack listens to him tell some mundane story about the latest cute thing his cat did, letting Kent’s familiar accent lull him back into calm.
Kent gets out of the car and hugs him, hard, when he drops him back at the hotel. “Call anytime, Jack,” he says, and Jack knows he’s being more serious than Kent likes to let on that he can be, because otherwise, he’d call him Zimms.
“Thanks, Kenny,” he says, and musses up the front of his carefully combed hair, just like he used to.
When can we skype? He texts Bitty in the elevator, but he doesn’t get a response until morning.
…
Jack’s always going to be the first to admit that Kent has his flaws, but he’s also come to realize that listening to him when it comes to hockey probably isn’t a bad idea. He tells Obie on the plane ride back home that he’ll take the offer for dinner whenever’s best for his family, and Obie grins at him and says, “Tonight, dude, totally tonight. Come over at six,” and gives Jack the address to program into the GPS in his new SUV.
I can be free tonight! Bitty texts twenty minutes later and it’s just…
Going to dinner at a teammate’s house, Jack sends back. Maybe after? I’ll let you know when I get home. Sorry.
It’s okay, Bitty says, like Jack knew he would, I’m glad you’re hanging out with the guys! We’ll work something out!!
…
Obie’s daughters are three and six and his wife seems genuinely touched by the flowers Jack brings her.
“I always wished we had more time to get to know you up in Rhode Island,” she says, as she fills a vase with water.
The younger girl is named Jacqueline, and she tells him proudly that her name is Jac, too, and seems genuinely thrilled to have the same name as him.
The older one is Lily, and she has an entire collection of dolls that are about to have a hockey tournament, as she tells Jack very seriously, and then she graciously allows him to pick one out to play with. “That’s Christine. She plays forward,” she tells him, when he picks a well-loved looking redhead.
“Don’t feel like you have to babysit them all night,” Obie tells him cautiously, but Jack doesn’t mind. It’s refreshing, to play fake hockey with a doll against a six-year-old who doesn’t even once ask him how he’s settling into life in Houston.
It’s one of the reasons he always loved coaching that kid’s team, during what his mom generously calls his gap years. Kids aren’t always easy, but they’re never as hard as adults.
When they sit down for dinner, Mrs. O’Brien—Amy—calls her husband Matt and scolds him for talking with his mouth full, and Jack cuts Lily’s food for her and Jac whispers to him very loudly that they’re only allowed to have dessert if the company wants some, so Jack magnanimously asks for ice cream and it feels like a good deed, the way the girls’ eyes light up.
It’s… it might be the first time since he arrived in Houston, that he’s smiled like that, for real.
He even reads the girls their bedtime story, and when Obie tells him to come back anytime, Jack means it when he says he will.
Just got home, he texts Bitty after, but he realizes that it’s nearly eleven on a school night in Massachusetts and that Bitty has an eight am class the next day, and Jack has to maintain his sleeping schedule for practice the next day anyway and would only be able to talk for twenty minutes. He’s not surprised when Bitty asks for a rain check.
They’ll talk soon. It doesn’t… it doesn’t mean anything.
…
Jack flies up and back to Providence within twenty-four hours over his two day Christmas break. It’s long enough to gather up more clothes and arrange a moving company to bring the rest. It’s not long enough to see anyone in the area, because Bitty’s back in Georgia and all the Samwell guys are home, too, and Shitty’s stuck at one of his father’s “Old Money Bourgeoisie Bullshit Parties,” as he succinctly puts it.
When Obie finds out that Jack’s flying home on Christmas afternoon and has no holiday plans, he bullies Jack into coming over for Christmas dinner, and Jack tries hard not to pretend like he’s desperately grateful that someone’s taking him in.
He wears his pajamas over, even though every polite Canadian bone in his body rebels at it, because apparently the O’Briens eschew real clothes on Christmas Day.
He spends a few hours playing with Lily and Jac and their new Christmas toys. It’s probably sad that it’s the best time he’s had all month.
He brings Obie a bottle of maple syrup as an inside joke and both of the girls kids’ sized polaroid cameras he’d found online because he’d promised the last time he was over to show them how to take what they called ‘real pictures.’
He tells Amy and Matt not to get him anything, since he’s crashing their holiday, but they ignore him, of course.
It’s a travel voucher, redeemable at any time, for anywhere. They all know that Jack can afford to buy his own plane tickets if he wants to, but the thoughtfulness makes Jack genuinely emotional, and Jac climbs on his lap to ask what’s wrong.
Maybe he’ll use it to visit Bitty.
Jack posts a picture to his virtually bare Instagram of the O’Brien girls in front of the Christmas tree, says, “Thanks for a good first Texas Christmas,” and tags OBNo3 in the post.
The most recent picture on his feed is from Tater, and it’s inexplicably of Kent, wearing a Santa hat and laughing. He’s captioned it “Showing me real American Christmas, thanks @therealkvp ))))))))”
Jack knows the Falconers only have a two day break, themselves, so he texts Kent, Is Tater with you right now?
Yeah, Kent texts back, He said he wanted to be somewhere warm for the holiday. Idk man.
Well, tell him merry x-mas from me I guess, Jack writes back.
Bitty can’t skype him, because his entire extended family has come to his parent’s house for the holiday.
They’ve only skyped twice, since Jack moved to Houston, but even before then, they were only managing once a week, between Jack’s schedule and Bitty’s classes and new responsibilities as captain. Jack doesn’t like to think about it, how they talked almost every night his first season. It just wasn’t sustainable, he tells himself. They’re busy people. They still text every day.
They’re still fine.
…
In January, Jack puts up a point per game, and goes out with his new team four times.
Hammy starts to look less concerned about him, he ends up at Obie’s for dinner three times, and he gets chirped by Roy, their hulking first line D-man, in Quebecois.
He thinks less everyday about how strange it is to wake up in Texas.
The Aeros win more than they lose, if barely.
He Skypes Bitty twice. Bitty talks about guys on the Samwell team that Jack barely knows, and Jack talks about guys on the Aeros that Bitty’s never met.
Bitty asks after Tater, and Jack’s only able to answer because Kent’s been texting about him. He doesn’t ask after Kent, but they still end up talking about the Aces for half an hour.
They still text almost every day. They’re fine.
…
Jack goes to the All-Star game, and it’s… tense. Some of the old guys are there—Tater and Snowy—but he still hasn’t seen them on the ice since the trade, and he doesn’t know how to handle the situation, exactly. He knows that guys get traded all the time, that there are never hard feelings off the ice, but he hadn’t gone, last year, and he’d always pictured this moment differently, being at his first All-Star Week.
Kent comes too, of course he does, and Jack seems to find him almost right away. He’s the captain of the Pacific Division team, and even though Jack is playing for the Central, Kent doesn’t seem to mind him hanging around, and none of the other guys say anything, either.
The first night, before the skills competitions, Jack is sitting with Kent at the bar, trying to avoid the way Tater looks laughing across the room, the way he keeps cutting his eyes over at Jack. Kent’s talking to some guy from the Kings that Jack only vaguely recognizes, and he snaps back into the conversation when the guy says something about Rimouski, and Kent glances over at him cautiously.
“I bet you guys got up to some real weird shit up there,” the guy is saying, “I always hear the wildest stories about juniors, man.”
And Jack panics, because the only things he can think of are all the times he popped too many pills, or all the times he fucked Kent Parson.
Luckily, Kent just tells the story of what Harty did after the time the guys drew dicks on his face when he fell asleep on the bus, and when the guy wanders away afterwards, Kent claps Jack on the shoulder.
It feels reassuring. Like Kent has his back.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” Jack asks abruptly, “In Vegas, here…” The empty beer bottles collecting in front of him are loosening his tongue, and he has only a second to notice the way Kent’s face goes confused and then genuinely hurt before he can plaster on his mild media smile. He can still read Kent after all these years, it turns out, and for whatever reason, that feels reassuring too.
“Jack,” Kent says softly, and Jack thinks again that it must mean something, that Kent’s not calling him Zimms right now, “What are you talking about? You’re my best friend, man.”
He uses the present tense, they both notice it, and for a moment, it makes Jack deeply sad. He has new friends, guys he’s much closer to than he is to Kent, from Samwell and even Providence, and even if Kent’s hockey is better for going straight to the NHL, it still makes him feel for Kent, that he never got that chance. Jack’s never hated Kent, never even truly resented him beyond a few blinding moments of jealousy. He still wants him to be happy.
The NHL had always been the dream, and Jack doesn’t regret it, but… they’d never told him how isolating it can feel, sometimes. It’s a whole different beast from college hockey, even from juniors.
Kent flushes. “I mean,” he says quickly, but he doesn’t take it back, and maybe he’s feeling a little drunk, too, but Jack hasn’t seen him this unsure since the first time he kissed Jack, before Jack kissed him back. “I hope you never thought all that media shit was true, man. They always wanted us to be rivals, but I thought you knew as well as me that none of that was real?”
Jack’s saved from answering when he’s pulled into a bone-crushing hug from behind, nearly upsetting his beer—or maybe not saved, because it’s Tater, crowing “Zimmboni!” And then pulling back and looking at him fake sternly.
“I lose my rookie to Texas and then he never call me back?” He asks, and then pulls Kent into an equally hard embrace, one which Kent returns somewhat desperately. “Maybe this what you do to Parsnip rookie year, make him cry over you?”
“Tater,” Kent says, and elbows him in the side, hard, and refuses to meet Jack’s eyes, and… Tater had been traded himself, Jack remembers, from the Aces, after his rookie season. He must have been close to Kent, then, the only two rookies on the team, and Jack doesn’t know what Kent would have told him, but he’s simultaneously horrified at the possibilities and blindsided that Kent took it so hard, Jack cutting off contact. He’d known Kent had tried to text and call him, pretty much all year, but then… Jack had always assumed it was to gloat, maybe, to use his ‘I miss you’ as a bargaining chip or a taunt. Jack was in such a dark place, then, it was sometimes hard to believe that people meant well with their interest in him.
Hard to believe that Kent had meant it, when he said that he just wanted to hear from Jack, to make sure he was okay, that he just missed talking to his best friend.
“Don’t,” Kent is telling Tater now, frantically trying to peel the label off his beer bottle with one thumbnail, and Tater teases, arm still looped around Kent’s neck, “Now he not teammate, now I can fight him for your honor?”
Jack laughs and it’s too loud, and half the room looks over. “Sorry,” he says, and he means it for both of them, “It’s… I have a bad habit of falling out of touch. I’m trying to work on it.”
Kent relaxes, minutely, and Tater buys them both another beer, and talk turns to hockey, which they all appreciate because it means they won’t have to talk about anything else.
They go up together later, when Tater’s wandered off to join a very loud Russian group, and Kent says in the elevator, “I never told him anything about… you know, us. It was not a good year for me, Zimms, but I think he just thought it was… I don’t know, homesickness, maybe, or just missing my old team, or something. He doesn’t… he doesn’t know. Not what really happened.”
Jack hadn’t thought so—Tater had never guessed about Bitty, which he might have if he’d known about Kent, and Kent had much more than Jack to lose by coming out, then—but he can feel himself relaxing regardless.
The door opens to Kent’s floor and he ambles out. At the last second, he sticks his hand in the door and says, “It is good to see you more now, Jack. I mean that.”
“Yeah,” Jack says, and realizes for the first time in years he genuinely means it when he says, “I’ve missed you, Kenny.”
Kent smiles, a little sadly, and he takes his hand back, shoves it in his pocket. “Night, Zimms,” he says.
…
Tater posts a picture of the three of them the next day: “Try not to like Western conference but these two make it hard.”
…
The Aeros are flying up to play the Bruins in March, and it’s like the light at the end of the fucking tunnel.
It’s a Wednesday night game, which is really not ideal for Bitty’s schedule, but he insists that it’s not an issue, that he wouldn’t miss the game for the world.
Jack sends him a jersey to wear. It’s still different, playing in green, but it’ll be nice to see Bitty wearing his number again regardless.
It won’t feel like enough, probably, and Jack’s trying to resign himself to that before he can be too disappointed. They’ll be the away team, this time, and they’ll be posted up in a hotel and held to a curfew. Jack doesn’t have a road roommate this year, but even so, he’s not out, not even to Obie and Roy, the guys he’s become closest to. It’s not like he can just bring Bitty back to the hotel, not with the team rooms all in blocks together and the way the guys constantly knock on each other’s doors, trying to arrange a NHL 16 tournament or a night out, depending on the mood, pulling pranks and chirping each other loudly.
He can probably take Bitty to dinner, tell the guys he’s a college friend. He probably won’t be able to get away with much more than that.
It could be better.
It could be worse.
…
It gets worse.
Shitty comes, and brings Lardo, and they both want to come to dinner afterwards, which would normally be welcome news, but…
But.
The Aeros lose in regulation and Obie takes a hard hit and spends the third period in the medical room instead of on the ice.
Jack can barely hug his boyfriend hello because he’s so paranoid he’ll give it all away and they spend all of dinner trying not to sit too close and trying not to make too much eye contact and everybody keeps asking him how fucking Houston is, and by the time Jack can wave Shitty and Lardo off, it’s his curfew and he has to head back to the hotel and Bitty has to drive back to Samwell, anyway.
He gets a single stolen kiss that still feels far too risky in the corner of a dark parking lot.
“We’ll Skype soon,” Jack promises, and Bitty agrees, but neither of them say when.
…
Tater winks at him over the dot and wins the faceoff and chirps him about it.
They don’t go easy on Jack, and he doesn’t go easy on them—slips one in high glove side where he knows Snowy is weaker—but it’s a civil game.
Just hockey, nothing personal.
When he plays them in Providence, they might give him a video tribute, but that won’t be until next season.
Now, he’s on the home team, and he gets pucks to the net and gets first star of the game and hopes that the Falconer’s GM is sitting watching the game somewhere, regretting ever giving him up.
…
They don’t fight about the apartment, exactly, because Jack knew before they even talked about it that Bitty wouldn’t agree to stay there while Jack still paid the mortgage but didn’t live there himself.
It’s just that Jack genuinely doesn’t understand why Bitty won’t consider staying there before Jack gets a chance to sell the place—it might take him a while, because it’s in an upscale building and there aren’t many Providence buyers in that price range. Plus, he’s not trying particularly hard to find a realtor. Plus, Jack could live there himself during the summer and then they could be together, at least for a little while.
But Bitty says no, and then suddenly asks Jack if Jack wants him to try to find a job in Houston, instead, and then they have to not fight about that, because Jack doesn’t want his career to dictate Bitty’s life and he doesn’t want Bitty to give up this opportunity but he does want to live with Bitty and see him more often and he can’t find the words to say it all.
He imagines their future barreling down on him, quite suddenly.
Jack’s a hockey player—he got traded once, he could be traded again. Even if Bitty moved to Houston, Jack could be sent to fucking Edmonton a month later, and he has virtually no say unless he were to retire altogether because he’ll have to wait years to negotiate for no-move clauses in his next contract.
He doesn’t want to have a long distance relationship for the ten or fifteen years it might be before he retires, but he doesn’t want Bitty to follow him around, constantly sacrificing his own goals, either.
Maybe if they were married, or even just out, it would be different, more like the relationships his teammates have. But they’re not, and they can’t be. Even if he doesn’t think he’d actually be unable to play professional hockey—there’s laws against that, he thinks—he knows it won’t be good for his career, either, to come out right now. And he’s not strong enough right now, he just can’t do it, he can’t face the scrutiny and the media and the slurs and the screaming fans, even though he knows how much Bitty hates that their relationship is closeted.
When they try to take a break from not-fighting, Bitty chatters away about the Samwell team, and Jack closes his eyes in defeat. He doesn’t know at least half of the people Bitty is talking about, and they haven’t talked in so long that he doesn’t know any of the stories Bitty is trying to reference either, and by the time he makes a fourth false start, Jack knows they’re both thinking the same thing.
“Jack,” Bitty says, his voice breaking, and Jack agrees heavily, “Yeah.”
They’re both crying by the time it’s done. They agree they can probably be friends, after they get some space.
It’s for the best. Bitty can have his full life in Providence, with a job and some of the Samwell guys close and maybe someday a real boyfriend who he can hold hands with on the street.
Jack can have his hockey.
It’s just hockey, Jack thinks. Nothing personal.
…
Kent sounds a little dazed when he picks up, like he’s maybe been sleeping. On the other end of the phone, Jack can hear another low voice saying something he doesn’t catch.
“Sorry,” he says belatedly, “Do you have company?” His cheeks are burning, but he doesn’t know why. Obviously, he knows that Kent likes men. But hearing it is… not hard, exactly, but a little strange.
“Um, no,” Kent says too quickly, and then, “I mean, yes, but. It’s, um. Tater?”
The Aces are in Providence tonight, Jack remembers abruptly, and almost weeps with the irony of it.
“Oh,” Jack says, and then runs out of words. He must sound morose enough, though—or maybe it’s just that he’s called Kent at all—that Kent says something to Tater away from the phone and then says to Jack, “Hey, are you okay, man? You don’t sound like yourself.”
“No,” Jack says honestly. Then he remembers that the last time he was speaking to Kent and he wasn’t okay, he almost died, so he says, “I mean, I’m safe and whatever.”
“That’s good, Zimms,” Kent says softly, “But what’s going on?”
“I think,” Jack says, and his voice is too thick. Things never seem real until he says them out loud. “I think I just broke up with my boyfriend?”
He wonders if it’s too cruel to go to Kent with this, and realizes that he doesn’t care, and wonders if that makes him a bad person.
“Jack,” Kent says. It’s been years, but sometimes Jack can still understand him from miles away, just by the way Kent says his name. He squeezes his eyes closed and is almost surprised to feel a tear roll down his cheek. He’d given himself a few minutes to cry, already; he thought he was done. “Hey, you’re safe, right? Do you want me to call someone? I know guys on the Aeros, I could have someone come by. Or call your mom? One of your college friends?”
“No,” Jack says hastily. “I’m just… I don’t even know why I called, really.”
“We’re friends, Zimms. I know you. You can talk to me,” Kent says, like it’s obvious, and maybe it is, to him.
Jack spares a moment to think about how things could have been different, if he’d let Kent be there for him that first year.
Then he shakes his head, because things aren’t different.
In fact, things feel pretty much the same as they’ve always fucking been. He’s still alone and scared and lying to most of the people that he loves.
“Do you want me to,” Kent starts, and then breaks off in a yawn, and when he starts talking again its Quebecois and Jack closes his eyes.
He doesn’t listen to what Kent’s saying—something about dissecting the Senator’s defense for their next match up. He just lets the sound of Kent’s voice wash over him, of his childhood language and Kent’s flat American accent, the way Kent will sometimes struggle to find a word just like he did when they were laying in the same double bed and Kent was complaining about the way Jack insisted on only speaking French in their room to help Kent learn the language.
“Hey, Jack,” Kent says. He stopped talking a while ago, but Jack doesn’t mind. It’s nice to just listen to someone exist, sometimes. “Did you call me because I’m the only one who knows that you like boys?”
He is the only one, but Jack says, “No,” instinctively. “I called you because… Kenny, you’re a good friend. Maybe I haven’t told you that before.”
This startles a soft sound out of Kent. At the time—after the draft, Jack couldn’t think of how he must have hurt Kent. He didn’t have the energy, couldn’t spare a thought for him over the roar of his own mind. But now he regrets it, sometimes. Kent wasn’t always right, back then, but neither was Jack.
“Zimms,” Kent says. “You’re gonna be okay, you know? Call me whenever.”
“Yeah,” Jack says, but neither one of them hang up.
…
In the morning, Jack has a text on his phone from Tater: Why you don’t call me late at night?? Haha Zimmboni but I miss you and you never call (((((((((
Sorry, Kent’s sent over, I didn’t mean to tell him it was you but I fell asleep on the phone and he had to wake me to get me back for curfew.
It’s okay, Jack sends back, Sorry I interrupted your night.
He bites his lip, and calls Tater.
…
Jack stays on the ice after practice and takes shot after shot at an empty net and then breaks his stick over the goal when only two of them go in.
When he skates over to the bench to get a new one, Hammy is frowning at him, arms crossed, Obie behind him.
“What’s up, bud?” Hammy says neutrally.
“Can’t make a fucking shot, is what,” Jack says, too nastily, and feels tears spring to his eyes. He suddenly wishes he had left his helmet on—maybe then it would be less obvious, what his face must be doing to make Obie cut his eyes over at Hammy in concern.
“We all have off days,” Obie says slowly, “Go easy on yourself, there, champ.”
Jack wants to break another stick, wants to scream or punch a wall. If he doesn’t have his hockey, he doesn’t have fucking anything.
“Maybe you should call it a day,” Hammy agrees. “Got a game tomorrow, JZ, we need you in top form.”
Jack doesn’t want to leave, but he knows that staying on the ice won’t actually help. He stalks off, leaves the pucks on the ice. It’s horrible manners, but he knows Obie will clean them rather than leaving them out for staff.
“Someone fuck your girl, or something?” Hammy asks, following him back to the room, unimpressed with his childishness. Jack would have been, too, if a rookie at Samwell had ever acted like this, but…
But.
“Just…” Jack says, and yanks his jersey off. He breathes deeply, tries to calm himself down so that he doesn’t fling his pads across the room. “Broke up with my…” He shrugs, before he has to finish the sentence, and Hammy whistles. “Thought I was okay with it, but then my game went to shit, too, so.”
“Distance?” Hammy asks sympathetically, and sits in an empty stall.
“Yeah, fucking distance,” Jack snaps, “Fucking trade, man.” He bites his lip. “Sorry.”
Hammy chuckles ruefully. “I get it, dude, no worries. We love having you, but, uh. Used to live in Calgary, you know? My ex-wife still does. My son, too. Wasn’t just the trade, but that certainly didn’t help things.”
Jack sighs, tries to undo his laces without trembling. “Sorry,” he says again, softer.
Obie comes in, sits in an empty stall, too. “The girls want you to come back for dinner soon,” he says carefully, like he’s expecting Jack to yell again. That’s probably fair, actually.
“Yeah, I’d love that,” Jack says. He’d truly love to be around two people who only want him to play dolls or read books and who don’t want him to carry a franchise or give an acceptable soundbite or be a good boyfriend from ten states away.
“We gotta take our boy out,” Hammy says, standing. “Going through a break up.”
“Oh, shit,” Obie says, “Sorry, dude, sucks.”
Jack shrugs. They don’t know the half of it.
…
Hammy keeps buying him shots, and Roy keeps pointing out pretty girls at the bar, even though Jack doesn’t want much to do with them and keeps telling him that.
Obie keeps trying to pretend that he’s not texting his wife, until Hammy takes his phone away.
“To hockey,” Hammy says seriously, and they all hold their whiskey over the table together. Jack knows he’s drunk, because he thinks very seriously, we are a band of brothers. “A cruel fucking mistress who keeps us coming back for more.”
“Hockey,” Obie and Roy say, and drink.
“She’ll break your heart every time, bud,” Hammy says, looking at Jack. “Hockey, that is. And yet…” He shrugs, drinks as well.
“May the game love you as much as you love the game,” Jack says, just like his father always used to, and throws his own shot back. When he says, “Wayne Gretzky taught me that,” the guys all laugh, even though it’s true.
When he tells them that, Obie throws an arm around his shoulder, cuddles him in a bit. “That’s what makes it funny, bud,” he says. It’s nice. Jack hasn’t been held in a long time—not by his father or mother or Shitty. Not by Bitty.
“You feel like Tater,” he tells Obie, and Obie just laughs again.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he says, “And I’m cutting you off.”
Jack doesn’t mind. The bar is playing Shania Twain, and he and Hammy sing along together.
…
When Jack wakes up, he’s part of a group text named “band of brothers.”
Kent’s texted him to say, Glad you had a good time last night hahahaha… Tell Cunningham I saved that voicemail of him singing Lady Gaga for future blackmail purposes : )
He calls Shitty that afternoon, once his head has stopped throbbing enough that holding a phone doesn’t sound like torture. He doesn’t tell him about Bitty, because Shitty didn’t know they were dating in the first place. He does tell him he’s starting to like Houston a lot more, though, and he means that.
Small victories.
…
He brings Obie a bottle of whiskey when he goes over for dinner, grins at the way that Obie groans and clutches his head over-dramatically.
“Hi twin Jack,” Jac says, and giggles.
Lily hides behind her dad’s legs. Apparently, she’s developed a crush on Jack, which he thinks is sweet, even if she is a bit young for him.
“Heard you guys had a nice time out,” Amy says wryly, when she sees him, and Jack blushes.
“We did,” Obie says defensively, and waves the bottle of whiskey at her until she laughs.
Obie pours them all glasses after the kids go to bed, and Amy says gently, “Hockey makes relationships hard. Believe me, we know.”
Obie hums, reaches over to hold her hand.
“The trade was… not good,” Jack admits. “We were already long distance before, but Houston made things kind of unmanageable. And he’d just gotten a job back in Providence.”
He freezes—neither one of them had missed that, he knows, because they’re sharing what his mother would call a married glance.
“Having a boyfriend must make things harder,” Obie finally says, carefully.
“Nobody knows,” Jack says hastily.
“Well, we do, now,” Amy says. “And we won’t tell. But that means you can talk to us about it, if you want to.”
“Anytime, JZ,” Obie says.
Jack spends the night, because he’s had some to drink and doesn’t want to drive and because Obie apparently makes a famous breakfast on the weekends that he’s home.
Lily squeaks and blushes when she sees him in the morning, still in her footie pajamas, and Jac wants to sit on his lap and let him cut her pancakes for her.
“I’ve got to go home,” he tells them gently, when they pout that he won’t play horsies with them after breakfast. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”
It’s not until he’s in his car that he realizes that it’s the first time he’s thought of Westy’s old apartment as home.
…
They clinch a playoffs spot in April, and Jack goes home and calls Kent.
“We’re in the playoffs,” he says when Kent answers, and he realizes how panicked he must sound when Kent says, “Jack, that’s a good thing.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think I’d be doing it with my new team. I thought I’d be doing it with the Falconers.”
“Listen,” Kent says, “The Aeros aren’t your new team, right? You’ve been there for months. They’re just your team. Full stop.”
“Okay,” Jack says, because Kent still knows how to talk him down.
“If you win a Stanley Cup with the Aeros, it’s still a Stanley Cup.”
“Don’t fucking jinx me,” Jack says, reaching out to rap on a wooden cabinet with his knuckles, but he’s smiling now. “How’s Tater?”
“How would I know,” Kent says, too quickly.
“I have a twitter, you know,” Jack says, which is only half true—he does have one, but he’s never actually used it. Except to see the way Tater always tweets at Kent. That, he definitely notices.
“We’re friends, Zimms,” Kent says, exasperated.
“Uh-huh,” Jack says.
“I mean, we’re just, like… I don’t know, it’s complicated,” Kent says, and he sounds nervous, suddenly. “I actually have no fucking clue what we’re doing, Zimms, it’s freaking me out.”
“Why?” Jack asks.
“Why? Because it’s the first time in my life I’ve liked somebody who might actually like me back,” Kent says, and Jack grimaces despite himself. “Because we both play professional hockey, and because we live across the country from each other and because he’s fucking Russian, Jack. That’s why.”
“But you do like him,” Jack says.
“Yes,” Kent says instantly. “I don’t know. Yes, but it probably doesn’t matter, because it’s never going to work anyway.”
“You don’t know that,” Jack says, and feels like a fraud.
“I kinda do, Zimms,” Kent says softly. Jack hasn’t heard him sound so sad since he deleted all of Kent’s old voicemails, circa 2010. “Good luck in the playoffs, huh? Maybe we’ll see you there.”
…
Jack thinks about texting Bitty. They haven’t communicated yet directly, but they’re still both in the group chat that they’re probably going to have to rename soon, considering that Bitty’s the last actual Samwell student and he’s going to graduate in a month.
He’s still thinking about Kent, and about Tater, and about the way that Kent had sounded so defeated by circumstance. Do you believe that being in love matters more than all the other obstacles? He wants to ask.
But he imagines Bitty sending back I used to, and it breaks his heart.
…
Lily O’Brien wears a Zimmermann #1 Jersey to the Aeros’ first home playoff game and the guys won’t stop chirping Obie about it in the locker room.
It’s good, because it makes Jack laugh, loosens him up enough that he’s not nervous to take the ice for the first time in the playoffs.
Fuckin murder ‘em, bud, Kent texts him before he takes the ice. They’re allowed to root for each other until they have to play each other, and then again afterwards.
You too, Parse, he sends back, imagines the fierce look on Kent’s face as he takes the ice in Vegas.
“Showtime, boys!” Hammy bellows, and the puck drops.
…
Jack takes a nasty check and scores a filthy goal right back.
He’s sweaty and bloody and fucking buzzing when he gets back to the locker room. They’ve got fifteen more wins to go out and get, but they’ve got one under their belts and when Jack looks around the room, he only sees teammates.
He loves hockey so much that he sometimes forgets to have fun with it, but he doesn’t stop smiling during the third period, challenged and elated and playing the best hockey of his fucking life.
“What a fucking game, man!” Roy had said after the final buzzer, tapping Jack on the shin pads with his stick, “What a fucking game.”
The media wants to talk to Jack, and he tries not to sound too enthusiastic. “We’ve got a long way to go,” he says neutrally.
When he finally gets the chance to dig his phone out of his bag, he’s got a text from Bitty. Good game, Jack!! He’s said, You guys looked great out there : )
Thanks, Jack says. How’s everything with you?
…
They get knocked out in the Division Finals. It stings, of course it does, but they made it farther than they were projected to, and when Jack tells reporters that he thinks they’ve got an even better shot with the talent coming down the pipeline next season, he truly believes it.
Hammy claps him on the shoulder, once they’ve all changed into street clothes.
“We are a band of brothers,” he says, semi-seriously.
“Next season, boys,” Jack says. He catches sight of a rookie’s red eyes in the corner. “Next season,” he says firmly.
At least they’re at home, Jack thinks. He can go right back and pack up and Skype Bitty without waiting for a plane. Things are tenuous with them, and Jack’s still not certain it’s a good idea—nothing has really changed, after all.
Except it has, sort of, because Jack had finally asked him last week Do you believe that being in love matters more than all the other obstacles?
Immediately, Bitty had said yes.
…
Kent suits up for the Conference Finals, and Jack’s back in Providence, watching the game with Tater.
I hear someone is staying in America through the fourth of July instead of going straight to Russia, Jack texts. I feel like that date might be significant to someone that I know.
Haha fuck you, Kent says back, once the Aces have secured the W. All night, the announcers have been talking about how difficult it is to defend a Stanley Cup, and Tater had kept saying loudly, “Too much pressure! Why they not believe in Kent, huh? I believe in Kent, you believe in Kent! But too much pressure from dumb media!” He’d said a lot more, but most of that was in Russian, so Jack is left only with the impression that Tater is vocally unhappy when someone tries to check Kent and is almost beside himself when Kent scores an admittedly pretty goal.
“Bet you Kent score hat trick,” Tater says smugly, but the way Kent is playing, Jack doesn’t particularly want to take that bet.
I truly believe that he would punch Don Cherry for you, Jack says and laughs when Kent says back, he’d better get in line, I know 100 dudes that would pay to punch him including me.
“Why you laughing?” Tater asks.
“Kent,” Jack says, and grins at the way Tater’s face settles into a smile at the name, laughs again when Tater’s phone rings and he answers brightly, “Kent! You have good game, I’m watching on TV!”
He wanders into his bedroom, voice fading into a low murmur in the background.
You still planning on coming up to Providence after your final tomorrow? Jack asks Bitty. He’s got a meeting with his real estate agent in the morning to list his old apartment, and she’s promised to help Bitty find a nice place, too.
When he flies back to Houston in August for camp, Amy and Obie are going to help him look for a permanent place down there, because Westy still needs to sell his old place. The market is supposed to be good in Texas. Jack’s feeling pretty certain he’ll find somewhere he likes.
Wouldn’t miss it, Bitty says. Looking forward to seeing you, honey.
In the other room, Tater laughs uproariously, and Jack smiles in spite of himself.
Can’t wait, he sends.