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1. finish my drink say shall we dance
Jack had a minute’s warning from the clicking of the key card before the door swung open. “Yo, Zimms. The party is going down in Socks and Hallsy’s room.”
“I’m not going,” Jack said, staring at the clock on the bedside table.
“Oh, come on,” Kent said, rummaging through the crap he’d dumped on top of the dresser. “Lev’s sister goes to Dal, so she’s bringing the booze, plus a bunch of chicks. It’s gonna be wild.”
“Have fun,” Jack said, not looking away from the clock.
“Zimms.” Jack felt the bed move as Kent crawled up it and settled himself behind Jack, spooning him. “Zimmszimmszimmszimms. Come ouuuuuuuuuuut.”
Jack closed his eyes and tried not to lean back into Kent. “I’m tired.”
“You are sulking.” Kent nudged his nose against Jack’s ear.
Jack refused to respond. Tonight Kent had scored twice. Sure, one of those had been off Jack’s assist, but apart from that, he’d eaten post all night. He was not in the fucking mood for a fucking party.
“Jack,” Kent whispered into his ear. “Come on. Have a couple of beers, get hit on by a bunch of drunk chicks. We’ll find a girl we can dance with, nobody will notice.” He kissed his ear, so gently. “C’mon, don’t leave me alone out there.”
“Kenny,” Jack said, sighing. Kent’s arms around him were warm, his breath on his ear sending the hairs on the back of his neck fluttering. Jack squeezed his eyes shut. “Ugh, fine. Just to get you off my back.”
“Yessss,” Kent said, springing up. “I win. It’s gonna be epic.”
2. don’t think we fit in at this party
He wouldn’t even be here, but parties matter for team cohesion, and also he would kind of like to get out of the dorms next year, and the Haus was the best option for that. (Technically, as a ‘non-traditional student,’ he shouldn’t have had to this year, but Maman had insisted.) So Jack was holding up the wall with a red solo cup full of cola when the girl stumbled into him. “Sorry,” he said instinctively. She giggled a little, but didn’t let go of his side. Jack has been hit on by a lot of drunk girls, several of whom thought a grope was a good introduction, but this didn’t feel like that. “Uh. Are you ok?”
She looked up at him. “Oh! I thought you were the coat rack.”
“No, I’m not.” He began looking around for someone to pass her off to. “Are you, um. Are you here with someone?”
“My friends lefffffffftttttt,” she said. “And there’s this guy, but he — I don’t think I like him.”
“Oh.” Jack looked down at her. She was pretty, and her shoes looked anatomically improbable, and she was really wasted. “Maybe…maybe I can call the walk service for you?”
“You’re the nicest coatrack,” she mumbled into his bicep.
Jack was trying to figure out how to get his phone, which was in the pocket on the side she was leaning on, when Marker came over, with his friend from the lacrosse team he was always hanging out with. Jack liked lacrosse well enough - he’d gone to see a bunch of games at Kahnawake with his dad while he was taking time off - but everybody who played here at Samwell seemed like a dick. “Zimmermann! Thanks for finding my friend Cath. I’ll take her from here, bro.”
“Uh.” Jack looked down at the girl — Cath — and thought about her saying I don’t think I like him. “She was just saying she wasn’t feeling well. I was thinking I’d call the walk service for her.”
“Hey, come on, she lives like — I mean, it’s gotta be a super long walk. I’ll just take her upstairs to sleep it off.” Marker reached out to grab her arm.
“Gross,” she said, slapping him off. “I wanna go with the coat rack.”
“I can just take her —“ Jack said, putting his arm around her so she didn’t tip over.
“Hey, bro,” the lax guy said, shoving Jack’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t be trying to rob your teammate of some prime pussy here, would you?”
“What, you think you’re special?” Marker said. “Pay your fucking dues, frog, cuz Daddy can’t do it for you.”
Jack froze, trying to figure out what to do. Was he really going to fight a teammate before they’d played a single game?
“Hey, hey, my dudes,” came a voice that felt familiar. Two arms went around Marker and the lax bro, and a face popped up between them. Knight, he placed after a minute - walk on, fourth line forward, Jack wouldn’t give him many shifts in a game but he was pretty sneaky which was a good thing to have in your pocket. He was trying to grow a mustache and his hair looked like it was playoffs. “So a funny thing you might not know about, this legal decision from 2008, Commonwealth of Massachusetts v Blache? Determines that in sexual assault trials, lack of consent due to intoxication can be established via a two-step test. Now, you two gentlemen have heard the lady say that she wants to chill with Jack here, and you have heard him say that she’s too drunk to meaningfully consent. I’m not a lawyer by any means, so if you’ve got one on standby it might be worth a call, but to my eye that passes the Blache test, and you’ve got witnesses here capable of offering supporting accounts, even beyond any physical evidence. And while I know that some schools might try to dissuade someone from making allegations against a star athlete, Coach Hall doesn’t seem like that kind of a dude, especially not if the athlete in question has been riding the pine all pre-season. So what I’m saying is,” and here he pulled the two other guys in closer and dropped his voice, “you two motherfuckers better fuck the fuck off so Jack and I can get Cath home, or you’re going to fucking jail, assbags.” And he grabbed them both by the back of their collars and gave them a meaningful shove.
Jack was still blinking when Knight came around to the other side of Cath and grabbed an arm to help support her. “I know you could probably carry her home no big deal, but let’s do it together, it’ll be faster.”
“Okay,” Jack said.
Twenty minutes later, after figuring out which dorm Cath lived in and passing her off to the RA on lobby duty, Jack found himself walking alongside Knight and listening to him rant. “I don’t know, man, I love hockey, and Samwell’s like, ten times better than Andover in general, but that kind of meathead chauvinist I guess are kind of endemic to the sport.” He sighed, and looked over at Jack. “But I respect you for standing up for her, dude.”
Jack struggled for a moment, with the shame that he nearly hadn’t and the awkwardness that generally came with being him, before he found himself opening his mouth and saying something true. “I guess I just — I’ve done things when I was drunk that I regretted. And it feels like, you know. People should get to avoid that.”
Knight stopped walking. Jack stopped too, worried he’d said the wrong thing. But Knight was nodding. “You’re a pretty cool guy, Zimmermann.”
Literally no one had ever said that to Jack. “Thanks, Knight.”
Knight snorted. “Fuck’s sake, call me Shitty. You wanna go to the party at the Women’s Center? I hear their signature drink is something called a dirty Girl Scout.”
“I guess?”
Knight — Shitty — threw his arm around Jack’s shoulder and started dragging him in a new direction. “You know, I think you and I gotta clean up this team. Write some new bylaws. Get some frogs next year and raise ‘em up right. We’re gonna be the most feminist men’s hockey team in the ECAC.”
“Okay?” Jack said, because he didn’t really get it, but the arm around his shoulder was friendly, and he’d rather listen to Shitty than go back to that fucking party anyway.
3. tryna talk but we can’t hear ourselves
Ransom and Holster threw a hell of a party, but Jack had a headache, and that meant he needed caffeine, and there was probably, somewhere in this godforsaken alcohol-and-hormone-smelling pit he called home a single maudite can of cola he could drink and then go hide until the floor stopped vibrating. (It was fine. It was fine. They had won the game, Ransom’s goal was clean and beautiful, Johnson hadn’t let anything embarrassing through, he shouldn’t have missed either of those in the first but he’d made up for it in the third, nobody in the stands looked like a scout, his dad hadn’t texted yet but that was fine, the third line wasn’t gelling, Wicks was doing okay but O’Meara had a ways to go, it was fine, it was all fine.)
He ducked under the caution tape and tried to find his way towards the kitchen. They would have left some cans in the fridge, right? Maybe there was ice, even. When someone stumbled into him, he assumed it was one of the dozen drunk girls who always seemed to attack him when he appeared at these things. He scowled down, and then scowled harder when he realized it was Bittle. “Bittle?”
“Jack?” Bittle blinked up at him. “Oh! I didn’t see you.” He straightened up, and then wobbled a little. “I did a keg stand?”
Jack blinked at him. That’s right, Bittle had had an assist on Ransom’s goal, which made him the first frog with a point. “Congratulations?”
“I mean, it’s not like I’ve never had a beer before, but, uh. That was an experience.”
The last time Jack did a keg stand, Parse had held one of his legs, and sat on his lap after, and reminded Jack he was ahead in points, and Jack had gotten rug burn on his knees later in their hotel room. Bittle’s hair was damp with sweat, and his eyes took up his whole face, and he was sweet and fragile and everything Jack wasn’t allowed to be. “If you want to keep playing like you did tonight, you’re going to need to work harder.”
Bittle blinked. “I…okay?”
“I’ll look at the Faber calendar and text you some options.”
Bittle cocked his head and stared at him. “Okay?”
Ransom emerged out of the crowd and threw his arms around Bittle. “Bitty! The women’s volleyball team just rolled up, this place is gonna get tight. You’re gonna be a hit, Bits.”
“Oh, I — yes, I’d love to meet them,” Bittle said, still a little unsteady. He glanced back at Jack, as if he were working something out.
Jack turned away before Bittle did and started pushing his way towards the kitchen again. Next time there’s going to be a kegster, he’s putting supplies in his room beforehand.
4. I’m told it’s where I’m supposed to be
The car had gotten hot on the twenty-minute drive to Marty’s house, even if it had been perfectly comfortable when he’d climbed into it in the garage under his condo building. Jack hadn’t spent enough summers in New England—he still thought the weather was Montréal weather, that you could get by all but the hottest days with open windows at night and a cold drink. He closed his eyes, focused on the heat, took a deep breath. Georgia Martin would be here, he liked her; Marty had been great the couple of times they’d met before he’d signed; he’d been practicing with these guys for two weeks. It would be fine. He just had to not be “dickhead roboJack” (thanks, Shitty) and it would be fine. He picked up the plate of brownies Bitty had helped him bake (“It’ll break the ice! And no you may NOT use a box mix, for the love of little green apples, Jack, I will break up with you RIGHT NOW”) and forced himself out of the car before he died of anxiety and also the sun.
Marty’s backyard was lush and green. The swimming pool was full of loud children and the coolers were overflowing with beers. Jack accepted friendly backslaps from Marty, handed his plate of brownies to Gabby, and stood around clutching a can of LaCroix and distracting himself from what a social failure he was by thinking about how fucked up Americans pronounced the name.
“Zimmermann!” called out a voice. Jack spun around to see Mashkov heading towards him. “Always so shy! Why you hiding?”
“Oh, I —“
“Look, I have serious to talk with you,” Mashkov said. “You playing with us two weeks now, and we all still call you Zimmermann? This no good. You need a name. Otherwise how you know we love you?”
Jack shook his head and tried to smile. “Nobody’s called me anything else in years, Mashkov. Seriously, my best friend nicknames literally everyone but he never managed it with me.”
Mashkov gave him a shove. A gentle one, but when someone Mashkov’s size shoves you, you feel it. “And you not call me Tater. You act like this, I give you back to Marty.”
Jack glanced over at Marty in confusion. “Marty?”
“He say, when you sign, that you be his rookie, because he wants speak French and you babysit his kids. I say, no. I already friends with Snowy, who is goalie-crazy and think he genius, so I be okay with college guy. You have hockey family, I have hockey family, we share problem. You go to college with crazy party on internet, you not want babysit Marty’s kids, you want to come with me to dance. I steal you from Marty. We thumb wrestle, very serious. And that is why you need a name. I not calling you Zimmermann forever.”
Jack swallowed. He didn’t know why, but any time somebody on the Falconers proved just how much he was wanted here, he found it hard to breathe. The ground was so uncertain under his feet, since signing, since graduation, since—since Bitty. He was where he was supposed to be - where he was supposed to have been six years ago - but he had no idea whether he fit, yet.
But Mashkov was looking at him so earnestly. He looked down at his drink. “Most people just call me Jack.”
Mashkov made a disgruntled noise. “I start there, but we find you something better. If nothing work I call you Zaichik because you so quiet all the time.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Is like - I forget word. Is small, fuzzy, with ears?” He stuck up two fingers and made a hopping gesture.
“Rabbit?” Jack guessed.
“No, there is other word. Small English word.”
“Bunny?” Jack thought of Señor Bun in the background of his Skype calls with Bitty and felt his mouth start to turn up. “I honestly don’t see it.”
“Yes, it not work too much. We do better.” Mashkov put his arm around Jack’s shoulder. “Now I have important rookie work for you. We throw Snowy in pool.”
“OK, Mashkov.”
Mashkov clanked his beer bottle against Jack’s head. “Call me Mashkov again, you go in pool too.”
Jack laughed. “Yes, Tater.”
“Better.”
5. who wants to fit in anyway
“I’d like to apologize in advance,” Jack said, as the car turned the corner and joined the line waiting to drop them at the hotel entrance.
“Oh, sweetpea, it’ll be fine,” Bitty said, resting a solid hand on his knee. “It’s just a big fancy party.”
It was, in fact, a major You Can Play formal fundraiser, to which he and Bitty were invited as Living Proof That Gays Can Play Hockey, and therefore the single most stressful social event Jack could possibly imagine. “We can bail as soon as you want. We could bail right now.”
“No we can’t, they’re probably gonna talk about you during the speeches, you have to be t here for that.” Bitty squeezed his knee. “It’ll be fine. You know more people in that room than I do, and you can always talk about hockey.” The car pulled up to the drop off spot. “Dear lord in heaven, that’s a lotta cameras.”
“Not too late to split,” Jack said, reaching for the handle.
“Let me pretend I’m Beyoncé for a minute, Mr. Zimmermann,” Bitty said. “C’mon.”
Jack opened the car door, and sighed at the flashbulbs popping as he stepped out, and then extended his hand to help Bitty out. This was gonna be a long night.
The red carpet was blinding. Jack hoped to hell that he hadn’t sounded like an idiot to any of the three ‘reporters’ who’d asked for a soundbite about inclusion and diversity. He leaned into the pressure of Bitty’s arm against his, and Bits squeezed his hand a little harder. “You’re doing great,” he whispered as they entered the ballroom. “Now don’t let me get too liquored up, I don’t want to make a scene.”
“What kind of scene?”
“Oh, you know, could be twerking, could be punching a homophobe.” Bitty critically eyed a waiter passing by with a depleted tray of canapés. “What did they do to that poor shrimp?”
Their table, luckily, was full of guys Jack knew, and their dates seemed to be real human beings and not placeholders here for the flashing lights, so that was good. They did in fact mention him during the speeches, and Bitty nudged him knowingly. It wasn’t until after all that was over, and Jack was ten minutes deep into a conversation about draft strategy with the AGM of the Sens (poor guy), that he actually realized he wasn’t hating it.
Ten minutes after that, Bitty slipped an arm through Jack’s. “What’s got you so excited?”
“Oh,” Jack said, realizing he may have gone over his conservation partner’s limits. “Sorry.”
“No, this is great,” Lucas said. “Honestly, we could use a strategist like you in the front office. Ever wanted to live in Ottawa?”
Jack laughed politely and made his excuses to let Bitty drag him to the dance floor. “Here that, Bits? If I blow out my knee, Ottawa will take me.”
“Honey, I love you, but if I wanted Georgia’s summers and Montreal’s winters I would just do that,” Bitty said. He curled in as Jack pulled him close, and their feet fell into the slow sway of the music. “Look at you, making nice. I knew you could do it.”
“How much longer?” Jack spun them slowly, letting Bitty’s weight against his chest calm him.
“Mmm, give me a couple turns on the floor and we can split,” Bitty said. The song transitioned into something faster. Jack tried to follow the tempo, but didn’t really pick it up until Bitty started tapping it out on his shoulder. “Okay, we’re definitely investing in dance lessons before the wedding.”
“I can do this,” Jack said, and used his arm to guide Bitty through a spin.
“That’s a good start,” Bitty said as he came back in.
“I can work on it,” Jack said, and realized his face was starting to hurt from smiling.
+1. all the bad things disappear
“You doin’ okay, brah?” Shitty said, and Jack turned to see him sticking his head out onto the balcony. He nodded, and Shitty stepped out and closed the door. “I’m shocked you’re still awake, frankly.”
Jack laughed. “Yeah, well, turns out that the adrenaline rush of getting married wears off just as slowly as the cup one does.”
“That’s just bragging,” Shitty said, and put his arm around Jack’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”
“For what?” As far as Jack was concerned, all he’d done today was turn up in a suit and not fall on his face at any point.
“Character growth, my dude, that’s what.” Shitty kissed him on the cheek.
Jack turned around to face the apartment. Inside, most of the under-thirty wedding guests were flopped around the living room, eating leftover cupcakes (not as good as Bits could have made, but even he gave up at the prospect of catering his own wedding, eventually). It hadn’t really been a plan to have an after-party for the wedding, but first Bitty’s cousins helped pack up the food, then the SMH crew helped with loading things into the cars, and Tater and Snowy latched on to the growing crowd, and it just…happened. “We’re grownups now. That’s weird, right?”
“So weird,” Shitty agreed.
Jack’s eyes settled on Bitty, who was sitting on the couch talking to one of his cousins. Or—no. He wasn’t talking, he was nodding, his eyes not quite focused, his hands not gesticulating in time with what he was thinking but quietly rubbing each other in his lap. “Oh no,” Jack said.
“What?” Shitty said, turning around.
“I gotta go rescue Bits.” Jack passed Shitty his glass of water.
“You romantic motherfucker,” Shitty said, shaking his head.
Bitty didn’t even see him approach, still staring vaguely in the direction of…Lily? Lucille? It wasn’t Lulubelle, that was a step too far even for the Phelps-Bittles. Meanwhile, she didn’t appear to realize anything was wrong, and was deep into some story about people whose names Jack didn’t recognize in the least. He leaned over and touched Bitty’s arm. “Excuse me. Sorry, Bitty, can I borrow you for a minute?”
Bitty visibly startled, as if waking up, and said “Of course, sweetheart. Gimme a minute, Lydia, hon?” He stood as if on autopilot, and methodically gathered scattered cupcake wrappers and empty bottles as Jack inefficiently herded him into the bedroom. “Wait, what?” Bitty said as Jack closed the door. “I just—I should put these in the kitchen.”
“Eric,” Jack said, pulling the trash from his hands and dropping it on a dresser. “I think you’re tired.”
Bitty swayed for a moment, and then collapsed forward onto Jack’s chest. “You might be right.”
Jack wrapped him in his arms. “Let’s call it a night.”
“We have guests,” Bitty muttered into his shirt.
“They’ll forgive us.” He started nudging them across the room.
“They’ll think we ran away to have sex,” Bitty muttered, as Jack encouraged him to sit down on the bed. “Which normally is something I would be into, but right now…”
“Maybe a nap first,” Jack said, turning on the bedside lamp and going over to turn off the overhead. When he turned back around, Bitty had pulled off his jeans and slid himself over to his side of the bed. Jack crawled in next to him and pulled up the sheets.
Bitty curled up into Jack’s chest. “It went okay, right?”
And Jack wanted to say something about how all that really mattered to him today was the moment when Bitty smiled up at him and said I do, but he knew that all the details mattered to Bits, that he cared about whether the food was served at the right temperature and the napkins were folded right, so he said “It was perfect.” Which was true, anyway.
“Promise me something,” Bitty said, and Jack could feel the tension start to drain from his body.
“Anything.”
“Promise me we never have to have another wedding.”
“Absolutely,” Jack said, and closed his eyes.