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Bitty is lying on his bed scrolling through Twitter when his door flies open, banging against the wall. He startles so hard he almost falls off the bed. When he looks up Lardo is standing in his doorway. He glares.
“Eric Richard Bittle,” she announces, “I just saw you like a Tweet which means you’re not doing your homework, which means we’re going to Superberry.”
He narrows his eyes at her. Superberry usually means crisis froyo, but he can’t for the life of him think what her crisis might be about. She’s seemed less in crisis lately than he’s seen her in a while.
Lardo apparently has no time for his musings because she opens his closet to throw a coat at him, followed by socks, and then a pair of shoes. The shoes hit him in the face.
“Ouch,” he gripes, doubling down on his glare but pulling the socks on anyways.
This is a well-worn routine of theirs that started the second semester of Bitty’s freshman year. They were both hanging out at the Haus one day, Bitty stressed out of his mind about playoffs and Lardo stressed about getting art block on a project for class and she’d dragged him out for crisis froyo. Since then, it’s become a sort of tradition. Part of that tradition includes the part where they don’t talk about what’s going on until they have frozen yogurt in hand.
Lardo suprises him though. Instead of heading straight for their favorite table by the window once they’ve paid, she grabs the hand of his that isn’t holding yogurt and drags him out of the shop. He follows her across campus, curious about what exactly is going on.
“Is this not crisis froyo?” Bitty asks, as he follows Lardo into the art building.
Lardo shakes her head and she’s grinning. “It is not, but I didn’t want anyone else inviting themselves along and everyone in the Haus knows crisis froyo means back off.”
So, it’s something she wants to talk about in private, Bitty thinks as she lets them into the senior studio.
The studio is predictably empty seeing as all the senior students had their big semester show a couple days ago. They sit down on the floor of the quiet room, backs against her desk.
Bitty’s barely taken a bite when Lardo turns to him, eyes dancing with mischief and says,“You, Eric Bittle, owe me deets.”
So that’s what this is. Bitty’s sophomore year, just before Winter Screw, when he foolishly thought it might go well enough that he’d have something to share, he and Lardo had made a pact that they would share deets with each other immediately, and that they would absolutely never share those deets with anyone else. Of course, then he’d panicked before his Screw date could kiss him. And then he hadn’t even bothered trying to date anyone else in favor of quietly pining away for Jack.
“Now, I absolutely respected you violating our pact in order to not out Jack,” Lardo continues, “But now that you guys told us you’re together, there’s no excuse.”
Bitty grins.
“Mmm, and will you be sharing too? If I recall correctly, this was a two-way pact and I know you’ve been getting up to something with Shitty.”
Lardo laughs.
“Why do you think we’re here instead of at the Haus? I’ll tell Ransom and Holster at some point, but you know they’re gonna be insufferable and I’m not ready for that yet.” She pauses, then adds more seriously, “And I didn’t want to tell you what was going on with Shitty and make you feel bad for not being able to tell me about Jack.”
Oh. Bitty didn’t even think about that, but it’s such a thoughtful, Lardo thing to do.
“Thanks,” he says quietly.
Lardo knocks her shoulder into his, “Got your back Bits. Now spill. I know you’ve been dying to gush about Jack for months. Let’s hear it.”
God has he. He’s spent so long wishing he could tell her what was going on now that he can he doesn’t even know where to start.
“So, start at the start,” she says when Bitty tells her that. “You guys said it happened after graduation, but I want details. What’d he say?”
“He didn’t even say anything,” Bitty laughs, “He just showed up at the Haus, completely out of breath from running across campus, called me Bitty for the first time, and then kissed me.”
Bitty can’t help but smile and sigh a little dreamily, thinking back to that day.
“And then?” Lardo prompts impatiently.
“And then I had no idea what that meant and was too scared to ask. I mean I’d been in love with him for months, so I was going to take whatever I could get. If all he wanted was some summer fling, I would have said ok.”
Lardo scoffs. “I cannot imagine Jack ever saying the words summer fling.”
Bitty groans. “I know ok, and he made it pretty clear that he was serious about us, but what was I supposed to think when my completely unattainable straight boy crush was suddenly kissing me and then running off so he didn’t miss dinner with his new NHL boss?”
“What’s he like as a boyfriend?” Lardo asks. “I bet he said I love you really early.”
“Yeah,” Bitty murmurs, thinking about that week in August. “He’s just so—well, you know him Lards, he’s so intense, or you know, focused, and it’s all these little things that are just so—”
Bitty makes a frustrated noise because he has no idea how to explain it all.
“I mean, we said we’d wait to tell anyone about us to be safe, but it was getting to be a lot, keeping it a secret. And I just called him because I needed to vent, and next thing I know he’s driving straight from the airport to the Haus because I was upset. Or it’s like— When he was down in Madison, he was helping me in the kitchen one day and my mom was telling him about this kind of baking chocolate we like but don’t usually buy because it’s so expensive, and then when I got to his apartment in August, he had that chocolate in his pantry.”
“Ooh wait,” Lardo says, “I do have a question about Madison. Jack told me you guys had sex when he was down there, what happened?”
“When did he tell you that?” Bitty squeaks.
Lardo shrugs. “At brunch.”
“I was sitting right next to him!”
“Yeah, and while you were busy having a conniption about the fact that we’d already figured it out, I asked Jack if you kissed a bunch and junk when he went to visit and he said yes. Which in Jack talk means he made sweet, sweet love to you like in those godawful country songs he likes.
Bitty can feel his face get hot, which only serves to encourage Lardo.
“Ugh fine. Yes, we had sex. It felt too risky to do anything in my house, but my dad let me take his truck to go watch fireworks, so we went out to a family friend’s field and… I mean one thing led to another; you know?”
Lardo makes a delighted sound and punches him in the arm.
“Damn dude, I was joking about the country song thing but apparently that was spot on.”
“Soooooo,” she says after Bitty doesn’t respond, “Was it good?”
If Bitty thought his face was red before, it’s definitely on fire now.
“Yeah,” he mumbles, burying his face in his hands.
Lardo doesn’t respond right away, so Bitty takes the opportunity to eat his frozen yogurt.
“Ok, wait,” Bitty says, “You totally dodged the question at brunch, but how’d you figure it out? That we were together?”
Lardo laughs.
“I mean last year I thought you might have a crush on him. When I was crying to you about Shitty after my art show last year you seemed to understand what I was going through a little too well. And,” she smirks, “Jack is not as funny as you think he is.”
Bitty opens his mouth to protest, then snaps it shut. He’s pretty sure anything he says in response will just make Lardo chirp him even harder.
“So, I knew you had a crush on him, and then when you left your notebook in my room with all the little hearts doodled around Jack’s number, it was pretty easy to guess that your crush had turned into something more.”
“I can’t believe you figured it out because I was acting like a middle school girl,” Bitty groans.
“Hey, you’re banging an NHL hotshot, I think you’ve earned the right to be cheesy about it.”
Bitty rolls his eyes, but she’s kind of right. It’s not his fault that he never got the chance to be like this about someone before.
“Speaking of our post-art show sob session,” he says, changing the subject, “That night you said you were going to tell him how you felt before he graduated. That didn’t happen, did it?”
Lardo sobers. She shakes her head, smiling a little wryly.
“It didn’t. Instead, I convinced myself saying anything was going to ruin things, so I waited until he tried to tell me he loved me this summer, then I basically ghosted him until September when I finally told him how I felt.”
“But things are good now though?”
Lardo nods. “So good,” she says quietly, smiling a little.
Bitty has to bite back an excited squeal because he has never seen Lardo smile like that before.
Then the smile drops of her face, and she sighs. “Now that we’re… together, and things are good I feel so stupid for being scared but…”
Bitty shifts to lean against her and waits for her to continue. He’s had a feeling she’s been gearing up to talk about something bigger than just sharing deets.
“I didn’t become the team manager until a few months into my freshman year, right? And by then I’d already made connections with art people. And when they heard I was going to be managing the hockey team they either rolled their eyes and acted like I was a sellout for associating with athletics to help pay for college, or they asked me which hockey boy I had a crush on. And then I kept overhearing assholes at Kegsters asking the guys which one of them I was sleeping with, or if it was all of them. It made me feel so gross. But I figured it was fine because it wasn’t like I was ever going to catch feelings for a hockey player, let alone ever date one.”
She laughs.
“And then I was in Kenya, crying on Skype because I missed a hockey player. And then I was crying to you after my Junior art show because of a hockey player. And I…”
She trails off and Bitty leans his head against her shoulder.
“I mean. You get it. You try so hard not to be what people think you’re going to be, and then you feel stupid for not letting yourself be happy because of what they had to say.”
Now it’s Bitty’s turn to sigh because yeah, he does get it. He thinks about every time he’s had to fight the urge to change the way he looks or change the things he did because he was afraid to be “too gay”. Afraid to be the stereotype that he’d spent so long getting made fun of for being.
“I know it’s not the same,” he says, “But yeah.”
Lardo groans.
“The worst part is that I’d somehow managed to convince myself that Shitty was going to start acting like that if I told him how I felt. Which is dumb because he would never have said anything like that in the first place.”
“It’s not dumb,” Bitty says, half to try and make her feel better, and half because he’s still trying to convince himself that it’s ok to feel that way. “You feel like you stop being yourself if you become what other people say you are.”
“That’s exactly it,” Lardo says after a minute. “I didn’t want to stop being his girlfriend and stop being Lardo.”
“Yeah,” Bitty says. A contemplative silence lingers between them for a moment before he registers an important part of that sentence. “Oooh wait you’re letting him call you his girlfriend?”
Lardo ducks her head, embarrassed, but she’s smiling. Her usual chill completely gone. “He hasn’t but, um, I would be ok with it if he wanted to,” she mumbles.
Bitty squeaks excitedly.
“Oh my god, you’re in looooove with him,” he teases, completely unphased when she shoves his head off her shoulder.
“Shut up. You and Jack are like obnoxiously in love. Don’t think I didn’t hear you call him sweetpea.”
Bitty giggles, good feelings bubbling out into laughter. “Whatever, he likes it.”
“Yeah,” Lardo laughs with him, “I bet he does.”
They continue on like that for a while, exchanging the stories they haven’t been able to tell anyone else yet.
At one point, Lardo shifts from her new position lying on Bitty’s stomach to look at him.
Bitty lifts his head up from the floor to gripe at her for digging her chin into his stomach but pauses when he sees the serious look on her face.
“Not to make things a bummer again, but have you thought about coming out to your parents again?” she asks.
Bitty drops his head back to the floor. Lardo is the only one who knows he almost came out to his parents last Winter Break. They’d been texting and he’d had a little wine at dinner and had been frustrated with questions from his relatives and asked her if he should just come out right then to get it over with. She’d managed to talk him down, encouraging him not to do it on a tipsy, emotional whim. He’s grateful for that, but sometimes Bitty wishes he’d done it anyways.
“Every day,” he sighs. “I just. I want to tell my mom about him so badly. And I don’t want to have all my family members ask me if I’ve gotten a girlfriend yet when I go home for Christmas. But… I love him, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do if they don’t understand that. Or if they stop loving me because of that and…”
He trails off, not sure how to continue.
“Aw Bits,” Lardo says sympathetically. “You’ll figure it out. And I got your back no matter what.”
“I know.” And then he adds, “I’m really glad you decided to become the hockey team manager even if it meant you had to deal with people being jerks to you about it.”
Lardo moves off his stomach to lie next to him on the floor. When she turns her head to look at him, she’s smiling. “Yeah, Bits, me too.”
Bitty thinks about the first time he met Lardo, when he was still a frog, still unsure if he was where he was supposed to be. But now, lying on the cold concrete floor of the senior art studio, Lardo lying next to him, and their empty froyo cups next to their heads he thinks there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.