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There wasn’t much to tell, he explained what seemed like a million times. Bronze medalist Jimmy Scott was rude and ignorant, and thought just because they were in the middle of a medal ceremony he could get away with talking like he wouldn’t dare talk in the parking lot. Silver medalist (silver with an asterisk - he’d been screwed on his performance score and everyone knew it) Eric Bittle had taken it upon himself to remind him of the manners his grandma raised him with. In full agreement were Mrs. Scott, Coach, Moo Maw, Kayta (especially about the performance score).Agreeing on the fundamentals, with reasonable points of dissent were Mama (“Dicky, you can’t fight the whole world. You think Beyoncé starts a brawl every time someone says something ignorant to her?”) and Uncle Ray (“Nice right, squirt, but if that dumb son of a bitch wasn’t such a pussy he would’ve put your lights out. What did I tell you about leading with your chin?”)Unreasonable, pigheaded idiots who didn’t know a fair fight when they saw one included the municipal figure skating club and rink management.Eric had planned his programs around the certain fact that they were going to dock him points for being gay. He probably took a year off his knees pushing his technical score and, goddamn it, it had worked. But they got him in the end anyways.At least at the county fair the judges didn’t know who baked what pie until it was too late. Fuck Mary Johnson and her famous peach crumb, he was sweeping the ribbons this year. Moo Maw’s green tomato mincemeat, wild huckleberry with a lattice to die for, and motherfucking peach crumb. Take it to Johnson where she lived.All Eric’s plans for South Atlantic Juniors, and everything that was supposed to come after, were shot. His new plans were cry, bake, heavy bag, in no particular order. And get Coach and Uncle Ray to keep teaching him to fight, even though he got in trouble for it.This particular Sunday, he went straight to the basement when they got home from church. Baking later. Right now he was multitasking.“Can you keep up? Baby boy, make me lose my breath.” Jab, hook, hook. “Bring the noise, make me lose my breath.” Cross, hook, uppercut. “Hit me hard, make me lose my-““Dicky! Telephone!”“Coming, mother!” he shouted, toweling off sweat and tears before pausing the music and running up the stairs. He’d paid a cadre of baby cousins (Carrie, Shawna, Jamie, and Phil) two bucks a piece plus a share of any resulting pie to hunt berries for him, and he was expecting a report.But Mama just shrugged like she didn’t know who it was.“Hello, this is Eric Bittle. May I ask who’s speaking?”“How do you do? Ron Bates, I coach hockey. Matter of fact, we share a rink - I haggle with your figure skating club for ice time just about every month.”“They’re not really my figure skating club any more, sir,” Eric said, casual as you please.“I saw. Hell of a fight. And you can skate, too.”“Thank you, sir.”“Bittle, you ever consider going out for ice hockey?”Eric’s free hand curled into a fist. His mama gave him a warning glance. “Sir, you realize that the reason I took after that boy is because he had a problem with me being gay, and he chose to make it my problem.”“I’m aware. Bittle, I’ll be frank: I can’t promise you you won’t get more of the same in hockey, but I can promise you I won’t be complaining if you take anyone giving you trouble to the woodshed. Fighting’s a part of the game.”That surprised a laugh out of Eric. “Well, that does sound appealing, I can admit. But, Mr. Bates, I never played hockey in my life, I wouldn’t know what to do out there.”“No, but you skate faster backwards than most of my boys do forwards and you’re a good little scrapper on top of it. Look, come down to the rink. Learn the game. Then decide if you think it’s worth the hard work that catching up will be.”No judges, win or lose. Fighting allowed. What if I’m no good? Eric bit his lip. But what if I am? “When?”Two weeks later, he took the money he’d been saving for skating competition travel and bought a pair of hockey skates and a stick.
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Bitty - it was the first time he’d had a real nickname, one that people who weren’t family called him, and he liked it - started to really let himself consider the idea seriously in his junior year, when all the SAT/ACT/college application talk was really kicking into high gear at school. One day, after practice, he finally got up the nerve to ask.“Coach Bates, do you have time to talk?”“Sure do. What’s on your mind, Mighty Mouse?”Bitty steeled himself like he was about to drop gloves on a guy twice his size. “I want to play for the Sin City Mob. How do I get there?”A large part of Bitty had expected the first bona fide bill-paying adult he told that to would just laugh and laugh. The rest had expected “Of course you do, you’re seventeen.” Coach Bates just grinned. “Sin Bin City, huh? That’s a good choice for you, Bittle. If Parson’s in for the long haul, and so far signs point to yes, they’ll be playing your style.” Bitty knew he was mostly talking about speed and puck control, but only mostly.“‘Broad Street Bullcrap?’” he asked with a grin.Eyes sparkling, Coach Bates shrugged innocently. “I only call it that when it doesn’t work. And lately, you’ve been making it work.” He tapped his pen to his teeth thoughtfully. “I’d tend to push you towards the NCAA path for a few reasons, Bittle. One is because you’re a late starter. You’re good now, but you keep working like you have been and in four years you could be great. Another is the same reason that you’re going to hear from everybody - no one gets to the NHL without a lot of lucky breaks. You more than most need to have a fallback in case of front office crap or career ending injury.“Bitty nodded. That was true for several reasons. The ones that weren’t fair were hard to swallow, but the fact that it was also true because some goon might put him out for slewfooting his forward made it go down a little easier. If he was going to live dangerously, might as well earn it.“A bakery,” Bitty said, well aware that this was an ambition only marginally less likely to be laughed out of the room than his Plan A. “That’s my fallback.” “Then my advice for you, Bittle, is to find yourself a Div I school with degrees in restaurant management and full rides for hockey. And start working on that tape now, not next year.”“Yes, sir!” Bitty grinned and snapped off a flippant salute that Aunt Pat would definitely have bawled him out for. (He missed Aunt Pat. If she were stationed closer, he might know how to shoot a decent takedown by now. Proximity to Dayton was definitely going on his list of college pros and cons.)Bitty didn’t truly realize how unsubtle he had been about his dreaming until he saw how relieved his parents acted when he started talking about college again. Well, that and the sudden end of Uncle Ray’s ever escalating stories about that time he moved to Florida because this woman he was seeing wanted to open a gator ranch. With the benefit of hindsight, Bitty supposed Mama put him up to that - she’d seen that Kent Parson body issue in his sock drawer, after all.Heh. Maybe Bitty should have kept quiet a little longer, see if he couldn’t get Uncle Ray to start claiming he had in fact been eaten by these gators reared on the unwise decisions of young love.Bitty spent all spring and summer working on his tape. Every game he found someone to tape him - Coach, Mama, Uncle Ray, assorted cousins, any of the other guys’ people who were there and willing to be bribed with pie. Moo Maw even dug out all her old tapes of him figure skating, the ones she’d had Mama take for her when she was laid up with her bad hip and couldn’t come see him skate. Meanwhile, he printed out a list of all the Div I hockey schools in the country and started crossing off names. He needed a degree that would help him open a bakery (his parents didn’t even balk, apparently even that sounded staid and realistic compared to the NHL), an athletic scholarship (Coach helped, he was pretty much an expert by now thanks to the football boys), and some LGBT student life - Bitty didn’t want a keep your head down kind of scene (Mama beamed when he mentioned that - he knew she worried about him finding somewhere safe). In the end, he applied to ten schools. Samwell College offered him a full ride.
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“Hello, Internet Land! This is it - the Samwell freshman dorms. I’m really here!” Bitty clapped his hands to his cheeks in delight. It still hadn’t really sunk in that this was really happening today. He was at this very minute in college, living in a single where he could come and go at all hours and bring back as many boys as he wanted. “Oh my goodness, the campus is so gorgeous, and the gym is amazing and free for students. They even got an MMA class on Tuesdays, so I can finally pick up some real moves.”“And speaking of which, it’s twelve hours to our first skate! I got a lot of apology pies to bake before tomorrow’s scrimmage. I just hope the boys like pecan, ‘cause they surely ain’t gonna like my checks.” Bitty gave the camera his best finger guns before shutting it down for the night. He’d gotten into vlogging back when he was cutting his tape together and discovered he kind of liked it. So now he had a journal, on the internet, with recipes and hockey fights. Lord, that last part was going to be easier now he was on a team where games got recorded without pie kickbacks.And speaking of his team, he’d better get to working on those apology pies. He put his power baking playlist on his earbuds and headed for the student kitchen. It wasn’t like Bitty was in the habit of injuring his own teammates, but a little elbowing and hooking never hurt nobody. Of course, if someone wanted to drop gloves on him for it, he wasn’t planning on backing down. But Bitty’d found that a little pie went a long way in ensuring there were no hard feelings. Of course, if someone wanted to start something over him being gay, all bets and all pies were off. But Bitty was praying it wouldn’t be like that here. (Along with, Mama had told him, all the gals from her Wednesday night PFLAG meetings in the UCC church basement.)Once he had ferried half a dozen pies back to his dorm room to cool on his window sill, he headed to the shower (which was one floor down - his floor got the kitchen, though, so he wasn’t complaining), then returned to his now delicious smelling room and flopped into bed, looking up at Kent Parson in all his gorgeous, fast skating, soft handed, elbow throwing glory. Though he was only part-way unpacked, Bitty’s first act as an independent college student with a room of his own had been to hang a centerfold poster of his celebrity crush over his bed. He felt too keyed up to sleep, but he had to. You only got one chance to make a first impression, and if you were five six and a half and playing hockey you’d better make it a good one. He needed to be at the top of his game tomorrow. Maybe his next act as an independent college student with a room of his own should be to blow off some steam and christen the bed. Sighing, he turned Señor Bun discreetly towards the window, then let his eyes fall half closed as he slid a hand down to tuck the waistband of his pajama bottoms under his balls. Bitty took himself in hand, just holding at first as his mind cast around for a fantasy. He eventually settled on the old standby - his loving boyfriend, who happened to be Kent Parson, had driven all night to very dashingly climb in through his bedroom window, because he couldn’t bear to be away from Bitty for one moment longer. Was that the plot of a Celine Dion song? Yes. Was Bitty ashamed of this fact? No. He gave himself a gentle squeeze and felt his cock starting to fill as he imagined the scene.He’d be sleeping and feel the bed dip beside him, a gentle hand stroking his hair. Hey, you.Mmm? Kent? Bitty touched the corner of his mouth where he’d be kissed. Honey, what are you doing here? I missed you so much, and after that fiasco with the Avs, I- (Said fiasco had occurred in February. Bitty had been doing a lot of comforting off that post-game presser.)Oh, honey, it wasn’t your fault. You know that ref was a homer. Bitty kissed his own fingertips. I’ll take care of you, Kent.Oh, Bitty. Hand cupping his cheek, thumb stroking the spot just in front of his ear that always made him shiver. Please, baby, let me-Bitty’s hand was playing the dual role of his hand on Kent’s cock and Kent’s hand on his. (They probably really did have the same calluses.) With his free arm, he snagged a pillow to nuzzle and cuddle up with as he cupped his calloused palm over the head and rocked against it. Oh, honey, yes, just like that.Imagining sleepy, familiar handjobs as they snuggled under the covers got him off quick and easy. A little more rubbing and he came with a shiver, face pressed against his pillow. Bitty groped for the hankie on the bedside table, cleaned himself up, and made a mental note to put move it to the laundry basket tomorrow. He wondered if, now he lived alone, he’d unlearn the habit of coming silently. Heck, come to think of it, now he could actually buy a vibrator without dying of embarrassment. College life, he thought, snuggling up to his pillow and pulling Señor Bun in to join them. Pretty exciting. He drifted off in his new bed for the very first time.Jack’s first impression was of legs, topped with very short, very tight, red shorts and a stack of pie boxes. The arm trying to corral the teetering pies was decorated with a charm bracelet. Keeping his eyes resolutely on the bracelet instead of those thighs, Jack saw skates, rolling pin, rainbow cross, hockey stick, kitchen mixer, boxing glove, pie with a slice out of it. Olivier and Sławik had already arrived, so this one must be-“Oh! Well, hi there!” A blond head poked out beside the boxes. “Goodness, I didn’t even see you past my pies, I’m a hazard.” He dipped gracefully to set his pies down on the bench. If he was going to be that size, at least he moved well. “I’m Eric Bittle,” he said, sticking out a small but calloused hand.This was the moment he always dreaded. “Jack Zimmermann.”Bittle shook Jack’s hand warmly, smiling up at him and looking as sweet as his pies. “Well, gosh, honey, let’s win some games together.” He was blushing a little when they let go, but he played it cooler than Olivier, who had apparently never gotten the memo that he wasn’t Quebec’s favorite son anymore and had asked for an honest-to-God autograph.Now that Bittle wasn’t hidden behind a stack of boxes, Jack noticed his (tight) tank top was from some pride event in Atlanta. The rainbow on Bittle’s little cross charm he’d dismissed as decorative at first glance, but combined with the shirt, Jack thought it was a pretty safe guess that Bittle was out and proud. Good for him. Jack tried to push away any more complicated feelings - about himself, about Bittle’s legs, about brave little blond wingers with pipe dreams of being out in the NHL. Stick with Good for him, he told himself firmly.Scrimmage got him a better picture of the three frogs’ play styles. Sławik was a decent goalie - not great, not as good as Johnson yet, but he had potential. Olivier was a jack of all trades, someone you could put out on either line if push came to shove. That was good, because outside of the admittedly stellar lineup of Ransom and Holster (Jack was not calling them Best Friends Line), their defense was thin this year. And Bittle...“Ow! Fuck, Bitty!” Ransom rubbed his side protectively. After Bitty made his pass to Shitty, he called back, “You okay, honey?”“Yeah, fine,” he grumbled. “But I get extra pie. For, like, hazard pay.”“You got it!”, yelled as Bitty zipped off around the net to make a nuisance of himself. From his vantage point, Jack couldn’t quite see the details of the ensuing scuffle behind the net between Bittle and Olivier (who Coach Hall was currently trying out as a winger), but by the end of it the puck was back with Shitty and Coach Murray was yelling, “Bittle! Two minutes for roughing.”“Yes, sir! Sorry, hon,” Bitty added to a slightly disheveled Olivier as he skated off the ice. Who got himself penalties for roughing during a scrimmage? If this was how Bittle played with his own team, what was he going to be like against opponents?“Coach,” Jack leaned over to mutter, “did you recruit us the world’s smallest goon?”“You saw how fast he is,” Coach Hall replied, “and he has soft hands.”That was not a no.“Well,” sighed Bitty, fidgeting in front of his webcam, “they liked the pie. I guess. And I didn’t have to fight nobody. So that’s nice.” He planted an elbow on his desk and his chin on his hand, fingers drumming distractedly on his cheek. “I got all dolled up in my pride tank top and my freakum shorts and it didn’t get me hit on, but it didn’t get me hit neither, so that’s something.”Finally, he threw up his hands, all his frustration escaping in a rush. “Would you play ‘how few bites can I eat this in?’ with a pie you like? I can’t fathom why you would. But why on earth would you play it with a pie you don’t like?” He huffed. “Downright felonious. And them boys were chirping me for playing dirty.”“Anyways, it’s been a big day. Today’s lucky numbers are: Six pies, three assists, nine penalty minutes. Y’all take care, and I’ll see you next update.”
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(Sorry it’s been a little while - things have gotten pretty busy around here between classes and practice. I think we got a pretty good team on our hands, I can’t wait for our first game. Just my luck all the boys are either straight or taken.There’s Shitty, who... well, he’s quite a character. I kept thinking he was captain at first - he’s got that way about him, and he has such a good eye for plays. Anyways, we’ve been watching some skating together, and that’s been nice.)“Bitty, if getting shitfaced and yelling at figure skating judges were a sport, I would be at US Classics.”“Oh, honey, you’re speaking my language.”(Mind you, he can get to be a handful when he’s stoned. And a lapful. God save me from cuddly straight boys.Then we got Ransom and Holster, the best D-line I’ve ever played with and just as nice as pie. I hit those boys so much in practice and they’re still sweet as anything to me, I love them.)cross country hockey poll:
does :3 mean “guaranteed pussy?”bro GUARANTEED
unless she’s straight
ask me how i know that :’(omg sandy you are a semi professional field hockey player
how do you even FIND all these straight girls to fall for?I DON’T KNOW it’s like i have a superpower
the worst superpower“Bitty, expert verdict?” Holster asked.“She says except for straight girls. But, well, reverse that, I guess.”“What did I tell you?” said Ransom triumphantly, stealing two fries off Holster’s plate and passing one to Bitty. “Consulting fee.”Bitty beamed at him. “Thank you kindly.”(They say they’re going to find me a guy to take to Winter Screw. I’ll keep y’all posted on that. Lord.Then there’s our famous captain. Honest to goodness, I’m trying not to say anything unkind, but if he keeps up with the attitude I might just give up on that.)“Bittle. You need to eat more protein.”“Oh, honey, is that an offer?” Bitty murmured acidly. Jack pretended not to hear him, but Bitty could see his ears were red.(He’s a heck of a center, I’ll give him that.)They hadn’t even had their first game yet, and Bitty was already daydreaming about dropping out for a professional league. But, he reminded himself over and over, if he thought that was going to get him less personal conflict, he was kidding himself.He was at Samwell College for crying out loud. He’d gone on multiple blind dates set up by his dang D-line. (Not good dates, sure, but at least the dudes had all been cute.) If Bitty couldn’t hack it here, the NHL was never going to be an option.But one problem no pro team had was Jack motherfucking Zimmermann.
Hockey shit with Ransom and Holster!
to drop gloves, v.
To fight, in the noble tradition of hockey bros.
Bro, can you believe Bitty dropped gloves on Jack at practice?
Nah, bro, that was crazy.
The team was in shambles. They had exactly one usable option for defense - Ransom, Holster, Johnson - and a third of it was graduating next year. They were slated to lose their two best wingers to a Fulbright award and the Grand Rapids Griffins. Onita’s head hadn’t been in the game all year and he’d already warned the coaches he might be going on family leave. Einhardt’s knee had him out half the summer and the rust still showed. Their manager was in Kenya.And just in case they didn’t already look like a desperate team in a downward spiral, they went and picked up Bittle, who had racked up more fake penalty minutes before their first game than he had any business getting real ones all season.Jack snapped after the third dirty hit of the day, when Bittle cross checked the shit out of Farhat, who wasn’t even mad. He just chirped him with an elaborate pie order once he got his wind back, which was, for the record, a disgustingly good distraction tactic with Bittle. Jack could just see the wheels turning in his head about transparent apples from Michigan, all butter crusts, and “you know that crumb top with the oats and coconut and, like, walnuts - I think they’re walnuts. I don’t know what it’s called, but you know it, Bits, I know you know!” Jack was pretty sure that crumb top cost Bittle a goal.He cornered Bittle as soon as the play stopped. Because it was embarrassing, and Jack told him so. Bittle was bringing the team down, and Jack told him so. This wasn’t how Samwell Men’s Hockey was going to present itself, and Jack told him so.“This isn’t a joke. Either get with the program or quit.” Bittle’s eyes flashed and he skated back a step, drawing himself up to his full height, such as it was.“Alright, then.” He dropped his gloves and beckoned.“I’m not going to fight you, Bittle, you’re-“Even Jack could admit, it was a fair enough shot. Bittle had made his intentions very clear. But, fuck, the little shit was fast, and he hit hard enough that Jack’s initial resolve not to hit back went out the window. Jack’s swings at him felt awkward and clumsy, thrown off by the height difference and the flurry of blows taking the wind out of him. He rocked Bittle with a wild forearm to the side of the head and Bittle caught him under the jaw with a nasty uppercut.“Whoa, whoa, whoa-“
“Bro!”Holster dragged Bitty back at the same time Ransom grabbed Jack.Bittle spat blood on the ice, vibrating like he wanted to elbow the shit out of Holster to get loose. Hell of a time to find him attractive, Jack thought, annoyed with himself. “Let me go, honey, we ain’t done.”“Are you done, bro?” Ransom asked quietly. Jack nodded tersely, shaking Ransom’s hands off him.“Bro, yes you are,” Holster was telling Bitty. “You wanna concuss our best forward pre-season?”That, at least, made Bittle see sense. He let Holster skate him off ice. Jack watched them go. The size difference was so pronounced they looked like a couple of pairs skaters. Then Ransom was turning him around to skate off in the opposite direction.Coach Murray sent him out to get some air. “We’ll talk later, Bittle.” Bitty had kept his dignity enough not to ask right then whether he was being kicked off the team. I’m not, he told himself firmly. They wouldn’t do that. God, what would Mama say?He didn’t cry until he was at the Haus, sitting cross-legged on Shitty’s bed.“Bro, it’s not you,” Shitty assured him, patting his back while he wiped his own eyes. Turned out Shitty was a sympathy crier. “When a bro’s dad is Bad Bob, a bro’s going to turn into a hockey Nazi every once in a while.” Holster and Ransom had already explained Jack’s pre-season bitchiness schedule and Bitty believed them, but so what? So Jack was going to let Bitty know what he really thought preseason and then play innocent the rest of the year? Fucking great. Bitty scrubbed his eyes. “Shitty, I know he’s your friend, but get real. Like you said, his dad is Bad Bob. Do you really think what’s ‘embarrassing’ him so much is me playing rough?”I wasn’t even flirting, a pathetic part of him wanted to explain. Hatso’s got a boyfriend back home, they’re practically married, for God’s sake, I wouldn’t do that.Shitty sighed. “Bro, you would be surprised. I don’t even remember the last time he got a penalty. His hockey robot programming is wicked uptight about playing a clean game.”“Well, he didn’t seem to mind a penalty or two when Parson was winning him games in juniors!” And, shit, that had been loud, he hoped Zimmermann wasn’t home yet, except for the tiny, spiteful part of him that hoped he was.Shitty just stared at him like he was watching the mushroom cloud. Finally he patted Bitty on the back. “Bitty, the only other person I’ve seen Jack treat like that is Parson.”“Oh.” Bitty deflated, hugging his knees to his chest. If he made it through Zimmermann, you can, he told himself, determined to believe it.
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“Let me set the scene,” Bitty said to the webcam, gesturing grandly. “Dartmouth at Samwell, first game of the season. A capacity crowd, loyal fans packed into Faber - well, okay, a few people came. And Nguyennie’s local, so his folks come to the first game every season.“First shift out we got Jack with Singher and Ngyuennie, Best Friends Line on D, and Johnson in the net. And any Dartmouth boys who did their homework are pissing their pants because, honey, that is a shift.“And, let me tell you, those boys went out there to win but, Lord, that Dartmouth goalie was on fire. The period’s going on, and we’re absolutely pasting them on shots on goal, but can’t nobody crack the dang goose-egg, and everybody’s starting to get a little frustrated.”On a purely personal level, watching Jack eat ice was a guilty pleasure Bitty didn’t know he’d ever be a big enough man not to savor. But the more pressing fact was that the asshole winger wearing twenty one just tripped the shit out of their captain and Samwell wasn’t going to stand for it.Holster spent the power play hitting back hard, but he and Ransom couldn’t be everywhere at once. One of their D-men, number eighteen, grabbed Singher behind the net, so Singher elbowed him to get loose and that was what the ref saw. Wehby nudged Bitty in the ribs and leaned close. “That’s the guy you need to put the fear of God into, Hotlanta. See that?” He pointed as Nguyennie tried to sprint for the puck and eighteen hooked him as he passed. While Mrs. Nguyen cussed the ref up and down from the stands, Wehby continued. “He’s only going to get bolder and make the rest of them bolder too. When Coach puts you in, you shut it down.”Bitty nodded seriously. “You got it, honey.” Wehby wasn’t the best pure athlete on the team by any measure, but sometimes Bitty could see the ESPN doc about the Stars’ back to back Stanley Cups under enigmatic coach Gary Wehba. Wehby wasn’t wrong either, the game only got messier and messier. They went into period two still nil-nil, with Other Best Friends Line up front and Ollie and Ops on defense. Seitzer ran that mouth of his until it got him boarded so bad the ref finally grew a pair of eyes and gave the guy two minutes and a game misconduct. Number five was just lucky he did it so close to the door, so he could get to safety before Meeks and Hazy murdered him.They skated their wobbly looking center off the ice grimly, Seitzer’s gushing nose leaving a trail of blood drops.“Oh, honey.” Bitty and Wehby each grabbed a door for them as the they headed for the trainer’s room. Across the rink, five’s substitute finally dared to step onto the ice. The teammate skating to the box to serve the minor wasn’t number eighteen.“Groves, Farhat, Bittle, get out there for the power play,” said Coach Hall. “Fuck ‘em up, boys!” crowed Grover before he had even finished, vaulting onto the ice. “Gay Line rides again!”(Lord love that boy, he was crazier than a shithouse mouse. Solid center, game fighter, always had time to help out with math homework, never met a stranger, and at this very moment almost certainly fucked up on those shrooms he’d traded his Adderall for. “Bitty, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that motherfucker play sober.")“Robledo, Onita, you’re on the blue line. If you get the chance to run with the puck, take it. Let’s crack that goose egg.”Coach Hall wasn’t going to put a hit on anybody like Wehby would, but he had to know what message that lineup gave. These days, Neato hit like every guy on the opposing team was personally responsible for misfolding proteins, and even Bitty could admit Robsy would definitely smoke him in a real fight on solid ground. (Bitty was pretty sure he could take him on the ice, though. “Bits, you think you could take Brock Lesnar on the ice.” “Well, everyone’s the same size once they fall down, hon.”) And on offense, well, Gay Line were all physical players, as Dartmouth had the chance to learn fast. Grover won the faceoff through sheer dogged scrabbling and spun around, putting his body between the puck and the Dartmouth center and throwing back a mean elbow for good measure. Angled the way he was, the feint towards Bitty was convincing, and everyone on the ice seemed to take a half step his way even as Grover slid the puck back to Hatso.Bitty swung around, staying ahead while Hatso barreled up the other side, leaping over eighteen’s stick, which Bitty thought had clearly been meant as a trip, and landing practically on top of Dartmouth’s center.Now, Hatso wasn’t exactly an enforcer, but Bitty knew he could dish out and take some crazy hits. That Dartmouth boy could get out of the way or not, because Hatso surely didn’t give a shit either way. It all happened very fast - Hatso swiveled around to really lay his hip into number seven, eyes scanning the ice for a pass he could make. He faked towards Robsy, and Bitty could see in his mind’s eye the pass Hatso was going to send him, but before the puck left his stick he was doing a mid-air barrel roll and scrambling up on one knee because eighteen thought he could slewfoot a Wellie and skate off the ice.
Oh, we have had just about enough of you, mister, that is it.
Bitty jettisoned his stick and gloves as he sprinted over. He hit eighteen like a bullet and grabbed a handful of jersey as soon as he was close enough. The first four punches landed before eighteen even realized he was in a fight and Bitty knew he had the upper hand. Eighteen was stronger but not as good a fighter and not nearly as fast. Bitty was firing off two or three punches for every one he took, even if those were damn hard. A big blow to the ribs had him clinging to eighteen’s jersey to hold himself up, but one good hit wasn’t going to put him out of this fight, he was winning. Then a ref was on them, trying to break it up. Bitty didn’t intend to be the first to back down, though. Never. Bitty was dimly aware of a couple of the other boys skating over, hovering around the fight like they weren’t sure if they should pull them apart or find their own dance partners. Finally, eighteen let go like he meant to back off and Bitty stopped swinging. They watched each other warily as they let the ref push them apart. Bless his heart, eighteen puffed up like a rooster trying to look tough.Bitty spread his hands. “I’ll behave if you do, sugar,” he said, cuttingly sweet.Hatso gave him a fond thump on the shoulder as Bitty skated past, heading for the sin bin. “What am I gonna do without you next year, Bits?““Oh, hush, you’ll have that McIlrath boy watching your back.”A few of the boys on the bench were thumping their sticks in applause. Even Jack was smiling and, God, did that get under his skin. Bitty put a little figure skating flair in his walk of shame with a big old layback spin like he was Adam Rippon, just to wipe that magnanimous approval off Jack’s stupid face. Don’t do me no favors, Jack Zimmermann.Praying the ref didn’t decide to give him a misconduct, either for instigating or for unsportsmanlike sass, Bitty took his seat in the box and tried not to look as tired and beat up as he was starting to feel. Now that the adrenaline was no longer pumping, he was sure hoping Dartmouth didn’t need any reminders, because he didn’t know if he had another fight in him tonight.By the second period, Jack couldn’t stop thinking about what his dad would do in a game like this. He couldn’t deny that the answer was “drop gloves and put a stop to it,” so when Bittle shot across the ice to do just that Jack found himself full of the exhilarated pride he hadn’t felt watching a hockey fight since - well, since Juniors. Better to leave it at that.It was captivating, watching it play out. Bittle was shorter than his opponent by a good half a head, but he got in close enough that his reach wasn’t a factor and just hung on like a dog playing tug-of-war. Bittle looked good like this, rocked by blows and firing back whatever he got twofold, making his bigger opponent wobble on his skates. It was because he was in his element, Jack thought, in the zone, the same way he looked good flying across the ice with the puck on a string or pinching those little waves onto his pie crusts. That single-minded purpose made him glow. It was funny how that could happen. Like when Kenny started playing his off wing. They’d been together before that but it was like seeing the shots he could make from there flipped a switch, and suddenly Jack just couldn’t keep his hands off him. Neither could the opposing team, for that matter. (In the showers, with Kent laughing and squirming under his hands, Jack used to kiss every one of his bruises. “Zimms, quit teasing.” He’d always been the cautious one before, but Kenny’s laugh made him reckless.)God, this was the last thing he needed to think about in the middle of a game. He tried to redirect his attention to Bittle’s fight. He’d just taken a big hit that had him dangling off eighteen’s jersey like it was the only thing holding him up, but he was still swinging and starting to get his feet back. Jack really thought Bittle might actually drop the guy with those uppercuts - he knew from personal experience they packed a wallop.It looked like eighteen thought so too, because he backed off first, letting the ref separate them. Thank Christ Bittle went quietly, Jack was half afraid he’d keep fighting. Bittle and Farhat were close and slewfooting a guy with an AHL career to think about was an especially nasty move. (Not that Hatso didn’t take worse risks every game, he and Jack had had their share of disagreements over play style.)But Bittle did back off, and Farhat gave him a pat on the shoulder and said something that made him laugh. Hatso might be a fool unto his knees, but he was a smart guy and when it came to giving the frogs a gentle nudge in the right direction there weren’t a lot of guys Jack would rather have on his team. Losing him and Wehby the same year was going to be a blow. Thank fuck he’d still have Shitty next year.“Quesada,” said Coach Murray, “you’re in.” Quesada, Groves, and Farhat was a good line for pushing through a goal, Jack thought as Quesada and his opposite number took to the ice, all fast, dexterous guys and good chemistry with each other. He wouldn’t mind trying Bittle and Quesada with Groves - it would be good to get some sophomores and frogs together, set up some lines that could last a few years.Jack watched Bittle’s showboating celly with annoyance. He’d just gotten himself a major for fighting, not scored a goal. He was lucky the ref didn’t throw in a misconduct. He was going to incite more penalties and undo the lesson he’d just gotten himself winded and covered in bruises to instill.(And, deep down: He threw that figure skating move like he took his best shots on goal, with that fierce, burning concentration that drew Jack’s eyes like a magnet. He was good at hockey but he should be better if he could move like that, if he had that much talent and passion left over for something else. And he was making Jack wonder how his bruises would look, whether he was going to sleep with someone at the Kegster and what it would be like, flexible, roughhousing spitfire that he was.)The momentum had shifted in their favor and Jack could feel it. He’d usually say this lineup was a risk - that forward line needed something solid behind it - but it was exactly what they needed right now for an all out offensive. Robsy was better on offense anyways, the only reason he was playing from the blue line was because they were so shorthanded in that department this year. And finally, finally, they managed to crack the Dartmouth defense. Robsy stole the puck from their center and dawdled long enough to draw some attention, before he sent it down to Quesada, who sprinted up the ice with Groves and Farhat, with all of Dartmouth’s skaters hot at their heels. Quesada sent it up to Farhat when Dartmouth defense got too close for comfort. But with opponents closing in Farhat took the best option available and took a shot. It was as good as it could be under the circumstances, Hatso swept his left arm and leg around to protect the puck from interference, and that worked beautifully, but his shot pinged off the goal. Groves caught it on the rebound.Chris Groves might be the one man on the team - possibly in the world - who was worse at keeping his clothes on in public than Shitty, but he was a solid hand on the ice. He deked twice and made a quick little pass back to Hatso, who sunk it before the goalie even realized where the puck was.“You glorious motherfuckers!” Shitty, not being on the ice to join the enthusiastic mass of hugs, hugged Jack instead. One-nil.“Gay Line! And Queso!” Bittle was on his feet in the box. Groves skated over and launched himself at the glass for a jumping high five that Bittle was too short to reach anyways.Jack leaned forward intently. They needed to keep this momentum going.“Zimmermann, Nguyen, Singh, you’re on deck.“Good. Nguyennie’s parents cheered like crazy as the three of them moved up to sit on the ledge, ready to go as soon as it was time.Groves sent the puck to Quesada, who dumped it over in Dartmouth’s end. The line change went fast and smooth - Jack and Singher were flanking the Dartmouth winger who’d chased down the puck in no time. Jack snagged it away and swooped around to get them some space to work. It was one of those plays that looked like a practice drill, like there were no opponents on the ice at all and he, Nguyennie, and Singher were just practicing their passing and doing a textbook impeccable job of it. Singher took a big slapshot. Nguyennie picked it up off the stick save and tried again from closer in. The puck was still loose and of Jack could just get his stick in underneath and-“Yes!” Nguyennie saw it go in first and jumped, pumping his fists in the air. As he landed he swept Jack into an exhilarated hug and patted a hand over his helmet. Singher crashed into them a moment later, thumping their backs and rubbing their helmets, followed by Robsy and Onita. “That was fucking beautiful!” Onita sounded happier than he had all preseason and Jack had the fucked up idea that maybe if they had a good enough season he might actually be able to stick out the year and graduate on time. And, of course, in the image in his mind, both Onita’s moms were alive and well when he brought home a diploma and a trophy, because no terminal illness would dare interrupt a really great hockey season.Jack could recognize exactly what his mind was doing and he knew from experience that he needed to shut it down. Concentrate on this game, he told himself firmly. No imaginary consequences or side-bets with fate, just this game.Time served, Bittle skated back to the bench while they swapped out with Shitty, Fefita, and Wehby up front and Ransom and Holster in back, a solid shift for playing some good, defensive hockey and holding the lead they had. Samwell finished out the second period two-nil and ready for a win.“And just-“ Bitty gestured with his stick, trying to illustrate for the viewers how Jack had done it “-right through the five hole! Jack still may not be my favorite guy on the team, but seeing him skate like that-“ he fanned himself theatrically “-ooh, honey, I would’ve let him poke his stick between my thighs too.” Bitty collapsed into giggles, face in his hands. “Oh God, I oughta edit that out. I’m gonna get myself in trouble.” He grinned sheepishly at the camera, cheek propped up on his fist. “High spirits, y’all, that’s my excuse.” And regular spirits. And that kegstand. Honestly, half the reason he was awake to record this was because he was still chugging water and waiting to sober up. “My first college game and we won! I even got an assist third period.”“See, what happened is, I got two for roughing - and it was a fair call, I guess. But who calls roughing minors with three minutes left in the game? Anyways, Dartmouth is down two and they ain’t getting what they want out of the power play, so they pull their goalie and go all out. So they’re coming down the ice hell for leather and the penalty clock is counting down three, two, one, Bittle is free! I swear I never skated faster in my life than I did coming out of that box and wham, I take their right winger into the boards and send the puck to Ransom - pow! One-timer! He snipes it from half way down the ice, right into the empty net!” He pumped his fists and expressed his triumph via high frequency sound.The fringe curtain by his bed parted and his hookup, Robbie the lax bro, blinked sleepily at him. Bitty flushed guiltily. “Sorry, hon, I didn’t mean to wake you.”“Holy balls, did you make that noise? I thought you had an electric kettle or something.”Bitty snorted as Robbie rolled out of bed and came up behind him to rub his shoulders and kiss his neck. “What’cha doing?”“My vlog. It ain’t live or anything, I can edit you out if you want.”Robbie scoffed. “I always wanted to be an internet celebrity.” He ducked his head down, chin on Bitty’s shoulder. “Hi, everybody. Don’t listen to anything Bittle says, lacrosse rules, hockey drools, we beat them at beer crew.”“Oh, shoo!” Bitty laughed, swatting him away. “Go get me a Gatorade, if you got so much energy.”“Mmm, you got a tip for the delivery boy?” Trailing a hand down Robbie’s chest, Bitty hummed thoughtfully and said, “I’m sure we can work something out, sugar.”Bitty watched him leave appreciatively before spinning his chair back around. Say one thing for those lax bros, they sure did look good without shirts.“Oh, Lord, I’m bright red, ain’t I? Okay, y’all, we better wrap up now, before the rest of this video ends up being for premium subscribers only,” Bitty said with a grin and a wink. “Today’s lucky numbers are: seven penalty minutes, one assist, and one pie. See you next time!”He clicked stop on the recording and saved it. Editing could wait until morning.The one pie of the day was a chess pie he’d drunk baked with Robbie, challenged on his bragging that his recipe was so easy a lax bro could do it shitfaced. Then they’d had a floor picnic because neither of them were looking for commitment right now, let alone pie-in-bed levels of commitment. Robbie came back holding two Gatorades in front of the half chub that was rendering his boxers more than a little indecent. “Oh my goodness, I don’t have any cash on me,” Bitty deadpanned. “My coin-purse is just so empty, honey, what ever am I going to do?”Robbie tossed the Gatorades to the bed, followed by Bitty, laughing and ready to wrestle. Today really was everything he’d ever dreamed college could be.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
(All y’all singing Robbie’s praises in the comments are a bunch of troublemakers, that’s all I got to say about it. “Romebro and Julibit” my eye.)The one upside to living in the freshman dorms was that he didn’t have to face the chirpy music until team breakfast.Most of the boys had been too shitfaced to notice precisely who he went home with, so Bitty’s arrival was met with the customary applause and wolf whistles.“Get it, Bits!” Hatso yelled from across the room. Bitty flapped a hand in a dismissive, “oh, you” gesture and took his usual seat beside Shitty, trying not to look sheepish.Shitty just shook his head and said, more in sorrow than in anger, “A lax bro, bro?”Across the table, Ransom and Holster looked comparably scandalized at this revelation.“Whoa, Bits, you nailed a lax bro?”“Bro, I don’t know if I can high five you for that.”“Wait, someone slept with a lacrosse dude?” Grover’s boyfriend piped up from the next table over. “What’s the fine for, like, high treason?”“I can fuck the lax team if I want,” Bitty insisted loudly, just in time for Jack to walk in with his tray, then promptly turn around and walk right back into the kitchen again. “Ffffuck the LAX team is literally a bylaw! With four f’s!”“Haus bylaw thirteen,” Shitty mused, stroking his mustache. “You make a convincing argument, Bitty.” He clapped Bitty on the shoulder. “Legal literalism wins the day.”Bitty adjusted his laptop on the desk. Good Lord, this hotel lighting made that eye look grim.“Hey, y’all. If you’re wondering about the change of scenery, it’s because I’m recording from our very first roadie of the season! We’re here to play two games against Pennbrook and today was the first. And if you’re wondering about the headlight, well, turns out our home games are real different from playing on the road.” “Bunch of homophobic motherfucking fucks!” came the emphatic verdict from the other bed, not for the first time. “What Shitty said.” Bitty grinned ruefully, split lip throbbing. “The good news is, we won! Jack got a hat trick and so did I, kind of. The bad news is, mine was the kind where you get an automatic game misconduct instead of points and, well.” He gestured at the general state of his face. “Y'all should see the other guys, though.”Bitty thought it was the fourth two hundred pounder to check him into the boards who took the extra trouble to inform him that this wasn’t figure skating, but his count was a little shaky. “Why, thank you for reminding me, honey,” Bitty said, throwing down his stick and gloves, “I just plum forgot I could do this.”Bitty knew it would be a rough fight, with a guy this size. What he didn’t expect was just how rough.The guy could hit was the problem, he busted Bitty open with his first big right and showed no signs of slowing down. Bitty didn’t have a prayer unless he could get him down to the ice. He wasn’t about to shoot a double leg on a guy wearing razor sharp skates, but one advantage he did have was a low center of gravity. He planted his left hip in under Mr. It’s Not Figure Skating’s and tried to pivot him over.It was a trick he could pull off maybe one in four times but, luckily for Bitty, this turned out to be the one. They hit the ice with Bitty on top of him and still swinging.When hands gripped his shoulders, Bitty almost threw an elbow back, only realizing at the last moment that it was a ref, of course it was. Fuck, he was keyed up. He felt like he was back home, but with college sized opponents.He climbed stiffly to his feet and spat blood on the ice, hoping he hadn’t looked as clumsy and winded as his dance partner did now.Unable to resist a parting shot, Bitty said, “You know, sugar, there’s easier ways to get a man on top of you than that.”The guy - number five, he could see now - lunged at him and Bitty had enough pride that he had to try to get back at it too, and then the officials were between them again and threatening ejection. Bitty let himself be skated to the box.The five for fighting he expected. The two for instigating was a nasty surprise. He kept his mouth shut - if that was how the ref was, argument from him would only buy him a misconduct. And just this minute what Bitty wanted more than anything in the world was a chance to get back out there and kick the shit out of somebody.He cooled off some sitting in the box for five. It helped that Samwell killed the penalty, and that Fefs nailed a dude into the boards right by the box, right before Wehby happened to skate by and throw Bitty a big, unsubtle wink. By the time he was finally free to return to the bench, Bitty went quietly. Coach Hall thumped his shoulder and gave him a nod.“Go see Crystal. If she says you’re okay to go back out there, I’ll start you with Farhat and Groves next period.”“Yes, sir!” He made his way to the back, doing his best to look healthy and praying the Concussionfinder General would let him leave her lair a free man.Bittle came back from the trainer’s room glowing and gave Coach Hall a big thumbs up. Jack was happy for him. Happy for rest of the team too, for that matter, a frog getting benched in his first roadie would be a hell of a blow to morale even without the ugly circumstances. Jack didn’t have time to dwell on it before it was his shift again. His opposite number for the faceoff was number five, sporting some good bruises where Bittle got his licks in, Jack was grimly satisfied to see. Now, facing off with Jack, number five was affable. Probably wouldn’t ever have noticed Farhat or Robledo or Onita or even Groves. (Wouldn’t have noticed Jack.) What a chill bro, everyone would have said after the game. Jack didn’t challenge him to fight. It wasn’t the kind of thing he needed any scouts wondering about. He beat him at the faceoff and told himself firmly that hockey was the best revenge.Two goals later, skating off the ice for intermission, it still didn’t feel like it, and not just because Sławik was having enough of an off night to leave them tied up at two-two.Back in the locker room, the mood was... weird. Not exactly low, but tense and antsy. Jack did what he usually did when he needed some captain-ly advice: leaned against the locker next to Wehby’s and consulted with his predecessor.“Think there’ll be another fight?” “Oh, yeah.”“Okay, everybody,” Coach Hall said, “we proved we can score on them. This is the period we build up a lead. Groves, Bittle, Farhat, Robledo, Onita, you’re starting. Johnson, you’re in the net.”Beside him, Wehby leaned in to ask, “You see what Hall’s doing?”Jack nodded. “Sending a message to Pennbrook.”“Bits, sure. But the unit's a message to us,” Wehby said, then, Texas accent depending to burlesque, “Ain’t nobody gonna chase us Wellies off the ice.”“Hall’s not fucking around about that instigating call, eh? Fucking good,” said Neato as they made their way to the ice. “That was a fucking bullshit call, eh?”“Tell me about it,” said Robsy.Hatso shook his head. “Fuckin’ McKenzie brothers over here.”That got a laugh, then Onita cried, “Take off, ya hoser!” and set the three of them off again.Bitty looked to Grover with pleading in his eyes.“Don’t ask me,” Grover told him, shrugging, “I’m from Mercury. We didn’t get CBC on the light side.”They were just about in place, Thank God, because what on earth (or elsewhere?) was he going to say to that? His opposite number was Pennbrook twelve. Looking around, Bitty realized five wasn’t on the ice.Bitty looked up at twelve guardedly. “Hey.”“Hey.” “You gonna start some?” “Dunno.”Bitty nodded. “Okay.”That was that, for a while. Twelve wasn’t afraid to lay it in, but he wasn’t vindictive about it and Bitty thought maybe there wouldn’t be any more nonsense.Everyone played squeaky clean and kept the peace through the first few line changes, but Jack could feel the tension building. Then Shitty got into a shoving match with their center. Jack didn’t hear exactly what the guy said to start it, but he could guess the general topic and it ended in two for roughing on Shitty’s part, plus ten when he argued with the ref - Shitty thought the Pennbrook center deserved an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. The ref disagreed.Homer or homophobe, that ref had just signed up for a period and a half of utter fuck-you chaos. Fefita was throwing borderline legal checks left and right, Wehby was slashing and hooking every time the ref’s eyes were elsewhere, and Pennbrook wasn’t shy about giving it back either.The instant they changed lines Bittle skated right up to the biggest guy on the ice and gave him a big, sultry once over. He licked his lips and asked like it was a proposition, “You wanna go, honey?”That was one was to make sure the answer was yes, Jack thought, wincing. Big number ten caught a grip on Bittle’s shoulder before he could even get near him. It was the first time Jack had seen Bittle fail to get in close and, Christ, he hoped it was the last. Bittle was struggling just to reach ten with his punches, let alone land them with any kind of force. Maybe it wasn’t true, but Jack thought the refs weren’t breaking it up as fast as they had when Bittle had been winning. Some twisting and struggling on Bittle’s part left both of them helmetless and finally the refs stopped dawdling and put a stop to it. Five each, no extras this time. A brief halt was called to scrape the blood off the ice. Crystal escorted Bittle to the back to go take a look at him.“Bits!” Hatso yelled to them from the bench. “I got superglue in my bag if you need it!”Bittle flashed him a thumbs up.It was shaping up to be a long game.At least he wasn’t concussed, Bitty told himself. Crystal had put him through his paces first thing (“If you’re out anyways, might as well just go to urgent care for the rest.”) and her verdict was that unless new symptoms popped up later he was probably in the clear. He turned his eyes up to watch as she went in for another stitch, trying to focus on how the slash of purple scar tissue wrapping around her forearm moved with the flex of her muscles.“What’s that one from?” Bitty asked. Crystal paused, needle in hand, to see where Bitty was looking.“Hm? Oh. Barbed wire match. You need a break, champ?”“No, thank you.” He gripped the arms of the chair. “I’m ready.”Bitty clenched his teeth and tried not to make a fuss as the needle poked through his eyebrow once again. She’d had him get his phone and put some music on, so between Beyoncé in the background and Crystal telling him war stories from her athletic days, Bitty was hanging in there. (Crystal’s career path, as she had explained it to him: “I used to play roller derby, until I messed my knee up. So I switched to wrestling, until I really messed my knee up. Then I thought, well, hell, I know where the job security is, and went back to school for sports med.”)“Atta boy, you’re almost done.” Another stitch. “Just a couple more.” “Can I finish the game?” Bitty asked, tightening his grip on the edges of the table as the needle sank in again.”If you’re not concussed, I’m not going to pull you over stitches.” She put in another with meticulous precision. “There we go.” Finally, she put down the torture implements and patted him on the back. “Fifteen stitches for number fifteen.”“Thanks, Crystal.” He grinned up at her. “What kind of pie do I owe you?”“Bribery will get you nowhere. But can you make pecan?”“Honey, I am from Georgia.”She snorted and ruffled his hair before handing him a cold pack. “Keep that on that eye over intermission, see if we can’t keep the swelling down. Anything hurting more than it should?”He shook his head. “I really think it’s just bruises.”Pushing her glasses up her nose and adjusting the Samwell-red scrunchie holding her twists back, she gave him a last, skeptical once-over. “And what are you going to tell me about right away?”“Headache, dizziness, or nausea,” he recited obediently.“That’s right you are. Okay, kiddo,” she said, “go tell Hall you got the green light. Try not to get in another fight, it’s gonna hurt like a mother if you bust those stitches, believe me.”“I’ll try.” He did try. He couldn’t claim he started the third period playing squeaky clean - one thing about being small, it made it easy to sneak in the occasional elbow without getting caught. With that in mind, Bitty couldn’t really blame number three for hooking him when he tried to skate away with the puck. Nobody was even close to open when Bitty felt the first touch of the stick, so he made a desperation slapshot even as he was being yanked off balance. No luck, the Pennbrook goalie got in front of it. They changed lines quickly and smoothly, Gay Line out, Jack, Nguyennie, and Singher in. Those boys were in it to win it, play wasn’t straying far from the Pennbrook net with them on shift.And, God, it was starting to come together. They had the goalie on the run, sooner or later one of those shots was going to get by him. Bitty thought this might be the play, he could feel it. Three quick passes Nguyennie to Singher to Nguyennie to Jack, and Bitty could see as if in slow motion, Jack ready to make a one-timer that the goalie was woefully out of position for. It happened so fast, and Bitty was so focused on Jack’s stick, that he almost didn’t see the slash coming at all. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be as bad as it ended up being, maybe it rode up, but the end result was Jack getting flattened by a stick to the throat. “Holy shit!” Shitty was on his feet. “That’s a penalty shot!” cried Hazy. “That’s a legit fucking penalty shot! Did you see that shit? Holy fuck.”The whole shift crowded around Jack, Pennbrook boys included, as Crystal shot onto the ice like she was in skates. Even Johnson was skating over from the other net. Bitty leaned forward along with the rest of the boys, breath caught in his throat, trying to catch a glimpse of Jack and praying it’d be of him getting up and skating off the ice. Please, God, let him be okay.After an agonizing pause, the crowd parted and, with Crystal and Nguyennie steadying him, Jack managed to skate shakily off the ice. Seeing one hand hovering protectively at his throat made Bitty’s chest clench. Jack was a real piece of work but he was tough, and seeing him show any weakness past his hockey robot facade was shocking.As they left the ice, Nguyennie broke off and skated to the bench. “He’s breathing okay, gotta hurt like a motherfucker, though,” he said. He scooted up in front of Bitty and leaned in to tell him, “Hey, Crystal said to tell you to leave it to Holster.”Bitty gave Nguyennie a shrug and a cockeyed grin that he returned.“She’s gonna be wicked pissed, man.”“I’m making her a pecan pie. Can’t nobody stay mad after that, honey.”Nguyennie snorted and patted him on the shoulder. “Does Jack get a pie?”Heaving a sigh, Bitty reminded himself that his mama had raised him to be charitable and said, “Of course he does. Does Jack like coconut?”“Bro, you gotta Skype Ransom’s aunt, she has the best coconut meat pie recipe.”“Holtzy, he’s talking about cream pies. Because Jack just got decapitated,” said Ransom, at the same time as Ollie was insisting, “Bitty, if you’re doing a meat pie, you should make him tourtière.”Coach Hall’s voice interrupted their conference. “Seitz, Meeker, Hey, Oluransi, Birkholtz, you’re starting on the power play.”Bitty watched the line change with a white-knuckle grip on his stick. Number six skated to the box to serve his double minor. Four minutes. In four minutes he’d get his shot.Best Friends Line and Other Best Friends Line (“How are we Other Best Friends Line?” Hazy always complained. “They’re practically frogs!”) took the ice for the power play.On the Pennbrook side, Bitty’s first fight of the night, number five was back out as center. And, oh, was that ever going to be interesting, with Samwell’s favorite pest knowing just where to poke. Seitzer was already putting a coquettish sway in his skate, flipping his (admittedly dreamy) flow as he took his place for the faceoff. Bitty didn’t know if Seitzer had any serious interest in guys - well, guys who weren’t his linemates, and Lord knew what was going on there - but that boy was a natural born flirt and all he had to do to rile five up was let it rip.“Oh my God, sometimes I wish we were mic’d,” laughed Queso beside him. “Look at Seitzer go. ‘Why don’t you come up and see me sometime?’” Five blew the faceoff completely and they both cracked up as Seitzer just casually bopped the puck over to Meeks, who headed for the Pennbrook goal like an extremely agile bulldozer. (“You did this to me,” Bitty had insisted last math-set-and-tub-juice Thursday, flopped despairingly across Meeks’s lap. “The average Southern boy on this team is regular sized.”)“Aw, bless his heart, he couldn’t handle-“ Bitty broke off and leaned forward avidly with his breath caught in his throat as Meeks shoulder checked a Pennbrook D-man out of the way and suddenly had nothing between him and the net except the goalie. Goalies underestimated Meeks. They saw a husky, six-six winger wearing a big ol’ knee-brace and figured he was out there to check motherfuckers and, therefore, was somebody else’s problem. But the truth was that Meeks was everybody’s problem. He deke’d just what the goalie would expect - a big Hail Mary slapshot - then snuck a quick, precise shot right over his stick-side shoulder. The Samwell bench exploded while both Best Friends Lines crashed into a big, hugging pile-up in the corner. Tie broken. They were now up three-two. And, Bitty thought privately as he hugged Queso and cheered with the rest of them, two minutes closer to settling up for that slash.Bitty didn’t have time to dwell on it - Gay Line was back in and Pennbrook wasn’t in the mood to give up any more easy points. They bounced back and forth across the ice all shift, neither side even managing any decent shots on goal. By the time they switched out with Shitty, Wehby, and Fefs, Bitty was frustrated and winded. Going a couple rounds with those Pennbrook boys had taken more out of him than he wanted to admit.One more left, Bitty told himself, like he was on the last batch of pies for the church bakesale and running out of steam.He watched the game and tried to focus on catching his breath while the penalty timer ticked down. Pennbrook ran a dump and chase on them and it worked better than it had any right to. With Ollie and Ops out on defense, the only real speed guy Samwell had out there was Shitty, and it only took a couple seconds of Pennbrook’s left wing tying him up behind the net for play to move firmly into Samwell’s territory. The rest of the shift was a demoralizing grind, with Samwell trying to claw their way back to the neutral zone inch by inch.Thirty seconds before the penalty was over, there was a ripple of chatter on the bench.Singher cried “Jack! How you feeling, bro?” and Bitty twisted around in time to see Jack give a thumbs up and a rueful grimace, gesturing at his bruised throat. The whole bench was crowding around him, welcoming their returning hero with hugs and back slaps.In the midst of their celly, Jack’s face suddenly fell. Bitty realized his eyes were on the game and twisted around just in time to see Johnson down low, like he’d just blocked a shot with his thighs, with the puck sailing over his head.They were tied back up again, three a piece, and the power play was seconds from ending.“Coach Hall?” Bitty prompted. He couldn’t ask to go in and fight, but the coach had to know. After a tense moment, Coach Hall glanced at Jack and the livid bruise wrapping around his neck. He turned back to Bitty with a single, sharp nod. Then he put Gay Line back in.There wasn’t any etiquette when six skated out of the box, no honor among goons or cordial “you wanna go?” Bitty just went for the motherfucker.It wasn’t a sucker punch, Bitty told himself, because he threw it from the front. He nailed number six right on the chin and hoped he did it as hard as six had nailed Jack in the throat. With adrenaline pumping through his veins and the Pennbrook crowd baying for his blood, fatigue seemed distant. Bitty felt like he could go ten rounds. But he intended a KO in the first.Six didn’t know how to throw anything but huge, flailing windmills. The ones that connected hurt, and Crystal had not been kidding about those stitches, but as long as Bitty kept his head right and didn’t get in front of them he would be just fine. That was more than could be said for six, starting to stagger back, reeling and teetering. When the collapse came it was slow and ugly, six crumpling to turtle up on the ice. The thought struck Bitty with a weird, detached clarity that it was really lucky that Jack was cleared to play. Otherwise he might have kept swinging on and earned himself a suspension. Part of him still wanted a fight, wanted to drag six over to the Samwell bench to let Jack see. Bitty made his fingers uncurl, dropping six’s jersey. The sound seemed to switch back on. The ref was yelling at Bitty, struggling to make himself heard over the crowd’s singing.
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye!
Bitty was polite, he was agreeable, but he did bend down to grab six’s stick along with his own. He took that to the bench instead.It was only the pain catching up with him that made the stick shake when he held it out for Jack. Their eyes met. “Take it, hon. He can come over here and apologize to your face,” Bitty said. A ref had already caught up to hustle him off the ice, but Bitty would swear he caught a glimpse of their hockey robot captain cracking a smile.Crystal marched him back to the her domain and made him hold a towel to his reopened cut while she put him through the same rigamarole.Finally, she passed judgement. “Well, as far as I can tell, you got lucky again. You know you’re not going to get lucky every time, right?”“I know,” Bitty said, looking fixedly at his skates. There was blood on the right one, how did he get blood on his skate? As if to answer the question, another drop fell from his chin and landed on the laces.Crystal sighed. “Okay, come on, kiddo, I’m not about to lecture you while you’re bleeding all over the floor. Stop looking like I ran over your goldfish, huh?”“That doesn’t even make sense,” Bitty protested, but he did feel better as he let her tilt his head up and take the towel off. “I almost want to send you to the hospital for this crap,” she said, examining his eyebrow more closely, “since you’re out for the game anyways.”“As the crowd so kindly informed me,” Bitty said demurely.Crystal snorted. “Biggest heel in town.” She frowned, deliberating. “They suspending you?”“I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”“If you’re going to be getting yourself punched in the face again tomorrow, I’d rather know I put the stitches in myself,” Crystal said finally. “I would too,” said Bitty, and he meant it. He didn’t really know if there was any difference between what Crystal did and what a random doctor who didn’t know a thing about hockey would do, but it seemed like there must be. “Can I watch the game?”“I can point you at a monitor, but no guarantees I won’t be blocking your view for most of it. Stick some music on too.”Bitty did, thinking he really ought to make himself a playlist for this. He settled into the chair, bracing himself. Focus on the game.It was easier said than done. The stitches hurt more the second time around, a lot more, and even when Crystal wasn’t between him and the monitor his eyes tearing up made his vision blurry.They were still three-three with only minutes left on the clock. Bitty gripped the arms of the chair and blinked tears out of his eyes, trying to see the play. Jack’s line was out, advancing with quick passes and trying to get back in the zone.Pennbrook swooped in and stole the puck when Nguyennie missed an opportunity to pass to Jack, and Bitty realized exactly what had happened.“He can’t call plays,” Bitty said in sudden dismay.Crystal tsked as she pushed the needle through again. ”Sometimes it takes a few days with guys getting a puck to the throat - that’s where I mostly see the throat injuries coming from. Not slashing. That was a fucked up hit.” She paused. “Don’t, like, let your parents sue me for cussing in front of you.”“Can that even happen?” Bitty asked, trying not to flinch as she put another stitch in.“I don’t know,” she said. “But, if it can, I plan on never finding out.”The play was too close to Samwell’s net for Bitty’s comfort. A close call made Bitty flinch, but Johnson made the kick save.“Stay still,” Crystal reminded him. “Sorry.”“Don’t apologize to me, you’re the one with the needle in your face.”Ransom intercepted the puck and passed it to Singher, who was a gorgeous stick-handler and fast. He sprinted up rink and suddenly they were back in the game. The boys on offense were starting to get it together, Nguyennie and Singher doing enough communicating for the three of them and Jack following their calls with typical graceful efficiency. Bitty held his breath as Singher swooped around the net, drawing two Pennbrook guys hot on his tail and leaving Jack open to receive his pass.This time, with less than a minute left in the third period, there was no slash to stop the one timer.“Yes!” Bitty half jumped out of the chair, remembering at the last moment that he was currently attached to Crystal by a string running through his eyebrow. “Crystal, Jack got a hat trick! We’re going to win!”“He sure did.” She patted his head awkwardly with her free forearm. “But now we’re turning it off before you rip your face off. And we’re never doing this again, my blood pressure can’t take it.”“Okay,” Bitty said. “Sorry, Crystal, thank you.” “Yeah, yeah.” She put another stitch, steadying his head when he flinched. “You’re doing good, Bittle, I know it’s a lot.”“How many more?” He tried to keep the whine out of his voice.She looked him over. “About a dozen.” He groaned and she gave a him sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “So when I tell you not to get in a fight tomorrow...?”“I’ll try,” he said, settling back into the chair and listening for the end of the game. Crystal sighed and added a stitch. “Where have I heard that before?He was still getting stitched up when the game ended. Four-three, Samwell. They really did it. Bitty was honestly a little fuzzy on the parade of back pats and chirping. He did remember taking selfies with Hatso, trying to concentrate on serving supermodel face instead of the fact that his eye had finished swelling shut and that that whole side of said face felt like one giant bruise that throbbed in protest with every stitch.“There you go, kiddo, all done,” Crystal said finally, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “Good job, Bittle. Really good job.”“Thanks, Crystal,” he said, suppressing an undignified sniffle. “Okay, tough stuff, you get another six hundred milligrams of ibuprofen in-“ she glanced at the clock “-three more hours. No scoring the hard stuff off your pals.” She cut off his and Hatso’s protests before they could open their mouths. “Don’t even bother, I know somebody has something, I have been in a dang locker room before. But you don’t get none of it. Capisce?”“Yes, ma’am,” said Bitty miserably. It wasn’t that he’d been exactly planning to hit Hazy up for a quarter of a Percocet (inheriting the Phelps tolerance was sometimes a gift). He’d just been very keenly aware it was an option, that was all. “Just keep on icing it. If by curfew it’s still hurting to where you can’t sleep, we’ll get you some Tylenol 3, okay?”“Okay. Thanks, Crystal.”She and Hatso helped him up and Bitty headed off to shower (carefully) and change (even more carefully). Shitty was still hovering around Jack, but he looked calm enough that Bitty figured Jack must be doing okay. Bitty didn’t go talk to them.There were nine missed calls from mama waiting for him on his phone. Bitty winced. He’d been hoping she might have missed streaming this one, it was her quilting circle’s night.Bitty went to stand by the bus, to make sure he didn’t get left behind. “You okay there, son?” Mr. Dupree, their bus driver, poked his head out the window.“Oh, I’m fine, Mr. Dupree, I just need to give my mom a call to let her know I am. She worries.”“I bet she does. Little guy like you. You tell her thanks for the jam, eh?”“I will!” He called his parents’ home phone, guiltily hoping Coach would answer. His mama was still his best friend in a lot of ways, but she did not care for him fighting.“Eric Richard Bittle, what in God’s name was in your head? Baby, are you alright?”“I’m fine, mother.” Don’t you dare get snippy at her because you feel guilty, Bitty scolded himself. He forced the edge out of his voice and added, “I promise, mama. Crystal fixed me right up.” He was pretty sure Crystal was her favorite person at Samwell. (“Honey, prepare yourself for jam, because she will send a crate full.”) “Were y’all watching at Moo Maw’s house?”“Honey, it was Emmy’s week to host. And all her kids were home.”Bitty sucked in a hiss through his teeth. Emmy was one of mama’s church friends and she was a good person, but she had a real bee in her bonnet about raising her children away from violent imagery in video games and movies and music and books and just about anywhere else except football or the Bible.“Oh, Lord.”“Well, you can imagine, Dicky. Here I am, scared for my baby’s life-““Mother.”“-with your Moo Maw and Miss Angie carrying on like it’s nineteen seventy and they’re at a wrestling match, and Emmy‘s so mad she could spit because she wants it off. Thank God for your Moo Maw’s stubborn streak, she just brazened it out and refused to take the hint.”He could just picture it playing out, the escalating tension as Emmy left increasingly unsubtle openings for Moo Maw or mama to suggest changing the channel. “See, mama, I come by it honestly.”She snorted. “I’d rather you get yourself in the dog house with Emmy than fight all those boys twice your size.”Bitty, like his Moo Maw would, just brazened it out. “Did you get to see the end?”“We did! All the girls cheered like crazy, Dicky, even Emmy, it was so exciting. Is that Zimmemann boy who got the hat trick Bad Bob’s son? He looks just like him - so handsome!”“He is. Bad Bob’s son, I mean.” Bitty didn’t even know why he was blushing, Jack wasn’t that handsome. His mama had a good laugh at his expense. “Oh, stop! Y’all can have him, you never had to practice with him when he’s in a mood.”“Is there a special someone, Dicky?”“No!” Robbie the lax bro most emphatically didn’t count. Haus bylaw thirteen wasn’t “go ssssteady with the LAX team.” “Can we please change the subject?”She laughed. “Have you had the chance to check Pinterest since your game? I can not believe what your Aunt Judy just posted.”He opened a browser while she filled him in on the juicy details of this newest escalation in the Bittle-Phelps jam wars. Apparently after Aunt Suzie’s snide reference to artificial additives in her last tutorial, Aunt Judy’s most recent post just so happened to drop the big B bomb and insinuate that other methods than her own were not only inferior but downright irresponsible.“Which is a bunch of nonsense,“ mama continued, “why, they found jam in Egyptian pharaohs’ tombs that’s still safe to eat.”“I think that was honey, mama.”After a minute of mutual googling concluded that it was indeed honey, she continued, “Anyways, the point is, you’d have to try to get botulism from jam, it just doesn’t happen.” She sniffed. “Unlike canned green beans, which I would not trust from any kitchen but my own.”“I’ve never trusted those green beans,” Bitty declared loyally. The fact that this retroactively excused over a decade of Thanksgiving vegetable dodging (“Mama, Katya says figure skaters run on protein.”) was, pun intended, pure gravy.(That particular attempt had earned weeks of so much succotash it was coming out of his ears. “It’s a complete protein, Dicky, and you remember what Katya always says.” His mother was no fool.)“Oh! I almost forgot, mama, Mr. Dupree says thank you for the jam.”“Well, he’s very welcome. I’m just so glad you ended up at a place where you got so many good people around you, Dicky.”“Me too,” Bitty said. “Mama, I gotta go soon. Is Coach there?”“Okay, honey, you get a good night’s sleep and be careful tomorrow.” Then, away from the phone, “Hon, Dicky’s on the phone! And don’t you go encouraging him, mister.”Bitty laughed. “I love you, mama.”“I love you too, Dicky. Here’s your daddy.”“Hi, Junior. That was some game.”“Hi, Coach!” Bitty grinned. “If you can’t ask me how many stitches I got because The Boss will bawl you out, say yes.”“Yes.”“Fifteen after the second fight - God, that was embarrassing! Uncle Ray ain’t never going to let me live that down. And another twenty six after the last one.”“You know what else your mother would say,” Coach said, half amused.“Yes, sir,” Bitty sighed, rolling his eyes. “Is never going to let me live that down. But, to be fair, I’m talking about Uncle Ray.”Coach choked on laughter. Then, lowering his voice conspiratorially, “I’m proud of you, Junior, not letting those Pennbrook boys push your team around. Your mom’s not the only one who worries about you punching above your weight class, but I know you can take care of yourself.”“Thanks, Coach.” Bitty could see the boys starting to filter towards the bus. “I have to go. Love you.”“Love you, Junior. Good luck tomorrow.”After hanging up with a pang of homesickness, he caught up with Shitty. “Heya, Bits.” Shitty slung an arm around his shoulder. “How you feeling, you feisty little fucker?”“I’m okay,” he said. “But, Lord, am I ever gonna sleep like a rock tonight.”“No kidding. At least we beat the fuckers, though!”“Yeah! Hey, do you mind if I record a blog post before bed?”“Nah, bro, record away.”On the ride back to the hotel, Bitty checked what else he’d missed in several phoneless hours. Aside from Aunt Judy’s jam betrayal, he had a text from a 269 area code waiting for him.It consisted of one of his selfies with Hatso and the message “Whoa there, Darren McCarty, you trying to steal my man? ;)” Bitty could only assume that one came from his linemate-in-law-to-be. The famous Alex Unpronouncably Polish Name, as he’d been introduced, (“Honey, didn’t you say y’all were gonna hyphenate?” “Bits, we are, and it’s going to be hilarious.”) was known to the Samwell Men’s Hockey team as the best skating instructor slash weed man in South Central Michigan, who could totally have gone pro if he wasn’t such a free spirit and was just the bees knees in every single way. (“Bro, that is ‘swawesome, just like it was the last three times you told me, and I wish you motherfuckers all the happiness in the world, but you are hereby done with the tub juice for the night.”)His Twitter, meanwhile, was aflame, though Bitty was slightly miffed to discover that hardly any of it was about him. Forty one stitches and a game misconduct and he was still upstaged by a cat playing poker. Okay, by Kit Purrson herself playing poker adorably. He liked the tweet too, just to prove to himself he was absolutely not jealous of a famous stranger’s cat. Besides, Kent had probably worked really hard on that picture, and it was cute. Bitty resolutely refrained from wishing Kent was a dog person, because that would be ridiculous behavior.Instead, Bitty typed out “our brave captain jack deserves a pie. favorite he can eat with a sore throat?” and @ed all the old Rimouski teammates he could remember the twitter handles of. There. His duty as a good teammate was done until he was reunited with Betsy, and he’d even had a legitimate excuse to tweet Kent Parson.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It was a weird day from the start. Kit woke him up at three in the morning trying to tell him something. (“Oh my god, Kit, what? If Little Timmy’s in the well he can fuck off.”) That something was, in retrospect, probably the same something that woke him up flapping against his face. “Holy fuck!” Jumped of bed, nothing - Kent practically jumped across the room. Once he was done having a freaking heart attack, he approached the bed to see what the hell it was, and melted. It was a little baby bat. Okay, maybe not a baby, Kent didn’t know shit about bats, but it was really, really cute and it was wiggling on his pillow and squeaking in distress.Kent hovered over it, knowing he shouldn’t touch bare handed but not sure what he should do. “It’s okay,” he told the bat, grabbing his phone off the nightstand to look up bat stuff. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you. Poor little guy. I’m sorry about Kit, she’s just trying to teach me to hunt.”Kent ended up putting a laundry basket over the pillow and wrapping his sheet around them both long ways. He left the ends of the basket uncovered for air, but he thought maybe the bat would be less scared if it was dark. Then he called Swoops. “Hey, buddy,” he said, dragging the words out to comically wheedling. They were planning to hang out later anyways, might as well just bump up the schedule.Swoops snorted. “Oh no. What’s about to happen to our day off?”“Wanna go to bat rehab?”“I don’t even know what that’s a euphemism for, but sure.”Bat rehab, as Swoops would soon learn, was a euphemism for bat rehab. Robin the Very Nice Naturalist helped get their new bat friend settled in for Linda the Very Nice Vet to look over, then let Kent ask about a million questions. The bat, who Kent and Swoops been calling Blackjack because she had two spots on her shoulders and one spot on her butt, was an adult female spotted bat. They weren’t an endangered species but they were shy. Blackjack did not have a bat family worrying about her, spotted bats were solitary. Kit was probably fine, Kent could check her over for bite marks to be on the safe side, and he should do the same for himself. Yes, Kent could check on the bat’s progress. They ended up taking a couple pictures with Blackjack, who was laying on a warm towel all swaddled up in blankies like a cute little bat burrito. Hockey stars at the local wildlife rescue with adorable critter. Good publicity for everyone. (Kent was so going to talk to PR about doing some kind of little follow ups on Blackjack. It would be great.)By the time they had arrived back at Kent’s place, checked Kit for bite marks, dressed their resulting wounds, and coaxed Kit out from the space between the bookshelf and the wall, it was about the time they’d planned to get together anyways.“Just for the record, you don’t actually have to spend the rest of your day off from hockey watching slightly shittier hockey,” Kent said.Swoops was incredulous. “And miss my boy Sir Flowsalot? What if he gets another hat trick?”Sir Flowsalot had gotten like two hat tricks ever. And Swoops knew this, because Swoops had insinuated his moral support into Kent’s Wellie watching from the start. (Kent wasn’t one hundred percent sure what Swoops’s read on the whole Jack situation was but, well, they’d been roomies Kent’s rookie year.)Hockey Night in Vegas had become kind of a tradition. Beer, protein snacks, hockey, and pretending Kent wasn’t hockey-stalking his ex. It was actually pretty fun.Swoops’s favorite Wellie was the much lauded Sir Flowsalot, aka Shitty Knight, who Swoops could not possibly know had once let Kent cry on him on a roof. Kent liked to think some kind of bestie telepathy had told him Shitty was a solid bro. Other fan favorites included the recently graduated Walrus Guy and Long Goalie, The Goremeister (so named for a really unfortunate skate-flailing post-goal wipeout two years ago) who Jeff was still super salty was going to the Griffins instead of the Scorpions, Giant Baby Winger, who started college way young and also just kind of looked like a giant baby, and young up-and-comer Figure Skating Theo Fleury who, it just so happened, had just gotten nailed to the boards again.“They really got it in for your boy,” Kent told Swoops.“Fuckin’ bullshit,” Swoops grumbled, arms folded. “Jesus, I can see why you don’t fucking come out - Fucking come on, ref!” He threw a cashew at the TV, where a trip attempt had Figure Skating Theo Fleury stumbling, then scrambled over to pick it up before Kit could get it. “Motherfucker wouldn’t try that shit if Walrus Guy was on the ice.”“Walrus Guy was the shit,” Kent agreed, taking the opportunity to steal some of Swoops’s unattended trail mix.In some ways it was typical Samwell hockey. Whenever Jack’s line took the ice, it looked like one of those prank videos where an undercover pro player showed up to someone’s beer league game. Sir Flowsalot’s hair game was on point. Figure Skating Theo Fleury added some trashy fun to their viewing experience with a big ol’ fight. The Goremeister did a freaky jump dodge thing that looked like it was a danger to himself and others. In other ways, the game was careening off the rails. Sir Flowsalot almost dropped gloves on a dude. Figure Skating Theo Fleury got in a second fight and got the shit kicked out of him. And in the third period, that slash, Jesus Christ, waiting for Zimms to move was the most scared Kent had been in years.Kent pretty much checked out of the game after that. When he could see the bench, he looked for Jack. He came back after a while, Kent saw, and he looked okay, but Zimms had always had a pretty hard to crack game face. “Parser!” “Hm?” Kent blinked guiltily at the fight he hadn’t even noticed. Swoops nodded to the guy Figure Skating Theo Fleury was punching. “That’s the guy that did it.”It was, and he was getting the bejeezus knocked out of him. Kent brightened. “Yeah, fuck him up!”“You think Figure Skating Theo Fleury is gonna get suspended?”“Dunno. He had to do it anyways. You can’t just let that stand.”“Yeah, if some asshole clotheslined you with his stick, I’d totally avenge you even if I got suspended, Parser.”“You too, man. Wait, did someone score?”“Giant Baby Winger, man, it was a clutch shot.” Swoops patted his shoulder. “That hit was scary as fuck, eh?”“Yeah.”When Jack took the ice again, Kent found himself stupidly jealous and frustrated watching him and his line mates struggle to communicate. The two of them, back in Juniors, they would have been back on course in seconds. Even watching now, Kent felt like he could anticipate where Zimms was headed, what he was going to do. The wingers on his line were good, for college, but they didn’t have the chemistry with him that Kent always had.The most important thing, though, was that Jack was okay. And the second most important was that Jack still got his hat trick. That had to impress some people. One step closer to every team with a half-decent manager courting him next year. Then if Jack would just sign with the Aces, they could play together again. They’d start training after graduation and be pulling off no-look one-timers by Kent’s birthday. Maybe they would never be hockey’s power couple and kiss on the ice after they won the Stanley Cup together (sixteen year old Kent Parson knew how to dream big, so sue him) and, as much as it hurt to think it, maybe Zimms was right and they’d never even be friends again, but couldn’t they at least play some more hockey?“That game was bananas,” declared Swoops, stretching. “I gotta head home, man, Marcy’s making wings.””Fuck yeah, I’d abandon me for Marcy’s wings too,” Kent said. “Tell her I literally have family skate on my calendar as just WINGS in all caps.”They got about half way to the door when Swopps stopped.“Parser,” he said, nodding towards the dining room, “Your cat’s being cute.”Kent turned to look. Kit was sitting in one of the dining room chairs with her legs splayed out like she was people. “Aw, Miss Kit.”Clearly, her public needed to see this. So Swoops took pictures while Kent arranged in front of her a full complement of silverware and a plate with a toy mouse and a sprig of parsley on it, then a game of poker (Kit’s hand was five aces), and finally an open book. That one was the end of it because when he popped the lenses out of a pair of sunglasses and tried to get Kit to wear them she decided she had business elsewhere.“Aw, sorry, Kitsters,” laughed Swoops. He pulled Kent into a hug as he headed for the door. “Give her a treat for me?”“Will do. Man, we gotta find better diet treats, though, because she hates the ones the vet sent home.”Once Swoops headed out, Kent stuck the pictures on Kit’s Instagram and tweeted the poker ones, since those were particularly on brand. Then he pulled some chicken out of the freezer.“Now I want wings too,” he explained to Kit, who was still sitting on her cat tree looking reproachful. She probably knew as well as he did that if the chicken was spicy, he wouldn’t be tempted to give in to her begging. He really was trying to be good.Once the chicken was in the oven with the secret Parson family recipe of “shitload of butter, shitload of hot sauce,” he settled in to the couch to enjoy a lazy, lazy evening off. Kit came to sit on him while he checked Twitter, because she could sense adulation. The picture of Kent and Swoops with Blackjack wasn’t up yet, which Kent really hoped didn’t mean she’d died and the rescue didn’t want to post such an immediate bummer of a story. He’d call in the morning, he decided. There was one non-cat-related tweet that caught his eye, asking for Jack’s favorite kind of pie that he could eat with a sore throat. Kent almost got up to go digging through the recipe card box for Grandma Zimms’s maple syrup pie recipe before he caught himself.“I am not playing Cyrano de Piegerac for Figure Skating Theo Fleury,” he told Kit firmly. “Not happening. We are shutting that down right now.”The first thing Bitty did upon waking up was to check his notifications and find out his tweet had an actual, honest to goodness reply from Kent Parson himself. It’s just a maple leaf emoji and an exclamation point, Bitty told himself, exasperatedly trying to shoo the butterflies out of his stomach. Lord, you’d think he proposed.Game two against Pennbrook was cleaner - Bitty was pretty sure he Samwell weren’t the only ones in the dog house with their coaches for all the penalties. Those Pennbrook boys were still mouthy, but they’d backed off on the cheap shots, so Bitty was a good boy and stuck to the occasional elbow himself. He even got an assist passing to Hatso, who scored coming off a weird, gorgeous spin-o-rama that looked like it just as easily could have ended with him eating ice.Jack kept his point streak going, not that Bitty cared. Two minutes before the end of period three it was 3-1 Samwell and, even though Pennbrook had the puck, it was pretty clear it was going to stay that way. That was when the guy Bitty was covering cross-checked him in the back of the head.As a twinkling light show flashed before his eyes, all Bitty could think was I better not tell Crystal about this, she’ll think I have a concussion. He hit the ice on hands and knees without even realizing he’d put his hands out. The landing hurt but Bitty was familiar enough with the feeling to make a confident diagnosis: He’d jammed his right wrist, that was all. He could play through that.It all happened in the span of a couple seconds, then Bitty was up and spinning around ready to fight. It was his old admirer number five, real fucking surprise.“Okay, honey, you want me that bad-““Bittle!” Bitty looked to the bench at the sound of Wehby’s voice. Jack was at Wehby’s side, gripping his shoulder like he was desperate for Wehby to get the message across. “Two is less than five, Hotlanta!”And instigating a fight in the last five minutes was an automatic suspension. Bitty gave number five a look of deep disgust and skated away, leaving him to the refs already headed their way. Five would tell them the same thing every guy who’d ever cheap shotted Bitty in the head had - he’d meant to hit him in the body, but Bitty was just so dang short - and probably get off with a minor. With two minutes left, it wasn’t like it mattered.It was time for a shift change anyways. “You okay?” Hatso asked on the way.“Sure, honey,” Bitty said, very casually. “Not like he can really hit.”They piled onto the bench while Jack’s line took the ice. Bitty scooted over to sit by Wehby.“Thanks, hon.”“Always happy to help the frogs with their math,” Wehby said. Bitty snorted. “That one was our fearless leader’s idea, though.”Bitty wrestled down the urge to think up some petty reason to be mad about that. “Well, I’m already baking him a pie.”Wehby clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Good man.”Bittle made him a maple syrup pie.That should be a non-event, Jack told himself, Bittle made pies around the clock. When was he not making a pie? But he’d never made a pie for Jack before. When he showed up at the door Jack assumed he was looking for Shitty as usual. But this time he was there for Jack, all five foot allegedly six and a half of him. He ought to be too banged up to be cute. Bittle had a face full of stitches and all of him was covered in bruises, including a big one on his thigh that kept catching Jack’s eye with the way it peeked out under his shorts and made them look even shorter.“I hope it ain’t too hard on your throat,” Bittle fussed as he handed the pie over, hands lingering on the tin alongside Jack’s. Jack tried to will his circulatory system not to send blood rushing anywhere embarrassing. There was just something about Bittle trying to mother him instead of the rest of the world.“Thanks, Bittle,” he rasped. He considered trying to say something else, what, he wasn’t sure, but decided he could get away with just a thank you. He had an excuse to be taciturn. (“Bro, you sound like the French Canadian Godfather. Talking cannot be good for you.”)Jack hadn’t even realized Bittle had been being cool with him until he melted. “Oh, hon, don’t talk. Your poor throat. You just sit tight and I’ll make you a hot toddy.”Obediently, Jack took his pie over to the couch and sat tight, taking he opportunity to grab a strategically large book, too, just in case he needed to conceal a boner.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Hey, motherfuckers, Bitty told me to tell you he’s not dead, so here’s your video saying Bitty’s not dead. You’ll get him back when he’s allowed to use a computer again. In the meantime, any of you wanna know how to make some serious fucking brownies?”“Hey, y’all, sorry it’s been a while. I’m using up all my daily screen time to check in - which is just as dystopian as it sounds, sweet Mary. But if I’m real good, I can go back to skating next week - no contact allowed for now. And I’ll get to start doing homework again. Can’t forget that.” Bitty sighed gustily. “Some of y’all probably already figured I got concussed. It’s a mild one and Crystal says I’m doing good, but I’m gonna miss another two weeks at least.”“The boys have all been looking out for me, especially - and I never thought I’d say this, but - especially Jack. He can be a really good captain, sometimes.”It was homework that did Bitty in. Too much reading. He tried to push through it, but that mistake had him excusing himself half way through a library cram session with the boys, claiming he had a pie in the oven.Jack caught up with him while he was upchucking in the second floor restroom. “Bittle.”“Would you believe I meant a bun in the oven?” Bitty chirped bleakly. Jack snorted, squatting beside him with a bottle of water. “Here.”Bitty took it without looking at him. “Thanks, Jack.” “What I’d believe, Bittle, is that you’re hiding concussion symptoms.” Jack’s tone was gentle. When Bitty didn’t say anything, he continued. “You’ll miss more games in the long run if you take another hit.”“I know,” Bitty said miserably. He appreciated Hockey Robot Jack for once, sticking to the consequences to his game. You’re an only child, if you fuck yourself up who’s going to take care of Mama and Coach when they’re old?“Come on, Bittle.” Jack helped him to his feet. “I’ll walk you to the health center.”Jack did more than walk him to the health center. When Bitty emailed Crystal and the coaches to come clean, Jack did the typing for him. Same with all the emails to his professors, and Bitty hadn’t even thought about how he was going to handle classes. Jack just walked him through the whole overwhelming process, step by step. He sat on Bitty’s bed with him in the dark and helped him figure out how he wanted to tell his parents.“I want to talk to them,” Bitty said, hugging his knees and Señor Bun to his chest. “But Mama’s going to cry and then I’m going to cry and I- I don’t think I should be getting all worked up trying to comfort her.”“No, you shouldn’t. You’re supposed to be resting your brain, Bittle.” Having Jack say it made him feel a lot less like a weasel. “I could call for you,” Jack added.“It’s kind of you to offer, but I can’t- I can’t scare them like that. Have someone else call them up saying I’m hurt, you know.”“Yeah.” Jack sounded like he did. After a moment, he said, “You could email. Tell them you’re okay, you have a concussion, you want to talk on the phone but you’re not supposed to be under any stress. They can call you. Or me, and I’ll come get you. You should probably keep your phone off.”Jack helped him write that email too. Then he stayed until Bitty tucked himself into bed and promised to stay there as much as possible, and brought him some water and protein bars to keep on the bedside table in case he got hungry between napping.“The more rest you get, the sooner we get you back on the ice. I’ll bring you some dinner later, set up a roster with the boys.““Thank you, Jack,” Bitty said, touched. “You’ve gone to so much trouble on my account.”“I’m your captain, Bittle.”He couldn’t see Jack’s expression in the dark, and he was trying not to strain his eyes.Cheek propped up on one hand, Bitty looked at the camera. “I can’t tell if I just went on a date. I don’t think I went on a date. I should know, shouldn’t I?” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes in frustration. After a long pause, he muttered, “If I did, it was pretty romantic.”“Why are we rollerblading, Jack? Not that it’s not a beautiful day.”It really was. The leaves in the park were just starting to turn, and the little bike path was all but deserted at this time of the morning. But he doubted Jack had dragged him out here at dawn to enjoy a scenic skate around the park.Jack grimaced. “The rink’s booked all day starting at seven.”“Don’t tell me you never got up at four to skate.”“You’re supposed to keep on a regular sleep schedule.”They did another lap around the park in silence. Finally, Jack said, “Are you eighteen?”Sudden irritation swept through Bitty and he asked in a bright, clipped tone, “Are you asking if I was passed up for the draft or is the next question ‘Do you have Snapchat?’”“Huh?”“Oh never mind,” he snapped, then felt immediately embarrassed. “Sorry. I- since May. So, two more chances.”Jack looked at him for a little, as if assessing whether or not he was likely to go off, then asked, “Do you think you’ve got any more height coming?”“No,” Bitty said flatly. This time he wasn’t getting mad, thank God. Jack Zimmermann, for all his faults, was of all people hardly one to be cruel about the draft. “I probably don’t.”He turned to skate backwards so he could look at Jack. “What is this, Jack?”“Strategizing.” Jack took Bitty’s hand to lead him around a turn in the path. “You’re always going to look like a risky proposition, Bittle. You’re smaller than everyone on the ice, you play a very physical style-““Why, Mr. Zimmermann, if that ain’t just the sweetest way anybody ever called me a rat.”“- and you’re gay.”“Find me one show on LOGO without Vegas tourism board ads,” Bitty said with stubborn bravado.“If you get labeled as injury prone, that’s it, Bittle.”“I know.” Bitty looked up at him soberly. He cracked a half smile and asked, “Is this the part where you tell me how I’m gonna convince them to take a chance on me anyways?” He was very gratified to hear it come out sounding tough and sassy instead of pathetically hopeful.“Here,” Jack said, bringing them to a stop and letting go of Bitty’s hand. “Try to stay on the path.”Jack moved in slowly, hands up to push him. Well, two could play at that game, Bitty thought. He grabbed both Jack’s hands like he was one of Moo Maw’s wresting heroes doing a test of strength. They struggled, Bitty going low and trying to dig his skates in, but inch by inch Jack forced him back, until he was in the grass at the edge of the path. Still, Jack was breathing hard and flushed from exertion. That was something. “Bittle,” Jack said, still holding Bitty’s hands. “You see the ice well, you have soft hands, and you aren’t afraid to get hit. But that’s the problem. It’s not just the fights where you’re getting knocked around, and you take a lot of hits you don’t have to.” He held up their joined hands as if to illustrate. “You’re a great skater. You don’t have to take every check that comes your way.”Bitty considered it. He was fast, and he could still move. And as much as he hated to admit it, Jack was right. He couldn’t keep playing the way he had in high school, not against guys who’d kept getting bigger while he stayed stuck at five six and a half. “I’d have to learn to do it right,” he said. “Playing keep-away is one thing, but it don’t matter how many checks I can dodge if I’m not producing.”“We’ll work on it together. Trust me.” After a long moment, during which Bitty could feel the flush creeping up his neck, Jack dropped his hands. “But since we don’t have a rink, for now, let’s start with keep-away.”Bitty grinned. “Give it your best shot, Mr. Zimmermann.”They played tag like kids until the park got too crowded. Bitty let Jack catch him, laughing and winded, by a big shade tree with bright red leaves. For one moment, Jack’s arms were around him as they skated to a stop together. That was a sports-ly bro tackle, Bitty reminded himself, not that he was getting any ideas.When he spun around, Jack was still smiling.“Race you to Annie’s?” Bitty asked, and it wasn’t to have something to say that wasn’t Do you want to kiss me?Jack grinned at him. “Loser buys coffee?”Bitty sprinted towards Annie’s before he could ask anyways.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Lots of the boys had teams they followed, mostly their local favorites. Hatso watched Red Wings games religiously and texted laments back and forth with his baby sister. (“Stevie just sent me three different crying emojis and ‘tell me the story of when we used to be good at hockey again. I like that story.’”) Hey and Neato weren’t so much Canucks fans as “anyone but the fucking Schooners” fans. Robsy was happy to join his line mate in Schooners chirping, but his loyalty belonged to the Aeros, and whenever they played the Stars, he and Wehby sat as far apart as possible on the couch and interrogated unfortunate passers-by about which team they were rooting for. Ransom and Holster had worked out some elaborate joint custody agreement regarding the Rangers and the Leafs. And, with a couple exceptions (Nguyennie usually drove to his parents’ house for Bruins games), most of them watched their hockey on the Haus lounge’s TV. If Jack had had to make a guess before the season started, he would have placed Bittle squarely in the Preds and PredWings contingent with Meeker, Seitz and Hey (in solidarity with Meeker), Quesada (for the Admirals), and Hatso (“But if we face you guys in playoffs this year-“ This schism had yet to occur). The first time Jack saw Bittle his Parson 90 Aces jersey he did a double-take. He found himself staring, cataloguing differences to convince himself that all the times he’d caught himself checking Bittle out it wasn’t just because he looked a little like Parse when he was eighteen and all Jack’s. After that, Jack didn’t think about Bittle’s hockey allegiance much except to avoid the lounge when the Aces were playing. If he thought of it at all, he thought it figured Bittle would be an Aces fan - speed, puck control, and dirty hits, with a franchise player who was on the small side, of course Bittle would latch on to that.Then Bittle’s concussion had Jack in and out of his room. It didn’t immediately dawn on him that the poster of Parson over Bittle’s bed might not be purely an inspirational illustration of his hockey role model’s physique, but he got there eventually. Bitty had a crush on Kent. And once Jack realized it it was infuriatingly easy to see why - Kenny was handsome, young, charming in interviews, charismatic on the ice, supportive of You Can Play and youth hockey teams. The public image of Kent Parson would be easy for a young Eric Bittle to become a little infatuated with. Jack resolutely avoided dwelling with a mix of painful pride and shamefully ugly resentment on how well Kenny was doing. He tried not to wonder if Bitty would have a picture of Jack over his bed if he’d gone first - probably not, his brain supplied anyways, Kent was still the smaller, more personable guy who embodied the style Bittle wanted to play, Bittle would just be at perpetual chirp war with Neato and Hey over the Schooners. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was ponder what kind of chemistry Bittle and Parson would have on the ice if Bittle ever did make it to the Aces. (He couldn’t help but ponder it anyways, usually in the shower. Christ, they would look good together, all that graceful speed, their stick handling would be so tight.)Most of all, Jack didn’t think about how much of their checking practice was him trying to shape Bittle into his perfect winger by teaching him to play more like Parse. Good thing Bittle was an Aces fan, so Jack didn’t have to agonize over telling him to watch tape of Parson.When he holed up in his room to study while the Aces game was on in the lounge, he resolutely thought of none of this. Just to prove how little he was thinking about it, Jack decided to go down to the kitchen and make some chicken nuggets. Shitty, world’s greatest best friend, had stocked up. True, he’d been stoned at the time, so they were all shaped like little dinosaurs, but slightly undignified chicken nuggets were still chicken nuggets.Down in the lounge, the self proclaimed Team Madison (Georgia and Wisconsin, respectively) were on their own, the two of them sprawled on the couch with a pit of miniature pies and a six pack, watching the game and fiddling with their phones. On the TV, Kent, flying across the ice even faster than Jack remembered, caught his eye. He zipped out of the way of a big D-Man with the spin-o-rama Bitty had, at Jack’s encouragement, been working so hard to perfect. Jack turned quickly and walked into the kitchen.As he was pulling a box of tiny chicken dinosaurs from the freezer, Jack heard Bittle squeak in excitement. “Blackjack the Bat is pregnant!”Quesada’s sigh was theatrically long-suffering. “Bitty. Bro. I know so much about that bat’s life.”He could hear the rapid little bip bip bip noise of Bittle’s thumbs flying over the phone keyboard. Jack wondered what he was typing - a congratulations tweet to the bat?“Oh my goodness, do you think Kent knows? The wildlife rescue only just tweeted it. But they could have told him earlier, he says he calls them for updates every day. But what if they only just found out?”“You should Tweet him. ‘Dear Kent, Your bat is In Trouble, but I am willing to do the decent thing and make an honest man of you. You’re welcome.’”Bitty threw a pillow at him.Replacing the box of chicken nuggets in the freezer, Jack retreated. Of course Kent called some wildlife rescue every day for medical updates on a bat. Every unaccompanied pet Kent met, he plied with coos and petting to get close enough to check the tags on. And if the tags didn’t say it was supposed to be outdoors, he called the phone number on the tag to ask. And if there wasn’t a number, he knocked on doors to nearby houses to find out if anyone recognized it. And if no one was home, he cat-or-dog-napped to the nearest open vet to scan for a microchip and called that number, then sheepishly put it back where he’d found it when the whole agonizing process turned out to be a false alarm.Well, that wasn’t fair, Jack chided himself, remembering the time they’d found a cat whose breakaway collar had broken away. (“But he acts like somebody’s pet, Zimms, feral cats just don’t walk right up and demand tummy rubs.”) It turned out the cat had trekked all the way to where its family used to live before they moved. Maybe it would have made it home okay eventually but, well, maybe not. Bittle didn’t know to coo over Kenny for that, Jack thought pettily, that had never had Aces PR pushing it on Twitter.And I was there too, another part of Jack thought, just as pettily. I helped.“So, it’s family weekend at Samwell, and Coach came all the way up to watch my first game back after my concussion.”“Your mother and I arm wrestled for it.”Bitty snorted, warmed by a rush of fondness. Mama had already assured him a thousand times she wanted to come see him, but with getting up here so expensive, just one of them ought to go and it would be better to send his daddy. She just knew she’d cry and didn’t want to make a scene. It still hurt a little that she wasn’t coming, and even though Bitty had done his best not to make a fuss - how spoiled could he be - but he knew they both knew. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Bitty said to his off-camera father, “did I hear wrong when you said you didn’t want to be in my video?”“See that? Now the whole world is going to see you backsassing your old man. That’s why you never put anything on the internet, Junior.”“Oh my god,” Bitty groaned, head in his hands. “Well, anyways, the point is, this video will continue when I’m done getting mercilessly chirped by my own flesh and blood. Which will be Monday.”He showed Coach around Faber, periodically setting up his phone on a stand with the camera on delay to get the pictures he knew mama would wish they took. “Coach Hall is trying me on Shitty’s line, because Queso’s been doing so good in my spot while I’ve been out, and I think he reckons putting me on the same line as Fefs will keep me from thinking I gotta be the one to fight everybody.”“Can’t believe that kid’s not playing football,” Coach said, shaking his head. Fefs failing to grace the gridiron with his presence was a frequent topic of lamentation. “So I’m taking Wehby’s spot and he’s moving to D-line, since Neato’s back in Vancouver taking care of his mom.”“Good man,” Coach said gruffly. His father had passed when Bitty was four, and he’d taken it hard. Bitty had a few memories of sitting on Grandpa Eric’s lap and sounding out words he spelled on his board, and one very vivid one of his father having to excuse himself from a parent-teacher conference when Bitty told his kindergarten teacher that he already knew reading because Grandpa Eric taught him.He sent one fruit pie and one savory pie to Vancouver every week. (“Fuck yeah there is, even Ma’s not politely turning down help anymore. Send food, eh? We’re all too fucking crazy to cook over here.”)There was other news about his team mates - Meeks‘s knee was having a good spell, he said it usually did this time of year, when he was far enough into the season to have dropped some weight but not so far for the strain of play to start really taking its toll. Wicks was finding his stride in the net, last week he’d gotten his very first shutout and Bitty had baked him a pie. Singher was basically done and padding out his senior year with the minimum number of minimal-effort classes, so his game was getting amazing. Bitty did not mention Ransom and Holster’s ongoing quest to set him up with the perfect date for Winter Screw, because his parents asked him about boys more than enough without him going and encouraging them.“And Jack’s been helping me work on not getting checked so much,” Bitty said. “I might get to bust out my brand new spin-o-rama this game.”“Well, I look forward to finding out what that is,” Coach said, deadpan. He ruffled Bitty’s hair. “Let’s get a shot of that trophy case over there, Junior. We need a before picture.”As he was carrying what was a frankly suspicious number of jocks back to Ransom and Holster, Bitty realized hadn’t been this nervous since his first game at Samwell. He’d been playing well in practice but that was practice, where all the boys were barely maintaining a plausible facade of not being extra careful of him.Not to mention Coach was here. Which was silly - his parents watched all his games anyways, the only difference was that he was going to get a hug afterwards instead of an encouraging phone call. But Bitty wanted to impress him - really impress him, not just coast on the baseline unconditional support, he wanted to knock his socks off. Wanting to talk to a hockey friend who wasn’t a Samwell hockey friend, he texted Sandy as he walked.omg i’m so nervoushang tough, bro
even though i know you want to drop out of school and go on the boat with mei kind of don’t
everything you’ve ever told me about the boat is terrifying
way more terrifying than this gameSandy’s winter job was sailing rich people’s boats south for the winter, mostly to assorted tropical islands, which was apparently much less fun than one might guess. (“And we’re like, well, fuck, that ain’t getting fixed until we make port. So now we’re looking at food supplies thinking, how bad do we gotta ration this, and how long are we gonna be eating canned peaches?”) No less than three girlfriends had dumped Sandy immediately post-boat. One had dumped her on the boat, with another week of awkward sailing ahead of them. everyone wants to go on the boat until they go on the boat
who’s giving this pep talk you or me?
pretend you want to go on the boatok i want to go on the scary boatwell you can’t because you have a hockey season to finish
and you have to keep on trucking if you want to fulfill your dreams:
to go play ice hockey in the desert
and to someday give kent parson an unreciprocated bj because it’s not gay if you’re the one doing itBitty muffled his laughter with a sleeve.you always know what to say, old friendHe really did feel better, as he walked down the hall. But at the edge of it hearing and getting louder as he approached, it sounded like someone else wasn’t.Bitty couldn’t understand the words but he could understand Jack’s voice just fine. Thank God he couldn’t understand, Bitty knew his vices - he’d eavesdrop like crazy then feel terrible about it. He still followed Jack’s voice. Jack had been good to him lately and, as much as Bitty wouldn’t have believed it when he was trying to punch his lights out for chewing him out, he was starting to really like Jack.“Are you okay?” Jack lifted his head at Bittle’s voice. “Bittle.”“Sorry, I was just-“For a second the warm concern in those big brown eyes made him forget Bittle couldn’t speak French. “It’s fine. You could hear-“ he said, over Bittle’s explanation of what he was doing all the way over here. “Honey, you’ve heard me order crepes,” Bitty drawled with a self deprecating smile, putting some extra twang in his accent.It startled a laugh out of him. When Bittle sat beside him on the bench, Jack could feel the warmth of him through their jackets. It didn’t really calm his nerves, but at least there was something else going on in his head when he was chirping Bittle about jockey runs and feeling Bittle’s side against his. The endlessly turning wheel winding his guts around its axis wasn’t the only game in town. “My dad’s here too,” Bitty said suddenly. Jack looked at him, words failing to assemble themselves, and felt guilty when Bittle went red. He hadn’t meant the silence to be pointed.“I know it’s not the same, just- let’s fucking wow ‘em, right, hon?” Bitty gave him a big, sweet smile that Jack couldn’t help but return.“Yeah,” he said, standing along with Bittle and holding a fist out. “Just don’t go getting your head busted, eh?”“I’ll only start a fight if they really deserve it,” Bitty promised virtuously, bumping his knuckles. “And I told Coach I’d show him my spin-o-rama,” he added, as they started back to the locker room together.“I can’t wait,” Jack said, and found he really was excited to see all their practice coming together in Bitty’s play. The wheel in his gut continued to twist, but he just had to ride it out. He’d feel better when he hit the ice.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The mood in the locker room was jittery but joyful, and Bitty found himself going from nervous to excited, ready to show off with the rest of the team for their families. A bunch of family members were all sitting together near the glass - Bitty spotted Random and Holster’s folks with Coach, but most of the others he hadn’t met yet. Bad Bob he recognized, of course, and Jack wasn’t the only guy from a hockey family, just the only one from a famous hockey family. None of Queso’s older brothers were at family weekend because they all had their own games today - two in Europe and one called up to Seattle - but his dad was in the stands, chatting with Bad Bob. Bitty didn’t think they’d overlapped on the Habs, but they would definitely have mutual friends. Sal Quesada was a hockey player’s hockey player, a solid, consistent defenseman for all of his twenty-three year career, the kind whose name only came up when more famous guys got asked about dream shifts or most underrated players.It made warm-up fun, having people to wave to, pointing out family members to each other - there were Ollie’s grandparents sitting between Bad Bob and Grover’s boyfriend’s aunt and parents in a little francophone island; Nguyennie’s people sharing their regular section with the Singhs; Hatso’s baby sister and Fefs’s baby cousin, both on trips doubling as college visits, holding their phones up to the glass so their families could watch on Skype; Robsy’s folks, who’d come all the way from San Antonio and Calgary, respectively, sitting together and occasionally waving a big “We love you!” sign between them. (They were still best friends after an amicable divorce which had not, despite the claims Robsy gleefully made to wind up his mother, been precipitated by the Montreal Screwjob. “Stop telling people that, Jose! People are going to believe you!”) By the time Jack and the Yale starting center were facing off for the first puck drop, the whole bench was in raucous good spirits, ready to win one for their families. Bitty cheered when Jack won the faceoff, passing the puck back to Singher. Dodging and weaving, Singher made it just about to Yale’s blue line before he had too many flies on him to go on, then lofted the puck out of the mess. Nguyennie sprinted up to meet it.“Did you see that?” Singher’s mom was on her feet. “What a pass! Uyen, your boy can skate!”Nguyennie swung gracefully around the net. Yale was waiting for him but so were the boys. Nguyennie deked towards Jack and tried a quick, sneaky shot gloveside. For a second, Bitty thought it had worked but, no, the Yale goalie just got in front of it. He didn’t manage to grab it, though, the puck was still loose in the crease. Bitty leaned forward and felt Shitty doing the same beside him.“Oh my Jesus, are they going to do it?”“I think they’re gonna fucking do it, bro.”There was a mad scrabble of sticks and Jack managed to get the puck out of the frenzy and back to Singher. He tried for a shot but there were just too many bodies in the way to put it anywhere good. It pinged off the crossbar and Yale’s left winger, number twelve, caught it on the rebound. The crush of players expanded as twelve skated away from the net. Holster was ready for him. The check had Bitty 100% confident that what Coach was leaning over to say to Mr. Birkholtz was “Your boy’s one hell of a hitter. He ever play football?” Bitty would swear twelve was still airborne when Holster passed the puck to Ransom, that was how quick and smooth it was. He didn’t have time to wonder if Ransom was going to try to snipe it because they were changing lines, and he was in.Bitty zipped across to put himself between his opposite number and Ransom, ready to receive a pass or just be a nuisance as needed. Shitty skated right by Ransom and took the puck with him. He passed it to Bitty.Reviving the pass wasn’t a problem, keeping control of it while he was in the way of what was apparently a giant octopus in a hockey uniform flailing its tentacles at the puck was more of a challenge.Bitty spun around the puck, putting his body between it and the stick currently reaching over his shoulder. The guy couldn’t block Bitty’s left like this, he realized. “Fefs, heads up!” Bitty tried to get it as close to him as he could, but the Yale center managed to intercept and iced the puck before Fefs could steamroll him. Well, at least the faceoff would be on Yale’s side. Bitty looked up (way, way up, good lord, no wonder he could reach over him so easy) at his opponent.Disentangling himself, Bitty asked incredulously, “What was that? Is this middle school prom? That ref was about to skate over here with a flashlight and tell you to leave room for the Holy Spirit, hon.”The guy - number nine, Bitty saw, laughed and thumped his shoulder companionably as they skated over to line up for the faceoff. “Hey, I had to try it, eh? What are you, like four foot two?”“That’s about right,” Bitty agreed serenely. “It must be awful embarrassing you couldn’t steal the puck from me.”“So why all you guys are in such a good moods?” nine asked, shoulder to shoulder with Bitty waiting for puck drop.“It’s family weekend.” Defense was changing lines, Bitty noticed. No offense to Robsy and Wehby, they were shaping up to be a strong offensive defense line, but Ransom and Holster leaving the ice felt like losing their safety net.Nine, meanwhile, glanced over at the much older than usual crowd and grinned, looking genuinely charmed. “Aw, home game family weekend. Sorry we’re gonna win, eh?”Bitty laughed and gave him a push with his shoulder. Nine jostled him back.When the puck dropped, Bitty already had a plan. Instead of shoving back and forth with nine trying to push in front of him, Bitty spun away and darted around his back, finding himself an opening on the other side of him to slip by. Just like playing tag in the park, Bitty told himself.He heard nine yelling “Motherfuck, you’re fast!” Bitty just sprinted up to the net and planted himself in front of the post. Fefs swooped behind the net with the puck while Shitty, Wehby, and Robsy fanned out in front of the net. Fefs sent it to Wehby, who tried for a one-timer, but the Yale goalie made the stick save. Bitty got on the rebound first and snapped it to Shitty.It came right back fast and Bitty had to duck to avoid getting beaned and blocking the shot, but it worked. The puck shot into the net over the goalie’s gloveside shoulder. Shitty punched the air, then Bitty and Fefs both skated in for a group hug, followed closely by Robsy and Wehby. “Nice one, Shits.” “Great shot, hon.”Bitty was still riding the exhilaration when they switched lines. He looked up at the stands on his way to the bench - Coach was giving him two thumbs up.The next two shifts kept the pressure up. Grover, Hatso, and Queso were all fast, innovative finesse guys and Other Best Friends line was the last thing an already rattled team needed to come up against. Seitzer managed to chirp Yale’s center into a big ol’ slash, which he probably deserved. (“I always deserve it,” Seitzer liked to brag.)“Alright, Zimmermann, Nguyen, Singh, Oluransi, Birkholtz, you’re out for the power play. Let’s keep this momentum going!”They’d been working hard on their power play system, Bitty knew. Lord, if they could pull ahead two-nil that would be an awfully comfortable cushion.Jack won the faceoff and sent the puck back to Ransom, who ran it up the right side with Singher. Bitty watched them all swinging into position, Ransom and Holster spread out to the edges with Jack, Nguyennie, and Singher in a line down the middle. Ransom passed to Jack. Jack and the opposing center swayed right and left, mirroring each other warily, and the whole graceful machine rotated with them. Sudden snap to Holster. Holster to Singher while Yale were still realizing where the puck was, and Singher back to Jack. The goalie wouldn’t be able to see a damn thing Jack did with both Singher and Nguyennie in his way. Jack shot. It pinged off the post but Ransom caught the rebound and one-timed it to Nguyennie. Nguyennie sent it to Singher. Singher deked a big slap shot and sent it back to Ransom, who shot low. And made it.“Yes!” Ransom did a big celebratory jump that made Bitty want to get him in figure skates and landed just about in Holster’s arms. Everybody was hugging. The boys on the ice were hugging, the bench was hugging, their families were hugging. Bitty settled onto the bench in a warm, happy glow, ready for the line change. Lord, they were creaming them.With the power play over and Yale back at full strength, they set up for the faceoff at center ice. Jack won the faceoff - it was practically a forgone conclusion at this point, Bitty thought. At least in the NCAA, Jack won faceoffs. That was just how it went.He passed to Singher, who didn’t make it out of the neutral zone before big number nine checked him to the boards and snagged the puck long enough to send it to one of his D-men. With some room to maneuver, the guy found an opportunity to make a long, high pass to Yale’s right winger, number six, deep in Samwell territory. Six took his best shot before Holster could nail him and Johnson made the glove save.A sigh of relief swept through the Samwell crowd. “Thank fuck for Johnson,” Shitty said reverently.The boys set up for another faceoff, this time in the defensive zone.It all happened so quickly Bitty didn’t really understand what went down until watching the tape again after. Jack lost the faceoff, that much he gathered. What happened next was that the Yale center snapped the puck back to number nine, who made a perfect, beautiful one timer clean into the far edge of the net. But all that was clear to Bitty at the time was that some way, somehow nine - Donner to his ecstatic teammates (“Ain’t no party like a Donner Party ‘cause he will eat! You! Up!”) - had just scored. They were still up two-one, but Yale felt like a lot more of a threat with that one on the board.I got in my head, Jack thought furiously at himself for what already felt like the hundredth time as he skated off the ice. There was nothing, not a single thing, that his dad could do or not do that would stop the crevasse from widening, Jack knew that, but he still looked up into the stands for help. His dad waved, gave him a loving smile. Jack’s mind found a way, as he knew it would, to twist it to make him feel worse. This is as good as he thinks I am. If he had any respect for me as an athlete, he would be disappointed. Of course, Jack reminded himself, if his dad had looked disappointed it would be the other way around. Irrational, frustrated anger and hurt rose up in him anyways, that familiar “you’re my parent, you should be able to fix me” feeling, as implacable as it was unfair. The guys he most wanted to sit with while he got his head together were on the ice - Shitty, Wehby, hell, even Bittle. Ransom was on the wrong side of the bench, talking to Holster. Lardo was on the wrong continent.He looked up at the clock. Five minutes left in the period. Chances were he didn’t have another shift coming, but if they had a power play he’d be right back in.Surreptitiously, he rolled his wrists three times, the way he did when he taped a little thermometer to his fingertip and practiced trying to raise the temperature from twenty two to thirty seven. Start with the same gesture every time and the body learned that it meant “time to relax,” or at least that was the idea. He wasn’t sure it really worked, but sometimes it seemed like it helped.Jack took a long, slow breath and focused on the physical task of calming his body down. I can do this. I’m good at this. I’m an athlete, using my body is what I do.The Yale waiting for Bitty and his linemates wasn’t the Yale they’d gone in against last shift. There was blood in the water now.Their center won the faceoff against Shitty and sent the puck to number nine. Falling back on old instincts, Bitty hip checked him hard and tried to take it. It almost worked, too, despite the size difference, but it was too slow and too sloppy. One of Yale’s d-men zipped in and stole it right back, sending it across the rink to his line mate. He was close enough to dump it behind Samwell’s net while Yale’s forward line made a quick change.Ransom was first to the puck and Bitty made a fast enough retreat to be in position to receive it. The second it touched his stick he whirled and sprinted with it. He dodged the winger who tried to check him, but a defenseman nailed him when the tried to swing around behind the Yale net, looking for a pass to Fefs. Then Fefs hit the defenseman, by all appearances even harder, and kept the puck alive with an attempt to pass to Shitty via an impeccably aimed rebound off the boards. (“Word of advice, my frogs, never play pool with this motherfucking shark.” “Shits, I’m wounded.”)The Yale center intercepted the puck and ran for it. Ransom was on him in a second, staying in his way and slowing him down enough for the forward line to hustle back to where the action now was. The center passed to his right winger, number seven, but that took Yale of the frying pan and into the fire. Caught between Fefs and Holster, seven made a desperate attempt at a pass that Shitty batted out of mid air at center ice and passed smoothly back to Ransom.“Bits!”Ransom sent the puck high and Bitty sprinted for it. He had to veer into the center lane but he got there first. No time to dither about what to do with it, a Yale d-man was right on his tail and he knew it.What Bitty needed was to get by him quick and send the puck to Shitty or Fefs.
Now’s the time.
Bitty swung around to get a look where everyone was situated, then he went for it. He wasn’t going try to to power through this guy between him and a pass to Shitty, he was going to skate his way out of this one. He turned on a dime, backwards now, and on the final segment of his spin found himself boxed in by the Yale defenseman’s long arm and stick with nowhere to go.Shit. An instant’s startled hesitation was all it took for the guy to slide between him and the puck. Bitty tried to dart around him to take it backbut haste made waste and the only forward motion Bitty got out of it was sliding on his belly after he hit the ice.He looked up in time to see Yale’s left winger catch the pass and, with his center obscuring Johnson’s view, snipe it in inches from the post. Thanks to his botched spin they were tied up at two-two.Shitty skated to a stop next to him as he stood. “You okay, Bits?”“Yeah, hon. Sorry.”Shitty patted his shoulder sympathetically as they skated to the bench. Bitty miserably avoided looking up at Coach. I told him I’d show him my spin-o-rama.He moved over to sit by Jack, wishing he’d give him some pointers on what he did wrong or a captain-ly pep talk or something, but Jack was tense and distracted. That blown faceoff, Bitty realized. Poor Jack. He scooted closer so they were pressed shoulder to shoulder. They could just sit together a little while. That was good too.First thing’s first, Bitty told himself firmly, it doesn’t mean you can’t play this style. You gotta get right back on that horse before you talk yourself into thinking it does. You’ve pulled that move off right in practice plenty of times. Plenty of game left to show what you can do.The game was heating up on the ice, both teams hungry to break the tie and go into intermission with a lead. The elbows were starting to fly, Bitty noticed, and everybody was getting a little grabbier in close quarters. Who’d get caught first, that was the question. The answer turned out to be number nine, who tried the same reach over the shoulder trick on five-foot-eight Queso that he had on Bitty and this time got himself an elbow in the ribs for his trouble. Queso made to break away for the puck, Donner accidentally-on-purpose hooked him, and the ref called a minor.“Thanks, hon!” Bitty called. He just couldn’t resist. Donner looked around at the bench, grinned, and made an eyes-on-you gesture back at him.Beside him, Jack was on his feet, ready for the line change. Shitty, on Jack’s other side, thumped him on the back. “You got this, bro.”Bitty leaned forward avidly as they set up for the faceoff. One minute thirty in the period. If they wanted anything out of this power play, they’d better get it quick. Come on, Jack. We both got comebacks in us tonight.The puck dropped. The Yale center scrabbled for it but Jack was quicker. With one sudden, precise motion he made the pass to Ransom. Bitty punched the air and cheered. “Yes!”The boys swung into the same 1-3-1 formation as their last power play, with Best Friends Line spread out to opposite sides and the forwards in a line down the middle. It was a challenging look, Bitty knew from scrimmages. Being ready for it barely helped, there were just too many damn lines for them to pass on and too many positions to shoot from too. They got Yale’s defense all scrambled up with quick passes and then someone would - yes, there it was, Ransom took a shot across the net. Deflected. With forty seconds on the clock, Nguyennie snagged it on the rebound and swung around the net, sending the puck back to Ransom to start the dance again. They passed it around like the queen in a game of Find the Lady, but time was running out. Singher shot high on stickside but the goalie made the save. Ngyuennie tried on the rebound - a hasty shot that the goalie kicked away, but they had to keep the pressure up, there wasn’t going to be time for another regroup. This time Holster caught the rebound. He popped it back to Jack and, with Singher and Nguyennie blocking he goalie’s view, Jack one-timed a slap shot gloveside that just about broke the sound barrier. It hit the net with seven seconds on the board.The crowd exploded and so did the bench.“You beautiful motherfucker! Yes! Fuck, yes!”“Jack, honey, that shot! My Lord, was that gorgeous!”There was no miracle for Yale in the last seven seconds of the period. They went into intermission up three-two.Intermission felt simultaneously so excruciatingly long Bitty was going to age out of his hockey prowess and so short he couldn’t even catch his breath. Jack still looked too tightly wound, and Bitty resisted the urge to fuss. If scoring a clutch goal didn’t help then nothing he could say was liable to either, and Jack wasn’t exactly looking like he needed Bitty making a pest of himself right now. He turned his mother henning on the rest of the boys instead, checking in and talking up their plays and pushing Gatorade and ice on anything that moved.“Okay, boys, we’re going into period two with a lead and we’re going in with information,” Coach Murray told them all before they went out. “That glove side is weak, we’ve seen that, now let’s get some shots on goal and put it to use.”The usual suspects were on the starting shift and Jack took the puck and ran with it straight out of the faceoff. Nguyennie kept pace with him, passing the puck back and forth, while Singher moved up to hover by the post, ready for a rebound. Yale’s defense managed to corral Nguyennie up against the wall. He tried a desperate pass, but there was a Yale winger, twelve, in between him and Jack.Play swung back towards the Samwell net. Ransom met twelve with a shoulder check and managed to smack the puck away. It bounced off the boards and Singher swooped in and turned them around again.In the end zone, a couple quick passes gave Jack an opening and he took a shot. The Yale goalie half dived to get in front of it and one of their defensemen picked it up on the rebound. But this time, advancing on Samwell, their right winger jumped the gun, straying out too far and passing into Samwell’s side before the puck did. The ref called the offside and both teams sent out fresh forward lines for the faceoff in the neutral zone. Shitty might not have Jack’s faceoff record, but he also hadn’t been sprinting back and forth across the ice for almost a solid three minutes.Bitty skated into position and Donner pulled up beside him. He looked over at Bitty with a mischievous grin. “Hey. You wanna?”“Oh, hon, I’m supposed to be being good,” Bitty half-whined, like Donner had just offered to split a whole cheesecake with him and their nutritionists would never need to know. It was so tempting, Bitty hadn’t had a good old mutual respect, try-the-other-tough-guy bout all year and he really was curious to see if he could take him.“Come on,” Donner coaxed, bumping shoulders with him, “let’s have one.And it really was a fair trade in terms of box time, Bitty justified to himself, Donner had already scored once this game, he had one assist, they were playing comparably well, with a slight edge to Donner even.“Oh, why not? Yeah, let’s go, hon. Right away?”“Okay. Good luck, bro.”“You too.”They spun apart as the puck hit the ice and dropped gloves, circling each other for a second before Donner made a grab with his long arms and Bitty ducked and lunged. Donner was faster than Bitty’d expected but all that keep-away practice hadn’t hurt his ability to duck and weave in a fight. He slipped in underneath and got a good, solid grip on Donner’s jersey with his right hand.It felt like he was practically punching straight up. But what his shots lacked in quality, Bitty made up in quantity. He fired off quick jabs, scrabbling to stay tucked half way under Donner’s arm despite Donner’s attempts to drag Bitty far enough back to really hit. Still, he managed a few big shots to Bitty’s ribs and sides that just about knocked the wind out of him.Finally, Donner got a enough of a grip on him to rotate Bitty away like he was going to twirl him, locked their arms together, and nailed Bitty with a tooth rattling right, then another. There was no way Bitty could stand there and take any more of those. He ducked under Donner’s arm and grabbed with his left, trying to twist around to throw his own rights. They grappled for position until Donner got an arm around him and lifted him off the ice.Skates dangling, Bitty kept on struggling in his grasp and trying to swing at him for the long seconds it took for Donner to put him down on his back.Locked up on the ice with Donner on top, they both stopped swinging. No point now but hurting each other, Donner had this one won. Still, Bitty had held his own.“Good fight,” Bitty panted, smiling up at Donner, woozy from exertion. At least I don’t have to get up first. Oh Lord, just gotta catch my breath. “Yeah, good fight, man.” Donner, looking as exhausted as Bitty felt, patted his shoulder as he climbed off him. They let the refs help them up and skated to their respective boxes.If Bitty had expected the honorable, no-hard-feelings fight foretold a sportsmanlike, mature stay in the box, he was immediately to be disappointed. As soon as they settled in, Donner threw his water bottle at Bitty, lobbing it over the barrier between them like it was a water balloon. Bitty ducked and threw his hands up over his head.Bitty was just casting around for something biting to say when he noticed there was something attached to the bottle with stick tape. He picked the bottle up for a closer look and oh, yes, that was a hotel key, with a hastily scrawled room number on the packet. Bitty looked up at Donner in amused surprise. Why, you smooth operating son of a gun.Getting a little bit of media attention, if only in the college hockey scene - we’ve had tiny players in Div I, fans, and lately we’ve even had a few gay ones, but gay and tiny? Now there’s a novelty! - was a little like being the only out gay boy in his high school all over again. It did attract the attention of homophobes itching to nail him to the boards, but it was also a big neon sign flashing “Safe To Hit On” for all those big, fine hockey boys who were on the DL or maybe just feeling a little curious.It wasn’t even the first time an opponent had made a pass, though back in high school they usually they just hung around waiting for a quiet moment after the game. Points for style to Mr. Dondero.“Well, that’s mine now,” Bitty said out loud. “That’s what happens when you throw things, hon.” He lobbed his own water bottle back at Donner, who ducked. When he came up he was grinning like a possum eating a sweet potato. “There you go, now we traded,” Bitty said, grinning right back at him. Don’t think I’ll take it easy just because we got a date later, and don’t you take it easy neither, Bitty wanted to say. Then again, going by his aching ribs, he didn’t imagine he really needed to worry.When the fight started, Jack couldn’t help but look up at his dad. He was smiling, saying something to Mr. Quesada that made them both laugh. Mr. Quesada gripped his sweater, mimed a punch. Bob gestured animatedly at the rink, where Bitty had just switched hands to start throwing rights. Talking shop, Jack thought fondly, wishing he could listen in.The sudden warmth made him realize guiltily that he’d looked up hoping to see disapproval, disdain for this kind of staged fight with no score to settle and no purpose except grandstanding. No, Jack thought ruefully, that’s all you.But, really, what the hell was Bittle thinking? The game had been about as squeaky clean as they got. Except Jack knew perfectly well what he was thinking - he was thinking he wanted to find out who the tougher man was. But there were scouts out there - they’d seen his disastrous attempt at a spinorama (and seen Jack blow that faceoff). Now they, along with Jack, watched him get picked up and planted on his back on the ice. Did Bittle even realize what image he was presenting? He’d held his own, sure, that was impressive against a guy with at least a solid thirty centimeters on him, but who was it supposed to impress? Christ, did Bittle think anyone was looking to draft a goon who was shorter than Tie Domi in 2015? Let alone as the first openly gay player in the league. Jack realized his stomach was in knots again, this time over Bittle’s career. He tried to tell himself what he knew was the truth: he’d played a strong shift and he’d scored but he was still swimming in the wrong chemicals, so his mind was casting around for something else he could catastrophize about, whether it was his business or not. But I’m his captain, it is my business. And I should be worried, just look at him.Bittle and his opponent had words in the box, water bottles were thrown, it was the kind of thing that scouts took note of. Maybe not in reality, but in principle. And furthermore-Before Jack’s traitor mind could get going on the pride tape on his stick (it was one thing when guys who weren’t out all over social media did it, but with Bittle it would be a strike against him and he should know better), it was time to get on the ice again. He tried to push the coiled spring in his guts aside. He really is a distraction, Jack thought, and didn’t have time to feel ashamed of himself for it. It was time to play.Even before he’d gotten his wind back, Bitty was itching to get back in the game. I’m going to nail that spin-o-rama, he told himself. Play was moving fast, both teams pushing hard for the goal that would either tie them up yet again or put a comfortable two point lead in Samwell’s favor. Jack, especially, was going so hard Bitty didn’t know how he would be able to keep it up, trying wild coast to coast runs that just might have worked if Yale’s defense didn’t have his number. But, God, they were all over him. Bitty suspected that their intermission strategy talks had leaned heavily on “shut Zimmermann down.” Usually, Jack would be smart about that, find some way to build a really gorgeous play around it - the kind of Jack Zimmermann special that Bitty would find himself daydreaming about all week. But as the shift wore on, Jack’s focus only seemed to narrow, to the point where Bitty was reminded of the worst of their pre-season scrimmages. Singher wasn’t shouting “Fucking pass to me, motherfucker!” this time, but there was a tension in his movements that suggested the only reason why not was that his great grandma was sitting one row away from the glass. Bitty breathed a sigh of relief as Shitty, Fefs, and Heartsy took the ice. They might not be the offensive powerhouse that Jack, Nguyennie, and Singher were at their best, but they weren’t a line where Yale could just throw their defense at the center.In the seconds before Yale realized that, Shitty had sent the puck back to Robsy, who passed up the side to Fefs. Bitty leaned forwards in the box. He thought he saw what they were doing - Shitty was swinging around behind the net and when he got there, hopefully drawing some defense with him, Fefs would deke a pass in his direction. Instead, he’d take a shot, and if it didn’t land Heartsy would be right there to pick up the rebound.It was maneuver that Bitty realized with a pang might just have worked with him in there. But Heartsy wasn’t quite fast enough to make it to the puck in time. One of Yale’s defensemen scooped it right up and sprinted like he had rocket boosters on his skates. Bitty watched him fly with his heart in his throat. Wehby got in front of him but failed to get in front of the puck. Wicky dived for it and made a beautiful, miraculous save, ending snow-angeled on the ice with the puck underneath him. Bitty, sitting back and sighing in relief, resolved to bake him the best pie.Other Best Friends Line skated out for the faceoff, which as far as Bitty could tell was won by Seitzer’s motormouth. They were another line that was strong on the wings, Bitty thought, maybe they could capitalize. They sure did their best. Those boys were like a human pinball machine when their one-timers were on point, and today was one of those days. PA big hip check took Meeks into the boards at Yale’s blue line, but the puck was already leaving his stick and on its way to Hazy. Bitty’s eyes were on Hazy’s shot on goal - a good try to sneak it in on that weak glove side, but it pinged off the post. Afterwards, though, Bitty would think back and try to remember if he’d seen any sign of how bad the hit was. It had been on the side of Meeks’s knee brace and, yes, it had been low, but Bitty thought that was circumstance rather than malice. Most hip checks were low on a guy Meeks’s size. Nevertheless, when the Yale defenseman passed the rebound up to his center and everyone wheeled around to give chase, Meeks didn’t skate with his usual speed and grace. It was like Yale had a five second power play, and that was enough for them to capitalize on. They snagged a goal on their second shot, puck barely skimming the blade of Wicky’s outstretched skate.Poor Wicky looked miserable, slumping further into the splits in tragic goalie despair. Oh, honey. Meeks was holding up the boards and the boys on the ice were starting to realize just how hurt he was. Seitzer and Hazy skated him off, all his weight on his good leg. Chances were it was his MCL, given Meeks’s history, and Bitty prayed it wasn’t anything worse than a grade I. His poor knee. With forty five seconds on the penalty clock and two minutes left in the period, Grover, Hatso, and Queso took the ice, along with Ransom and Holster. Bitty wished he could zoom out and try for a breakaway instead of waiting for a stoppage to get in. Team Madison was known for their flawless player changes. (Well, not known, per se, not known by other people. But Bitty and Queso did agree that they were very good at it.)The shift got off to quite a start when Grover won the faceoff and immediately made a break for it. After Jack’s last shift, Yale was ready for that kind of play. What they weren’t ready for was for Grover to make a no-look pass back to Hatso. Bitty whooped, delighted, as he and Queso dashed down the ice while the Yale players scrambled to regroup after the feint. Hatso took a shot before the defenders could close in - kick save. Queso picked up the rebound and deked once, twice, before a big defenseman threw a dirty, blindside hit that sent him sprawling. No call. Apparently the refs had all been struck blind by the brilliance of that first big feint, that was the only explanation Bitty could fathom.The Yale D-man passed to his center before Queso was even back on his skates. Thank God for Ransom and Holster. Holster nailed Yale’s center - clean as a whistle, Bitty noted - and passed over to Ransom, who one-timed it right up to Grover. The penalty clock hit zero. Bitty hoped the play stoppage that let him out of the box would be a tie-breaking goal for Samwell. No such luck - the Yale goalie flapjacked himself onto the puck off a shot from Grover. Bitty and Donner skated off to their respective benches without so much as a conspiratorial smile between them. Right at the moment, the game was running a little too close for fraternization. “Welcome back, bro,” Shitty said, thumping him on the shoulder. “You ready?”“Sure am, hon.” They switched lines for the faceoff and Bitty found himself across from Donner once more. Before Bitty could think of a devastatingly sexy distraction to throw him off his game, the puck dropped. His homme fatale act could use a little work, but Bitty was more than ready when the Shitty sent the puck their way. Unfortunately, so was Donner, and he had longer arms. He might have intercepted the puck, but darned if Bitty would let him keep it. They scrabbled for the puck, neither one able to get enough control to do much with it, until Bitty snuck his stick in under Donner’s and managed to wedge it up and away for the second it took to send a wild pass back towards where he hoped Ransom was.Bitty spun and saw that he must have been successful, because now the puck was already across the rink in Holster’s possession. Good Lord, but Best Friends Line could pass.While Holster sent it to Shitty, Bitty and Fefs were moving up, ready to receive his pass. Shitty deked towards Bitty and sent it to Fefs instead. Bitty took the opportunity to dart up in front of the net.Obscuring the goalie’s sight lines wasn’t exactly in his wheelhouse - not without a stepstool - but he could sure take some tricky shots from where he was and those would be hard to see coming.A big D-man skating in to cover him made that plan a long shot but, on the plus side, now Bitty had a tall person to block the goalie’s sight lines for him. Bitty moved to peek around him at the action and nearly got a puck in the face. He heard it clatter before he turned around enough to see it. It was still loose and he reached for it with his stick, meeting it at the same time as the goalie’s skate did. He tried to slide it past while goalie and the D-man behind him tried to stop him. Sandwiched as he was between two hockey bros so huge they entirely obscured him from the refs’ view, Bitty saw it as only fair that he take advantage by throwing an elbow back at the D-man behind him. But before he could do anything with the breathing space he’d created, the horn sounded for the end of period two. Fefs skating up beside him probably helped smooth things over with the D-man Bitty had been scuffling with. He threw an arm around Bitty as they skated back to the bench. “Saved by the bell. We’ll get ‘em next time, right, Bits?”Beaming, Bitty bumped the offered glove with his own. “You know it, honey.”Back in the locker room, the first thing Bitty did was to slip Donner’s key into his bag. The second thing was to check on Meeks.As expected, he was laid up in Crystal’s lair with his leg elevated and his knee iced. The verdict was grade 1, thank goodness, and Seitzer was already at his side fussing so hard that Bitty felt like a strictly beer league mother hen in the presence of a hall of famer. Mind set at ease, Bitty made an attempt to sneak back out of the trainer’s room unnoticed and thus avoid any crushing guilt over fighting during his first game off the injured list. His attempt was unsuccessful.(“It wasn’t a hurt each other fight,” Bitty protested. “It was just, you know, a friendly competition kind of fight.” “Word of wisdom from one who knows, kiddo: the power of friendship does not actually prevent concussions.”)When he finally slunk out of the trainer’s room, Bitty saw Shitty talking with Jack in a quiet corner. Jack looked even more keyed up than he had last intermission. Bitty gave them their space and went to join Ransom and Holster’s strategy session. He could already tell it was going to be astoundingly productive, because there were only three dicks drawn on the whiteboard. Good. Bitty needed to keep his head in the game.It wasn’t until he was walking back out to the ice that Jack even noticed that the boys had a whiteboard full of plays. (And dicks, but that went without saying.)Shitty, as usual, read his mind. “Bro, Wehby was all over it. That’s what alternates are there for.”“Yeah, okay.” Jack didn’t exactly feel good about it, but he was ready to get in there and play. He thought they could afford him being a shitty captain for a game, but they couldn’t afford him being a shitty player.That was a mistake, he realized, sitting on the bench during their third shift. Yale had just changed their D-line and now Seitz and Hey were on the ice with the guy who had benched their linemate less than half an hour ago.“Ah, fuck,” muttered Wehby, sitting beside him. “I should have talked to them. What a shitshow.”Jack should have talked to them. If afterwards he thought they were still dead set on retribution, he could have pulled Bittle aside with them. Bittle hadn’t gone for the guy last period - presumably because Bittle, along with everyone else whose name wasn’t Mikey Seitz, could see it had been an accident - but he would have dropped gloves if Jack asked. At least another fight wouldn’t have given Yale a power play.As it was, well. Seitz was a pest and a cheap shot artist, not a fighter. When he slewfooted the guy and got himself two and ten, Jack wasn’t surprised. It was the two that hurt. Coach Murray sent out Shitty and Fefita to join Ransom and Holster for the penalty kill, but Ransom and Holster had already been out there for a solid three minutes and even the best defensive line in the conference got tired eventually.They put up a hell of a fight anyways. Jack had already been preparing himself to take the ice with Samwell down a point and in need of a fast comeback, but with twenty seconds on the penalty clock he thought they just might kill it. If Holster had gotten to Yale’s center a split second earlier, or if Johnson hadn’t fallen for that second deke, they might have made it. “Zimmerman, Nguyen, Singh, Wehba, Robledo, let’s go.”The score was four to three and there were eight minutes left in the third period, and somehow Jack felt better than he had since the game started, almost exhilaratingly clear headed. There was no nebulous standard to live up to here, no vague criteria by which he would impress or disappoint. All he had to do was score two goals in eight minutes. Fine. He would.When Jack was in the zone, it was beautiful to watch. People told Bitty he had good eyes, but he had a long way to go if he wanted to spot opportunities in the flow of play the way Jack did. Maybe he’d help me work on it, Bitty thought, watching Jack stick handle his way patiently through Yale’s defense and set up Singher to attack from behind the net. Almost dreamily, Bitty imagined sitting beside Jack at Annie’s after checking practice, watching him make the Xs and Os dance. Heart embarrassingly aflutter, Bitty watched Jack take a beautiful shot between a Yale D-man’s legs. The goalie couldn’t possibly see where it was headed. Bitty heard the puck ping off the crossbar before he saw that the bounce had been unlucky. Singher one timed the rebound low, but Yale’s goalie made a damn near miraculous stick save.There was a predatory grace to the way Jack’s line operated when they were going in for the kill. Unless Yale could take the puck away from them, they were going to keep on taking shots until one went in. Bitty snuck a look up at the crowd and saw Bad Bob beaming at his boy. Aww, look at that proud papa. Lord, a silver fox hockey god, the career record holder for Gordie Howe hat tricks, and a good daddy too? Resisting the urge to fan himself, Bitty turned his attention back to the game. He was just in time to see Jack go behind the net and try for a wrap around shipping. The Yale goalie just barely managed to get in front of it. It bounced off his arm but Jack, that beautiful man, had already swung around in front of him. He batted the still airborne puck in with his stick as casual as swatting a fly.“Yes!” Bitty jumped to his feet, along with the rest of the bench. He couldn’t even hear himself over the crowd. “That’s our Jack!”The mobile group hug crashed into the boards in front of them and Bitty leaned half way out over the ice to throw his arms around Jack and yell “Honey, you were amazing!”Five minutes on the clock and they were all tied up, four and four. This next one was for all the marbles.The line change - Jack’s line out, Grover’s in - was still half celly, full of hugs and back slapping.All Jack had to say was a preemptively stern “No stupid penalties.” Bitty felt like squirming in guilt on Seitzer’s behalf and he hadn’t even done anything this game. (Well, he mentally amended, nothing that gave Yale a power play.) Maybe a year of getting used to Jack was what it took, since Queso was unfazed, skating off with a cheerful, “Aye, aye, Captain Bligh.”Right from the scrabbling, ugly-as-sin faceoff, it was clear this shift was going to be a grind. Neither team wanted to give an inch.“Motherfuck,” Shitty said admiringly, watching Hatso crash his opposite number into a corner and try to dig the puck out by pure cussedness.“We better get us a win fast,” said Bitty. “Hand to God, I’m getting tired just watching.”“Bro.” Holster leaned forward between them. “See that?”Hatso had managed to send a wild pass close enough to Grover for him to pick up.Ransom planted his forearms on Bitty and Fefs’s shoulders and nodded towards Yale’s rapidly converging center and left D. “They got two men on Grover.”Shitty elbowed Jack. “You got ‘em running scared, bro.” Jack almost cracked a smile.Fefs grinned. “Well, Shits, ready to be bait?”Even as he spoke, Queso swept in and snagged the puck from where Grover was cornered. He didn’t get two steps before Yale’s other d-man leveled him. Bitty winced in sympathy.”Better than being you motherfuckers. Fuck.”With one fifty two on the clock, an icing penalty (a silly icing penalty, in Bitty’s opinion, Ollie’s pass just hadn’t connected) had all ten bedraggled skaters filing back to their benches for what could well be the last shift change of the game.“Oh my god, did anyone even get a shot on goal? Kate Parson’s going to tweet mean things about our Corsi,” bemoaned Hatso.“Oh, hon. You didn’t let them get any either,” Bitty said, patting his back on the way over the boards. “Besides, Kate Parson doesn’t even really like Corsi. She said on AcesTV that it’s the worst hockey stat except for all the rest of them.” Hatso snorted. “Bits, you dork.”Ignoring this, Bitty turned to Queso. “You okay, honey?”“I’m like eighty percent bruises. Save me from playing overtime?” Queso batted his eyes at them and Holster gave him a pat on the helmet.“Don’t worry, bro. We’re bringing this home.”Bitty’s heart was already pounding as he skated out to take his spot in the defensive zone. It was Donner who pulled up beside him for the faceoff. Bitty would have to watch out for that one-timer of his, or it could all be over before it started.When Shitty lost the faceoff, the Yale center did exactly what Bitty’d been steeling himself for, he got greedy and tried for a repeat of the move they’d pulled off before, snapping the puck to Donner. Bitty was ready, sliding into Donner’s space almost the moment the puck dropped. He didn’t want to draw a penalty, but he’d thought it was worth the risk to snuggle right up to the line of legality, and to Donner, and make himself a nuisance.It paid off. Donner tried for a slapshot anyways, right through Bitty’s shins. It hurt like a son of a gun, but Bitty was willing to call it square for the interference. Meanwhile, Johnson made a kick save and Ransom intercepted the rebound, passing to Holster, who sent it up to Fefs. The Wellies were back on offense.They sped up the ice, the pain in Bitty’s shins relegated to a background throb as he found his stride. Fefs shoulder-checked his way through a Yale D-man. “Hey, Shits!”It was a lovely saucer pass. Shitty didn’t look back or throw a signal as he headed down the ice, but Bitty knew what his job was. He followed, waiting for his opportunity as Shitty lured two Yale boys - Donner and one of their D-men - into the corner with him.In the process of the three-skater pileup, Shitty bopped the puck out of the fracas. Bitty zipped in to pick it up and sprinted for the goal.Their other D-man regrouped faster than he expected, and suddenly Bitty had about two hundred pounds of road block coming at him. Second time’s the charm.Bitty swung into his spin-o-rama, leg out, protecting the puck. He did it right, and he was almost past when he saw the stick coming out to trip him.By the time his mind caught up with his body enough to think, It worked for Jeff Skinner, he was already airborne. It certainly wasn’t the cleanest single-axel of his career, but it did the job. He touched down facing away from the net and laid his stick on the puck, pretty as you please. As he turned through his landing, the world seemed to move in slow motion. He had control, he was in a good position, and it sure as hell wasn’t a shot the goalie would see coming. This was the best opportunity he was like to get. Bitty whipped around and shot high, trying for gloveside and praying it didn’t go wide. After he shot he pivoted back, looking for a rebound. There was no rebound.Oh my Lord, I did it. With forty seconds left in the game, he’d just scored the first goal of his NCAA career and put them up five-four. And he’d done it with style. The crowd were so loud. Remembering his first big First at Samwell, that fight in their game against Dartmouth, Bitty thought, Well, Tie Domi got his championship belt, and threw the biggest layback spin he could muster, grinning from ear to ear.He came to a stop with Shitty bear hugging him and planting a big kiss on his cheek. “Bits, you beautiful motherfucker! Holy fuck!”A second layer Fefs joined the hug, followed by Ransom and Holster, and even Johnson. Bitty felt like he was flying. The feeling continued as he skated off to change with Jack’s line, leaving their best shift out for the last big push. Yale pulled their goalie and Bitty watched the seconds tick down, gripping Hatso’s hand like his life depended on it. But there was no eleventh hour comeback for Yale. The Samwell bench exploded in hugs and cheers. We did it. We really won. He looked up to see Coach on his feet, cheering like he was at the Super Bowl and Bitty’d just gotten the game winning touchdown. Bitty wiped his eyes surreptitiously with his sleeve, making like he was just getting the sweat off himself. (Not like he had any shortage of that, good Lord, he could not wait to shower up.)In the handshake line, Donner gave him a pat on the helmet and a grin. “Good game, eh? That goal was banana.”Bitty beamed up at him. “Thanks, hon. You guys almost got us with that faceoff play.”“Almost.”The look they shared couldn’t have lasted as long as it felt, and Bitty knew it hadn’t been obvious, but he still found himself blushing as he skated off the ice. Tonight couldn’t possibly get any better, but it was sure looking to keep up the momentum.
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Jack knew how his dad’s pride made him feel when he was in a better frame of mind, but right now that high wasn’t coming. It was like he was skating with dull blades on bad ice, expending so much slogging, monotonous effort on what should be automatic that he had nothing left to register the usual good feelings.So he tried to focus on acting normal while committing everything he could to memory, storing up praise and hugs to pull out later, when he could enjoy them.Jack knew he only ever had two conversations when he felt like he was feeling now: ones he didn’t remember, where he supplied vaguely appropriate noises and monosyllabic answers where required, and the miserable, compulsive gyre circling back and back to what did you think the scouts thought, papa? No answer was ever the right one, but he still felt the urge to ask, again and again and again, getting angrier as each new repetition of the ritual failed to banish the rats in his gut. Once he was traversing that well-worn track, any attempt to turn would just have him skidding back into the ruts.Jack dragged himself through the motions of conversation, barely paying attention, until his dad nudged him with an elbow.“Look, it’s your little Semenko,” he said, thank Christ not in English.Bittle was with his own father, chattering away at roughly the speed of light. “-fixing to try to get in spitting distance of one eighty this summer, but now I think I’m gonna be training more for speed and I don’t know if-“Osti de criss de one eighty. Sure. If Gerbe’s stats were honest and Bittle really were taller than him, sure. Any other time it’d be funny, the kind of silly, endearing, Bittle-ism Jack would chirp him about over breakfast at Annie’s to see him blush, but right now Jack was too keyed up to feel anything but annoyed. His dad, meanwhile, was already headed in the Bittles’ direction, hand extended. “Excuse me, you’re Eric Bittle, aren’t you?”“I- uh- Am I- you - uh-“ Bittle blushed like a tomato and finally squeaked, “yes, sir.”Jack knew what was coming next and he already wanted to sink into the floor. Pennbrook. Of course.“Thank you for looking out for my son,” his dad said, shaking Bittle’s hand warmly. “You’re quite a little scrapper, eh?”Part of Bitty’s mind was already trying to come up with a football analogy to explain to Coach how huge of a huge deal this was. Like if LT was talking up his pass rushing, maybe.“Thank you, sir. That means a lot coming from the best,” Bitty said, hoping to God he sounded smoother than he felt. Oh sweet baby Jesus, Bad Bob Zimmermann is shaking my hand. Bad Bob Zimmermann knows my name.“Jack tells me you’re planning on going pro. We’ll be pulling for you on draft day. Small or not, a few more of those Gordie Howe hat tricks and they won’t be able to resist you, eh?” said Bad Bob. He winked, and by some miracle Bitty didn’t die on the spot. “That was a clutch shot, son.”Bitty flushed with pleasure. “Thank you, sir. I couldn’t have done it without Jack, he taught me that spin-o-rama.”“I wondered.” Bob turned his cheerful grin on Jack, patting him on the back. “That’s a Kenny move, eh? Coach Hall ought to try you boys on the same line sometime.”Coach nodded sagely. “Good idea. Gotta keep the flies off your top scorer,” said the man who more often than not couldn’t tell which team had the puck. Lord love him, if he started trying to talk about advanced statistics, Bitty was going to die.Then it sank in what Bad Bob had dropped in so casually - That’s a Kenny, move, eh?Two images flashed to mind, both making him feel a little disloyal. The first, skating through that spin-o-rama with Kent Parson’s hands on his hips, fixing his form and showing him how to move. The second, sitting on Jack’s lap like Parse in that famous picture. Oh Lord, he was being ridiculous. Of course Jack was teaching him to play more like the best winger he’d ever had - the best winger anyone had ever had, in Bitty’s considered opinion Still, Bitty felt almost shy looking up at him. His smile faded when he saw how Jack looked - keyed up, pissed off, wanting to be anywhere else in the world. Was it something I did? “Dad, I’m going to go shower up.” Jack nodded stiffly at Coach. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Bittle.”Once the polite goodbyes were over and Jack had headed for the showers, Coach turned to Bad Bob and said, with the air of one expert to another, “Now, that power play system-“ which was Bitty’s cue to make his own excuses. Bad Bob shook his hand again, he really was awful nice, and then Coach pulled Bitty into a big hug.“See you at breakfast, Junior,” he said. Bitty hugged his daddy back hard, feeling a childish pang that his days of getting lifted off the ground were over.“Good night, Coach. Good night, Mr. Zimmermann,” Bitty said, coming perilously close to calling him Mr. Bad Bob. “It was very nice to meet you.”With that, Bitty hustled off to the locker room. Maybe he could catch up with Jack before he left.Bitty found him on the way out of the building, walking alone with his head down. “Jack, hey! I just wanted to thank you, h-““Bittle.” Jack didn’t even turn to look at him. “It was a lucky shot.”It hurt. Would it still hurt if he didn’t believe it? Probably it would - it would still hurt to find out that all the checking practice and breakfasts at Annies when Bitty had thought they were starting to become friends hadn’t amounted to a damn thing. Jack felt the same way about him as he always had, and he’d still treat him like dirt whenever the mood struck.Ideas for what to say back would come later, when Bitty played out new versions of the conversation in his head over and over, as if winning a rematch would take away the sting and put it on Jack instead. Maybe he could have said something cutting about Yale’s lucky faceoff win. Or he could have given him a withering “They all are,” and schooled Jack with dazzling statistical insights that Bitty, in reality, had only the vaguest grasp of from watching Parse interviewing his sister for Aces TV. What he really did was freeze until Jack was already half way down the steps and then explode. “Hey!” Bitty almost tripped storming after him, and wouldn’t that have been just perfect. He grabbed Jack’s wrist and jerked him around, able to glare eye to eye only because he was standing a step up. “You don’t speak to me like that, Jack Laurent Zimmermann, you understand me?” Blotchy color rose to his cheeks at the sound of his own voice. He probably doesn’t understand you, you fucking hillbilly, listen to yourself. It had been a long time since Bitty had felt ashamed of his accent, even when he got worked up or drunk enough for it to get that thick, but it seemed like Jack made him ashamed of every damn thing about himself. “Bittle-“ Bitty couldn’t read Jack’s face and he didn’t wait to hear what he had to say for himself. “You wouldn’t say that to anyone else on the team.” That shut Jack up, and it filled Bitty with bitter triumph. Oh, they would have this out once and for all. “It’s not what you think,” Jack said finally, not looking at him. Bitty snorted derisively. Sure it wasn’t. Next Jack would cite his treatment of the other gay guys he’d played with, the ones who were just regular guys who didn’t shove it in your face. Bitty was all ready to retort that the next thing getting shoved in Jack’s face would be his fist (it would not be the first time he had used that line), but apparently Jack wanted to skip ahead in the script. He grabbed Bitty by the shoulders with fire in his eyes.Before Bitty could get his hands up to defend himself, Jack closed the distance between them and kissed him square on the lips. Lord, Jack Zimmermann was kissing him, Eric Richard Bittle, the sawed-off little goon he’d hated from day one and nursed through a concussion so tenderly that Bitty’d half fallen for him anyways. Forget too shocked to kiss back, he was too shocked not to, and it felt awfully good. Not that Bitty didn’t still want to motherfuck Jack until he was blue in the face, but the man surely could kiss.Jack pulled back to look at him sweetly, cupping Bitty’s cheek like he thought that romance movie stunt had settled everything and it was sunshine and roses from here on out. “Don’t think I’m not still mad,” Bitty said breathlessly, fingers hovering at his lips.“I know.” Jack moved in to kiss him again and Bitty, better judgement be damned, wanted to let him. He put his hands up instead, holding him away.It wasn’t just how goddamn mean Jack could be sometimes, although Lord knew that was reason enough to be cautious. This wouldn’t be some casual little fling with Jack, Bitty knew. Lord, did he ever. And he didn’t do serious with closeted guys. Not since sophomore year of high school, a miserable stretch of which he’d spent letting Billy McGuirk sweet talk him out one side of his mouth and laugh along with his football buddies out the other whenever they took after Coach’s fruity son. (Oh, but it was just so hard for him not to lift a finger to help, didn’t Bitty understand? Couple months of that and what Bitty understood was “fool me once, shame on you.”) Even with a guy who’d play it blandly supportive in public, Bitty didn’t want to play along. Better to wait for one of those fabled other fish in the sea, and maintain a strict catch and release policy in the meantime. Stepping back out of Jack’s embrace, Bitty blurted, “Not if you’re not coming out,” and immediately wished he’d put it more gently when Jack flinched. This wasn’t something he wanted to hurt Jack over and Bitty felt miserably guilty about it, right up until Jack opened his mouth.“Not all of us have that luxury.”Bitty had been starting to cool down, but that sent him right back to the boiling point, and he found himself shaking with a feverish rage he hadn’t felt since the time they’d come to blows.“Says the millionaire from fucking Montreal. God bless! But, I forgot, you’re fixing to have a real hockey career, unlike the rest of us nobodies, huh?”None of that was fair and Bitty knew it, but getting caught kissing a boy behind the gym in seventh grade had been so goddamn luxurious that DuWayne‘s folks had sent him to live with his auntie and uncle in Athens and Bitty’s had up and moved to Madison. He wasn’t feeling too inclined to be fair to Jack right now.Fists clenched at his sides, Bitty stepped aside and stomped down the stairs while he still had the sense to do so. If they kept talking this really was going to get physical, and at least on the grass they wouldn’t break their damn fool necks.“Bittle.” He looked back and saw Jack standing on the steps where Bitty’d left him. When he didn’t follow it up with anything but sad eyes and a pout fit to step on, Bitty spun on his heel and stalked towards the Haus.Two shots and a chance to calm down, that was what Bitty needed. Then he was going to go put that hotel key to use and have himself a grand old time.“I could have another you in a minute, matter of fact, he’ll be here in a minute,” Bitty sang under his breath, clenching and unclenching his fists. He wished he had dough to knead. By the time he reached the Haus he had finished a bitterly heartfelt and increasingly loud rendition of Irreplaceable and was determinedly belting out Best Thing I Never Had for God and half of frat row to hear. Jack Zimmermann did not get to ruin his night.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Like all his less than proud moments, Jack replayed the fight in his head like he was watching tape of a blowout loss. Jack could - probably would - pick apart the minutiae of the cascade all night, but he couldn’t help but recognize the overarching narrative from the very first pass. His cheap shot got called, and he couldn’t kill the penalty. At the end of the day, that was what had happened. The risk he’d taken, how it felt when Bittle was kissing him back, how it felt when Bittle was shooting him down - all of that was incidental. Jack had gotten himself burned on the power play. And I’m always riding Bittle about unnecessary penalties.Not in the mood to deal with a Haus party, even to pass through on his way to his room, he stalled. He started down the park path, passed the tree where he and Bittle always slowed down on their rollerblades to navigate through the slippery leaves, and realized that this was a mistake. But to turn back would imply things Jack wasn’t entirely comfortable contemplating, so he took a miserable walk around the park, memories of good times skating with Bittle hounding his every step.It was stupider than a dirty play and a blown PK, Jack thought, he’d gone and cheap shotted someone on his own side. How did you recover from that?Finally, when the risk of running into a room full of happy people seemed more palatable than walking by any more landmarks of his rollerblade tag with Bittle, he made his way back to the Haus. This time, Jack was in luck. There was nobody in the lounge but Shitty, parked on the couch with a beer in one hand and half a brownie in the other, looking contemplative. At the sound of the door closing, he turned and lifted his beer in salute.“Bro, you okay? When I asked Bits if he’d seen you, he said the only Jack he was on speaking terms with was Daniels and stole my drink.”Jack winced. Yeah, that sounded about right. “Where is he?”“He did some shots and rolled out with a fifth.” Shitty stood and walked over to thump Jack’s shoulder sympathetically, which quickly turned into a load-bearing hug. Jack staggered under the weight, but he was an expert at stoned-Shitty wrangling by now.Still flopped against Jack, Shitty patted his back. “You might wanna wait until tomorrow to talk this one out, bro. He’ll cool off, you know Bits.”“Thanks, Shits.” Jack just hoped he was right.Bitty brought a bottle of vodka with him to the hotel, partly because his mama had raised him right and partly so he’d have something to get caught with if he did get caught. He‘d rather take the fall for some very boring underage drinking than risk any other assumptions that might fall on Donner.Bitty made it through the hotel without incident, using the key card to take the back stairs and trying to walk like he was meant to be there. He didn’t even see anyone on Donner’s floor. Waffling momentarily between knocking and letting himself in, Bitty settled on the quieter option and swiped the key card. Donner, lounging on the bed, sat up when Bitty opened the door a crack.“Hi,” he said, beckoning Bitty in. “Hey, honey.” Once the door had closed behind him, he pulled the bottle from his hoodie pocket.Donner grinned. “You beauty. I’ve got gatorades in the mini fridge.”“Thanks, hon.” Vodka and gatorade was, in Bitty’s considered opinion, the second grimmest mixed drink (the first being Mello Yello and rye), but that had never stopped him from partaking.Donner took the bottle from him, then fetched plastic hotel cups and gatorade (orange, thank the Lord) and mixed their drinks while Bitty watched. It was the first time Bitty’d gotten a chance to look at him out of his gear, and he took a moment to enjoy himself. Lord knew the only thing realer than hockey butt was hockey butterface, and Bitty included his broken-nosed kewpie doll looking self in that assessment, but Donner really was cute, especially when he smiled like that.“Here, Bits.” Donner handed him one cup. “Cheers.”They clinked their clear plastic cups together and drank. Bitty found that he’d managed to go home with a real expert in the art of vodka gatorades, potent enough to feel it but not so much that the cheap vodka made it nasty.The companionable silence stretched out as they smiled at each other. Bitty felt a sick twist of nerves at the atmosphere, at how comfortable he was getting.“Hey, uh, I don’t want to lead anybody on,” he said, fidgeting. “Fooling around is okay, but I don’t date on the downlow.” He looked up at Donner, leftover emotions from fighting with Jack coalescing into a miserable need to explain. “I don’t- it’s not about anybody else, I just-““No, I get it,” Donner assured, and Bitty was almost alarmed at the magnitude of relief that swept over him. God, that dust up with Jack really did a number on him. Donner set his cup on the TV stand and wrapped his arms loosely around Bitty, hands resting on his back, as he went on. “Is like, worst of both worlds. All the closet shits, on top of you still got to deal with bullshit league, bullshit draft, bullshit medias. All the guy who got a problem with you wanna fight.”“And so do all them roughnecks who think pulling my pigtails will get them in my pants,” Bitty said, setting aside his own cup and stepping in closer to drape his arms around Donner’s neck, “don’t forget about them, honey.”“Yeah, them too,” Donner agreed, grinning and sliding those big hands down to Bitty’s ass. “Those guy are the worst, eh?”“Reprehensible,” said Bitty vehemently, and pulled him down into a kiss.It was all Bitty could do to kick off his shoes before they fell into bed. Donner’s body felt good under him, hard and warm. He was a big, physical D-man and, running his hands over that broad chest, Bitty could just about write Donner’s S&C coach a thank-you note. Off-season bulking had obviously treated Mr. Dondero well.Bitty tugged his t-shirt up and Donner finished the job of slipping out of it. For a moment, Bitty was too absorbed in enjoying the view to reciprocate, then Donner’s hands sliding up under his hoodie reminded him. He pulled his hoodie and t-shirt off together, then went to work finishing the job of undressing. It was but the work of a moment. Both of them had dressed for the occasion, Bitty thought, amused, his track pants and Donner’s basketball shorts, and nothing under either. Not exactly attire for impressing a date, but they weren’t dating and they’d done their impressing on the ice.“We sure banged each other up good,” Bitty said with a laugh, taking in the bruises peppered over both their bodies.Donner grinned up at him. “Couple of tough guys, eh?”“Yeah,” Bitty said happily, and bent to kiss him some more. Their hands roamed while they made out, legs interlaced so they could get a little friction. Bitty liked a man with some hair on him and Donner’s legs felt good interlaced with his. Being just a smidge shorter (okay, a head shorter) placed his cock more or less against Donner’s treasure trail, with Donner rubbing against his thigh. Bitty was getting just about hot enough to propose a change of position, maybe to one where Bitty could suck his cock while Donner showed him just how well he ate up the opposition, when Donner’s phone went off.Donner grabbed it off the nightstand and silenced it with a guilty grin. “Avs alarm.”“Oh, yeah, they’re in Vegas tonight.”The two of them looked at each other, the same thing on both their minds, Bitty was almost sure, but each unwilling to make the first move. “You wanna, uh-“ Donner’s eyes flicked towards the hotel TV and he gave Bitty a sheepish grin.Bitty grinned back. “I wouldn’t be opposed.”They scrambled into action, scooting to spoon crosswise on the bed, Bitty grabbing pillows and Donner stretching for the remote. Donner clicked the TV on and the channel to ESPN, then set the remote in front of them and draped his arm over Bitty. It felt so casually intimate, with his head tucked under Donner’s chin and Donner’s hard-on against his ass, like this was just what they did for every west coast game. This is what I want, this all the time, Bitty thought as Donner stroked his hip, leaving his hand there as the comforting weight of his arm settled along Bitty’s side. Someday.The feeling was bittersweet. If he went pro, it wouldn’t matter if he found Mr. Right, they’d still spend most of his playing career next thing to long distance except for the off-season. Lazy nights fooling around while they watched the game might be in short supply for a long, long time. He pushed the melancholy thought aside and snuggled back against Donner, only half watching the familiar scene of warm up skate in T-mobile arena.“Avs, huh?” “Oh yeah. Vive les Nordiques.”“See, I don’t get that,” Bitty said, shaking his head. “I could never cheer for those damn Jets.”He felt Donner’s laugh as well as heard it. “What if they draft you?”“Bite your tongue!” (If they drafted him, he’d love every moment and moon hopelessly over Blake Wheeler, but until such a day came Bitty was prepared to stand on principle and be properly appalled by the idea.)“The Winnipeg Jets are pleased to selects, from Samwell college-““You’re awful. You awful man,” Bitty laughed, squirming around to get a grip on him. Before they could break out into full-on wrestling, their tussle was interrupted by the puck drop.They settled back in to watch the game, Donner planting a conciliatory kiss on the top of Bitty’s head. It was an exciting game to watch, the first time Nathan MacKinnon had to face Kent Parson on ice. The commentary team was loving it, of course, reveling in the parallels - both went from the Q to the Memorial Cup to number one draft picks, made the team out of camp, elite skating, elite puck handling. Six foot rookie MacKinnon had an edge in the physical game but cagey veteran Parson could think the game like few others. “-go to far as to say that Parson’s place in the list of first round picks has an asterisk-““Oh, bullshit!” Bitty snapped, even as the other broadcaster was saying the same, if more politely.“Well, putting aside the controversy surrounding the 2009 draft, you have to give Parson this: he has undeniably earned that spot by now. As a matter of fact-“Donner gave his hip a friendly squeeze and said, “Do you think-“ They both knew what he was going to ask, it was a standard hockey fan question, only Donner had enough sense to cut it off when he remembered who Bitty’s Captain was. “Sorry, never mind. Forget that.”“Parson would have gone first, or the Aces are crazy,” Bitty said decisively, the spiteful satisfaction lasting almost as long as it took him to get the words out. After a pause, Donner said, “Okay,” in a carefully neutral tone. Bitty flushed, ashamed of himself. Then Donner gave him a little shake and said, more brightly, “That Matt Duchene, eh? Looking good.”Relieved he hadn’t ruined his date by acting like a vindictive nut, Bitty laughed and wiggled against him. “Lord, yes, Duchene can get it.”Donner’s hand wandered down to Bitty’s cock to stroke. “Hey, Bits. Can I fuck your thighs?”“Yes please,” said Bitty, scooting up into a better position and opening his legs enough to let him get in between. He closed them around Donner’s and was met with a gratifying moan. “Is that gonna chafe, honey? You need anything?”Donner gave a shallow thrust and Bitty felt the wet head of Donner’s cock nudge past his foreskin just enough to touch, then slide back. Bitty liked the way it felt, that oddly frictionless glide pressing between his thighs, teasing his balls. “Nah,” Donner said, hand falling into an easy rhythm to match his hand on Bitty’s cock, “I’m good.” On the TV screen, Parse was racing to intercept MacKinnon.“God, I love to watch him skate,” sighed Bitty, pressing back against Donner. Donner laughed and ran his thumb over the head of his cock, sliding in precome. “I can tell.” He kissed Bitty’s neck as the two met and MacKinnon managed to stick handle his way to keeping possession. “Sorry our boy’s better.”“Not so fast, mister.” Parse’s attempts to steal the puck hadn’t been purely dictated by opportunity, he’d been forcing MacKinnon into a bad position - bad for shooting, cut off from passes, nowhere to run. ”All on his lonesome now.”The take away would be credited to Gibson, but it was Parson who’d set it up.”He’ll get you next time,” Donner said, sounding a little out of breath. His hand and his hips worked faster.Bitty moaned at the rush of pleasure, but he was starting to get antsy feeling like he wasn’t doing any work. In bed or at parties, he was just as bad - no matter how much fun he was having, if he didn’t have a job to do, he’d get all wound up. Normally, in this position, he’d be meeting Donner’s thrusts with his own, but the way Donner was doing it, relying on his foreskin instead of lube, Bitty was afraid of hurting him.“How can I make it good for you, honey? I wanna make you come your brains out.”“Fuck, Bits. Your thigh, can you-“ He moaned when Bitty flexed his thighs and gave him a squeeze. “Yeah, like that.”He worked Donner over with his thighs, not quite as fast as Donner was jerking him. At first, Bitty was cautious about increasing the pressure, but Donner seemed to like it a little rough, so he put his strong thighs to work.It felt good for him too, using his muscles that way, not to mention the way Donner pressed his face against Bitty’s shoulder, muffling needy sounds against his skin. Sweetly careful, Donner mouthed gently at his neck.“You can mark me up if you want,” Bitty said, words a little slurred with lust. He hoped Donner did want. “Won’t anyone know who did it except you and me.”Moaning, Donner sucked eagerly under Bitty’s ear. His hand tightened on Bitty’s cock and Bitty felt himself pass the point of no return. “Come on, come on, oh, honey-“ Donner jerked him fast and hard, calluses hurting him just a little, just as much as he liked. Bitty’s back arched and his legs stiffened, muscles flexing hard, and he felt wetness between his thighs as Donner finished with him.They came down together, panting.“Did I hurt you, hon?”“Nah. Did I hurt you?”Bitty shook his head and lifted his fingers to the bruise on his neck. “You were just perfect.”On the ice, Parse took a big hit from McLeod, who Bitty thought had put a little extra mustard on it in retaliation for the slashes Parse had been sneaking in. So Troy got in McLeod’s face and the two of them dropped gloves.“That could be us somedays,” said Donner, nuzzling Bitty’s neck fondly.Bitty craned his neck to kiss him. “We’ll make it there.”They cuddled and watched the game, an exciting, high scoring ride, all the more fun with chirpy, handsy company. The game being tied after the first probably cut down on the chirping during their intermission shower, too. Donner started to get hard part way though the second and Bitty rolled him on his back and pounced. There were condoms on the bedside table and he rolled one onto Donner with practiced ease.Bitty grinned mischievously at Donner. “You can pretend I’m that handsome Mr. Duchene,” he said with a wink, and went down.“You’re so crazy,” laughed Donner, half moaning and gripping Bitty’s hair to urge him on.He bobbed his head and sucked, enjoying the feel and smell of it and the way he could make big, strong Donner gasp and thrust, muttering “Sorry, fuck, sorry,” when he made him gag. Between the condom and the fact that this was round two, it lasted long enough to make his jaw sore, and Bitty liked that too. The rest of him was already aching from the game, he could stand to get a little workout in bed.Eventually, after one deep thrust, Donner’s hips stilled and he pulled Bitty off him gently. “Ah, fuck, Bits. Thanks.” He pulled the condom off and knotted the end, then lay there panting, head turned to watch the game.Bitty rested his head on Donner’s hip, giving himself a few slow pulls to stay hard as he watched the game and Donner’s softening cock.“How do you want it?” Donner asked, giving his hair a little tug to tilt Bitty’s face towards his. The man was an inveterate hair puller, Bitty was starting to learn, and he kinda liked it.“Well, now, let’s see,” Bitty drawled, “I believe I heard a rumor you might just eat me up.”Donner flipped him onto his belly easily, and was considerate enough to face him at the TV, too. He coaxed Bitty up onto his knees, spread his cheeks, and said, “Here, hold.” Face down, ass up, holding himself spread open, Bitty didn’t have anything to concentrate on but waiting for Donner to touch him. And, well, if he craned his neck he could still watch the game. It was an Aces power play, he wasn’t going to just miss it.From the first time Donner’s tongue touched him, Bitty was muffling moans in the pillow. “Oh, fuck, honey, I ain’t gonna last,” he muttered, knees sliding farther apart even as he tried to push back against Donner’s mouth.Donner laughed. “Not when you’re watching Parson skate, eh?” He wrapped a hand around Bitty’s cock and dove back in, five o’clock shadow a pleasant scrape.Bitty laughed too, because Donner sure had his number, all the closeups of Parse’s skating really were doing it for him. The timing was either perfect or terrible depending on how much shame he had (right now, not much). Donner’s hand and mouth had Bitty’s balls starting to draw up right as Parse undressed Barrie with an absolutely filthy combination of a backhand toe drag and that spinorama of his (that’s a Kenny move) that Bitty had worked so hard to learn. A hard swipe of Donner’s tongue brought him off with an explosiveness he didn’t expect. As Bitty was coming back down to earth, slumped on the pillows and legs shaking under him, he thought dreamily, That’s what I’m gonna learn next. Then he realized he was imagining practicing it with Jack, and he pulled Donner’s arms around himself. “Hey,” said Donner, even as he hugged Bitty obligingly, “You okay?”“Yeah, hon, I’m fine,” Bitty said. He snuggled back against him to make it more true. “Think I’m just getting a little tired.”Donner kissed the back of his head. “I’ll set an alarm, in case we both falls asleep.”“Good idea.”As a matter of fact, they did both conk out during intermission. Bitty woke up with three minutes left in regulation and Donner snoring lightly. He probably needed the sleep, Lord knew Bitty felt ready to catch another fifteen hours or so himself, and the score was 5-4 Aces. I’ll wake him if the Avs tie it up, Bitty decided.They made a good try, with a couple moments that had Bitty holding his breath, but they never quite did it. Bitty let out a sigh of relief as the clock hit zero.He stayed for the post game presser, partly because he liked to watch it and partly because it felt nice to be here. Afterwards, he wriggled around to roll over in Donner’s arms and kiss his cheek. Donner opened his eyes a crack.“Hey, you,” Bitty said, and kissed him again, on this lips this time.“Hey.” Donner gave him another kiss, hands stroking over his back. “Who won?”“We did. Just by one, though.”Donner sighed. “Next time, eh?”“I oughta take off,” Bitty said, with another kiss. “I had a wonderful time.” “Me too.”Donner watched appreciatively as Bitty rolled out of bed and collected his clothes. “Maybe our next games, when we’re both in the same town....”“I’d like that.” Just because they weren’t dating didn’t mean they couldn’t have a standing booty call between friends. Bitty grinned at him. “You want my number so you don’t gotta fight me next time?”Donner laughed and lobbed the little hotel pad of paper his way. The pen was still clipped to it when Bitty caught it, and he was about to write directly on the pad when he thought better of it. He peeled off the top piece of paper, laid it against the TV cabinet, in case a nosy roommate noticed the indentations on the pad and decided to call the mystery girl he’d been sexiled for. Better safe than sorry, hockey players were a bunch of gossips and snoops. He wrote his number with no name and gave the paper to Donner along with a kiss. “Hope I see you in the Frozen Four, hon.”“You too, Bits.”Bitty left the hotel key and the vodka (“You want this, or should I get rid of the evidence?”) and snuck out of the hotel the same way he’d come in. When he got home, he added an alarm to get him up to have bring with Coach, turned off the daily alarm labeled “JACK ATTACK,” turned it back on because he oughta get up and train himself, deleted it because he could make a new alarm, with nothing to do with Jack, then was flooded with immediate regret out of all reasonable proportion. He briefly considered googling ways to undelete an alarm before deciding that that was fucking stupid and he was overtired and needed to go to bed before he embarrassed himself anymore.
Good Lord, what a rollercoaster of a night, Bitty thought. He sunk into his pillows and felt sleep coming on as easily as it had when he’d been snuggling up to Donner.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Now, what’s so interesting you can’t put it down at the breakfast table?”Coach’s voice cut through his reverie and Bitty jerked his head up, flushing with guilt. Lord, he was being so rude. The last day his daddy was visiting and here Bitty was, reading Twitter at the dang table. He’d only meant to peek at the notification, not go down the rabbit hole. “I’m sorry, daddy.”Looking still a little irritated but mostly amused, Coach nodded at his phone and raised his eyebrows questioningly.“Well, uh, somebody tweeted a video of my goal last night.” Bitty scratched the back of his neck. “It, uh, it got a little attention.”Someone had tweeted a gif of his goal and celly with the caption “Tammy Duncan IRL,” to be specific, but Bitty wasn’t sure Coach remembered the finer details of The Mighty Ducks. It was getting more retweets than Bitty had ever had, even on Moo Maw’s no-fail pie crust. “Well, that’s real exciting Junior. It’s good to get a buzz going viral,” he said, as sweetly awkward as when he complimented Bitty on his ‘skating edges.’ Bitty was pretty sure Coach’s main experience with Twitter was telling his football boys cautionary tales about what would happen if any pictures of them with bongs ended up there, a supposition which was only strengthened when Coach continued, much more confidently, “Just be careful what you ‘tweet’ online.““I am, Coach.” It was true, up to a point. Bitty’d never admitted to being drunk on his vlog, even when it was obvious, he only cussed a little, he hardly ever trash talked anyone by name, even Jack, and he had insisted that the only thing Shitty specify about the butter in his guest recipe for brownies be whether or not it was salted. But he wasn’t exactly shy about talking about men.(Bitty’s second most secret, embarrassing draft fantasy was of an Aces pre-draft meeting where some faceless PR suit questioned Eric Bittle’s online presence only to be passionately shouted down by director of amateur scouting Ernest Ford, the best damn defenseman the Aces had ever iced and a bonafide genius in Bitty’s opinion. In his number one most secret, embarrassing draft fantasy, Parse had been invited to sit in on the meeting to observe as captain, and he leapt to Bitty’s defense too.)“I’m always careful about it,” Bitty said, looking his daddy in the eye. “I promise.”A smile twitched the ends of Coach’s mustache and he stood, moved his coffee across the table to set by Bitty’s. “Budge over, Junior.” Bitty budged and Coach sat down beside him in the booth. “Now, why don’t you show me some of this good publicity.”Bitty did, carefully curating the best tweets to show to Coach. The initial gif had likes from quite a few blue checkmarks and Coach was duly impressed once Bitty explained the significance. Moneypuck queen Kate Parson, who hadn’t tweeted anything mean about Samwell’s Corsi at all, had retweeted someone who’d responded to the gif with “@NHLCanes Skinner-Gerbe-Bittle for shortest, figure skatingest line ever. #DraftGoals” (Thinking about Kent seeing that made Bitty just about melt with delight, not that he would admit that to Coach.) One tweet reading “Spud Webb. Quizz Rodgers. Eric Bittle. COINCIDENCE? #Shortlanta” made Coach choke on his coffee laughing. There was a lot like that, really positive, fun stuff that he could show his daddy and be proud of.As for the rest, well... it was what it was. (Thank goodness Coach wasn’t on Twitter, Bitty thought magnanimously as he scrolled. Bitty might have the good sense and saintlike patience to take Coach’s advice and be careful what he tweeted, but he’d just hate to think of the kind of hellfire his daddy would rain down on his behalf if he saw how some people’s children behaved.)After he’d seen Coach off to the airport, hugging him hard as if he could stave off homesickness by stocking up now, he set to dealing with the rest. Bitty bought himself the most sugary frou-frou drink he could get at Annie’s (the thought intruded uninvited, Jack used to do that, so he could chirp me and give me something I liked all in one, and wasn’t that just what he needed?) and headed back to his dorm to take care of business.Freshman athlete orientation had included some of the upperclassmen performing a horribly catchy musical PSA about social media entitled Block and sung to the tune of LMFAO’s Shots, and it would now be stuck in his head all week. Thanks, Internet.“Block, block, block, block, block, block, everybody,” Bitty mumble-sang under his breath as he tapped his phone screen somewhat harder than necessary.“Well, it’s a big night. Any of y’all following ECAC hockey maybe know what I’m talking about here: we‘re at Quinnipiac.” Bitty mimed wiping sweat off his brow. “Hoo boy, it’s a big one for us. I can’t even tell you they’re our biggest division rival, from what I hear they usually wipe the floor with us.” “But us Wellies don’t give up!” He thumped a fist into his other hand. “If the Aces can fight through that godawful west coast road swing, we can fight through Quinnipiac! Ducks and Bobcats, you’re going down!”By the time Pauly finished roaring his speech about how they were gonna send the Ducks running home to Uncle Walt begging to be “Mighty” again, even Parse was too fired up to care how scary the California roadie gauntlet was looking this year, and he should know better. But fuck the Ducks, fuck the predictive models, and fuck father time, they were going to crush it. The Aces’ window wasn’t closed until they said it was closed.