Work Text:
When Bitty had called Mama about spring break and maybe coming home – it fell conveniently near Easter – she’d surprised him by suggesting she and Coach come to him instead.
“With football, your daddy’s never gonna be able to make it up for family weekend and he’d be real happy to see campus.”
And that had been that. A plan had been settled on – Mama and Coach would head up on Saturday and leave Tuesday morning. After everything was settled with his parents, Bitty mentioned it to Jack.
“I’ll be in Providence the whole time,” Jack had offered once Bitty finished detailing the plan.
“Ok?”
“You had mentioned maybe wanting to tell them about us. To, you know, reiterate things.”
“I… Yes, I mean. That would be nice. Are you – I thought you wanted to wait?”
“Bits, that’s not my decision. They’re your parents. I don’t think they’ll out me or anything.”
“Um. Would you… would you want to be here when I do it?”
“If you want me there, of course. I could come down Sunday or Monday. We have games Saturday and Tuesday, though.”
They had decided that Jack would drive to Samwell on Sunday and join the Bittles for dinner. After dinner, back at the Haus, his hand in Jack’s, Bitty told his parents that he and Jack were together. There’d been no scene and the timing meant that they’d had enough time to say their piece before Jack headed back to Providence and his parents went back to their hotel.
Bitty met his parents the next morning for breakfast.
“It was real sweet of Jack to come to dinner with us last night,” Mama said as their food was delivered.
Bitty smiled, “He was glad to have time to come in while y’all were here.”
“I’m sure he’s real busy right now. Too busy for a real relationship, huh?”
Bitty frowned slightly, “He is busy, yeah, but it’s so close to Samwell and we talk a lot.”
His parents exchanged a look and changed the topic and Bitty stewed on the exchange for the rest of the day. The next morning, he headed to Providence for the week. Jack would leave Saturday, but until then, they would be able to spend some time in the same city.
When Bitty talked to his mother a few days later, standing in Jack’s kitchen with a cup of coffee, it set their new normal – the normal of ignoring anything touching on truly personal. It hurt, more than Bitty had thought it would, to not be able to share his happiness at his relationship with Jack with his mom, to know that she wasn’t happy for him.
Bitty and Jack had talked a bit about what summer would mean. Jack had suggested Bitty could stay in Providence with him and Bitty had said he’d think about it, but that he was actually planning on doing what he’d done for the last few summers – head home, work as a camp counselor, Fourth of July cookout with family. Everything that summer had meant to him for the longest. Jack had smiled and nodded and asked if Bitty could make time in that schedule for a trip up to Montreal – Jack’s parents were hoping for a visit, with or without Jack.
Bitty had laughed and said he’d see what he could do.
Things were in a holding pattern – a slightly uneasy, but not unworkable holding pattern. And SMH was doing well. Despite predictions that they’d have a tough time making a repeat at the frozen four without Jack, they’d done just that. Had made it to the semi-finals before being eliminated. Disappointed though they were to lose, they’d played hard and done well and the coaches were pleased.
He was in the kitchen, half-supervising the clean-up of the kitchen post-breakfast, when his phone rang. It was a bit earlier than their usual Sunday calls, but still after church, so Bitty headed upstairs, assuming Mama had some story to tell from service.
“Morning, Mama,” Bitty said as he closed his bedroom door.
“Morning, Dicky. Dicky, I just couldn’t wait to get home and call you. You will not believe what Sara Jane told me this morning.”
Bitty smiled to himself, settling against his pillows. He made appropriate noises as his mother filled him in on the latest gossip back home and clicked through information for flights. As she wrapped up her stories and started in on what was starting to peek up in the garden, Bitty took the opportunity to mention what he was looking at for when to head home. He was planning to stay through graduation, plus a couple of days to help Lardo pack up what would be moving to her new place in Connecticut.
“Mama, when I leave Hartford, would it be better for me to fly home Saturday or Tuesday? Tuesday’s the cheaper flight, but I know mid-week can be a little tricky for you or Coach to come get me.”
“Oh, were you going to come down for a quick visit this year? I thought you were staying up in Boston.”
“What? No, I was planning on coming home for the summer. I told Mr. Lee that I’d be happy to come back to camp again this year.”
“Oh, yes, sorry. He mentioned that and I said I wasn’t sure what your plans were. I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you, Dicky? You working around all those kids with the way you’re feeling?”
“I feel fine, Mama,” Bitty said, confused.
She was quiet a moment. “Well, I’m sure Pastor Michael would be happy to talk to you, if you really think you’re ready to move forward. I can always tell Mr. Lee that you changed your mind and are feeling up to it.”
It clicked with a sickening sort of certainty what she was talking about – why she assumed he wouldn’t come home. Or rather, that she wasn’t planning on having him come home for the summer. He swallowed heavily. “I have to go, Mama. Something just crashed downstairs and I’m a little worried with the way these boys are. I’ll… I’ll call you later.”
The house was quiet, though. He knew Holster and Ransom had taken the day to head to Boston to look at apartments and that Nursey, Dex, and Chowder were at the volleyball house helping the girls with a painting project as the result of a lost bet. Lardo was at her studio.
Bitty stared at his phone screen, numb. After a moment, he turned it off and set it carefully on his bedside table, then laid down, staring blankly up at his ceiling and for a long time, everything was just sort of static. Blank.
Memories slammed him all at once – the smell of Moomaw’s house, canning days with his mother, helping Coach at the grill and practicing passes with the freshmen, his campers on creek exploration day, heading out to the lake on his free days, the way the Georgia heat made everything warm and slow and comfortable.
He was unaware that he’d been silently crying until there was a tap at his door and Lardo poking her head in, “Bro, is your phone… are you ok?”
“Huh?” Bitty replied, and found his voice a bit scratchy.
“Jack said he texted you a couple times and when you didn’t reply he texted me to make sure you were ok. You ok?”
“Um. Yeah, no. I’m fine.” Bitty sat up and picked up his phone, turning it on.
Lardo gave him an unimpressed look that managed to convey both that she thought that was a load of horse shit and that she was going to let it slide because she was worried about him.
Bitty offered a small smile in response and she backed out of the room, closing the door as she left.
He read through Jack’s messages.
JZ: Morning – let me know when you’re free. Have a quick question. 10:15AM
JZ: Long talk with your mom this morning, eh? Getting all the good news from home? 11:00 AM
JZ: I’m sure you’re just busy, but it’s been a couple hours… can you just let me know that you’re ok? 12:30AM
JZ: Bits? 1:00
JZ: Hey – I’m going to see if Lardo knows where you are or if she can check on you, so if you’re just busy or something you can be mad at me for interrupting. Not her. Sorry. 1:30
EB: I’m so sorry, honey. I turned my phone off and lost track of time. Didn’t see that you’d texted. 1:50
JZ: Oh. Sorry. Everything ok? 1:50
EB: I don’t know.
EB: I think Mama just told me I can’t come home this summer or that if I come home this summer it has to mean that I’m not… that I don’t like.
EB: She doesn’t think I should work at camp, because of the kids.
EB: She sort of said I could come home if I wanted to talk to Pastor Michael about …
EB: Anyway. Sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you. I just… I just don’t know.
Bitty should not have been surprised when his phone started ringing immediately after his last message sent.
“Hi, Jack,” he said as he answered. “What was your question, honey?”
“It can wait. Are you ok?”
“Lord, Jack. I don’t know. I mean, yes. I’m ok. I’m just.”
Jack made a noise that fell somewhere between frustrated and sympathetic and it was so very Jack that it made Bitty smile a bit.
“But I do want to know what your question is. You have me real curious.”
“If you’re sure?” Jack paused and when Bitty didn’t say anything, he continued, “I don’t know if this will help, but I had dinner with George last night – she asked if you’ve thought about playing professionally after Samwell.”
“What?” Bitty sat up straight on his bed.
“I guess she was watching your last game because of one of the guys on Notre Dame’s team and they were looking at your speed during the game. She thinks it could be a good match.”
“For the Falconer’s?”
“Uh, sort of.” Jack cleared his throat. “Actually, she compared it to Parse. Not – she’s not trying to send you to Vegas, just she said that if you wanted to explore that you’d be welcome at the Falconer’s training camp this summer.”
“Oh. Really, Jack?”
“Yes, she’s going to give you a call to check in the next couple days, but I asked if I could give you a heads up.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t have to.”
Bitty was quiet for a moment before blurting out, “Do you think I could do it?”
“Yeah, actually. I do. You’re good, Bits. I don’t think you’re NHL ready just yet, but a couple years on the Hartford Hounds or somewhere else on a farm team and, yeah. I think you could play if you wanted.”
“I’m not a fighter.”
“There are other guys in the league who don’t really fight. And you’re fast. You’ve gotten pretty good at checking.”
“I’m gay, Jack, and … I mean, it’d be pretty hard to put that cat bag in the bag with as active as I am on…everything.”
“I can’t make that call for you, Bits, but talk to George about it when she calls, eh? Maybe you can talk to someone from our PR team about it.”
“I don’t. Jack, this is big.”
“Yeah it is, Bud. But not bad, right?”
“Lord, honey. No, not bad at all. Just unexpected.”
“Still coming up next weekend?”
“Yeah – I’ll be there for your last game this season, honey. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Tater would never forgive me.”
Jack laughed at that. “Alright, Bud. I gotta go now, actually. I promised Thirdy I’d meet him at the gym for a bit.”
“Isn’t it a rest day for you, Mr. Zimmermann?”
“It is, but Tater’s got something going on and Thirdy needs a spotter.”
“Ok. Well have fun!”
“Have a good afternoon, Bits. Give me a call tonight if you want.”
“Ok, honey. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Bitty wandered out of his room and into Lardo’s. She looked up from what she was sketching when he walked in, but didn’t say anything as he flopped onto her bed, his phone resting on his chest.
He let the sound of her pencil on paper do what it could to relax him while he thought about his conversation with his mother and the subsequent conversation with Jack.
After a while, he said, “Mama doesn’t think I should come home this summer and the Falconers are interested in me taking part in their training camp.”
Lardo’s pencil didn’t even pause as she processed what Bitty had said. “Oh?”
Bitty shrugged and was quiet for a while longer. Eventually, he asked, “Do you think they’d be more ok with a gay son if he was a professional athlete? Or would that be worse?”
Lardo finished her line, then switched out pencils. “I probably shouldn’t give this advice, but Shitty gave it to me with the same caveat, so, you gotta do you, bro. Fuck your parents.”
“Lardo,” Bitty said, slightly shocked at the language despite himself.
She looked up, “But seriously, if you want to play professionally, it’s gotta be because you want to do it. Not because of Jack. Not because of your parents. And as far as not going home, you were trying to figure out how to work at camp and be home for the fourth and still spend some time with Jack and visit his parents in Montreal and visit Shitty out on the Cape. Maybe this isn’t the worst thing. I mean, yeah, ok, it fucking sucks. But at least it won’t be, like, some open secret thing?”
Bitty felt himself almost deflate at that, because as much as it hurt, it was true. He wanted to be home for the summer, but he had also sort of been dreading being home for the summer and having to put who he was back in a box.
Because he was proud of the person he was becoming – the person he was – and he didn’t want to have to be someone else.
“So, did you talk to George or was this info from Jack about the Falconers?”
“Jack. Apparently she asked him if I was interested last night. She’s gonna call me soon.”
“If she noticed, someone else will have, too. Not that she’s unobservant, but they all look for similar things. What are you going to do if other places call?”
“That won’t happen,” Bitty said.
Lardo’s eyebrows went up.
“It won’t!” Bitty said, defensively. “I mean, I’m – ” he stopped abruptly as his phone began to ring – an unknown number. “Hello? Yes, this is he. How can I help you?”
Bitty’s eyes went wide as he all but leapt from Lardo’s bed. She smirked and went back to her sketching as he made his way out of her room and back to his own. She grabbed her phone and sent a quick text to Jack.
LD: George should call Bits today.
JZ: Thanks. I’ll let her know.