Chapter Text
Jack’s in P-town, picking up a gift for Bitty at Under Glass Custom Framing when his cell phone buzzes in his pocket. He steps away from the counter, where the clerk is wrapping his purchase in bubble wrap and butcher paper, and picks up the call.
“Hi Uncle Yannick.”
“Jack!” There’s the sound of hammering in the background, and a power drill; Yannick must be at work. “Your uncle and I would like to have you over for dinner tonight, before you leave for Providence. You free?”
“Uh -- yeah, sure. What time?” Jack glances at the clock behind the counter, but it’s only a few minutes past two. The store had been nice enough to do same-day turnaround for him, for a rush fee, and he’s going from here to the post office to mail it out Priority.
“I’ll be home by five, so dinner’ll be on the table around six? We’re grilling halibut steaks and baby asparagus.”
“Want me to bring anything?”
“No need, unless you want something specific to drink -- Bill’s got his usual range of beer and wine -- we had a nice cider last night, Farnum Hill.”
“Okay.” Jack looks out the front window of the shop back down Commercial Street, considering his options for picking up something to take for dessert. “Sure. I’ll see you between five-thirty, six?”
“We’ll be expecting you!” Yannick hung up and Jack turned back to the counter to collect his parcel, smiling to himself.
He’d been expecting something like this from Yannick since he’d told Uncle Billy about Eric on Sunday. He’d known Billy would tell Yannick, and known Yannick wouldn’t be satisfied with the few details Jack had shared with Bill. This was the “bribe your nephew with food in exchange for relationship details” dinner.
Jack pulls up to his uncles’ place that evening and finds Uncle Billy out on the side patio tending to the grill, Angus and Fergus flopped at his feet. Through the open window Jack can hear Yannick in the kitchen and All Things Considered warbling away on the radio.
“Had a good day?” Uncle Billy asks, as Jack bends down to scratch Fergus behind the ear. The dog thumps his tail happily in response.
“Yeah. Went for a run with Papa. Drove up to P-town.”
“You guys leave tomorrow for Providence?”
“Pawtucket, actually. Yeah. My lease started May 1st and all my stuff is there -- most of it -- but I haven’t had a chance to unpack. Mom and Papa drive back to Montréal on Sunday.”
“Where in Pawtucket?”
“Near Blackstone Park? It’s an old furniture warehouse they converted to lofts in 2012.”
“Nice neighborhood; I’ve been down there once or twice -- a colleague of mine lives there and commutes up to Boston for classes. Helluva commute, but her husband works at one of the hospitals there, on the nursing staff, so he’s gotta be close to work.”
“I stopped at the Chocolate Sparrow for ice cream?” Jack hefts the insulated bag he’s carrying. “I should put it in the freezer.”
Uncle Billy waves the fork he’s wielding, “Go on -- and tell Yannick the fish’ll be done in another two, three minutes.”
They eat out on the patio, the citronella candles burning to keep away mosquitoes, and Jack isn’t more than two bites into his halibut before Yannick asks, “So tell us about Eric! He was a teammate of yours at Samwell?”
Jack nods. “On my line, last two years. He’ll be a junior next year. He’s majoring in American Studies with an emphasis on food history and culture.”
“Bill tells me he’s from Georgia, originally?”
“Madison. He’s back there this summer, with his parents. And he works at a summer camp, in the kitchen.”
“Ah, yes,” Yannick smiles nostalgically. “I did that a few years myself -- poison ivy, skinned knees, homesickness, mosquitoes. We used to take the secondary school students out on week-long ‘voyageur’ excursions, packing everything with us, portaging from lake to lake.”
“Bitty -- Eric -- makes it sound like he’ll be in one place? They have day campers and kids who stay overnight. Maybe some of the staff take the kids out into the back woods? But Eric isn’t living there. He says his shifts are generally 12-8pm -- they have a morning crew that does breakfast and lunch, then an afternoon crew that does lunch clean up and dinner.”
“You going down to see him?” Uncle Billy asks, and Jack hears the questions behind the questions.
“I’m hoping to.” He pauses. He’s been looking for a way to have this conversation, actually, but hasn’t known how to start it. So part of him is grateful that his uncles have started it for him. He knows his parents are supportive and trying to give him and Bitty space to work this out; to their credit neither of them have expressed anything but happiness for them both, and interest in Bitty’s summer activities. He knows they still associate his breakdown six years ago with his coming out to them, and worry about the way his relationship with Kent may have precipitated his overdose. On some level, he still harbors the fear that his father will only be able to see his son’s gayness as a potential liability to his hockey career, even though Bob has said absolutely nothing to suggest that’s how he feels. But Jack doesn’t want to bring up the subject with his parents because he’s afraid that by sounding uncertain he’ll make them uncertain.
He trusts his uncles to understand this, though. The complexity of this for both him and Bitty. Uncle Billy’s been out to the family since before Jack was born, but he knows he didn’t tell his parents until after he graduated from college, and that he didn’t talk openly about his partners at work until after he’d been granted tenure. He knows Yannick has a complicated relationship with his mother and stepfather, and that at least one of Yannick’s sisters doesn’t like bringing the kids around when Yannick and Billy go up to Montréal to visit family.
“We’re talking about me going down to Madison to visit,” he says, nodding. “Once I know what my schedule is like, for the summer. I’ll be training pretty intensively, and there’s going to be charity events and things -- but. He’s not due back at Samwell until mid-August, and then we’re both gonna be busy with games and he’s got classes -- so, yeah. We’d like to spend some time together.” He pauses. “The thing is, Eric’s not out to his folks yet. So. We were talking about me going down so -- so he doesn’t have to do that alone.”
Yannick and Uncle Billy exchange a look, nodding. “That’s hard,” Uncle Billy agrees. “He’s worried they’re gonna take it badly?”
Jack shrugs, “I’ve met his mom and they seem really close, but Coach -- his father coaches high school football -- Eric doesn’t think his dad is going to be happy.”
Yannick reaches out and puts a reassuring hand over Jack’s wrist. “I remember that conversation. It’s a hard one. But I also remember the weight off my chest when I finally told my father and didn’t have to hide it anymore.”
Uncle Billy nods. “Are you -- or is he -- worried about physical safety? Is he worried they’re going to cut him off financially?” Jack remembers, suddenly, that Uncle Billy is one of the faculty at Wentworth who has a Safe Space sign on his office door. He wonders if he’s ever had a student who had to weigh either of these concerns. He knows he was lucky, incredibly lucky, in more ways than one and his throat constricts a little. He hasn’t asked Bitty much about what it was like growing up in the South, closeted; whether he knew any kids who were out. He remembers the casual homophobia that he used to think was normal, back in the Q, a bunch of adolescent boys posturing in front of one another and terrified of being seen as anything less than hypermasculine athletes.
It occurs to him for the first time, with an accompanying spike of shame that he’d never thought to ask, that there might be an actual incident behind Bitty's fear of being checked on the ice.
“I -- I don’t think so. He’s never said that’s what he’s worried about,” Jack says. “I should probably ask him.”
“Are you planning on coming out to the team?” Uncle Billy asks, without judgement.
Jack licks his lips. “Yes, I mean, eventually.” He pokes at his fish. “I’m not going -- I don’t want to lie. I haven’t decided what to -- this thing with Eric happened after I signed. So I wasn’t thinking it would be something I’d have to think about right away? But. George -- Georgia Martin -- the assistant GM -- she’s out. She brings her wife to events; they have a little girl. It’s one of the reasons I signed with the Falconers.” The reason, if he’s being honest with himself. That, and the fact that Providence was less than an hour’s drive from Samwell.
He still remembers the day that George came up to Samwell on her first recruiting visit, how she’d sat in the empty stands at Faber watching their morning practice, and then asked him to show her around the campus. They’d gone for a jog through the Ashburton Arb and around the Pond. She’d said her wife -- a Samwell alum -- had told her to be sure and grab a coffee at Annie’s so they’d stopped for lattes before she’d had to hit the road back to Providence. He hadn’t realized until after she left how deliberate her casual mention of her wife, Joelle, had been. How she’d deliberately talked about how she and Joelle had watched his second-year games together while she was on maternity leave with their daughter Emmy.
Lardo had told him, later that week, that George had asked her and some of the others -- Chowder, Ransom, Bitty -- about the locker room culture, about how comfortable they felt at Faber, on the road, about Jack as a captain.
“The Falcs -- the owner, I guess, has a son who’s gay. So when George and some of the other staff and members of the team started talking about making the team a model in the league -- try and prove to the rest of the league that you can be inclusive and not lose good athletes or advertising dollars -- he was open to listening to what they had to say.”
“Fascinating!” Yannick actually looks interested, for once, in the world of professional sports.
“I’m --” Jack clears his throat, nervously. “No one’s actually said this to me, outright? But I think they’re hoping that having Bob Zimmermann’s son on the team, whether I’m a player who happens to be gay or I’m just someone who’s willing to play with gay athletes, will make it harder for the NHL to ignore what they’re doing.”
Uncle Billy looks at Jack shrewdly. “And you’re comfortable with that?”
Jack had been comfortable with it when he knew George wouldn’t push him to self-identify. She’d never actually asked him outright about his orientation. She’d only made it clear in their conversations -- backed up by the code of conduct and anti-harassment policies he’d had to sign -- that his experience on Samwell’s racially diverse team, in a locker room that didn’t tolerate sexist or homophobic speech or behavior was something she, and the rest of the Falconers staff, considered an asset.
Given their policies, he's pretty sure if he goes to George and tells her he's dating Bitty and wants to be out to the team, to the press from day one she wouldn’t bat an eye.
He swallows. “I’m -- I’m not sure yet. It’s -- it’s a lot to think about. And a lot to ask of Eric, too. He’s still in school and -- it’s a lot to think about.”
Again his uncles exchange a look.
“We should come down and meet your Eric this fall,” Yannick says, finally. “We’ll come down to Pawtucket and take you out for dinner, eh?” He doesn’t say it like it’s optional.
Jack feels his shoulders relax, a little. He and Eric can do this. And it’s good to know they don’t have to figure it out all on their own.
