Chapter Text
Jack’s trying and failing to understand the directions for the the hand pump that’s come with the inflatable mattresses when his father calls.
“Salut,” he says, rocking back on his heels and rising to his feet to walk over to the tall living room windows while he talks.
“Jack, I just thought I’d call and see how things are going,” Bob speaks in French, like he often does when it’s just the two of them. It’s a habit they fell into when Jack was very small and Bob and Alicia were encouraging him to grow up bilingual.
“Good, they’re good,” Jack watches a heron rise up from the reeds at the bank of the river and fly off toward where the evening sun is dropping toward the edge of the trees. “Shitty and Lardo are driving down tomorrow, to spend a few days. They’re gonna come to the community skate on Saturday morning. I told Shitty I expect him to get his ass out on the ice.”
“Mom said you were working with the kids last weekend -- it’s good to hear they’re putting your coaching skills to good use already.”
“It’s nice,” Jack says. “I’d forgotten how much I missed working with the kids. I always thought maybe I could volunteer during the school year but -- there was never enough time.”
“And you’re settling in with the team?”
Jack had been less than a year old when his father had joined the Penguins, and he’s never thought to wonder what it had been like for Bob to suddenly be playing with an entirely different set of teammates.
“It’s -- I mean right now it all feels a bit like summer training, you know?” He says, thinking back on summers spent at various camps where you get to know the guys and then everyone goes their separate ways at the end of it. “I keep looking for Bitty or Chowder on the ice, expect to see Rans and Holster instead of the Falconers’ defense. It probably won’t really hit me until August that I’m not going back.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine, son,” Bob says.
“Yeah,” Jack sighs, not sure his father actually understands his disorientation. Even when Bob was playing in Pittsburgh, he and Alicia and infant Jack had spent most of their summers in Montréal where the Zimmermanns were close to Bob’s former teammates. But most of them had had wives with jobs, a house, kids in school. Even the few who -- like Jack and his parents -- traveled together as a family during the season still owned houses they’d return to in the off-season. College is … different. Jack’s been through four years of watching teammates graduate full of promises to stay in touch only to have them drift off into their lives beyond Samwell until one day they’ve left the group text entirely. Johnson being the exception (but then again Johnson is the exception to many things).
He’s heard from some of the guys that more teammates have stayed active in the Facebook group but the idea of setting up a social media profile still sends him into a cold sweat. Maybe when Bitty is here in August they can do it together. He’s gathered from listening to the guys talk in the locker room that some of them have public and private social media accounts. Which means there must be a way to set one up so he can keep up with friends but not talk to the entire world with the press of a button.
“And how’s Eric doing?” Bob asks, pulling Jack’s attention back to the present.
“He seems good,” Jack says, aware that this sounds bland. He and Bitty have been texting a lot but it’s been hard to find a time to FaceTime or talk on the phone now that the camp session has started. Bitty wakes up when Jack’s at practice and while some days they can catch each other over breakfast, if Jack has morning meetings they have to make do with asynchronous texting. Or a brief call at the end of the night when Eric’s home from work around nine or ten.
“He said last night he mentioned a boyfriend to his co-workers and no one reacted badly. Not my name, just that he was seeing someone.”
“You know your mother and I want you both to do what you feel comfortable doing,” Bob says. “We’d be proud of you, and support you however we can, if you decide to come out publicly.” Jack can hear the hesitation in his father’s voice. “But we also -- it may not be easy. And you don’t owe the public that information about yourself.”
“No, but --” Jack hesitates himself. “--I think I might owe myself and Eric. We’ve been talking about it. Now that he’s out to his parents. I -- I pushed him too hard last week, wanting to talk to George. So -- we’re gonna wait at least until after I see him in Georgia. Maybe when he’s here in August...” he trails off.
He’s still struggling with the shame of having miscalculated so badly the week before, with the guilt of not realizing how alone and left behind Bitty had been feeling in Madison. How paralyzed at the thought of public exposure -- even when public exposure came in the form of sharing their relationship with trusted friends. It’s shaken Jack, a bit, to realize how hard it is to read Bitty over the phone, even with a video feed; how much pain Bitty’s able to hide so successfully. He’s still not sure what to do with that knowledge -- except, for the moment, count the days until he’s back in Eric’s space and he can assess what’s going on through touch as well as visuals and tone of voice and what Eric is able to tell him.
Telling Suzanne and Coach, though, seems to have opened the floodgates and now, barely a week later, here Eric is boldly trying out the words "...my boyfriend..." in front of his fellow camp counselors.
Jack had found himself falling a little bit more in love with Bitty when he told that story, the evening before, voice full of both relief and an undercurrent of sass. It’s the tone of voice that suggests just you try to question Eric’s presence (on the hockey team), his skill (baking pies), his taste in music (not Jack’s). This was the Eric Jack is used to: boldly insisting on his right to be in Jack’s space. He realizes, now, looking back over the previous year, that this had been Bitty being brave. Bitty flirting with him. Uncertain of his reception, Bitty had still been willing to say in a thousand different interactions I want and I am.
Even though he'd gone unnamed, Jack knows Bitty laid claim to him at that table down in Georgia the day before.
And he’s looking forward to the moment when Eric will let Jack claim him back.