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“You’re my favorite part of this,” Kent says, “of everything, really. Except the hockey, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Jack echoes, and stares down at his shoes, feeling sick for some unknown reason.
Kent leans in to kiss him and Jack jerks back, shocked.
“Don’t be like that, dude,” Kent says, and he puts his hand on Jack’s shoulder. It feels impossibly heavy. Jack takes a deep breath, then another, and stares at the shifting colors of Kent’s wide, confused eyes.
“Sorry,” Jack says, “sorry, God, sorry, you just startled me, Kenny,” and he smoothes down an unruly lock of blond hair and kisses Kent back.
“Do you ever worry about it?” Jack asks, as they lay on their backs in the Zimmermanns’ backyard, staring up at the clouds scudding by high overhead.
“Worry about what?” Kent asks in return.
“Everything,” Jack says simply. “Hockey. The draft. People finding out about us or whatever. Just, generally, being—well, the way we are. You know.”
“No,” Kent says, “I really don’t. It’ll all work out.”
“You can’t know that, though,” Jack argues.
Kent pushes himself up on one elbow and looks down at Jack. “No, I guess I can’t,” he admits, “but who cares? It’s not like it matters that much, and we’ll have each other anyway.”
“But what if they ruin this?” Jack asks softly. “I’m going to have to play against you no matter what. What if they make it worse than that, even?”
“Who is ‘they’?” Kent asks, laughing. “The evil hockey cabal? Get a grip, Zimmermann.”
From where Jack is lying, Kent is blocking out the sun, the bright afternoon light backlighting his golden hair and making him look like some avenging angel. He’s beautiful and terrifying, and the sight of him makes Jack want to laugh or cry or throw something.
Instead of any of those, he pushes himself up to kiss Kent, and Kent kisses back. Jack’s heart is pounding so hard it feels like it’s about to fly out of his chest, but for slightly different reasons than usual, and that’s enough, for now.
Jack’s phone rings, and it’s Kent. He thinks about picking up, but his arms feel impossibly heavy, and the idea of having to reach over to where his phone is lying on his bedside table seems an insurmountable task to overcome. He lies in bed, listening to it ring, trying to summon the energy to pick up, but it goes to voicemail long before he finds the strength.
Kent walks into Jack’s room and crosses to where Jack is still lying on the bed, hours later.
“Why are you ignoring me?” Kent asks bluntly, and sits down on the edge of the bed. “Clearly, you don’t have a lot else going on. What the fuck, Jack?”
“Sorry,” Jack says dully, and presses his hands over his eyes. “I’m just—not up for it today, Parse. I just can’t.”
“Oh, get over it,” Kent scoffs. “Come on, get out of bed, let’s go get dinner.”
“I can’t,” Jack repeats, and his eyes are still closed but he can feel the irritation radiating off of Kent.
“I hate it when you’re like this,” Kent says meanly, and Jack wants to cry.
“I’m sorry,” Jack says, and then feels a surge of white-hot annoyance cut through his general malaise. “Fuck, I’m sorry, but I just can’t, and—and it’s not fair for you to be like this, you can’t ask this from me, I deserve someone who won’t ask this of me.” His voice catches on the last words, and he forces his eyes open as he sits up and grabs Kent’s wrist. “I know you need me,” Jack says bluntly, “but I need—I don’t know what I need, but it isn’t this.”
Kent’s face twists, expression going cruel and hard. “Don’t kid yourself, Zimms,” he spits out. “I don’t need you. And I’m the best you can get, I’m the only thing you can get. As long as you have hockey, you’ll never be able to have anything else but me.”
“I didn’t mean it like that—“ Jack says desperately. “Parse, I’m sorry—“
“No,” Kent says coldly, “you had your chance. We’re done here.”
“Kenny, please—“
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Kent says. “Pick up this time.”
He leaves.
Jack flops back on his bed, stares at the ceiling, counts backwards from ten over and over until his breathing settles back into something resembling normal. And then he reaches for the pills.
Jack’s phone rings, and it’s Kent. He picks up.
“Dude, what’s up?” Kent says brightly, as if yesterday hadn’t happened, as if they’d never fought.
“Oh, you know…” Jack says vaguely, and traces the wood grain of the kitchen table with one nail-bitten finger. “Just things.”
“Come over,” Kent orders, “let’s go swimming.”
Jack pauses, unsure, and Kent fills the pause. “Come on, man, it’ll be fun,” he coaxes. “I know you hate fun, but—“
“I don’t hate fun,” Jack protests.
Kent snorts. “Sure feels like it sometimes, you huge buzzkill,” he says cuttingly. “So if you don’t hate fun, come over. See you in twenty.”
The line goes dead and Jack thinks for half a second about saying no, staying at home and watching a nature documentary in his room, maybe fitting in a second workout and helping his mom cook dinner. It sounds nice, but then he thinks about an afternoon in Parse’s billet family’s pool, the water refreshingly cool and the sun glinting off Kent’s golden hair and the sound of their laughter filling the entire backyard. It does sound fun, and more than that, it sounds like a reprieve from the knot of tension coiled in the middle of his chest.
Jack goes.
Jack makes one mistake, and then he makes more.
Jack’s phone rings, and it’s Kent. He lets it go to voicemail and then he turns the phone off altogether.
“Mom,” Jack says, voice small, “can you put Lola on the phone?”
“Jack,” his mother says, exasperated, “she’s a dog. She doesn’t know.”
“Please,” Jack begs, “I just want to tell her I love her.”
“Oh, Jack,” his mother sighs, but a few seconds later there’s a heavy panting on the other end of the phone that could only come from a dog.
“Hi, Lola,” Jack says, “I’m—I’m sorry I’m not there, sweetie, but I’m going to school in America now. I’ll be back in a couple months and I’ll give you all the head rubs you could ever want then, okay? I just want you to know that I love you with my whole entire heart, even though I’m not at home right now.”
Lola pants some more.
“That enough, Jack?” his mom asks, voice gentle.
“Yeah, that’s good,” he says. “Thanks, Mom.”
His mom doesn’t say anything, but Jack knows that she understands.
“Kent Parson?” Shitty says incredulously. “No shit.”
“Ugh,” Jack says, and drags a pillow over his face. “I’m coming out to you,” he says, voice muffled through the feathers, “you’re supposed to be supporting me, you dick.”
“No, no, I totally am, dude,” Shitty says quickly, “I’m sorry. That was wrong of me. I was just shocked, because I mean—really?”
“Yes, really,” Jack says irritably, still hiding beneath the pillow. “I was—well, we were—I really liked him, okay, and he … tolerated me.”
Shitty removes the pillow from Jack’s face. “Oh, dude,” he says sympathetically, “bro, fuck, I’m so sorry. That’s so fucked up.”
“It’s fine,” Jack says tersely, “it’s just that—well, with him, I had to hide and I knew I was always going to have to hide, and I’m sick of it. I wanted to tell someone, and I know I can trust you.”
“Yeah, man,” Shitty says earnestly, “this never leaves this room, I swear.”
“It just sucked,” Jack says, “the whole thing, for both of us. The competition and the secrecy and me being anxious as fuck all the time and Kent being a dick about it. For both of us, it was like the only non-awful part of that whole summer, and I know that at least for me even the good parts still kind of sucked.”
“Bruh,” Shitty says, “Heads up, I’m going to give you the biggest hug of your life.”
“Wait—“ Jack says, but then Shitty’s on top of him, wrapping warm arms around him like some kind of octopus with a terrible haircut.
“I just want you to know you deserve better,” Shitty tells him sincerely. “You’re nobody’s consolation prize. You’re Jack fucking Zimmermann, and you deserve someone who loves you and who makes you happy, and I know that one day you’ll find that.”
Jack is not crying, not even a little, but he hides his face in Shitty’s neck anyway. Shitty has arms like a steel vise, and Jack can’t really breathe, but—
It’s nice.
The Aces win the Stanley Cup and Jack can’t stop himself. He’s deleted Kent’s number out of his phone a hundred times over, of course—and changed his own number at least twice since Kent last called—but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have it memorized.
He pauses before he hits send, though, looks at what he’s written, and goes to make a better choice. He can’t stop himself from making a mistake, but he can stop himself from making a worse one.
He puts on his Samwell Hockey sweatshirt and drives to the nearest convenience store and buys the cheapest disposable cell phone they have – ‘drug dealer phones’, Shitty calls them, and he’s not wrong.
It’s Jack, he types painstakingly on the tiny plastic number pad. Congrats. I always knew you would do it.
He hesitates then, thinks of all the things he’s been aching to say for the past two years, all the things he was never brave enough to say before, and all the things he’s too brave to say now.
I’m really proud of you, he adds to the end, and then hits send.
He sits in his car in the convenience store parking lot for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, and then he sighs, staring at the dark phone screen, and gets out of his car to throw the phone into the trash.
And then he drives home.
Jack’s home for the summer for a few days between the end of junior year and the start of all his training camps; he’s sitting on the living room couch watching the Aces flame out in game five of the Western Conference Finals. His mom comes and sits next to him, and together they watch as Kent Parson skates furiously back to the bench after a missed shot, and the game goes to second intermission with the Aces down 3-1.
“I know it ended badly, but that boy did love you,” his mom says quietly, a gentle hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I know he never said so, but I could see it in his eyes anyway.”
“I know,” Jack says, and leans into her side. “But I guess … I guess it still matters that he never said it.”
“Did you?” his mother asks softly. “Did you tell him how you felt?”
“Yes,” Jack answers, and stares down at his hands, twisting anxiously in his lap. “That’s why it matters that he never said it back.”
“Oh, Jack,” his mother says, “I’m so proud of you, baby,” and Jack turns and lets her hug him for the first time in years.
“Checking practice,” Jack says, and Bittle looks up, eyes wide and startled.
“What?”
“I think we should start checking practice again,” Jack tells him.
“I—why?”
“Bittle, come on,” Jack says, “It’s obvious that you’re still not comfortable with physical contact, and I can help you with that.”
Bittle flushes bright red at that, for some unknown reason. “I know you can help,” he says, “and God knows I desperately need all the help I can get. Just—why would you want to help me? You’re talking to NHL scouts and so busy being the best Samwell captain in history, why would you want to—“
“Bittle,” Jack cuts him off, “I want to help because I want you to keep playing on my team, because playing with you makes me better.”
“Oh,” Bittle says softly, “um, thanks.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m just so scared of getting hit,” he admits, “and everyone says it’s not a big deal, but—it’s happened, and it was a big deal then, and it could be a big deal again. I know I’m overreacting, but I’m not being totally unreasonable, either. I just hate being scared like this.”
“We’re all scared of something,” Jack says, and shrugs. “God knows I am, at least. I know it’s hard, but we just can’t let it stop us.”
Bitty grins at him then, wide and hopeful. “Thanks, Jack,” he says, heartfelt.
Jack looks at him, at the nervous hope in his wide brown eyes, and some of the tension in his chest loosens a little. Oh, he thinks, and files that away for later.
“Saturday, six AM,” Jack says, and then smiles tentatively back.