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The NHL is full of gossip. Not just the players — the fans, industry veterans, reporters. It’s one of the reasons Jack doesn’t maintain a Twitter presence, even though Georgia presses him about it every few months. She’s even offered to have someone maintain it for him.
The point is, Jack knows that somewhere, someone is talking about him on a team groupchat. (There’s always a team groupchat with the whole team, and one with almost everyone. In every team. If you’re not part of an incomplete team groupchat, you’re the one left out of it.) Somewhere else, there’s some reporter trawling through old pictures of his last year in the Q, so that he can illustrate some inane article invariably titled The Boys Are Back In Town or something equally vapid. Someone is probably tweeting his dad, right now, like they always do when something happens and they can’t tweet Jack about it.
He finds out at a lag behind the general population. It’s possible that because he slept in, Bitty knew before him.
Bitty — he’s not so far from Jack. An hour train ride. Jack’s taken longer rides to visit the aquarium he likes, when he was in school. But the fact that “Go See Bitty” pops into his head fully formed and forceful like an assignment, like the next objective when he feels a little professionally unbalanced, probably isn’t appropriate. He should be focused on hockey right now. On his team.
On his team which now includes Kent Parson.
He can’t just blow off his responsibilities, as much as he wants to get in a cab and not stop until he’s able to crawl into his (gorgeous, warm) boyfriend’s bed. Love you, he taps out, just to be sure. He’s not ready to talk about it, but he doesn’t want Bitty to worry.
Bitty sends a long string of emojis, starting with the sensible, easily-translated yellow heart, and the little pie, but then growing less logical as the string goes on. It ends with a cactus. Jack sends the cactus back, in acknowledgement.
At practice, they all rally around Paws, who they’re losing next week. Tater pours out a flask on the ice.
“Aw Tater Tot,” Paws says, putting a bulky arm around his neck and landing a comical smooch on his nose. “You must really love me if you’re willing to melt the rink for me.”
“Is not how vodka works,” Tater says, grinning. “You would need so much more vodka, and for you, Paws, we will only use one.”
“Fuck I look like, only worth one bottle,” Paws says. Jack can’t help but smile. Tater gives him a friendly shove.
Paws has been on the team a long time, he’s a good player, a solid D-man. He and Jack weren’t close, but they sat together on a roadie one time and they’d passed back and forth a tube of Bengay when Jack realized he’d left his at the hotel. After that he and Jack had a long conversation about light pollution and the way people conceptualize space. He’s going to miss him.
The post-practice love-fest turns into post-practice drinks, where they take turns buying Paws a drink until he taps out. He has to kiss everyone who doesn't get him a drink. Jack orders him a whisky sour pretty early on in the game, but Paws ends up having to kiss Javier “Michelangelo” Michaels, “Fancy” Dan Fanning, and Ryan “Wilty” McIntosh.
“That’s a lot of enthusiasm,” Snowy points out, during Paws’ two minute liplock with Wilty. Wilty’s ears are the same color as his hair. His whole head looks embarrassed, from all angles. Paws flips them the bird without removing himself from Wilty’s face.
The whole room is having a laughing conniption. It’s funny, Jack understands, because neither of them are attracted to men.
This is the reason Jack isn’t out in the NHL. He’s been immersed in this culture since childhood, brimming with homoeroticism and handjobs with boys on both ends of them who’ll call each other fags if they suspect any real attraction.
Parse — Parse had gone through all of that with him, they’d been stupid about each other and so scared at every step that they’d fuck it up, that they’d each show their hands and the other would turn on him. And they hadn’t, not about that, but everything had turned to shit, anyway. There was so much between them and every time they were in each other’s spaces they found a way to scorch the earth again.
Jack isn’t so compartmentalized that it doesn't affect him, that his chest isn't in a vice grip, but he manages to ignore it until he hears it, a conversation over the din of the bar. “I don't even have it as bad as the kid from the Aces. Getting traded on a roadie? Woof.”
He looks back at his message, and that's not what he means to say. “Fuck,” he mutters, and hits call.
“Zimms!” Kent says, not even letting him ring for a second.
Jack has a lump in his throat. “Kenny. I'm going to step outside.”
When Jack goes outside, he finds himself a bench. “I was worried about your cat.”
“What? Zimms,” Kent says, and Jack can hear him smiling.
“I was thinking about you being on a roadie, how they're going to send you here after an away game.”
“And who was going to go check on Kit Purson, you asked yourself, completely distraught.” Kent Parson, an untold number of miles away, is still fucking smiling. Jack has no idea why he would be so amused.
“Not by name,” Jack says. “But in a vague way, yeah.”
“I'll have you know that no man on team KP gets left behind, so I'll be doing a red eye to get back to him and turning around to fly back a few hours later.”
“Good to hear,” Jack says, even though that puts him making two nearly coast-to-coast flights in 24 hours. It’s going to bite, but probably less than it would for him to go without Kit for a week. “You have a place to stay?”
“Yeah, Zimms. My man Swoops was on the Ducks with Fancy Dan the year he and I were rookies. He hooked me up with him right off the bat.”
“Dan is a good guy,” Jack tells him. “He's a slob, but that might work out with you if you're still a stress cleaner.”
“During playoffs everything smells like fucking Pine Sol,” he confirms.
Jack tips his head back, closing his eyes, and the line is quiet. He can hear Kent breathing, so familiar to him still after all these years since being billeted together in the Q and sharing hotel rooms and just climbing into each other's general proximity and deciding to stay there.
“Thanks for the call,” Kent finally says.
Jack swallows against the rising nausea that has nothing to do with tonight’s drinking. “We’re teammates,” he says.
“The boys are back in town,” Kent sing-songs.
“Goodnight Kenny.”
“See you soon, Zimms.”
*
If there’s no Saturday practice for Bitty, if there’s no Friday night game for either of them, if half a dozen factors line up or if one of them needs the other one badly enough, Bitty comes to stay with him on Fridays.
It means the team thinks he’s standoffish, friendly enough but unlikely to go out with them with any sort of regularity. It’s one of the reasons he’s closer to the vets than to people closer to his rookie year, Tater notwithstanding.
He could take Bitty out, but he’d have to keep his hands off of him, might have to call him a friend or an ex-teammate, something technically accurate but that doesn’t feel true. Bitty doesn’t live in Madison, anymore, and he deserves to be introduced however the fuck he wants.
And one day, they will. One day soon, even. Jack wanted to be able to play his heart out his rookie year, show everyone that his setback wouldn't define his whole career, prove he was worth the NHL’s time, free from scandal. As ridiculous as that word is when applied to his love life, which consists of his long-term boyfriend who sends him care packages full of whole-wheat brownies for his cheat days, and caramels he makes himself.
Now, in his second year, and with Bits a senior, he assumes that the school year will draw to a close and that he’ll move in, and Jack will make whatever kind of announcement Georgia thinks is best.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Jack says, when he picks Bitty up at the train station. He’s got a little duffle bag in Jack’s front seat, and he’s scooted himself forward like he tends to. It looks a little crowded to Jack, but that’s where Bitty likes his chair.
“Of course, sweetheart,” Bitty says. “You sounded like you might need some support.”
Later, the apartment smells like fresh bread and candied nuts. Jack is watching tape on his flatscreen, taking copious notes. Even having Bitty, not touching him or holding him, but being in the same place, knowing he could call over the TV and Bitty would be able to hear him, is innately soothing.
“You look good in my kitchen,” Jack tells him.
“Your kitchen is a centerfold,” Bitty says, a fond hand curling around the handle of his oven. If Jack didn’t have his game on in the next room, idling on pause, he might find the gesture more than vaguely enticing, reminiscent of leisurely handjobs in his sun-soaked bedroom.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Jack murmurs, smiling as he passes.
*
Kent Parson is officially a Falconer. He’s got a jersey and everything. Jack practices with him, and although he usually evades all not-immediately-relevant thought while on the ice, something occurs to him.
When he comes out, which he fervently happens will happen next year with very little fuss, although he knows that won’t really be the case, he will implicate Kent. People will be digging through his history, who he’d billeted with, articles about him. They might find the YouTube video he can’t seem to completely stomp out where he’s drunk and rambling in Québécois, about rink poutine and why they’re so good when they’ve clearly been sitting under the heat lamp for hours, and then when he calls Kent the best. The best? an offscreen voice asks, sounding amused and he goes above and beyond to clarify that KP is the fucking man. He spares no details.
On the ice, they have to relearn who they are in proximity to each other, but there is a frisson of excitement that courses through Jack when Kent carves up the ice. Jack forgets himself, just briefly, gets caught up in watching him.
Later, when he is skyping with Bitty, he tells him about it. About the uncertainty of being back on the ice with someone who was practically a seamless part of himself for most of his adolescent years. About how everyone is going to know that they’re exes when he and BItty go public. About how he’d never realized he might out Kent when he comes out himself.
*
*
In the three weeks since Kent had been on his team, he’s been on his best behavior. He makes friends naturally, which Jack was always jealous of when they were teenagers. He maintains a running Twitter monologue, and sometimes Bitty texts him the fun ones. He’s in a love-hate relationship with New England, and he keeps the general public informed about the amount of sun he gets on a near daily basis.
They do have him for dinner.
They get to skip the Kent, this is Eric Bittle, my boyfriend, Eric, this is my ex boyfriend and current teammate because they technically met at the kegster, which means they get to skip directly to the my boyfriend, my ex, part, and awkward sizing each other up. It doesn’t last long, because Bitty says, “I was just about to make some drinks. What do you like?” and in short order, Kent has a raspberry-peach vodka Arnold Palmer.
“Oh my god,” he says, reverently.
“I know, right?” Bitty says, grinning. “When Ollie became captain this year, Ransom sent him the recipe for tub juice, but I intercepted the texts. I thought it was our chance to shake things up and make the Haus parties a classier drinking experience.”
Kent laughs at that. “I bet that made for about a two-day experiment.”
Bitty sighs into his hands. It’s so fucking cute it hurts to look at him. “They’re just so attached to malt liquor.”
“There’s something to be said for being able to get drunk in under half an hour.”
“That’s what they said, and then made him do a kegstand,” Jack tells him.
“They made me do a lot of kegstands that night, actually.” Bitty says, shaking his head. “Anyways, enough about that. How are you settling in?”
“Everything’s been smooth sailing so far.” Kent says, “I’m going to need to find a new place to live, soon, though.”
“Getting tired of Fancy already?”
“No, but I’m sure he’s tired of Kit. I’ve never really had to keep her off the leather because I don’t care what she fucks up, I just don’t keep curtains and replace the couch when it gets FUBAR.”
“Are you saying it’s easier to buy new furniture than to tell your cat no? ” Bitty laughs.
“You’d understand if you met her,” Kent says confidently. “She has a face you can’t say no to.”
Jack looks over at his couch, where Bitty sprawls on his stomach to study, and tries to analyze his commitment to the furniture. If Bitty had claws and shredded the cushions on accident (or, to be honest with himself, on purpose), he’d buy a new couch every week if he had to. He can’t imagine feeling that way about a cat, but he’s never had one before.
“Kit does have… a face,” Bitty tenuously agrees, smiling a little.
“Watch it,” Kent says, “that’s the light of my life you’re talking sideways about.”
“I do follow you on instagram, Kent,” Bitty says, deadpan. “But it’s okay. Looks aren’t everything.”
“That’s the last straw,” Kent says. Jack thinks for a second he might be serious, before that fades.
“This meeting is going so poorly,” Jack says, with a small smile. “Here I am, trying to bury the hatchet and my b — my boyfriend is trying to start a blood fued.”
“Is that what this is?” Kent asks, suddenly looking somber.
Jack ducks his head into his shoulders. “Kind of. I wanted to make sure things were going well, and I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“You know what?” Bitty says. “I just plumb forgot — something. I have to go do — a thing.”
“My subtle boyfriend,” Jack says, rolling his eyes. Bitty leans down to kiss his cheek before opening his front door. I’ll text you, Jack mouths, before he leaves.
“He high-tailed out of here fast,” Kent observes, looking at his dinner plate, still half full of greens and whole-wheat pasta.
“Yeah. I think that was his plan all along. He wanted us to talk after he and I — well. We’ve been talking a lot about you.”
“Okay,” Kent says.
Here’s the thing about Kent: he’s a mess. He and Jack were both messes, but he’s the reason Jack didn’t die that night, because Kent found him and did chest compressions and called 911 for him. And then Jack cut him out and restarted his life and got to meet good people who cared about him, and Jack has always had his parents, and it’s years later now and Jack doesn’t know about Kent’s relationship with his dad anymore. Jack doesn’t know what Kent has except that his cat seems to occupy the same space that Bitty holds in his own and that he looks wrecked in the tabloids sometimes.
“I’m sorry that I fell apart.”
Kent balks. “You’re not seriously apologizing for overdosing when you were eighteen, are you?”
“No,” Jack says. “But after, what I was mad at you for… that was out of line. And I should never have cut you out of my life completely. I didn’t really know how to deal with anything, and then you got drafted and...”
“Wait. What you were angry about. You mean about your dad?”
Jack nods.
“You fucker,” Kent says. “You were angry about that longer than you were angry about the fact that the three years before that, I was enabling you and partying with you.”
“I know,” Jack says, lowering his eyes to look away from him. It’s an old wound, for him, his grief at losing Kent and his self-hatred that came with knowing that he is the one who drove a wedge between them. It’s like improperly healed scar tissue — there’s still a shard of glass in there, and if he rubs it just right, it feels brand new. He doesn’t know how it feels for Kent. “I don't blame you. We were both so young and unsupervised and on top.” He's had a lot of time to think about it. “I don't blame you for any of it. And I'm sorry for cutting you out after. It was too humiliating to see you. Painful.”
Kent is looking at him, his mouth fallen open. “Oh,” he says.
Jack has one last thing to say: “My dad wouldn’t have done any different, that day. If he'd found me like that.”
“No shit, Zimms.” Kent says, on a huff, and running a hand through his hair. “We both told you that.”
“I thought it might be nice to hear, anyway. Everyone likes to be vindicated.”
Kent sniffs. “This is true,” he agrees, kind of flip, but then sobers up. “I appreciate it. I'm sorry, too. But you know that.”
He's talking of course about all of the voicemails, letters, messages passed through his parents during rehab. Jack ducks his head. “I fucked up.”
Kent bumps his shoulder with his own, and it feels a bit like old times. “Hey. We both did. Look where we are now.”
By the time Bitty gets back, Jack has made Kent a fresh drink. Bitty peers into his glass. “Where is the spearmint garnish?”
“He tragically neglected that part, Eric. That's what happens when the better half slips off,” Kent says with a weak smile. “I guess you'll just have to stick around next time.”
*
*
It's nice, after that. Still awkward, sometimes, because he loved Kent (still loves Kent, maybe; don't they say something about how you don't get over these things?) but now that they're teammates and have hockey between them again, they're getting back to something like friendship.
Jack finally, finally gives into Georgia and gets a twitter.
His first welcome tweet is from Bitty, predictably, which was almost painfully restrained, a simple version of welcome to twitter you luddite.
Followed closely by his father:
And then Kent:
*
Jack tries to spend Tuesdays after morning practices at Samwell, because Bitty has a free afternoon then, but it works out better, sometimes, that he comes up to see him in Providence.
Bitty is a second semester senior and Jack is an NHL player, but they're creative and young and in love, so they do whatever it takes to get together.
When they're apart Bitty does his homework after Jack goes to bed, after they Skype most nights, and when they're together, Jack sometimes reads his textbooks to him. they meet in the middle sometimes, and when he asks Bitty if he ever gets any sleep, he says, “I'm raging on dopamine, it'll be fine,” before he reminds him that summer is coming, which always makes Jack's chest feel close to bursting. Summer will come, and they'll come out and Bitty will move in with him.
They're making it work.
*
“Parse,” Jack says, stopping him on the way out of practice one day in February. “You invited Bitty to your housewarming party.”
Kent shrugs. “I like him.”
“You invited my boyfriend, who you have no independent connection to. To an event with people we aren't out with.”
Kent winces at that. “You said you guys were coming out soon. One event before that won't hurt. It's not like he's been to a dozen team functions.”
“We are going to come out soon. Doesn't mean I want to tempt fate.”
Kent juts his chin out. “So tell him not to go. I haven't made a lot of friends out here, Jack. I just thought it would be nice if he came.”
Jack has made the decision before the words even come out of his mouth. “We'll be there.”
*
Jack doesn't have to introduce Bitty to the Falconers, because they've met him a few times in the context of his old Samwell team, but Kent mentions to them that he met Bitty when he went down to convince Jack to sign with the Aces before graduation, which makes most of the team groan. Bitty gets along with everyone he chats with, of course, and before long, Jack feels comfortable enough leaving his side for a few minutes get a break in the bathroom.
When Jack comes back, Bitty and Kent are earnestly comparing pregame playlists. “I went on a super expensive date with Britney once,” Kent confides, and doesn't stop when Jack comes to stand beside them. “This charity ball had a silent auction and one of them was an evening in her presence.”
Bitty's eyebrows are near his hairline. “I know it's tacky to ask, but I have to know.”
Kent laughs. “Best hundred grand I've ever spent,” he says, conspiratorially. “She's actually really amazing. We became friends. She used a line of Heatwave on me before she wrote the song. I was going to tweet it after the album came out, but she gets tossed around the tabloids every time someone's friendly with her in public.”
“You're a saint. I don't know if I would have had the self control,” Bitty says, putting his hand over his heart.
Jack snorts, and shares a look with Kent. “Yeah. You're terrible at keeping celebrity secrets.”
“That's different,” Bitty says in a low voice. “You're a niche celebrity, really. If I were secretly dating Bey, I don't know that we could have kept it a secret.”
“A niche celebrity,” Kent repeats, grinning.
“You know what I meant!” Bitty squeaks.
“A niche celebrity,” Jack repeats mournfully, sharing a grin with Kent.
By one in the morning, his party has wound down, for the most part, aside from Poots, who is asleep in Kent's bathtub, which amplifies his snores to a truly overpowering volume. In the living room, they can hear the rhythm of it like a distant shoreline. Bitty keeps trying to clean up, but Kent stops him every time.
“Thank you for inviting him,” Jack tells Kent, cornering him alone when Bitty is in the kitchen, pouring out half-filled solo cups.
“Please. You make me sound like I invited the class loser.”
“When I come out, the press is going to come after you.”
“I was half-out on the Aces,” Kent shrugs. “It never seemed important to do something official because there wasn't someone... there was no Bitty, for me, you know?”
“So you're okay with that?” Jack persists. Kit Purrson wanders in to make figure eights around Kent's legs, and Kent pends just far enough to catch her tail in his hands, letting it slip through the circle of his fingers. “As I'll ever be,” he says, a little wistful.
*
*
Spring break is easily the most anticipated event on Jack's horizon. An early game on the weekend at home, and then he's got four days off that his gorgeous boyfriend also has off, and Jack is going to go to sleep on three of those nights in the same room as his boyfriend and wake up in the same vicinity of him, and fuck it, he's going to enjoy them. He's going to let Bitty make dozens of pies in his kitchen and he's going to do his best to eat as many of them as possible, cashing in months of unused cheat days like it works that way.
What Jack is ready for, the first Sunday of spring break:
1. Picking up Bitty at the station
2. Getting him back to his apartment, which is pre-stocked with unholy amounts of organic flour varieties, expensive vanilla oils, and an entire shelf of butter.
3. Depositing Bitty in his bed to watch a movie in the same place and not have to text about it.
What Jack is not ready for:
1. A text from Tater, asking him if he's seen Kent, because they were going to meet today to go to the gym, but instead Tater got some kind of morose voicemail.
*
“I'm sorry, Bitty.” Jack says. “I think I need to go check on my friend.”
Bitty has been peering over his shoulder. “Of course we do.”
*
When they get to him, he's belligerent, but not blackout. It makes Jack think back to the year he overdosed, how often he and Kenny drank this much, just shotgunning beers and Jack was taking anxiety medicine on the side just to stop the world from spinning. He got out and got his degree and he's in the NHL now. He'd felt like he'd fucked up and derailed his whole life, but really, looking at Kenny, he's the one that got off easy.
“Fucking disco fries. They're not poutine.” Kent says. He's gesturing with a bottle of beer and gets a little bit on Jack's shoe. He looks sloppy, a towel around his waist, slung low and getting lower every time he talks with his hands. Jack knocked on the door until Kent had come to it, and then shouldered his way in.
“What are disco fries?” Bitty wants to know. Jack thinks briefly of something Bitty says often about Chowder, even though Chris Chow is now big enough to pick bitty up by the scruff of his neck and toss him into the goal. My sweet summer child.
“Fries that aren't poutine,” Kent insists, and Jack fights the urge to smile.
“Jack?”
“He's fucking right,” Jack says gruffly.
“Jack. Let's take him back to your place.”
Jack stops himself from correcting Bitty, like he usually tries to when Bitty calls the apartment Jack's, because right now it doesn't feel like the salient detail. “What?”
“He's drunk and he's lonely,” Bitty says, with his fucking massive eyes tilted up at Jack like Jack can do anything to defend himself against that.
“We'd better take his cat, too.” Jack sighs.
*
Kent Parson is asleep on his couch.
Kent Parson is asleep. On his couch, specifically.
His brain has a loose tooth, keeps working it at in those same tedious motions. Kent Parson. His couch. Possibly drooling in his couch.
And then the concentric circles move outward. Kent Parson, ex-boyfriend and current teammate of nebulous complications is in his house, during his current boyfriend and possibly love of his fucking life's spring break. Bitty is in his kitchen, fucking humming.
“Bittle,” Jack says, so he'll know he's serious. “What are we supposed to do with him?”
Bitty raises an eyebrow, one hand still curled around a spatula. “Let him rest. I know your mama gave you some raisin, Jack Zimmermann. Friends don't let friends drown themselves in the bathtub because they're drunk and sad.”
“He wasn't going to drown himself,” Jack said, suddenly feeling more sure about his desire to go check on him, and giving into Bitty's request that they bring him here.
Bitty puts his whisk down and stalks over to the couch. “Look at him. I don't know what his deal is, but he means a lot to you, and I'm fond enough of him, and I feel a whole lot safer with him curled up here.”
Jack looks at him a long time, wondering what Bitty sees when he looks at Kent, because Jack's own vision is clouded by years of love and hurt and miscommunication and attraction all swirled together with the rush of adolescent success and the crushing defeat of adult failures. He's curled up in Bitty's spare blanket from the linen closet, and the hoodie he and Jack manhandled Kent into at his apartment before they hauled his down to lay across the spacious backseat of Jack's 4Runner, and Kit is nestled in the negative space of him, like a stuffed animal with agency.
“Look how sweet he looks,” Bitty says, putting the back of his hand against Kent's forehead. “Doesn't he look like he needs a cuddle?”
Jack's heart springs into action, causing an anxious swirl, like his blood is pumping in the wrong direction.
“Hey,” Bitty says, reaching up to cup Jack behind his neck. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I love you, I didn't mean to make you make that face, lovey.”
“No, uh,” Jack stutters. “I just. For a second. I thought you did, and I don't know how I felt about it.”
“I love you,” Bitty reiterates, taking his face in his hands. Jack wills his pulse back down into the normal range. “I won't say anything like that again if it makes you uncomfortable. You're my number one priority.”
“But,” Jack chokes. “What if you're right? What if he's fucking sad and lonely and needs a cuddle?”
“Well. That is actually something that you and I are very good at. If Kenny wants to be sandwiched by an ex and someone with one-degree of separation on a dating resume, well.” Bitty says.
Jack's mouth feels dry. “Are you attracted to Kent Parson?”
Bitty shrugs. “Sure. He's douchey about it, like if he thought someone forgot that he's hot, he might send them a memo about it, but I get the feeling he's got a good heart. And, he's a total a secret nerd, I can tell.”
Jack feels his face flex into a small smile. “You know she's named after Kit Snicket, right?”
Bitty gives him a blank look. “Who?”
“From A Series of Unfortunate Events?” Jack explains. “Don't tell me you never read those books as a kid.”
“Can you stop trying to confirm your boyfriend's dumb theory about me being a secret fucking nerd, and get back to how you both think I'm hot,” Kent says, without opening his eyes. His voice gruff with exhaustion and the lingering effects of alcohol. Bitty's mouth falls open, and his surprise is so cute, Jack touches his nose.
“My second pet theory is that she's named after Kit Kittredge, your favorite American Girl.”
“Motherfucker,” Kent says, pressing his face down into the cushion. “Wasn't somebody going to give me a cuddle? I'm not picky.”
Bitty and Jack exchange a look. Can we move him to your room? Bitty mouths. Jack frowns. Guest room? Bitty tries, and Jack nods this time.
“Alright tiger,” Bitty says, “we're going to move you off this couch where there's more room.”
“Can I be the little spoon?” Kent asks.
“Of course you can, sugarplum,” Bitty says.
Jack follows in Bitty's wake, steering Kent to his guest bedroom, the rush of uncertainty thrumming through him. Both of the people he's loved, in past or current tense, are about to climb into his guest room bed.
*
“This is nice,” Kent says.
“It's something everyone should experience at least once before they die,” Jack says, looking down at his boyfriend, curled up behind Kent. They look fucking adorable, like a small, blond, matched set. Despite the conflicted confusion clouding his thoughts, Jack feels, for a moment, impossibly happy. He sits on the other side, and links his fingers with Kent's.
“Alright,” Kent says.
“Alright,” Jack agrees.
*
*
Jack almost chokes on his own tongue. He's got plenty of thoughts.