Jack doesn’t wake up knowing this was the day he’ll come out to his team. To him, coming out isn’t a leap, a chasm to be hurdled in one bound, but a series of small steps. He’d tested it out with Georgia; she was a toe forward, the safest bet, and when the floor didn’t give out under him he moved forward again, this time with Marty and Thirdy. Each step brings him further into the blind unknown, but his feet feel stable on the ground.
He doesn’t have a planned moment, but he knows that the days between the team knowing and not knowing are getting shorter.
After showering, Jack steps into the kitchen to pull out the supplies for the afternoon. The boys finally wore him down, or maybe he’s just more open to the idea of bringing in something that is, to him, so personal into public.
It’s just a sandwich, he tells himself.
The bread is nearly fresh, baked on the weekend and wrapped tightly in cloth before being stowed away in the bread basket. Bitty fussed for hours over the bread, even longer if he counts the time spent flitting between bins at the Whole Foods, scooping grains in a bag and comparing them, weighing the pros and cons of each before finally setting them into the basket hooked over Jack’s waiting arm. Bitty kneaded the dough with floured hands, dusting the kitchen in a fine white powder that seemed to follow Bitty everywhere. Bitty talked about the key to a perfect rise in pastries, but it was his forearms that Jack focused on, strong and flexing as he expertly beat the dough into submission. Jack waited just long enough to drag Bitty into his bedroom after that. He’s still finding flour in his sheets.
Jack shuffles through the fridge, pulling out the last remains of the almond butter and making a note to ask Bitty to send more. He was hesitant about switching to almond butter, and it was a point of contention between them. Jack knew that Bitty was right about the benefits of almonds over peanuts but that wasn’t enough to push him past his apprehensions of making such a big change to his pregame ritual. “You change the type of jam on your sandwich all the time,” Bitty had pushed, during a rare quiet moment at the haus. “How is this different?” Jack looked at the bread that Bitty had slid in front of him on the dinged kitchen table made with Bitty’s newest almond butter recipe. It’s not that Jack wasn’t happy to eat it any other time, but before a game? “Because jam is jam no matter what it’s made of,” Jack said, “but it’s not peanut butter if there’s no peanuts.” When Jack took his first bite, he swallowed his words.
As he grabs the jam, he chuckles to himself, remembering how it had come straight from Georgia in a nondescript box. He called Bitty, certain he might have a clue about how a half-dozen jars of jams and jellies ended up at his door unprompted. “Well you see,” Bitty explains, and Jack can see the guilty turn of his eyebrows from two states away, “these are Aunt Judy’s jams, so I couldn’t just up and ask her to send me some, cause of course she’d tell Momma all about it, you know how she is. Remember that one time - well, anyways, I ended up ordering them through her Etsy store through an alias and shipping them directly to you so she wouldn’t catch wise and go runnin’ her mouth. If I’m found out I’ll be tried for treason back in Madison, so I hope you know how much I love you to risk it.” Jack smiled at his phone. “I love you, too, Bits.”
As he sets all the ingredients into one of the many wicker baskets that have appeared in his home, he finds himself aching to share these stories. It’s not just a sandwich, not anymore.
