Pre-Canon Zimbits — Camp Sweetgum shares lakefront with a private resort and Eric is used to wealthy, entitled people wandering into his camp. He isn’t used to them awkwardly hitting on him.
“Hello?”
Eric looks up from the mess he’s cleaning out of the bottom of a canoe to find a man waving awkwardly a few yards away. The glare from the lake is enough to mask any discerning features, but Eric can make out a thick accent.
“Hi. One of your campers left this oar near the water polo court?”
“Oh, bless,” Eric sighs, rinsing his hands in the lake to clear any lingering stench. “The little kids are still learning and our new counselors are just as green. Thank you for bringing it back, I hope they didn’t interrupt your morning?”
The man comes into focus and Eric realizes he’s younger than he sounds, the hair on his head floppy and overgrown, softening his sharp features and oddly bright eyes. Eric can’t recall the last time he’d met someone with such light blue eyes, if he ever has; and the realization comes with a flutter low in his stomach. A flutter Eric always tries very hard to ignore when he’s working.
“Oh, no worries,” the man says, smile half-timid. “I saw the kids playing and should have said something before they left it behind.”
He’s older. He’s foreign. He’s cute. Not that Eric needs to think too hard about any of those details.
“So, bleach, eh?”
Eric looks down at the bucket and rag, realizes he hasn’t spoken aloud recently enough for this to be a real conversation and takes steps to amend the problem.
“How else are we supposed to determine what campers get motion sickness?” Eric offers with some measure of levity. “What’s life without a little mess?”
“Are you a counselor?”
“Caught me,” Eric balances the plastic bucket as he steps out of the canoe onto the pier, trying not to stain his shirt when the bleach solution splashes over the edge. “You’re looking at Sweetgum’s Senior Counselor. Why? Looking for a summer job? We need a cook if you’re halfway decent in the kitchen.”
He’s only half joking. Eric doesn’t have the authority to hire anyone, but they do need a new chef, and there’s very little Eric enjoys more than knocking rich guys down a peg.
“No thanks, I’m just on vacation,” the guy points over his shoulder at the resort on the opposite side of the lake, completely missing Eric’s sass. “But I’ll keep that in mind. I’m good with kids, I used to coach bantam hockey.”
“Used to?”
“I’m going back to college this fall,” he shrugs, bending low to rest the oar on the sand. At this angle, Eric can see the man shares the familiar, slightly bowlegged stance of some of his lifer teammates; the good ones who’ve played ice hockey as long as Eric’s known how to walk. “It’s kind of weird, isn’t it?”
It takes a moment for Eric to realize what the guy is talking about, but then he notices the way he’s looking at the bunk buildings behind Eric.
“Oh, you mean how there’s a middle-income summer camp next door to a super secret private resort? Believe me, I know. Half my job is making sure tech billionaires on speedboats don’t mow down my campers in water wings.”
The words are out before Eric has time to think, and the man’s pale cheeks flush pink, which Eric only notices because he’s already so pale. Who spends their summer at a lake resort and doesn’t tan?
“I don’t like speedboats,” the man offers. “I mostly golf with my dad.”
“Well I appreciate you not murdering my kids.”
“You’re welcome.”
They stand in silence for a few moments, Eric waiting for his visitor to do something, anything other than awkwardly hover while Eric’s campers scream and play a short ways away.
“Well, thank you for the oar,” Eric says, opening the door on the end of their conversation so this hottie can escape. “You feel like coming by the snack shack, I’d be happy to reward you with a fun-size candy bar of your choosing.”
“Thanks. I’m conditioning so I can’t.”
Eric’s used to rich kids sneaking across the lake to play pranks and be generally unworthy of any measure of kindness, but this is new. This boy, this hockey player, has accomplished his mission of returning a missing camp item, he’s made small talk, and rejected Eric’s thank you offer outright; and yet, he isn’t leaving.
“Is there anything else you needed?” Eric asks. “You’re welcome to help me clean.”
Pale, blue-eyed hottie actually scuffs his heel into the sand.
“Yes?” Eric prompts gently.
“I just saw a sniper scrubbing puke out of a boat and thought I’d say hello,” he says, looking appropriately horrified the moment the words leave his mouth.
Eric suddenly gets it.
This is not the first time someone’s mistaken him for a girl at a distance, especially when he’s wearing his swim shorts. Figure skating did wonders for his coordination, it also gave him the ass and thighs of a co-ed. One day, a boy will hit on Eric from behind and actually be interested in what’s happening on the front end as well, but that’s a day he’s saving for his college up north, the one with a much healthier gay-straight ratio.
“No stress,” Eric forces. “It’s an easy mistake. You aren’t the first guy to clock me at a thousand yards. Happens all the time.”
Blue-eyes blushes harder and looks away.
“I-I didn’t,” he stammers. “I’m sorry, I should go. Thanks for . . . um, don’t ruin your clothes. The cleaner.”
Eric waves halfheartedly as the man departs, walking quickly to the wooded path before breaking into a sprint the second he thinks Eric can’t see him any longer. When he disappears from sight, Eric adds another tally to a mental checklist labeled ‘sexuality crisis’.
“Stupid boys,” Eric sighs, giving up on appearances as he dumps the remaining contents of the bleach bucket into the canoe.
4, 5, or 35 ? Because I’m indecisive as hell and love your writing.
From this prompt list: 4. “If I die, I’m haunting you first.”; 5. “But I’ve never told you that before.” ; and 35. “Oh honey, I’d never be jealous of you.”
Bitty played hockey and Samwell and went on to be a cookbook author; Jack went directly into the NHL.
Bitty’s eyes traveled up the the shelves of the cupboard, wondering what ingredients he could reasonably expect someone who did not cook or bake for a living to have.
Flour, of course, if they were volunteering to be on a baking show. Most likely all purpose. Sugar (white) and salt (iodized). Butter. Maybe they usually used margarine, but Bitty would not compromise on that. Butter surely counted as a common ingredient. Shortening, too.
What about spices? Most people probably had cinnamon in their cabinets, even if it was twelve years old and devoid of flavor. Would nutmeg or allspice be too much? Maybe.
And this contestant had requested a fruit pie. If they were going for common ingredients, that would most likely mean apple. Apples were nearly always plentiful and cheap at supermarkets, so if this pie was going to use fresh fruit (and it was), it would be apple.
*
Bitty had misgivings about appearing on “So You Think You Can Bake,” the new Food Network show that pitted expert bakers against celebrities. The idea was that the expert would develop a recipe they thought was suitable for an inexperienced home cook.
Then the expert and the celebrity would both make the dish in separate kitchens while being filmed.
The expert baker and celebrity contestant would have their creations scored anonymously. If the celebrity chef received at least eighty percent of the score of the celebrity baker, they won money for the baker to keep and the celebrity to donate to charity. Total scores counted toward the final competition at season’s end, when the three best pairs would be brought back for the final, competing for a $50,0000 prize.
There were so many things that could go wrong. Bitty could get paired with a celebrity chef with no palate, or no coordination, or even no real interest in winning. Some people could mess up a perfectly good recipe by not measuring accurately, or doing steps in the wrong order, or even mistaking the salt for the sugar. If the celebrity chef messed up, it wouldn’t just look bad for them. It would throw shade on Bitty, whose job, after all, was to explain how to bake in a way that people would understand. Relatable was his brand.
But Eileen, the PR rep who handled his books for the publishing house, thought it would be a good idea.
“This show is literally made for you,” she said. “And the exposure would be great. Think of the campaign for your next book.”
So Bitty agreed. Then he found out who his assigned celebrity was.
“A hockey player?” Bitty asked. “Whose only memorable sound bite is ‘Eat more protein’? Which did not go viral for the reasons he thinks it did. I mean, I wasn’t expecting Beyonce, or even Taylor Swift, but why not a Kacey Musgraves?”
Bitty wasn’t at all bitter that, at 24, he no longer had regular access to an ice rink. He could pay to rent ice to figure skate, but it was hard to find the motivation since he was no longer in competition, and he hadn’t yet found a men’s league hockey team where he felt comfortable.
“I know Jack Zimmermann isn’t who most people think of as a home cook,” Eileen said. “But the producers were thrilled. They think he’ll bring on a whole new demographic.”
“How’d they rope him into it anyway?” Bitty asked, scrolling through interview after interview with Jack talking saying, “We win and lose as a team,” and “We have to protect the neutral zone and get the puck down low,” and “We need to keep our feet moving and have a shoot-first mentality.”
It was like they taught him six phrases in media training and he used them over and over again, in random order.
He wasn’t hard to look at, Bitty would give him that. And the physique -- yeah, his nutrition plan was definitely protein-heavy. Why would he agree to do a baking show?
*
“My agent said it would be a good idea,” Jack Zimmermann said when he and Bitty had their first meeting. “He said it would humanize me. Actually, he said it would be the beginning of an arc of character development I wasn’t expecting, but that’s just the way he is.”
The actual first meeting was in the green room, waiting to go on-set for the “first meeting” taping. Jack had been sitting in a chair along the wall when Bitty came in, reading an actual, honest-to-God book.
Bitty had to shove his phone in his pocket as he cleared his throat to get Jack’s attention. It seemed like Jack kept reading for a few seconds after he noticed Bitty, which was annoying, because the book would always be there, but Bitty was prepared to be gracious.
“Mr. Zimmermann? I’m Eric Bittle,” Bitty said. “We’re going to be working together. Pleased to meet you.”
“I know,” Jack said.
Okay.
“When we start the taping, I’m going to ask you about any experience you have baking, any favorite desserts, things you’ve always wanted to learn to make,” Bitty said. “Anything you want me to steer the conversation toward? Or stay away from?”
“Are we supposed to be doing this?” Jack said. “Talking, I mean.”
“Um, yes?” Bitty said. “It’s not like we’re concocting a fake story. We just want the on-camera talk to go smoothly. So have you baked before?”
“No.”
“Any favorite desserts?”
“I don’t really eat sweets.”
“Well, you’re going to have to eat something sweet,” Bitty said. “Anything you want to make?”
Jack shrugged.
“Honey, don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you here?” Bitty asked.
“Uh, you can call me Jack,” Jack said, then launched into his explanation about his agent, a man with the improbable name of John Johnson.
Bitty shook his head at that, and tried to keep the conversation going.
“You’re Canadian, right?”
“Dual citizenship,” Jack said. “But I mostly grew up in Montreal.”
“Anything special from back home?”
Then the assistant came to bring them on the set, dressed to look like a home kitchen, each of them seated at a table with mugs in front of them. The mugs just held water, but the audience wouldn’t see that; it was supposed to look like two friends talking over coffee.
Bitty decided to pick up the conversation where he left off in the green room, since it was the only thing he hadn’t struck out on already.
“So, Jack, I understand you’re from Montreal. Do have any memories of classic desserts or baked goods from your childhood?”
Jack paused and looked like he was really thinking, like he didn’t want to disappoint the producers.
“We used to have tarte au sucre at the holidays,” he finally said. “I liked that.”
“Sugar pie?” Bitty said, thankful that at least the cooking terms had stuck from his college French class. “We could do something with that.”
“But I’d like to do something that has some healthy ingredients,” Jack had said.
“Is fruit healthy enough?” Bitty asked. “Maybe a fruit pie? You might not know this, but that’s kind of my specialty.”
Jack had offered a smile at that, and said, “Good to know. Maybe we can win this thing, eh?”
The taping didn’t last long, and soon Bitty was collecting his things from the green room.
“Wait, Jack, I forgot to ask you, any allergies? I wouldn’t want to kill you for a silly TV show.”
“If I die, I’m haunting you first,” Jack said. “But no, no food allergies. Is there anything I should practice beforehand?”
“I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you that,” Bitty said, starting to feel like maybe Jack wasn’t as wooden as he’d seemed at first. He seemed to relax once the taping ended. Maybe this would be okay after all.
*
Bitty started by making an apple pie, trying to write down the steps as precisely as he could just as he did them.
It didn’t work.
Sure, he could measure and mix the dry ingredients for the crust, and tell Jack to make sure his butter and shortening were cold, but how could he explain the twisting motion for the pastry cutter? When he had to start by explaining what a pastry cutter was?
And how would Jack know when he was done cutting and should add the ice water? Bitty had read recipes over the years saying the mixture should look like everything from rough crumbs to small peas … which were not the same thing by a long shot. Bitty had learned what it should look like at his MooMaw’s elbow; sure, he’d tried to put it into words in his cookbooks, but there was a reason he always included photos.
Jack had said he’d never baked. He wouldn’t know what it should look like.
Bitty called the producers to ask if he could include pictures in the recipe he developed for Jack. The answer -- hand-drawn sketches were fine, as long he drew them himself, but no photographs -- was not encouraging.
Bitty started over and this time took a photograph of the dough mixture just before he added the water. He could use that to write a description, he decided. Then he had to think about how to explain when the dough was wet enough.
Once he had the dough made, the process for making the filling was easier. Peel and slice apples, coat with flour and a little cinnamon and sugar -- and, a last-minute brainstorm for Canadian Jack, a little maple syrup -- and set aside. He toyed with the idea of including maple sugar for the crust, but the studio pantry probably didn’t have real maple sugar. He could boil some syrup down -- but that wasn’t something Jack could (or would) do, probably. Better to just do an egg wash and sprinkle some sugar on for the sparkle.
The instructions for rolling out the dough were simple enough, provided Jack followed them. That was the hard part. Most people couldn’t seem to leave well enough alone with pie dough.
Bitty moved to his laptop and wrote at the top of the instructions:
“A general note on making pie dough. Do less than you think you need to. Don’t work it too much. If you do, it will be tough. So if you’re not sure if you should stop messing with it, stop.”
Then he did his best to put into words what it should like with all the fats cut in (“If you don’t see any powdery flour, it’s probably good”) and with the ice water added (“It should be moist, not wet”).
Then he thought about the top. Normally, people thought of lattices as being hard to do. But if the baker was methodical and followed directions, it wasn’t so bad. And it would be easier to put strips on top of the pie than to pick up the whole top crust and put it on intact. It didn’t really matter if the bottom was a mess; this wasn’t the Great British Bake-Off with Mary Berry and her hatred of soggy bottoms. The pie would be served from the dish, and no one would know if the bottom crust was torn and mended as long it still tasted good.
So, a nice, tightly woven lattice for the top. Bitty set to drawing a detailed diagram.
*
Bitty printed the recipe he developed -- all ten pages -- to bring with him and hand to Jack. He’d already supplied it to the producers to make sure they agreed all the ingredients were things a home cook would have in their pantry, or at least have ready access to.
“Real maple syrup?” the production assistant had asked. “What about something like Pillsbury pancake syrup? That’s what most people use.”
“My baker is Canadian,” Bitty argued. “He’d have the real stuff.”
“Fine, I guess.”
Bitty was dressed for TV in dark skinny jeans, a light T-shirt and a Samwell red button-down over it with red Chuck Taylors. The provided apron, he knew, would be beige with a dark red logo.
Jack came in dressed in charcoal gray tailored slacks and a light blue shirt, almost exactly the same color as his eyes. Yeah, he was good-looking. Bitty wasn’t sure if he would bring in the sports-loving young men the producers were hoping for, but it wouldn’t matter. The women would love him. And the gay boys like him. But no one ever counted them as their own demographic.
When the got into the studio, Bitty handed over the recipe.
Jack’s eyes widened when he saw how long it was.
“Does this take all day?” he asked.
“I can do it in about two hours,” Bitty said. “Counting chilling and baking time.”
“You’ll have three hours to complete the challenge,” the host said. “As long as you finish in that time, any differential in how long it takes won’t count against you.
Jack nodded, a determined set to his jaw. Bitty was almost glad they would be separated so he didn’t have to worry about cutting himself on that jawline.
Then Bitty was escorted to his studio kitchen, where he proceeded to make a pie, narrating each step, just like he was making a vlog post.
He made sure to turn the top of the bowl to the camera when he was done cutting the fats in, and again when he added the water.
“You see those streaks of butter and shortening?” he said, when he gathered the dough into disks to chill. “You want those to make flaky crust.”
He made sure to slice the apples evenly, and mix them gently with the flour and flavorings, then he rolled his dough out.
He clucked at himself -- but didn’t say anything -- when he realized he’d forgotten to tell Jack to make sure he had the thinnest possible layer of fat on his work surface before he scattered flour over it.
Then, once the pie was done, he actually slapped himself upside the head.
“I never said anything about covering the edges with foil at the beginning,” he said. “Poor guy is definitely gonna have burnt edges. Oh well.”
Bitty’s pie came out of the oven at the two-hour mark, and he donned oven mitts to be filmed carrying it into the judging room.
“You’ve got some time if you want to head to the green room relax,” the production assistant said. “Someone will come get you before Jack is ready to bring his pie in.”
Bitty flung himself onto the couch and groaned. He could have used the $5,000 prize from this stage of the competition to get ahead on his rent for a couple of months … and maybe even rent an ice rink for a couple of hours to clear his mind. He didn’t regret his choice of career -- writing cookbooks, running his vlog, making appearances like this -- but the money tended to come in fits and starts.
He realized he’d never even asked Jack what his charity was. The show must have asked him at some point, so Bitty was sure he’d find out eventually. He hoped Jack would donate to his chosen charity regardless. He could certainly afford it. The only real advantage for the charity to having Jack appear on the show was publicity. Well, and convincing people that straight, athletic young men could bake and enjoy it.
But Bitty forgot to tell him to use foil to guard the edges, so they probably wouldn’t advance, and it would all be Bitty’s fault. Jack -- he had to be competitive, right? -- well, it didn’t matter if hated Bitty. They hardly knew one another.
*
“Eric? Jack’s pie is done. Time to go to the judging room.”
Bitty roused himself from the sofa, resigned to his fate. If nothing else, he’d learned a lesson.
He took his place behind his pie and waited for Jack and his pie with its inevitable burnt edges.
He was sitting there when Jack came in, carrying his beautiful golden brown pie aloft. Jack set it on the empty cooling rack next to Bitty’s and stepped back.
It was beautiful. The lattice was maybe not quite as straight, not quite as even as Bitty’s, but it was close.
Bitty couldn’t help a pleased grin, first at the pie, then at Jack, who had finished with fifteen minutes to spare.
“Okay, you two. We’re going to break for lunch while Jack’s pie cools,” the production assistant said. “We need you back in an hour in the same clothes, so don’t mess them up.”
Bitty was about to head out when Jack said, “Want to grab a sandwich? There’s a place down the block.”
“Sure,” Bitty said. “I have some questions for you.”
“And me for you,” Jack said.
Once they had their food and settled at a table, Bitty said, “How did you keep the edges from burning?”
“I made foil collars,” Jack said.
“But I’ve never told you that before,” Bitty said.
“You always do it on your YouTube channel,” Jack said.
“Wait … you’ve seen … but you said you’d never baked,” Bitty said.
“I hadn’t,” Jack said. “That doesn’t mean I’ve never watched anyone else bake on YouTube. When Johnson said you were doing this, it seemed like a good opportunity to meet you.”
“To meet me?” Bitty really had to start thinking of some of his own words instead of just repeating Jack’s.
“Well, yeah,” Jack said. “Someone showed me your videos when you were at Samwell, and I was intrigued by a hockey player who baked. Made me wonder what it would have been like to be on a college team, or whether I’d develop any other interests.”
“Someone?”
Jack actually blushed. “My mother. She went to Samwell.”
It was almost a physical effort for Bitty to push that out of his head. Jack’s mother was … nope. Not going there.
“So you wanted to make pie because you’d see me make it before?”
“A lot,” Jack said. “But the instructions were really helpful.”
“I thought we’d lost it when I realized I’d never said anything about the foil,” Bitty admitted.
“But I figured you could make a donation to your charity anyway.”
Jack nodded.
“I plan on adding to it even if we win,” he said. “What do you want to do with the money?
Bitty was not going to tell Jack Zimmermann that he needed money to pay his rent. Not this unexpected Jack Zimmermann, who for some reason had been interested in Bitty for years. Despite, Bitty reminded himself, being straight. Almost certainly.
“Some of it will buy ice time,” he said. “I miss skating, you know? I used to figure skate before I played hockey.”
“I’m not sure what I’d do if I couldn’t skate every day,” Jack said. “Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t say that. Don’t want to make you jealous.”
“Oh honey, I’d never be jealous of you,” Bitty said. ”I have the job I want. I just want to be able to skate for fun. Like you want to bake for fun, I guess.”
“I don’t know about that,” Jack said. “It was pretty stressful. I kept wanting to make it perfect, but you said not to overwork it. But maybe it would be more fun if it wasn’t being recorded for TV.”
“Maybe we could bake together sometime?” Bitty said.
“Then skate?” Jack suggested. “On our practice ice.”
“That would be really great,” Bitty said. “Ready to go back? By the way, you never said what your charity is.”
“You Can Play,” Jack said. “I’m thinking of coming out next year.”
Back then, Jack was an asshole but it was only ass-deep. Deep down, he always cared.
beta hand-holding as always thanks to @wrathofthestag <3
title from Sort Of by Ingrid Michaelson | on AO3
Early August
“Yes, he’s on the team. Who did you think he was?”
“I thought he was your nephew, Murray. He looks exactly like Donna.”
Coach Murray looked slightly abashed and Hall took over.
“He’s fast as hell and was captain of his local team, Jack. He may be small but the kid has something real to offer.”
Jack blinked, unimpressed.
“How old is he, anyway?”
“Eighteen. Still likely to grow and training will get him in better shape soon. So just give him a chance, Jack.”
“He didn’t seem to know who I was.”
“The kid could barely talk above a whisper with any of us,” Hall returned, not unkindly. “He’ll probably be too scared to try and talk to you one-on-one for months.”
They were both pleased to see Jack falter a little at that.
“He had better not hold the team down. That’s all I’m saying. Someone that size is more a liability than an asset.”
“You can leave that worrying to us. No one is expecting Jack Zimmermann to nanny another player.”
The chagrined look on Jack’s face showed how much that kind of remark coming from Murray was unexpected. And how much more effective it had been.
Late August
The dorm was peaceful as only the early hour could make it. A couple of half-dressed freshman scarpered in a panic the second they saw Jack in the hall, assuming he was a professor or visiting parent.
Despite attempts at keeping his knocking quiet, Bittle clearly slept like a log. It took three rounds of knocking before Jack heard the rustle of someone getting out of bed.
The door opened and Jack nearly stepped back in confusion. The new team mate who had looked pretty young for a freshman a few weeks ago had disappeared and an actual child had apparently taken over his dorm.
“Jaaack? Whattamizzit, lord!”
Bittle peered somewhere around Jack’s chest, rubbing his eyes furiously with both fists and shuffling on his bare feet. He wore a very clearly mom-bought matching pajama set, for Christ’s sake.
“We need to work on your checking problem and this was the only time I could get Faber. Grab your bag and let’s get going.”
The plaintive look he got in reply was almost meltingly tragic.
“The sun ain’t even got his hat on yet and you’re orderin’ me to hockey practice? When we got hockey practice later on today?”
“You need extra practice and you know it,” Jack said, but the frost was gone from his voice. “C’mon, once you get your legs moving you won’t feel tired anymore.”
“Now, listen here Mr. Hockey Boss! I don’t care who your daddy is, you can’t just march on up to my front door and--”
“Oh for God’s sake,” Jack interjected, nudging Bittle out of the way and taking the two strides that comprised the tiny room. The kid kept babbling indignantly behind him while Jack rifled through his closet, grabbing a sweater at random. He plucked a pair of jeans folded over the desk chair and shoved the lot into Bittle’s chest, shouldering the hockey bag and walking back to the door.
“Finish your conversation with yourself, get dressed, and meet me downstairs in five minutes or I’m coming back up here.”
Bittle looked genuinely put out and oh no, his lower lip was trembling slightly.
Okay, maybe Jack had sounded scarily like his own father just then.
“I’m doing this for your own good, Bittle.” Might as well continue using his father’s approach. Firm but kind. “You wouldn’t want a captain who sat back and didn’t try to help, would you?”
Jack was thankful that Bittle didn’t have his own youthful stubborn streak. His round, sleepy face softened immediately into something like polite negotiation.
“Can I come back to your frat house and make pancakes after?”
It made Jack actually snort out a laugh, the question was so unexpected.
“Yes, Bittle. You can make pancakes after. Okay?”
He got a tiny nod before shutting the door behind him.
This was officially nannying.
Samwell v Yale
His father’s groan is laden with disappointment, even through the phone. The way the ice in his glass clinks under the pour of Scotch somehow echoes it.
“Please tell me you didn’t crush that child, Jack. Come on.”
“I did not crush him. He’s fine.”
“Oh, Jack.”
There it is. The weary parent voice, followed by excessive grunting as his father lowers himself to sit down as if he’s a hundred-and-fifty years old.
“Will you lighten up? I don’t need a teammate thinking I’m their personal coach. He was getting too clingy.”
“What?”
Jack winces slightly. He realizes how heartless that sounded.
“I wouldn’t put up with this for any of the other guys, that’s all I meant.”
“Oh, yes you would! Holster can’t even see his gloves unless he’s wearing contacts, and that guy would forget his own eyeballs if they weren’t in his head. So you ask him if he’s got them before you leave the house. Shitty’s been known to start lighting up even when he’s already smoking so you hide his bowl before every practice and every game. He almost got scratched for showing up high and you fought to keep him on the team. Johnson doesn’t know what planet he’s on half the time but you learned to speak his alien language and it works. This speedy little half pint joins the team and you trained him all on your own time. You complain about it all, but you absolutely do put up with this kind of thing all the time for your team. So what about this kid has gotten under your skin so fast?”
“I just told him not to take one goal so goddamn seriously!” Jack’s voice is loud and defensive even to his own ears. “This isn’t peewee hockey. I’m not his dad. He needs to at the very least be prepared to do this for the next four years. How is that going to happen when he can’t even chip one in without going all…”
“Do you think he has a crush on you? Since the checking clinics? Is that what you’re worried about?”
Bob’s tone is suddenly lighter and genuinely curious. Sometimes Jack wishes he had those parents who didn’t think gayness existed let alone talked about it.
“No! Jesus, I--god, I don’t know. I doubt it? He seems too scared to even look me in the eye half the time. He’s not technically out and most of the guys don’t seem to get it, which is…”
“...endearing, in a way. I know. Of course,” Bob’s voice rises loftily, “he won’t have been able to resist noticing that you’re a chip off the old gorgeous, chiseled block.”
Jack sighs melodramatically, slumping into his desk chair and staring at the ceiling.
“But kiddo, you’ve got to be extra careful. Even if he isn’t interested beyond a flirtation, you have to keep him out of harm’s way. Watch what you say and how you say it. If your intentions aren’t to lead him on then--”
“Christ, dad! I thought he was a little kid when I first met him.”
“But he isn’t a little kid and you’re not an old man. That boy has a doll face and great legs, and let me tell you, if I were a few thousand years younger and hadn’t met your mother--”
“I am never letting you come to another game if you don’t shut up right now.”
“Okay, okay,” Bob chuckles, setting his drink down and spreading out on the hotel sofa. “Jack, you know I love the Samwell boys. But apart from Ransom and Holster, you don’t have anyone on that team with even a hope for a professional future in this sport. Most of them are doing this because they love hockey and want to be a on a team while they’re in school. You have no competition out there, son.”
Bob pauses and only hears the sounds of Jack moving the phone slightly against his ear.
“Scouts are going to be looking at you as a player and as a captain. They’re not expecting you to single-handedly get this team to the playoffs. If they see you making the most out of an itty thing like Bittle then they’ll be nothing but impressed. Keep working with the kid. Take that special interest. Be his captain.”
Jack’s silence is as close to admitting that Bob is right as he’ll ever get.
“When should I tell the other guys to stay away from him?”
Bob frowns in confusion at the phone.
“You know. If he comes out. Do I just tell them all at the same time or bring it up if I notice them trying to make a move on him?” He pauses at the lack of response. “Come on, you said it yourself! Some of the guys will think he’s cute and inevitably go after him, and if he rejects them or they break up then that’s terrible for team morale.”
The unbridled laughter annoys the hell out of Jack.
“Dear god, what century did you grow up in before your mother brought you into this world?! You can’t put a ring of salt around this poor boy, Jack! Holy hell...” he trails off, spluttering and trying to regain composure.
“I’m not having him turn into a distraction,” Jack says firmly. “I’ve already got my eye on Holster for how he talked about that pie, but if any of the other guys start flirting with him or try to date him--”
“You’ll what? Get in there first?”
Jack knows better than to try getting any more sense out of his father.
“Thanks as always for the mature advice. I’ll be sure to write all these gems down in my Things to Never Say to Your Own Kids book. Gotta go! Forget I ever called you, bye now… ”
Bob is still chuckling.
“Great idea, Jacques, great idea. Oh and,” he can barely get the words out between giggles. “when things get tough, son…”
“I’m hanging up.”
“...just be grateful that there’s no hair loss on either side of your family. You might end up being a grouchy ass your whole life but at least you’ll stay pretty.”
i’m almost certainly never going to go any further with these, so here they are. feel free to add on.
The press of warm bodies, and the scent of beer and cloying sweet coolers surrounding him, and the music so loud it’s almost as if his heart has adjusted to its beat, should be enough to send him up to the Reading Room for some air or even to bed. But instead Jack’s here, in the living room, condensation from a can of beer running down his hand, talking to Bittle. Somehow the rest feels far enough away that it doesn’t matter.
“Why did you take so long to come to college?” he asks.
Jack knows all about Wicks’ favourite songs and about Ollie’s brief foray into cheerleading back in the tenth grade, and any number of other things but Bittle -- well. He would be the first to admit he didn’t take as much an interest as he should have into Bittle, last year and in the months since. Maybe they had too much in common, what with Bittle being the oldest in his group of frogs by nearly four years, and then of course gay thing, which no one at all but Jack’s therapist knows about...
“Well,” Bittle says, eyes unfocused and staring ahead, “Mama got sick a few months before I was supposed to move away and then we needed me to work. And then when eventually she got better I suppose I just got comfortable.”
Bittle’s mouth is blooming red where he’s bitten it.
“What made you decide to leave, then?”
“I got a message,” Bittle says, “from someone I’d met at an NCAA prospect camp my last year of high school. Asking me what I had been up to, what I was doing. And I thought, you know, what am I doing?”
“I’m,” Jack says. He looks down into brown eyes and smiles. “I’m. I’m glad you came here.”
“Yeah, Jack,” Bittle says, and he smiles back, “I am too.”
“Hey Bits,” someone says, close enough to be heard above the music.
“Oh,” Bittle says.
Jack looks up to see, though he can’t quite believe it --
“Yeah, sure, Tater, anytime,” Jack said. “Not like I’m going anywhere, eh? Yeah, okay, tonight at seven. I’ll be there.”
The fact was, Jack really wasn’t up for a game of Zoom Pictionary, but he had an A. He had to stay involved with the team, even though he was pretty sure this season was over. If he didn’t, he’d have Marty and Thirdy to answer to.
And if Marty actually retired, there was talk that they’d give Jack a C, too, instead of being one of three A’s. He’d tried to nip it, gone to Thirdy and apologized that anyone had said it, even if it wasn’t Jack, and found out that Thirdy was the one who started it in the first place.
“We all know you’re the face of the franchise, man, and not just because you’re pretty,” Thirdy said. “I’ll wear the A ’til I retire, as long as the team wants me to, but we both know that’s not going to be too many more years. Making you captain is just recognizing reality. The young guys look up to you, us old farts respect you … of course you’re the leader.”
Maybe Marty wouldn’t retire after the truncated season, Jack thought. Maybe he’d stay one more year, try to end on a high note instead if in this weird limbo.
Jack could only hope.
He turned back to his laptop and unmuted it, but the video he’d been watching on the best ways to cook chicken breast had given way to something else.
The voice that came from the laptop speakers had a warm drawl, and the hands on the screen were weaving something, making a basket pattern over a … pie, definitely a cherry pie. The dark red of the cherries offered a good contrast to the pale pie dough, and the cherry juice that stuck to the back of the strips as the man folded them back made it easy to see what he was doing.
“Now, a lot of folks are afraid of doing a lattice top because it looks complicated,” the man said. He had just laid a new strip of dough horizontally across the pie, and he was taking the strips that were folded down -- every other one of the vertical strips -- and flipping them over the new horizontal strip. “It’s really easy once you know how.”
Then he folded down the other vertical strips -- the ones that were under the last horizontal one -- and added another horizontal strip before folding them back.
Jack knew he should turn the video off. There was no way he was ever going to make a pie. He hardly ever ate desserts anyway, and never fruit pie. There was the fat in pie crust, all the sugar -- it wasn’t worth it. He had one piece of tarte au sucre when he went home for Christmas, if he went home for Christmas, and that was that.
But the man’s hands -- strong, square hands with neat nails and no rings -- kept moving and he kept talking as the pattern took shape.
“This is a real simple pattern, of course,” he was saying. “You can do it all sorts of ways. I like a braided edge, but that takes a bit of practice.”
The pie was finished, and the hands slid it into what looked like an old oven. The picture cut to a young guy -- well, Jack would have assumed that from the voice -- holding up a pie identical to the one that had just gone into the oven. His eyes were warm and brown, his hair was the color of the now-golden pie crust, and his smile was wide.
“This is the way it looks when it’s done,” he said. “See, don’t you think it looks like I put a lot of effort in? And if your first few attempts come out a little wonky, that’s okay. Everything takes practice, and besides, the people you want to impress will just know how hard you’re willing to work.
“If you try it, I’d love to see how it turns out,” the man continues. “Go ahead and send a picture. And of course, if you made it this far, please hit the like button and think about subscribing.”
Jack scrolled down and hit the thumbs up button before looking further.
The video had been posted by OMG! Check Please two years ago and had been watched over 100,000 times.
The account had about 10,000 subscribers, and there were plenty of comments, some complimentary, some with practical questions. Jack read through the first couple of pages before checking his cupboards.
He had flour, salt and a bag of apples. The spice rack that Maman had insisted on when he moved in had cinnamon -- something that was included in most of the apple pie recipes he found in a quick Google search. But he didn’t have any real butter or shortening, which apparently he would need.
Jack pulled his chicken breasts out to thaw and placed an order for butter and shortening to be picked up curbside. More apples, too, he decided. He put the chicken breasts back in the freezer and added frozen chicken tenders and frozen broccoli to his grocery order.
An hour later, he grabbed a clean mask off the hook by the door, pulled a cap down above his eyes, and headed to the market.
At least this was giving him a reason to get out, start his car and try something new, all in one day. One day in a string of days that were starting to all feel the same. If he watched and listened to OMG! Check Please another two (or three) times while he waited, well, that was just preparing himself.
Jack must have been sitting at home waiting for Bitty’s email, because he wrote back not an hour later.
Of course he was sitting at home. What else would he be doing? Maybe he had been waiting for Bitty to respond because he was waiting to finish a grocery list, because the first thing he asked was what kind of cherries he should get.
Your cherry pie recipe calls for tart cherries but Whole Foods only has frozen sweet cherries, Jack wrote. Should I get those or the canned tart ones? Any advice on frozen blueberries?
By the way, I should tell you that Tater liked the pie. Don’t be too impressed -- he’s not picky. But he requested a blueberry pie next.
Did you mean it when you said you’d talk me through it? Can I text you when my grocery delivery comes to set up a time? I have to go now -- we have team online game night, and I know Tater’s going to chirp me to hell and back for actually making him a pie, but I’m kind of looking forward to it. Let me know your number so I can text you if that’s really okay.
Jack
His phone number was underneath.
It seemed like Jack was in a hurry to get his order in, so Bitty responded as soon as he could.
Get the frozen ones, he said. You can thaw them under running water before you make the filling. You should make sure you use a recipe for sweet cherries, or cut the sugar by about ¼ cup if you’re using a recipe for sour cherries. Also, you’re going to want to cook this filling first so it’s not too liquidy. Do you have cornstarch?
The frozen blueberries from whole foods are fine. You’ll need about two pounds of cherries for a pie, and two pounds or maybe a little bit more blueberries.
And of course you can text me. If you want, we can Facetime or Skype or something while you make your pie. Just text me and lmk if you want to do that, and what time. I hear grocery delivery windows aren’t very specific these days.
Bitty signed it and added his phone number, shaking his head. What even was his life?
Then he headed to the chest freezer in the basement to see if MooMaw had frozen cherries or blueberries from last summer so he could bake along with Jack, assuming Jack actually called.
Bitty knew he was ridiculous the next morning when he was disappointed at the cool, gray weather. Not appropriate for his favorite khaki shorts and pink polo. Pink made everyone look good. He found his favorite skinny jeans instead, topped with a Samwell red t-shirt and an open plaid flannel, sleeves carefully folded back. Nice, but not looking like he put any effort in.
“Why’re you all dressed up today?” MooMaw asked. “Shooting another video?”
“No, but Jack and I might do a video call so I can help him bake. I figured I can bake along so he can see what I’m doing.”
“Uh-huh,” MooMaw said.
“Anyway, I’m pretty sure we’re doing a cherry pie with frozen cherries, so I took the ones from the freezer, if you don’t mind,” Bitty said. “If his grocery service can’t get frozen cherries, we’ll do blueberry. But so far, he’s only done apple. Nothing with a filling that you have to cook.”
“You can do blueberry without cooking the filling,” MooMaw said.
“I know, but it doesn’t work so well if the blueberries are frozen,” Bitty said, rummaging in the cupboard and coming out with the cornstarch, some cinnamon and the little bottle of almond extract. He already had mixing bowls, flour, salt, measuring cups and spoons, and other tools on the table.
“You’re like a little boy waiting to go to the beach, I swear,” MooMaw said. “I’ll make myself scarce. Yell if you can’t find anything.”
Bitty occupied himself by planning out his next video until his phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Groceries are here, it said. Ready when you are.
Great, Bitty responded. Skype? That way I can use my laptop.
A moment later, the call came in and Bitty was looking at the inside of Jack’s kitchen, with Jack’s face in the foreground.
After Jack ended the call with Marty, he looked at the pie cooling on the counter with a critical eye.
It did look better than the first one. It wasn’t as lopsided, for one thing, and the weave on the lattice was neater. The crust was a little dark around the edges, but most of it seemed a more pleasing tan color.
He couldn’t really say if the filling was any better until he tried it.
Well, the first thing to do was take a picture. He’d told Bittle he intended to make another pie, and he had, so he would send a new picture.
Bittle hadn’t asked for another picture, though. Would he find it strange that some person he didn’t know kept sending him pictures of pies?
While Jack thought about it, he went back and watched the video with Bittle, his grandmother and the chess pie again, and he was again drawn in by Bittle's easy way of talking while he worked, how he drew his grandmother-- his MooMaw, he called her -- into what sounded like a genuine conversation. By the end, Jack had decided to send the picture. Bittle said baked goods helped him make friends, so he wasn’t likely to turn his nose up at a picture of a pie, was he?
And Bittle threw it out there in the middle of the video that he played hockey at Samwell, like he expected regular viewers to know that, so it was probably fine that Jack looked up the hockey team. If Jack was impressed by Bittle, that was fine. If Jack was maybe a little fascinated by Bittle, well, he wasn’t hurting anyone. Not Bittle, at least.
And if Bittle left school to go home (to somewhere in the American south, it seemed like, judging by his and his grandmother’s matching accents), maybe he would be bored and looking for a friend, too.
Bittle already had friends, though. He said his teammates were his best friends, which … well, Jack got that. Even if they were scattered around the country now, they could connect over the internet. Bittle was probably good at that.
Bittle also apparently still had a thesis to work on.
But Bittle liked to bake, and he liked talking about baking, and maybe his team didn’t talk about baking so much. And Jack was happy to get him to talk about that. Although Jack would be happy to talk to him about hockey, too, or what it was like to suddenly find himself at home with nothing but his workouts on his calendar.
Jack was an introvert. He always had been. When the season had screeched to a halt and instructions came to go home and stay there, he hadn’t even seriously considered going to his parents’ house in Montreal. Partly because he knew he could be a vector of the virus, but also because that wasn’t his home. Hadn’t been for years.
Now he found that he missed seeing people. He was a little envious of his teammates who had hunkered down with partners. At least they had another person they could touch, even if having someone else in your space all day was a bit much.
Bittle didn’t seem to have a partner like that, but he had his grandmother to keep him company.
He knew the guys with kids were living a different kind of quarantine, one filled with tears and temper tantrums as well as bonding time and board games and no possibility of a trip to the playground or ice cream parlor as a distraction. He wondered what that was like.
He opened a new email, typed Improvement in the subject line, and inserted the photo.
Then he typed:
Hi, Eric.
I tried to take all of your advice when I tried again, and I think it worked much better. The dough wasn’t nearly as sticky with a little less water, and it didn’t stick to the rolling pin, either. I still don’t think it looks as good as yours, and I did have to roll the bottom crust out twice, but I’m getting better. Practice makes perfect, eh?
Jack paused, took a deep breath, and plunged on.
When I went to your YouTube channel to watch the pie crust tutorial again, I saw the new video you posted, and when I heard you played hockey at Samwell, I looked up the team. I hope you don’t mind me saying that I was really impressed with the whole team, but especially with your speed, your hands and the way you see the ice. It’s a shame you couldn’t finish the season.
I plan to keep working on my pie skills. Some of my friends asked me to make them pie after quarantine, so I want to get better. Do you mind if I keep asking you questions? If it’s a bother, I can stop.
