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Chapter Text

There’s a strange man hanging around the office. This isn’t an unusual occurrence. At least once a week, someone takes the wrong turn on their way to the Public Utilities office and ends up in Parks and Recreation instead, only to unleash a string of expletives at Eric for turning their water off. 

It is way too early for this. 

“Utilities is on the other side of the hall,” Eric says without looking up from his computer monitor. “And they don’t open for another hour.”

“What? Brah, no.” The man straightens his tie. His brown hair is long and tied back in a ponytail, and Eric is pretty sure the shirt he’s wearing under his slightly-too-large tan blazer is a Hawaiian print. He’s reminded of a game his college friends Adam and Justin used to play on weekend trips into the city, “Millionaire or Homeless?”  

Eric plasters on a pleasant smile. “Is there something I can help you with, then? Do you need to sign up for a class? Our fall session just started but our winter session classes are posted online; if you’d like a catalog—”

Mr. Possibly Homeless laughs. “No, man. I’m the auditor. Didn’t they tell you we were coming?”

“Oh! Of course.” This is so embarrassing. Eric, of all people, should know better than to make assumptions based on appearances. He’s been prepping for the auditors’ visit for two weeks. He even got into work two hours early this morning to make sure everything’s in order. Eric is an early riser and, some would say, a workaholic. He prefers to think of it as being devoted to his job, and the people his department serves. 

“Yes,” he says, “I was expecting, um—”

The man grins. “Somebody who looks more like him?” 

“Him?” Eric asks, as another person appears in the doorway. 

The newcomer is as polished and professional as his counterpart is not. His suit—definitely not off-the-rack like Eric’s one good suit—looks expensive, and unlike his friend’s it actually fits. Lord, does it fit, everywhere from his broad shoulders and chest to his—Eric sneaks the tiniest peek—well-endowed rear end. But it’s his face that really stops Eric in his tracks. He’s not sure which of the man’s features is more arresting: the icy blue eyes or the cheekbones that look like they could cut glass. Eric has worked here long enough to declare this man the most attractive person to ever set foot in Samwell City Hall, possibly the entire city. 

It suddenly feels very warm in here. 

“I’m Shitty Knight,” the first man finally says, extending a hand in greeting. Eric, too taken aback by the man’s unusual name to do anything but be polite, reflexively responds in kind. “My partner and I are the auditors your city council hired to take a look at the city’s finances. We have a nine a.m. appointment with your department’s director.”

Eric looks from “Shitty” to his companion and back again. Only one person here embodies the title of “auditor,” and it isn’t the guy with the fun Hawaiian shirt. He pulls himself together despite the rush of anxiety that’s suddenly flooded his system (which might actually be attributable to the quad shot pumpkin spice latte he drank this morning, who can really say?). “That would be me,” he says. “Eric Bittle, director of Parks and Recreation.”

Newly appointed director, he feels like adding, but he doesn’t. These men don’t need to know that Eric was only promoted to director six months ago, and that he sometimes feels way out of his depth even though he’s been working in this department since he was a college intern. Planning events and making sure the city’s recreational facilities remain in working order are one thing. Navigating the maze of bureaucracy and governmental red tape is something totally different that he’s learning as he goes.

When Eric accepted this job he was promised smooth sailing and a budget that would accommodate his proposed municipal skating rink revitalization project, a.k.a. his greatest idea ever. He did not expect the citywide budget crisis that resulted in the recall of the mayor and half of the city council. He also did not expect to have to defend his department’s right to exist to the (up until now) nameless, faceless auditors who’ve been called in to help the city get back on its feet.  

Yet here he is, confronted with one very oddly named auditor and another whose face has probably inspired love songs.

“I oversee all of our department's facilities, including the parks and skating rink, and schedule all of our department’s programs and classes,” Eric continues. “If you’d like to sit in on one, I’m happy to arrange something. Our chair yoga for seniors is very popular, or Cocktails and Cookies. That one’s taught by yours truly; each week I pair a cookie recipe with a themed drink and a curated playlist.” It’s one of Eric’s better ideas and has been very popular, especially with the soccer mom set.

“That won’t be necessary. I’m here to work. Not … bake cookies.” Eric’s lived here for more than a decade, is used to northern accents, but he’s not expecting the French-Canadian-inflected speech that comes out when Hot Auditor speaks. 

“Okay, well, I’m sure we can find something for you.” Eric’s neutral, accommodating tone belies his internal annoyance. Did this man just insult his work? 

“Ignore him,” Shitty says. “Your job sounds rad, and you’re the first person we’ve met in this place who actually seems to like what you do. I’ll totally take a class.”

“Yeah?” Eric opens up the day’s schedule on his computer and quickly scans it for last-minute availability. “What’re you interested in, we have a few different classes you can join this afternoon. We’ve got Spanish for Beginners and Adult Tap Dancing and—oh! We had a cancellation in my friend Larissa’s watercolor class, so there’s one seat avail—”

The hot auditor clears his throat. “We really need to get started. We’re meeting with the library board in an hour.”

“Right! I’m so sorry, of course we can get started. Mr. Knight—”

“Call me Shitty. No need for formalities, we’re all friends here.” Shitty’s joyful expression suggests they all are, actually, best friends.

“Shitty. You and Mr., uh—” Eric shoots a glance at Hot Auditor, still glowering in Shitty’s shadow like some sort of sexy bodyguard/assassin.

“Zimmermann.” Eric notices that Mr. Zimmermann does not invite him to call him by a first name.

Shitty rolls his eyes. “You can call him Jack. I keep telling him first names make us seem more approachable, but he has a thing about professionalism in the workplace.”

Clearly, the man who goes by “Shitty” doesn’t share his concerns.

“Mr. Zimmermann,” Eric repeats as he crosses the office to the conference room. “If you gentlemen don’t mind taking a seat over here, we can get started. Oh, and make sure you take a muffin!” He gestures at the spread he set up in the middle of the conference table. His cinnamon streusel muffins are delectable, if he does say so himself; he’s finally perfected the crumb topping and it couldn’t look better if it came from a professional bakery. Zimmermann ignores the treats even as Shitty takes two. Instead, he opens the bound, full-color copy of the report Eric had printed and overnighted to the auditors’ office last week.

Eric may have gone a little overboard preparing for this meeting, but it’s only because he’s passionate about his work. The Parks and Recreation department is the lifeblood of this town. 

It is in Eric’s very biased opinion, anyway. Judging by the pinched look on Zimmermann’s face as he reads, not everybody feels the same way.

Eric gives the men a few minutes to page through the report. And if he uses those minutes to lose himself in a fantasy, well, who can blame him? Jack Zimmermann looks like no auditor Eric has ever met. To be fair, Eric’s pretty sure Jack Zimmermann is the only auditor he’s ever met, but that’s beside the point. Auditors, he’s pretty sure, do not have cheekbones that could impale a man, or icy blue eyes that he’d be happy to drown in. Basically, Jack Zimmermann is a walking safety hazard and Eric Bittle would willingly violate every rule he’s put in place to protect his heart from handsome, well-built men in order to find out what it feels like to lose himself to him.

And then he speaks and ruins the illusion. “Can you tell me where you’ve identified waste in your budget?” Zimmermann's tone is curt but his voice is softer than Eric expected. “Any staffing redundancies?”

“Um,” Eric hedges. He didn’t “identify waste” in his budget because everything in it—including his staff—is essential. “I’m happy to talk about those things, but before we get into that I think I should give you an overview of my department so you have a better understanding of what we do here.”

“My concern at the moment is the numbers, Mr. Bittle. What your department does is irrelevant.”

Good lord, who decided this man was fit to interact with the public?

“Brah, I don’t think it’s completely irrelevant,” Shitty interjects. “It seems like a lot of people benefit from the services Parks and Rec offers. Look, they have free English classes for non-native speakers. And toddler soccer! How cute is that?”

“It’s so cute!” Eric confirms. “It’s one of our most popular class—”

“What is the Samwell Municipal Ice Rink?” Zimmermann interrupts.

“Oh!” Eric sits up a little straighter, happy for an excuse to talk about his favorite thing. “The ice rink is—” 

“I know what an ice rink is. Why does it exist?”

The words feel like a slap to the face but Eric doesn’t let his emotions get the better of him. He starts with the rink’s history, which he can recite in his sleep. “The rink was a gift to the city in 1966 by—” 

“It’s a blight.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The big building we drove by on the way into town, right? The one that looks like it will fall over in the next strong wind? It’s a blight.”

“C’mon, Jack,” Shitty says quietly.

Zimmermann looks down at the report and shakes his head. “I’m looking at these numbers and I just can’t in good conscience recommend keeping it open. In fact, it would actually be preferable to demolish it. Its operating costs are high—” he stabs his pointer finger at a number Eric is familiar with— “far higher than any of your other facilities—and you’re not even breaking even on it. And your report concludes with a request for funds for refurbishments? Frankly, the land would be far more valuable to the city if it were to sell it to a developer. I can put you in touch with—”

“Over my dead body,” Eric interrupts.

“Excuse me?” Zimmermann tears his attention away from the report and locks eyes with Eric.

“You heard me,” Eric says, tone even and steely enough to rival Zimmermann’s. He stares right back at him, daring him to blink. “You can’t sell my rink.”

Zimmermann raises and eyebrow. “Your rink?” 

“The town’s rink!”

“The town’s rink is bleeding this town dry,” Zimmermann says condescendingly. “The best solution is to shut it down. Obviously, my decision isn’t final, but I’ll be forwarding my recommendation to the city council, which will have the final say.” 

Eric stands to his full five feet, seven (almost!) inches so he can look down on Jack Zimmermann as he delivers his scathing assessment. “You’re a jerk,” he hisses.

“Am I, Mr. Bittle?”

“You’re talking about a decision that affects real people, people who work and train in a real rink that has real feelings.”

“The rink has feelings?” Zimmermann asks, voice dripping with skepticism.

“Maybe,” Eric says, defensive now. “You don’t know. It’s an old building. There might be ghosts.”

“Did … somebody die in here?”

“Maybe. I don’t know!” Justin thought he felt a “presence” in there once. There could be a ghost.

Eric can tell Zimmermann is losing patience by the way he rolls his eyes. “Mr. Bittle, I know this news is upsetting but it’s for the best. The alternative involves staff reductions, and I’m sure you don’t want to let any of your employees go.”

He’s right. Who would leave? Eric’s deputy director Chris and his wife Caitlin have a young daughter and another on the way. Tony and Denice, his other full-time employees, are planning a wedding for next spring. They all have student loans. 

Though what Jack Zimmermann wants may be a moot point because if the rink shuts down they’ll have to make cuts to the class schedule, and Chris and Tony both teach hockey classes. If they can’t teach their classes it might put their hours below full-time and if that happens— 

“Are you trying to force my hand?” Eric asks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zimmermann says coolly.

“A third of my staff’s hours come from working at the rink, or rink-related responsibilities. If you shut the rink down, I’ll have no choice but to let somebody go. We can’t support our current staffing levels without a fully operational rink.”

“If that’s what you have to do,” Zimmermann’s face betrays nothing. 

“You knew!” Eric accuses. “You read my report, you crunched the numbers, you know exactly how staff hours are allocated and what salaries are. You know that if we shut the rink down, somebody will have to leave.”

“It’s just numbers,” Zimmermann says. “It’s not personal.”

“You keep saying that,” Eric protests, “but it is personal! It’s personal to every single child who’s learned to skate here, and all of the kids who play in our hockey league. It’s personal to me! I play hockey, too.”

“You play hockey?” For the first time this morning, Zimmermann’s reacted to something Eric has said with something that approaches interest. 

“I know I don’t look like a hockey player,” Eric says, feeling obligated to defend his size, “but I’ve been playing with our adult league since I started working here.”

“Huh,” Shitty says, reminding Eric he’s here too. He’d almost forgotten about him. “What do you think of that, Jack?” Eric catches a blink-and-you’d-miss-it glance pass between the two, but the fascinating interaction is terminated when Zimmermann looks directly at Eric and replies, “I think we have a meeting with the library,” cold and emotionless. The conversation is over, apparently, because Jack Zimmermann is putting his things away and walking toward the door while Eric just gapes at him.

“Wait!” Eric finally finds his voice. “You haven’t even heard my proposal for the rink revitalization project.”

Zimmermann glances over his shoulder at Eric, but there’s no warmth in his gaze. Eric might as well be a slug on the bottom of his shoe.

“At least take a muffin for the road!” Eric yells at his retreating backside. Zimmermann doesn’t even break his stride as he walks out the door.

Any charitable thoughts Eric might have had about stupid Jack Zimmermann and his stupid, perfect body have all but evaporated. Jack Zimmermann is definitely capable of destroying him, and not in the fun kind of way.

Eric is secretly certain his office’s supply closet is a portal to another dimension because it’s always mysteriously twenty degrees colder than the rest of the building, but it’s his favorite spot to go when he needs to calm down. He closes the door behind him and there, surrounded by reams of copy paper and boxes of highlighters and gel pens, he begins his breathing exercises. It’s something his old figure skating coach taught him when he had nerves before his very first competition, and though he doesn’t skate anymore, this has stuck with him: breathe in for seven counts, hold it for seven counts, breathe out for seven counts.

They’re going to take his rink away from him.

There he goes again. Not his rink, Eric reminds himself, even though most of the time it feels like it. The Samwell Municipal Ice Rink is what brought Eric here ten years ago, when he was a sophomore at Samwell University. 

There are certain words and phrases nobody ever wants to hear. Phrases like, “It’s not you, it’s me,” and, “I’m sorry, we’re all out of butter” (the latter of which is particularly devastating if your weekend plans involve baking to cope with the former), and, “That rink is a blight.”

But those all pale in comparison to the words every Olympic hopeful dreads hearing: career ending injury.

A botched landing on a jump he’d been able to do in his sleep put an end to Eric’s gold medal dreams, but it was only a few months afterward that his friends Justin and Adam—members of the hockey team Eric befriended after their afternoon practice kept running into his ice time—showed him a job posting for a part-time figure skating instructor at the city’s nearby public rink. 

Eric couldn’t compete anymore, but he’d always been good with kids, and now that he didn’t have to practice for hours each day he had a lot of time on his hands that even baking couldn’t fill. He’d never coached but he was good with kids; he’d spent the previous two summers working at a day camp back in Georgia. 

At first, they had him working two hours a week: Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. He eventually took over all of the beginning figure skating sessions. As the end of the spring semester approached and Eric started thinking about going home to work at the camp again, his boss approached him about applying for a summer internship in the parks department. Eric had never considered going into public service; it wasn’t something that had ever been on his radar. Sure, his parents voted and made sure he registered when he turned 18, but politics wasn’t a passion of his.

Politics wasn’t his passion, but people were. And the more time he’s spent in city government, the more Eric has come to believe the personal is political, and that people who will never write to their Congressional representative or run for office might just change their mind about politics and the government if they see all the good that happens at the local level. All it took for Eric was successfully organizing a learn-to-skate camp for elementary school students. The kids had fun, the parents were happy, and the result was more pre-season sign ups than the Samwell Municipal Junior Hockey League had received in years. 

Eric finished his internship to glowing reviews and returned to City Hall the following summer to fill in for an administrative assistant in a different department who was out on maternity leave. He applied for a full-time job in Parks and Recreation as soon as he graduated. And he’s remained here because he’s seen the difference his department makes on an individual level, whether it’s building a new playground on an abandoned lot in an underserved area of town or offering beginning cooking classes to new university graduates who are cooking for themselves for the first time.

And as Eric told Jack Zimmermann, his department—and the rink specifically—has made a difference in his life, too. It’s never just been a job for Eric. Those first months out of college were a strange time. His closest friends had scattered around the country to jobs and grad school, and his coworkers were all doing grownup things like buying homes and having babies. But then Adam and Justin, who’d both stayed in the area, encouraged him to join them on the Samwell Municipal Hockey League (SMH, for short). 

Though Eric was well acquainted with SMH, as his department oversaw it, he’d never considered playing hockey himself. But he could skate and that was all that mattered; truly, the fact that he could skate at all and was reasonably athletic gave him an advantage over most of his teammates, save for Justin and Adam and a few others, like Eric’s co-worker Chris, who’d also played at Samwell. 

The team was best known for losing to the Eagleton Eagles, the neighboring town’s better funded and more skilled team, in their annual scrimmage every year. But what his teammates lacked in skill they made up for in heart. Eric had never been part of a team before; he’d of course made friends as a competitive figure skater but there was always a bit of tension that prevented them from becoming truly close—it was hard to forget his closest peers were also his fiercest competition. That tension didn’t exist in rec hockey. Everybody was there to have fun and blow off steam; to feel, for two hours once a week, like kids again. Eric was far from home and didn’t get to visit as often as he’d like; in SMH he found a different kind of family, one forged on the ice and during post-practice drinks at Jerry’s. 

Samwell Municipal Hockey sustained Eric through his twenties. And Eric will be damned if he lets Jack Zimmermann take his team away from him.

In-two-three-four-five-six-seven. Hold-two-three-four-five-six-seven. Out-two-three-four-five-six-seven. In...

“Eric!” The door flies open and Eric is confronted by a frantic Tony Tangredi, his former intern-turned-administrative assistant. “I just got in and these two guys who said they were auditors were on their way out?”

“More like life ruiners,” Eric mutters.

“Um …” Tony stares at Eric, and Eric can already hear the barrage of questions to come if he doesn't cut Tony off at the pass. 

“Sorry, Tony. I didn’t mean to disappear on y’all. Did they find their way out?”

Tony nods. “They said something about scheduling a follow-up. Your calendar was open so I told them to come back tomorrow at ten. Is that okay?”

Eric glances at his watch. It’s just past ten now. He has just under 24 hours to plan his play to get Jack Zimmermann to change his mind.

Chapter Text

“I’m going on a run,” Jack grunts when he and Shitty return to the furnished apartment their firm rented for them after their first day at Samwell City Hall. Like everything else in Samwell, it’s seen better days. Their last corporate housing, in Chicago, was a high rise overlooking the river. Here, they’re in one half of an old duplex that looks like it was last renovated in the eighties. The furnishings look almost that old. But it’s clean, and everything seems to function as it should, so Jack really can’t complain.

The last place also had a fitness center. The owner of this place—whom Jack met briefly when he picked up the keys last night and hasn’t seen since—has parked a rowing machine on the covered back patio, but the spiderwebs and layer of dirt coating it indicate it’s been a while since anybody has used it.

So a run it is.

They’ve worked together long enough that Shitty knows not to ask questions. This job can be stressful, and a hard workout always helps Jack shake off the day. Today, he’s not sure which was more frustrating: the dire financial condition this city is in, or the belligerent city employee who spent their entire meeting arguing with Jack.

Jack runs without a plan. Samwell isn’t so big that he won’t be able to find his way back to the house. It takes a mile for him to find his groove and settle into a pace that’s just a notch above easy. October in Massachusetts is still comfortable running weather, and though it’s not the Chicago lakefront he got used to running along after work, the fall foliage is more scenic than Midwestern cornfields and planned suburban developments. Despite today’s difficulties, Jack supposes there are worse places he could be.

Two miles into his run, Jack passes Samwell Municipal Rink—the biggest pressure point in today’s conversation (showdown?) with Eric Bittle of Parks and Recreation. It fucking figures that an ice rink, of all things, is at the center of all of this. Bittle seems to believe the rink is a beloved Samwell institution, but he must be looking at it through rose-colored glasses. As ice rinks go, it’s hardly remarkable. The building would never be mistaken for one of the high end skating complexes Jack’s seen in other cities. The sign in the parking lot advertising it as Samwell Municipal Ice Rink is the only thing that distinguishes it from a typical industrial warehouse. There are about a half dozen SUVs and mini vans parked in the large parking lot, prime space that can almost certainly be put to better use. As for the rink itself… Jack looked at the report and the numbers. Forget Bittle’s proposed renovations that require funds the city doesn’t have; just to keep it running, as-is, will cost an astronomical amount of money.

The problem with Eric Bittle isn’t that he refused to listen to Jack’s budget recommendations, which aren’t generally met with enthusiasm by anybody. The problem is that—and this rarely happens—Bittle is probably right. This isn’t like the time Jack consulted with the startup that brought in a catered lunch every afternoon and gave every employee an electric scooter. Or the time he discovered a school district that was in dire straits was giving expensive maintenance contracts to the highest bidder, who happened to be a relative of one of the school board members. Bittle just wants money to provide nice things for the residents of this community. 

Jack spent more time looking at Bittle’s budget proposal than all of the city’s other departmental budgets combined. (Granted, the document was bigger than all of the other departmental budgets combined, and included full-color graphs and an artist’s rendering of the proposed skating rink upgrades.) It was good, and thorough, and nothing in it would be objectionable in the least if the city had the funds. It doesn’t. So Jack can’t in good conscience approve it. It’s as simple as that.

It doesn’t feel good, but Jack hasn’t gotten as far as he has in his career because he makes people feel good. He’s gotten as far as he has because he’s good at his job. He has to be.

At 35, Jack has spent a lifetime shaking off the haters, as Shitty calls them. His father is a retired professional ice hockey player. His mother is a supermodel-turned-actress-turned-producer. Jack loves his parents, but there were certain expectations that came with being a Zimmermann. He can’t remember a time when people weren’t looking at him, speculating, making assumptions. Comparing him to his famous and gifted parents and pointing out all the ways he didn’t measure up. (Too funny looking, too chubby, too awkward, too weird. Then, when he proved to be a hockey prodigy in his own right and puberty hit, too privileged, too cocky, too aloof, too weird.) 

Is it any wonder he was an anxious child who grew into an even more anxious teenager?

Despite the anxiety that plagued him, Jack was a gifted athlete. A generational talent, people called him, and most of the time they were being complimentary. Jack didn’t not believe it, exactly—he knew his stats, he watched his tape. His anxiety just spoke louder than everyone else.

They said he was one of the best players of his generation, and he was. They said he would almost certainly go first in the NHL draft, and he did. They looked at his record in the first half of his rookie season and predicted he would carry his team to a Stanley Cup final.

Jack crumbled under the pressure. He overdosed in a hotel bathroom on the eve of what would have been his first All-Star game.

His sudden fall from grace brought shame upon his family, his team, his country. Or, that’s how he felt every time his name came up in hockey media. It did nothing to alleviate the anxiety that was, had always been, the root of the problem.

After rehab, and with the support of his parents and a therapist who helped him learn to identify and manage his anxiety, Jack decided he was done with hockey. He’d spent years playing through the anxiety because lurking behind the fear that he wasn’t good enough was yet another: what would happen if he stopped playing? But he went a day without playing and the world didn’t end. So he tried it for a second day, and a third. And the anxiety didn’t go away, not entirely, but it became more manageable. He had room to breathe again. He liked the way that felt.

By then, college no longer seemed like a consolation prize. Instead, it offered the promise of a bright new future. It wasn’t what Jack had wanted at sixteen, but at twenty it was exactly what he needed. And for a few years, at a West Coast American college that had only a club hockey team, he was allowed to be relatively anonymous. He majored in business with a focus on accounting because he’d always been good with numbers, as evidenced by his childhood ability to remember even the most obscure hockey stats. But there was another reason he took the exam to become a CPA: accounting left no room for error. It was numbers, pure and simple. As long as the numbers came out right (and Jack always made sure they did), he couldn’t fail. In his second chosen career, there would be no repeat of his teenage fall from grace.

College was a respite from his first two decades spent as Canada’s golden child, but it didn’t last long. Jack cuts budgets for a living. He doesn’t exactly make many friends in his line of work. Or any friends. But he can handle the chilly reception he gets in places like Samwell. It’s nothing compared to finding out that, in the wake of his overdose, a former Juniors teammate granted an “exclusive” interview to US Weekly about his rumored substance abuse issues.

He doesn’t have time to make friends, anyway. Jack’s general rootlessness, combined with Shitty’s adventurous spirit, has made them the go-to team for out-of-town auditing jobs that last anywhere from a few days to a few months. Though their company, Falconer Consulting, is based in Providence, Jack keeps a PO Box there only for business purposes. Since breaking up with his fiancée three years ago, he’s lived out of hotel rooms and short-term rentals, rarely spending enough time in any of them to land on anybody’s holiday card list (with the exception of the dentist who gave him an emergency root canal in San Jose). It’s fine.

Jack keeps running, taking note of little things that stand out and catch his attention. The city parks are clean and well-maintained, full of kids playing soccer and parents watching from the sidelines. The quaint little downtown area is filled with local businesses that seem to be thriving—Jack spots coffee shops, a bakery, a hardware store. He also passes an admirable amount of public artwork, murals and sculptures prominently installed in highly trafficked areas. Granted, some of the art is a bit unusual, but Jack’s seen a lot of weird small town art and even weirder big city art. At least it keeps things interesting on his runs.

When Jack gets home, Shitty has changed out of his blazer and slacks and into an obscenely short pair of track shorts, though the Hawaiian shirt remains. “Hurry up and hit the showers,” he orders from where he’s sprawled out on the (somewhat disgusting) green couch that came with the rental. “We’re going out.”

“No.” Jack has been out all day. Going out is the last thing he wants to do.

“Not taking no for an answer this time, brah. We got invited to a party at Jerry’s.”

Jack looks Shitty up and down, taking in his outfit. The way he's reclined, with one leg stretched out and the other bent, Jack can practically see his balls. “A costume party?” he asks, though he already knows the answer. “And who the fuck is Jerry?” Knowing Shitty, Jerry could be anybody. An old friend from college, a relative he doesn’t hate, the cashier at the Dunkin’ Donuts they stopped at on the way into work.

“Jerry’s is a nightclub. And somebody in the city planning department invited us.”

Jack tries to recall who they met with in that department. “Was that the loud guy with the teeth?”

“Adam. They’re celebrating someone’s birthday. A Chris? I don’t think we met him. The place is gonna be lit. He said we should drop by.”

Jack just ran five miles. He’s not fit to “drop by” anywhere, let alone a  nightclub full of strangers.

“Why would he even invite us?”

“Because I’m irresistible and you’re—”

“Tired.” Jack pulls his shirt over his head and throws it at Shitty. It hits him square in the chest and falls to the floor.

“Nice shot. Could’ve gone pro with aim like that,” Shitty says.

“You know that’s not funny.” 

Shitty rolls his eyes. “I know it’s not your usual thing, but we’re going to be here longer than usual. We should try to make friends this time.”

“I have friends,” Jack insists. 

“You have one friend,” Shitty says, crossing the room and hooking an arm around Jack’s (sweaty) shoulder. “Me. And you know I’m your best bro for life, but most people have friends outside of work.” 

This is not entirely untrue. Somewhat improbably, Shitty Knight is Jack’s best friend, even if they never would have met had it not been for this job. For all of their differences, they’re alike. Neither planned to become an accountant; like Jack, Shitty was supposed to go into the family business. It just happened that Shitty’s family was in the business of white collar crime, which he (wisely) wanted no part of. He became an auditor to, in his own words, “find the assholes like my old man and stick it to them.” Unfortunately for Shitty, they rarely uncover real criminal activity. It’s mostly just run-of-the-mill incompetence.

“Mills is still in the area,” Jack says, shrugging Shitty off. “I might call her.”

Shitty snorts. “Sorry, but your ex-fiancée-slash-occasional-fuck-buddy does not count in this situation.” 

Jack resists pointing out that he hasn’t slept with Camilla in over a year, hasn’t slept with anybody in over a year, and isn’t likely to sleep with anybody anytime soon. He just ignores Shitty, who follows him into the kitchen. All of Jack’s protein powder is currently in gallon-size plastic zipper bags because it’s easier to pack that way. He opens the bag marked “chocolate PB” and puts two scoops into his shaker cup. Shitty’s mouth is moving when Jack begins to mix the drink, but Jack can’t hear him over the sound of the ice and steel shaker ball banging around inside the tumbler as he shakes it. 

“One night,” Shitty says when Jack sets the tumbler down on the scratched formica countertop. “Come out with me tonight and you never have to do it again. You can sit in your room and watch Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune every night like the old man you are and I won’t even make fun of you.”

“Yes you will.”

“I chirp because I love,” Shitty says, hand over his heart. And he does love Jack, Jack knows this. Shitty’s the type of friend who would, without hesitation, run into a burning building to rescue him. Jack hasn’t had very many friends like that.

Jack sighs. A near decade of friendship has proven Shitty won’t let up until he gets his way. Also, this protein shake isn’t that satisfying. Maybe Jerry’s will have chicken tenders.

“Fine,” Jack gives in. “But I’m leaving after one drink.”

Chapter Text

By the time Eric leaves the office at five-thirty, his brain is fried. He spent the entire day going over numbers, redrafting his proposal, perfecting the stirring speech he’ll give at tomorrow’s meeting with the auditors. Ordinarily during a crisis like this he’d work long into the night, but he has hockey practice and they’re all going out afterward to celebrate Chris’ birthday. Anyway, after today’s horrible meeting Eric needs to blow off a little steam. He’s earned this night out.

Eric’s usually the first to arrive at practice, but tonight he’s ten minutes late, which his friends are quick to point out. Their good-natured chirps wash away the sour feeling Jack Zimmermann left Eric with earlier this morning; he laughs along with his friends and quickly changes into his gear, determined to make the most of this ice time.

He doesn’t say anything about Jack Zimmermann’s suggested rink closure (Eric refuses to use the word “demolition”) to the rest of the guys at practice. He didn’t even tell Chris about his meeting with the auditors when he got into the office this morning because he didn’t want to ruin his birthday with the news their jobs might be in jeopardy. If Jack Zimmermann gets his way, not only will their jobs be in jeopardy, but nights like this will be numbered. Eric has to swallow back a lump in his throat as looks around at his teammates: Justin, Adam, Chris, Derek, Will, Tony, Johnson, and Ollie and Wicks (is it bad that Eric thinks of them as a unit because he’s never quite learned to tell them apart?). They’ve always had his back, and Eric has theirs. He refuses to let Jack Zimmermann take this away from them.

As he takes the ice for his warmup skate, Eric can’t help but see the rink the way an outsider like Jack Zimmermann might see it. It’s definitely seen better days. The paint on the walls is peeling, a section of the boards is caving in toward the ice, and—thanks to a measuring error when the place was built—one side of the rink is set slightly higher than the other, giving the team shooting for the goal on the lower end of the rink a slight advantage. It’s not pretty. If Jack Zimmermann was horrified by the rink’s exterior, he will have a damn near cardiac event if he ever sees this. Eric can never let him in here.

“C’mon, Bittle! Get your head in the game!” Justin yells when Eric misses what should have been an easy shot on goal during their scrimmage. He imagines Jack Zimmermann’s face is the puck and the next two sail past Chris to high fives all around. It’s a much-needed confidence boost on an otherwise shitty day, and he arrives at the bar feeling a little invincible. Zimmermann may have ruined his day, but Eric won’t let him ruin his night. 

He wouldn’t bother to spare a single thought for Jack Zimmermann tonight, except his best friend Larissa is on her way over and she needs to know about how Jack Zimmermann is ruining his life. Eric joins the guys for a round of beers and by the time they’re served, Larissa has arrived. Finding every bar stool occupied, she takes a seat on Adam’s lap and helps herself to his half-finished IPA, draining it in one go and belching.

“Classy as usual,” Adam says, giving her shoulder an affectionate squeeze. There was a time when Eric thought there might be something between his two friends, but their relationship dynamic skews more toward antagonistic siblings than romantic. It’s just as well. Neither has a great track record of remaining friends with their exes, and Eric would to hate to have to choose between them in the event of a break up. 

Adam and Justin may have been Eric’s first friends in Samwell, but Larissa is his best friend. They met during her “working interview” for a series of “Paint and Sip” classes Eric wanted to add to the department’s slate of community education courses. Eric left the interview with a painting of questionable artistic merit and a headache that was almost certain to turn into a hangover. Larissa left with … Well, Larissa left with his hot mess self. They ended up at her place and he drunk-baked a cherry pie, which they ate directly from the tin while watching a Drag Race marathon. They’ve been BFFs ever since.

Larissa makes her living painting murals and creating large art installations, but she teaches classes at the rec center a few times a year. Mostly as a favor to Eric, because she’s doing well enough with her art now that she doesn’t need the extra money.

Somebody orders another round and they toast Chris, who ends up leaving not long afterward because the teenage sitter he and Caitlin hired for the night has a ten p.m. curfew. When the other guys start drifting off to other corners of the club to see who else is here, Eric orders two more beers and pulls Larissa over to their favorite overstuffed loveseat in a corner of the club.

“You will not believe what I had to deal at work today,” he says as he collapses into a corner of the loveseat, hand thrown dramatically over his heart. A few drops of beer splash onto his shirt and Larissa gently pries it from his hand and sets it on the table in front of them.

“Someone’s living in the Founders Park playhouse?” Larissa guesses. “A pack of wild raccoons took over the dodgeball field?”

Eric shakes his head. “Worse,” he says grimly.

“Oh shit. Did the flasher showed up to sunrise Tai Chi again?”

All of those things have happened so Eric can forgive Larissa for assuming today’s absolute travesty was a typical Parks Department headache. 

“The auditors came,” he says, pronouncing “auditor” like it’s a dirty word.

“Oh, right! How’d that go?” She glances at Eric’s drink—his third—and winces. “Not great, I take it.”

“Well, I thought it was gonna go well,” Eric says, though this morning’s optimism seems ridiculous in hindsight. “You know I had my budget proposal all ready. There were two of them.”

“Two budgets?”

“Auditors.” Eric frowns. “One of them was a little weird, but he seemed nice. The other one was the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.” He might be building this up a little too much, but he needs to build it up in order for Larissa to truly understand how heinous Jack Zimmermann is.

“Ooh, plot twist,” Larissa says, leaning in toward Eric. “Did he sweep you off your feet?”

“I was ready to run away with him,” Eric confirms, remembering those blue eyes and that perfect, round ass. “And then he told me the city’s bankrupt and he’s shutting everything down.” He sighs. “Of course the most beautiful man in the world has an ugly soul.”

“That’s usually how it works,” Larissa says sympathetically. “Does that mean your awesome new rink is on hold?” As Eric’s BFF and most trusted sounding board, she’s been in on the details for as long as Eric’s been working on the renovation project.

Eric groans. “If he gets his way. The numbers aren’t in my favor. But enough about my pitiful life. How was your day?”

Larissa smiles wryly. “I broke up with Chad.”

Chad, Larissa’s boyfriend of the past six months, is on the board of the Samwell Arts Council. She met him when she was hired to work on a mural project at City Hall. Eric has never understood what a free spirited person like Larissa sees in bland, predictable Chad, a defense attorney whose only qualification for serving on the Arts Council, as far as Eric can tell, is that a member of his family founded it decades back, but she seemed happy with him—for a while, anyway.

“Good,” Eric says. Then, catching the small frown that flits across Larissa’s face before it settles into a grimace, “That’s good right? You checked out of that relationship ages ago.”

“Yeah,” Larissa sights. “It’s a good thing. It’d just be nice to find a guy who gets me, you know? It’s always, ‘Oh, Larissa, you have such a brilliant mind, your work is amazing’ until my work makes them uncomfortable. Then it’s, ‘When are you going to stop it with all your little art projects and get a real job?’”

“Anybody who can’t see how awesome you are doesn’t deserve you,”  Eric declares, not for the first time. “Especially if he claims to support the arts.”

“And anybody who thinks they can shut down your department doesn’t know who they’re dealing with,” Larissa replies, because she’s a good friend. 

“Damn straight.”

Larissa picks up their empty glasses and smiles a little wickedly. “You wanna get super drunk so we can forget about our terrible days? Next round’s on me.”

“Hell yeah.” 

Larissa disappears and comes back with shots, plus two glowy blue drinks. “Light-up ice cubes,” she says when she notices Eric eyeing them.

“Lord, I don’t even want to know how much those cost,” Eric says before downing his shot.

“Nothing!” Larissa throws back her shot. “Magnum P.I. over at the bar bought them for me.”

Eric follows her gaze across the room until his eyes land on … Shitty Knight, the auditor who didn’t break Eric’s heart a mere ten hours ago. He’s ditched his ill-fitting blazer and changed into a pair of vintage running shorts. Paired with his tacky Hawaiian shirt from earlier, it’s certainly a … choice.

“Larissa Duan, you did not,” Eric scolds. He supposes Knight has a right to be here—there’s not much else to do in Samwell on a Wednesday night—but it’s jarring to see him here all the same. Eric takes a sip of his drink, only to choke on it when the person seated next to Knight turns around to face them. The lights above the bar halo him in a warm glow, giving him an almost ethereal presence. Too bad it’s the devil himself. “Oh my lord,” Eric gasps, abruptly slamming his drink on the table. “Jack the Jackass is here.”

“Who?”

“Jack! The auditor! The one who wants to set my rink on fire and dance on its ashes.”

To her credit, Larissa does not tell Eric he’s being dramatic. She just catches Knight’s eye and waves him over to join them, which is worse. To Eric’s horror, Zimmermann follows after like a lost puppy. God, his ass looks fantastic in those jeans. Even better than it did in the suit he wore earlier today. Eric may expire right here. Cause of death: Gluteus perfectos.

“Dude! I didn’t know I bought a drink for this guy!” Knight yells when he realizes it’s Eric sitting with Larissa. “It’s great to see you again, man! Jack, look who it is!”

If Jack is trying to hide behind Shitty, he’s not doing a very good job. He’s half a head taller and considerably broader.

“I’m Larissa,” Larissa introduces herself, because Eric is too beside himself to say anything. “You must be Jack. I guess you guys already know each other; Eric was just telling me he met with you earlier today.”

Traitor, Eric thinks.

“Euh, yes,” Zimmermann says, stepping out from behind Knight. He’s holding a bottle of Miller Lite and looking like he wishes the floor would swallow him whole. Good. Let it. Rumor has it this bar was built on an old sink hole. Now would be the perfect time for it to do its thing. “Um.” The corner of Zimmermann’s mouth quirks up slightly in a sort of grimace. “I think we got off on the wrong foot earlier today,” he addresses Eric.

“Save it,” Eric says, the rage that’s been simmering just below the surface all day suddenly coming to a boil. “I’m at a party with my friends. And you want to fire all my friends.” 

Somewhere in the back of his mind Eric registers that he’s more than a little inebriated, that he’s starting to get loud and slur his words a bit and that maybe it’s not a good idea to drunk-yell at the guy who wants to gut his department. He’ll probably regret this in the morning, but right now he’s just this side of drunk enough that he doesn’t care. Also, Jack Zimmermann could have avoided all of this if he’d just stayed home instead of coming out to this club, so really, he was kind of asking to get yelled at. Satisfied with his reasoning, Eric levels his iciest stare at Zimmermann.

Jack blinks. “Um…”

“Plus, I just talked to everybody in this room, and nobody wants you here.” 

“I don’t think that’s true.” Zimmermann seems more confused than upset. Good. It gives Eric the upper hand.

“Really? Then how do you explain why nobody is talking to you?”

“Is this like ‘the rink has feelings?’ Are you just making things up now?” Jack’s grimace has turned into an almost-smile. Lord help Eric, it’s cute.

What is not cute is that Jack Zimmermann is mocking him, making light of the situation that he caused. It’s disgusting, really. He should be ashamed of himself.

“You know what?” Eric asks as all that rage threatens to boil over. “Save it. You have the nerve to come here, to my town, to crush my dreams like a small bird in your hands, and now you’re rubbing it in my face. You’re like a bad ex who ruins my MooMaw’s vintage KitchenAid trying to mix cement in it and skips town to avoid responsibility, and now I’m going to have to clean up your mess while you go off to a new town full of innocent parks directors and break more hearts.”

“You tell him!” Larissa says encouragingly. Shitty Knight sputters out a quiet laugh and looks at her like she’s the most fantastic thing he’s ever laid eyes on (he wouldn’t be wrong; Larissa is pretty fantastic) before darting a glance back at Jack and immediately schooling his expression into something more neutral.

Far from looking intimidated by Eric’s righteous anger, Zimmermann merely looks bewildered. “That … sounds very specific,” he finally says. “Did that happen?”

“Maybe. You don’t know my life.” It did. That KitchenAid was never the same.

Jack rakes a hand through his hair. “You just told me… Look, I’m not going to get into this right now. It’s not my mess, Bittle. I didn’t get your city into this situation. Your government did. And I really don’t think we should discuss this right now; you’re being very loud and some of the information we discussed today is confidential.”

“You afraid?” Larissa challenges, because she’s ride-or-die like that. Eric’s heart swells with love and gratitude for his friend.

“What? No. Crisse, what is wrong with you people? You know what? It’s been a long day. I’m going home.” 

“Yay!” Larissa cheers, throwing her arm up in a triumphant fist pump and spilling some of her drink. Eric watches in quiet amusement as Jack Zimmermann shifts, just a little, to avoid being hit by the three drops that land at his feet.

“Shits, you coming?” Zimmermann glowers.

Knight and Larissa look at each other and, in an instant, Eric understands what’s happening. A slow smile spreads across Knight’s face and Larissa’s chin juts out in an almost imperceptible nod. “Nah,” Knight says. “I think I’m gonna stay, Jack-o. I’ll Uber back.” He and Larissa toast. Eric’s heart sinks, just a little. Knight so far hasn’t proven to be as awful as Zimmermann, he seems like he’s even fun to be around, but based on the way he and Larissa are looking at each other, it’s very apparent that Eric is about to become the third wheel. 

“Fine.” Jack sets his empty beer on the table next to Eric’s drink and retreats. Good. If a sink hole can’t swallow him, at least he’s not going to stay and ruin Eric’s night. As Jack stalks off, Eric can't help but take one last look at the perfect ass and feels a brief pang of regret for what might have been.

Stupid, sexy Zimmermann. Why is it always the hot ones who cause the most trouble?

Chapter Text

“I think it went pretty well.” That’s what Shitty said yesterday, as they left Samwell City Hall after a long day of meetings with disappointed, frustrated, and—in one notable case—downright belligerent government workers. Jack had been inclined to agree; overall, the people of Samwell—barring that one notable exception—seemed open to their suggestions and willing to make them work.

And then that notable exception ruined Jack’s night.

It’s not like Jack hasn’t dealt with angry people before. He delivers bad news, and some people take it better than others. He’s been the recipient of angry emails, his car has been egged, one town even tried to burn him in effigy. He learned a long time ago it's part of the job. He doesn't let the criticism get to him. Not anymore.

But something about Eric Bittle makes Jack fear he won’t get out of Samwell as easily as he’s gotten out of all those other cities he’s helped turn around. Jack was already dreading his follow-up meeting with Bittle, and after last night he’s dreading it even more. The beer the guy from city planning—Adam—handed him when they got to the club was enough to take the edge off his anxiety and make him think trying to smooth things over with Bittle before this morning’s meeting was a good idea.

That did not go well.

Jack went home and went straight to bed, where he tossed and turned all night, still not used to the scratchy sheets and too-soft mattress. For the first time in a long time, he wished he could stay in one place long enough to own his own things.

Shitty’s in a far better mood than Jack during their drive to City Hall for this morning’s meetings. Jack isn’t sure when Shitty got in last night (or this morning, more likely), but when Jack left the bar he was deep in conversation with Larissa, the intimidating brunette who’d been drinking with Eric Bittle and shouting insults at him. That’s the difference between Jack and Shitty: Jack fled in the face of their wrath; Shitty apparently got a glimpse of the woman of his dreams.

Shitty spends the entire drive waxing poetic about Larissa. “She’s an artist. I asked her if she’d paint me.”

“Clothed, I hope,” Jack says, because he does not need a sexual harassment lawsuit on top of everything else right now.

“I’m in love with her.”

“You’ve known her for less than twelve hours.”

“When you know, you know.”

“Sure.” Jack thought he knew, once. On paper, he and Camilla were compatible in every way. They liked the same things, the sex was good, she didn’t mind that his work schedule took him out of town for sometimes weeks at a time. They’d been good together. It just didn’t work out. Jack’s still not sure why it didn’t work out, but ending it was a relief, and if he was relieved then she couldn’t have been the one. That’s what his parents said, and they’d know. They’ve been happily, disgustingly in love for almost forty years.  

“That’s your problem,” Shitty muses. “You don’t know what it’s like to be overtaken by passion.”

“It sounds nauseating,” Jack says. “I’ve been in love.” He has. He knows he loved Camilla. It just hadn’t felt … whatever way Shitty is describing it. 

Shitty shakes his head sadly. “Jacky Jack, I weep. You deserve to be swept off your feet. Or at least get some. Might dislodge the giant stick up your ass, too. You know you’re my BFF but dude, you’ve been super douchey lately. The way you talked to Eric yesterday? What was that about? He's a pretty cool guy.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Jack snaps. Shitty’s the only person who can get away with calling him out like this, but it’s not the way he wants to begin what’s sure to be another trying day at Samwell City Hall.

“Whatever, man. I just want you to be happy. Are you stopping at Dunkin’? I really need an iced coffee.”

One stop at Dunkin’ for coffee and breakfast (plain bagel for Jack, sprinkle doughnut for Shitty) later, Jack pulls into a “visitor” parking spot at City Hall. As City Halls go, Samwell’s is pretty nice, if not typical for an old New England civic center. The building itself is on the National Register of Historic Places, and its grounds are dotted with various sculptures and monuments, as well as a cemetery. Being a history buff, Jack’s done a bit of reading about it, but he’d really like to explore the grounds with his camera when he’s off the clock. Given today’s packed agenda, that won’t be until at least five. Jack looks at his watch, sees they have five minutes to get to their meeting with Eric Bittle of Parks and Recreation. As he gets out of the car, he steels himself for the fight that’s sure to ensue. 

“Hey, do you think Bittle brought more of those muffins?” Shitty asks he crams the last bite of doughnut into his mouth. There’s a pink sprinkle stuck in his mustache. Jack sighs. It’s going to be a long day.

Bittle isn’t in the immediate vicinity when they arrive at Parks and Recreation, which gives Jack hope that somebody else will be taking this meeting. That hope is dashed when they check in with the administrative assistant at the front desk and he tells them Bittle will be right out.

Chris Chow, the deputy director of the department whose birthday was apparently being celebrated at the bar last night, looks up from his work. “Wow, it is you. I thought I recognized your name when Bitty mentioned it, but then I figured there’s no way.” That’s directed at Jack. 

“Euh—” This part is always awkward. Most people who aren’t longtime hockey fans don’t associate Jack’s name with his father’s. Or his own, for that matter. But Chow is the right age to have followed hockey during Jack’s rookie year, the right age to know exactly how that ended.

You can draw a direct line from what happened at that year’s All Star Game to this moment.

“It’s lovely to see you again, Mr. Zimmermann,” Bittle says from behind, startling Jack and saving him from an awkward conversation he’d rather avoid. He’s wearing a pale green button down and skinny khakis, perfectly appropriate for a low-level city bureaucrat. He remembers the way Bittle looked at Jerry’s last night, more casual in jeans and sneakers and a form-fitting T shirt that showed off impressively toned arms. He and his friend had been laughing, heads bent toward each other, and Bittle looked so carefree that Jack couldn’t believe he was the same guy he nearly come to blows with earlier that day. 

Jack watched them from his place at the bar, enjoying the way the lights illuminated Bittle in shades of blue and yellow, until Shitty caught him watching them and said, “Who’s she?” 

Jack didn’t tell Shitty it wasn’t Larissa he was watching, and in the end it didn’t matter. Once he actually talked to Bittle, the illusion was shattered. Whoever that Eric Bittle is, the one who smiles and laughs with his friends, is not somebody he wants Jack to know.

“Would you like something to drink before we get started?” Bittle asks, overly polite. “A mini pie?” Next to him, Shitty emits a high-pitched sound that Jack interprets as excitement.

“A mini pie?”

“I did a little baking last night to prepare for our meeting. You might not know this, but our department is known for its meeting snacks.”

“It’s true!” Chow pipes up. “Eric makes the best desserts. His apple pie is always the first to go at the City Hall Thanksgiving luncheon.”

So the office treats are a regular occurrence. Jack hopes Bittle isn't using city funds to pay for them. “Mr. Bittle, that’s very kind, but I don’t think … pie … is appropriate right now.”

“Fuck yeah, pie is appropriate right now,” Shitty interrupts. “Good luck trying to get Jack to eat your pie—he doesn’t do sugar—but I’m always down for pie.”

Bittle’s eyes narrow at “doesn’t do sugar” and it’s clear Jack’s fucked up before the meeting has even begun. 

But then they’re seated around the table in the conference room, Shitty making indecent noises as he takes his first bite of pie, and Bittle slides a small white plate with scalloped edges across the table. Plated in the exact center is a tiny, perfect pie the size of Jack’s palm.

“Mr. Bittle, I said—”

“Think of it as a peace offering,” Bittle says. “It’s maple apple. Last night Mr. Knight mentioned that you’re from Canada and I thought—”

“That you’d try to bribe me?”

“Absolutely not!” Bittle’s gasps, eyes wide and hand thrown over his heart like a an affronted Southern belle. “There’s no place for bribery in City Hall. It’s just, I spent some time this morning doing some soul searching. I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday.”

That’s true enough. Jack tried to tell him as much last night.

“It’s not personal.” Jack tells him. “It’s business.”

“Everything is personal,” Eric Bittle retorts. “This job provides Chris Chow with health insurance so his daughter can go to the pediatrician and his wife can get prenatal care for their new little one. This job is where Tony and Denice met and fell in love.”

“They’ll find new jobs,” Jack says, unmoved.

“This job gave me a reason to get up in the morning when my figure skating career ended.” 

“That's—”  A lot to unpack, actually. Jack’s been so successful in this career because he’s able to remain detached, separate the personal from the professional. Bittle is just as fired up as he was last night in the bar, but unlike last night’s drunken display of emotion, today’s is laser focused. And it’s hit Jack exactly where he’s most vulnerable. Maybe it’s a way in. If he can connect with Bittle, maybe he can get him to understand.

“That's not my problem,” is what Jack had been about to say. “Do you want to get a beer?” is what comes out instead.

Bittle’s eyebrows shoot skyward. “It’s ten in the morning.” 

Jack shrugs. “You look like you could use a drink.”

“I do feel like I could use a little something to help me deal with all of ... this,” Bittle confesses. He waves a hand in Jack’s general direction. “Hey, Chris?” he calls, poking his head out the door, “Mr. Zimmermann and I are going to be taking our meeting out of the office. Can you hold down the fort here? I’ll be back in a bit.” He shoots a wary look toward Jack. “If he doesn’t murder me.”

“Got it, Bitty.”

“If I don’t come back, play Beyoncé at my funeral.”

Jack sighs as Chris flashes a thumbs up. “I’ve got this,” he tells Shitty, who’s poised to follow them out of the office. “You should stick around for our next meeting in case I don’t make it back in time. Let them know I’m with another department.”

“Can do, brah!” Shitty says cheerfully. 

“We can take mine,” Jack says in the parking lot. He’d rather not give Bittle an opportunity to escape this meeting.

“Yours is—”

“That one.” Jack points at the white VW Golf, which was the only long-term rental available when they got into town on Tuesday night. “Um. Where are we going?”

“Oh! There’s a place called Annie’s about a few miles from here. Do you remember the club we were at last night? Just down the street from there.”

An awkward silence fills the car as Jack puts it in drive. Finally he says, “You don’t really think I’m going to murder you, do you?”

Bittle’s cheeks pink slightly. “You have angry eyes. And your eyebrows do this thing—” Bittle squints a little and pulls his eyebrows downward toward each other. “It’s very intimidating.”

“That’s just how I look.” 

“Like a serial killer?”

“I only slash budgets, not people.” 

That earns Jack a small smile. “Should I start calling you the Samwell Slasher?”

Jack shrugs. “I’ve been called worse. Jack the Jackass?”

Bittle’s eyes go wide.

“Yeah, I heard that last night. Real original. What’s with Bitty, by the way?”

“Huh?” 

“Back in the office, Chris Chow called you Bitty.”

“Oh! Yeah, it’s a nickname my hockey team gave me. Because my last name is Bittle and—”

“You’re small?”

“Compact, is the term I like to use.”

“Compact.” It’s not an inaccurate term. Bittle’s trim but not skinny; he’s solidly built underneath his pressed button downs and skinny khakis, with thick thighs that hint at athleticism. Jack might not have assumed he plays hockey if Bittle hadn't told him—gymnast would have been his first guess—but it’s obvious he works out. 

Jack mentally scolds himself for focusing on something as inconsequential as Bittle’s physique and forces his thoughts back to the matter at hand. Business. He’s here to convince Bittle that closing the rink is the best course of action if he wants to avoid deep cuts that will affect personnel and Parks Department services.

Jack’s expecting a dive bar but Annie’s turns out to be a gay bar. Unsurprisingly, it’s empty at this hour, but the glitter-covered floor alludes to a more lively situation after dark. Eric leads Jack to a table in the back corner. Jack takes a seat next to a signed photograph of Dolly Parton.

The bartender, Annie herself, greets Eric with an air kiss when she comes to take their order. “The usual?” she asks.

“I think it’s a little early for the usual,” Eric says. “Just give me whatever beer’s on tap. Get his, too.”

“I’ll have whatever he’s having,” Jack says, thankful Bittle didn’t order one of the creatively named cocktails on the daily specials card. The bright blue concoction Bittle was drinking last night looked like a hangover waiting to happen, and something called the Tipsy Unicorn doesn’t sound much better. “And you can put it on this.” Jack pulls out his personal credit card. “If I let you buy, it looks like bribery,” he explains when Annie leaves.

“You sure are a stickler for that,” Bittle says. “I understand. I’m really not trying to buy your favor. We have to go to seminars on that. And I wouldn’t, anyway. I’m not above some good old fashioned Southern charm, but I draw the line at bribery.”

Jack snorts. “That’s what the mini pies are? Southern charm?”

“More like I left the club last night and I was still worked up so I had to calm down before I could sleep,” Bittle confesses. “And, like I said, peace offering.” 

So Jack wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep. Somehow, Bittle's confession puts him at ease.

Annie returns and sets their beers down on cardboard coasters advertising a local brewery.  

“So, um, do you come here often?” Jack tries, but the joke falls flat.

“I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable,” Bittle says in a hushed tone, even though they’re the only ones in here. “Jerry’s isn’t open at this hour, and this is really the only other bar in Samwell that’s not, like, a college dive bar. Small towns.” He shrugs.

“I’m surprised a town this small has a gay bar,” Jack admits.  

“Oh, well! You know the university’s just down the road, and it has a reputation for being queer-friendly. More than a lot of other schools, especially where I’m from. That’s one of the things that drew me, knowing I’d have a supportive community there. But yeah, a lot of students end up sticking around the area after graduation so I guess it makes sense.”

In the span of ten minutes Eric Bittle has gone from accusing Jack of being a possible serial killer to coming out to him. It’s not the strangest thing that’s happened to Jack in his career (he’s worked with Shitty Knight every day for the past five years) but it’s up there.

“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable,” Jack says, since that seems to be Bittle’s concern right now. “Should it?”

“Just, a lot of straight guys wouldn't be caught dead in a place like this.”

“Look, who hasn't had gay thoughts?” Jack asks, trying for light and realizing when a wave of confusion passes over Bittle's face that his attempt at something light and conversational probably came off more like he was mocking Bittle's sexuality. “I mean, I’m not straight,” he quickly adds. “I’m bi. And I’m not concerned about what people think of me. Pretty sure I’ve already made a few enemies in this town.” He tips his glass toward Bittle.  

“Oh!” There’s that surprised look again. “Well, okay. Thank you for sharing that with me. I’m sorry for assuming.”

Jack manages a small smile. When was the last time he shared something personal with anybody who isn’t Shitty? As Shitty noted last night, Jack doesn’t have much of a social life; he’s not interested in casual hookups when there’s no possibility of a longterm relationship. And he’s always avoided getting too close to the people he works with when he’s passing through their cities. It doesn’t matter if they get along; getting too friendly is a conflict of interest.

Shitty doesn’t have that issue. 

“So, um, I’m guessing you didn’t ask me here to tell me you’ve changed your mind and are restoring our funding,” Bittle says a little cautiously. “And I trust you’re not murdering me, because if you were gonna do that you would’ve done it before we had witnesses that we were together.” He nods his head in Annie’s general direction.

“Do you listen to a lot of true crime podcasts or something?” 

“Goodness, no! I’d have nightmares for days. But Larissa and I watched a Snapped marathon last weekend and it’s been on my mind, you know?”

“You’re correct on both counts. I’m not restoring your budget. I’m sorry it isn’t better news. But I’m not here to murder anybody either, so there’s that.”

The corners of Bittle’s mouth turn down a bit but he doesn’t yell or call Jack names, which Jack considers a positive sign. “Mr. Zimmermann—”

“You can call me Jack.”

Bittle’s eyes widen a bit before his expression returns to something more neutral. “Jack, I looked up some of the cities you and Shitty have worked with,” he says, and that’s an unexpected revelation. Jack is used to doing research before beginning a new assignment, and Samwell’s city council obviously researched his firm before hiring them. But a city employee conducting his own research? He has to admit, he’s impressed.

“I trust you know how to do your job” Bittle continues. “But I don’t think you understand what my department does, or the role it plays in this city. What Parks and Recreation does is important.” 

“That’s what everybody says. Public works, the fire department, affordable housing, the library—” Bittle makes a face at that—“Who are you to say your department is more important than any other? People will literally die without a functional fire department.”

“Nobody’s ever died from not going to the library,” is what Jack thinks he hears Bittle mutter in response to that, but he doesn’t want to know. Whatever bad blood exists between Eric Bittle and the Samwell Public Library—and having spent more than five minutes with Eric Bittle, Jack is certain there’s something—is a problem way above his pay grade.

“My department’s facilities and programs are some of the first kids here in Samwell are exposed to,” Bittle says. “We create opportunities for families to have fun together, and for kids to make lifelong friends. And it doesn’t end with childhood! We’ve got a twenty-something dodgeball league and pickleball for seniors and all kinds of continuing education classes for teens and adults who want to pick up a new skill. Do you want to be the one who has to explain to Ida Huntington and her pickleball posse why the tennis courts are closed? Because I promise you, she will complain. To me. When you’re long gone, lounging on beach somewhere sipping a margarita and patting yourself on the back for a job well done.”

Jack hasn’t taken a vacation in three years, but he lets that slide. “Bittle, I read your report and looked at the numbers again. There’s a good chance we’ll be able to save most of those programs. It won’t be an immediate fix, and they might look a little different than they do now, but it’s not an impossibility. In the short term, we’re going to have to reduce parks facilities’ hours and renegotiate some of the maintenance contracts. You’ll probably have to cancel some of your less popular classes.” He waits a beat, then another, to make sure Bittle doesn’t interrupt with a fiery rebuttal. “One thing Samwell can do to expedite its recovery is sell off some of the city’s assets. Extra school buses, large equipment, that vacant building the old library branch was in.”

“The rink,” Eric says quietly, eyes cast downward.

“I’ve already talked to some commercial real estate companies who are interested in buying the land and developing it.”

Bittle doesn’t look angry, just sad. Somehow that’s worse. “You don’t understand. The rink is the heart of this community. My gosh, how many kids do you think have learned to skate there? When those kids look back on their time skating there, they’re going to think about how they learned new skills and gained confidence and made friends. They are not going to think about how much money it cost to run.”

“But somebody does have to think about those things,” Jack says evenly. “I know you know that. I think you’re just—”

“I’m trying to do my job,” Bittle interrupts. “It’s probably hard for somebody like you to understand, but our department’s programs reach a lot of kids who might not otherwise be able to afford things like dance classes or hockey leagues. I was really lucky as a kid, my parents were able to put me in skating lessons and then, when I was ready, get me a private coach and pay my competition fees. A lot of kids aren’t as fortunate. Some will join our co-ed softball league and play for a few years before they move on and join competitive teams, but that’s out of reach for a lot of families. Or, kids’ll stay in our programs because we don’t have cuts. At some point, sports get so competitive that kids who want to play but can’t play at the highest level get left out. We give those kids a chance to keep playing.”

“You’re really passionate about this.” Jack almost envies Bittle. He likes his job, he’s good at it, but he would never say he’s passionate about it. Passion was reserved for hockey, once upon a time. Passion almost broke him.

Bittle takes a pull of his beer before replying. “When I say figure skating saved me, it’s not far off,” he says a bit ruefully. “I was a terrible student, went most of the way through school with undiagnosed ADHD, and having something to keep me active kept my mama sane. And then my figure skating career ended and I went from an Olympic hopeful to just another college student who used to be an athlete once upon a time. It was like I lost my whole identity. And then I started working here. And lord, I love this job, but I think if I hadn’t joined our hockey league I would’ve headed back to Georgia within a year. I didn’t want to go back, but I was so lonely and I missed my family so much. My rec team saved me. Have you ever been part of a team, Mr. Zimmermann?”

“Euh, yeah. I have.”

Bittle tilts his head to the side and assesses Jack, like he’s trying to figure something out.

“Hockey,” Jack says a bit sheepishly. “I don’t disagree with you, actually. I think we had very different experiences as young athletes, but it ended for me too. I think that’s probably why we’re sitting on opposite sides of this table right now.”

Bittle’s still staring at Jack, eyes slightly narrowed, but not with anger this time. More like he’s waiting for something to come into focus.

Jack rarely shares what Shitty refers to as his “tragic backstory” with anybody. He certainly doesn’t share it with people he’s barely known for a day. But there’s something about Bittle that makes Jack think honestly is the best way to get through to him. “You play hockey,” Jack says carefully. “Have you ever heard of Bad Bob Zimmermann?” 

Bittle chuckles and looks down at his hands. “Only because my mama had a crush on him when she was a teenager, and my daddy never lets her forget it because he’s a football coach. Wait! Are you…” The surprise on Bittle’s face is almost enough to make Jack laugh. Almost.

“He’s my dad. Before I was even born, people were asking my parents if I was going to follow in his footsteps. It was a lot to live up to, and I did pretty well. I was kind of a hockey prodigy.” It probably sounds like he's bragging, but since this story ends in disappointment Jack doesn’t feel the need to sugarcoat it. “I left home when I was sixteen to play in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, which is basically training ground for the NHL. I went first in my draft year.”

“You’re that Jack Zimmermann,” Bittle gasps. “I heard about you. Nothing bad!” he assures Jack. “But all that happened when I was still figure skating, and I had friends who had siblings or boyfriends who played hockey, so word got around.”

“So you know I overdosed at my first All-Star Game.”

“I was only fourteen so some of my older friends had to explain it to me.”

Jack grimaces. If teenagers were doing the explaining, Bittle probably heard 90 percent rumors and 10 percent truth. “It wasn’t cocaine, if that’s what you heard. It was my anxiety medication and alcohol.”

“Oh,” Bittle says, abruptly setting his beer glass down on the damp cardboard coaster. He looks from the glass to Jack and back again, an unasked question in his eyes.

“It’s fine,” Jack reassures him. He knows what Bittle is thinking. “The alcohol itself wasn’t a problem for me any more than it is for most teenagers with too much money and too little supervision.”

“So the overdose?” 

“Was intentional.” Bittle doesn’t flinch at intentional like most people do. He doesn’t look away or change the subject, and Jack appreciates that.

“I was told I could still play,” Jack continues, because now that he’s started this story there’s no going back. “There were a lot of meetings between my agent and my coaches and people who had clout, people who were willing to vouch for me because they knew my dad. I was left out of a lot of it, but they finally came back and told me I could still play if I went to rehab and therapy.” To this day, Jack isn’t sure what backroom deal was made, just that the second chance wouldn’t have been on the table if he hadn’t been Bad Bob Zimmermann’s son. Most rookies would have been sent back to the minors, if their career was salvageable at all.

“And you … turned that down?”

“I got into therapy and I realized it was never going to end. I realized I’ll never be able to cure my anxiety and depression, just manage it. And it turns out it’s a lot easier to manage when I’m not playing hockey.”

“Jack, I’m so sorry that happened to you,” Bittle says sincerely. Eric Bittle, when not yelling at Jack, has very kind eyes. “But is that what this is about? You want to shut down my rink because hockey hurt you?”

Jesus, it really does sound like that when Bittle puts it that way. Jack barks out a laugh in spite of himself. “No! Sorry, I didn’t realize I was making it sound like that. I just wanted to explain. I understand. I love the game, still. I even played a bit on my college’s club hockey team. I’m just a lot healthier when my entire life doesn’t revolve around it.”

“So you became an accountant.” Jack doesn’t blame Bittle for sounding a little confused. Sometimes he still wonders how all this happened, and he lived it.

“I took an accounting class and I liked it, and it seemed like a good career. Stable. I spent my entire life preparing for a career that pays men a lot of money to play a game, but the parts of it that made me miserable outweighed the parts that made me happy. Accounting is just a job. In hockey, I could do everything perfectly and still screw up. Accounting isn’t like that. And I get to help people; when I finish working with somebody they’re better off. You and I aren’t that different, Bittle. At the end of the day, I think we both want the same thing.”

“You want to demolish my rink,” Bittle says flatly. So they’re back to this. “Do you really think some soulless corporation can take its place? Do you really think kids are going to learn about teamwork in a Bath and Body Works? Are people just supposed to meet the love of their life in The Container Store now? Oh god,” Bittle gasps and presses a trembling hand to his heart. “Do you think they’re going to build a Panera Bread? Over my dead body will I let them replace my rink with a Panera Bread.”

“Okay, I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself. We don’t even have an offer in hand.”

“It means bread bread, Jack. If you’re gonna put in a bakery, at least make it one that doesn’t have a stupid name.”

Jack refrains from rolling his eyes, though Bittle does have a point. It is a stupid name. “Nobody is putting in a bakery. And I kind of like Panera.”

“Of course you do. You drink Miller Lite.” Bittle locks eyes with Jack again and even as he’s chirping him his eyes are so big, so sad. Jack prides himself on not getting emotionally involved in his work, but he can’t help but feel a little defeated. He does remember what it was like to be a kid on the ice, how happy and relaxed and free he felt when it was just him and Papa and a bucket of pucks. And then, much later, the way it felt when he won a face-off or scored a winning goal. What it felt like to be part of a team. He understands where Bittle’s coming from. He understands why he wants to save his rink. He hates that he can’t do anything about it.

“I don’t know what else to tell you,” Jack says helplessly. “If there were any other way…”

Silence descends on them. Bittle looks down at his phone on the table and closes his eyes, like he’s praying to it. Then he looks up and meets Jack’s eyes.

“What if,” he says, “there is another way?”

Chapter Text

Forget Samwell Municipal Rink 2.0. WinterFest is definitely the greatest idea Eric has ever had.

In the end, it didn’t even take that much convincing. Sure, that’s probably because he wore Jack down with the first half dozen ideas he rejected, but even Jack Zimmermann, Numbers Robot, couldn’t find fault with WinterFest.

WinterFest is going to save the rink.

Jack had been skeptical when Eric brought up the idea of fundraising to keep the rink open. “What, like hold a bake sale?” he’d asked, a hint of mockery in his tone. 

Eric nodded sheepishly because yes, a bake sale was exactly what his brain had been cooking up. “I sell my apple pies for thirty dollars each during the holidays, as a fundraiser for our scholarship program,” he explained. “If we just do that on a larger scale …”

“Bittle, you can’t bake your way out of this,” Jack said, taking the wind out of Eric’s sails. “You’d have to sell thousands of pies to raise the kind of money you need to support the rink’s ongoing needs. Here, I can do the math if you want—”

“Okay, well, how about an auction?” Eric quickly put in as Jack opened the calculator app on his phone, because he didn’t actually want Jack to do the math. “A silent auction! I know we can get a couple of big donations from some of the businesses around here and—”

Jack’s small smile was more sympathetic than enthusiastic. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” he said kindly. Maybe Eric had finally worn through his defenses. “But if we’re going to do this, you need to think bigger.”

That wasn’t, Eric noted, a no. He went straight back to his office after his day drinking session with Jack and spent the rest of the afternoon brainstorming.

The next morning, over coffee and doughnuts (Jack accepted one cup of coffee, no cream or sweetener) in the conference room, Jack rejected, in order, an open mic night, a raffle, an art show, and a film festival. “Think bigger,” he kept repeating. “To keep your rink open, you’ll need to make whatever it costs to run the place for at least a year. That’s payroll, utilities, everything. You aren’t going to get there with an open mic night.”

Then Jack told him he was shutting down all city parks until further notice, because he cut the hours of the city’s maintenance workers, which meant they didn’t have the manpower to mow lawns and clean the bathroom facilities. The announcement was a grim reminder that Jack Zimmermann was not his friend. 

Eric still offered him a cider doughnut before he left for his next meeting, to prove that he could be the bigger person. Jack glared at it, as per usual, but Eric caught just the slightest bit of hesitation before he turned away and stalked out of the office. 

Eric continued to mull it over until a new idea—the idea—came to him one Saturday evening as he rolled out the dough for scones. Jack had rejected his bake sale, raffle, and art show ideas for being “too small.” But what if all of those things were part of a bigger thing? Like a fair! He’d read about other cities that held annual winter festivals. Why couldn’t Samwell?

“WinterFest!” he’d immediately texted Jack, because he couldn’t wait until the next morning.

“Bittle?” came the reply.

“Oh! Yes, it’s me. What do you think about a winter festival?”

“Where did you get this number?”

“It’s on your card.”

“Right. Tell me about this winter festival.”

Eric explained the idea and sent links to similar winter festivals held in Europe and other American cities. Jack informed him he was familiar with winter festivals, that he’d grown up attending similar events in Montreal.

“So you know!” Eric replied, pleased to have hit upon an idea that resonated with Jack. “We’ll have something for everyone. Food and drink booths, games for the kids, a silent auction. We can have a skating exhibition and a hockey game! It’ll be a perfect way to show off our programs because people will see how much fun everyone is having and want to sign up!”

“And,” he added a few minutes later when Jack still hadn’t responded, “because I know you’re concerned about it, we won’t have to use city funds. We can get sponsors.”

Eric breathlessly watched three bubbles appear, then disappear, then appear again before Jack’s reply finally came through: “That’s a great idea.”

After barely sleeping all weekend—he had too much work to do!—Eric announces his project the following Monday morning. There’s just something nice about launching something new at the beginning of a new week. And just in his staff needs a little something extra to get them excited about this big new project, he’s brought treats. Treats always make news like this go down a little easier. 

Tony barely glances at bright blue “WinterFest!” Eric painstakingly piped onto his snowflake-shaped sugar cookie before taking a bite. “Wha’s Win’rFes?” he asks through a mouthful of cookie. 

“WinterFest is the region’s premier winter event,” Eric says grandly. He passes the cookie plate to Chris. 

“But it doesn’t exist,” Tony says. “Does it?” 

“When it exists, it will be the region’s premier winter event.” Eric’s done some reading about manifestation and the power of positive thinking, and he’s pretty sure it works, since Jack Zimmermann was trying to shut him down last week and now he’s basically an unofficial advisor on this project. When Eric woke up on Sunday morning, it was to a series of texts that included links to articles about Montreal’s winter festivals. No sooner had Eric finished reading the articles than another text came through: a very cute photograph of a snowsuit-clad toddler with round, ruddy cheeks and bright blue eyes sitting atop the shoulders of a man who looked remarkably like Jack. The two were posed in front of what appeared to be a castle made of ice. On its heels came another photo of a slightly older Jack, maybe five or so, posed with a very glamorous blonde woman and some sort of mascot character. The woman—obviously Jack’s mother, her eyes were that same shade of icy blue—stood between Jack and the mascot, which little Jack seemed to regard with apprehension. Something about the wary look on Jack’s face had tugged at Eric’s heartstrings and, remembering Jack’s story about how anxious he’d been as a teenager, how eventually it had become too much, he’d wanted to climb through that picture and give that little boy a hug.

“That’s incredible!” Eric texted back. “And adorable. Look at you!”

“Ha ha.” 

“Do you think we can do an ice castle?”

Jack’s reply was to-the-point: “I said think big, but that’s pushing it.”

Even so, Eric got to the office this morning to discover Jack had beat him here and turned the Parks Department’s creepy supply closet into a makeshift office for the duration of his time at Samwell City Hall. Sure, it’s probably to keep an eye on Eric because he’s worried he’s going to use the city’s line of credit to buy a snow-making machine, but it’s an improvement over where they started.

“We’re going to hold a traditional European—or,” he adds with a sideways glance at Jack—“Canadian winter festival, right here in Samwell,” Eric says in response to Tony’s question. He pauses, expecting some sort of reaction, but his staff just stares at him blankly. Clearly none of them have read the email he sent late last night that included a brief description of his vision for Samwell’s festival, as well as the links Jack had shared and even a video of families ice skating on an outdoor rink. “We’re still trying to nail down the dates, but it’ll probably be over a long weekend in February, Thursday afternoon through Sunday evening. There’ll be food and craft booths, an artists’ fair, games and a snowperson-building contest for the kids, skating demos and lessons, and an ice show. Maybe more; I’m still brainstorming ideas. And the whole thing will culminate with an outdoor ice hockey game between members of our very own Samwell Municipal Hockey League teams and a team to be determined at a later date. Preferably somebody we can beat,” Eric adds. Nobody says anything. Probably, Eric thinks, they’re waiting to hear how much work this is going to be. If—no, when—they pull this off, WinterFest will be the biggest Parks Department event in Samwell’s history.

“There is a catch,” Eric cautions, because if they go through with this it’s going to be all hands on deck for months, and this part is going to be the hardest sell. “We can’t use department funds for this. This festival is a fundraiser to keep the rink operating, so we can’t go spending money we don’t have.” From the other side of the room, Jack catches his eye and nods. “We’re gonna have to work our butts off to get corporate sponsorships and donations,” Eric continues. “But I know we can do it, because this team can do anything!”

His enthusiasm is met by a chorus of lukewarm applause from everyone except Larissa, who manages a deadpan “Woo-hoo” from the corner.

“What are you doing here?” Eric asks. “Don’t you have work?”

Larissa points at Shitty Knight, who’s standing in the doorway in yesterday’s clothes. “He stayed over last night. I had to drop him off.”

“Hm, well. We can talk about that later,” Eric says, eyebrow raised. “Since you’re here, Ms. Duan, I’m putting you in charge of designing the posters. Tony, I just sent you a list of potential activities and events we might consider; I’d like you to do some research on what other festivals do and keep adding to that list. Denice, I have a list of other cities that host seasonal festivals; I’d love for you to take a look at how they approach their marketing. Chris!”

“I’m on it, Bitty!”

“You don’t even know what I’m gonna ask you to do!”

“I’m drafting a letter to our figure skating instructors and hockey coaches to let them know we’re looking for people to participate in some exhibitions. We should get a list together ASAP so we know how much time we’ll need.”

“That’s why you’re my second in command,” Eric praises. “Okay, everyone have their assignments?”

Denice raises a hand. “What are you doing?” 

“I will be preparing a presentation for the Chamber of Commerce and other big local organizations about partnering with us to pull this thing off. And making a list of other businesses we can approach about donations. It doesn’t have to be money, we can use food, sports equipment, anything we might need to pull together all of these events and experiences. That means all of you should start making lists of your connections, too.” 

“What can I do?” Jack asks quietly as everybody returns to their desks.

“Oh! Don’t you have, like, budgets to slash and money to find?”

“Somebody has to make sure you don’t blow your entire budget on a snow-making machine.”

“Har har. I was joking about that.”

One side of Jack’s mouth quirks up in a smile. “So am I. We all know if you overspend on anything, it’ll be flour.” He gestures at the spread of pastries that Eric brought in for this morning’s meeting.

“Huh. Who knew Jack the Jackass has a sense of humor?”

“I do want to help,” Jack insists. “Shits and I are going to be here for the next four months at least. And this is a big project. If I have to sit here and listen to you plan it every day, I might as well help out. Plus,” he adds, “I’m the only one who grew up going to a major winter carnival.”

Eric remembers the photos Jack sent him and bites back a smile. Despite their rocky start, Jack was surprisingly helpful yesterday as Eric blew up his phone with WinterFest ideas and details. It doesn’t matter to him, really, if Jack wants to stick around and keep an eye on things. As long as he’s helpful and doesn’t follow through with firing Eric’s staff or shut down more facilities, he’s not really doing much harm.

Eric fields a few more questions before dismissing his team, feeling grateful that his announcement went over so well. They’re doing this. WinterFest is happening. There’s still a chance to save the rink.

“Are you and Shitty Knight a thing?” Eric asks Larissa during their monthly brunch date the following Sunday. God, Eric loves brunch. Whoever invented brunch should win a Nobel Prize. 

Larissa takes a slow sip of her mimosa, clearly relishing this opportunity to make Eric stew a bit. It’s not like she needs to confirm anything; she was twenty minutes late this morning.

“If you want to call it a ‘thing,’ then I guess that’s what we are,” she says archly, which frustratingly is not much more than what Eric already knew. It’s obvious something’s going on because Larissa’s canceled plans on him three times in a row. It’s also been hard not to notice how much time she’s been spending at City Hall these days, and it’s not to meet Eric for lunch. On Thursday he spotted her walking down the hall with Shitty, shoulders touching and heads bent close together, on their way to someplace Eric hadn’t been invited. Larissa hadn’t even sent him a heads up text to let him know she was there.

Larissa has never been the type to get so into a new guy that she ignores her friends. Eric knows he should be happy for her, but mostly he just misses her. He hasn’t even been able to talk to her about WinterFest. Or Jack. Or the way Jack keeps inserting himself into Parks Department business like he doesn’t have other departments’ directors to annoy. 

“Okay, but you know they’re leaving as soon as this budget thing gets squared away,” Eric reminds her. 

Larissa shrugs. “Yeah? Doesn’t mean we can’t have fun now. Did you know Shits grew up in the area? Went to some fancy prep school and everything. Apparently he still has family here, but they aren’t close.”

Eric tries to imagine Shitty Knight in a prep school uniform and chokes on his drink. It’s almost more ludicrous than his friendship with Jack Zimmermann.

Larissa cackles. “I had the same reaction.” She spears a strawberry on Eric’s plate with her fork and pops it in her mouth.

“Hey, get your own!” Eric laughs when she goes in for a second. He blocks his berries with his own fork as she aggressively attempts to shove it out of the way. 

For a minute everything feels normal, the way things were a few weeks ago before Jack Zimmermann and Shitty Knight walked into their lives. Just Eric and Larissa, gossiping and sparring over the last strawberry on his plate when there’s a whole bowl of them over at the pancake toppings bar. Eric gets up to refill his plate with enough berries for both of them, and when he returns Larissa’s smiling down at her phone. “Booty call this early?” he can’t resist teasing.

Larissa guiltily flips her phone over and pushes it away. “It feels different with him,” she finally says. “I know I’ve gone out with a lot of guys with trust funds, and part of the fun is getting them to pay for fancy shit when the alternative is tuna casserole and cheap beer at home, but I’d feel really bad taking advantage of this guy. He’s not like the rest of them. He’s a little weird, but he has a good heart. And a good weed stash, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“Of course,” Eric agrees. “I’m really glad you’re having fun. I’ve always said you should be with a guy who gets you.”

“It is what it is,” Larissa says nonchalantly, and Eric isn’t sure if she’s trying to convince him or herself.

So Larissa and Shitty are a “thing” now (since Larissa insists on being vague and refuses to put a label on it, Eric will do it for her), still in the infatuation stage. Every time Eric tries to get some time alone with Larissa—a quick mid-week lunch, drinks after work—Shitty tags along. And where Shitty goes, Jack Zimmermann tends to follow, because Shitty Knight is apparently the only person who finds Jack Zimmermann remotely tolerable.

Okay, that’s not exactly true. Under duress, Eric would admit he’s starting to warm up to Jack. Or maybe Jack is beginning to warm up to him. He still hasn’t tried any of Eric’s desserts, but it’s been three days since he’s made any comments about Eric’s “exorbitant” WinterFest wish list. That’s progress!

Still, where does that leave Eric? Everything is changing so quickly, and though his complaints have been fewer, every time Eric turns around to complain about Jack Zimmermann, the only person there is Jack Freaking Zimmermann. It figures the only person he has to talk to is the one person who has the power to end him. (Figuratively speaking, and also probably literally, if it’s possible to spontaneously combust in the presence of somebody so handsome.)

The four of them are in the conference room on a Tuesday afternoon, the three men huddled around Larissa as she sketches out some initial poster ideas based on Eric’s general vision for the festival. 

“You painted the murals here in City Hall?” Jack asks as they watch her turn seemingly random penciled lines into a figure skater with just a few strokes. 

“Chyeah,” Larissa replies. “It’s a bit outside of my typical commission but whatever pays the bills, right?”

“I saw the line for them item in last year’s budget,” Jack says. “It was—”

“Worth every penny,” Shitty interrupts, preventing Jack from completely sticking his foot in his mouth. Good lord, the man is awkward. 

“Have you seen the murals?” Eric asks in an attempt to get things back on track and prove to Jack that they were, in fact, worth every penny. “There’s one on each floor of the building. They depict the city’s history, from its beginnings as a Native American settlement to present day. Of course, much of that history is problematic, but it’s important to acknowledge how colonization played a role in our country’s development. The new murals acknowledge that this community was built on stolen land,” Eric says in his best impression of a tour guide.

Jack, instead of poring though his paperwork (looking for ways to save money, Eric assumes) while Eric is talking, actually regards Eric with interest as he gives his impromptu history lesson. “That’s neat,” he surprises Eric by saying. “I’ve been wanting to do more digging into Samwell’s history.”

Well, that sure is rich coming from somebody who could barely conceal his disdain for this city just last week. Is Eric imagining things, or does Jack even sound … enthusiastic? Eric bites back a smile in spite of himself. Of course Zimmermann is a history nerd.

“I also did the huge toilet sculpture over at the waste water treatment plant,” Larissa informs Jack.

“Huh. Shitty made me stop and take his picture next to that on our way into town.”

“It was commissioned when the new waste water treatment center opened, to instill civic pride and get people thinking about where our waste goes,” Eric tells them.

“Look.” Shitty finds the picture on his phone and passes it around. “Thought of making it my profile pic, but someone said it would look unprofessional.”

“I wonder who that was,” Jack says, quietly deadpan. When Eric looks up at Jack across the table, he swears Jack is holding back a smile. It’s his eyes. They crinkle just a little at the corners and give him away.

“Would you like to see the murals?” Eric asks him. “We can take a quick tour before we break for lunch. It’s not every day we have the artist on hand to give visitors the inside scoop. Or,” he quickly adds, “you can just take a look at them on your own time. There’s a plaque next to each one with a little bit of historical information.”

“I’ve gotta get ready for a class. Pottery for Seniors. So help me, if any of them try to reenact that scene from Ghost.” Larissa grimaces. “But you should totally take Jack to see the murals.”

“And I,” Shitty says, “am meeting with the city’s head librarian in twenty.”

This time it’s Eric’s turn to grimace, which does not go unnoticed by Jack. “Is there bad blood between you and the library?” he asks.

Larissa snorts. 

“Let me guess: somebody insulted your pie.” Jack’s eyes are still a little crinkly. 

“They know what they did,” Eric mumbles. 

“It’s a turf war,” Larissa clarifies for Jack and Shitty’s benefit. “Like, real Jets and Sharks shit.” Jack continues to stare at Eric until he relents. 

“A few years ago,” Eric begins, “the library deliberately scheduled its summer reading kickoff event for the same afternoon as our summer kickoff event. The last day of school is always a half day, so we always throw a big party for families to celebrate the end of the year and let them know about our summer programs. It’s in Founders Park. You know, the one you discontinued maintenance work on,” he says with a sideways glance at Jack. If his tone is a bit barbed, well, it’s deserved. It’s only been a week and a half since Jack’s edict came down and already the grass is looking brown. “I very nicely asked them if we could combine our events since most of the same families would be interested in attending both, and they refused. Then, just to twist the knife a little, they booked Fry Guy to play the event.”

“Who?” Jack asks.

“Children’s musician,” Larissa says. “Big name around here. Have you heard of the Waffles? Big alt rock group in the nineties? Fry Guy was in that band.”

“Oh yeah,” Shitty says, and begins humming “Tangerines,” the one-hit-wonder that always gets the parents singing along.

“Yes, exactly!” Eric says. “He’s a really big deal around here. We hire him to play our event every year, and the library knows it.” The memory is getting Eric worked up all over again. “We hadn’t signed the contract yet, but that’s always been a formality. Fry Guy had us on the calendar and I was going to drop the signed contract off that week. And then the library swooped in and offered an extra twenty dollars an hour to play their event instead.”

“Ouch,” Shitty says.

“Where are they getting that kind of money?” Jack wonders under his breath.

“Luckily, my friend Adam was able to retool his one-man show to be more family-friendly and Larissa made him a costume and he went out there and entertained the kids for an hour. But that was just the beginning.”

Jack merely raises an eyebrow, which Eric takes as permission to continue.

“A few months after the concert incident, the library got a grant to hold some early childhood education classes. They tried to poach all of my instructors. Well, not all of ‘em. But they deliberately scheduled their classes for the same time, and because they had the grant money they could afford to pay instructors a little more and offer the classes to families for free.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Jack asks. “You keep talking about making your programs accessible for families. Seems like families on a budget would appreciate something like that.”

“Are you defending the library?” Eric asks incredulously. “Whose side are you on?”

The truth is, Jack is right. But that doesn’t make the library right.

“You know, Bittle, you could apply for grants, too. If you can pay for teachers and class materials with grant money, your department will have more funds to put toward other areas of your budget.”

“It’s always about money with you, isn’t it?” Eric asks, because he doesn’t want to admit to Jack that it’s a good idea. It’s a really good idea. He wishes he’d thought of it.

“Just a suggestion,” Jack says. His tone is kind, not at all condescending like it usually is when he and Eric get into it about these issues. It’s making Eric feel all kinds of something towards Jack, and he blames it for what he does next.

“Do you want to get lunch?” he blurts out, the words out of his mouth before he consciously thinks them. “I can show you the murals.”

“I brought my lunch,” Jack says.

“Oh, that’s perfect. I was gonna get something from one of the food trucks in the courtyard, but we can meet at the mural at the end of the first floor and work our way up to the fourth floor. There’s a bench by that mural that’s actually my favorite place to eat lunch around here.”

Jack doesn’t respond immediately. Somehow, even though it was a spur of the moment offer, the rejection still stings. How stupid of Eric to think that their now-cordial working relationship means they’ve become, if not friends, then friendly coworkers. “Or, you know what, I have a lot of work to do,” Eric quickly adds, just in case Jack is trying to find a polite way to turn him down. “I’ll eat at my desk and you can take a look at the murals when you have more—”

“Okay,” Jack says, surprising Eric. “I do have a meeting at one-thirty, but I was about to have lunch anyway.”

That something feeling is back, warming Eric from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. He tries to shake it off but then he glances back at Jack and his eyes are somehow softer, like he’s seen something that makes him happy.

“So Samwell really held witch trials?” Jack asks as they gaze at the mural at the end of the second floor.

“It was a dark time,” Eric says wryly. “As was much of our country’s early history, right? Or present, for that matter.” Jack snerks in agreement. “Our trials weren’t as famous as the ones in Salem but yeah, they happened.”

Jack grimaces at that. “I think some of Shitty’s relatives may have been involved in that. They’re from around here. Look—” he points at a male figure in the foreground. “Kind of looks like him, doesn’t it? The mustache?”

“It kinda does, doesn’t it?” Eric laughs.

“He’s not proud of it,” Jack adds. “I think he’s spent most of his life trying to make up for his family’s transgressions.”

“By becoming an auditor?”

“He wants to stop people like his dad from taking advantage of the little guy. He minored in Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies for the same reason.”

“Huh. That explains a lot.”

“Not really,” Jack murmurs. “What’s on the next floor?” he asks as they take the stairs to the third floor, Eric just a step ahead.

“Oh! Well, the third floor is a tribute to Samwell’s founding fathers—and mothers. Everyone from the Native peoples who first inhabited the land to…well, to Mayor Faber, who was impeached right before you got here because his administration is the reason the town is in debt. But as you can see, we like to be honest about our history! Fun fact, Faber wanted it to be kind of a ‘Hall of Town Leaders.’ Kind of like the Hall of Presidents at Disney World, with animatronics? This was the compromise.”

“I’m beginning to understand why the city is bankrupt,” Jack says as he takes in the mural, a scene that depicts all of the city’s leaders, from pre-Colonial days to the present, mingling at a modern gala in a scene that always makes Eric think of a murder mystery party. It doesn’t really make sense, but Larissa was just working off of a concept given to her by Mayor Faber, who claimed he received guidance from the “ghosts” of leaders past. Eric rolls his eyes when sharing this fact with Jack, but he can’t help the little involuntary shiver that travels down his spine.

Jack takes note. “Bittle, you don’t actually believe there are ghosts here, do you?”

“The supply room that’s now your office does get very cold,” Eric informs him. 

“That probably has more to do with air vents than…ghosts,” Jack says reasonably.

“Probably,” Eric says. “But sometimes, when I’m here working at night, I hear weird sounds.” If he thinks about them too much he gets freaked out, so he usually puts his noise canceling headphones in when he’s alone in the office. That way, he can pretend any ghosts who might inhabit the building are Beyoncé instead.

“Old pipes?” Jack suggests. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and snaps a picture of the mural. “It’s interesting,” he explains. 

“This one is my favorite,” Eric says when they get to the fourth floor and the wildflower mural at the end of the hallway comes into view. It’s his favorite for two reasons: unlike all of the other murals, which depict notable events or people from Samwell’s history, this is a simple landscape filled with blue and yellow flowers. It hangs in a quiet spot at the end of the floor; not very many people come through here, as the offices on the fourth floor are only open for a half day. Eric thinks of it as his private retreat; when things get too chaotic in his office he comes up here for a bit of quiet while he eats his lunch.

“Why is it different from the rest?” Jack asks.

“Larissa says it’s to remind people of the beauty that exists in everyday places. Even stuffy old government buildings.”

“That’s very poetic.”

“She may have been high when she came up with that,” Eric says. “But I do think there’s some truth to it. A few years ago we built a park on an abandoned lot here in town. It was in the works before I got here because, well, nothing ever gets done quickly when the government’s involved.” Jack chuckles at that. “But right before it opened, I went out and planted wildflower seeds in the field. I thought it would be a nice place for people to take pictures with their families, or have a romantic picnic lunch, or just relax in nature. Took a couple years for them to really take root; I thought I’d done it all wrong when they didn’t bloom that first year. But now they come back every year…” Eric trails off, feeling a bit embarrassed for rambling on to Jack about flowers when Jack only wanted to know about the mural. 

“That’s what wildflowers do,” Jack says, gaze trained on the mural. “They start out slow and get stronger. It takes a little while to put down a root system.” He shrugs. “That’s what I’ve read, anyway. I helped my parents plant their garden a few years ago.”

“Well, they’ve certainly taken root. You should see that field in the summer. You just missed it, actually. Maybe you’ll still be here when it starts to bloom again in the spring.”

“Probably not,” Jack says. “If I’m still here in the spring, that will mean I haven’t done my job very well.”

“Right,” Eric says, feeling an inexplicable twinge of sadness at the thought of Jack leaving. “Well, the mural will have to do for now. If you really use your imagination, you can almost pretend we’re on a picnic outside.” He takes a seat on the bench in front of the mural and opens the lid of the salad he bought. He pours the little packet of Italian dressing over it as Jack reaches into his brown bag and pulls out a small, sandwich-sized package wrapped in brown waxed paper. He unwraps it carefully, almost lovingly, to reveal a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Jack Zimmermann eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. 

Specifically, Jack Zimmermann eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on whole grain bread, cut into triangles. Eric can’t tell what type of jelly (jam?) he uses—some sort of red berry flavor—but he’s certain it can’t hold a candle to his homemade jam. As concerning as Jack’s subpar jam is, Eric resists making the comment that’s on the tip of his tongue. It wouldn’t do any good to derail their tentative truce, and ruin what until now has been a pleasant lunch hour, with his jam opinions.

Even though it’s really hard not to say anything. Maybe he’ll just bring Jack a jar from his pantry tomorrow.

Jack notices Eric eyeing his sandwich. “What? Peanut butter and jelly is a classic.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Eric laughs. “I’m just surprised. That’s basically a candy sandwich you’re eating, you know.”

Jack snorts. “It’s a good source of protein. Used to be part of my pre-game ritual.”

“What, you have to get yourself pumped up for a long afternoon of number crunching?” Eric smirks at his own joke.

“Have to put in the training in order to Excel at something,” Jack replies, sending Eric into an actual fit of giggles. Lord, what’s wrong with him? It’s not even that funny. He pulls himself together enough to spear a cherry tomato with his fork and pop it into his mouth. It might be time to reconsider his initial assessment of Jack Zimmermann. It’s possible there’s a real boy hiding inside that numbers robot exterior after all.

Chapter Text

Jack has never met anybody like Eric Bittle.

When he mentions this to Shitty, Shitty simply raises an eyebrow and asks, “Is that a good thing? Or—”

Three weeks ago, that would have been a decisive ‘no.’ Jack’s first impression of Bittle was that he was belligerent and flighty, a guy who leads with his heart instead of his head. (Kind of like Shitty, actually.) And maybe that’s still true. But in the weeks they’ve spent working together Jack’s come to learn that he’s also intelligent and capable. Bittle understands this town better than anybody Jack has met. If only Bittle’s optimism were all it took to turn this town around.

Unfortunately, optimism on its own isn’t enough, and Bittle understands that, too. He’s been putting in the work to save the ice rink he claims means so much to the city of Samwell. WinterFest is a huge undertaking, but the small Parks and Rec staff, led by Bittle, is giving it their all. It hasn’t slipped Jack’s notice that Bittle’s always the first person in the office and the last to leave for the day. He signs off on every decision, always double checking every contract, proposal, or draft before giving his final approval.

It turns out Eric Bittle is one of the most capable people Jack has met in all the years he’s been doing this. It’s a breath of fresh air, especially since so many of the other department heads at Samwell City Hall have been less than enthusiastic about his suggested cuts. Nobody has taken the news as badly as Bittle did in that first meeting, but they haven’t made it easy on Jack.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Jack tells Shitty. “He’s just … surprising.”

Shitty snorts. “Everyone surprises you. Your snap judgements are almost always wrong. Except that time with the tech startup CFO who always wore that stupid Patagonia vest with his khakis. That guy was a douche.”

As much as Jack hates being called out for being that person, it lands a little softer coming from Shitty. When they were first paired up, Jack almost wrote him off as a flake. He was too loud, too brash, too effusive in delicate situations that Jack approached with stoic decorum. But somewhere between Detroit and Denver in that first year on the road together, Shitty managed to wear him down. Jack had never had a best friend who would literally give him the shirt off his back, or talk him through a panic attack. “Brother from another mother,” is the term Shitty likes to use, though Jack refuses to introduce him to people as such. 

Jack was wrong about Shitty and he’s ready to concede that maybe he was wrong about Eric, too.

“I told you,” Shitty says, sounding smug. 

“No need to gloat,” Jack grumbles. 

“You look like you could use a treat,” Bittle says when Jack sticks his head into his office late on a Thursday afternoon. He nods at a plate of cookies on the edge of his desk. “Please, save me from myself,” he says dramatically. 

“You could … just not make so many,” Jack says, taking a cookie and a seat across from Bittle. He’s been trying to check in with Bittle at least once a day to stay up to date on WinterFest’s progress, but he’s spent all of today on the phone with an office equipment company trying to get the records department out of a ten-year lease on a copy machine that’s functionally obsolete. Complicating things is the department’s should-have-retired-five-years-ago administrative assistant, who runs the department with an iron fist and insists keeping digital records is “too much work.” 

“Janine?” Bittle chuckles when Jack relates the story.

“Got it in one.” Jack takes a bite of his cookie and almost moans when a bittersweet saltiness hits his tastebuds. Why has he been holding out for so long? “I’m a little worried she’s going to chain herself to it when they come to take it away.”

Bittle rolls his eyes. “She’s pretty set in her ways. She’s the only person in this building who’s impervious to my bribery baking. Looks like even you’ve come around,” he says archly and, okay, Jack deserves that dig. “I spent summer between junior and senior year of college working in records, covering for Alexis Markley when she was on maternity leave. I swear, I could probably get a job as a copy machine repairman, for all the times I had to fix it. Janine still calls me down there every once in a while,” he says sourly. “Apparently I’m the only person who does it the ‘right way.’”

“Yeah, well, it’s a terrible contract and costing their department a lot of money,” Jack grouses, reaching for a second cookie.

“Like it, huh? I knew I’d find something to make you crack.”

“I forgot my lunch today,” Jack says, expecting a chirp about his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He and Bittle have been eating lunch together more often than not, and Bittle never misses an opportunity to (lovingly, Jack thinks) comment on Jack's sandwich. He even brought Jack a jar of home-canned peach preserves last week. Jack hasn't tried them yet, but if they're anywhere near as good as these cookies he might be in trouble.

“Sure,” Bittle says knowingly. “They have sea salt in ‘em. That’s what you’re tasting, if you’re wondering.” He holds Jack’s gaze for a bit and then ducks his head and pages through the stack of papers on his desk. Bittle’s desk is chaotic, an explosion of binders and colorful pens and, inexplicably (but not really, because it’s Bittle), a stack of mini muffin tins precariously balanced on one corner. 

Jack nods. He starts to ask Bittle if he needs a second set of eyes on the spreadsheet he’s looking at when Bittle wordlessly slides it across the desk. It’s already marked up in Bittle’s color-coded highlighting system that Jack still doesn’t understand. He settles back and uses his own blue pen to make notes in the margins.

They work until five-thirty, when the blare of a siren followed by somebody sing-shouting “Ring the alarm!” startles both of them. “Sorry,” Bittle says, silencing his phone. “I have hockey practice. You wanna finish up tomorrow?”

“You go ahead,” Jack tells him. “I can take care of it.” 

“You should come,” Bittle says as he snaps his laptop shut.

“What’s that?” 

“You said you still play, right? You should come with me. We can always use new players.”

Jack thinks, again, about how he never makes friends in these towns, always avoids becoming attached. Already, because of all this WinterFest planning, he can feel himself becoming attached. He should just go home and finish this spreadsheet. Heat up a frozen dinner, watch something on Netflix, and call it a night. It would be the reasonable, responsible thing to do. 

“I don’t have my skates with me,” Jack says. As excuses go, he’s not even trying.

Bittle grins. “We can put you in a pair of rentals. And we always have some extra equipment lying around. We’ve got you covered. If you want to, I mean. Nobody’ll mind a newcomer, but I understand if you just want to go home.” 

There it is: Bittle has given him an out. Jack’s about to make an excuse about having to run, or call his parents (both of which are true), but he doesn’t have to run, and he can call his parents later. “Okay.” 

“Really?” Bittle asks. “Who are you and what did you do with Numbers Robot Jack Zimmermann?”

Jack can’t help a little chuckle at that. “Remember, I was a hockey robot before I was a numbers robot. That’s actually what they called me.”

“No!” Bittle says, incredulous. 

“Beep boop.”

“Stop!” Bittle giggles. “That act doesn’t work on me anymore. I know your secrets.”

“Secrets?”

Bittle points to the now-empty cookie plate that they thoroughly decimated over the course of the afternoon. “I knew you weren't gonna hold out on me forever,” he says with a satisfied smile. “Just took you some time to come around. On the cookies and the rink.”

“More like you finally wore me down,” Jack grumbles, but he's smiling too.

“I’m going to set your expectations now,” Bittle says as he pulls his car into the rink’s parking lot, “you’re probably used to a more professional level of play. Well, no ‘probably’ about it. Justin, Adam, and Chris all played in college, but the rest of us picked it up later in life. Go easy on us, please.”

“I think you overestimate my abilities. It’s been a decade since I've played competitively. My dad and his old man friends are more my speed these days.”

Bittle raises an eyebrow. “Let me guess: Your dad’s ‘old man friends’ are all Hall of Famers.”

“Who are in their sixties and seventies,” Jack reminds him. 

“Still. Just—” Bittle shoots a worried little glance toward the rink’s big double doors—“they’re good guys, okay? They might come on a little strong, but they’re good people. Justin and Adam were my first friends here in Samwell. Remember that if they get weird about your dad. Or … anything.”

“It’s okay. I’m used to people being weird about my parents.” Really weird, sometimes. Nobody should have to know that photographs their parents posed for in the prime of their career were fantasy fodder for half of their Juniors team. Yes, both of Jack’s parents. Then there were the requests for autographs and favors, the assumptions that an in with Bad Bob could make things happen for their careers. It was a lot, but it was also normal.

“You shouldn’t have to be used to it,” Bittle says, sounding agitated on Jack’s behalf. “You’re entitled to your privacy. Do you want me to go in ahead and tell them not to say anything? I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“Bittle, it’s fine,” Jack insists, though Bittle’s concern is unexpectedly touching. “I really am used to it.”

“And, um. Just remember that before you froze my budget, I had a plan to renovate this place. It’s probably not as nice as the facilities you play in. I know I was a little shocked when I first saw it myself, but I got used to it and it does have its charms—”

“Because it has feelings, right?” Jack can’t resist chirping.

“Stop mocking me,” Bittle groans. “Maybe it doesn’t have feelings, but I know even you, deep down inside that ice cold Canadian heart, remember what it feels like to get out there on the ice and just skate. Not because you have to, not because people expect you to be some ice god, but because it makes you feel good. That’s how I feel every time I come in here.”

God, Jack remembers that. Back before everything, when it was just him with a puck and a stick… that was everything.

“Maybe it’s silly and romantic of me, but I think all of those good feelings build up in a place like this,” Bittle says quietly. “They build up and fill the rink up and that’s what makes it feel so magical.”

“So let’s go see some magic,” Jack says, mostly because he knows if he doesn’t make a move, Bittle will keep rambling. 

Bittle reaches for the door and hesitates.

“Bittle.” Jack places a steadying hand on Bittle’s shoulder. “It’s fine. I’m going to have to see it sooner or later, right?”

“I just care about this place a lot.”

“I know.” A laugh begins somewhere deep inside Jack’s chest and he repeats, through his laughter, “I know. Isn’t that why we’re doing this whole WinterFest thing.”

Jack watches Bittle’s face transform from anxious to surprised to something that looks a lot like happiness. “Stop chirping me,” he grumbles, punctuating his request with a gentle shove.

“Do you care about this rink?” Jack asks, feeling punchy now. Maybe it’s the cookies. He’s not used to eating that much sugar. “Really? Nobody ever would have guessed.” He reaches for the door at the same time Bittle does; their elbows brush against each other and Jack takes a quick step to the side to give Bittle some room, only to find Bittle’s done the same. When they both reach for the door again, Jack instinctively looks to Bittle. He’s biting his lip, trying to hide a smile.

“Go on if you’re so eager, you moose,” Bittle says airily, placing his hands in his pockets and stepping aside. “Just remember, I warned you.”

Jack wishes Bittle had a little more faith in him. He’s here, isn’t he?

The smell hits him as soon as they step through the door, frozen air mixed with the lingering aroma of hockey gear. It’s the scent of Jack’s childhood, deeply familiar and comforting, even after all this time.

On the inside, Samwell Municipal Rink looks like any number of rinks Jack’s skated in. It’s nothing remarkable, but aesthetics were never that important to Jack as long as there was a fresh sheet of ice to play on, and that much is here, well-loved though it may be.

“Hey, y’all,” Bittle greets the group. “I brought a potential new teammate, so be nice. We don’t want to scare him away. Especially since this rink’s very existence rests in his hands.”

A big blond guy Jack recognizes as being from the city planning department stops lacing up his skates to gape at them. “Holy shit, it’s Jack Zimmermann! Bits, you didn’t tell us Jackass Jack is Jack Zimmermann.” 

“Okay, first of all, we don’t call him that anymore,” Bittle says, blushing furiously and looking everywhere but at Jack. “And second, I didn’t know at first. It’s not like he said, ‘Hi, I’m here to gut your budget and fire all your friends and oh, by the way, my dad is Bad Bob Zimmermann, maybe you’ve heard of him.’”

“I mean, that is basically what happened,” Jack says.

“You were not that nice about it,” Bittle retorts.

“Fair.”

“Jack!” The guy sitting in the goalie box skates up to them and it takes Jack a second to clock him as Chris Chow. He’s wearing a Sharks jersey, which tracks with the Sharks pennant that Jack’s noticed hanging on the wall next to his desk. “Did you and Bitt—Eric—come from the office?”

“Jack was my second set of eyes on those spreadsheets,” Eric says. “I really shouldn’t be here at all; I have so much to do to get ready for next week’s Chamber of Commerce presentation.”

“Oh, right.” Chow nods. “Sorry, I’ve been so distracted getting ready for the baby that I haven’t been able to stay late to help out.

“And you shouldn’t,” Eric tells him. “Your family is way more important than work, and you shouldn’t have to think about it when you’re off the clock. Anyway, Jack’s been really helpful.”

“It’s mostly Bittle,” Jack says, uncomfortable with the recognition. “I’m just … there.”

“I guess that’s true,” Chris says matter-of-factly. “Bitty works harder than anybody else in City Hall.”

“Chris, I know you’re just looking out for me, but I don’t think Jack’s trying to fire me anymore,” Bittle says.

“I’m not,” Jack quickly agrees, because he isn’t here to make enemies of all of Bittle’s friends. “And I know. If everybody in your city’s government had Bittle’s work ethic, Shitty and I wouldn’t be here.”

“Just wanted you to know I’ve got your back, Bitty,” Chow says, lowering his helmet back over his head.

“We all do,” says the tall Black man sitting next to the blond guy. They both give Jack a look that is, quite frankly, a little intimidating.

“Don’t mind them,” Eric says breezily. “Justin and Adam are our D-men, and they take the job seriously on and off the ice. Boys, be nice and introduce yourselves properly while I go find some equipment for Jack.” Bittle scurries off, leaving Jack with the D-men.

“Is it true you gave up an NHL career to go to college?” Justin asks.

“Sounds like you already know the answer to that one,” Jack replies. There is no way these guys, whose years playing in high school and college must have overlapped a bit with Jack’s, aren’t familiar with his story. 

Justin holds out a hand for a fist bump, which Jack returns. “Mad respect, man. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to give all of that up.”

“It’s a lot easier when your mental health is on the line,” Jack says matter-of-factly, expecting awkward silence and an abrupt change of topic. Instead, Justin seems to relax by a few degrees.

“I can appreciate that,” he says with genuine empathy. “Took a couple years off before med school myself for mental health reasons. But after two years of sharing an office with this one and his constant singing—” he nudges Adam—“I changed my mind.”

“I was Orin Scrivello in Samwell Repertory Theater’s production of Little Shop of Horrors,” Adam protests. “I had to practice.”

“You did not have to practice Angelica Schuyler’s solo from Hamilton,” Justin retorts.

“That sounds … distracting,” Jack says. Sharing a workspace with Shitty, as he often does, has its challenges, but at least Shitty doesn’t sing.

“Okay, my turn,” Adam interrupts. “I’ve been wondering about this for years. Is any of the fanfiction about you and Kent Parson based in reality?”

Jesus. Jack knows, thanks to Camilla, that it exists. He’s never been curious enough to go looking for it. “I’m sure the truth isn’t nearly as interesting. Kent and I were friends in Juniors. It was a long time ago.”

Jack and Kent were, briefly, more than friends, but it ended when the draft split them up. Kent’s tabloid tell-all in the aftermath of Jack’s overdose put the nail in the coffin of whatever might have been salvageable of their friendship. 

“Special friends?” Adam asks with a leer.

“Adam Birkholtz!” Bittle scolds as he returns, “I told you to be nice. Stop hasslin’ poor Jack and go warm up. We only have this ice for an hour and we all had to wait on you last week ‘cause you had a cramp.” 

“I’m old, Bits!” Adam whines, but he hauls himself up and heads toward the ice, Justin following.

Bittle’s face is barely visible behind the pile of hockey equipment he’s carrying, but Jack can see the amusement in his eyes. He hands a stick to Jack and holds out two pairs of skates. “I wasn’t sure which of these would be a better fit,” he explains. “The boys didn’t give you too much trouble, did they? They’re just protective. I think they’d’ve thrown down in my honor if you’d actually gone through with your plan to fire me.”

Jack isn’t sure how fishing for details about his teenage sex life equates to “protective,” but he suspects there’s some truth there. He’s seen it in his meetings with the Parks department and he sees it here. Bittle seems to be the glue that holds everything together, regardless of where he is.

Hockey practice, Jack discovers, is apparently a catchall term that includes “fucking around on the ice.” Some of these guys—Chow, Birkholtz, and Oluransi in particular, as Bittle noted earlier—are skilled in a way that suggests they played at a high level, and even Bittle skates and shoots with a natural athleticism, despite his insistence that he’s only been playing for a comparatively short time. But for every well-executed play the guys manage, there are at least three attempts that end in chaos. Derek Nurse and Will Poindexter, two D-men who bicker constantly, can’t seem to get it together long enough to execute a clean play and Jack can’t tell if they’re supposed to be working for or against each other. Then there’s Bittle’s frankly bizarre way of dodging a check; until today Jack wasn’t sure it was possible to execute that precise a spin in hockey skates.

There was a time when it all would have annoyed Jack, when he would have griped about taking hockey seriously and stalked off in search of a better game, but he finds himself laughing along with the guys when Chris falls into the splits to block one of his shots and again when Bittle does some sort of twirly jump to avoid a scuffle between Nurse and Poindexter. Jack’s always been good at seeing an opening and lining up a shot, and maybe he wants to impress this ragtag crowd because he lands three goals in a row for his first hat trick in years.  When the third puck goes in, he instinctively looks for Bittle. “Great job, Jack!” he cheers from the other side of the ice.

Bittle’s a fast skater and has good intuition; he always seems to be in the right place to connect with Jack’s passes. When his final shot sails past the other goalie—who, to Jack’s surprise, turns out to be his mysterious landlord—they collide in an unexpected celly.

“Oof,” Jack gasps, more at the unexpectedness of it than the impact. Bittle isn’t a big guy. He shoots Jack a brilliant smile and spins out of their sort-of embrace as Justin and Adam skate up to him.

“And that’s how you play SMH hockey.” Justin claps a gloved hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Isn’t Bitty a beast? You wouldn’t think it just looking at him, but he’s small but mighty.”

“In more ways than one,” Adam adds admiringly.

“Euh,” Jack flounders, because what the hell is that supposed to mean?

“On the dance floor,” Justin clarifies. “You should see his moves.”

“Right,” Jack says, eyes drifting toward Bittle on the other side of the ice where he’s practicing some sort of fancy figure skating jump. It’s not perfect, but pretty impressive considering he’s wearing hockey skates. Jack has the distinct feeling that Bittle is showing off a little too. 

“He used to be a figure skater, right?” Jack asks.

“Chyeah.” Adam nods, eyes also tracking Bittle’s course around the rink. “You should’ve seen him back in college. Thought he owned the rink; used to give our coaches grief if they tried to kick him out even a minute before his ice time was up. Little ball of Southern fury.”

Jack snorts. He can imagine all too well what a younger Bittle’s “Southern fury” must have looked like.

“Even when he was just practicing, you could tell he was something special,” Justin adds. “It was a damn shame when he had to quit.”

“He told me about that,” Jack says. For just a moment, he lets his thoughts drift to an alternate timeline where he never overdosed, where Bittle never got injured. Where would they be if things had worked out the way they were supposed to? Would their paths have crossed anyway?

“Questions for another time.” Jack feels a hand on his shoulder and turns around to see Johnson, the other goalie.

“What—?” Jack starts.

“I could see the gears in your head turning, man. You’re not in that story, though.” 

“Johnson thinks life is a movie, and he’s the main character,” Justin explains. “Just smile and nod.”

“Not the main character. This isn’t my story. Not yours, either. Bitty over there is our star.” He turns to Jack, forehead crinkled as if in deep thought. “At first I thought you were just a guest star, but I’m getting strong second lead vibes from you.”

“What about me?” Adam protests. “I’ve been here for years and this guy just shows up and gets to be second lead? Way harsh, Tai.”

“Who’s Ty?”Jack asks. He thought somebody told him Johnson’s name was John.

Justin, Adam, and Johnson all gape at him. “Jack. Dude. Please tell me you didn’t just snub one of the greatest teen movies of all time,” Adam pleads. “Clueless? Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd before he got all jacked for Ant-Man? Are you kidding me with this guy? As if he’s second lead material.” He shoots a glare at Johnson. “This is crap!” he bellows, and stalks off to change out of his skates. 

Justin throws an apologetic look at Jack. “Sorry about him,” he says as they trail Adam to the bleachers where they’ve stashed their gear. “But we’ll see you again, right? Bitty says we need to start practicing for our WinterFest scrimmage, and with you on our starting line we might actually have a chance.”

Strange goalies and a weirdly hostile D-man aside, Jack had fun tonight. He’ll be sore as hell tomorrow, but the good kind of sore. The kind that reminds him he’s alive. He takes a seat next to Justin and begins unlacing his skates. “Yeah. I’ll try to make it. Might bring a friend,” Jack promises, thinking of Shitty. 

“The more the merrier,” Bittle says, sounding a bit out of breath, as he plops down on Jack's other side. His cheeks are flushed red, from cold or from exertion, Jack isn’t sure. “You talkin’ about Shitty?”

“That guy Larissa’s been hanging out with?” Adam asks, suddenly interested. “Yeah, bring him! He’s cool,” he says with a sideways glance at Jack. 

Bittle shakes his head in exasperation. “Okay, boys, that’s enough,” he says, even though it’s clear he’s only addressing Adam. “You heading to Jerry’s?”

“We should get going if we are,” Chow says. “I can only stay for one round. Cait’s at the stage of pregnancy where her back hurts all the time, so I’m on bath duty now.”

“Poor thing,” Bittle clucks. “Find out what kind of pie she’s craving, and I’ll make one for you to take home this weekend. I know it won’t make up for all the discomfort, but she deserves a treat.”

“Man, I’m so glad men don’t have to go through pregnancy and childbirth,” Adam says with a grimace. “I don’t think I’m strong enough.”

“That’s the truth,” Justin says. “Though, just think how much pie you’d get from Bits if you could.” 

Everyone laughs at that, even Bittle, who shrugs and says, “Guilty as charged.”

“Bits, you coming out to Jerry’s?” Justin asks.

“You boys go on ahead,” Bittle says, waving them off. “I have some work I need to get done yet.”

“Jack?” Adam raises an eyebrow. “Wanna come out with us? New guy always buys the first round.”

“Adam Birkholtz, that is not true!” Bittle scolds. “I swear, I can’t take you boys anywhere.”

“I’ll take a rain check,” Jack says. The guys are nice, but an hour of hockey practice with nine strangers is the most socialization he’s had in a while and he’s not sure he’s up for a few more hours of small talk. “Thanks, though. Next time the first round’s on me.”

“Bro, there better be a next time,” Justin says as he slings his duffle over his shoulder. “Guy like you on the team, we might actually have a shot at winning a game one of these days.” He and Adam race each other to the door, promising to get a table for everyone.

Chris and Tony both offer to help Bittle close up the rink, but Bittle insists they both go on. “Y’all are off the clock,” he reminds them. “I’ve got this.”

“I’ll help,” Jack quickly offers.

“Jack, you don’t have to,” Bittle quietly protests.

“I don’t mind,” Jack says sincerely. “I always liked this part. Putting everything away, making sure it’s ready for next time.”

“Getting a few more shots in just because you can?” Bittle asks, eyebrow raised.

“My dad always found somebody he had to talk to on the way out of the rink. Got a lot of extra practice that way,” Jack admits.

“Kind of had a feeling you were one of those,” Bittle says lightly. “You don’t do anything by half.”

“Unless I’m halving budgets,” Jack reminds him. Bittle groans at the joke. “Thank you for inviting me,” Jack says, because he doesn’t want to forget. It feels important that he tell Bittle what this evening meant to him. “You were right. I think I really needed to get back in a rink to remember what it feels like.”

Bittle’s looking down, working at a knot in his skate lace, but there’s a smile in his voice when he says, “Right? I don’t want to say I told you so, but…”

“You can say it,” Jack says to the top of his head. A cowlick Jack’s never noticed before is sticking straight up.

“I did tell you so.” Bittle sounds just a tiny bit smug. He looks up from his feet and notices Jack eyeing his hair. He pats at it self-consciously. 

“You did,” Jack admits. “Little weird being here, though.”

“Bad weird?” Bittle asks, a worried little edge in his voice.

“Just … weird.” This evening will be a lot to unpack, when Jack is ready to examine it. He smoothes his hand over a damp spot on his knee, where he hit the ice when he tripped over his own feet. He'd been able to laugh about it in a way he wouldn't have back in the day. “I hit the puck around with my dad when I’m home. And I spent some time playing on my college’s club team. But it’s been a long time since I’ve done this.” When Bittle looks at him blankly Jack continues. “I’m never in one place for very long. It’s always seemed pointless to get involved.”

Bittle’s smile is a little bit smug, Jack thinks, when he says, “And how does that make you feel, Mister Zimmermann?”

“When you ask like that, it makes me feel like you’re my therapist.”

“Fair,” Bittle says. “I told you before that this group became my social outlet when I first moved here, helped me make friends. I was just wondering if you think it might do the same for you.”

Bittle’s question could be a trap, an attempt at manipulating Jack into telling Bittle what he wants to hear: that yes, he sees the value of this team, this rink. And maybe it is, a little bit. But Jack hears the genuine concern in Bittle’s question; it comes from the same place as his offer to make pie for Chris Chow’s pregnant wife. Bittle cares about people. That’s really what all of this—this team, this rink, Bittle’s plan to save it all—is all about.

“It’s weird,” Jack admits. “New rink, new people. Not a bad weird,” he hastens to add, because he doesn’t want Bittle to misinterpret anything. “Just takes some getting used to.

“I understand the mixed feelings,” Bittle says, slipping the guards onto his skate blades and carefully placing them in his bag. “I grew up in rinks too, you know. Even now, there’s always a split second moment when I first step inside and I feel like I’ve slipped back in time, like maybe the last ten years didn’t happen and I didn’t lose everything. And I didn’t lose everything, not really, but it sure felt like it at the time.”

Jack nods in understanding. If anybody can relate, he can. “Adam and Justin said you were really good.”

“My coach had me shooting for the Olympics, but now I don’t know,” Bittle says humbly. “Skating’s changed a lot.”

“I think you would have been able to handle it,” Jack tells him. “You don’t strike me as somebody who gives up easily.”

“Not until my body decided otherwise,” Bittle says with a hollow little laugh. “It’s fine, I’ve had a lot of time to come to terms with it. Even after all of that, the rink is my safe spot. When I was on the ice winning ribbons and medals, nobody cared that I was too small for football. When I was mentoring younger kids, nobody cared that I got called a sissy at school. Skating was something I was good at, and it gave me the confidence to keep on being myself in a place where it was hard to be myself. I think every kid should be able to find that. Even if it’s not on the ice. Some kids find it on the soccer field or the stage. But for me it was the ice.”

Jack tries to imagine Bittle younger, smaller. He’s never lived in the South, but he grew up playing hockey, and he assumes there’s some overlap in mentality. Bittle must have been incredibly strong to push back against all of that. 

“I get that,” Jack says. “The ice was the only place where I felt good about myself. Everywhere else, I just didn’t fit. Or didn’t feel like I fit. My teammates loved me when I was scoring, but the rest of the time—” Jack grimaces—“Even on the anxiety meds, it took more and more for me to feel comfortable in my own skin, and that didn’t exactly end well.”

Bittle tilts his head to the side and looks at Jack, studying him in a way that usually makes Jack uncomfortable. His natural instinct is to break eye contact and look away, but something about the kindness in Bittle’s eyes steadies him. “I think it ended well enough.”

“For both of us,” Jack says. “It must have been hard to leave it behind. I had a choice.”

“I could’ve kept on,” Bittle says. “It would’ve been diminishing returns though, you know? Summer after my injury, I got invited to audition for the cast of an ice show on a cruise ship. Isn’t that ridiculous? I love the ice, but I didn’t want to be a skater in an ice show. I’m not even tall enough to be the handsome prince! They’d probably have made me play a raccoon sidekick or skating teacup. Or the short little sidekick to Captain Hook.” Bittle affects a swashbuckling stance, makes a few halfhearted jabs at the air with his hockey stick.

“I dunno, Skating Teacup would have looked impressive on a resume,” Jack quips.

Bittle rolls his eyes and shifts his stick to his other hand as he reaches for his duffel. “It’s a fine life for some, but when I got injured it was the first break I’d had in about a decade and I really enjoyed discovering other things.”

And Jack understands, he really does. Joining the team as a walk-on in college had been a last-ditch effort to reclaim something he’d lost, but in doing so he was reminded that it was no longer his reason for everything. Life went on. So did he.

“I can take those,” Bittle says, reaching for Jack’s skates. “Unless you wanna keep ‘em for a bit. Technically we’re not supposed to let customers walk away with rentals, but I have an in with the boss.”

Jack huffs out a laugh. These skates are terrible. Eventually he’ll have to get his own. But these will do for now.

“I think I’ll hang on to them for a while,” Jack says, standing to follow Bittle out. He doesn’t miss the pleased smile that lights Bittle’s face.

Jack was wrong about being sore in the morning. It’s only been an hour and he can already feel muscles he’d forgotten existed. Somewhere, in his old life, he used to have things to deal with this. Ice packs and muscle balms and fancy massage devices. Now all he has are Ibuprofen, a bag of frozen peas for his aching knee, and a couch, which he collapsed on as soon as he got home and has no plans to vacate anytime soon. 

So of course his parents call five minutes into the documentary he turned on, one he’s been looking forward to finally starting. Their timing, as always, is impeccable. 

“How’s work?” Papa asks. “Where are you right now? Massachusetts?”

“Samwell,” Jack says, wincing as he props himself up into a semi-seated position. “Tiny little town just outside of Boston. Where the college is.”

“Your mother’s alma mater? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I … did?” He did, didn’t he? There’s no way he would have missed telling his parents he was working near where his mother had gone to college. Except … Jack quickly does the math, and realizes his parents were traveling the week he got to Samwell, cavorting on some island where they didn’t have WiFi or cell service. He meant to tell them when they returned, but forgot as WinterFest started taking up more and more of his time.

How did he let that happen, anyway?

“Jack’s in Samwell?” Jack hears his mom say in the background. “Why didn’t he tell us?”

“Tell her I forgot,” Jack says, anticipating the guilt trip.

“Let me talk to him!” Jack hears muffled voices and an exasperated, “Oh give it to me!” before Maman announces she’s put him on speaker. “Jack, what are you doing in Samwell?” she demands.

“Work.”

Jack can practically hear her eye roll. “Hilarious. Just like your father. Well, it’s a lovely town. I hope you’ve had a chance to get out and immerse yourself in the local culture.”

“Little bit,” Jack says, keenly aware that just a month ago he would have responded with a derisive, “What culture?” Samwell might be growing on him. “I’m actually helping the parks department plan a big fundraiser, so I’ve had a chance to get to know some of the locals.”

“Fundraising?” Papa asks. “Did you change jobs?”

Jack’s parents are able to explain his work in broad strokes, but even they know that fundraising and event planning are outside of his job description. So he explains, from the beginning, how Bittle pushed back against the cuts Jack wanted to make and proposed raising the funds to save the skating rink. He tells them about WinterFest, how it was all Bittle’s idea but that he’s been helping with the financial planning aspect and brainstorming potential activities and events based on his memory of the Winter Carnivals he remembers going to as a kid. He might go a little overboard because before he realizes it, he’s spent ten minutes talking about WinterFest and his parents have barely gotten a word in edgewise. “I had my doubts at first,” Jack says, quickly wrapping things up in case his parents want to discuss other things, “but Bittle is really good at this stuff. It’s going to be an uphill battle but if anybody can pull it off, he can.”

“Sounds like Bittle has made an impression on you,” Maman says. “You don’t usually work so closely with your clients. Or is Bittle … something more?”

Jack mulls this over. Between working together and spending time together outside of work because their best friends are dating, he and Bittle have become … friends? 

Jack reaches for his water on the side table and feels his muscles protest. He tries to mask his hiss of pain, but Papa doesn’t miss it. “Everything okay, kid?”

“Fine,” Jack says. What the hell. It’s not like what he did tonight is some big secret. “I may have joined a beer league.”

“That’s wonderful!” Maman praises.

“Oh really,” Papa says. Jack can hear the amusement in his father’s voice and doesn’t have to see him to know he’s broken into a shit-eating grin. “How do you feel?”

“Hurts like hell,” Jack groans. “I think I’m going to go next week.”

“Your skates are still in the closet,” Maman says quickly, as if she’s been waiting years for this moment. She probably has. “I can send them next week.” Jack isn’t sure if she wants to reclaim the space or is just enthusiastic about the prospect of him finally getting involved in something. 

“Euh, sure.” Sometimes it’s easier to placate his parents than argue. And anyway, wasn’t he already planning to get a pair of skates?

“You know,” Papa says thoughtfully, “if you really want to save your rink, you do have some connections. All you have to do is ask.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asks, mentally wondering what he and Bittle might have missed in all of their brainstorming sessions.

“Jack,” Papa sighs. “Do I have to spell it out for you? You mentioned holding an outdoor scrimmage. It shouldn’t be hard to recruit a few Hall of Famers to play on your teams. Especially if it’s for a good cause. I don’t know a single player who doesn’t support local hockey programs. How many do you need? I’ll put the word out.”

It’s so obvious. It’s so obvious Jack doesn’t know why he didn’t think of it himself. He imagines telling Bittle he got Gretzky to make an appearance at Winter Fest.

“Would you really do that?”

“Hell, I’ll be the first to sign up.”

“I— thank you,” Jack says, grateful for his parents’ unwavering support no matter what he does. Grateful that they somehow always understand him, even when the things he chooses to share don’t tell the full story. “But you don’t have to do this, Papa. Samwell is just a small town in Massachusetts, and I have sincere doubts that this fundraiser will be enough to keep the rink open.” It breaks Jack’s heart to admit it, because he knows that anything short of their goal will break Bittle’s heart.

“And?” Papa asks, challenging Jack to come back with a rebuttal. “Don’t you want to be able to say you did everything you could?”

When Jack arrived in Samwell, his only goal was to do the job and go home. It didn’t matter how, as long as the town was in better shape than when he’d left it. Somehow, saving the rink has come to represent everything he’s trying to accomplish here. Even if the work he and Shitty have been doing at City Hall sets Samwell back on the path of fiscal health, he won’t feel like he’s done his job if Bittle loses the rink. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to forgive himself if he’s the one to break Bittle’s heart.

Jack has to make sure that doesn’t happen. 

Chapter Text

Eric’s no stranger to hard work, but planning WinterFest is almost like a second job. It will be worth it, though, when this is all over and they have the money to keep the rink afloat. That thought’s been getting him through these long days at work that turn into long nights at work that turn into long nights working at home. Thank goodness for Jack, who is almost as committed to putting on a successful festival as Eric is. He’s in and out of Eric’s office all day, stopping in whenever he has a free half hour in his schedule. 

He’s here now, tentatively hovering in the doorway as Eric wraps up a phone call with Alan Thomas from Thomas Electric about outdoor lighting. 

“Good morning!” Eric greets him. Is it his imagination, or is Jack moving a little more stiffly than usual? “Feeling last night’s workout?” It had been a surprise when Jack agreed to join Eric at the SMH practice, but he’d seemed to have a good time. “Not regretting it, I hope,” Eric teases, belatedly realizing how very incorrectly this conversation might be interpreted by anybody within earshot.

“Can we talk about this with the door closed?” Jack asks.

Oh lord. This can’t be good. Maybe Jack really does regret last night. Jack’s face doesn’t offer any insight into his thoughts as Eric ushers him into his office and closes the door behind them. He closes the blinds for good measure. If this meeting is going to end with Eric yelling at Jack, or crying, he’d prefer it happen out of view of his entire staff.

“Just tell me,” Eric says grimly, bracing for the worst. Jack is going to tell him that he ran the numbers again and found an error in the budget. Or that one of the big donations has fallen through. Lord, what if Greenway Grocery really is a money laundering front for the mob? Would it be unethical to take their money anyway? 

“Why do you look like I kicked your puppy?” Jack asks.

“The secrecy, your face … You’re here to give me bad news, right?”

Jack’s barks out a little laugh, the firm line of his mouth softening into a smile. Lord, that smile. Jack Zimmermann is as handsome as all get-out when he’s in his Numbers Robot mode, but then he goes and smiles and somehow becomes even more handsome. This is dangerous territory because once Eric starts thinking about how handsome Jack is, he inevitably starts thinking about how Jack is exactly his type, and Jack doesn’t date. That’s what Larissa, who heard it from Shitty, told Eric. “Not since his engagement,” Larissa had added significantly. 

Eric’s dying to know about this undiscussed part of Jack’s life, but he’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to know about it so he’s never brought it up. And even if Jack did date, even if Eric thought he might be interested, Eric still wouldn’t be able to ask him out. Jack isn’t technically Eric’s boss, but he is under contract to the city, and Eric can’t risk getting fired over an ethics violation.

“Sorry,” Jack says sheepishly as Eric silently dies a little, thinking about how that smile might look first thing in the morning, accompanied by bedroom eyes and rumpled hair. See? Terrible train of thought. “I’ve been told I can be a bit of a robot,” he says in his deadpan way, and Eric stifles a giggle. “I think this is good news. I talked to my parents last night.”

“O-kay.” Not where Eric thought this was going.

“I told them about WinterFest. I, uh, guess it had been a while since I talked to them. But they’re really excited about it. They’re looking forward to meeting you.”

Again, not where Eric expected this conversation to go. “Your parents are coming to WinterFest?” Christ on a cracker. Should he invite his parents to WinterFest? His parents have always supported his career, of course, but it never occurred to him that they might want to come to a small town festival in the middle of winter. The Bittles are not winter people.

“I got ahead of myself,” Jack says ruefully. “Last night I was telling my dad about the hockey game, and he suggested—and I want you to know that you have final approval over all of this, obviously—he suggested we have a sort of All-Star game. He thinks a lot of his friends will come out for it. We were thinking we could put a couple of mixed teams together, All-Stars and local players, or even players from the university. We can sell tickets and—”

“Jack,” Eric interrupts, trying to hide his utter surprise and amusement as he remembers that Jack’s dad’s “friends” are all retired professional athletes. “Slow down a sec, hon. I’m the one who gets overexcited and talks too much. What’s this about an All-Star game?”

Jack’s blush is delightful. Jack Zimmermann is as capable of getting flustered as anybody else, and this knowledge does things to Eric. Jack starts from the beginning, going over his dad’s proposal in more detail, casually dropping names of Hall of Famers the way Eric’s mama talks about her friends from church. It all leaves Eric absolutely speechless, which is no small feat. “Do you like it?” Jack finally asks, a hint of uncertainty in his tone, and Eric realizes he’s still gaping at Jack. 

“Do I like—oh! Jack, it’s a wonderful idea.” It really is. It isn’t just wonderful and unexpected, it’s a standout, headlining event that has the potential to draw visitors from all over the region. “I feel stupid, we should have thought about it earlier. I mean, not that I would ask you to use your connections like that, just—”

“I know what you mean. I know you wouldn’t,” Jack says. “I didn’t think of it either; it was Papa’s idea. I told him I was pretty sure you’d approve.”

“I do!” Eric assures him. “I just can’t believe he would just offer to help out; he doesn’t even know us, and it’s so much. Jack, are you sure?”

Jack nods. “Papa wouldn’t have said anything if he wasn’t sure he could make it happen. He thinks a lot of his friends will want to support a program that makes it easier for kids to play hockey. And my mom went to Samwell, so it’s kind of personal for them. This area still means a lot to her. They, euh, were kind of upset that I didn’t tell them I’m working here.”

“As they should be!” Eric scolds, smiling so Jack knows he’s not actually upset with him. “You never told me your mama is a Samwell alum.”

“It didn’t seem important,” Jack admits. “I can’t let personal connections get in the way of my work. And the university is separate from the city, anyway. It wasn’t relevant.”

“Mhm,” Eric hums, because it sure seems like Jack is letting things get “personal,” even if he’d never admit it.

The announcement of support from Bad Bob Zimmermann and his legion of hockey royalty is great PR. As word spreads through City Hall and beyond, people begin to seek Eric out to offer to their help and support rather than the other way around. A City Hall knitting club Eric didn’t even know existed asks to reserve a booth in Artisan Alley to sell handknit hats and gloves. Jim from the maintenance department approaches on behalf of the Samwell Curling Club about setting up an exhibition match. The youth figure skating coaches have already started working on new programs with their kids. And Annie wants to pay for brand new, WinterFest-themed jerseys for the Samwell Municipal Hockey team to wear when they take the ice with the hockey legends. 

(Jack was supportive when Eric told him they’d gotten a sponsor for the jerseys, until he found out the sponsor in question was Annie and that she’d proposed putting the slogan “Big sticks, soft hands” under the Annie’s logo on the back. He’d raised one slightly disapproving eyebrow but, to Eric’s relief, didn’t reject the offer outright and instead, sounding slightly strangled, said, “We can’t put that on the jerseys. We can make sure we acknowledge the contribution … somewhere.”)

The biggest news is that Eric has approached the Samwell Chamber of Commerce about getting some sponsorships for the construction of a temporary outdoor skating rink, which will far and away be the event’s biggest expense. With all of the on-ice events they have planned, two rinks is practically a necessity. The outdoor rink will primarily be used for recreational skaters, who will be able to sign up for twenty-minute sessions, but some of the bigger events—like the All-Star scrimmage Jack’s dad is organizing—will be held on it for maximum visibility. 

The Chamber of Commerce invites Eric to present his proposal at their next meeting. He spends days preparing his speech.

And then things hit a snag. Eric wakes up on the morning of his presentation to the Chamber of Commerce with a racing heart and a nauseated feeling that has him feeling a little dizzy as he showers and dresses for work. It must be because he’s been running himself ragged trying to get this presentation ready. After tonight’s meeting, he can go home and get a full night’s sleep for the first time in a week. 

“You don’t look good,” Jack says when he stops by Eric’s office to go over his presentation one last time. Jack, of course, looks ready to slay on the catwalk at New York Fashion Week. Or, at the very least, like he’s about to pose for some very boring stock photos. No matter how well he wears his clothes, they still scream “accountant!” 

“Thank you, Captain Obvious. I’m just tired, is all. Stayed up late last night going over my speech.”

Jack takes an uneasy step backward towards the doorway. “You look sick.”

Eric waves off Jack’s concern. “I don’t get sick! I haven’t been sick since right before first semester finals my senior year.”

“Sounds like you were stressed out and your defenses were down.”

“Yes! Exactly.” Jack raises an eyebrow. “I’m fine,” Eric repeats. “You hovering over me like an anxious mom isn’t helping my nerves, though.”

Jack takes another awkward step back at the accusation. “I’ll leave you alone, then,” he says, apparently forgetting they’ve got a presentation to go over. 

Forty-five minutes later, Jack strides into Eric’s office and sets a tumbler full of something green and chunky on Eric’s desk. The hot pink straw, though a cute touch, does little to up its appeal.

“What is that?” Just looking at it makes Eric’s stomach turn over.

“It’s a green wellness smoothie. The color is from the kale and spirulina,” Eric pulls a face at that. “It tastes more like bananas,” Jack quickly adds. “I drink one every morning.”

Of course he does. “Jack Zimmermann, did you go home and make this for me?” Eric asks, unexpectedly charmed.

“Euh—”

“Who knew Jack Zimmermann drinks his smoothies with pink glitter straws?” Eric teases. 

“I stopped at the store on the way back. I put the rest of the box in the break room.”

Eric manages a weak smile. His stomach really does hurt. It’s probably nerves. There’s a lot riding on tonight’s presentation. “Thank you.”

“You aren’t going to drink it, are you?” Jack asks knowingly.

“I’ll drink it as soon as my appetite comes back,” Eric promises.

“Bittle.”

“Zimmermann,” Eric says sweetly. He looks up at Jack, who returns his gaze with an expression that can only be described as bemused concern. He doesn’t break eye contact, so Eric looks away first. “Are we gonna go over this presentation or not?”

Jack pulls a chair up to the other side of Eric’s desk and sits but still he looks concerned, even as Eric runs through his speech twice and makes small adjustments based on Jack’s recommendations. Jack still looks wary when he leaves to get lunch with Shitty, even though Eric has assured him that he’s fine. Eric hasn’t seen this side of Jack before, and it’s not entirely unpleasant. He may have chided Jack about acting like his mother, but the concern is actually kind of nice. It’s been a long time since somebody has taken care of Eric. 

Eric’s been operating at about 30 percent all day, but as soon as Jack knocks on his office door to let him know he’s ready to walk over to the meeting, a surge of adrenaline courses through his body. He can do this.

The Samwell Chamber of Commerce holds its monthly meeting in a conference room at the Hotel Samwell. It’s an old, stately building that has an old school glamour Eric has always loved. Back when the city was flush with cash, City Hall held its employee Christmas party in the grand ballroom, but of course this year’s party was one of the first things Jack declared had to go. The hotel always makes the local newspaper’s list of “most romantic staycations” for its in-room couples massages, large soaking tubs, and all-night room service. Eric’s always wanted to spend a night here with somebody he really cares about. Back when he was dating Cheating Paul, they booked a room here for their six-month anniversary. But when Eric showed up after work, dressed in his best suit and bearing a cherry pie in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other, somebody who was definitely not Paul was lounging on the bed. “Paul’s in the shower,” the guy had said. “Are you here to make a delivery?” The worst part was that Eric was so caught off-guard that he did leave the pie and roses in his haste to extricate himself from the embarrassing situation. 

Maybe after WinterFest is over Eric will treat himself to night here. He could do with a massage and a night of trash TV in the ridiculously expensive fluffy robe the hotel provides to all of its guests. He deserves it.

“You look sweaty,” Jack says as they walk through the hotel’s ornate double doors. 

“That’s funny, because I’m freezing,” Eric says. He doesn’t miss the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it look of alarm that flashes over Jack’s face before he schools his expression into what Eric thinks is supposed to convey “supportive.”

“Do you need my jacket?” Jack asks, shrugging out of his coat and moving to wrap it around Eric’s shoulders as ducks away and waves it off.

“Jack. For the last time, I’m fine. A little nervous, yes, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. They always overheat this building, so I’m sure I’ll warm up as soon as we get inside.”

Jack does not look like he believes Eric at all as they enter the conference room. They’re handed a meeting agenda and there, under “New Business,” is “Request for Samwell WinterFest sponsorship - Eric Bittle, Director, Samwell Department of Parks and Recreation.”

Eric and Jack bypass a refreshments table bearing styrofoam cups of coffee and plastic containers of sure-to-be disappointing grocery store cookies and take seats near the front. Eric pulls out his portfolio and looks over his notes one last time.

Jack leans in close enough that the back of Eric’s neck tingles in response. “You know your speech backwards and forwards,” he says, voice lowered. He’s right, of course, but groups like this have always made Eric a little nervous. The Chamber of Commerce—even the one in a “progressive” city like Samwell—is primarily made up of a bunch of older white men who seem happy with the idea of progress as long as it doesn’t force them to change their ways.

“I know,” Eric whispers back. Jack places a reassuring hand on his shoulder and gives it a supportive squeeze. He leaves it there for a beat longer than necessary, removing it only when Eric leaps from his seat to greet Harry McIntyre, the owner of the diner that sponsors one of the city’s youth soccer teams.

In the ten minutes before the meeting is called to order, Eric makes the rounds, greeting members by name, asking how business is going, inquiring about their partners and children. “I stopped by the rink after work the other day and saw Braden’s hockey practice,” he tells Braden Patterson’s grandfather, Bob Jennings. Bob owns the Chevy dealership on Main Street. “He’s looking good this year.” To Kirby Harris, whose family has operated Samwell Appliance for four generations, he says, “Saw your boys making a delivery in my neighborhood last week. I can’t believe they’re working men. Seems like yesterday they were fallin’ all over themselves in Mites practice.”

Kirby grins. “Pat’s about to graduate high school and KJ’s finishing up his last year at the junior college. Plans to get a business degree and then I’m gonna start training him to take over so I can retire.”

“I know you Harris men don’t retire,” Eric laughs. “Didn’t your daddy sell me my new refrigerator last year? Speaking of, I need to drop by soon. My oven’s on the fritz again and I think I’d better replace it soon or I’m gonna be in a world of trouble come holiday baking season.”

Annie, the only female member of the Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors, pulls Eric aside as he makes his way back to his seat. “Your grumpy boy over there can’t take his eyes off of you,” she says conspiratorially. “You sure he’s just a colleague?”

Eric eyes dart over to Jack, who doesn’t even try to pretend he’s not watching him. He looks—dare Eric say it?—impressed.

“He’s invested a lot of his own time in WinterFest,” Eric says, thinking about how it’s not just Jack who’s involved now, but his whole family. “I’m sure he’s just keeping an eye on me to make sure I don’t torpedo this whole thing.”

“Mmmhm,” Annie hums. 

Thankfully, Eric is saved by board president Howie Longstreet calling the meeting to order, and he scurries back to his seat. “Networking?” Jack whispers.

“This is how we do it in small towns,” Eric replies. “Your spreadsheets and budget cuts aren’t the only way to solve a problem.”

Jack looks highly skeptical, but doesn’t offer a rebuttal. And when, after Eric’s presentation, the board votes to make a sizable donation to cover the construction costs of Eric’s proposed outdoor rink, Jack looks more than impressed. He looks … proud.

All Eric wants to do when the meeting’s adjourned is go home and crawl into his bed, but too many Chamber members want a moment of his time. In short order, he has commitments from multiple business owners to donate money or resources to the cause, and more promises to get back to him later in the week. Kirby Harris offers manual labor in the form of his teenage children, Joe Collier tells Eric he’ll donate lumber to construct the booths for the food court, Bob Jennings offers up one of his trucks to transport all that lumber, and Annie graciously announces that in addition to the jerseys, she’s prepared to pay for all costs associated with an after-hours “drag on ice” show she wants to put together.

“Lord, do we even have enough people for a skating drag show?” Eric asks.

“Honey, I know people,” Annie assures him. “Let me put out the call.”

Eric glances at Jack, who smiles and nods his assent. “It’ll be more fun to watch than curling, won’t it, Bittle?”

And isn’t that something, that straight-laced, buttoned-up Jack Zimmermann looks excited about … well, all of it, but especially the drag on ice. Basking in his success, Eric feels almost giddy. He rides the high out of the hotel and all the way back to the City Hall parking lot, where it abruptly wears off and he crashes. Literally.

“You really don’t look well,” Jack says, just before Eric’s legs give out from under him. He hears Jack’s gasp of “Bittle!” as if from very far away, and braces himself for an impact that never comes. Instead, two strong arms wrap around his waist and keep him—partially—upright. “I think we should get you home,” Jack says in his ear. His voice still sounds far away and Eric's too out of his head to even enjoy the feeling of being in Jack’s arms.

Eric’s legs still feel shaky and not at all ready to support his weight, so he fights his instinct to brush Jack away and allows Jack to prop him up as they walk to the car. Now that he’s secured his funding, it’s like his body’s given itself permission to shut down. “Is it okay if I drive you home in my car? I can pick you up tomorrow morning if you’re feeling better.” 

Eric manages a weak, “That’s fine” and collapses into the passenger seat. He lets his head flop against the headrest and closes his eyes as he recites his address so Jack can put it in his GPS. It feels better like this. 

“You need fluids,” Jack says. “And something to eat? Did you even eat today?”

Eric thinks back to this morning, which now seems like a very long time ago. He hasn’t had anything to eat since Jack’s smoothie, which was surprisingly tasty. 

He shakes his head.

“Okay, then I’m going to stop at a drive-thru on the way. Any requests?”

Eric opens one eye and turns just his head toward Jack. “A burger?”

Jack puts the car in drive. “I think there’s a place on the way.”

“And cheese fries?” Eric asks hopefully.

Jack snorts. “I don’t think that’s what most people eat when they’re not feeling well.” But he doesn’t reject the idea outright, and Eric’s pleasantly surprised when Jack requests two orders of cheese fries.

All Eric wants to do when he gets home is eat and crawl into bed, but Jack insists on helping him inside even after Eric insists Jack should just go home in case he's sick with something contagious.

“Bittle,” Jack says gruffly, “I’ve been with you all day. If I’m going to get sick, it’s a done deal.”

Eric doesn’t have the energy to fight that and he’s also mindful of the fact that Jack ordered food for himself, which will no doubt be too cold to eat if he waits until he gets back to his place.

If Eric weren’t halfway out of his head with delirium, he’d have qualms about letting Jack see his house in this state. It’s not company clean; heck, it’s not even clean by Eric’s single-person-who-lives-alone standards. WinterFest has been all-consuming, so chores have fallen by the wayside. The sink is full of unwashed dishes that Eric hasn’t had the mental capacity to deal with and the rest of the room isn’t much better. 

Jack unbags the food while Eric clears all of his notes and paperwork off of the small kitchen table that, these days, doubles as his desk. 

“Do you want me to get plates?” Jack asks with a hesitant glance at the cabinets.

“Just put it down here. Don’t wanna do dishes tonight.”

“Or any night, by the looks of it,” Jack smirks. He pulls out a chair and sits down, looking so immediately at ease that any lingering anxiety Eric has about Jack in his home dissipates. He looks so comfortable eating lukewarm fast food at Eric’s table that it’s hard to believe this is the first time he’s been here. Jack Zimmermann looks like he belongs in this kitchen as much as the stand mixer on the counter.

Eric only ends up picking at his burger and fries while Jack does most of the conversational heavy lifting. “You gonna enter the drag show?” he asks.

Eric nearly chokes on his fry. “It’s been a long time since I’ve figure skated for anything other than fun, and I definitely haven’t skated in drag before. Funny thing though—” he smiles down at his burger, a memory forming in his mind—“when I first started skating, I was so disappointed when I found out I couldn’t wear a dress for my first ice show like all the girls in my class. They looked so pretty when they twirled. My mama tried to smooth things over by sewing extra sequins onto my pants.” Eric allows himself to meet Jack’s eye, expecting to see judgement there—it’s probably a little predictable that he was the type of kid who was drawn to sparkles and dresses, but it’s not something he’s in the habit of telling just anybody.

Jack doesn’t seem put off by Eric’s confession, though. In fact, he seems almost charmed. “I insisted on wearing my dad’s jersey to my first hockey game and threw a fit when my mom told me I had to wear the same uniform as everyone else. The compromise was that I could wear Papa’s when I was on the bench.”

Eric thinks there’s something fitting, and maybe a little sad, about how he and Jack both knew at so early an age who they were, and how that knowing made things harder in so many ways. He doesn’t say that, though. Instead, he shares another memory. “One Halloween, in college, I dressed as Mrs. Lovett from Sweeney Todd.” When Jack’s expression remains blank he adds, “The musical? I still have the costume, but I don’t think the world is ready for Sweeney Todd on Ice.”

“I think your friend Adam might beg to differ.” Jack gives Eric one of his half smiles and pops a fry in his mouth.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Eric laughs, imagining Adam taking a Broadway-inspired turn on the ice. Hm. That’s something to consider for next year. “Anyway, I don’t have time to learn a new routine and practice. I’m too busy putting this whole thing together. Maybe next year.” Eric wraps up his mostly-uneaten burger. It was good, but right now it’s too much. “I’m not really hungry,” he apologizes.

“But you’re feeling better?” Jack asks, concern etching his features.

“Eating something helped, but I don’t feel one hundred percent,” Eric admits. 

“I should probably let you get to bed.” Jack stands up and stretches, begins gathering their greasy wrappers and stray fries and shoving them into the bag everything came in. His eyes dart around the kitchen and Eric points at the cabinet under the sink, where the trash is located.

“Probably,” Eric says. “I can't remember the last time I got a full eight hours.”

Jack frowns at this as he deposits the bag in the trash and begins washing his hands. “If I leave now, do you promise to go straight to bed and not try to get any work done?” he asks, over the sound of the running water.

“I promise I’m going straight to bed.” Eric tentatively gets to his feet. “Can you grab me one of those glass containers from the cabinet right by your left knee?” he asks.

Jack wordlessly chooses a container and hands it to Eric, but he’s not ready to let go of the topic at hand. “And you’re not taking your laptop to bed with you.” 

“Lord, you’re bossy,” Eric says, but there’s no heat in it. He’s starting to notice the subtle distinctions in Jack’s delivery, the way his voice becomes more affectionate and less clipped when his guard is down. “Laptop is staying in my bag.” 

“Or baking anything.”

“Or baking anything,” Eric laughs as he arranges his leftovers in the container and shoehorns it into the one free spot in the fridge.

“I’d tell you not to do your dishes but—” Jack gestures grandly at the sink—“I think you’ve already taken that one to heart.”

“Are you gonna chirp me all night? The next time you come over this house is gonna be so clean.”

Instead of laughing and volleying another chirp Eric’s way, Jack turns serious. “I don’t care about your dishes. I think you should take a sick day tomorrow,” he says seriously. “I think you’re tired and probably skipping too many meals—taste testing your baked goods doesn’t count as a meal—,” he adds when he notices Eric has opened his mouth to protest—“but stress makes you more susceptible to illness. You said it yourself. I’m worried you’re going to burn out if you don’t slow down a little. And you know that if it were any of your staff, you'd tell them to use their sick days.”

“Since when are you the boss of me?” Eric asks, secretly pleased that Jack is being so attentive. Ever since that day at the wildflower mural, Jack has felt less like a coworker and more like a friend.

“I think it’s very evident that nobody is the boss of you,” Jack retorts. Eric stands a little straighter because damn straight, nobody is the boss of him. It’s big of Jack to finally acknowledge this.

“Bittle?” Jack pauses on his way out the door. “You did really well tonight.”

“You doubted me,” Eric says bluntly.

“Just a little,” Jack admits. “And I didn't doubt you as much as I doubted ... them. You’re right. I’m good with numbers, but not so much with people. You’re good with people. You understand how they work. We make a good team.”

Eric’s insides warm at that. “I going to remember that, and remind you that you said it the next time you complain about one of my ideas.”

“I didn’t say all your ideas are good.”

“I’m writing it down. November 7, 9:32 p.m.—”

“I’ll deny it,” Jack laughs. “Nobody will believe you.”

“Good night, Mr. Zimmermann,” Eric singsongs. Jack is standing just outside the open door and he hasn’t moved. 

“Bye, Bittle,” Jack replies. “Try to get some sleep, eh?”

Eric tells Jack goodnight and heads straight to his bedroom, where he only just manages to change into his favorite comfy sweats before falling into bed. He swears he hears Jack’s car start and drive away as he hovers on the edge of consciousness, but when he gets up for a glass of water in the middle of the night, he discovers a clean kitchen, sink free of dishes and counters sparkling.

Chapter Text

Jack knows something’s up when Bittle shows up at his storage closet/office on a Monday morning in December with a steaming cup of coffee and a plate of mini pies, which he sets on Jack’s desk. There’s an unasked question in his eyes and he’s a little too keyed up to blame his fidgetiness on just the coffee he may have already consumed this morning, even if he’s trying to play it off that way.

“Are we celebrating something I don’t know about, or are these bribery pies?” Jack asks, trying for gruff but unable to keep it going for long in the face of the mini pies. They’re still warm.

“Now, hear me out before you say anything,” Bittle cautions, one hand held up like a crossing guard, which basically guarantees Jack will have some sort of objection, “but there’s a festival like ours in Stowe, Vermont. It’s called Winter Carnival. They’ve been holding it for years. I think we should go. It’ll be a good opportunity to learn how the pros do things. In fact,” he adds, “I’ve been in touch with their organizer and they’re willing to take a meeting and put us up in the inn they partner with to host out-of-town guests.”

Jack raises an eyebrow. It’s not a terrible idea but … “What’s in it for them?”

Bittle grins. “I offered to bake a few maple apple pies for their silent auction. Might’ve oversold my abilities a tad, but what’s done is done.”

Jack’s had Bittle’s maple apple pie. He didn’t oversell his abilities.

“When is it?” Jack asks. Bittle has enough employees in his department to cover for him if he’ll be gone during the work week, but it won’t do the WinterFest planning team any good if this festival is more than a few weeks away. 

“Next weekend. I know it’s soon, but—”

“No, that’s perfect. I was just thinking that if it’s too far out, we won’t really be able to learn anything we can use this year. Next week should work.”

Bittle’s practically vibrating with excitement. “Does that mean you’ll come with me?”

Jack abruptly sets his mini pie down. “You want me to go with you?”

“You’re the numbers guy. I need to you take notes while I work my charm.”

Jack snorts. “So you want me to … be your secretary? While you weasel trade secrets out of them? You’ve already gotten them to put you up for the night, I think they’re well aware of your charm.”

“Oh, you flatterer. Maybe I just don’t wanna drive alone. Chris really shouldn’t be traveling this close to Cait’s due date. And Larissa has plans.”

Right. She’s going with Shitty to visit his grandmother. Shitty doesn’t associate with most of his family, but he’s always adored his maternal grandmother, a woman who marched for civil rights and got arrested for protesting the Iraq war. Got arrested for protesting multiple wars, apparently. It’s a big deal that Shitty’s taking somebody he’s dating to meet her.

“What about Tony?” Jack suggests.

Bittle rolls his eyes. “Tony is a great employee but between you and me—” his eyes dart to the doorway and he lowers his voice—“well, it’s a bit of a drive to Vermont, if you know what I mean.”

“Ah.” Jack thinks he does. Tony’s a nice guy, good at his job, but Jack has never met anybody who asks as many questions as Tony does. He has a sudden vision of a road trip with an excitable seven-year-old. “You like that I’m quiet.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.” Bittle pats his hand reassuringly. “You’re a great conversationalist. And Tony and I aren't really friends outside of work? If I’m gonna spend a weekend working, I want it to be with someone I know I'll have fun with. Plus, I trust you. You keep me in check when I get ahead of myself. We’re a good team.” 

Jack grins. “What’s that, Bittle? Did you just say you need me? That I may actually know what I’m doing?” he can’t resist chirping.

“I never said I need you,” Bittle says primly, but he’s smiling too. “I said we make a good team.

It’s the right thing to say. “Okay,” Jack says. “I’m game.” 

“Perfect.” Bittle beams. “I can count on you to drive, right? I’m still not real confident driving in the snow and I figure with you being from Canada and all, it must be second nature.”

“Bittle. You’ve lived here for a decade.”

“You’re Canadian!” Bittle looks up at Jack with those eyes and Jack can’t find it in himself to say no.

“I’ll drive,” Jack says, vaguely aware that it’s becoming more difficult by the day to say no to Bittle.

As Friday approaches, Jack finds himself looking forward to the trip to Vermont. A change of scenery is always nice. As much as it’s going to be a working vacation, it’s Jack’s first real weekend away in months, and he knows Bittle will make sure they make time to have fun. Under duress, Jack might admit that he’s even looking forward to spending the weekend with Bittle. Jack has a feeling he’ll be a good travel companion.

Bittle’s waiting for Jack outside of his condo when he arrives on Friday afternoon, loaded down with a duffel and a large brown shopping bag that Jack assumes contains the pies he baked for the auction. Folded over one arm is a ski parka that’s definitely too warm for the weather they’re expecting—snow on the ground, with possible flurries.

“We’re going to Vermont, not Siberia,” Jack says with a nod at the parka.

“I’m from Georgia,” Bittle says petulantly. 

“And yet, you’re planning a winter festival. You see the irony, I hope.”

“Chirp, chip,” Bittle clucks. He sets his things on the floor of the back seat, then comes back around and settles into the passenger side. “Do you mind stopping for coffee?” 

Jack side-eyes him. “It’s a three-hour drive.” They skipped out of work a few hours early in order to make it to Winter Carnival this evening—they’re meeting with Bittle’s contact there early tomorrow morning, but he wants to drop off the pies and take a look around tonight—but rush hour traffic is still inevitable. “Probably four since it's Friday afternoon.”

“It’s not a road trip without snacks,” Bittle says, sounding like Shitty. Sighing internally, Jack relents—a quick stop at a drive-thru won’t take them that far out of their way—and adds a Starbucks stop to his GPS route. 

They’re barely at the end of Bittle’s street when Bittle’s fingers creep toward the dashboard. “Do you mind?” he asks. “It’s also not a road trip without music. Driver’s choice, of course.”

“Go ahead.”

Jack’s not a person who has to listen to music while in the car, but he’s designated a few satellite radio stations saved as “favorites,” along with the local NPR station. His taste in music tends to run toward country and what Shitty calls “sad dad music,” and it’s the former that fills the silence when Bittle’s thumb grazes the power button. It’s an old song that conjures memories, hazy and indistinct, more a feeling than a concrete set of images: Jack in the back seat of his parents’ car on the way to the family cabin after school and practice on a Friday evening, falling asleep to the radio and his parents’ quiet voices. He never could make out those conversations over the din of the radio, conversations his parents no doubt wanted to keep somewhat private, but the deep rumble of his dad’s voice was a comfort and always—eventually—lulled Jack to sleep. Depending on how late they got on the road, they might wake him for dinner at some fast food restaurant, where the burgers were mediocre, the fries always lukewarm, but after a couple hours of hockey nothing had ever tasted so good. Jack traveled a lot growing up, to his dad’s games and on-location movie shoots with his mom, and of course bigger family vacations to Europe and Hawaii, but those trips to the cabin were always his favorite.

Jack taps his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the chorus until he notices Bittle gaping at him.

“Is this … Rascal Flats?” Bittle asks incredulously.

“Not a fan?” Jack asks, picking up on the note of distaste in Bittle’s voice. “Didn’t you just remind me you’re from Georgia?”

“Jack Zimmermann, do you think that everybody in Georgia—” Bittle draws “Georgia” out in the accent he always tries to flatten out—“likes country music? You know Outkast is from Georgia? And r.e.m.?”

“Yeah, but somehow I don’t take you for a fan of those guys,” Jack guesses.

“I could be!” Bittle sputters, indignant. “I know the hits!”

“‘Hey Ya!’ and ‘Losing My Religion?’”

“No comment,” Bittle mumbles. “Didn’t take you for a country fan is all. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re kind of just—” Bittle rests an elbow on the center armrest and shifts a bit to look at Jack, who’s still looking at the road. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you remind me a little bit of my dad.”

Jack chokes on his reply. “I’m not sure if there’s any other way to take that,” he manages.

“I mean—oh lord, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything—you and Justin made plans to play golf last week. And earlier today I overheard you telling Chris and Tony about your annual fishing trip with your dad.”

“It’s fun. We go to Alaska for a week and get enough salmon for the year.”

“Even worse! I assumed you were talking about fishing on a lake somewhere!” Bittle laughs. “Not, like, rich people fishing.”

Jack doesn’t have a good rebuttal for that because yeah, he supposes flying to Alaska and chartering a boat for the purpose of catching some salmon, which have to be specially prepped and packed and shipped back to his parents’ place in Canada, is “rich people fishing.” 

“And now I find out you listen to country music,” Bittle says, clearly as disinclined to dwell on the “rich people” comment as much as Jack is. 

“Not just country music. I also like r.e.m.”

“Oh lord,” Bittle giggles, burying his face in his hands. “My daddy would love you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jack asks, unable to keep the corners of his mouth from tugging upward. 

“I don’t know!” Bittle says into his hands. “Ignore me. I’m just running off at the mouth like always and don’t even know what I said.”

Jack grins. “You don’t talk about your parents very much. Are you saying that in your case, the apple did fall far from the tree?”

Bittle snorts. “More like a random pear grew on the tree and they’re still trying to figure out where it came from.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“My dad’s a football coach,” Bittle informs Jack. “When I say he’d love you, I really mean he’d love you. Do you have any idea how much he wanted me to follow in his footsteps?”

“Have him talk to my dad. He’d tell him it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“No, I suppose not.” Bittle sighs. “I do think the two of you would get along like a house on fire, though. Your taste in music seals the deal. My dad doesn’t even know the difference between Beyoncé and Adele.”

“Who?” Jack laughs. He deserves the gentle flick on the ear Bittle gives him in response.

The drive-thru line at the Starbucks near the freeway snakes halfway around the parking lot; everybody else must be heading out early for the weekend, too. Jack parks instead, reasoning that they can use the extra five minutes to stretch their legs since now it looks like they’ll definitely hit traffic on their way to Vermont.

The line inside the Starbucks isn’t much better. “I’m going to use the bathroom,” Jack tells Bittle as they shuffle closer to the register. “Will you order for me?”

“As long as you don’t ask me to order you a tall black coffee,” Bittle says.

“Grande is fine,” Jack says, laughing when Bittle shakes his head in mock disappointment. He hands his credit card to Bittle.

“What’s this?” Bittle asks, refusing to take the card. “This is my treat. You’re driving; the least I can do is pay for your—” he pretends to choke on the words—“grande black coffee.”

“This is my work card.” Jack forces the card into Bittle’s hand. “Business expense. Since this is a business trip.”

“No way am I gonna let you write my coffee off as a business expense,” Bittle argues. He steps around Jack and slips the card into his back pocket, their arms lightly brushing as he does. 

Jack relents, if only because he sees somebody come out of the bathroom and there isn’t a line. When he returns, Bittle’s already ordered and is waiting at the pick-up counter. “Switch places?” he asks Jack, and heads back there himself.

“Eric?” The barista sets two cups in front of Jack and it’s all he can do not to laugh when he sees his cup of coffee next to a large, frozen drink topped with whipped cream and chocolate drizzle on top of that. It looks less like coffee than dessert in a cup.

“Here’s your gigantic ... mochawhatsit,” Jack tells Bittle when he returns. 

“Mocha Frappuccino,” Bittle corrects, accepting the drink. 

“That.” Jack holds the door open for Bittle, who shivers a little as the brisk winter air hits them and walks a little faster toward the car. “Weren’t you just complaining about the cold?” Jack chirps. “I’m not sure the cold drink was the right choice.”

Bittle shoots him a withering look. “Do you drink water when it’s cold outside?” he asks.

“Euh …”

“Okay, then.” Bittle settles back into his seat and balances his cup between his knees while he puts his seatbelt on. Jack watches out of the corner of his eye as Bittle carefully peels the wrapper off his straw, triumphantly sticking it into the middle of Whipped Cream Mountain like he’s staking his claim. The moan he makes upon taking his first sip hits Jack just below the belt and he quickly takes a swig of his own coffee. Too quickly, because it’s really hot and now he’s choking.

“Easy there,” Bittle says, thumping him on the back. “Everything okay?”

“Strong,” Jack manages, actually wishing for something cold to soothe his scalded throat. Of all the places for his libido to make its triumphant return, of course it would have to be in Starbucks parking lot in the middle of Massachusetts while “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” plays on the radio.

“Should’ve gotten some sugar,” Bittle says sweetly. He takes another sip of his drink, as if to prove a point, his eyelids fluttering closed as if he’s entered a state of bliss.

Jack hides his smile behind his coffee cup and pretends to be too preoccupied with getting out of the parking lot and back onto the expressway to talk. Bittle doesn’t say anything either—after five full minutes of silence Jack actually wonders if he’s gone into some sort of sugar coma—but the silence isn’t uncomfortable. It’s nice.

It’s just cold enough outside that when snow begins falling from the sky, it sticks a little to the windshield. It’s not enough to result in diminished driving conditions, not yet. Right now it’s just pretty, For a few minutes, Jack allows himself to imagine that this is what things could be like. Like this is an annual trip, the coffee and chirps exchanged over said coffee part of a long-established ritual. Like this isn’t a work trip, but a much-anticipated break during a busy season. Like those Friday night trips he used to take up to the cabin with his parents. Like he and Bittle are… what? They’re colleagues. No amount of sexual frustration or pent-up desire on Jack’s part is going to change what this is. This is a business trip. That’s all.

Jack so rarely wants. Not in the way he’s thinking about Bittle right now. Jack has always been able to separate attraction—or maybe appreciation is the more accurate word—from desire. He was well into his twenties before he knew there was a name for people like him. That there was nothing wrong with him because his mind doesn’t automatically make the leap to sex when he meets an attractive person. Attraction, for Jack, is usually separate from desire, which almost always comes after he knows somebody well enough to know if he’d want a relationship with them. 

It’s not a secret that Jack and Bittle have grown closer these past few weeks. He could chalk it up to any number of things—working together on WinterFest, hockey practice, the fact that their best friends are in a sort-of relationship—but the simple explanation is that Jack just likes Bittle.

He likes the way his hands look when they’re wrapped around his coffee cup, and the graceful way he moves on the ice. He likes the way he’s kind to people, even when he’s mad. He likes the way Bittle looks at him when he thinks Jack isn’t looking.

Typically, those are just things Jack notices. They aren’t things to act on.

But right now, against all odds, Bittle is gripping his cup with both hands and glancing at Jack with that little smirk, and Jack wants.

He’s not going to act on it. He can’t. Just because he so rarely finds himself in this situation doesn’t mean he’s in a position to do something about it when he is. Jack is leaving Samwell in a few months. And Bittle is more than a co-worker, he’s his friend. Better to leave a good friend behind, with the expectation that they can still be friends (Bittle seems at least as likely to send a yearly Christmas card as Jack’s dentist), than ruining all of this with some ill-advised hookup.

But that doesn’t mean Jack can’t enjoy the moment they’re in now, even if it’s all they get.

Jack forces his gaze back to the road ahead—the snowflakes are starting to stick and make it just this side of slick, which means he should be paying more attention to the road than Bittle's hands—and focuses on his driving. Bittle’s quiet too, head bent over his phone doing what he insists is work, but Jack is pretty sure also includes the social media play-by-play of their trip. His suspicion is confirmed when he gets a text from Shitty: “Can’t believe he got you to stop!” along with a screenshot of a picture Bittle must have taken while they were at Starbucks.

It’s just after six when they arrive in Stowe, and it doesn’t take long to reach the center of town, where most of the Winter Carnival events are held. 

“Wanna take a look around and check out the food?” Bittle asks Jack after he’s dropped his pies off with one of the people he’s been talking to all week. 

“That’s why we’re here,” Jack says agreeably. 

Bittle takes the lead, choosing the attractions he most wants to see. The Friday night crowd is a lot of younger people, teenagers and college students who have come in groups and couples who’ve made this a date night. This winter carnival is more modest than the ones Jack grew up attending in Montreal. It seems to have a particular focus on ice carving, but as Bittle said when he first mentioned this trip, it’s nice to see how another city does this.

“Can you believe all this?” Bittle asks as they walk through the ice sculpture garden. “Who knew you could do all this with ice?” He stops to take a picture of a wolf, its icy, sightless eyes eerily soul-piercing. “I mean, I’ve seen pictures, of course, but growing up in Georgia you don’t just happen upon ice sculptures unless you’re at some fancy wedding.” Next to the wolf is somebody’s interpretation of the Death Star. Bittle takes a picture of that, too.

“There’s an ice hotel in Sweden. You can do a lot with ice.”

Bittle shivers and and pulls his coat a little tighter around him. “I think I’ll stick with good old brick and mortar hotels, thank you very much. Unless I have someone to keep me warm at night. Then you can talk to me about ice hotels. Have to find somebody up for the job before I consider it, though.”

Jack laughs. “I don’t think anybody’s ever frozen to death in the ice hotel.”

“Well, you don’t want me to be the first, do you?” Bittle grouses, pocketing his phone.

“Look, there’s a booth selling hot drinks. That should warm you up,” Jack says, steering Bittle toward a vendor selling overpriced spiced cider and mulled wine. 

Bittle doesn’t object when Jack pays for two glasses of wine, or two pretzels a few booths down. They eat and sip at their drinks as they walk the length of Main Street, stopping occasionally at another food booth or to get a closer look at an attraction. Bittle’s especially interested in the outdoor rink, which he takes photos of to show his contractor. 

Back in the car, Bittle scrolls through the pictures he took while Jack maneuvers out of their parallel parking spot. Even at this hour, people are still arriving, which Jack and Bittle agree is a positive sign. With the number of people still looking for street parking here, it might make sense to open parking at some of Samwell’s smaller parks and run shuttles to the main WinterFest venues. 

“It’s starting to feel real,” Bittle says, selecting a photo to post to his personal Instagram account. “What do you think?” he asks, showing Jack the picture of their two glasses of mulled wine. He’d made Jack wait to take a sip until he’d taken a picture of their gloved hands toasting in the ice garden, the wine the focus of the picture with the sculptures in the background blurred out and edited to make it look like they’re surrounded by ice.

“I think we can make a huge profit if we sell mulled wine,” Jack says, remembering the line at that booth.

Bittle giggles. “That’s you, always thinking about the bottom line.”

“That’s why you brought me, right?”

Bittle looks over at Jack, his expression somewhere between amused and exasperated. “Don’t sell yourself short. That numbers brain of yours is nice, but I told you before, you’re nice to have around too. All of you. When you’re not mocking my delicate Southern constitution.”

Bittle’s tone is light, but there’s a warmth in his words that warms Jack. He knows Larissa would have been Bittle’s first choice for a weekend companion, but when faced with other options, Bittle chose him. Maybe Chris had family obligations, but surely he could have brought Adam and Justin along, made it a boys’ weekend. But he didn’t. He chose Jack, and it feels like that means something.

It’s started to snow again, heavier flakes that Jack thinks won’t have much stick to them but are enough to be an annoyance while driving. Jack turns on the windshield wipers and watches as the flakes turn to slush that builds up on the edges of the windshield. “I know I complain about the cold,” Bittle says, pointing at some snow-topped trees on the side of the road, “but it really is beautiful. Was it weird for you when you were in school in California? Did you miss it?”

“A friend’s family had a cabin in Tahoe. Sometimes we’d go up and ski. It’s not really the same, though, when you have to drive a few hours to get to the snow. It was kind of nice being able to run outside year-round, though. I do miss that.”

“I bet,” Bittle agrees. “My first winter up here, my coach wanted me running every morning. Had to get used to using the treadmill in the gym because no way was I gonna risk turning an ankle on a patch of ice. ‘Course, once skating was over for me and I was all healed I did get used to running outside, sort of, but give me a temperature-controlled gym any day.”

“You can’t tell me you’d rather run on a treadmill,” Jack says, incredulous. 

“Of course I would.” Bittle begins ticking off reasons on his fingers. “I’m not gonna die of hypothermia or heat exhaustion, I can watch my shows while I’m running, if they’re playing something gross like Fox News there’s usually plenty of other stuff to look at.” Jack raises an eyebrow. “Men, Jack. I’m talking about men.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Jack laughs. 

“Not that I’m into the meathead type, necessarily,” Bittle continues, unprompted. “Gym bros are just a nice distraction when I’m on the struggle bus to nowhere.”

“Come running with me, sometime,” Jack says, absolutely not intending for that to come out the way it does. “I can’t promise the view will be as distracting, but we can stop for coffee afterward just to make sure it doesn’t feel like you’re going nowhere.”

“Maybe I will,” Bittle hums. “If you’re serious about that coffee.”

The inn they’re staying at is a few miles past the center of town, so it feels like they’ve only been driving for a few minutes when Bittle gently touches Jack’s arm. “I think you need to turn here,” he says, indicating a sign on the side of the road. In the dusk Jack can just make out the words “Hall House” along with a directional arrow indicating they should turn onto a narrow, two-lane road. 

It’s several minutes before they reach the front gate, where another sign notifies them the inn is farther down the road. A winding road — by the looks of it, recently plowed and salted — takes them past several small residences before they reach the main building, a traditional manor-style home decorated for the upcoming holidays with fresh greenery. It looks like something straight out of the Lifetime Christmas movie Jack’s mom filmed when he was a teenager. As they pull into the parking area, an honest-to-god horse-drawn carriage passes them. “Oh,” Bittle gasps, staring out the window until the carriage is out of sight. 

A welcoming wood burning fireplace is the focal point of the first floor, which functions as a check-in area and sitting room. Small groups, seated on the overstuffed chairs and couches, sip drinks over small appetizers. Jack spots a family of four seated around one table, playing a board game, and another group of older adults playing cards. In an overstuffed chair in the corner, a lone girl of about nine reads a well-loved copy of a fantasy novel Jack remembers reading when he was the same age.

Few people are checking in at this hour so it doesn’t take long to get settled. A woman named Mary finds Bittle’s reservation and checks them in, issuing two keys to a room on the third floor. “I suspect you’re here for Winter Carnival,” Mary says, “but here’s a map of the grounds if you want to go exploring. And this pamphlet has a little bit of history about the property and each of the buildings,” she tells them. “If you’re hungry, our restaurant—” she points at a building on the map—“is open until ten. And our carriage rides are just about wrapping up for the evening, but they’ll start up again at nine tomorrow morning. It’s something special we do only during the holiday season, and is really the best way to see the grounds. Of course, those old fashioned things don’t have heat, so be sure to grab some free hot chocolate and coffee here in the lobby before you head out. It’s available all day.”

Bittle asks Mary a few follow-up questions about breakfast hours and check-out on Sunday morning, and thanks her for her help. 

They’ve packed light, only one duffel each, so they decline the offer for help with their things and take the staircase up to the second floor. Bittle, a few steps ahead, glances back at Jack with a knowing smile. “If I know you, you’ll wanna check out all the historical stuff before we do anything else.”

“Eh, probably too dark tonight. Maybe tomorrow if we have time.” 

Bittle reaches their room at the end of the hallway just ahead of Jack and enters, only to abruptly stop in the doorway. “Oh!” he yelps. “I think, um, this room might not work out.”

“Bittle?” Jack asks, wondering what might elicit that reaction. “Is there a problem?” He remembers the story his parents love to tell about the time a four-star hotel double booked their room and a stranger walked in on them in the middle of … well, it’s not a story Jack would choose to share at parties, let alone with his own child.

“Oh, um, not a problem,” Bittle says, voice sounding slightly strangled. “It’s just, I might not’ve been super clear when I talked to Hannah about booking a room. Or maybe this was the only one available on short notice? Or maybe when I told her it would be me and my partner she assumed partner partner, when I was talking about business partner, and, well—” Bittle finally steps aside so Jack can get a look at what’s causing him so much distress—“there’s only one bed.”

There is, indeed, only one bed—a grand, antique-looking four-poster piled high with pillows and a fluffy duvet. It takes up so much space in the modestly-sized room that it’s hard to focus on anything else.

Bittle buries his face in his hands. “I’m so, so sorry about this.” His voice comes out muffled but Jack senses now is not the time to chirp him.

“It’s not a big deal,” Jack says, moving around him to get a better look at the room. On the wall to the left is a window, its curtains drawn back to reveal a view of the snow-covered grounds. On the wall opposite the bed is a writing desk, above which hangs a flat screen TV. A bottle of champagne, chilling in an ice bucket, sits in the middle of the desk. Two champagne glasses have been placed nearby.

Jack pointedly does not look at the champagne. “Really. Hockey, remember? They used to book us three or four to a room and it was inevitable that somebody had to share.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” Bittle says a little uncertainty. “I don’t mind sleeping on the floor. You’re a lot bigger than me, and probably need more room to stretch out.”

“I’m sure.” This bed is a lot bigger than those doubles they used to get during hockey tournaments, bigger even than the bed he and Camilla used to share. And though larger than Camilla, Bittle’s a lot smaller than those guys Jack played with as a teenager, so space isn’t an issue. 

Sure, there’s the complicating factor that ever since the drive up, proximity to Bittle has been doing interesting things to Jack’s body, but Jack can deal with that. Probably. The champagne complicates things, but he and Bittle have always kept their heads after drinking together. They don’t even have to open it tonight.

Bittle’s doing his best to change the subject by pointing out every other feature of the room. “Look at this stunning painting!” he enthuses, gesturing to an entirely unremarkable painting of a barn hanging above the bed. 

Jack sets his duffel on the floor of the closet and nudges the door closed with his foot. “Eh,” he says dismissively. “Larissa can do better.”

Bittle beams. “She can. Oh! Let’s check out the bathroom! I saw something on the website about a soaking tub!”

Right. Because pointing that out isn’t at least as awkward as the bed situation.

“Jack!” Bittle calls, his voice echoing in the cavernous bathroom. “There’s a tub and a shower. Guess if we overdo it on the ice tomorrow, we can recover with a nice soak. Ooh, they even left some scented Epsom salts!” Bittle walks out of the bathroom, a ribbon-tied sachet filled with lavender bath salts held out for Jack to see. “Bless their souls,” he says pityingly, “I think they did assume we’re partners in the lovers sense.”

Bittle’s words are the equivalent of a cold shower, effectively putting to bed any lingering concern (hope?) Jack might have that Bittle sees their relationship as anything but professional. It's kind of a relief. 

“Do you mind if I shower?” Bittle asks. “I can wait, if you wanna go first. You drove, it’s only fair you get first dibs on the shower. Or the tub, if you wanna bathe,” he says, dangling the sachet in front of Jack.

“Go ahead. I’ll just brush my teeth now and shower in the morning. Might get up early and go for a run.” 

Bittle makes a face at that. “Just so you know, I’m planning on sleeping in. Our meeting with Hannah is at eight.”

“That gives us plenty of time to get a good five miles in,” Jack says, only half joking. “It looks like the groundskeepers here keep the paths pretty well maintained; you probably don’t have to worry about ice.” 

“Or,” Bittle says, pulling some clothes and a toiletry bag out of his duffel, “I can get an extra hour of sleep.”

“Have it your way,” Jack says, extracting his toothbrush and toothpaste from his own bag and heading into the bathroom where the tub is, indeed, enormous. He quickly brushes he teeth and rinses his face with water so Bittle can get to his shower.

Once Jack hears the shower water running, he changes out of his jeans and sweater and tugs an old Cal T-shirt over his head. He settles into bed with his phone, intending to reply to a few texts, check his email. 

Except it’s hard to focus on email when Bittle is showering in the next room, singing a song Jack vaguely recognizes as being popular a few years back. It’s really hard to focus when his mind starts to wander in directions it really shouldn’t be wandering, the sound of running water conjuring images of what it must look like sluicing over Bittle’s bare shoulders, down his back. What it might feel like to lather those shoulders with soap, massage all of the tension out of them.

Fuck, Jack really needs to pull himself together. He’s a fucking liar for telling Bittle sharing a bed this weekend isn’t a big deal. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal when it was his teammates, or that time Shitty insisted on “cuddling for warmth” when the heater went out in their Minneapolis hotel room, but he wasn’t attracted to any of those people. He didn’t have to sit here, trying not to picture them in the shower, hoping his body stops betraying his feelings before Bittle gets back.

Bittle bounces out of the bathroom, clad in a pair of sweatpants and a threadbare SMH T-shirt that clings to his upper body in all the right places, which is somehow even better than Jack’s shower fantasy.

Bittle slides into his side of the bed, makes a little noise of approval when he sinks down into the pillows. Jack gets out of bed. Fuck it all. 

“Forget something?” Bittle asks pleasantly.

“I changed my mind about the shower.”

One very long, very cold shower later (Jack wasn’t timing it, but it was long enough to … calm down), Jack emerges from the bathroom and gets back in bed, careful not to disturb Bittle, whose eyes are closed. He’s already turned off the light on his side of the bed.

“Thought you were gonna stay in there all night,” Bittle chirps, confirming that a) he’s not asleep and b) Jack was in there for a long time. “Kind of easy to forget yourself in there, huh? So luxurious.”

“It was a nice shower,” Jack agrees, trying to find a comfortable position that respects the invisible boundary he imagines exists between himself and Bittle. He’s just turned out the light on his own nightstand when somebody’s phone buzzes with an incoming text. “Mine or yours?” Bittle asks as Jack reaches for his phone.

“Both,” Jack says, glancing at the sender and realizing he and Bittle have been added to a group chat with Shitty and Larissa. Shitty’s sent a picture of Larissa and his grandma grinning over bowls of spumoni ice cream at the same Italian restaurant they took Jack to once. “It looks like things are going well.”

In the light of his phone screen, Bittle’s pensive expression belies the two exclamation points and heart-eyes face he just sent to the group chat. Jack thumbs out a quick “nice” to let Shitty know he saw the picture and turns toward Bittle. “What’s wrong?”

Bittle turns his phone off and wiggles and shifts until he’s facing Jack. It’s harder to see his face now but his voice is cautious when he says, “He took her to meet his grandma. That’s a big deal.”

“It is.” Jack isn’t sure how much Shitty has told Larissa about his family—Shitty’s an open book, so he guesses all of it—or how much of it has trickled down to Eric, but even under normal circumstances, introducing your partner to your family is, as Eric put it, a “big deal.”

Maybe even bigger a deal, Jack muses, is the fact that Shitty hasn’t slept at their place in two weeks.  

Bittle’s next question comes on the heels of a yawn. “I don’t have to worry about Shitty, right? He’s not gonna up and leave like all the other guys Larissa’s been with, is he?”

Jack doesn’t know how to answer that question. They’re still planning to be out of Samwell by March. Their next job might be in the greater Boston area, but it might be on the other side of the country. This knowledge will always keep Jack in check, even with this ever-shifting boundary that seems to get blurrier by the minute.

But Jack isn’t Shitty, and Shitty does things his own way.

“He’s not going to hurt her,” Jack finally says, because that much he’s sure of. “I don't know how they'll handle long distance, if it comes to that, but I'm not worried.”

“Good,” Bittle says, pulling the blanket up closer to his chin. “‘Cause Larissa deserves someone who puts her first. She deserves the world.” The little sigh that escapes next is difficult to interpret. “We've always connected over bad boyfriends, you know? I'm over the moon happy for them. But at the same time I'm kind of—”

“Jealous?” Jack guesses.

“I guess,” Bittle groans into his pillow. “I have had very bad luck in the romance department. When you’ve been dumped in humiliating ways enough times, you have to learn to laugh about it. Otherwise it’s too easy to become cynical. And I don’t want to be cynical. I want to believe in love, even though it’s starting to feel like it’ll never happen for me. But it’s happening for her, so dare I say I’m beginning to have hope for myself?”

“You’re a romantic.” Jack nudges Bittle’s leg with his knee.

“I like to think of myself as a pragmatic romantic.”

“Pragmatic romantic,” Jack repeats.

“Are you?” Bittle asks.

“Pragmatic? Or romantic?” 

“Either/or? What’s Jack Zimmermann like when he’s in love?”

“Romance has never been a problem for me,” Jack allows. 

“Of course you’re a good boyfriend,” Bittle says, and there's an edge in his voice that borders on ... bitter.

Jack searches for something to say, something that doesn’t sound trite or flippant because the conversation demands more than a joke. Jack is a good boyfriend. Of this, he’s certain. When it comes to relationships, he’s all in. Sometimes his intensity is a good thing. He could tell Bittle about how he overnighted Camilla a cheesecake from her favorite hometown bakery for her birthday one year. Or that one holiday season when they were doing the long distance thing he planned a scavenger hunt for her, one clue for each night of Hanukkah, that ended with a plane ticket to meet him in Cancun. But it sounds like Bittle hasn’t had that experience in his relationships, and Jack doesn’t want to make him feel worse. 

Of course, Jack knows of one thing they could do that would resolve both of their current frustrations and make them both feel better, but that ultimately wouldn't solve anything. This whole afternoon has felt like they’re dancing on the edge of something, a tipping point they won’t be able to come back from. So Jack isn't going to kiss Bittle, or do anything else that might upend the weekend or the goal they've been working toward. Jack’s not brave like Shitty.

Chapter Text

Eric wakes up next to Jack and feels like crying. Whether in relief or frustration, he’s not sure. It isn’t sadness. Sadness is for the way he felt last night when Shitty lit up the newly-formed group chat with that picture of Larissa and his grandma, a sharp little stab that hit him in the softest part of his heart, even as he celebrated his best friend’s happiness.

No, this morning he feels like crying over what didn’t happen. If Jack was bothered by the bed mix-up, he didn’t let it show. He was a perfect gentleman about the whole situation. They both were. It’s a relief. And it’s also what’s got Eric all out of sorts this morning. At some point, despite knowing better, he convinced himself that maybe something could happen. There have been moments, he knows he’s not imagining them, when Jack will look at him a certain way, and it feels important. Like Jack thinks Eric is somebody important.

It most recently happened—well, it happened all day yesterday, but it most recently happened last night, just after that text and Eric’s little breakdown, his confession that he’s a tiny bit jealous of Larissa and Shitty and this wonderful new thing they have. There’d been a moment when Jack’s leg had lightly brushed against his and it had felt familiar and right, like a memory they haven’t yet made. And Jack’s voice, so understanding and patient. The moon provided just enough light for Eric to see that look on Jack’s face, maybe more unguarded  than usual because he didn’t realize Eric could see him.

And it would have been so easy to reach out, to press his leg back against Jack’s, brush his hand against Jack’s and see what happened next. But then Eric remembered they have work to do, a whole day together here in Stowe and a few more months in Samwell, and remembered that no matter how close they’ve grown, he needs to keep things professional.

“Sleep well?” Jack asks, rolling over and looking at his phone.

“You overslept,” Eric says, expecting Jack to be upset. “If you were planning to run, that is. Meeting with Hannah is in a half hour.”

Jack rolls back onto his back and stretches, puts his hands behind his head. Eric’s already sitting up, feet hanging off the edge of the bed. He looks back at Jack, one eyebrow raised.

“I guess I was tired,” Jack says. “Bed’s really comfortable. You’re a bad influence, Bittle. First you have me eating your mini pies, now I’m sleeping in … Don’t expect me to change my coffee order for you, though. That’s a bridge too far.”

Eric laughs sharply. “Noted. And you can’t blame me for sleeping in. Your alarm woke me up twice. Now come on, you moose—” Eric smacks the headboard, startling Jack, who hides his smile in his pillow—“we have a meeting to get to.”

There. He can be normal. It doesn’t have to be awkward at all.

Their meeting with Hannah, the woman who runs Stowe’s Winter Carnival, is short but productive. It’s an all-hands-on-deck weekend, but she’s gracious enough to give them an hour of her time and share the handbook she updates each year that discusses everything from volunteer recruitment and management to the success of various events. Over the years, Winter Carnival has been able to get the whole town on board. Many of the local restaurants have themed tasting menus the week of, for instance, even if they don’t have booths at the event itself.

“Do you have a board?” Hannah asks. Eric explains that WinterFest is a Parks Department project and the “board,” if there is one, consists of his staff, Jack, and Larissa. “As you grow,” Hannah says, “you might want to think about getting a board together to oversee things. As well as a staff. That way it doesn’t become your full-time job. And if you involve people from outside your organization, they’ll have a greater sense of ownership. That’s good for your event, and community pride.”

Eric allows himself to briefly fantasize about WinterFest being so successful that he can hire an entire staff whose sole responsibility is to work on it. Or, well, maybe one staffer to start. At any rate, a board is a good idea. He already has buy-in from some of the town’s most prominent business people; maybe they’ll be interested in acting in an advisory capacity if they do this next year. 

Jack’s by his side the whole time, taking notes and asking all the right questions about finances when Eric gets too caught up in other details.“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he cautions Eric after the meeting. It’s like he knows Eric’s brain is burning hot with new ideas he can’t wait to share with his staff. “One thing at a time, eh? Hannah had a lot of good advice and great ideas, but most of them will have to wait until next year. Let’s focus on those that will help with our immediate needs.”

This. This is why Eric and Jack make such a great team. This is why Eric can’t risk upsetting the balance they’ve found. It’s just too bad Jack won’t be around next year, when things really take off.

Eric and Jack return to the office on Monday filled with renewed enthusiasm as they move into the next stage of WinterFest planning. And when Shitty and Larissa burst into his office to announce the posters have arrived from the printer, it hits Eric that this is really happening.

“Look at these!” Eric gasps when they’re all displayed on the conference room table. Larissa’s Mid-Century Modern-inspired scenes of hockey players facing off, a figure skater mid-spin, a snow-dusted City Hall, and the festival’s signature pastry and beverage are bright and cheerful. “I want to marry these! They’re gorgeous! I can’t wait to plaster the whole town with ‘em.”

Eric’s “street team”—a dozen high school students who are helping out with PR for volunteer credit—has been tasked with putting the posters up at the schools, libraries, coffee shops, and other high-traffic areas around town, but he wants to hang the first one himself. Jack, Shitty, and Larissa follow him out of the office, where he affixes one of the posters to the door.

“Starting to feel real?” Jacks asks him as they stand back to admire it.

“Too real,” Eric confesses. “I still have so much to do!”

“Well, you’re taking a break tonight because Shits and I are having a party,” Larissa informs him. “Both of you,” she adds, glancing sideways at Jack.

“On a Monday night?” Jack asks to groans from Shitty and Larissa.

“Just a little get together at Larissa’s,” Shitty says, stretching a bit to catch Jack in a headlock. “Even you are not so married to your job that you can’t take a night off for a little fun with your best bro.” He plants a kiss on the side of Jack’s head. “Come on, man.”

“We did work all weekend,” Eric muses. “I guess it won’t hurt to take one night off.”

“Great!” Shitty says, and releases Jack so abruptly that Jack staggers backwards. “Do you mind bringing dessert? Cake would be great. Jack-o, what can we put you down for?”

“Euh…” 

“I’ll help him,” Eric assures Shitty. “Don’t worry, we’ll come up with something real nice. A charcuterie board, maybe? And another with cheese? How many people are you expecting?”

“I literally could not tell you.” Shitty grins, arms spread wide. “The more the merrier, right babe? Forty?”

“Maybe more,” Larissa says.

Eric’s slightly taken aback—Larissa’s place isn’t that big!—but his manners don’t slip. “Any special requests?” he asks pleasantly, all of his senses on high alert though he can’t quite pinpoint why. “I can do a ‘naked’ cake, or flourless chocolate, or maybe something with a classic buttercream—”

“You’re the baker,” Shitty says. “I trust you. But if you can throw a little something into the batter, I don’t think anybody’ll complain. You feel me?”

Jack groans. “Are you sure we should be having this conversation at work?”

“It’s legal,” Shitty protests.

“No,” Eric says emphatically. “My recipes aren’t calibrated for … that. And Jack has a point, it’s Monday. We all have to work tomorrow.”

Shitty only has time to be briefly disappointed, because he spots Adam stepping out of the elevator at the end of the hallway and sprints off after him, yelling something about spreading the word. Larissa shrugs and follows.

“Do you have time to make a cake for ‘forty, maybe more?’” Jack asks when their friends are out of earshot.

Eric smiles a little uncertainly. “No. But I always do my best work when I’ve got a deadline looming, and I got into the office at six, so I can afford to leave a little early today.”

“I have a meeting in about an hour and then I can take off, too. Do you want to go shopping with me?”

Eric side-eyes him. “Is this your way of getting me to make your charcuterie board for you?” He claps a hand to his mouth, eyes wide in exaggerated surprise. “Wait, do you even know what a charcuterie board is?”

“My parents have a lot of parties. I know what a charcuterie board is. I’ve just never made one.”

“Fine,” Eric agrees. It’s not like his answer was ever in question; it’s just fun to tease Jack a bit. “Another set of hands will be helpful with the cake, anyway. And I have some boards you can borrow.”

“Wait, I never said anything about baking a cake.”

“Do you want my help or not?” Eric asks sweetly. “I took a whole charcuterie board-making workshop last year. We can put a few together while the cake’s baking.” He pulls out his phone and navigates to his favorite baking website. There’s got to be something he can pull together quickly that won’t taste like he pulled it together quickly. “Maybe I can doctor a boxed cake mix,” he says, thinking out loud. “Add some instant pudding and—” he stops when he realizes Jack’s staring at him. “What’re you looking at?” 

“Nothing,” Jack says. “Just thinking.”

“Huh,” Eric hums, turning back to his phone. “How do you feel about chocolate cake? Or I could do a multi-layer thing, with different flavors? I wonder how many people they’re really expecting; I can do a second cake that’s vegan and gluten-free if you think we’ll need…” 

Jack’s laugh is warm and full. “Come on, Bittle,” he says, steering him back into the office. “Let’s focus on work right now and figure the rest out later.”

As if Eric will be able to focus on work now that he has a baking assignment. Who does Jack Zimmermann think he is?

They’ve been bumping elbows in the kitchen all afternoon. While Eric efficiently measures out ingredients and mixes batter, he instructs Jack in the finer points of baking on short notice. “A lot of people think they have to bake from scratch and there are certainly easy-to-follow recipes that are good for beginners,” he explains as he cracks two eggs into a glass mixing bowl, “but there’s nothing wrong with doctoring up a boxed mix. The professionals do it all the time.” 

After much deliberation in the grocery store aisles, Eric had finally decided to make a 7 Up cake and a rich chocolate cake, both easy recipes he can make using boxed cake mixes—one white, the other gluten free chocolate—and a few other additions. 

One addition being Kahlua, which Eric added to the chocolate cake batter and also the pot of coffee he put on as soon as they got back to his place. Between the alcohol-spiked coffee and the oven, it’s is a little warm in here, but not uncomfortable. It’s cozy, baking with Jack. 

Jack told Eric he doesn’t have a lot of experience in the kitchen, but that he baked with his grandmothers as a kid. And that he’s been cooking for himself since he was in college. But he seems to enjoy playing up his ignorance, chirping Eric and pretending he doesn’t know the first thing about baking.

“Oil?” he asks, pulling a bottle of olive oil out of the cupboard and handing it off to Eric, trying and failing to bite back a smile that gives him away when Eric tsks at him. 

“Vegetable oil,” Eric corrects, gently taking the bottle from Jack and putting it back in the cupboard. “Olive’ll spoil the flavor.” He grabs the vegetable oil off the same shelf and hands it to Jack. “Here.”

“I read applesauce is healthier,” Jack says. “Have you ever tried that?”

“Are you really tryin’ to make me have a conniption in my own kitchen? It’s a cake, Jack. It’s not supposed to be healthy. Believe me, once I get the frosting on this baby, the few calories we’d save using applesauce ain’t gonna matter.” This boy. He’s probably going to try to convince Eric that he should put protein powder in the cake, too.

Jack chuckles. “Okay,” he says, unscrewing the cap on the vegetable oil. “The box says to add a half cup of this. Can I use any cup?” he asks, pulling a water class out of the cupboard.

Eric gapes at him like he’s grown a second head and pelts him with a crumpled up paper towel.

“I’m Canadian!” Jack protests. “We use metric. I don’t know about all these ‘cups’ and ‘spoons.’”

“You’re a troublemaker, is what you are,” Eric grumbles. “I bet you knew that about the olive oil, too. Just remember, you may call the shots at the office, but when you’re in my kitchen, we do things my way.”

“I wouldn’t dream of defying your orders,” Jack says dryly, which earns him another paper towel to the chest. 

Soon enough, both cakes are in the oven and Eric has whipped up a batch of buttercream frosting. “This is better than the canned stuff, and the bakery, too,” he says. Jack, after accepting the taste he offers, agrees. It’s neither too heavy nor too sweet; it’s the perfect complement to the dense chocolate cake and the airier white cake. The latter of which will be topped with rainbow sprinkles. The sprinkles, to Eric’s surprise, were Jack’s idea. “Shits always gets sprinkle doughnuts,” he’d said with a shrug as he tossed the container in the cart.  Eric had allowed it because sprinkles, unlike applesauce, are an ingredient he can get behind. Everything is better with sprinkles.

“Park here,” Eric instructs, pointing at the curb in front of Larissa’s condo. Shitty’s car is in the driveway, but otherwise it looks like they’re the first to arrive. The front door flies open before they even make it to the porch.

“Oh good, you’re here,” Larissa says, ushering them in and closing the door behind them like they’re on the lam from the FBI. “I thought it might be my parents and I am not ready for my mother to see the place like this.” She gestures to the living room, which Shitty’s vacuuming with an old canister vacuum that Eric has always suspected was manufactured during the Cold War.

“Your parents?” Eric asks, confused. “I thought this was just …” a nervous giggle escapes before he can stop it. “Well, now I’m glad I didn’t make a weed cake like Shitty wanted.”

Larissa rolls her eyes. “Believe me, by the end of tonight we may all wish you had. Shitty!” she yells over the vacuum. “Shits!”

Shitty turns the vacuum off and Eric notices how Jack visibly relaxes once the noise stops. “Yeah, so,” Larissa says, grinning at them as Shitty joins them and places a hand on her shoulder, “nobody knows this yet, but this isn’t just a party. We’re getting married tonight.”

It takes Eric a split second longer to make sense of Larissa’s words than it should, and then they hit him. “Larissa Duan!” he says sharply. “You are not getting married tonight!” 

Larissa and Shitty just look at each other tenderly. “Yeah, we are,” Shitty says, never taking his eyes off of Larissa. “I know it’s sudden, but—” 

“Sudden?” Eric screeches. “You barely know each other! You can’t just get married. You need to plan these things!” Is this real life? It all feels like some sort of bizarre dream. Sure, Shitty introduced Larissa to his grandma the other night and it went well, but there are like a dozen more steps between “meet the family” and “get married” and they’ve skipped over all of them!

“We’ve known each other for three months,” Larissa says calmly. “We spend all of our time together. Shitty moved in last week—” Eric looks to Jack, to see how he’s taking this. Did he know Shitty moved in with Larissa last week? Wouldn’t he have told Eric if he did? But Jack looks just as blindsided as Eric feels. 

“—which you would know if you weren’t spending all of your free time—” 

“Working. I know,” Eric says over Larissa’s quiet “with Jack.” Jack places a gentle, grounding hand on Eric’s shoulder but if he thinks that’s going to stop Eric from giving everyone a piece of his mind … well, if Jack thinks that then he obviously learned nothing during his first week in town.

“I know I’ve been working a lot, but I didn’t think this is the way I’d find out about this.” He looks around the room and notices, for the first time, the assortment of clearly reused party decorations adorning the walls: a giant cutout of the current year that must be from last New Year’s Eve, various Pride banners, a pink and blue banner that reads “Congratulations!”

Jack spots the same banner and he turns white. “Euh … you’re not … expecting, are you?” 

Larissa and Shitty both follow their gazes to what is very obviously a baby shower decoration. “No,” Larissa reassures them. “God, no, can you imagine? If I had any desire to have kids at all I’d want to have, like, a million of Shitty’s babies, but no. That’s leftover from my cousin’s baby shower.”

“Oh my god,” Eric groans, burying his face in his hands. “You have to take that down. People are going to assume.”

“Let them!” Shitty says. “We have nothing to hide.”

Jack’s already taking the banner down. He carefully folds it up and hands it to Eric. “Uh,” he says, finally finding his voice, “this is a lot of information. I agree with Eric that maybe you should take a little more time to be sure this is what you want.”

“Says the guy who called off his wedding,” Shitty says, placing a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Brah. You know how when you and Camilla called it quits, you said it was because you both knew it wasn’t the right thing? That no matter how much you both wanted it to work, it just wasn’t working?”

Jack nods.

“Well, that’s kind of how it is with us, except the other way around. We kept telling each other that it couldn’t work, but sometimes you just have to give in to what the heart wants. We’re in love.”

“You think you’re in love,” Eric seethes. “What happens when the honeymoon period wears off?” He turns back to Larissa so quickly he worries for a second that he’s given himself whiplash. “How do you know he’s not like all those other trust fund assholes who think it’s cool to have an artist girlfriend until he realizes he has to introduce you to his family as the artist responsible for the giant toilet sculpture?”

Larissa makes a hurt, strangled sound and that’s when Eric realizes he’s gone too far. Shitty takes a step toward him and he flinches instinctively, coming out of his crouch only when he realizes Shitty isn’t going to hit him. 

“Because I’m not like those other trust fund assholes,” Shitty says gently. “Fuck, I can’t wait to tell my entire family that my wife designed that giant toilet. If this is the thing that finally gets me disowned, so be it. Love wins!”

“That’s not really what ‘love wins’ means,” Eric mutters.

“Hey, um—” Jack, still standing so close, nudges the back of Eric’s leg with his knee. “Why don’t you and I go pick up a few bottles of champagne for toasting later?” It’s obviously an excuse to get Eric out of here before he says anything he can’t take back, but in the back of his mind, underneath the surprise and hurt and anger, he recognizes that he needs some room to process this. Feeling strangely numb, he lets Jack guide him out of the house and back to the car.

Jack doesn’t say anything for the longest time, and Eric wonders if he went too far this time. After all, Shitty is Jack’s best friend. Eric’s opposition to this marriage probably looks like… “I know we just talked about this the other night. I trust you when you say Shitty’s a good guy. I don’t think he’s a bad person,” Eric finally blurts out as Jack turns into the Trader Joe’s parking lot. It’s Monday evening so of course the the place is packed. Jack circles the lot twice before he replies.

“I know,” he says. A white Lexus two stalls ahead of them begins to back out and Jack turns on his turn signal.

“I’m just worried they’re making a big mistake.”

“Because they’re rushing into this?”

“It’s been barely three months. How well can they know each other?!”

“Fuck,” Jack mutters under his breath as a car driving the wrong way down the row cuts him off and steals the spot he was angling toward. “Sorry,” he apologizes. “Did you know my parents dated for two months before they got married? And that they were long distance for most of those two months?”

“Seriously?” Jack has revealed bits and pieces of personal history over budget spreadsheets and post-practice dinners. Yet even viewed through Jack’s more personal filter, the elder Zimmermanns remain glamorously mysterious. Maybe he figures Eric has already looked the basics up on Wikipedia. “Wow. My parents started dating in high school and didn’t get married until after college.”

“Nobody thought it would last. My mom had just gotten out of a longterm relationship and everyone thought it was a rebound thing. You know the story, right?”

“N—oh, there’s a car pulling out right there!—tell me.”

“They met at a club in Hollywood. Maman was living there at the time and Papa was in town for a roadie. They danced together and had a couple drinks and then some model Maman knew ended up inviting them to some party in the Hollywood hills.”

“Ooh, was there, like, cocaine and stuff?” Eric interrupts. He can’t help it. Jack comes from such a different world.

“It was the eighties, so probably,” Jack says, looking visibly uncomfortable. “They were together all night and got brunch the next morning. Maman says that would have been the end of it because they didn’t exchange numbers, but Papa couldn’t stop thinking about her. He had his agent reach out to her agent and invite her to one of his home games.”

“And she went?” Eric asks. “Wasn’t he, like, playing in Pittsburgh back then?” Goodness, Jack talks about his parents’ cross-country dating like they lived on opposite ends of town. 

“Yeah,” Jack chuckles. “She basically flew out for the evening then flew back because she had an audition the next day. They started talking pretty regularly after that. It was awards season and she’d had a small role in a movie that was up for a few, so she invited him to be her date to the Oscars. Depending on who you ask, it was their second or third date. Apparently they got into some exclusive after-party and did shots with Cher, and that’s when they decided to get married.”

“Your parents did not do shots with Cher,” Eric refutes, even though it seems like a weird detail for Jack, of all people, to make up.

“Well, Papa says they did, but Maman is pretty sure she was a drag queen. The main point is that they got married on their third date.”

“Which was the Oscars.” What is Jack’s life? 

“They’re still married. Obviously. They’ve been through a lot together. Papa’s retirement. Maman’s midlife career slump. Even all my stupid shit didn’t break them. So I wouldn’t bet against Shitty and Larissa. Shitty is impulsive,” Jack says carefully, “but he has good instincts. I wouldn’t be able to work with him if he didn’t.”

Eric considers this. Jack and Shitty are very different. And yet, he’s worked with Jack just long enough to know that without Shitty, Jack would somehow be even more intolerable than he was in those first days.

“I don’t know Larissa very well,” Jack adds as he gets out of the car, “but she seems to be Shitty’s equal in every way.”

“She’s just such a strong person, you know? I’d hate to see her light go out because of some guy. And believe me, a few have tried.”

“Shitty’s not like that,” Jack says with certainty. “Once he loves you, he doesn’t stop. He’s the most loyal person I know. Look at me. I’m an asshole, and he’s never given up on me. He decided he was my best friend whether I liked it or not, and now he’s stuck with me. Shitty listens to his intuition far more than he listens to his brain, but he’s not reckless.”

“I—I guess I don’t know him too well,” Eric mumbles.

“And he’s not going to extinguish her light. If anything, he wants somebody who’s not afraid to put him in his place.” 

“Oh, she will,” Eric says. Of this, he’s certain. 

“He needs it,” Jack replies, ushering him through the store’s double doors.

They’re silent for a while as the contemplate various bottles of champagne. Eric is pretty sure Jack, whose parents have done shots with Cher (maybe), has a better idea of what’s good, but when Eric holds up a $10 bottle and a slightly pricier bottle of pink champagne, what he says is, “Shits will want the cheap stuff. Even if nobody from his family shows up, he’ll want to prove a point.”

Eric clutches the rosé to his chest. “But this one’s so pretty,” he gushes. Already, he’s imagining how it will look on Instagram.

Jack’s smile is indulgent. “We can get both,” he says as he begins putting bottles in the cart. “I’m good for it.”

Eric does the mental math and nearly chokes. Even at only ten dollars a bottle, it adds up. This is a far cry from the guy who has something to say about every line item in Eric’s budget. But that’s Jack, isn’t it? He gives 100 percent to everything, whether it’s work or his friends. So help Eric, he’s starting to find this quality of Jack’s endearing.

Jack’s turning from the shelf to the cart, a bottle in each hand, when he catches Eric starting at him. “What? Is there something on my face?”

“Wha’—ah, no!” Eric says, flustered. “I wanna grab another bottle of rosé and you’re in my way. C’mon, move your big—”

“My big—?” Jack asks with a smirk. He turns back toward the shelf and Eric could swear he’s deliberately trying to take up more space. When he turns around to hand Eric the bottle of rosé, he’s smiling. “I know my butt’s big, Bittle. You aren’t the first person who’s noticed.”

“Lord,” Eric breathes, snatching the bottle away from Jack. “I’m not … noticing. I’m stating a fact. It’s a compliment. Nobody ever wrote a rap song about a tiny butt.”

Jack’s laugh, when he really laughs, is low and rumbly. It’s Jack’s laugh that gets Eric laughing, and once he’s laughing he realizes he feels a whole lot better about everything, and it’s mostly because of Jack. 

They stand there, smiling goofily at one another in the middle of the Trader Joe’s wine aisle, until they’re interrupted by somebody clearing their throat.

“Excuse me,” a woman with a child in the front of her cart says. “If you wouldn’t mind moving over just a little—”

“Of course. We’re just finishing up here,” Eric says automatically, moving the cart down the aisle a bit to make room for the woman and her cart. Jack eyes the cart and grabs two more bottles for good measure. When he catches Eric’s eye again, he’s still smiling. 

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Eric says when as they load the bags of champagne into the back of Jack’s car. “I know Shitty’s a good guy. I’m happy for him and Larissa. I know he’ll treat her right. It’s just so sudden.”

Jack pauses, hand on the hatch. “I’m not the one you need to apologize to.”

“I know,” Eric says, feeling guilty. This whole situation is deeply weird, but it makes him feel a little queasy to know that his attitude might spoil his best friend’s wedding and drive a wedge between them. Might have already spoiled his best friend’s wedding and driven a wedge between them, one that can’t be removed.

“Are you upset that it’s sudden, or are you upset that Larissa made this decision without talking to you first?” Jack asks.

Darn Jack Zimmermann for getting it in one. Eric tries to formulate a response that doesn’t make himself seem completely selfish.

“It was something you said in there, about how you’ve missed out because you’ve been working a lot,” Jack says gently. “I know she’s your best friend. It must be difficult to feel left out of something that’s so important to her.”

That’s exactly it. “We tell each other everything. Or, we did. I know I haven’t been a very good friend lately; if I’m feeling left out of this big thing in her life, it’s my own fault.”

“Well, they have kind of been in their own little bubble,” Jack concedes. “I didn’t even realize Shitty’s officially moved out. I thought he was just staying over. And,” he adds, “you’ve been busy. People understand that. If Larissa were really upset with you, she wouldn’t have asked you to show up before everybody else.”

Jack’s being very careful not to assign blame here, even as Eric knows this—or, his reaction to this—is his fault. It’s not quite like Jack’s on his side, but it’s gratifying to know Jack understands where he’s coming from. It’s okay to tell Jack how he really feels. “I also kind of hate myself right now because—I know we just talked about this the other night—I’m jealous.” It’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s true. Or, it feels true. Part of what makes this feel so bad is seeing how happy Larissa and Shitty are. Eric wants somebody to look at him the way they look at each other, and he’s starting to suspect it’s never going to happen.

“It’s going to happen for you,” Jack says, echoing his reassurance from Saturday night.

“Really?” Eric asks, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “How many bad first dates is it gonna take before that? When’s the last time you got puked on in the middle of a first date? I’m gonna go ahead and guess never. I seem to have a knack for attracting the ones who find the best ways to humiliate me.” Eric laughs self-deprecatingly, but it doesn’t stop the tears from building behind his eyes.

“You’d be surprised,” Jack says gently.

“Come on.”

“Okay, nobody’s ever puked on me, but at least you didn’t almost marry the wrong person.”

Eric smiles a little sadly. “So it’s true, what Shitty said in there? You were engaged?”

Jack nods. “A couple years ago.”

“Why’d you call it off? You don’t have to tell me if it’s too personal,” Eric quickly adds. “I’m just being nosy.”

Jack’s quiet for a moment, and Eric wonders if he’s overstepped. He’s still learning where that line is with Jack. “What Shitty said in there,” he finally says. “Neither of us was feeling it. We’d been together a few years and it seemed like the next step. But we realized pretty quickly that neither of us really wanted to be married. Not to each other, anyway. Camilla has a local talk show on one of the Boston TV stations. She’s always going to events for work and expected me to accompany her when I was in town. That’s a reasonable expectation, but I travel a lot for work, so when I’m not on the road I like to be at home. That wasn’t the only thing, obviously. But everything kind of cascaded from there. As much as we enjoy each other’s company, it didn’t make sense to stay together when we have such different ideas about how to support each other.”

“I guess that’s a good reason to not get married,” Eric says, feeling a little sad for Jack nonetheless. Breakups, even when mutual, are hard. “I’m glad it was amicable. I’ve had so many awful breakups and then it’s so awkward when you run into each other at the store where he’s buying champagne and berries for what is very obviously a sexy night in with his new lover and you’re buying butter because you’re gonna bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies and eat your feelings and— Oh my god! Did you just say your ex is named Camilla and has a TV show?”

“Euh … yes?”

“As in Camilla Collins? You were engaged to Camilla Collins?!” Eric yelps. Camilla Collins is only the reigning queen of daytime TV. Well, regional daytime TV. Her talk-show style show runs right before the afternoon news, and serves up a mix of in-studio interviews with local people of interest and produced segments. A Camilla Collins endorsement is worth its weight in gold. Already, Eric’s anticipating the ticket presales bump they’d get from an appearance on her show.

“For almost two years,” Jack confirms.

“I’m sorry, you just rocked my little world.” Eric lightly punches Jack’s bicep. “When were you going to tell me you used to date Camilla Collins?”

Jack laughs. “Really, Bittle? You had no idea who my parents are when I met you, yet you go full fan boy over the host of a regional talk show?”

“I’ve only been trying to get her show to promote our stuff for years,” Eric huffs. “Press release after press release, and all we get from them is radio silence. And now you tell me you’ve been connected the whole time? Jack, her show would be the perfect place for us to promote WinterFest!”

Jack’s laugh is that same full, low laugh from the grocery store and his smile is indulgent. “For you, Bittle, I think I can make that happen.”

“I’m not upset that you’re marrying Shitty Knight. I’m upset because I didn’t know. And that’s on me. If I were a better friend, I would have noticed.” 

Eric confesses this to Larissa when he and Jack return with the champagne. They’re squeezed into her bathroom, Larissa perched on the side of the bathtub while Eric squats in front of her with an eyeliner pen in one hand and a glass of something Shitty referred to as “tub juice” in the other. Shitty sent him back there when he and Jack returned from the store, after Eric apologized to Shitty for earlier and insisted he’s here to support them.

“You’re not selfish,” Larissa reassures him as he carefully applies the liner to her left eyelid, attempting to match the right side as closely as possible. How many times have they performed this exact ritual in this bathroom, getting ready for a night out and gossiping about the boys they hope to meet? Now Larissa’s getting married, and they’ll never get to do this again.

“Shut up,” she says when Eric voices this fear. “First, you’re the only person I trust to do my face. You think that fool out there knows what a cat eye is?” Eric manages a watery smile. “And second, you’re still single. We have lots more nights out ahead. I’m getting married, not dying.”

“And you’re sure you’re sure about this?” Eric asks. He wants to give her one more out, a chance to climb out the window and run, but mostly he needs to reassure himself.

Larissa’s expression softens. “Yeah. I know it’s hard to understand, but Shits makes me feel … seen. He thinks what I do is cool, and he doesn’t give a fuck that it’s not ‘respectable.’ At first I thought his whole thing was performative. I’ve been burned too many times by guys who wanted diversity points or thought it was cool to date an artist. But he’s actually really sweet, and vulnerable. I like that about him. He’s not afraid to let me take the lead.”

“That’s basically what Jack said. I guess I really don’t know him that well, outside of work,” Eric admits. “But I don’t think Jack would be friends with him if he weren’t a good guy.”

“Oh?” Larissa asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Jack’s…careful.” Eric riffles through Larissa’s makeup bag until he finds the lip stain he’s looking for, a deep maroon color called Bo$$ B!tch that’s the exact color of the slip dress she’s wearing. “Don’t talk,” he orders as he begins outlining her lips.

Annoyed at being asked to stop talking, Larissa makes a low humming sound. “What?” Eric demands, handing her a tissue to blot.

“You and Jack just seem pretty chummy lately.” Larissa crumples up the tissue and tosses it at the trash, raising both arms in victory when it lands in the basket.

“It’s because I’ve been working so much. Jack … keeps me on track. He’s good at spreadsheets and stuff.”

“Oh, I bet he’s good at spreading in the sheets.”

“Larissa Duan!” Eric admonishes, because now how is he going to stop that mental image from invading his brain the next time Jack mentions spreadsheets. “Why does your mind always go to the dirtiest place? Jack and I have a very professional relationship.”

“Mmhm.”

“Even if something happens—which it won’t, because we are both professionals who value our working relationship—it wouldn’t last. He’s leaving Samwell after WinterFest, remember?” It’s hurts to say it out loud. In the back of his mind, Eric knows that the countdown to WinterFest is also a countdown to Jack leaving. In a few weeks, Jack will exit Eric’s life just as suddenly as he entered it. And yeah, back at the beginning of all of this Eric didn’t think he could say goodbye fast enough, but as the day draws closer he’s begun to dread it, just a little. He’s not ready to say goodbye.

Larissa shrugs. “Plans change, Bits. Shitty’s not going back on the road after this. He wants to stay here in Samwell.”

That’s … news. Wonderful news for Larissa and Shitty, who won’t have to be long distance newlyweds, but maybe not so much for Shitty’s business partner. “Does Jack know?”

“I think he’s telling him right now. That’s the plan. We wanted to talk to you separately so we could ask you to be our best men. Probably should have done that before springing this whole wedding thing on you but—” Larissa shrugs—“I’m doing it now.”

“Oh,” Eric breathes, too surprised to say anything else.

“Will you? Be my best man?” There’s a note of uncertainty in Larissa’s voice that Eric’s pretty sure is there only because of his earlier reaction. 

“Girl,” Eric says, feeling tears prickle behind his eyes. “You know you don’t even have to ask.” He glances down at his clothes, the jeans and sweater he wore to work and hasn’t bothered to change out of. At least they’re nice jeans.

“You look great,” Larissa assures him. She picks a rainbow sprinkle off of his collar and pops it in her mouth. “And see, this way you don’t have to rent a tux.”

“Heaven forbid I rent a tux for the biggest day of your life,” Eric laughs. He helps Larissa to her feet and pulls her over to the mirror over the sink. In her minidress and combat boots, she looks more like a nineties riotgrrl than a bride, but Eric would expect nothing less of Larissa Duan.

“Not the biggest day of my life,” she corrects. “The biggest day of my life was when my first solo show opened. And the second biggest day of my life was the day I signed the contract for the giant toilet. This is, like, a distant third.”

“Well, as long as Shitty knows where he ranks,” Eric laughs. 

“Oh, he does.” Their reflections lock eyes and they both burst into quiet giggles. “Stop!” Eric warns. “You’re gonna mess up your lipstick. You know,” he adds, “as your best man, you are denying me the honor of planning your bachelorette party. I’ve had a Pinterest board going for years. Do you have any idea how much lead time I need for those gourmet penis gummies I found on Etsy?”

Larissa rolls her eyes. “Share the link with me and I’ll order them when you get married. And don’t say it’ll never happen,” she warns when he rolls his eyes “Look at me and Shitty. Anything can happen.”

On the other side of the door Eric can hear the house begin to fill with guests, the indistinct hum of chatter and drinks being poured. From its place on the edge of the sink, Eric’s phone lights up with a text message from Jack: “You two almost ready? We’ve got a full house out there.”

Eric reaches for the phone to reply but Larissa grabs his hand instead. It’s shaking, Eric thinks, but then he realizes it’s his hand that’s shaking. Larissa’s hand is cool and steady. “Just give me a moment,” she says. Eric nods. Once they step through this door, everything is going to change. Everything changes all the time, but suddenly it feels like time’s moving too quickly. His best friend is getting married, the fate of the rink is still up in the air, Jack is leaving soon. Too soon. Larissa meets his eyes again and she offers his hand a small squeeze, like she knows what he’s thinking.

Eric swallows down his anxiety. “Are you ready to put a ring on it?”

Larissa snorts. “Is anybody ever ready?” She bumps Eric with her shoulder. “Not at all. But I can’t wait to marry that weirdo out there.”

“Well, Ms. Duan,” Eric says, unable to keep from smiling, “your weirdo awaits.”

It’s a beautiful wedding. 

Shitty cries in the middle of his improvised vows. Larissa laughs at him, but then cries during her own. When Adam—who got ordained online three years ago and was thrilled to finally officiate a wedding—proclaims them married and they kiss, Jack catches Eric’s eye and smiles one of those genuine Jack Zimmermann smiles that Eric used to think were rare but turns out aren’t so rare at all. He feels his own smile grow in response. Their best friends are married, which means he and Jack are kind of best-friends-in-law now. Whatever happens, they’re all in this together. There’s a group chat to prove it.

At one point during her vows Larissa promised to divorce Shitty “at least once” so she can marry him all over again, but Eric doesn’t really think that will happen. This is real and it’s forever and it’s kind of scary, but it’s also kind of awesome. 

“Looks like your cakes were a hit,” Jack says after Eric has served the last guest. He’s holding a bottle of champagne and two mugs. “Uh, they ran out of glasses,” he says as he fills the one that has a picture of Bob Ross on it and hands it to Eric. 

Eric’s already had two glasses of champagne on top of the tub juice he had while Larissa was getting ready, which is two glasses of champagne too many considering he hasn’t had a bite to eat all night, but he accepts Jack’s offering. “Sounds about right for this wedding,” he says, raising his mug and lightly tapping Jack’s. They each sip and then Jack speaks.

“Euh, I guess Larissa told you that Shits is staying in Samwell when our assignment here is over. I feel kind of stupid. I didn’t see this coming either.”

“You just hid your surprise a lot better,” Eric says.

“My mom’s an actress.” Jack takes another sip. 

Eric smiles. “It sounds like there are some big changes in store for you. Are you feeling okay about it?” 

“You know, I actually think I am. Our boss keeps saying our next assignment will be smaller; I’ll probably be able to handle it on my own. It’ll be good for me.”

“You could always stay, too,” Eric says, trying to keep the hope out of his voice. What is he doing?

“I could,” Jack says. It’s hard to read his tone. 

“Even if you have to be on the road a lot, it’ll be nice to be near friends. Keep me from being the third wheel with those two lovebirds.” Eric shoots a pointed glance at Shitty and Larissa, who are wrapped around each other on a makeshift dance floor they created by moving Larissa’s living room furniture out of the way. They’re gazing at each other as if they’re the only ones in the room, and Eric has to admit that it seems as real as his parents’ love for one another. He may feel a little jaded right now, but he’ll always be a romantic at heart. 

“Ha ha.” 

“Well, maybe just think about it,” Eric suggests. “I’ll miss you if you leave.” This third glass of champagne maybe wasn’t the best idea. The world is starting to shimmer around the edges, and Jack is starting to look very … well, Jack always looks good but right now he looks warm and relaxed. His smile is soft and it reaches his eyes, which crinkle at the corners. Eric likes it. He likes everything about Jack, really. When they first met he was so stiff and cold, but he seems softer now. 

This soft, almost sweet Jack is so much more dangerous than buttoned up, angry-eyes Jack. Soft, almost sweet Jack looks like an option. Not just somebody Eric could have fun with for one night, but somebody Eric can see himself spending every night with.

“I need to get home!” Eric yelps, even though nobody here has said anything about anything.

“Okay?”

“Plants. I have to water my plants. They’re on a very strict schedule, there’s plant food and water and I have to make sure they’re getting enough light,” Eric babbles.

Jack nods seriously even though Eric has just spouted a waterfall of drivel. It’s a lot, even for him. “I should get a plant,” Jack says. “It might make my place seem like more of a home. Do you have any recommendations?”

“I, uh, don’t exactly have a green thumb,” Eric confesses. That’s an understatement. His spider plant is days away from becoming compost. All the more reason to get home and water it. “I just try hard, I guess. I’m still learning. You know, working my way up. Maybe someday I’d like to get a real pet, and I can hardly expect to keep an animal alive if I can’t keep a plant alive.”

“But a cat or dog would tell you when it’s hungry,” Jack points out.

“That is true,” Eric says carefully. “And they keep you warm in bed at night. Plants don’t do that. Boyfriends do, but I’ve gotta get one of those first!” 

Jack smirks and it’s only then that Eric’s own words register. Lord, he’s had too much to drink. It’s definitely time to go home, else he’s liable to throw himself at Jack. And that would make work tomorrow really awkward. “But,” Eric continues, draining the last of his champagne, “you should think about staying. It’s been real nice having you here.”

Jack doesn’t say yes and he doesn’t say no. He just looks thoughtful, like Eric’s words unlocked something and now the world is full of possibility. And Eric feels as light as the bubbles in the champagne they’re drinking.

Chapter Text

Growing up, Jack’s parents were media darlings until they weren’t. The cover stories and serious profiles in glossy magazines and the local press were balanced with with occasional poorly researched puff pieces and media hit jobs because it was part of being in the public eye. They didn’t shy away from criticism when they made missteps, but they had savvy publicists who knew which outlets to pitch and which to avoid. When Jack started getting attention for hockey, they had him work with a media coach to help him feel comfortable during interviews. That part of the job was never his favorite, but he understood, thanks to growing up watching his parents do it, that it was necessary.

Then Jack blew up his life, and the vultures descended. Not just on him, but his parents. Suddenly, sports pundits were calling his father’s legacy and parenting into question. Celebrity gossip magazines, which hadn’t covered his mother in years, rushed the story to press. By the time Jack was well enough to face the media and make a statement, he’d had enough of the press to last a lifetime.

So it’s ironic that Jack was in a longterm relationship with a reporter. It really doesn’t feel like it though, because Camilla was his friend long before she got hired by a Boston-area television network. They met in undergrad, where they ran in the same circles, and when they both ended up on this side of the country for work they fell into a closer friendship that eventually turned into a relationship.

Initially hired as an on-air reporter who covered soft news for the local NBC affiliate, Camilla simultaneously carved out a niche as a local food and culture influencer. Eventually, her network gave her her own midday show when the cancellation of a soap opera left a hole in the programming schedule. It was supposed to be temporary, but it did better in the ratings than the soap had so they gave her a bigger budget and a permanent time slot. Jack wants to kick himself for not thinking of reaching out to Camilla earlier. Her show is a perfect avenue to get the WinterFest word out.

Jack never deleted her contact info from his phone when they broke up because they aren’t like that. He still considers Camilla one of his best friends, even if their communication is sporadic.

“I need a favor,” he texts, and begins counting down from ten. His phone rings when he gets to four.

“Heard you were back in the area,” Camilla says when he answers. “Let me guess, you need a plus-one for some event? Fine, but no sex afterward. I’m sort of seeing somebody.”

Jack snorts. “No. I don’t need a date and definitely don’t want sex.” The friends with benefits situation they had for a while is long past its expiration date. “Good for you, though.”

“Aw, thanks. It’s new, but she might be the one. She’s a former hockey player. Can you believe it? I might have a type.” 

“Try not to sound so disgusted,” Jack says, slipping into their familiar banter.

“It’s not a bad thing. I just thought I was over repressed former athletes who have anxiety.”

“Shit,” Jack chuckles. “You really do have a type.”

“You got better about talking about your feelings.” There’s a rustling in the background and then a repeated “thunk” as Camilla talks. She’s never been one for just chatting when she can be accomplishing one or two other things at the same time. Jack guesses she’s chopping vegetables for dinner. “So, if not a date for one of your boring accounting dinners, then what?”

“I need to get on your show.”

The background noise abruptly ceases. “You? Want to go on TV?”

“It’s for work. We’re putting an event together. It’ll be really helpful if we can get some regional coverage. I told Bittle I know you and he told me not to come back until I’ve called you.”

“Okay, first, who’s Bittle?” Jack can tell he really has Camilla’s attention now because her chopping hasn’t resumed. “And second, did you change jobs?” Like Jack’s parents, Camilla has a rough idea of what accounting entails, but as a media personality she’s well aware that it doesn’t involve PR.

Jack explains, in brief, his latest assignment in Samwell and how Bittle and WinterFest fit in. 

“I love it,” Camilla enthuses when he finishes. “It’ll require producer approval, but luckily they made me a producer last year. Are you thinking an on-air promo?”

“Yeah, that would be great. I can have Bittle put something together.”

“Or,” Camilla continues, “we can have him come on air to talk it up. I’m sure my viewers would love to know more about the history of this rink and the programs the Samwell parks department offers.”

“Yeah, Bittle would really enjoy that. He loves talking about those things.”

“Probably as much as you love talking about hockey, am I right?”

“I’m not as bad as I used to be,” Jack says, remembering all the times he went on about a well-executed play or a game he’d just watched even after she’d lost interest. “But I have started playing again. Rec league. It’s fun.”

“Good for you, Jack!” Camilla sounds genuinely happy, and Jack realizes she probably is. There was a time when they were as close as two people can be; she knows better than anybody what Jack’s overcome, the things he still struggles with.

“Oh,” Jack adds as an afterthought, “Shitty got married.”

“What?” Camilla screeches. “You can’t just casually drop that information into the conversation and leave it at that. Tell me everything! I want all the details. Like what kind of woman would agree to marry Shitty Knight.”

“Well, you know that toilet sculpture you can see from the freeway?” Sensing this call is turning into a catch-up session, Jack crosses the room and settles down on the couch. He imagines Camilla, in the downtown high-rise condo they used to share, doing the same on the blue West Elm couch she bought with her first big paycheck. He tells her about Shitty and Larissa, how the wedding was unexpected and a little bit weird, but that since coming to Samwell—and especially since marrying Larissa—Shitty’s been happier than Jack’s ever seen him.

“So he’s staying in Samwell?” Camilla asks. “Does that mean you’re staying?”

“Ha ha. Bittle asked me the same thing.” It’s been lingering in the back of Jack’s mind, a knot he can’t quite untangle. The more he works at it, the worse it gets, so he’s been trying to ignore it.

That strategy hasn’t been working out very well.

“Are you at least thinking about it? It’ll be nice to have you closer. We can double date! I really should introduce you to George; I think the two of you will really hit it off.”

“George is the hockey player?”

“She’s a gold medalist, Jack.”

“So you upgraded. Good for you.” 

Camilla’s laugh is familiar and fills Jack with nostalgia for late night study sessions and the affectionate chirps they used to lob at one another. Not all that different from his relationship with Bittle, really.

Huh. That’s a thought. 

They talk for another fifteen minutes, until Jack hears a timer beep and Camilla announces her dinner’s ready. “I’ll have my assistant send over some time slots for you and Bittle—uh, does he have a first name?—to pick from,” she tells him before they end the call.

“Eric.” The second part of her sentence registers. “Wait, both of us?”

“Well, yeah.” Jack doesn’t have to see Camilla’s face to know she’s smirking. “Babe. I’m sure your friend Bittle is great, and I know I’m great, but that face of yours belongs on TV.”

“You look great,” Jack tells Camilla when they arrive at her studio the following Tuesday, “but what did they do to your face?” When they were together, Camilla rarely wore makeup outside of work and usually washed it off before leaving the studio. It’s still a little jarring to see her like this. 

“Shut up, fucker,” Camilla laughs, pulling him into a hug and digging a knuckle into his ribs. “It’s called makeup. I have to do it for the cameras. Expect them to do something to you, too. But you know that, Mr. ‘My Mom Was a Model.’ How is she, by the way?”

Jack grins. If they’d gone through with their marriage, he and Camilla would be coming up on their second anniversary and his mom would be Camilla’s mother-in-law. This meeting should be awkward, but it just feels like a reunion with an old, dear friend. “She’s good,” he says. “She wanted me to say hi,” he adds, extracting himself from her embrace and stepping aside to make room for Bittle, who’s awkwardly hovering on the edge of their reunion. “Mills, this is Bittle.”

“Eric Bittle,” Bittle clarifies. “I swear, this man forgets I have a first name.”

“Hello,” Camilla laughs and raises a hand in solidarity. “We were engaged and he still introduced me to everyone he knows as Mills. Hockey players, am I right?”

“Believe me, I know hockey players,” Bittle agrees. And the two of them are off, chatting like old friends. Jack stands back and watches them, marveling (but not really surprised) at how well his past and present fit together.

Camilla gives them a tour of the studio and then somebody is hustling them backstage to get them ready to go on camera. An assistant swipes a lint roller up and down Jack’s jacket while another person fusses with Bittle’s hair. “Good luck trying to tame that cowlick,” Bittle says with a laugh as the woman dips her fingers into some sort of styling product and valiantly tries to pat it down. 

One of Camilla’s producers bustles in to go over some notes as they’re getting ready. “Jack, I know you’ve done some on-camera interviews before, but from what Camilla told me, it’s been a while.” Jack nods in agreement. “Eric, have you ever done a sit-down interview on camera?”

“I’ve done a few TV and radio appearances to promote Parks Department initiatives,” Eric tells her. “And we have our own YouTube channel that we use to promote events. I’m pretty comfortable in front of cameras.”

“Great! Then it sounds like I don’t really need to coach either one of you. We aren’t live, so don’t worry too much about being perfect. We’ll edit if necessary.”

Camilla’s set is simple, designed to look like a sitting room so viewers feel like they’re having a mid-day chat with a friend. Jack and Bittle are directed to sit together on a couch opposite Camilla, who’s in a matching chair.

Since the show is pre-taped, Camilla has already run through her intro and a segment with one of her station’s anchors previewing a big investigative report that’s going to air on tonight’s news. Now it’s their turn. Camilla gives a brief explanation of WinterFest and introduces them, then asks Bittle to describe WinterFest in more detail.

Bittle beams at Camilla and the camera, obviously relishing his moment in the spotlight, and launches into his spiel: “WinterFest is the region’s premiere winter event …” Jack can practically recite Bittle’s pitch his sleep by now, but this is the first time Camilla has heard it, and she’s clearly charmed. She asks Bittle a few more planned questions and turns her attention to Jack.

“Mr. Zimmermann, I understand you got involved with WinterFest because you’ve been overseeing all budgetary operations for the City of Samwell. Can you tell us more about why the city has decided to throw an expensive festival in light of its ongoing budget troubles?”

“Well,” Jack begins, “I want to stress that the neither the City of Samwell, nor its taxpayers, are funding WinterFest. This is an initiative of the Department of Parks and Recreation, and it’s a fundraiser to maintain access to facilities that would otherwise be shut down due to the budget crisis. Our funding comes from private donations and partnerships with local businesses.”

Camilla nods once and turns to address Bittle. “Mr. Bittle, is there anything you’d like to add to that?”

Bittle flashes his biggest grin at the camera and addresses it directly. “What Mr. Zimmermann said is correct. Samwell may be going through some tough times right now but that’s on its leadership, not its residents who work hard every day to provide for their families. WinterFest is our way of giving back to the community. Our goal is to bring in enough money to continue to support the programs they love, so they don’t have to go to neighboring communities to take skating lessons or play on a hockey team.”

Camilla nods. “That’s right. The big recipient of most of the funds raised will be the city’s ice rink. From what I understand,” she begins, a sly edge to her voice as she sets up the next topic, “you both have a history with skating.”

“Guilty as charged,” Bittle says brightly. “I did a bit of figure skating as a kid.”

“I think you did more than ‘a bit’ of skating,” Camilla says knowingly. “I think we have video?”

This is where, when the program airs, footage from one of Bittle’s old skating programs will be spliced in. For now, Camilla just pauses a moment before Bittle replies.

“Well, you got me there,” he chuckles. “I was Southern Regional Junior Champion two years running as a teenager back in Georgia. I was a student at Samwell University and training for Nationals when I got sidelined by an injury. But that wasn’t the end of skating for me. I started my career with the City of Samwell as a part-time skating coach at our municipal rink, and now I run the entire Parks department, which includes the rink.”

“And do you still skate for fun?” Camilla volleys back. Like all of her other questions, this one was planned, designed to eventually shift the focus to Jack.

“I don’t do much figure skating these days, no,” Bittle confesses. “But I do play hokey on one of the teams in our adult league.”

“Hockey seems to be something you and Mr. Zimmermann have in common.”

Bittle looks to Jack and places a light hand on his knee. This unscripted gesture isn’t unwelcome, but it knocks Jack off balance all the same.

At this point, Jack’s supposed to say something about his father and the All-Star exhibition game he’s putting together for WinterFest. Camilla knows he’s not comfortable talking about his own history, and doesn’t expect him to. This knowledge—it’s Camilla, she’s not going to ask any gotcha questions—should be reassuring, but Jack can feel his heart rate tick up in increments. His face has begun to feel fuzzy, the way it always does when he’s about to have a panic attack. He ignores it and tries to answer Camilla’s question. “My Dad Bob—euh, I mean, my dad is Bad Bob Zimmermann. He played hockey. A lot…”

Bittle quickly jumps in to save Jack. “Jack’s dad, Bob Zimmermann, won three Stanley Cups playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Montreal Canadiens back in the eighties and nineties, and we’re so lucky to have him on board as part of our planning committee,” he finesses. “Mr. Zimmermann has been kind enough to arrange an exhibition game featuring some of the NHL’s most famous faces playing with and against members of our very own Samwell Municipal Hockey League. A lot of these guys are Hall of Famers, and of course they all played for different teams, so to see them all play together will truly be something special. The WinterFest All-Star Game will take place on our outdoor rink, and will close out WinterFest on Sunday afternoon. Tickets for all events, including the exhibition game, go on sale tomorrow on our website at 10 a.m.”

“And just so our viewers know, who are some of the players we can expect to see out there?” Camilla asks, throwing the question to Jack.

He opens his mouth, but the words stick in his throat. It’s the bright lights, the cameras, the scratchy fabric of the chair he’s sitting in—it’s all suddenly too much. Jack takes a few deep breaths but it’s not enough to prevent the familiar pinprick sensation from washing over his body and his vision from contracting to the point where all he sees is shadows.

“Shit! Jack!” Camilla’s voice startles Jack back into himself. Slowly, his surroundings come back into focus.

“Is everything okay?” Bittle’s sprung out of his seat and taken a knee on the floor in front of Jack. 

“Get him something to drink,” Camilla orders a PA. She crosses the stage and squats down—as well as she can in her skirt and heels—next to Bittle.

“Fuck,” Jack says, resting his elbows on his kees and his forehead in his palms. He can’t look at either of them.

“Has this happened before?” Bittle asks, a sharp note of concern-bordering-on-panic in his voice.

“Yes,” Camilla says calmly as Jack says, “Not for a long time.”

“It happened once or twice when we were together,” Camilla tells Bittle. “He just needs to ride it out. It’s scary if you’ve never seen it happen, but he’ll be fine.”

Jack continues to take deep breaths, grateful to Camilla for explaining. He still feels overheated, despite the studio’s air conditioning. “Panic attack,” he finally grunts out. “It was just … the lights and—” 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Camilla says reassuringly. “A lot of guests get anxious. It’s a lot. I should have known better; I know you don’t like talking about personal stuff.”

Jack just shakes his head. It shouldn’t be this hard, is the thing. Pressers were never his favorite part of hockey, but he did enough during that awful rookie year that this should be easy, muscle memory. Maybe it’s bringing the wrong memories to the surface, though.

Somebody presses something hard and cold against the side of Jack’s hand, and he raises his head to see Bittle handing him a bottle of Gatorade. “You want me to open this for you?” he asks softly.

Jack nods gratefully. Sometimes he has a hard time with coordination after a panic attack.

“Sorry I don’t have a straw. Left all my glitter straws at the office,” Bittle says with a small smile, which draws a weak smile out of Jack. Camilla looks at them curiously but doesn’t say anything. One of her producers waves her over and after a quick reassurance from Jack that he’ll be okay, she runs over to talk to him.

“Am I doing this right?” Bittle asks, still whispering. “I can leave you alone or—”

“No,” Jack says through a ragged breath. He takes a sip of Gatorade. The cool, sweet liquid wakes his senses a bit and things begin to feel a little less numb. “This is good. It helps. Most of the time I’m alone. Sometimes just hearing somebody else talk is enough to get me out of my head.”

“Well, you know I can talk,” Bittle says. “How’s the Gatorade? I prefer the regular flavor myself, but you jocks always go for the blue, don’t you?”

Jack looks at the bottle in his hand and notices it is the blue flavor. He chokes out another half laugh. “You know this stuff is terrible? Mostly sugar. There are better options—”

“Jack Zimmermann, you are not going to give me a lecture on electrolyte replacement drinks right now,” Bittle scolds.

“Tastes great, though,” Jack adds. “Why is it that this stuff always tastes amazing when you need it most, but terrible any other time?”

Bittle shrugs. “I think maybe that’s kind of the point.” He begins to say something else, but he’s cut off by Camilla, who’s returned with her producer. “New plan,” Camilla says. “Jack, we’re going to get you out of here so you can rest. Bittle and I will finish the interview. Just give us a few minutes to get everything set up again.

Bittle and Camilla help him up. Jack’s legs are a bit shaky, but neither rushes him. “Don’t worry,” Bittle reassures Jack before he and Camilla go back out there. “I’ll take care of this. Just rest and try to breathe.”

Bittle is calm, efficient, and somehow nurturing even in the midst of this chaos. Jack feels his last bit of resistance to … whatever has been happening between them … begin to crack. 

“Hey.” Camilla pokes her head into the green room a half hour later. “Feeling any better?”

Jack raises his Gatorade bottle in a half-hearted salute. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. We got some good footage before you left. Bittle and I redid some bits and my editors will stitch it all together. Nobody will even know you aren’t there for the second half.”

“Thanks, Mills.”

“Thank Bittle. Your guy’s a natural.” Camilla winces. “Sorry! I’m not dissing you! Shit, you did fine. Better than most people,” she placates.

Jack chuckles. “No, I know. Bittle could do this for a living, probably.” He scans the room. “Where is he?”

Camilla pulls the other chair across the room and settles down across from Jack, so close their knees touch. “Talking to my assistant producer. They recognized each other from college.” She lowers her voice conspiratorially. “You’ve got a good one there. I don’t blame you for wanting this to succeed.”

“Huh?”

“You’re together, right? You and Bittle? I didn’t understand at first, when you said you’ve been working on fundraising, but I went with it because you never do anything halfway, and if Jack Zimmermann needs a favor it must be for something important. I just missed the mark a little. It’s a who, not a what.”

“Mills, Bittle and I aren’t together.” Jack casts a furtive glance at the doorway, hoping Bittle isn’t within earshot. Even as he does, moments from this afternoon rearrange themselves in his mind: Bittle’s hand on his knee during the interview, the way Bittle helped Jack ride out his panic attack like he’d done it a dozen times before. He knows what it must have looked like. “We’re not,” he insists when Camilla silently raises an eyebrow.

“So what are you waiting for?”

The question shouldn’t catch Jack off guard, but it does.

“You all but just admitted you have a thing for him. He’s clearly smitten with you.”

“It’s not that simple,” Jack says. To most people it would be a denial, but Camilla knows him better than anybody, even Shitty. 

“Is anything?”

“What if I screw it up?”

“What if you don’t, and it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you?” Camilla challenges. “What if he’s already the best thing that’s ever happened to you? And yes, I’m including me in there.” Camilla pauses, her lower jaw jutting out a bit the way it does when she’s working something out. “We were good together but you’re different with him. Relaxed. Well, not relaxed.” She rolls her eyes. “You’re never relaxed. Comfortable, maybe. You seem comfortable with him.”

“He’s my friend,” Jack says, but now he’s just making excuses. Bittle is comfortable, and comfortable is safe. Camilla is one of the few people he feels safe with when he’s in the middle of a panic attack. Bittle, apparently, is another.

“Don’t tell me that’s what’s stopping you. We were friends first, too,” she reminds him. “Is there somebody else? Is he with somebody else?”

“No. You know I don’t— And no, he’s not with someone.” This, at least, is one thing Jack’s certain about. “We’ve spent almost every night together for the past two months. And he’s been very clear that there isn’t anybody.”

Jack could always tell when Camilla knew she was about to win a board game because she’d smile smugly and giggle to herself. She does this now, and Jack is filled with a sudden rush of nostalgia for the way she’d throw down her cards and quickly place her pieces before tackling Jack to the floor to prevent him from pulling off a surprise last minute victory. Sometimes they’d end up in the bedroom; other times they just laughed themselves out of breath and bickered over whose turn it was to clean up. 

He and Bittle have had their own versions of these moments. But they’ve been missing out on the aftermath, the playful sex and quiet laughter, the tender moments of simply being together. If he doesn’t act quickly, they might never get to have that.

“Am I right?” Camilla whispers.

“Don’t be a sore winner.”

“I’m ri-ight,” she singsongs. “I want to be your woman of honor. I mean it. I’m not letting Knight take credit for this one.” She raps her knuckles on Jack’s knee and tips her head at the doorway.

“Hey,” Bittle says hesitantly when Jack looks over and catches his eye. How long has he been standing there? What did he hear? “I was just handing some mini pies out to the crew. Ms. Collins, I left a whole apple cardamom pie in your dressing room. Thank you again for having us on your show. I’m looking forward to catching up with you at the festival.”

“He makes pie, Jack. Are you seriously going to give that up?” Camilla quickly hisses before acknowledging Bittle. “Call me Camilla. And it was my pleasure having you. You know the saying. Any friend of Jack’s …”

“Right,” Bittle says, his smile brighter than the sun. “I have a feeling we’ll all be friends for a long time.”

Bittle is uncharacteristically quiet as he drives back to the office. Jack, though feeling better, hadn’t quite felt up to driving. Most of the time it takes him several hours to feel normal again after a panic attack. So Bittle’s behind the wheel, driving a little below the speed limit and occasionally glancing as Jack as if to make sure he’s okay. Finally, as if he can’t bear the silence any longer—or maybe he’s just decided it’s safe to speak—he says, “So. Does that happen often?"

“Not anymore. Not usually.” Jack wonders if Bittle thinks less of him now. He probably doesn’t. Bittle doesn’t seem like the type who would drop a guy because he has panic attacks. Drop a guy. Jesus. Camilla must have gotten into Jack’s head because now he’s thinking about Bittle like they’re together. He orders himself to stop thinking about that and says, “I have anxiety.”

“I know. You told me the second day we knew each other. At Annie’s.”

Oh. Jack supposes he did. He said a lot of things that day, hoping one of them would be the key to getting Bittle to back down and let Jack do his job. Now, months later, they’re driving back to the office together because they just went on TV to promote a fundraiser that’s supposed to save Bittle’s rink, so he’s not sure that plan worked out too well. Or the way it should have, anyway. He underestimated Bittle. In just about every way. He wonders how long it will take to make it up to him, if he even can.

“Jack?” Bittle says hesitantly while at a stoplight. His hand drifts from the steering wheel toward Jack’s wrist. Jack feels the light pressure of his fingertips, each one lighting up his senses like an electric shock. It pulls his eyes away from the red light ahead and toward Bittle, whose brown eyes are their own kind of beacon.

“I have anxiety and depression. I take meds. I run five miles a day and I’m not sure if it helps or hurts. I haven’t had suicidal thoughts for fifteen years, but I remember having them. That’s part of me.”

Jack’s not sure what he’s expecting. Maybe that Bittle will hear all these truths and stop the car and let him out right here on the side of the road. It’s a lot to unload. But Bittle has to know these things because if something is going to happen, he needs to know what he’s getting.

“Jack, why are you telling me this?” Bittle’s voice is so very gentle. 

“Because you deserve to know why I am the way I am.”

“Jack.” Bittle moved his hand from Jack’s wrist to his knee; his touch is familiar now, grounding. It reminds Jack to breathe. “I want you to know … you don’t have to be any sort of way with me. I’m your friend. And it’s okay to be yourself with me, even when you’re not … your best self, I guess. I like those parts too. I like all of you.” He abruptly looks away and laughs a little self-consciously. “It’s nice to know you’re human like the rest of us.”

Bittle’s sincerity is almost overwhelming; Jack has never had an easy time being vulnerable. Being himself. To be Jack Zimmermann, to show the world whose really is, has always come with risks. But Bittle’s here by his side, right now, and he’s not acting like he’d rather be anywhere else.

It’s starting to feel like the bigger risk might be continuing to hide.

Chapter Text

Eric’s lying on the floor of his office, staring at the ceiling, when two feet appear in his peripheral vision.

“Bittle. What are you doing on the floor?” Jack’s tone resides somewhere between amused and concerned.

“Meditating.” In a manner of speaking. Is staring at the ceiling and silently freaking out considered meditating? Eric probably should have paid more attention in that class he took instead of using the time to do anything but meditate.

“Really? Because it looks like you’re having some sort of breakdown.” Jack gently nudges Eric’s thigh with the toe of his dress shoe. 

“That too.” They’re in the home stretch now, only a week away, and this morning when Eric walked in to find the delivery of WinterFest guides (full-color, with a map of the grounds on one side and the list of attractions on the reverse) it occurred to him that it could fail. All this work, and it still might not be enough. They could still lose the rink. 

Eric didn’t sleep last night for all the doomsday scenarios that played in his head whenever he closed his eyes. The simple fear that people might not show up had given way to more outlandish possibilities like a freak blizzard (Eric has been checking the advance weather forecast religiously for weeks) or arson (he isn’t sure who’d want to sabotage WinterFest, but he wouldn’t put it past the library). What if nobody comes? What if there’s no snow and the snow machine they have on standby breaks down? What if there’s a wardrobe malfunction during Annie’s drag on ice extravaganza and it goes viral and the City Council forbids him from ever planning an ice show again? (Not likely, given the way they overlooked the previous mayor’s many scandals for years, but it could happen.)

And then, even if none of those highly improbable disasters come to pass, there’s the simple fact that they just might not reach their goal. Even if everything goes according to plan, it is, as Jack keeps reminding him, a numbers game. Numbers don’t lie. At the end of the week the numbers will tell Eric if Samwell Municipal Rink can remain open, or if it will have to close its doors for good. 

So, he’s on the floor freaking out.

“Well.” Jack’s still looking down at him, a bemused smile on his face. “Wanna talk?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, just toes off his shoes and kicks them to the side. Then he squats (Eric takes note of how the fabric of his khakis shifts and stretches around his glutes and thighs, and nearly has a heart attack) and eases himself down in the space next to Eric. It’s not a very big space, hardly big enough for one person let alone two, so Jack’s thigh and shoulder bump up against Eric’s as he adjusts himself. Eric doesn’t miss how one corner of Jack’s shirt untucks itself from his pants, or the way he tugs the rest of it out. He rests his palms on his thighs and turns his head toward Eric, who’s doing his best to keep his heart rate under control.

Admittedly, it was easier before Jack joined him on the floor.

Eric exhales deeply. “Does that help?” Jack asks. “The Ujjayi breathing?”

Ujjayi breathing! Eric knew it had a name. Of course Jack Zimmermann knows about it.

“It’s supposed to help with anxiety,” Eric tells him. “But you already know that, don’t you?”

“After my…well, you know…after all of that, my mom made me go to yoga with her. I wanted to hate it because I was angry and I wanted to hate everything. But it helped a lot, actually.”

“I’m not sure if it helps, or if I just want it to help,” Eric admits. “I wasn’t much good at meditating when I took a class a few years back.” He raps his knuckles against the side of his head. “Too much going on up here. They tell me to close my eyes and clear my mind and float away on a wave or a cloud or something, and suddenly I’m thinking about how Beyoncé’s overdue for a surprise album drop.” 

Jack snorts.

“Or I remember we need to send someone out to spray the weeds in Founders Park.”

Jack says, “Sometimes I make up hockey plays in my head.”

“Sometimes,” Eric whispers conspiratorially, “I just go over Michelle Kwan’s 2004 long program in my head.” He twirls an index finger in the air to indicate a spin and lets his hand fall on Jack’s chest. He doesn’t mean to, it just happens. “Sorry,” he mumbles, and pulls away.

“‘S’okay,” Jack says. “I think I can really picture it now. You know—“ he mimics Eric’s finger twirl and clasps his hands over his chest. 

Eric digs his elbow into Jack’s side. “Stop mocking me.”

“But why would I do that when it’s so much fun?” Jack chirps. It sounds a lot like flirting. 

“So no, meditation has never really helped me,” Eric concludes. “Not the way it’s supposed to. But talking to you kind of does.” 

Jack gently bumps Eric’s leg with his knee. “I think the entire town is looking forward to this weekend. I can hear Tony and Chris taking phone calls from my office; every one is somebody asking if it’s too late to buy advance tickets. It’s going to be great.”

So many people are counting on Eric to pull this off: the volunteers and donors who have selflessly put their time or money on the line, the families who are looking forward to the magical weekend they’ve been promised, all the local skaters who are counting on the rink staying open so they can take classes and train. He can’t disappoint them.

When the silence becomes too much to bear, Eric takes another breath and releases it. Jack joins him on the second breath, exaggerating his exhale to the point that it sounds like a honk, and Eric finally smiles.

Whatever happens today, Eric tells himself as gets ready on the opening day of WinterFest, he tried.

He dresses even more carefully than usual, knowing all eyes will be on him today. He has interviews scheduled with the local paper and two local news stations this morning, before the opening ceremony. And later today he’s meeting Jack’s parents. He’s more nervous about the latter. Friendly interviews, he can handle. Meeting the Bad Bob and Alicia Zimmermann is another thing altogether. Even if they weren’t famous, they’re still Jack’s parents. And Eric’s just … some guy who works for the local parks department.

The last thing Eric does before leaving the house is put on the maroon puffer jacket from a brand he can’t pronounce that Jack, of all people, surprised everybody in the parks department with last night at the final pre-Fest meeting. The WinterFest logo Larissa designed is embroidered on the right breast and, below it, “Staff.” It’s the nicest jacket Eric has ever owned, and when he asked Jack where he found the money in the budget, Jack awkwardly stumbled over his words as he confessed the jackets were a personal gift.

Eric’s breath catches in his throat when he pulls up to the festival site at six a.m. It snowed overnight, just enough to coat everything in a fresh layer of untouched, powdery snow. It’s still dark out, the sun just beginning to peek out from beyond the horizon, but the fairy lights strung above the outdoor rink and the walkway through artisan alley have already been turned on and cast a dreamlike glow over everything. Jack, his own WinterFest jacket a bright pop of color visible from the parking lot, is already here—he must have been the one to turn the lights on, Eric realizes.

As Eric approaches, he sees Jack’s holding two cups of coffee. He holds one out toward Eric, who accepts with grateful thanks. 

“Pinch me, ‘cause I still can’t believe this is happening,” Eric says after his first blissful sip. He jumps and almost chokes on his latte when Jack complies, managing to grab only the fabric of Eric’s thick jacket between his thumb and forefinger.

“You’re a lucky man, Jack Zimmermann,” Eric laughs. “I could’ve spilled all over my brand new jacket, and then you’d be in trouble.”

Jack raises an eyebrow. “With who? That guy?” He points to one of the life-size snowperson sculptures standing sentinel just outside the entrance. Eric’s still not sure what Larissa and her sculpture students at the community college did to make them look so realistic, but there are several stationed throughout the festival grounds. Each one is slightly different, making finding them all a fun scavenger hunt for those inclined. Visitors will be able to pick up a map with their locations marked and will be able to share selfies with them using the SamwellWinterFest hashtag.

“With your dad,” Eric retorts. “When are your parents getting in?”

“A little after noon. I’ll bring them directly here after I pick them up, since we have that interview with Camilla at two.” 

“Let’s hope their flight gets in on time.” Camilla’s station is planning a live interview with the Zimmermanns, followed by a tour of the grounds with Eric. Normally, a big station out of Boston probably wouldn’t take interest in their little local event, but Bad Bob and Alicia are big names and thanks to Camilla’s initial story about WinterFest, Sunday’s hockey exhibition game is getting attention throughout the region.

Eric gives Jack’s arm a reassuring pat. “I’m sure it will.”

“What about you?” Jack asks. “Ready for everything?”

“As I’ll ever be! One thing at a time, right?” Eric has spent the week putting out last minute fires, from a mix-up involving assigning the same booth to two different vendors to tracking down and reordering a missing shipment of rental skates that inexplicably got sent to a rink in Ohio. Fortunately, all of the problems have been solvable. Even the weather is cooperating. Eric surveys the grounds, satisfied that he’s done his best work. 

“Bittle.”

“Yeah?”

Jack taps the side of Eric’s coffee cup with his own. “Whatever happens, you did some good here. Take some time to be proud of yourself. I am.”

“Aw, thanks Jack.” Eric tries to meet Jack’s eye but he’s staring at something in the distance, smiling softly at something Eric can’t see. 

Jack’s parents are so nice.

Eric isn’t sure why he was so nervous about meeting them. In their jeans and fleece pullovers, they look just like normal people. 

Eric knows Jack would tell him they are normal people, but a man who has multiple Stanley Cups and a woman whose face was once on a billboard above Times Square are definitely not normal, no matter how many times Jack has told him his dad ends every text message with “- Dad.” 

But “Bad” Bob shakes his hand and tells him he’s looking forward to getting out on the ice—“Jack says you’re a speedy thing”— and Alicia gives him a warm hug and adds, “Jack has told us so much about you!”

“Oh, um, all good things, I hope!” Eric says a little nervously, remembering the things he said to Jack when he first showed up here in Samwell.

“Wonderful things,” Alicia reassures him. “I can’t believe you put this whole event together in just a few months.”

Eric can feel himself blush under Alicia’s gaze. “Well, I had plenty of help,” he assures her, not wanting to take too much credit for what was a group effort. “My entire staff really made it a priority, and of course Jack helped. Would you believe he wanted to shut the whole rink down?” 

Jack’s dad glances in the direction of the rink. “That one?” he asks. “Can we get a tour?”

“It’s not in the best shape,” Eric hedges, suddenly fearful that Bad Bob Zimmermann will see the rink in its current state and immediately pull all of his support for the weekend.

“Oh, I’m sure I’ve seen worse.”

“Bobby loves rinks,” Alicia says with a wink. “I’m sure this tour will be the highlight of his weekend.”

“It’s true,” Jack confirms. “If there’s anybody who loves dilapidated old ice rinks as much as you, Bittle, it’s Papa.” 

“My apologies, Eric. I had no idea we raised such a rude son.” Bob cuffs Jack on the side of the head and they engage in a playful scuffle. 

When his father releases him, Jack’s hair is a little messed up and his cheeks are tinged a faint red. “Papa,” he scolds, running his hands down his front as if to smooth out nonexistent wrinkles. But there’s no heat in his words, and his smile is wide.

“Well,” Eric says, standing up a little straighter and squaring his shoulders, “Mr. and Mrs. Zimmermann, it would be my honor to show you our rink.”

Four p.m. is the when the food and crafts vendors open and guests are allowed on the premises, but nothing is really official until the seven p.m. opening ceremony has concluded. Even so, Eric worries that people will be slow to show, that nobody other than the opening ceremony participants and their families will be here tonight.

He shouldn’t have worried. By the time the gates open at four, there’s a line to get in. And word from the volunteers working the parking lots is that they’re getting ready to open the overflow lot.

Eric has things to do to prepare for the opening ceremony, but he stops for a moment just to take it all in. Despite the last minute hiccups, the outdoor rink looks perfect. It’s already filling with skaters—small kids holding onto parents’ hands as they shuffle-skate around the perimeter, older teens showing off for friends at center ice, and couples holding hands. 

“I told you not to worry.” Chris, who’s been showing Caitlin and their daughter Kara around the grounds, comes over to stand beside Eric. “Look,” he says, pulling out his phone and opening the WinterFest app he and Will Poindexter created. “Ice times are booked out through the afternoon, and all of today’s night skating sessions are filled as well. And these are just the slots we released on the app; I just checked in with Tony and he said in-person sign-ups are also going well. And we just opened!”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Eric sighs. The outdoor rink was, by far, the biggest expense. He doesn’t want the donors to feel like they’ve wasted their money. 

Chris looks at him curiously. “You weren’t really worried nobody would show up, were you?”

“Last minute jitters,” Eric says, feeling a little sheepish now that he can see the proof of all their hard work. “I know, Jack’s been trying to talk me down all week. I think I just had to see it for myself.” Now that he does, he can breathe a little easier. People are here! They’re having fun! Two teenagers are taking a selfie with that snowman across the way and they’re—oh no! Oh, no no. They can’t do that to the poor snowman. “Hey!” Eric yells, breaking into a sprint. “Sorry, Chris!” he calls behind him as he runs toward the vandals. “Hey, you kids! Don’t violate the snowpeople!”

Three hours pass in a blur. Eric barely has time to sit down, let alone catch his breath. Jack corners him on the way to the opening ceremony and hands him a soft pretzel and bottle of water. “Eat,” he insists

“Mmm, still warm,” Eric says, savoring the chewy, salty goodness. “What would I do without you, Jack Zimmermann?” he asks, handing the pretzel back to him.

“Starve, probably.” Jack absentmindedly breaks a hunk of the pretzel off and pops it in his mouth. “You want the rest?”

“No, you take it,” Eric tells him. “I’ve gotta go get this opening ceremony started.”

“Wait,” Jack says, catching Eric by the arm before he can dash off. “Your face … there’s salt—” he points to his own lower lip.

“Oh! Goodness. Imagine if I went out there with food on my face.” Eric swipes his gloved hand across his lips but it must not do any good because Jack reaches toward him and gently, carefully, rubs his thumb along Eric’s lower lip.

The sensation is positively electric, and now Eric’s not sure he’s coherent enough to go out there and address the crowd.

“There,” Jack says, a lovely smirk creasing his face. “Now you look presentable.”

Eric smiles, hoping he can blame his blazing cheeks on the cold, on his nerves, on anything other than proximity to this man he’s slowly been falling in love with. When, exactly, did that happen? He’s not sure, but he can’t think about it now. He has too much to do.

“Break a leg, Bittle,” Jack says, voice low and warm. Belatedly, he seems to realize he’s still holding on to Eric’s arm and releases his grip. Eric almost wishes he wouldn’t but that’s another thing—or maybe the same thing—he just doesn’t have time to think about right now. 

The opening ceremony takes place on and around the rink, and consists of several short performances and appearances by various community groups. It will conclude with Eric’s speech, which will officially open the festival. Planning the opening ceremony was one of Denice’s responsibilities, and while she’s kept Eric in the loop, he largely left the details to her. Last night’s dress rehearsal was the first time he saw it.

The first group to appear is from the community preschool, nine toddlers bundled in colorful snowsuits who march around the rink to “Get the Party Started,” waving small flags they decorated themselves. From his vantage point “backstage,” Eric can see Chris and Caitlin on the sidelines excitedly cheering and taking pictures of little Kara. Then hockey players and figure skaters from the community programs come out to take laps around the ice. They’re followed by the skating drag queens from Annie’s and finally Wellie, the town’s mascot, who does a series of spins and jumps at center ice. Wellie gets a standing ovation, which is extremely gratifying since Jack had initially expressed doubt about her appearance.

Finally, it’s Eric’s turn. This is where Denice’s theater degree has come in handy, because she had a group of volunteers from the high school stagecraft class create a portable stage that can be easily set up on the ice. As soon as Wellie exits the ice, Adam and Justin and a few others bring it out and set it up at center ice. They even roll out a red carpet, so Eric doesn’t slip as he makes his way to the stage.

He rehearsed this twice last night, but when Eric glances out at the standing-room-only crowd he almost forgets his words. There are at least two news crews filming, along with a local newspaper reporter and somebody from the mayor’s press office. This is it. After months of planning and a week of sleepless nights, it’s finally happening. His little idea, born out of desperation, is a real thing. 

Eric’s voice is steady as he thanks all of the sponsors, volunteers, participants, and especially his staff, for making today possible. When he concludes his speech, announcing “WinterFest is open and ready for y’all,” the cheer from the crowd is almost deafening. Jack, sitting in between his parents in the first row of bleachers, smiles broadly.

Afterward, Eric does more press with Jack’s dad, and while he’d like to stick around for the rest of the night to keep an eye on things, they do have that dinner with Jack’s parents. Shitty and Larissa are joining them, so Eric isn’t as nervous as he might be if it were just him and the Zimmermanns, but it’s still a little intimidating.

When Eric had asked Jack where he should make a reservation, Jack had just shrugged and said, “My parents aren’t picky. They appreciate good food, but they consider good company more important. And if I know my dad, he’ll pick up the tab for everyone, so don’t worry about the price.”

“Well, now I’m only gonna worry about the price,” Eric had grumbled. But he’d made a reservation at a local restaurant he took his own parents to on one of their visits, hoping the Zimmermanns will enjoy it as much as his parents did.

Bob and Alicia Zimmermann are as gregarious as Jack is reticent, but it would be clear to anybody who knows Jack well that they’re his parents, even without the physical similarities. Eric catches glimpses of Jack in Alicia’s sharp wit and Bob’s bad puns. Bob orders wine and appetizers for the entire table, and his mannerisms when he sips at his wine and passes the bread basket around the table are so like Jack’s it almost takes Eric’s breath away. He’s looking at Jack, thirty years from now, happy and settled and ready to chirp his own child for taking the largest piece of bread.

“So I hear congratulations are in order.” Bob points at Shitty with his butter knife and that’s the only invitation Shitty needs to regale the entire table with his version of his and Larissas’s love story, with an occasional interjection from Larissa to correct a detail or make fun of him.

“I think it’s very romantic,” Alicia sighs, pressing closer to Bob. “Kind of reminds me of us.” And since Larissa hasn’t heard the story—and Eric has only heard Jack’s version—they tell it again, taking turns and finishing each other’s sentences in a way that sounds less like something they’ve rehearsed and more like an intricate jazz riff performed by two partners completely in sync with one another. 

Eric can’t help but notice, after their plates have been cleared and Bob has ordered a round of coffee for everyone, that they must look like a group of three couples. And when Jack casually, probably unthinkingly, rests his arm on the back of Eric’s chair, it’s difficult not to notice how the pose mirrors his father’s across from them. If Eric were more alert he might feel a little more self-conscious, but it’s been a long day. His fatigue, and the wine, have lowered his defenses enough that he finds himself leaning into Jack, just a bit, heedless of how they must look to their friends and the Zimmermanns.

Larissa is in the middle of telling Jack’s parents—who seem to be as taken with her as Shitty is—about her latest commission when Jack’s phone buzzes. “I have to take this,” he apologizes. Shitty shoots him a look Eric can’t quite interpret as he leaves the table. 

“Finally!” Alicia exclaims, propping her chin in her hands and leaning across the table toward Eric. “Now that he’s gone, give us all the deets on our son.” She says it just loud enough for Jack to hear and he flips them off behind his back as he retreats. “Kidding, of course,” she says, but there’s a glint in her eye that suggests maybe she wasn’t kidding. “But I do hope Jack’s been on his best behavior here.”

Eric can only gape at Jack’s parents but Shitty—of course—butts in. “You know how our Jacky can be,” he says to knowing nods from Bob and Alicia, “but Bitty here whipped him into shape pretty quickly.”

Bob raises a curious eyebrow. “Is that so?”

Eric’s a bit taken aback by Shitty’s blatant honestly—not to mention Jack’s parents’ curiosity—but he tries not to let it show. “Oh, you know,” he says, feeling the need to come to Jack’s defense. “He was just doing his job. And it’s a good thing he was, because if he hadn’t threatened to shut my rink down, I never would have come up with the idea for WinterFest. Which is going to be so good for the town. And working with Jack has been real good for me, too.” Across the table, Larissa catches his eye and smirks.“I’m an ideas man, myself,” Eric quickly adds to shut her down, “but I’ve learned so much about the business side of things from Jack.”

“Is that so?” Bob says again, this time thoughtful. 

Alicia is more to-the-point. “Well, from what Jack has told us, the work he’s been doing here in Samwell has been good for him, too. He just seems so … content here, don’t you think, Bobby?”

Another look from Larissa, this one accompanied by a kick to his ankle. Eric responds in kind.

Shitty, seemingly unaware of the silent conversation happening between his wife and Eric, says, “I’ll drink to that,” and raises his coffee mug for a toast.

When Jack returns a few minutes later, his hair is a bit disheveled, as if he’s been running his hand through it the way he does when he’s frustrated, but he doesn’t speak of his phone call. Instead, he brings the roster for Sunday’s hockey game up on his phone and starts talking teams. To keep things fair and fun, they’re mixing the pros up with the SMH players, and Jack has opinions about teams and lines and everything else related to the game.

“Has he always been like this?” Eric asks Jack’s parents, who share a knowing look.

“Oh, honey,” Alicia says. “If you only knew. Jack’s very passionate about the things he loves.”

“It went dormant for a while there,” Bob adds, “but I think you unlocked something in him. I haven’t seen him this excited about playing hockey in years.”

“A decade, at least,” Alicia says with a nod. They both look at Jack, their pride written on their faces. Eric thinks that they must be just as proud of him for playing in this little community scrimmage as they were when he was an NHL rookie. It settles something inside of him to see how very much Jack’s parents love him.

“I agree,” Shitty says. “Our boy has never been this happy.”

Jack looks up. “You say that because you’ve never been this happy,” he says.

Shitty’s cackle startles the people one table over. “Whatever, brah. We all have eyes.” He and Larissa smirk and Jack’s parents exchange a look and Eric can’t help but feel like he’s missed an important part of the conversation.

The weekend passes in a blur. As much as Eric would like to pause for a moment to take it all in, there’s just no time. He’s the first person on-site each morning and the last to leave at night, and between wining and dining the VIPs, making sure the events and exhibitions are running on schedule, and putting out fires (only metaphorical, thankfully, though there was a scare with the fryer at the doughnut booth) all over the place, he almost forgets that he’s supposed to play in the hockey game on Sunday afternoon.

He gets two hours of respite on Sunday afternoon, when Larissa and Jack corner him and coerce him into going home to take a nap. Which he does, if only because Jack was wily enough to cut the power to his oven and Eric really does not want to deal with the fuse box. There are spiders in there. 

“You need to rest,” Jack insists when Eric discovers this betrayal. “We need all our men on the top of their game if we want to beat Papa’s team.”

Eric would be annoyed if it weren’t so darn … well, so darn Jack. “And what are you going to be doing while I’m resting, mister?” he retorts.

Jacks holds up a notebook. “Working on plays.”

“Of course you are,” Eric groans, but secretly he loves it. All of it. And he’s starting to suspect Jack does, too. 

The locker room is abuzz with an anxious, anticipatory energy as the members of SMH get ready for the game. Justin, sitting in a corner, a shell shocked look on his face, keep repeating, “ I can’t believe your dad got Mashkov.”

“Is that a problem?” Jack asks, alarmed. He’s been strutting around the locker room half dressed, too distracted with last minute details to put on his jersey. Eric isn’t complaining. As he’s long suspected, the body Jack’s been hiding underneath those plain button down shirts is anything but. 

“Alexei Mashkov is Justin’s favorite player,” Eric explains as Jack finally pulls his jersey over his head. 

Jack grins. “Then we’ll have to switch things up a bit to make sure they’re on the same line.”

Adam looks up from the stick he’s taping and narrows his eyes. “Don’t tease him like that, man. He’s a coral reef. If you do anything to upset him, he’ll fall apart.”

“I’m … not?” Jack pulls a confused face and Eric sighs inwardly. He’d thought Adam would eventually warm up to Jack, but he still seems mostly irritated by Jack’s presence in Samwell. “Nothing’s set in stone. We can do some last minute rearranging.”

“Rans and I have always played on the same line,” Adam says petulantly. “Since college.”

“Okay, fine,” Eric says, stepping in to break up whatever pissing contest Adam and Jack are about to engage in. “Adam, we’ll keep Justin on your line because you play well together.” He looks to Jack, who nods his assent. “And Jack, you can put Alexei on our line. Does that work, Adam?”

Adam nods, mollified, and Justin exhales what seems to be a sigh of relief. He shoots a grateful look in Eric’s direction and mouths “thank you.”

Before they leave the locker room to meet their more famous counterparts, Jack attempts to give everyone a pep talk. “My uncle Wayne—”

“Uncle Wayne,” Derek Nurse interrupts, and everyone snickers. Eric shuts them all down with a glare and Jack continues.

“Uncle Wayne always says you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take. So, euh, go out there and play a strong game and remember to take the shot.”

It’s a good thing Jack’s already an accountant because lord, he doesn’t have much of a future as a motivational speaker, does he? “I think what Jack’s trying to say,” Eric adds, “is that we’ve got this. Yeah, Bad Bob Zimmermann and Wayne Gretzky are legends, but remember, they’re legends with bad knees. They’re gonna need us to pick up the slack. Chris, you were one of the best goalies in the ECAC. You know what to do if that puck comes near. Adam and Justin, I’ve never seen a D-man team as in sync—no, Adam, please don’t start singing ‘Bye Bye Bye’—as you two. Just, please don’t hurt any of those older guys because remember, bad knees.” Jack’s standing so close to Eric that he can feel his laughter. “Derek, Will, need I remind you that you’re teammates and whatever beef you have off ice can wait until later?” The other D-man pair sheepishly nods their assent.

“Jack.” Eric nudges him with his shoulder. “You are the only person in this room who has played with some of those guys. I trust you’ll use that to your advantage.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Well, okay, then.” Eric looks around at his team, satisfied. Although they won’t all be playing on the same team, it feels like they’re all in this together, that no matter what, they’ve already won. That takes the pressure off, a bit. This is going to be fun. “Let’s get out there, team, and show everybody what Samwell Municipal Hockey is made of!”

Somebody begins a cheer of “SMH, SMH,” that gets louder as everybody joins in, and louder still when Adam and Justin begin stomping their feet. The noise thunders up to the rafters and fills the old rink, and Eric can’t help but think that if rinks really do have feelings, this one must be pretty darn happy right now. If this is SMH’s last hurrah, well, they’re going to make it a good one.

Eric hangs back as everybody grabs their equipment and begins to file out; he has to lock the room up so nobody unauthorized can access it and take their stuff. Instead of rushing out to the ice with the rest of the guys, Jack sticks close to Eric. “You’re good at that,” he says admiringly.

“Closing up a locker room?” Eric quips. “Well, I darn well should be, all the years I’ve been doing this.”

“At motivating people. I know I’m not the best at that type of thing,” Jack says. “I get too inside my own head and—”

“Jack, honey, don’t apologize. We all know your heart is in the right place. You’re the reason this game is happening at all.”

“You, too. We make a good team.”

“I’ll say,” Eric agrees, and he can’t resist giving Jack a little swat on the butt as they walk through the door together. “Now let’s go out there and prove it.”

Jack claps a hand on Eric’s shoulder. It’s strong, steady. “Got your back, Bittle.”

After the last cup of hot cocoa has been sold and the last snowman selfie has been taken, after the last exhausted preschooler has been carried to the parking lot by their parents and the tween girls from the synchronized skating class have finally left the ice, and after the vendors have packed up and the volunteers have gone home, Eric is the only one left.

He’ll be back tomorrow for tear down, but right now he wants to take one last walk through the festival, see it one last time before all of this is gone. All weekend, Eric has tried to take snapshots in his mind, commit to memory the things he never wants to forget: Sitting next to Jack, shoulders and thighs touching, as they watched the drag queens’ synchronized performance to Cher’s “Believe.” Little Kara Chow sitting on her father’s shoulders, eating a pretzel the size of her head. Shitty gently leading Larissa, never a confident skater, around the outdoor rink. Jack and Bad Bob Zimmermann, both wearing their “Big sticks, soft hands” jerseys (Jack finally relented on that wording), facing off at center ice. The absolute joy and panic of intercepting a pass made by Wayne Gretzky and sending the puck back in Jack’s direction for an assist.

And the way WinterFest looks after dark on Sunday night, the grounds emptied of guests but still illuminated by the gentle glow of the fairy lights. 

“Bittle. What are you still doing here? Go home and get some sleep.” 

Eric jumps. He expected Jack to go home after taking his parents back to their hotel, but here he is, walking toward him. He’s stupidly handsome in his dark jeans (does he get them tailored to fit like that?) and maroon WinterFest jacket, and he’s smiling even as he chirps Eric. Jack has been smiling all weekend. 

“Thought you were going home to get some sleep,” Eric says lightly.

Jack shrugs. “Wanted one last look. Guess I’m not the only one, eh?” Jack’s smile is fond.

“I guess our work here is done, huh?” Eric should be ecstatic, should be riding the high of WinterFest’s success, but it’s a bit of a letdown, too. He’s spent months planning this and now it’s over. Hundreds of kids will go to sleep tonight and dream of Olympic medals and Stanley Cups, but Eric’s just going home to his lonely condo.

Tonight, under the moonlight and fairy lights, with a just-this-side-of-uncomfortable chill in the air and bits of shiny confetti still dusting the ground, everything seems magical. Tomorrow, it will be just another dirt field. Everything that indicates something special happened here will be gone. And soon, Jack will be gone, too.

It’s all so much.

“Done?” Jack asks. “I think you’re just getting started. Don’t tell me you aren’t going home and immediately brainstorming a bigger, better WinterFest for next year.”

“I will,” Eric says. “I just wanna enjoy this one a little longer.”

“Ice isn’t coming down until tomorrow,” Jack says with a glance at the rink. “Wanna take one last lap around?”

Eric looks up at Jack. Jack can’t possibly know how he feels, but now that he knows he’s in love with Jack he can’t just turn off his feelings. He’s tried to push them away, tell himself that this is just business. Jack will soon have a new assignment in a new city. Even if something happens tonight …

Screw it. Whatever happens tonight—if anything happens tonight—it doesn’t have to mean anything. It can just be one last skate, two friends celebrating a job well done.

Eric still has the keys to the skate storage shed on a ring in his jacket pocket. He quickly finds their sizes and they change into them, leaving their shoes on the nearby bleachers. 

“Are you ready?” Jack asks, offering Eric an arm as they walk toward the rink.

“Aren’t you a gentleman,” Eric says, accepting it. He allows Jack to guide him into the rink, but pulls away as soon as the ice is underfoot and turns toward Jack, skating backwards. “Wanna race one last time for old time’s sake?” 

“No.” Jack suddenly looks deadly serious, his mouth drawn into a line and his eyes focused on Eric. “Eric, there are some things we need to talk about.”

Eric heart rate speeds up. “Good things or bad things?” he asks cautiously. Jack’s face gives nothing away. 

“A little of both? More good than bad, I think.”

“Well, okay.” Eric sticks his hands in his coat pockets, glides back to Jack and executes a half spin so they’re skating in the same direction.

“I ran some preliminary numbers this afternoon. You—we—did really well, Eric. You should be proud. By every measure, WinterFest was a success.”

“It sounds like there’s a ‘but’ in there.”

Jack takes a breath. “We only expected to bring in enough money to keep the rink operational for another year. Which we did. But it’s in dire need of upgrades, you know that. And this afternoon the city received an offer from an investor—”

“No.” Eric reflexively presses his gloved hands to his ears, has the irrational thought that Jack’s words won’t mean anything if he can’t hear them.

“Eric.” Jack turns toward him and gently pries his hands away from his head. “Listen to me,” Jack says. He hasn’t let go of Eric’s hands. “This is a good thing, I promise.”

“How can it be good? You’re about to tell me somebody wants to tear down the rink and build an Applebee’s.” Through the tears that have suddenly welled up in his eyes, Eric can see that Jack is smiling. Eric’s heart is breaking and Jack is smiling.

“No,” Jack laughs. “Nobody is building an Applebee’s.”

“But you’re tearing down my rink.”

“Well, yes,” Jack says, his smile inexplicably growing larger.

“To think I thought you were on my side,” Eric gasps out, twisting out of Jack’s grasp. “I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I thought you were my friend. I was even foolish enough to think—” Eric stops himself before he finishes the thought. This isn’t just about the rink, he knows that now. “I was foolish enough to think—” he tries again.

That maybe, Jack wanted to be more than friends.

“Think what?” Jack asks.

“That you’re a good guy!” Eric spits out. “That you didn’t do all of this just to get on my good side so that I’d give in. Well, I’m not.”

“Good. Because this town would be a lot worse off if you just up and quit,” Jack says.

“What?” Eric can’t keep up with this boy. 

“I mean that sincerely. There’s only one Eric Bittle in this town, and it’s going to need you when the new rink opens.”

“I am very confused right now.”

Jack grimaces. “Shit. I’ve really messed this up. Bittle.” Jack stops and places an arm around Eric’s shoulders, gently turns him to face the building behind them. “Did I ever tell you that my parents are rich?”

“Not in so many words, but I kind of figured.”

“They have a lot of money. More than they know what to do with. And you know my mom went to Samwell University. They really enjoyed being here this weekend. They’re impressed by what you’ve done. And they want to invest in the community. They’re the ones who made the offer.”

“Your parents want to build an Applebee’s?”

Jack’s laugh is a loud, low thing, a sound that warms Eric right up. “God, I hope not. Eric, they want to build an ice complex. They want to buy the land from the city, raze this building, build a new facility, and give it back to the city of as a gift. They want to work with you to make sure it’s built to your specifications, with different rinks for figure skating and ice hockey, so you can have multiple practices or events going on at the same time.”

This cannot be real. If Eric isn’t hallucinating this whole conversation—and really, who’s to prove he isn’t?—Jack has just given Eric the biggest gift anybody has ever given him. He feels faint. “Seriously?” he manages to squeak out. “You bought me an ice rink?”

“Technically, my parents did. And technically, they bought it for the town.”

“You bought me an ice rink,” Eric repeats, planting one hand against Jack’s chest and giving him a light shove. Jack’s parents paying for the rink is just a technicality. They both know Jack helped make it happen. “Why?”

“Because you deserve it,” Jack says simply. “I hope you know that by now. Everything that happened this weekend, every good thing, is because of you. You believed in yourself, and in this town. And me. You believed in me. Believe in me. You make me better.”

The lump in Eric’s throat is making it hard to talk, but he manages to choke out a watery “thank you” that’s woefully inadequate.

“Papa is meeting with a firm next week to talk about specs,” Jack adds. “He wants you to be there.”

“How …” Eric has known Bad Bob Zimmermann for all of two days. “Do all you Zimmermann men move this quickly?”

“He, uh, kind of started looking into this several months ago after I told him everything you were doing to keep this place open. I think he knew before I did—”

“Knew what?”

“The way I feel about this town.”

Eric raises an eyebrow. “This town?”

“And you.”

“And how is that?” Eric asks. 

Jack’s arm slides from Eric’s shoulders to his waist; with a gentle hand on Eric’s hip, he spins Eric until they face each other, pressed together so closely that Eric would be able to feel Jack’s heartbeat if there weren’t so many layers between them. Why’d he think it was a good idea to wear this puffer coat, anyway?

“I think you know,” Jack says, tipping his face lower until Eric closes the distance between them.

Jack’s lips taste like his mint lip balm. His kiss is confident, like he knows his feelings are reciprocated, so Eric matches the effort. Jack needs to know exactly how much his feelings are reciprocated. A contended little sigh—more of a moan, really—rises in the back of Eric’s throat and escapes unbidden, a horribly embarrassing indication that his feelings go way beyond friendship. But Jack smiles against his lips and instead of pulling away, he presses in closer.

It’s the stuff of all of Eric’s wildest fantasies: He’s here on the ice, under the lights, kissing a boy he likes who likes him back. If kissing Jack Zimmermann is the last thing Eric does, he’ll die a happy man. (He really hopes it doesn’t come to that … now that he’s had a taste, he wants the whole damn meal.) 

“No, don’t stop,” Eric whines when Jack finally breaks the kiss.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” Jack confesses.

“Me too,” Eric whispers, thinking about the day Jack walked into his office all those months ago, that first flame of desire that he quickly tamped down because Jack was so annoying. 

“At Shitty and Larissa’s wedding you told me I should stay. Do you still want me to stay?”

Eric nods furiously, heart in his throat. Lord help him, he’s going to cry again. Whatever the outcome of this conversation, he’s going to cry. “Help me build this,” he finally manages.“Let’s do it together.”

“I’d love that,” Jack says.

“I’m not sure if we have the budget to hire you full-time,” Eric can’t resist chirping. “But you know we can always use volunteers.”

“That’s my other news,” Jack says. He’s not smiling, exactly, but there’s a blink-and-you’ll miss-it smirk that’s Eric has come to think of as Jack’s “sneaky” face. “I’m really glad you still want me to stay, because I quit my job.”

“What?” Talk about sneaky! “When? You just up and quit?”

Jack looks almost sheepish as he confesses, “I gave my two weeks notice on Friday afternoon. Right before the festival opened to the public. That’s what that phone call I had to take at dinner the other night was. My boss was trying to convince me not to go. Offered me a promotion to stay.”

“Oh my gosh, Jack!” Eric’s dumbfounded. This boy knew. He might not have known about his parents’ generous offer, but he knew he was going to stay and he let Eric think— “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Because it was a big weekend for you, and I wasn’t sure if you felt the same way. I didn’t want to ruin things.”

“Honey, I think everyone with eyes can see how I feel about you. The only ones we were foolin’ were ourselves.”

“Yeah, probably,” Jack agrees. 

“What are you gonna do for a job?” Eric frets. “I really don’t have the budget to hire you, and I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to hire my boyfriend to work for me anyway.”

Jack’s grin is wide. “Your boyfriend?”

“I mean—” Eric gives a one-shouldered shrug—“if that’s what you want.” Maybe, he worries, that’s not what Jack wants. Maybe Jack just wants a friends-with-benefits thing, somebody to keep him warm on cold nights like this. 

“It’s what I want,” Jack assures him. “And you don’t have to worry about hiring me. I’m happy to just volunteer because I think I’ve figured out what I’m going to do next.”

“Already? I was kind of kidding when I said you Zimmermann men move fast.”

“It was the weirdest thing. You know my landlord?”

“John Johnson, right? Did you ever find out if his first name is a nickname, or did his parents really give him the same name twice?”

Jack chuckles. “Like Panera Bread? No idea. He came over a few days ago and told me he’s quitting his job to go hike the Appalachian Trail. He wanted to know if I’m interested in applying for it.”

“What’s he even do?” Eric asks. Even after playing hockey together once a week for years, Johnson’s still so mysterious Eric can’t even imagine what he does for a living. Once, he brought a bottle of Canadian maple syrup to practice and gave it to Eric, telling him he should put it use it to sweeten his pies to “up their international appeal.” Since then, Eric has always entertained the vague idea that Johnson has a thriving black market syrup trade going on.

“He’s a high school history teacher.”

“Oh,” Eric says, somewhat disappointed. He was kind of hoping it was the black market maple syrup thing. “Wait, are you even qualified to teach history?”

Jack smirks. “Did I ever tell you I minored in history in college?”

Eric shoves Jack a little, laughing when it catches him off guard and he has to brace himself against the boards to keep from falling on his butt. “You most certainly did not. I know you’re kind of a history nerd, but all this time you’ve let me think you’re a numbers robot. You really wanna teach history?”

Jack nods. “I really do. Johnson said I’ll need to get my teaching certificate, but they need to fill the position quickly so they’ll waive the requirement as long as I’m working toward it.”

“I can see you teaching history,” Eric says, remembering that day at the murals. Can he consider that their first date? Or was it after the Chamber of Commerce meeting when Jack bought Eric dinner, or their road trip, or dinner with Jack’s parents? Have they been dating all this time without realizing it? “You love it.”

“The school doesn’t have a hockey team,” Jack says thoughtfully. “I’ve been thinking it might be fun to coach. I heard a big new training facility is coming to town.”

“Yeah, some big international investors are involved,” Eric laughs, playing along. 

Jack wraps his arms around Eric again and pulls him close, and for a moment they just stand together at center ice, foreheads touching, the world reduced to the two of them. 

And then, as if on cue, snow begins to drift from the sky, impossibly small flakes that seem to fall in slow motion, almost sparkling when caught in the faint light. Eric gasps and presses his face into Jack’s shoulder, every emotion from the past week—no, the past months—surfacing at once. He's laughing, or crying, he’s not really sure, but Jack's arms are strong and warm; inside of them is definitely Eric's new favorite place. When he finally raises his head and looks at Jack, he sees his every emotion reflected in Jack's eyes: happiness and adoration and barely concealed desire. But mostly, what Eric feels, what he sees looking back at him, is love.

Chapter Text

Eric was never late for things until he became a parent. But kids have a way of upending everything, and the arrival of Evie Bittle-Zimmermann three years ago was definitely a crash course in learning to adapt.

There was the year she was born, a week before WinterFest, which was five weeks before her due date. Eric only made it through that exhilarating, terrifying week with the help of a very competent partner at home and an equally competent team at work.

The following year’s WinterFest came at the tail end of what Eric and Jack now (only now, with a few years of distance) fondly refer to as “The Year of No Sleep.” All of those sleepless nights with an infant were great for Eric’s productivity, but not so great for everything else. His memories of Evie’s first official WinterFest are hazy at best. Thank goodness Jack took enough pictures to fill a whole album; otherwise, he might not believe it happened.

Things settled down—a bit—during Evie’s second year, but she came down with strep throat the night before last year’s WinterFest kickoff so Jack ended up staying home with her all weekend while Eric worked. By Sunday night her fever had broken, so Jack bundled her up and met Eric at the outdoor rink after hours. It reminded Eric of that first WinterFest six years ago, but with a toddler in tow their skate around the rink was much slower, their kisses more chaste.

This year, though! This year is going to be a great one, Eric can feel it. There haven’t been any life altering surprises, Evie has been sleeping through the night (most nights, anyway) for almost two years, and nobody is sick. Finally, for the first time in years, the Bittle-Zimmermanns will be able to enjoy WinterFest as a family.

Just as soon as Jack hurries his perfect butt up and gets downstairs with their daughter! 

Evie is going through a phase, as the experts say, and only wants Papa when she wakes up from her nap. So Eric’s on backpack detail while Jack wakes her up and gets her dressed. He’s packed snacks and a change of clothes, made sure Jack’s good camera is charged, and grabbed an extra diaper—at three, Evie is almost-but-not-quite completely potty trained—just in case. 

Normally, Eric wouldn’t have the luxury of stopping at home in the hours before WinterFest opens to the public, but becoming a parent isn’t the only thing that’s changed in his life since that first WinterFest. It’s still hosted and run by the Department of Parks and Recreation, but it’s become so much more than a one-time fundraiser. Over the years, WinterFest has become a major citywide event, drawing participation from local businesses and schools and bringing in tourists from throughout the region. It’s become a tradition for local families; the preschoolers who marched in that first opening ceremony are going into middle school next year, and have literally grown up with WinterFest.

Eric’s still officially the director of Parks and Recreation, but Chris manages more of the day-to-day stuff with each passing year. Eric spends most of each year planning for the following year’s festival. He even has two staffers who only work on WinterFest from just after Labor Day through festival weekend in February. So yeah, he can afford to take a few hours out of his day to pick his family up and enjoy a few quiet hours exploring WinterFest together before the opening ceremony kicks everything off.

Eric shoulders the backpack and glances at his watch again. “Y’all almost ready?” he calls up the stairs. He wants to make sure they have time to take pictures with the snowpeople and get a pretzel, maybe even get Evie in some skates before the rink gets too crowded with overzealous teens.

“Be right down, Bits!” Jack calls back. Eric takes a moment to dash off a quick text to Jack’s parents to let them know they’re finally about to leave the house.

Finally, Eric hears them coming down the stairs, followed by Evie’s cry of “Monsieur Bat!” Eric isn’t sure why Shitty and Larissa gave Evie a bat stuffie for her first birthday, or why it became her favorite, but they can’t go anywhere without Monsieur Bat.

It’s another minute before all three—Jack, Evie, Monsieur Bat—make it all the way downstairs, Jack slightly out of breath from running up and down with a toddler in his arms and Evie giggling maniacally like it’s all a fun game. “Daddy!” she cries.

“Look at you!” Eric exclaims. “Did Papa put you in your bunny suit?”

“I put me in my bunny suit,” Evie says in her sweet, clear voice. At three, her word choice is still deliberate and a bit cautious; it breaks Eric’s heart to think that soon her speech will sound more like a little kid than a toddler.

“It finally fits,” Jack says of the snowsuit with attached rabbit-ear hood his parents bought her when she was just a tiny thing. 

“And you’re the cutest bunny I’ve ever seen,” Eric says, tugging on one of the ears and planting a kiss on her nose. Evie has the same round cheeks and blue eyes that Jack did as a toddler, and when he sees them together it makes his heart hurt in a good way, like it’s suddenly too big for his body. 

“Is Papa a cute bunny too?” Evie asks.

“Papa is an adorable bunny.” Eric kisses Jack’s nose too, which makes Evie giggle. “Are you all ready to skate?”

“With Papa Bob?”

“With Papa Bob,” Jack promises.

“And Monsieur Bat?”

“Maybe Monsieur Bat can wait in the car,” Eric tries. “So he doesn’t get lost.”

“I want to skate with Papa Bob and Monsieur Bat,” Evie insists.

“We’ll see,” Eric allows.

“And you and Papa.”

“It’s a date,” Jack says. “A skate date.”

“But not Grammy, ‘cause she doesn’t skate,” Evie says seriously.

“Maybe she can babysit Monsieur Bat while we’re skating,” Jack suggests. “She can take him to get a snack.”

Evie considers this. “But I want a snack, too.”

Eric catches Jack’s eye and they share tired smiles. They’ve been parents for three years, and so far the only thing they’re sure of is that kids always want snacks.

“Hey, Ev,” Jack says in an exaggerated whisper, “we’ll get a snack at the doughnut booth while Daddy’s working. But you have to leave Monsieur Bat in the car because, euh, I think bats are allergic to sprinkles.”

“Oh! Okay,” Evie acquiesces, apparently willing to throw her favorite stuffie under the bus at the promise of a sprinkle doughnut. Eric tries to hide his smile from Jack. Before they fell in love, Eric thought his own emotional impulsivity was offset by Jack’s cautious pragmatism, but as he’s learned, Jack Zimmermann is very impulsive and indulgent when his heart gets involved. And there’s nobody he indulges more than their daughter. Exhibit A: doughnuts before dinner.

“Sounds great!” Eric says, clapping his hands sharply in a “let’s get this show on the road!” gesture. “But if we don’t leave now, they’re gonna sell out of doughnuts so let’s get a move on.”

It’s a short drive to the festival grounds, improved by the parklike landscaping they put in after the old Samwell Municipal Rink was razed and the new winter sports complex was built. It always makes Eric a little misty-eyed to see WinterFest in the moments before it opens each year, but this year it hits a little different because he gets to see it through his daughter’s eyes. She been here dozens of times, of course, for her skating lessons and picnics at the permanent tables that were installed during the renovation. But she doesn’t remember seeing it like this, with the lights and the snowpeople and the outdoor rink where it all started.

Eric and Jack each take one of Evie’s hands and begin to make their way toward the gates. As the first welcoming snowperson comes into view, she gasps at the sheer wonder of seeing an six-foot snowman. Eric couldn’t have scripted it any better, and when he glances at Jack he knows what he’s thinking. 

“I know,” Jack says, because he knows what Eric’s going to say. “You were right about all of this.”

“It’s just nice to hear you say it again,” Eric says smugly. They let go of Evie’s hands so she can run up to the snowman and “say hi.” Jack rests a hand on the small of Eric’s back as they follow in her wake.

It never ceases to amaze Eric that he almost missed out on all of this, that his life would be totally different if he’d succeeded in running Jack out of town, or if Jack had been just a little better at his job. It seems like yesterday and a lifetime ago that Jack walked into Eric’s office and told him he was shutting everything down. 

Jack pulls out his camera and gets some shots of Evie with the snowman, then some of Eric and Evie with the snowman, and then they take an awkward selfie of the three of them that’s also somehow perfect and definitely going on this year’s Christmas card. And Eric’s heart does that thing again.

“Hey, Evie,” he says, bopping her on the nose, “do you want to hear a story about the time Papa tried to fire me, but we fell in love instead?”