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justlookfrightened · 4 years

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How hard could it be? Epilogue

A/N: I’m posting this as the epilogue of “How Hard Could It Be?”, but it’s actually going to be the first chapter of its as-yet-untitled sequel. Look for updates on AO3 after “How Hard Could It Be?” finishes posting.

“Come on, Jack, answer.”

Bitty heard the ringing change to the mechanical voice reading the phone number and telling him to leave a message.

He hung up and looked at the time. Just after eight. It was a couple of hours earlier than he usually called Jack, but he knew Jack should be up.

Probably he was doing his morning exercise routine. Even with the return to conditioning in the team facilities, players were still doing a lot of it at home because of restrictions on how many people could be in the gym at one time.

Call me when you get this, Bitty texted. He hoped Jack would call before he showered and dressed and had breakfast.

It’s important, Bitty added.

There was nothing more he could do, so he went back to the kitchen and got butter from the fridge. He could leave a couple of sticks to soften for cookies and cube the rest into flour for a pie crust.

MooMaw brought her coffee cup in from the porch.

“Baking already? What did Jack say?”

“I didn’t talk to Jack,” Bitty said, concentrating on measuring salt into the flour.

“You’re going to move back with your mother and daddy then?” MooMaw asked. “That’s what you’re trying to work yourself up to do?”

“What? No,” Bitty said, starting on the butter. “Jack didn’t answer. Probably working out. But if he doesn’t want me, I’ll try Shitty and Lardo. If things are opening up again, it’s time for me to move on.”

“Move on from here?”

“From Georgia, with my life, all of it,” Bitty said.

“You don’t have to leave,” MooMaw said. “I can tell Connie I don’t have room.”

“Nah,” Bitty said. “She needs a place. And she wants to stay here. Even if I didn’t have somewhere to go, I could take the sofa. And I have a room with Mama and Coach.”

“Have you talked to them?” MooMaw asked.

Bitty shook his head. “Not yet. I want to have a plan first.”

His phone buzzed on the table, he wiped his hands on a dish towel.

“It’s Jack,” he said. “I’ll just go …”

“Front porch is open,” MooMaw said, picking up the bowl with the beginnings of his pie crust. “I’ll just stick this in the Frigidaire until you’re ready to get back to it.”

“Hey, Jack,” Bitty said, answering the call as he pushed the screen door open.

“Bittle?” Jack said. “Are you alright? Is your grandmother alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Bitty said. “I promise. It’s just, my Aunt Connie lost her job. The restaurant she managed in Atlanta announced it’s closing for good.”

“That’s too bad,” Jack said. “But -- and I don’t mean to be insensitive -- why did you need to call me at eight o’clock in the morning to tell me?”

“Because she called MooMaw last night and asked if she could move in here,” Bitty said. “When her lease is up at the end of the month.”

“Okay,” Jack said.

“And the guest room I’ve been sleeping in will become Aunt Connie’s room,” Bitty said. “And I know we talked about, well, me moving back north and maybe staying with you, but I thought that might be more of a ‘maybe someday’ kind of thing and not a ‘I need a place to stay next month’ kind of thing, and if it is that’s totally fine,” Bitty said. “I get it, we barely know each other, we’ve never met in person, and even if we like each other it’s way too much to ask with our relationship being what it is, if you can call it a relationship at all, and --”

“Bittle,” Jack said.

“Mama would be happy to have me back at home with her, and maybe Shitty and Lardo could help me find a place to share in Boston, and MooMaw said she’d tell Connie the room was taken if I wanted her to, but it’s the room Connie grew up in and after working through the whole shut-down, now the place closes because people aren’t coming back in droves? And she’s nearly 60, and she doesn’t know how she’s gonna find a new job --”

“Bittle.”

“Sorry,” Bitty said. “I’m rambling. I just wanted to know before Mama hears the news about Aunt Connie today. She’ll be thrilled about me coming home, and I want to stop that train before it starts if it’s not gonna happen..”

Jack was silent for a moment before saying, “Is that what you want, to stay in Georgia with your family?”

“Not really,” Bitty said. “I mean, maybe for a little while? Like a week or two? But not another three or four months. I’ve liked spending time with MooMaw, and my parents and I -- it’s gotten better, y’know? -- but I don’t think this is where I want to spend the rest of my life. But I know that’s my problem, not yours.”

“Do you not want to stay with me?” Jack said. “I’ve got plenty of room.”

“I know, sweetpea, but I don’t want to put you on the spot,” Bitty said. “I mean, this isn’t like an old-fashioned arranged marriage or something where the first time we lay eyes on each other is the first day we … you know.”

“Just because you stay here doesn’t mean we have to sleep together,” Jack said. “I have had houseguests before without that, eh?”

Bitty snickered in spite of himself.

“You don’t think it would be bad for us?” Bitty asked. “I mean, like us us, like making us hate each other because we’re stuck together, or making us put up with things we don’t like because we don’t want to cause problems?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I’ve never lived with someone I was in a relationship with.”

“And we’d have to be careful anyway,” Bitty said. “Like, when I get there, I should stay in the guest room and stay away from you as much as possible for two weeks just in case I get exposed to this on the road. And -- wait. What did you say?”

“That I never lived with someone before?” Jack said. “Is that weird?”

“No, but, is that what we’ll be doing?” Bitty said. “Living together? I guess I was thinking more of an indefinite visit, until I can find a job and get a place.”

“If that’s what you want,” Jack said. “You’re welcome to my guest bedroom, I guess.”

“And your kitchen?” Bitty said. “I’ve been itching to bake with you for weeks now.”

“With me or with my kitchen?” Jack chirped.

“Both?” Bitty said.

“You should know training camp starts July 1,” Jack said. “So I won’t be home that much. And once we start playing, I won’t be home until … I really don’t know when. So it won’t be so much that you’re staying with me as staying in my place.”

“Ugh, that’s true,” Bitty said. “Little old me, all alone in a luxury condo with top-of-the-line everything. It’ll be like the best house sitting job ever. I can take in the mail and water the plants.”

Jack chuckled.

“What makes you think I have plants?”

“You have one,” Bitty said. “I saw that ficus in your living room.”

“What makes you think it’s real?” Jack challenged.

“Uh … there was a dead leaf?”

“Was there?”

Bitty could hear Jack walking through the condo.

“Shit, you’re right,” Jack said. “I usually have a service take care of the plants but they haven’t been coming because of the pandemic. They sent instructions … but I think I forgot to water last week.”

“See?” Bitty said. “I can make myself useful.”

“You don’t have to,” Jack said. “You’re welcome to come and stay as long as you want or need to. If things open up enough by then, I can get the plant lady to come back. But we don’t have to figure it out now.”

“No, now I just need to tell my parents that after moving home from college and more or less directly into MooMaw’s house, I’m going to move back to New England at the end of June to live with a man I’ve never met,” Bitty said. “It should go well.”

“Haha,” Jack said. “I’ll have to … is it okay if I tell the team? That you’re staying with me? They don’t have to know we’re anything besides friends. But it would be hard to keep it to myself, I think.”

“Of course,” Bitty said. “It’s your home, your team. Tell them as much as you want.”

“Thanks,” Jack said. “Good luck with your folks. Let me know how it goes. And Bittle …”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really looking forward to meeting you in person.”

“Me too,” Bitty said. “I mean, meeting you, not me.”

They ended the call with Jack laughing at Bitty’s joke. Bitty shook his head and looked at the phone for a moment before heading back to the kitchen and resuming his work on the dough.

“Well?” MooMaw asked.

“Looks like I’m headed to Providence in a couple of weeks,” Bitty said. “So this is gonna be a peach pie for Mama.”

Bitty was waiting on MooMaw’s porch with the pie, a pitcher of sweet tea and a container of peanut butter cookies boxed up for coach when his mother came with the groceries. She left the bags on the step, and Bitty got up to carry them inside.

“Go ahead and get yourself some pie and tea,” he said. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

He left the bags in the kitchen with MooMaw, and came back outside, cutting his own slice of pie before taking a seat on the other side of the porch from his mother.

“Is this about Aunt Connie?” his mother said. “She called this morning. She was asking if I thought we could put together some kind of order business for baked goods and jams and such, maybe sell at farmer’s markets and things. I said you’d have to be part of it too, of course. Because then we could make more, and cover more markets every weekend.”

“No,” Bitty said. “Well, sort of. It’s about Aunt Connie moving back here, at least.”

“You know your room’s been ready for you,” his mother said. “And I know you’re a grown man and need your privacy. Your father and I won’t be nosy.”

What did they think Bitty would be doing in his room? By himself? Because he honestly didn’t know any other gay men in Madison, although there must be some, just based on numbers. And anything else … well, he;d been a teenager already hadn’t he?

He wished he weren’t blushing to the roots of his hair when he said, “No, Mother. It’s not about moving home. Or, I guess, it’s about not moving home.”

His mother looked confused.

“It’s going to be difficult to find a place around here just now, and you’d need a job …”

“I know,” Bitty said. “I will need a job, and that will be hard to find around here. You knew I was planning to go back north.”

“But, where --”

“With Jack,” Bitty said. “He invited me.”

“You can’t impose on a man you barely know for goodness knows how long,” his mother said, like it was obvious. “Even if he says it’s okay, people get tired of having guests.”

“I know, Mama, but it won’t be like that,” Bitty said, hoping very much that he was right. “By the time I get there, he’ll be in training camp, and then he’ll be away for the playoffs the NHL is doing this year, keeping all the teams in the same place, so won’t even be there for a lot of the time. And he’s got a spare room and bathroom and everything.”

“Now, Dicky,” his mother said. “I know you really like Jack, from the time you’ve spent on the computer with him, and he does seem taken with you, but that’s not real life. I’d hate for you to go so far only to be disappointed. Maybe you can visit him for a week and come home?”

“No, ma’am,” Bitty said. “Traveling isn’t such a great idea right now -- I’m planning to isolate myself for a couple of weeks once I get there just in case -- and anyway, I wasn’t asking permission. I was sharing my plans.”

#omgcheckplease #omg check please #zimbits #my fic

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