Chapter Text
“Now, what’s so interesting you can’t put it down at the breakfast table?”
Coach’s voice cut through his reverie and Bitty jerked his head up, flushing with guilt. Lord, he was being so rude. The last day his daddy was visiting and here Bitty was, reading Twitter at the dang table. He’d only meant to peek at the notification, not go down the rabbit hole. “I’m sorry, daddy.”
Looking still a little irritated but mostly amused, Coach nodded at his phone and raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“Well, uh, somebody tweeted a video of my goal last night.” Bitty scratched the back of his neck. “It, uh, it got a little attention.”
Someone had tweeted a gif of his goal and celly with the caption “Tammy Duncan IRL,” to be specific, but Bitty wasn’t sure Coach remembered the finer details of The Mighty Ducks. It was getting more retweets than Bitty had ever had, even on Moo Maw’s no-fail pie crust.
“Well, that’s real exciting Junior. It’s good to get a buzz going viral,” he said, as sweetly awkward as when he complimented Bitty on his ‘skating edges.’ Bitty was pretty sure Coach’s main experience with Twitter was telling his football boys cautionary tales about what would happen if any pictures of them with bongs ended up there, a supposition which was only strengthened when Coach continued, much more confidently, “Just be careful what you ‘tweet’ online.“
“I am, Coach.” It was true, up to a point. Bitty’d never admitted to being drunk on his vlog, even when it was obvious, he only cussed a little, he hardly ever trash talked anyone by name, even Jack, and he had insisted that the only thing Shitty specify about the butter in his guest recipe for brownies be whether or not it was salted. But he wasn’t exactly shy about talking about men.
(Bitty’s second most secret, embarrassing draft fantasy was of an Aces pre-draft meeting where some faceless PR suit questioned Eric Bittle’s online presence only to be passionately shouted down by director of amateur scouting Ernest Ford, the best damn defenseman the Aces had ever iced and a bonafide genius in Bitty’s opinion. In his number one most secret, embarrassing draft fantasy, Parse had been invited to sit in on the meeting to observe as captain, and he leapt to Bitty’s defense too.)
“I’m always careful about it,” Bitty said, looking his daddy in the eye. “I promise.”
A smile twitched the ends of Coach’s mustache and he stood, moved his coffee across the table to set by Bitty’s. “Budge over, Junior.” Bitty budged and Coach sat down beside him in the booth. “Now, why don’t you show me some of this good publicity.”
Bitty did, carefully curating the best tweets to show to Coach. The initial gif had likes from quite a few blue checkmarks and Coach was duly impressed once Bitty explained the significance. Moneypuck queen Kate Parson, who hadn’t tweeted anything mean about Samwell’s Corsi at all, had retweeted someone who’d responded to the gif with “@NHLCanes Skinner-Gerbe-Bittle for shortest, figure skatingest line ever. #DraftGoals” (Thinking about Kent seeing that made Bitty just about melt with delight, not that he would admit that to Coach.) One tweet reading “Spud Webb. Quizz Rodgers. Eric Bittle. COINCIDENCE? #Shortlanta” made Coach choke on his coffee laughing. There was a lot like that, really positive, fun stuff that he could show his daddy and be proud of.
As for the rest, well... it was what it was.
(Thank goodness Coach wasn’t on Twitter, Bitty thought magnanimously as he scrolled. Bitty might have the good sense and saintlike patience to take Coach’s advice and be careful what he tweeted, but he’d just hate to think of the kind of hellfire his daddy would rain down on his behalf if he saw how some people’s children behaved.)
After he’d seen Coach off to the airport, hugging him hard as if he could stave off homesickness by stocking up now, he set to dealing with the rest. Bitty bought himself the most sugary frou-frou drink he could get at Annie’s (the thought intruded uninvited, Jack used to do that, so he could chirp me and give me something I liked all in one, and wasn’t that just what he needed?) and headed back to his dorm to take care of business.
Freshman athlete orientation had included some of the upperclassmen performing a horribly catchy musical PSA about social media entitled Block and sung to the tune of LMFAO’s Shots, and it would now be stuck in his head all week. Thanks, Internet.
“Block, block, block, block, block, block, everybody,” Bitty mumble-sang under his breath as he tapped his phone screen somewhat harder than necessary.
“Well, it’s a big night. Any of y’all following ECAC hockey maybe know what I’m talking about here: we‘re at Quinnipiac.” Bitty mimed wiping sweat off his brow. “Hoo boy, it’s a big one for us. I can’t even tell you they’re our biggest division rival, from what I hear they usually wipe the floor with us.”
“But us Wellies don’t give up!” He thumped a fist into his other hand. “If the Aces can fight through that godawful west coast road swing, we can fight through Quinnipiac! Ducks and Bobcats, you’re going down!”
By the time Pauly finished roaring his speech about how they were gonna send the Ducks running home to Uncle Walt begging to be “Mighty” again, even Parse was too fired up to care how scary the California roadie gauntlet was looking this year, and he should know better. But fuck the Ducks, fuck the predictive models, and fuck father time, they were going to crush it. The Aces’ window wasn’t closed until they said it was closed.