Jack opens a door he hasn't walked through in a long time. Bitty holds his hand.

Bitty comes out to Johnson in the Haus kitchen after baking four pies in a row. Bitty bakes when he’s nervous, but he also bakes when he’s happy, when he’s tired, when he’s irritated, and when it’s Tuesday, so it’s hard to draw conclusions. Unless you peeked ahead to the last panel first to check for cliffhangers, but Johnson would never do that.

Bitty comes out to his dad, comes back from the summer, is afraid of being on the rink, and thinks that tabloids need to fucking stop. Jack comes back from summer break to a slightly different Bitty, new stupid feelings, and thinks that the tabloids need to fucking stop. Shitty is an understanding friend and will honest to God burn down every tabloid office in the United States (and Canada) if it meant that Bitty and Jack could have some fucking peace, ya feel? Chowder doesn't really get what's going on and isn't really sure if he wants to know (?) but he does know that the captain and his favorite pie maker have something that definitely needs fixing. Lardo knows exactly what's going on, hates the tabloids on principle, and believes that her hockey team deserves to be happy.

A chirp (and not even a very good one) leads to coming out to his teammates.

Five times Jack Zimmermann came out of the closet.

Jack has everything he's always wanted. Sort of.

Bitty is in Annie’s, bent over his textbooks and wondering, not for the first time, why he decided to take French as a language (oh yes, it’s because so many old recipes are written in French, he’s going abroad there to study food history, can’t wait for the summer; half of fall and then winter semester until he goes, but that doesn’t help him now does it) , when he hears someone clear their throat. “Excuse me, is this seat taken?” Oh boy. Eric doesn’t even bother lifting up his head. “Sorry, not a girl and not interested.”

When Dan Erikson is assigned to write an article about Jack Zimmermann's years in college, he thinks he knows what he's getting into. Then he meets Professor Simpson, Jack's photography professor. [also known as: Good Guy Reporter Dan Erikson]

Jack looks at her and then puts her luggage down and leans in, grabs her into a full-body hug, right there on the sidewalk, holding her so close. She can’t remember when he last hugged her this hard. “He told his parents. About being gay. About us,” he says into her shoulder. “They were awful.”

The grainy cellphone photo on the cover of the magazine is of his own back, his red Samwell t-shirt. He's got a forearm braced on the wall, his other hand holding the face of someone small and blond, mostly blocked from view, who has his hands on Jack's chest and a blue hoodie tied around his waist. Emblazoned across the bottom of the cover are the words IS JACK ZIMMERMANN GAY? and it feels like someone just punched him in the stomach.

Falconers bring back the Horton ‘Hug Check’ when playing the Seattle Schooners, because no one wants to be the guy to injure the Captain’s secret boyfriend.