Thank you all for your input! It was as simple as play(0). Thank you, PointC. It is now working beautifully. I also fixed the issue of jumpy hover effects by targeting an <a> I wrapped around it. Now just to smooth out the animation.
OSUBlake, I'd love to learn more about map() and objects. I'm still relatively new with the behavioral side of coding and I didn't understand how they would help me on this point, but that's probably because I'm not entirely grasping it. I looked at the CodePen you provided and I saw there were multiple buttons whereas I only had the one. If you