Archive of Our Own

someone to hold me too close

She doesn’t even realise she’s doing it. But her fingers are drumming a tight, tense rhythm against the smooth upholstery, and they only stop when Ted reaches across the seat and grabs her hand. 

“You look perfect, Boss,” he says, and she knows he means every word of it, like he always does. “Don’t worry.”

She shouldn’t be nervous. Since the season kicked off several months ago, she’s had plenty of time to get used to being around Rupert again. She’s even grown accustomed to his dark, bitter aura of meanness and menace, which a younger, sillier, more innocent version of herself somehow mistook for charm and authority. 

So many years of her life, lost to a fundamental misunderstanding of a man who never – not once – saw her as a person, much less his equal. 

She hates that there is still a small, broken part of her that wants to disappear, to hide, whenever he comes too uncomfortably close. 

But she sees him now. She sees him for the hateful, miserable sod he is. And she’s not afraid anymore. She refuses to shrink in his presence, to let him win by losing sight of herself. 

So she’s ready for battle today – dressed to the nines in a spectacularly constructed midnight-blue gown, trimmed with gold lace, her nails painted a bold, brilliant red by Ted. They’re both wearing Richmond colours, proudly, deliberately, because the stakes are higher now than ever before.

Richmond and West Ham are neck and neck in the Premier League table – both inching slowly but surely upwards, each overtaking the other from week to week. She’s pragmatic, and a realist, and she knows Richmond has little hope of beating the likes of Man U or Liverpool. 

But god. She desperately needs the club – her club, Ted’s club, their club – to rank above West Ham.

The game has been played as much on the pitch as off of it. She and Ted have spent months presenting a united front. Going to League events, giving joint press conferences, leaving Nelson Road late enough to get papped together. 

It’s been enough to keep the tabloids simmering over for months, not that they ever needed much fuel to fan the flames of their questionable reporting. She still remembers Keeley sending her The Daily Mail’s thousand-word “Exclusive Report!” on AFC Richmond’s Christmas street party. At least 500 words had been devoted to musing about a possible romance between Randy Rebecca and Toto Ted From Kansas.

“Let’s give them something to talk about, Coach Lasso,” she grins, her nerves sparking with excitement as he gets out of the car to open her door.

The cameras start flashing the moment they hit the red carpet. Today, they’re attending Rupert’s new charity gala, which is ostensibly for the children, but really for him to show off the many sponsorship deals he’s cut, scruples and morals be damned, for West Ham.

Corporate logos are splashed garishly across the backdrop behind them, and she starts working the press line: smiling, posing, fielding a question here and there. 

Ted stays close, taking every opportunity to gleefully show off his nails – which, after hers dried, she had carefully painted with the letters R-I-C-H-M-O-N-D and two loopy, messy hearts.

“Rebecca, are you and Ted dating?” a voice demands stridently from the back of the gaggle of reporters in front of her.

She’s about to laugh, to shrug, to dismiss the question as always, when she feels the literal atmosphere all around her ripple and shift. 

She senses him before she sees him – Rupert steps right up behind her and slides sharply into her personal space, close enough to sink his teeth into her neck, and she suppresses a shudder.

“My goodness, Rebecca,” he drawls, loud enough for her and for every single camera in front of them to hear, “Surely even you have better taste than that!”

The fury that instantly roils up within her – black and fearsome and thunderous – catches her by surprise. It’s the same rage, all ice and fire and hatred, that brought Ted into her life in the first place. An incandescent anger that leads to bad decisions and big mistakes.

But she doesn’t care. All she knows in this moment is that Rupert – vile, horrible, ridiculous, dreadful Rupert – is declaring to the world that Ted – kind, sweet, loving, wonderful Ted – is a lesser man than him, a poor romantic prospect...

And she snaps.

She flashes Rupert a diamond-hard smile, before she reaches out and grabs Ted by the lapels of his suit and pulls him way too close.

In front of all the cameras, all the journalists, all the world –

She kisses him.

And, as the lights start flashing and popping again, photographers shouting and shoving to get a better angle, she finds herself smiling against Ted’s lips.

She had known that kissing Ted to spite Rupert would feel good.

But fuck. She hadn’t known it would feel so right.

someone to hurt me too deep

Ted unfurls his fingers – once, twice, and then again. They’re not tensing up, and he’s pretty sure an anxiety attack isn’t imminent. But he finds the gesture helps in stressful situations.

And Rebecca Welton definitely qualifies as a stressful situation at the moment. 

Ever since she planted that kiss on him two hours ago, she’s given off the same electric charge of danger as a nuclear power plant. She is somehow taller, brighter, fiercer, as she leans into this new game she is playing.

Throughout the evening, she has kept her fingers laced through his. Leaning close to him for the cameras, while whispering “sorry” into his ear. At their table, she scooted her chair nearer to his, placing it at such an intimate angle that her hip could – and did – bump against his.

Facing the press line by her side, he had been close enough to hear the insults and disdain threaded through Rupert’s every word. He had been close enough to see her face transform with a ferocious, almost primal anger.

And then she followed her gut, just like he had when he steeled himself to pick up a dart again for the first time in decades.

“I believe some folks call it white-knightin’.”

He loves her for it.

Just as he loved her for putting the children ahead of her ego, her heartbreak, her dignity, at the gala where he first met Rupert. Just as he loved her for finding him in that quiet alley when his world was spinning apart and, with a touch of her hand, she helped it make sense again.

She is kind, down to her very bones, and he loves that all the more about her because she would never think to describe herself that way.

For a long time now, there’s been a part of him that sings a little louder whenever she touches him.

So, get him into a confessional and he’ll have to admit that he’s enjoying tonight’s charade. He finds it so easy – too easy – to accept her affection, and has had to remind himself, more than once, that none of it is real.

“You ready to call it a night, Boss?” he asks, as she knocks back the final swallow of wine in her glass.

“Let’s get out of here, Ted,” she responds, taking his hand as they head out of the hall. 

It’s impossible to slip out without running into Rupert, who has positioned himself near the exit to bid farewell to his departing guests. 

Ted finds himself wondering again, as he has taught himself to do with just about anyone and everyone, what lies beneath Rupert’s casual cruelty. Within a few seconds, he comes to the same conclusion he always does; some people are just – pardon the language – colossal dicks. 

“Are congratulations in order?” Rupert sneers, as his eyes flick contemptuously from Rebecca to Ted and back again. “Or perhaps commiserations would be more appropriate, Coach Lasso.” He holds out his hand mockingly in their direction.

Rebecca looks at it, coolly, and ignores it, pointedly, choosing instead to tuck her arm through Ted’s. 

“Thank you for the lovely evening, Rupert,” she coos, all butter and honey and sunshine. “Ted and I had the most wonderful time.”

Together, they sweep out of the room, and he can feel her practically vibrating out of her skin right next to him. He helps her into the waiting car, then runs around the side to get in himself.

“Oh my god, Ted,” she explodes the moment he’s safely inside, the righteous fury that has fuelled her all night suddenly ebbing away as her words tumble over themselves and out of her. “Oh my god, I am so sorry, I don’t know what came over me, my fucking brain just left my fucking body, I can’t believe I did that in front of – ”

Her hand flies up to worry at her forehead, a sure sign that her nerves are getting the better of her.

“Hey, Boss, it’s okay,” he assures her. I liked it, he thinks, guiltily, but doesn’t say. “It’s okay. I promise. You don’t have to apologize for anything.”

“Ted, the whole entire fucking world is going to think we’re a couple,” she says, horror dawning in her voice and her eyes as she turns to look at him. “I lied to everyone and made you a part of that lie. I did it again . Oh my god, what is wrong with me?”

She covers her face with her hands in despair.

“Now, I don’t want you beating yourself up like this, Boss,” he interjects. “Your ex-husband is a nasty piece of work and I was happy to play along in the spur of the moment.”

She peeks at him, incredulously, through her fingers. “Really?”

“Darn tootin’,” he says, dialling up the cheeriness in his voice. “And y’know I’m always happy to be the man behind the woman of the hour.”

“Don’t be too sure about that,” she warns gloomily, as she unlocks her phone for the first time all evening. 

She’s sitting close enough for him to see that she’s scrolling up – and up, and up again – in her text chain with Keeley. 

When she hits ‘play’ on the first in a string of voice messages, Keeley’s disembodied scream bounces off every surface in the car.

“BABES!! REBECCA!!! WHAT ARE YOU AND TED DOING?!?” wails the next voice message.

“ARE YOU DOING EACH OTHER??????” shrieks the third.

“Oh my god,” Rebecca makes a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh, as she scrolls down past a frantic series of texts, all in capslock and dotted liberally with emojis that suggest Keeley is losing her mind. 

There are also photos, which Rebecca magnifies to show Ted – one of them taken just as Rebecca pulls him close, and another capturing the moment right after.

Their first kiss. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Rebecca chants, as she keeps scrolling. “We’re trending.” 

And then her eyes widen with panic. “Oh my god, Ted… Henry.”

For a split second, his heart drops into his stomach, and he flushes red and hot with the realization that he hadn’t even thought about what all this would mean to his son, a whole continent away. 

Because we’ve done nothing wrong, something deep inside of him whispers. Because Henry would love her. Because I should be so lucky.

“Slow your horses, Boss – I’ll text Michelle right now,” Ted promises, getting out his own phone and seeing that it, too, is bursting with notifications. “I’ll let her know.”

“Ted, I am so sorry for getting us into this mess,” Rebecca groans. “I am so fucking sorry, oh my god.”

She’s trembling now, not with the bright, vengeful rage that had powered her all night, but with remorse and anxiety.

“You haven’t killed anyone, Boss,” he says firmly. “The thing is – I played along with you. I could have said it was a joke right after you... we kissed. We could have laughed it off. I didn’t, and we didn’t. So don’t be sorry.”

“I didn’t even ask you – ” she trails off.

“It’s you,” he says simply. “And you never have to ask.” 

After a beat, he adds, “Be honest, Boss – didn’t it feel good?”

A warm, rosy blush sweeps across her cheeks, before he adds, quickly, “I mean, didn’t it feel good to stick it to Rupert? Didya see his face all night? He kept glaring at us like he wanted to gather his foxhounds and hunt us for sport. He was hoppin’ mad.”

Her eyes finally light up again, glowing with satisfaction at the memory.

“God, he really is a fuckface, isn’t he?” She looks happier, again, and he smiles too. 

“Look, it’s all part of the game, right?” he offers. “Rupert’s been messin’ with us all season. Buying those billboards outside Nelson Road and covering ’em with West Ham ads. Stealing our sponsors. Putting out that hit piece on poor Jamie.”

“Are you saying… we should run with it, Coach Lasso?” She doesn’t look frantic or apologetic anymore – her eyes are narrowed shrewdly, now, and she’s clearly shifted into club owner mode.

“I mean – we’ve done this… thing, and there’s no taking it back, and it clearly annoys the livin’ daylights out of Rupert,” he points out. “The season ends in six weeks, and it sure beats having to spend the next few press cycles trying to explain why we thought this’d be a funny joke to play on everybody.” 

“You’re... sure about this, Ted?” she asks, quietly, and he knows she’s giving him a way out. One last chance to come clean. 

“Better believe it, Boss,” he replies. And he just about believes it, too.

someone to sit in my chair

Their little charade has turned out to be surprisingly easy to carry off.

They had worked out who absolutely needed to know the truth – a fairly short list including Henry, Michelle, Ted’s mum, Higgins, Keeley, Roy and Beard – and kept everyone else in the dark. The fewer people were told, the easier it would be to keep everything secret.

Annoyingly, not one single person she knows has expressed even the tiniest hint of surprise that she and Ted are ‘together’. 

Sassy sent her a wink and too many eggplant emojis. Her mum promptly called and invited herself around to Ted’s, on the expectation that he would make them dinner. Even Sam – sweet, considerate, oh-so-painfully-young Sam – sent her a message that read, “I’m happy you’ve found someone who would never hurt you, Rebecca. I wish you both well.”

In working out the logistics of their ruse, they had ultimately settled on at least one ‘date’ a week – just often enough to set the #AFCRichmond hashtag on Twitter aflame and keep them constantly on Rupert’s radar. 

With impressive dedication, Higgins – in close consultation with Keeley via text and FaceTime – meticulously carves out time for every single ‘date’, scheduling each one around the many training sessions and matches taking place all over the country. 

And the crazy scheme works, better than anything any of them could have planned to get under Rupert’s skin. 

She can sense Rupert’s barely disguised wrath seething through every interview he has given since the gala. “Randy Rebecca is ruining Richmond,” he half-snaps, half-snarls in one viral video, offering the fans of every other team in the League the perfect mantra to scream from the stands. 

In another lifetime, just three years ago, hearing those words fill half a stadium would have haunted her night and day.

But, now, she finds it easy to shrug it off because, well, it isn’t true.

On the contrary, the entire situation has worked wonders for AFC Richmond. She has it on good authority (Leslie) that Isaac grimly shares every Rupert attack, every snarky tweet from Nate, to the team’s group chat. In response, the boys have rallied together with a fire and passion on the pitch that have helped them pull off some minor miracles – propelling Richmond higher up the rankings than most pundits had considered possible. 

The charade works so well that Rebecca can almost ignore the dark undertow of guilt that quietly and persistently nags at her at every turn. 

‘Dates’ with Ted are also a little easier, a little less awkward, because – other than holding hands and walking arm-in-arm – they only deploy public displays of affection when absolutely necessary. There isn’t much of a need to do more than that, since their kiss, immortalised in viral tweets and tabloids, has done all the work in convincing the world that they’re romantically involved.

So, all things considered, she finds herself enjoying her time with Ted, enjoying his company, far more than she has any right to. 

Over the past month, they’ve wandered through museums and galleries and shops all over the country, places she’s always sworn she’ll visit one day but never has. 

She loves taking Ted, the world’s most sincerely appreciative dinner guest, to her favourite restaurants. A fond, golden glow still surrounds her memories of their meal at The Pen Factory in Liverpool, where they got progressively inebriated while trying to explain the mystifying concept of ‘offside’ to each other. (They both emerged high on life and liquor, and none the wiser.)

And, of course, she’s had a blast showing him more of London beyond Richmond and Nelson Road. He walks through the world with so much wonder and gratitude that she loves seeing her city and all of its lights and its shadows anew through his eyes. 

(although she, of London born and bred, still feels like a traitor because she now finds it endearing instead of existentially offensive that he told a pigeon – a pigeon! – “I appreciate ya” as they were strolling through Covent Garden the other day) 

Upon discovering how much he loved Six after he’d dragged Beard to see it, she asked Higgins to book them on a walking tour of the Tower of London, where Ted cheerfully offered up every single factoid he had already looked up about Henry VIII’s six wives. “ Divorced / Beheaded / Died,” she can still recall him singing happily behind her, “Divorced / Beheaded / Survived! ”

Tonight, they’re attending the West End premiere of a new musical at the Wyndham’s Theatre, smack-dab in the heart of Leicester Square.

Flashing smiles at acquaintances and other club owners, she makes her way down the narrow aisle after a quick stop in the ladies’ room. All the while, she scans the room, until she finally spots Ted a few rows down.

He’s engaged in what appears to be a deep, soul-shakingly important conversation with the person seated next to him – a woman whose face Rebecca can’t quite make out from where she’s standing. The pure elation playing across his features is impossible to miss.

She suppresses a quick, hot flash of jealousy – she has no exclusive claim to Ted’s affections, after all – and hurries the last few steps over to him.

“Excuse me.” She infuses ice and authority into her voice, while drawing herself to her full, impressive height. “I do believe you’re in my seat.”

Ted jumps out of his chair immediately. “Hey, Bo– Rebecca!” he exclaims. Exhilaration radiating off him, he gestures to his neighbour. “May I introduce Dame Mary Berry?” 

Rebecca feels a scarlet flush wash up her neck and into her cheeks as Ted helps the former host of Bake-Off to her feet. Jealous of Mary Berry, Dame Commander of the British Empire, she berates herself. That’s a new one.

As it turns out, Dame Mary had been shown into the wrong row of seats by a careless usher. Unaware of the mistake, Ted had been more than happy to strike up a conversation with one of his culinary heroes before Rebecca arrived on the scene.

“Did you know she’s written over 70 cookbooks?” Ted, in full fanboy mode, rambles happily as she settles into her seat next to him. “Her recipe for shortbread - ” He kisses his fingers in the international symbol of the chef. “Have I ever told you that I used it as the basis for your biscuits?”

And, just like that, he grounds her, centres her, without even meaning to – the mere mention of the biscuits he still finds time to bring her every day filling her heart with the warm, fuzzy feeling that has come to mean home and so much more to her. 

For once, she’s glad that, because of this little game they’re playing, she doesn’t have to disguise the smile or the affection on her face for this man. 

It’s enough for her to shove her guilt down deep, drop her guard, and rest her head on his shoulder. “It’s been a long day, Ted,” she whispers to him. “If you don’t mind.”

“Never do, Boss,” he replies.

And all she can think, as the lights go down, is – if only .

and ruin my sleep

“Get some real fucking sleep, yeah?” were Roy Kent’s parting words, growled in the general direction of everybody in his vicinity as he left the locker room earlier today.

It was good advice, the day before their final match of the season. Advice that would be particularly difficult for everyone to heed, given that the excitement levels at Nelson Road all week could have powered a rocket ship to the moon.

Ted has decided to try for a solid six hours – which would be two more than he's managed most nights for the past month.

The club’s schedule is busier and more draining than ever – packed with matches, home and away, and training sessions. At this point in the season, with everyone keyed-up and the stakes so high, he and Beard also take turns participating in post-game revelries. Better to boost morale than to double down too much on discipline at this stage of the game.

Exhausting in a different, odd, wonderful way have been his ‘dates’ with Rebecca. 

It took him a while to get used to the sheer amount of guilt that still rolls off her in waves. However much he protests, however much he maintains that he is a willing party in their little ruse, she keeps finding ways to apologize, make amends, when she really doesn’t have to.

Sorry, she mutters under her breath, as she reaches across their table at the Crown & Anchor to affectionately push that stubborn little lick of hair out of his eyes (trusting that the manly squeals emanating from the other side of the room mean that photos of them are in the process of being tweeted out by Jeremy, Baz and Paul).

Don’t mind me, she whispers into his ear before pressing a kiss to his cheek, just as Rupert storms stonily past them at the Finals Night press conference.

She’s even taken it upon herself to send Michelle and Henry gifts – a lavish, all-expenses-paid spa day for her, and a top-of-the-line webcam used by NASA engineers for him (“so you two can see each other better!”).

Most memorable (and mortifying) of all, Rebecca had insisted on personally explaining the entire situation to his mother via FaceTime. “I will not be held responsible for whatever happens in the next thirty seconds,” he’d warned as he handed his phone over – only for Liz to mischievously greet Rebecca with, “So what are your intentions towards my Theodore?”

(He loves Rebecca all the more for laughing at that, for staying on the video call for close to an hour, for politely promising to visit Kansas with him one day.)

And yet, despite the constant air of regret and guilt with which Rebecca surrounds herself, he still looks forward to their ‘dates’, more than a little too much. 

He loves getting to see who she lets herself be outside of work. There’s a goofy side to Rebecca that she doesn’t hide, necessarily. But it doesn’t come out to play as often when she’s dressed and coiffed in full Ms. Welton warrior mode, ready to suffer and survive a roomful of her fellow (overwhelmingly male, largely misogynistic) club owners.

When it’s just the two of them, she’s softer, sweeter, sillier. 

She lets him talk her into a pinball showdown at the Crown & Anchor, and crows with childish delight when she wins. 

At a restaurant in Oxford, she gallantly nicks the olives off his pizza once he admits he’s not a fan, and gamely gives him the cucumbers off her salad because he likes them more than she does. 

And she asks him, all the time, about Henry, and listens patiently as he talks her ear off in response.

He loves her most of all for that.

In these moments and so many others, he has to suppress the urge to blow up the whole charade – to hold her hand a little longer than necessary – to actually, properly, kiss her again – to say, out loud, what he’s known for such a long time – 

But then he reminds himself of the blank, stunned look on her face the day Sam told them both that he would stay, for him and not for her. The way she set her empty champagne glass down on the table between them, and muttered, through gritted teeth, “God, Ted, I am the biggest fucking idiot. I need to… stop.” 

Since that day, she has thrown herself with renewed vigor into the club, the season, the simmering animosity with Rupert and West Ham, and now, their little farce. She no longer invites him into giggling huddles with Keeley, and has stopped asking his opinion on both dating prospects and nail polish colors.

So, he figures, she’s no longer looking for love – and maybe she’d never look in his direction, even if she was. Either way, he doesn’t want to push where he might not be welcome. 

Besides, even if – big, big if – she might want this to be real, he doesn’t want her to have to deal with the darkness, the shadows, that he carries with him, when he’s only just started to find his own way back towards the light. 

He shakes himself forcefully out of the what-ifs and who-knows and I-wishes, and focuses on the here-and-now. His phone reports that it's already 11:45pm. 

Roy’s growled reminder echoes through his mind again, and he dutifully switches on silent mode before setting his phone aside. The last thing he needs right now is for tweets and texts and news alerts to keep him awake any longer.

It takes less time than it usually does (he is, after all, exhausted) for him to drop off into a light slumber –

only to be jerked awake by a loud, demanding buzz on his nightstand.

Bolting upright, he shoves his hair out of his eyes and makes a clumsy grab for his phone. Henry is the first word that pounds insistently through his brain. He's listed Michelle and his mom as emergency contacts; both know the time difference and would never contact him at this hour unless it was an emergency – 

As his phone screen lights up, he scans his notifications, heart rate doubling to a frantic rhythm that echoes wildly throughout his body. Almost immediately, he breathes a sigh of relief.

It’s a message from Rebecca aka ‘Da Boss’: Big day tomorrow!!!!

His sleep-fuzzed brain stutters, stops in its tracks, tries to puzzle out how her text managed to break through his Do Not Disturb wall of silence. 

It takes a couple of moments to hit him. He’d toggled the Emergency Bypass option on for her number the day her dad died, just in case she called, or texted, or needed him for any reason. 

Here for you, Boss. Night or day, he had texted her after the funeral, and hesitated for a split second before adding, Never gonna let you down 💜

Unlocking his phone, he is greeted by a flurry of messages. 

I'm sorry to be texting so late, Ted 
But I am finding it IMPOSSIBLE to sleep now that I give an actual shit about fucking FOOTY!!! 💩
AHHHHHH!!! 😵
We’re coming for you, West Ham 💥

Fall down a canyon, Rupert Mannion, he yawns widely as he texts back, and is rewarded with a wall of laugh-crying faces and purple hearts.

His phone buzzes again. How long have you been saving that one?!???

And then, twice more – 

Okay, I’m going to TRY to sleep, and you should too, Ted 💜😴

Sweet dreams x

He chuckles at that. She has no idea that she woke him up, that he's now going to have to find a way to get himself back to sleep.

His mind wanders as he stares up at the ceiling – drifting from tomorrow’s starting line-up to the speech he plans to give the boys before they head out onto the pitch.

But his mind keeps finding its way back to her, to the many hours over the past few weeks he’s spent in her presence, at her side, holding her hand. It’s allowed him to see her all the more clearly. The fire and ice of her. That core of steel, and her heart of gold. Rebecca, in all of her glory and contradictions.

It ends tomorrow – or at least it should; they haven’t really discussed it beyond vaguely agreeing that they’ll keep pretending until the final match of the season. But there’s no reason to keep up the charade, to keep deceiving Rupert and the rest of the world, once the season is over. 

It would be easier – for him, for her, for everyone around them – without the lies, the long con, the ruse of it all. They can go back to being what they’ve always been. Friends, and nothing more.

He thinks hard for a few moments, and decides to bite the bullet. He’ll be the first to say something, so he doesn’t have to hear it from her.

It takes him about fifty attempts to compose a message that feels appropriately silly and light-hearted.

It’s been a blast, Boss. But I guess, as they say in Ireland and also many, many other places, The Jig is up.

He hits ‘send’, and then texts her a few break-up lines that pop into mind from his favorite movies and songs – he knows they’ll make her laugh when she checks her phone first thing in the morning. 

Finally, he clicks off his phone screen, punches his pillow, and tries to settle into a comfortable position.

He tosses and turns, for a while, and all he can think of, as the world begins to fade away around him, is how much he will miss her – 

the low, throaty rumble of her laugh in his ear, 

the defiant sparkle that lights up her eyes when it’s them against the world,

the way standing by her side somehow always feels like the right thing to do.

and make me aware

Sleep is still proving elusive, so she snatches up her phone eagerly when Ted’s text comes in at close to 2am.

It's been a blast, Boss. But I guess, as they say in Ireland and also many, many other places, The Jig is up.

Fuck her selective goldfish memory. She’d forgotten – perhaps wilfully – that, after today, she and Ted don’t have to pretend anymore.

It’s not you. It’s ME! chimes the next message.

If I want to be a Senator, I need to marry a Jackie – not a Marilyn!  

This surprises a laugh out of her, as Ted always manages to do. So does his next message: I’d rather be his whore than your wife!!!

A pause – a longer one, this time, three dots blinking insistently on her screen as Ted types.

We are never, ever, ever getting back together 🎶🎵🎸 pops up.

And finally, This could be the start of a beautiful friendship. 🤝😉

Suddenly, out of goddamn fucking nowhere, she finds herself blinded by hot tears. 

She swipes quickly at her eyes, tries to stop herself from crying like an idiot, like someone who really did just get dumped by text message. 

But her chest starts to heave with sobs she can’t hold back, and she flings her phone across the bed in frustration. 

It wasn’t real, she tells herself, again and again, It never was. Stop being a fucking idiot.   

She spends the next few hours trying, and mostly failing, to get some sleep. It’s one of the worst nights of her life, harder and lonelier even than the night her marriage crumbled to dust around her, and all she could think about as she prowled through that big, empty, silent house, was all the little choices she had made, every day, every hour, every minute, to stay with a man who had never once apologised to her. For anything. 

By the time her alarm goes off in the morning, she is a wreck. She only manages to drag herself into her office by 8am because… well, she has to. She’s got some final press calls to take, and letters to sign, and even if her world feels like it’s falling apart, she will not give Rupert the satisfaction of missing this match.

She pushes open the door of her office, intent on locking Higgins out until she looks and feels more like a human again, except – 

“It’s the BIG DAY, Rebecca!” Keeley sings merrily from the couch, her eyes trained on her phone. “I got here with Roy, like, early, super bright and early and he’s off, I don’t know, doing some superstitious football shit like kissing all the lockers, and I don’t have an office anymore and I knew you wouldn’t mind so I thought I’d just hang out here checking the hashtags and oh my god, so many people are favouring Richmond to win it all and…”

Keeley’s cheerful chatter grinds to a halt when she finally looks up and sees Rebecca, dressed way, way down in grey sweats and a faded black hoodie, sunglasses covering half her face.

“Babe, you look fucking rough,” says Keeley, stating the obvious. “Are you in disguise? Should I be afraid for your life?” 

Rebecca knows there’s no hiding from her best friend, so she pulls off her sunglasses as she drops heavily onto the couch. She can tell from the look of abject horror spreading over Keeley’s face that she looks far, far worse than ‘fucking rough’.

“Holy shit, what’s happened, Rebecca? Do we need to hide a body?”

Sighing, Rebecca unlocks her phone, pulls up her text chain with Ted, and passes it to Keeley. “Ted broke up with me.” She adds sarcastic air quotes around ‘broke up’.

Dumbfounded, Keeley reads the last few messages on screen – and suppresses the urge to giggle at Ted’s goofy choice of break-up lines.

“He’s just having a laugh……?” Keeley hastily turns her statement of fact into a question as thunderclouds roll over Rebecca’s face.  

“I know, Keeley,” she snaps, features twisting into a frown.

“So… what’s – happening – here?” Keeley says each word slowly and carefully, like she’s afraid Rebecca will turn into a literal lion at any moment and maul her to death.

“I don’t know! ” Rebecca throws her hands up in frustration. “I read his texts at dumb o’clock this morning and something snapped and I’ve been having this – whatever this is ever since. It’s – maybe it’s perimenopause. Mood swings, you know? That’s got to be it. It’s a stressful time. I’m tired.”

“Rebecca, please don’t kill me for saying this, because I really don’t want these to be my last words.” Keeley clears her throat. “But I’m pretty sure it’s not your hormones. It looks to me like you’re…” She scrunches up her face, blows out a breath, and takes the plunge. 

“Heartbroken.”

“That’s not – this isn’t – we weren’t really dating!” Rebecca explodes. “It wasn’t real. I know it wasn’t real!” 

“Babes, I have held wailing messes in my lap for hours who didn’t look anywhere near as tragic as you do right now. If the man in question had actually done you wrong, this would be ‘Plan the Perfect Murder’ or ‘Think of Undetectable Ways to Commit Arson’ hours.”

Rebecca shakes her head. “Ted didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just – me. I’m a fucking disaster. It feels like I’m losing my goddamn mind.”

Keeley sits back and studies her friend for a moment. “Babes, can I be real with you?” 

Rebecca gulps, nods.

“It’s because you’re in love with him.” 

“No, I’m n– ” Rebecca starts to protest, but her voice trails off because she knows that isn’t true.

“I don’t deserve to be,” she finishes, quietly, sadly. 

“That’s bollocks, babe.” Disbelief floods into Keeley’s voice. “Is that what you really think? Is that why – Sam – and Luca – I thought you’d decided you were just going to have fun, that you didn’t want anything serious or real, or I would never have...”

“You know the only reason Ted is here in London at all is because I was just the most horrendous bitch to him,” Rebecca cuts her off, a cold, still calm in her voice that’s somehow scarier than if she were weeping or shouting. “I didn’t think about anyone but myself, and I dragged him halfway across the world on false pretences, and I made his life hell.”

Before Keeley can interject, Rebecca barrels on – unleashing words and thoughts and regrets she has tried so long and so hard to ignore, to keep buried.

“I undermined him at every turn. I sent that photographer after the two of you – remember that? I put him in situations that triggered his anxiety attacks. Like he didn’t matter. Like he wasn’t a real human being.” 

She stops to take a shuddering breath. 

“And now I’ve gone and done it again,” she bites out. “I dragged him into this ridiculous farce just to get back at Rupert for being fucking Rupert."

Burying her face in her hands, she groans, “Given everything I’ve put him through, Ted has every right to hate me. It’s a miracle he doesn’t already.”

“Respectfully, Rebecca,” Keeley says, as gently as she can, “you’re being a right numpty and you know it.”

Rebecca spreads her fingers, glares through them. “Explain,” she says dangerously.

“Ted doesn’t hate you. I don’t think he could. Ever. That would be, like, going against his… his biological imperative.” Keeley’s fingers drum thoughtfully against her face as she searches for the right analogy.

“Oh, I’ve got it, don’t I?!” Her eyes light up with glee. “It’s like Jacob and WhatsHerFace in Twilight. He’s imprinted on you!” Keeley waves her hand vaguely in Rebecca’s direction. “Y’know… Soulmate shit.” 

Rebecca’s brows snap together and she glowers so fiercely at her friend that she would definitely need to hide a body if looks could kill. 

“Would you be serious, Keeley?” she barks. “I am having a breakdown and I do not appreciate, at this time, being compared to a werewolf and his child bride – ” 

“Babes, I mean it,” Keeley insists. “I’m not joking around. Ted…  he sees you, Rebecca. Like, who you are. Why you are. And I’m pretty sure he likes what he sees.”

“I swear to god, Keeley, if you don’t stop spouting nonsense – ” 

Keeley rolls her eyes, begins tapping with dizzying speed on her phone, and pulls up a photo taken at the premiere of The Prom. In it, Rebecca is standing in the aisle next to the diminutive Mary Berry and, in her six-inch killer heels, has never looked more like a giant. Ted is standing by them, a huge grin plastered across his face.

“Those heart eyes of Ted’s are for Mary Fucking Berry,” Rebecca scoffs. “I swear, if someone built a shrine to her, he would be one of her most devoted acolytes. I know that from personal, painful experience, because he would not stop blathering on about soggy fucking bottoms all the way home that night!”

Keeley sighs noisily, magnifies the picture again, and very deliberately traces the sightline from Ted’s eyes across the photo. 

Rebecca leans in for a closer look. And she realises, with a jolt, that Keeley is right. Ted is looking at her. His smile is lit from within, and there is warmth and fire and so much love in his eyes – love that looks like it has been there for quite some time. 

“I think it was real, babe,” Keeley says. “For you – and for him.”

Shit.

“Fuck me,” she groans, falling back against the couch, utterly drained by the emotional rollercoaster she’s been riding for the past few hours. “What the fucking fuck do I do now?”

“In the immortal words of Beyoncé, put a ring on it,” Keeley quips. “Until then, let’s get you ready for the match, yeah? Because woof, you look like you got dragged through a hedge backwards. About a hundred times.” 

Mind still spinning with everything Keeley has told her, Rebecca starts pulling herself together. She washes her face clean, applies a cold pack to get the swelling down, and runs a comb through her tangled hair. There’s only so much she can do to disguise the fact that she’s been crying for hours but, by the end, she’s pretty sure she can pass for human. 

Getting decked out in Richmond apparel comes next. She pulls on her very own AFC Richmond jersey with WELTON proudly emblazoned on the back – a surprise gift from Higgins and the boys a few weeks after the team won promotion last year. 

And she gets Keeley to paint her nails just like Ted’s had been on the red carpet that fateful night – R-I-C-H-M-O-N-D. The only difference being – “Purple hearts on the ends, Keels,” she insists, even though it doesn’t quite match her overall colour scheme.

By the time she finishes her pre-match duties and is settled in her seat in the owner’s box, Keeley’s arm tucked protectively into hers, she feels… stronger within herself. 

Cooler, calmer, and better able to face up to the fact that she’s spent too long running away from too many things. From her fear, from herself, from Ted. 

The match passes in a blur. Her eyes keep flicking down towards him, as he paces up and down by the pitch in staccato bursts of nervous energy.

The boys are leaving everything – their metaphorical (and occasionally literal) blood, guts and souls – out on the pitch. This is their last chance to make history, to edge past West Ham in the rankings, and to possibly, miraculously, lay claim to the final slot in the Champions League.

She thinks back to where and who they all were three years ago. A fractured team, rife with pride and dissent and mistrust. And she… she had been a mess. A broken, vengeful, bitter mess who indulged all of her worst impulses. A mess who had had no idea that her life was about to change, immeasurably, irrevocably, and undeniably for the better.

When Jamie sets up the perfect goal and steps back to let Sam take it for the team, everyone erupts off their seats. So does she, heart singing, blood pumping, part of a crowd of thousands screaming, crying, cheering, clapping, as one.

This can’t be wrong. 

This overwhelming, staggering, heart-bursting feeling of love. This unimaginable, impossible, against-all-odds victory. This team, this family, this home. 

This realisation that she is not alone, and won’t ever be again.

However this happened – however she fucked things up along the way – whatever lies, mistakes, challenges brought them here, to this moment –  

She’s not sorry for any of it. 

Caught in a screaming Keeley’s exuberant koala hug, she squeezes back, hastily, then disentangles herself so she can run at full tilt out of the owner’s box.

Her heart racing, tripping, stumbling over itself, she makes straight for the pitch, for him. 

She has to get to Ted.

of being alive

The tidal wave of pure happiness sweeping over Nelson Road could power entire cities. It expands outwards in radiating waves of bright, brilliant noise, thousands of hearts and voices screaming, pounding, cheering, dancing in unison. Some people burst into song, others into tears. 

It’s been all of two minutes since the game ended, but Ted is already hoarse from shouting, sore from getting his back thumped by every single member of AFC Richmond, winded from the aerobic workout of jumping up and down after you win the whole fucking thing.

He spins on his heels to take in the bleachers filled with thousands of fans stamping their feet, clapping and singing their hearts out – we know we are, we’re sure we are, we’re Richmond ’til we die – like it’s the best day of their lives.

It's a sight to behold, and he snaps a picture, sends it to Michelle and Henry with the caption – We did it.

When he looks up from his phone, she is all he sees. 

Rebecca is running towards him in her Richmond jersey, so fast and with such single-minded purpose that the boys actually scatter around her, like pigeons in Trafalgar Square trying to avoid a curious child.

She flies straight into his arms, and it’s the most natural thing in the world for him to lift her off the ground – to spin them around, once, twice, five times. She is laughing and crying and so alive, all at once, all of her, and if his heart gives out from the sensory overload, he thinks, Well, this’d be a pretty good way to go.

“You did it, Ted,” she sobs happily into his ear, “You and Beard and Roy and these wonderful, wonderful boys – ”

“We did it, Boss,” he corrects her. “You too.”

Finally, after a minute that he never wants to end, he sets her down, gently.

She is glowing, alight from the inside out, and it makes his heart sing. Joy looks so good on her. 

But, when he looks a little closer – 

“Hey now, have you been crying?” he asks, noting the darker shadows under her eyes that he knows cannot be attributed to happy tears. “You okay?”

“Better than okay,” she promises, with pride and awe in every word, “Look at what we did, Ted.”

She slips her hand into his – it’s second nature, now, after all the ‘dates’ they’ve gone on over the past few weeks. 

Standing there, in the bright white lights of their home stadium, they breathe in the life and love and light and laughter all around them.

“Thank you, Boss,” he says, after a few moments. “This right here? It’s one of the best things that has ever happened to me. This game. These friends. This family.” 

You, he adds, to himself. 

“Even if it all started with a lie?” she asks. “And we’re still lying to the whole world?”

“Yup, even so.” His fingers tighten around hers. “I meant it when I said you changed my whole damn life, Boss. I know a part of you still regrets what you did to get me here in the first place. And you’ve apologized plenty for this here romantic comedy we’ve been acting out for a while.”

“But don’t you ever apologize,” he sweeps his hand out widely in front of him, encompassing the entire stadium, “for giving me this.”

“I wasn’t intending to, Ted.” There is a lightness to her smile, a clarity, that he hasn’t seen in a while. “Actually, I want to make sure you know that I’m not sorry. For bringing you here three years ago. For asking you to stay. For – ” She looks over at him. “For the last few weeks.”

She lets go of his hand, takes a few steps away, and turns to face him.

He’s not sure what’s going on here, but he can feel his heart – already beating twice as fast as normal, pumped full of the adrenaline of victory – speeding up even more.

“When you broke up with me via text yesterday, I had a little time to think.” There is a twinkle in her eye, an impish smirk on her face, when she says this, but he knows her well enough to immediately realize – he made her cry. 

Shit. He takes a step towards her, powered by the soul-deep, instinctive need to comfort and protect and apologize for hurting her. 

But she holds up her hands, shakes her head. I’m fine, Ted.

“I talked it out with Keeley.” She nods in the direction of her best friend, who is hovering nearby, not particularly subtly, and responds with a happy whoop. “And I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s only one way for me to let you know how I really feel.”

By this point, the hollering, screaming masses around them have noticed that something is happening between him and Rebecca on the pitch. Eyes are starting to turn towards them, and Keeley – now with Roy’s arms wrapped around her – has already whipped out her phone and is pointing her camera directly at them.

“So I’d like to present a little dramatic reading that I hope you will enjoy.”

“Well, call me Cher Horowitz,” he exclaims in delight, anticipation fizzing through his veins, “because I am absolutely clueless about what’s goin’ on right now!” 

This makes her chuckle, fondly, before she makes a big show of passing a hand dramatically across her face, shaking out her fingers, and clearing her throat.

“I wanted it to be you, Ted,” she begins, and there is laughter and joy in her voice, as well as the unmistakable ring of truth. “I wanted it to be you so badly.”

No way. No. Goddamn. Way.

As understanding dawns across his face, a satisfied smile spreads over hers.

She pauses for dramatic effect, just as she would have in another life, another universe, where Rebecca Welton, with her spectacular face and golden voice, would be on posters and billboards all over the world – one of the brightest stars in the firmament.

But, in this life, in this universe, she savors a beat, then another, before she says her next line.

“I’m scared of walking out of this room” – this stadium, she amends – “and never feeling my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you.”

He’s pretty sure his heart breaks wide open at that. 

Approving nods and murmurs of “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” reverberate through the crowd, even as he blinks once, twice, against the tears that are starting to gather in his eyes and blur his vision.

“Boss, you are killing me here,” he manages to choke out around the solid lump of joy that has suddenly lodged in his throat.

At this point, their friends – their family – are starting to scream and wave their Richmond scarves and signs wildly in the air again. Jamie and Dani, arms looped around each other, watch with wonder written all over their faces. Tears are pouring down Keeley’s face as she keeps her phone camera trained on them. And Roy is nodding, reciting the lines along with Rebecca.

“One last one!” she promises, looking like she’s trying to hold back tears of her own, as she reaches out and takes his hands in hers. 

“Ted… I’m just a girl. Standing in front of a boy.”

Another ripple of recognition goes through the crowd around them, and Jamie yells helpfully from the sidelines, “Fuck yeah, Julia Roberts that shit!!!”

“Asking him to love her,” she offers, at last, and there is starshine and song and so much more in her eyes. 

By this point, he is somehow both laughing and crying, and so is she.  

She takes a few steps into his arms. Or he takes a few steps into hers. One way or the other, he is holding her, and she is holding him, and the world is exactly the same as it always was, except it’s shifted on its axis and everything is new and different and wonderful.

“Ted, can I…” She pulls back in his arms, and asks, almost shyly, “Would you mind if I kissed you right now?”

“It’s you, Rebecca,” he says, simply. “And you never have to ask.” 

This time, when she kisses him, and when he kisses her back – 

when her hands move to cup his face, and his fingers tangle through her hair –

right there on their home pitch, in front of all the cameras, all the people, all the world – 

it doesn’t just feel right. 

It feels real. 

It is real.

When they finally break apart, ecstatic cheers go up all around them. 

“Fucking hell, Ted.” She ducks her head, pressing her face into the crook of his neck, and he can feel her smiling as she says, just loudly enough for him to hear, “Nice boys don’t kiss like that!”

He laughs as he pulls her closer, his heart, his soul, even his goddamn bones, humming with the very joy and warmth and life of her.

“Oh yes, they fucking do.”