Chapter Text
Rebecca found, after telling Ted her ulterior motives in hiring him to coach Richmond, her workday changed. Before, she would sit at her desk and work, drinking her tea in the relative quiet of the building. She was isolated – separated from the rest of the team and the staff, which was fine. She was the owner, that was how things went.
But now that he knew, she found herself lingering by the windows, watching the team train, watching Ted gesticulate wildly from the sidelines, enthusiastic in his body language while Beard stoically stood beside him. Now, she opened the windows and let the sounds from outside waft through the opening, smiling when she heard Dani yell “football is life” and the team cheer or jeer depending on the drills.
It made the place feel bigger and more open. Fresher.
She finally felt like she was doing what she was supposed to do.
Sure, she was still bombarded with pictures of Rupert and New Rebecca every day in the press, and press conferences were usually a quick flurry of questions of Ted’s qualifications in the wake of relegation and Rebecca’s feelings about pregnant Bex, but Rebecca accepted it. Perhaps this was her penance, being constantly reminded of Rupert and the opportunities she’d missed.
There was a quiet knock at her door. “Come in,” she said hesitantly. Keeley wouldn’t knock, Higgins was out for the afternoon, taking care of his sick son, and everyone else was on the pitch.
Roy peeked his head in. “Dickhead is here.”
She cocked her head. “Dickhead?”
“Rupert,” he clarified. “Should I kick his arse down to the curb and then up again?”
She stood, straightening her skirt. “No, just…send him in, I suppose.”
Roy pursed his lips. “No, I mean, he’s in the stands. He’s watching training. Coach Lasso told me I should come get you without drawing too much attention or whatever. Fucking prick wouldn’t let me hit him.”
“Don’t hit him,” Rebecca echoed. “I’ll take care of it.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“You don’t have to –”
“I’m fucking coming.”
Rupert was sitting a few rows back from the edge of the pitch, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, while Ted called out new plays for the team to try. Rebecca watched Ted work, watched the way he very deliberately didn’t look back at Rupert, not giving him the satisfaction of looking or acting nervous. She felt a little flutter of pride at the sight of it. She stepped closer, off the stairs and into the aisle.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, looking down at him.
He had the audacity to look surprised to see her, and to see Roy standing behind her, arms crossed like a bodyguard. “Oh, hello darling,” he said. “Thought I’d come watch my team train.”
“My team,” she reminded him. “Don’t you have a baby to prepare for?”
“Oh come on, you know how pregnant women get sometimes,” he said, waving her off. “Though, I suppose you don’t.”
The comment stung, and she blinked the pain away, glancing back at Roy, who had taken a step forward when she didn’t immediately reply. It’s fine, she said with a look. It’s fine.
“These trainings are closed,” she reminded him. “No fans allowed.”
“This is my team –”
“My team,” she said firmly. “You are nothing but a fan now.”
He stood up, adjusting his collar. “I know you think ruining this team would hurt me, Rebecca. It’s shameful that you would sink so low. But it doesn’t hurt me. It just makes me embarrassed for you.”
“For me?” she asked.
“An unqualified, barren woman attempting to fill the void in her life with a team of young, impressionable men,” Rupert said. “And now you’re just running the entire team into the dirt. Ruining these young men’s financial prospects for what? A rotating carousel of men?”
“I find it hard to believe you’d come all the way down here to chide me about my fictional sexual conquests,” she said mildly. “It’s disappointing how bored you must be without the team to run. Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury of boredom. So I’m afraid you’ll have to go, darling.”
She turned to leave, wincing when Rupert’s hand closed around her wrist, pulling her back, closer.
“Oi –” she put a hand out, stopping Roy as he stepped closer, heard some of the players behind her fall silent at the sound.
“You sure you want to do this here?” she asked, lowering her voice. “And let the whole team see what you do to women who don’t obey you?”
He squeezed tighter, and she let out a pained sound in spite of herself, Roy pushing into her back again in an attempt to get to Rupert, stopping only when Rebecca glared back at him. It had gone quiet on the pitch, so quiet that when a wind blew through, she could almost hear it rustling the grass.
“You’re going to sell the club back to me –”
“Over my dead body –”
He jerked her arm, knocking her forward, stumbling slightly in her heels, an embarrassed flush creeping up her neck. Her wrist was radiating white hot pain, grounding and distracting at the same time.
“You’re going to sell the club back to me, Rebecca, and I am going to clean up your mess, and then I’m going to fire that idiotic, empty-headed embarrassment of a manager that you have such a soft spot for –”
In a moment of what she would later consider either temporary insanity or the most sane moment of her entire life, Rebecca planted her feet on the ground, pulled back, and punched Rupert in the face.
“You keep your fucking twat mouth shut about him,” she snapped. He stumbled backward, into the seats he was standing in front of, still holding onto her wrist, the pain singing deep in her blood, and Rebecca followed him, hand pulled back to punch him again, only for Roy to pull her back, Rupert’s struggling to remain upright setting her wrist free. He grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up, turning to deposit her on the ground behind him, shoving Rupert back when he tried to follow her.
She could just barely see Rupert trying to get past Roy to get to her, actually flinched when he got one foot on the other side of him, because what would he do now, now that she’d struck him, embarrassed him in front of his team?
The whole team had jumped into movement the moment she swung – Isaac and Sam hopped over the barrier and ran up into the stands, Isaac getting in front of Roy to face Rupert, Sam staying behind to hold out his own hand for her aching one, asking quietly “are you okay?”
Her hand was bleeding. She looked down at it, a little dazed, finding the source of the blood – the ring on her finger scraped her when she swung, and swallowed. “I’m alright,” she said, wincing as she said it.
When she looked up, Coach Beard had Ted held tightly by the arm, his hair a disaster, muttering in his ear, Ted’s face pale with rage, his hands in tight fists. She could hear Roy talking to Rupert – “get the fuck out of here, you fucking arsehole, before we call security and get you banned permanently,” Isaac echoing him in his perfectly succinct way by nudging Rupert toward the door so hard he stumbled again. “Oops, innit?”
She locked eyes with Ted, could see his jaw working, like he was grinding his teeth, watched him jolt forward when Rupert said something forceful that she couldn’t understand, watched Beard push him back, thank God, because the tabloids would have a field day with this, that she knew, but they’d be ravenous if Ted went after him, too.
“Ms. Welton?”
All of the adrenaline that had pumped through her at the sight of Rupert, at the split-second decision to punch him, drained out of her in an instant, and she swayed, Sam catching her as she lost her balance.
“Coach!”
“I’m fine, Sam, I’m alright, thank you,” she murmured, blinking slowly to get her bearings back as Ted came vaulting up the steps. Sam stepped cleanly away from them, leaving Ted in his place.
“Hey, hey, whoa now, no need for sudden movements,” Ted reassured her, slipping an arm around her back and guiding her into one of the seats. His voice was tight, on a razor’s edge, but he was still trying to be warm and comforting. “Let’s just take a sec, alright?”
“Absolutely fucking magnificent,” Roy said, coming back, smiling proudly down at her. “Cunt has been removed, Ms. Welton.”
“Thank you, Roy,” she said weakly. Ted kneeled down beside her, taking her punching hand in his own, and she could feel how he was shaking. “Are you alright?” she asked him.
“Should be askin’ you that question, Rocky Balboa,” he quipped, inspecting her hand closely so he wouldn’t have to look up at her.
“Ted –”
“I’m fine,” he said firmly. “Just tryin’ real hard not to be angry is all.” He gently touched her knuckles, where one was bruising, hissing through his teeth when she winced. “You really went for it, didn’t ya? That’s my girl.”
She flushed, ducking her head when Sam crouched down beside Ted, returned from his journey back onto the field. “Here you go,” he said, passing Ted a damp cloth, letting him carefully clean the blood off her hand. She let herself become absorbed in the way he meticulously cleaned her hand, gently holding it in his own, breathing deeply until his shaking subsided.
“We should get you some ice,” he muttered when Rebecca stood up. She dropped her other hand on top of his own.
“It’s alright, Ted, I can take it from here,” she said bracingly. “I should get up to the office, wait for either a call from lawyers or from Keeley to start damage control.”
But Ted’s eyes were on her other wrist, where, if she looked down, she could already see the bruise forming on her pale skin. She looked up toward his face, the careful concentration morphing again into anger.
“Ted –”
She could feel his hands shaking again, bad enough that he took them away from her own, clenching and releasing them, trying to push his hair out of his face and failing. He gave up and pushed them in his pockets.
“It’s fine –”
“It’s not fine –”
“Well, I mean, no, it’s not, but you don’t have to get –”
“Maybe it’s best if we cancel the rest of training,” Roy interrupted. “Coach, escort her to her office.”
“I can go myself –”
“I didn’t fucking ask,” Roy said firmly. “Get goin’.” He put a hand on Ted’s shoulder, a gentle show of understanding, of solidarity, and she wondered suddenly when Ted and Roy had come to understand each other so well. Roy gathered the team, Beard at his side, and spoke in hushed tones, leaving Ted standing beside Rebecca, hands still in his pockets.
“Come along,” she said, her voice wrenching him out of some kind of reverie. He blinked at her and offered her his arm, probably because he thought she needed help up the stairs, not that she blamed him, really, she did still feel a little unsteady on her feet.
They didn’t speak the whole walk up to her office, Rebecca finally relenting and toeing her heels off once they were back inside. Her wrist ached, her hand hurt, everything was a mess.
Keeley was in the office waiting for her when she got there, face pinched and serious. “Roy called,” she said as an explanation. “As your friend, bravo,” she said. “As your PR manager, this could get ugly.” Her eyes fell to Rebecca’s wrist, to Ted’s pale face, and she tightened her jaw. “Wish I coulda taken my own shot, though.”
“It’s alright, Keeley,” Rebecca said. “Give me the PR update.”
“Rebecca –”
“Let’s just get it out of the way,” she insisted.
Keeley sighed. “Rupert could sue you for assault, which would be annoying, but it’s not like you couldn’t settle or pay –”
“He assaulted her first,” Ted pointed out sharply. “What she did was self-defense.”
Keeley blinked, taken aback by his tone. “That’s a good argument, Ted, thank you,” she said, jotting it down. “Really, if he provoked you, I don’t think he’s going to run the risk of making this a legal battle. Probably he’s going to run directly to the tabloids.”
Rebecca tried to rotate her wrist and winced, closing the fingers of her other hand over it. “What does that mean for us?”
“We could capitalize on it before he can get anything published,” Keeley said. “Take to social media. Like it or not, he was…” she took a breath, and Rebecca could see her eyes going to her wrist again. She didn’t want to look at it, didn’t want to see how ugly and swollen it looked already, she could feel it. “He was violent with you, and if you have physical evidence, the internet will destroy him.”
“I’m not going to post a picture on Instagram and pretend like what he did to me is as bad as what happens to other women. I didn’t do it before, I’m not going to do it now,” Rebecca said. Beside her, Ted shifted uncomfortably. “I’ll own the narrative, but that’s it.”
“Then you’re going to have to talk about why you hit him,” Keeley said.
Rebecca moved to sit on the couch, groaning when she bent her wrist. Ted looked over at her in concern at the sound, jaw working again.
“Ted, could you go down to the locker room and get Rebecca some ice?” Keeley asked kindly. “Go take a breath, you look like you’re about to lose it.”
“Boss?” Ted asked, looking to her for confirmation.
“Ice would be nice,” she said when Keeley looked at her, eyebrows raised. Ted nodded, taking careful steps toward the door. He shut it quietly behind him, and Keeley turned to her, eyes wide.
“I’ve never seen Ted like that,” Keeley said.
Rebecca watched him leave, sighing. “Me neither,” she said.
***
The team was in the middle of changing when Ted made it back to the locker room, everyone muttering quietly amongst each other, the usual frivolity completely transformed into something more serious. Ted pushed past them, ignoring their calls, into the training room, and shut and locked the door.
He walked over to the cabinets and looked inside, trying to read the labels. Rebecca probably needed some kind of alcohol for the cut on her hand, maybe a bandage, and some ice. But he was so angry he couldn’t even read the labels. Everything in front of him was wavering, like he was looking out at the Kansas highway in the middle of the summer.
He turned away from the cabinet and gripped the edge of the training table. He wanted to flip it. He wanted to hit something, to throw and break everything that could shatter. He wanted to let the rage take over and destroy something. Let him get it out of his system so Rebecca wouldn’t have to see it. He heaved a deep breath, exhaling through his teeth, listening to the harsh sound, loud in his ears.
He regretted his choice to ignore Rupert once Roy tapped him on the shoulder and told him that Rupert was sitting in the stands. He was trying to be mature, trying to be polite so the club wouldn’t take any heat, but if he’d turned around and said something, Rebecca wouldn’t be hurt right now.
He could have protected her.
He growled under his breath, trying to get the anger out without actually damaging anything in the room. He needed –
Knock knock.
Roy was standing at the window, watching him knowingly. Ted stalked over and let him in, locking the door again behind him.
“Go ahead,” Roy said, sitting on the edge of the table.
“Go ahead and what?” Ted asked.
“Yell about it,” Roy said. “Punch stuff. You can punch me if you want.”
“I’m not gonna hit you.”
Roy shrugged. “It’s an option.”
He was just sitting there, watching Ted closely, like he could hear every thought whirling around in his head, every destructive idea, every cruel and awful thing he wanted to do to Rupert. It was infuriating, watching him just sit there, existing with it, somehow not bristling with anger like he was.
“How are you not furious?” Ted asked.
Roy kicked his legs. “I’m always furious,” he said blithely. “And I’ve seen a lot more of this shit than you have.”
“More?” Ted asked.
“She was married to him before you got here,” Roy reminded him.
Ted inhaled sharply through his nose, remembering Rebecca’s words upstairs. I didn’t do it before, I’m not going to do it now. “Tell me.”
Roy shook his head. “Not my story to tell,” he said. “You gotta get this out, man. Come on, yell.”
“I don’t want to yell.”
“Ted –”
“No, I don’t want to raise my voice –”
“So you’re just going to keep it all bottled up until you explode?” Roy asked, talking over him. “Just pretend to be happy and positive until you can’t take it anymore?”
“It’s better than being like him!” Ted snapped. “Than yelling at people and saying cruel things just because I’m angry.”
“It’s okay to be angry,” Roy said gruffly. “He’s a piece of shit. I’d be more pissed if you weren’t.”
“Why isn’t he banned?” Ted asked, on the edge of a shout. “Why doesn’t she have security? Why isn’t there someone with her at all times, protecting her from this – this – this monster? Why does she always have to face him alone? It’s not fair.”
Roy nodded. “Keep going.”
Ted clenched his hands, pacing around the room. “We’re all just supposed to sit there and listen to his poison? While the public hails him as some kind of charitable old man with a younger girlfriend? I want to beat him, Roy, I want to punch him bloody, and I don’t give a shit who sees it, who takes a goddamn picture and puts it on a magazine. She doesn’t deserve this.”
“You’re right,” Roy agreed. “She doesn’t.”
“Then do something about it!”
“We can’t do something about it,” Roy said firmly. “What we can do is protect her when she needs it, right? And take care of her when he’s gone.”
“It’s not enough,” Ted grumbled, walking over to the cabinet again. He could read the labels now, part of his anger released with the yelling and pacing. He grabbed an alcohol pad, a bandage, and filled a bag with ice. “It’s not fucking enough.”
“You’ve been there when she’s dealt with Rupert before, yeah?” Roy asked. “She’s usually pretty calm. Rolls right off her back.”
Ted thought back to the gala, to her choked sobs outside, the way she clung to his jacket. “Yeah,” he said unconvincingly.
“So maybe you should ask her what pushed her so far that she finally snapped,” Roy said, getting down from the table.
“Why?”
“Because you’re a nosy bastard,” Roy said with a shrug. “But it might interest you to know.”
***
He trudged back to Rebecca’s office, after an awkward walk through a completely silent locker room, players looking awkwardly at him out of the corner of their eyes as he left. He would have to apologize to them later, explain himself or something, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it now.
Keeley and Rebecca were sitting on the couch together, Keeley pointing at something on her computer, smiling when whatever was on it made Rebecca chuckle lightly. She was still holding herself like she was wounded, her posture stiff and uncomfortable, but her smile reached her eyes, at least for a few seconds.
“Feel better?” Keeley asked him as he stepped inside and shut the door. Ted shrugged and sat on Rebecca’s other side, patting his leg so she would set her hand there. He gently put the ice on her wrist, the finger-shaped bruises dark and defined on her skin. He took a deep, shuddering breath at the sight of them.
He could see Rebecca and Keeley trading a glance at the sound. He refused to look up. He reached for her other hand and tore open the little alcohol pad with his teeth, meticulously cleaning the cut and bandaging it while Keeley and Rebecca watched him quietly.
“You don’t have to stop talkin’ just cause I’m here,” he said after a moment, setting Rebecca’s ring on the table. “I’m not gonna – I’m fine.”
“I think we’ve got what we need,” Keeley said, setting the laptop on the table. “I’m going to go give Trent Crimm a call and see what he knows. He owes me a favor or two. You be gentle with her, you hear?” she said to Ted, dropping her hand to his shoulder gently.
He nodded and let her go, shutting the door behind her.
“Are you alright?” Rebecca asked gently, her hand still resting on his thigh, her wrist covered by the bag of ice.
“I should be asking you that,” he replied.
She tilted her head at him. “There’s enough concern to go around, I think,” she noted. “I’ve never seen you look so angry.”
“I had good reason,” Ted pointed out.
She nodded, looking down at her lap. “I’m sorry that you had to see that –”
“Don’t do that,” he said quietly. “Don’t apologize for him. I think what you did was mighty remarkable, Rebecca, and brave. I would’ve let you hit him more than once, but I can’t say I blame Roy for gettin’ you outta there –”
“Ted,” she interrupted. She put her bandaged hand over his own, clenched in a tight fist again. He hadn’t noticed that happening.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m just a little…keyed up, I guess.”
“I see that,” she said with a little laugh, turning her hand on his leg over so the ice could rest on the underside of her wrist. “Look, I’m going to go home, get out of here before Rupert has the chance to send paparazzi over here to camp out across the street. I’d like you to come with me.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “I can’t imagine I’m good company right now,” he admitted.
/
“You’re almost always my favorite company,” she said. “Besides, I am worried about what you’re going to do if you’re left alone.”
“I’m not a dog,” he grumbled, and that pulled almost a real laugh out of her, and he smiled at the sound of it, like sunlight streaming through a storm cloud. She stood up, taking the ice with her, and slipped her feet into some flats instead of her heels. He stood up with her, grabbing her purse from behind her desk when she hesitated over it.
“Good boy,” she said under her breath, and he barked at her, a stupid little woof sound that made her actually grin, actually smile, and the day could almost be a good one for a moment.
***
He didn’t know what to expect from Rebecca’s flat. Rich, big, maybe. He wasn’t terribly surprised to find it empty, like she was desperately avoiding clutter and had accidentally gotten rid of everything that made a house a home. She left her purse on the kitchen counter and led him into the living room, where she had a couch that looked far too squishy to exist in the same house with the same sharp angles, and gently lowered herself into it.
“Make me get up in a few minutes,” she said, closing her eyes. “Or I will never change out of these clothes.”
The ride over had relaxed him a little. In the dark car, he couldn’t see the bruise on her wrist, could almost forget why they were going back to her place. He could almost imagine a slightly different scenario, one where she invited him back there after dinner at some romantic restaurant. Some alternate universe where things were different.
He gingerly sat on the couch beside her, surveying the place while her eyes were closed. She had a shelf of romantic comedy DVDs, cleanly lined up. He smiled at them, evidence of a soft heart, of a hopeless romantic. He reached for You’ve Got Mail, pausing when she sighed.
“Snooping, Coach Lasso?”
“Which one is your favorite?” he asked, pointing at the movies.
“I like The Proposal,” she said, ducking her head to laugh. “And You’ve Got Mail.”
“You’ve Got Mail is a classic,” he said. “I haven’t seen the other one.”
“Pop it in,” she said, and he got up to oblige her, because he wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to do, what she wanted him to do.
When he sat back down, he took a deep breath and said, “What did Rupert say that made you punch him?”
She looked over at him, studied the angles of his face and said, “Roy,” under her breath, like a curse.
“I find it hard to believe it was just one word,” Ted said teasingly. “You – you don’t have to tell me, but I hope that by now you know that you can –”
“Does it matter?” she asked.
“I imagine it does, since you tried to cave his face in,” he said, trying for a joke, but she didn’t laugh. “You don’t have to tell me,” he repeated, “I just –”
“He was talking about you,” she said, and she was looking at him intently now, like she was going to learn something in his face. “He says shit about me all the time, and maybe I deserve it –”
“Hey now –”
“I have done some horrible things, Ted, you can’t talk me out of that,” she said, shaking her head. “But you haven’t done horrible things. I can take the comments, the digs, the reminders that I’ll never have children. I won’t stand for him talking about you.”
He hesitated for a long moment before reaching out to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear. “You didn’t have to do that for me,” he said softly. “I’m – I’m very flattered that you did, but I don’t want you goin’ out there and makin’ him act worse for me. I’m not worth it.”
“Yes, you are,” she said firmly.
He could feel that ache in his chest again, the feeling that Rebecca left him with sometimes that he didn’t know what to do with. He felt hollowed out, like her words were making him feel terribly sad and loved at the same time, filling him up and reminding him that she had to suffer to recognize goodness.
He settled his hand on her cheek, gently running his thumb over the sharp line of her cheekbone. She was just looking at him, green eyes soft in the light of the DVD menu of the movie he’d already forgotten.
She was looking at him the way he felt when he looked at her sometimes.
Gently, he took her scraped hand in his own and lifted it, dropping careful, feather light kisses on each knuckle, each bruise that was blooming under her skin. He kept his eyes on her, watching the lines in her face soften, watching her exhale quietly when he was done and lifted the other wrist.
“We should take you to get this checked out,” he said, looking down at the bruises, at the swelling at the base of her hand.
“It’s fine,” she said, watching him closely as he lowered his mouth to the inside of her wrist, giving her just one kiss there, unwilling to push his luck, to accidentally hurt her. He looked up in time to see a tear slip out, but she looked peaceful, tender, like he’d brought her some kind of comfort.
“I’m sorry,” she said, lifting her other hand to wipe it away.
He rested his hand at the back of her neck, encouraging her to lean forward so he could kiss her forehead. “When are you gonna learn that you never gotta apologize to me?”
“Keep reminding me,” she said, leaning her forehead against his.
“That’s a promise, warrior woman,” he said, feeling buoyed when she chuckled. “Does this mean I get to call you Xena now? Because if I can be honest, I had a huge crush on Xena when I was a boy –”
She hummed, like she was trying to hide a laugh, and he could see another tear sliding down her cheek. “Is this your very romantic way of telling me you have a crush on me, Ted Lasso?”
“I wouldn’t call it romantic,” he admitted, ducking his head when she tried to hold his gaze.
She tilted his chin up, leaning in to give him a very chaste, very gentle kiss on his mouth, pulling back to survey his face before leaning in again. He met her halfway the second time, carefully trying to put his hand on her neck, on her shoulder, anywhere except her hands or her wrists. She sighed against his mouth when his hand landed at the back of her neck, fingers sliding into her hair. He used his leverage to lick into her mouth, listening carefully to the sounds she made, trying to get closer without accidentally bumping her.
Finally, she tore herself away, leaning back in the cushions to breathe, her fingers touching her lips carefully. He’d managed to get most of her hair out of her careful little updo, managed to smear her lipstick too. He felt pretty proud of that.
She licked her lips, looking at his expression. “Someone’s smug,” she noted.
“If you just kissed Rebecca Welton, you’d be pretty darn smug, too,” he pointed out.
She stood up, reaching over to tousle his hair, nails scratching over his scalp. “I’m going to get changed. Wait for me?”
“Where else would I go?” he asked, watching her walk down the hall. Quickly, he fumbled for his phone and typed out, “Holy shit Coach we gotta talk tomorrow” with about ten thumbs up emojis before dumping his phone back in his pocket.
“Uh, Ted,” Rebecca called out from down the hallway. “Could you – could you give me a hand?”
“Sure,” he said, walking down the hallway until he came to a door closed over. He knocked, feeling a little silly as he did, and pushed it open. Rebecca had her back to him, standing in front of a huge bed, full of fluffy light green pillows.
“Can you unzip me?” she asked, and if she twisted her torso just a little, he could see the bruised wrist, could see the careful way she was holding it. She couldn’t even unzip her dress – she really ought to get her wrist looked at, he thought again, the thrill of her kiss momentarily chased away by concern and worry. She looked over her shoulder at him and he was suddenly struck by how beautiful she was, how expressive her eyes were, how fondly they were looking at him.
“Ted?”
“Right, yeah, sorry,” he said, stepping forward and carefully taking the zipper in his hand. He dragged it down, steadying the material at her waist, and paused when he was finished, hand still on her zipper. “Rebecca –”
“Ted,” she mimicked his tone, but he could hear that she was a little breathless, a little something. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her spine, a press of his lips that chased a sound out of her mouth. He peeled the shoulder of the dress down and kissed the bare skin of her shoulder.
He felt a little drunk, a little like he was dreaming, and when she swayed a little on her feet, he wrapped his arm around her waist and held, pulling her back against his body, watching in awe as she tilted her head away from him, offering him her neck.
He kissed her there, too, gently grazing his teeth over the tendon, breathing out a laugh when she gasped and moved in his arms. He hummed, kissing down the sharp line of her neck to her shoulder.
“Go turn the telly off,” she said, barely a whisper.
He paused, still holding her against him, trying not to notice how he’d almost completely removed the top half of her dress at this point, trying not to look at the delicate pink lace he could just barely see –
“Ted –”
“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’ll be right back.”
***
Rebecca watched him shut the door carefully behind him, waiting until his footsteps faded before yanking off the rest of her dress, tossing it unceremoniously into her closet. She pulled a Spice Girls shirt out of her drawer and slipped it on, ignoring the way her hands shook as she pulled the duvet back on her bed.
She could still feel Ted’s phantom breath on her neck, his arm around her waist, the scratch of his mustache –
She slid into bed and had just managed to pull the covers up to her waist when Ted poked his head back in. “Your phone was going off,” he said, holding it out to her, the bed so large he had to perch himself on the edge of it to reach her.
In his other hand were her reading glasses, and the sight of them, the knowledge that Ted knew she needed them, warmed her like a shot of the scotch he liked to drink in triples. She patted the bed beside her and he kicked off his shoes before crawling in beside her, holding out her glasses.
Her messages were from Keeley, all emoji-laden texts.
“Trent Crimm says he’ll do a piece with you if you like – no story coming out yet that he’s heard of.” A shrug emoji, thumbs up emoji, heart.
“Sent Roy by Ted’s place to check on him and he’s not home? Hello???” Five eyeball emojis and a gasping one at the end for good measure.
“Omg are u shagging???” Smirk emoji, squirting water, eggplant.
“Rebecca fucking Welton, I demand a play-by-play immediately!”
“It’s Keeley,” she said, choking back a laugh. Ted nodded, his eyes watching her wrist, on the phone without holding it.
“I hope that laugh means it’s not bad news?”
Rebecca sent back a smirk emoji and set the phone aside, flipping it to silent. “It’s not bad,” she reassured him, scooting down in the bed so they were face-to-face, heads on pillows. She brushed his hair back, wincing when she felt a shock of pain in her wrist.
Ted inched closer, watching her so closely she wanted to ask him what he saw, what it was that he was observing that made him look at her like that, like she was perfect and precious instead of just a bruised mess.
“Can I kiss you again?” he asked when he was close enough to rest a hand on her waist under the duvet, the warmth of his hand such a distraction that she almost didn’t answer. She pulled him in for another kiss, trying to touch him without hurting herself.
“Okay, new rule,” Ted said, pulling back to look at her. “You’re not allowed to touch.”
“Not allowed?” she asked, lifting her eyebrows.
“Yes ma’am, not allowed,” he said, sitting up. “You’re gonna keep them wrists safe and to yourself, and I’m gonna take care of you, alright?”
“Ted –”
“Wrists up,” he demanded, and she obeyed, rolling her eyes at him when he nodded his approval. “Alright, now all you’ve gotta do is tell me what you want, alright? You’re the coach now.”
She laughed. “Then kiss me, dammit.”
He huffed at her, like she was dampening his romantic spirit, but leaned in anyway, holding himself over her without actually crawling on top of her, careful and meticulous. She let him set the pace, just content to relish in his warmth, in the tantalizing slowness of his hand on her waist, creeping up underneath her long shirt, brushing just barely against the waistband of her panties, groaning against her mouth comically as he did.
He was, more than anything else, comfort and fun, and felt remarkably like coming home. It was almost like the day hadn’t happened. Like they had spent the whole day kissing in her bed, teasing each other with gentle touches like they were teenagers.
In the end he settled for lying on his side and pulling her leg over his hip, his hands resting in the middle of her back, pulling her gently into his arms. She buried her face in his neck and let him run his fingers through her hair until she drifted off to sleep, with whispered promises in her ear about breakfast and tomorrow and more of the same.
***
Ted was bad at sleeping in new places. He could never sleep on airplanes, never could sleep in hotels the first night. It was a curse he never managed to break. So when Rebecca finally slipped into sleep, he spent a little bit of time watching her, or at least, watching as much of her as he could, since she was burrowed in so closely to him that most of her face was hidden in his chest.
Which was a surprise, he thought as he ran his fingers through her hair. He expected her to be a person who liked space when she slept, but even when her breathing evened out, she still held him, like she was afraid he’d be gone in the morning if she didn’t.
He resolved to ask her about it in the morning.
He tilted his head down to breathe her in, the unique scent of her shampoo, her perfume, and the clean linens of the bed lulling him into a comfortable doze faster than he was used to.
Maybe that was some kind of sign, he thought before he let sleep take over.
He came awake to the sound of her crying. He couldn’t tell how long he’d been asleep – the curtains were drawn and it still looked like it was dark outside, but she was holding tightly to him, hands in fists in his shirt.
“Rebecca?” he tried to pull away, to see her face, but she followed, forehead on his chest, the choked off sobs getting more desperate the more he tried to move away. “Rebecca, hey, sweetheart, it’s just me, alright?”
“Ted?”
Her voice broke his heart. He nodded, trying to hold her while still getting a decent look at her face in the dark. “Yeah, it’s just me, you’re alright, what’s goin’ on?”
She pulled away, wiping roughly at her face, wincing at her wrist. “God, I don’t –”
“You had a nightmare,” he said softly.
She sniffed, sitting up. “I’m sorry, I –”
“Don’t apologize to me,” he said easily. “Come on back down here, alright? I never knew of any nightmare that couldn’t be chased away by some good ol’ fashioned TLC.”
She sniffed again, exhaling a weak laugh. “TLC?”
“Tender lovin' care, baby,” he said gently. “Do you wanna talk about it? The nightmare?”
She shook her head, lowering herself back down onto the bed beside him. “You know what might take my mind off of it?” she asked.
“Name it,” Ted said.
She tugged him toward her, setting her arm gingerly on his shoulder to keep her wrist free, and kissed his cheek, then the other one, and the tip of his nose, his forehead, and his chin before kissing him on the mouth, all tender little presses of her lips, more gentle than he’d ever been kissed.
He kissed the side of her head and tugged the duvet back over her. “Tomorrow’s a new day, sweetheart,” he murmured into her ear. “You and me, together, ain’t nothin’ gonna ruin that.”
She hummed her agreement, carefully winding their fingers together before allowing him to hold her until she fell asleep again.