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“Ah, Jamie! Rebecca asked to see you.”
It was casual, nothing but a quick whisper, when Beard intercepted him on his way into the locker room, but Jamie’s stomach dropped when the request registered.
“Yeah, no, sure!” It came out flat as dread settled in his chest, his breakfast suddenly sitting heavy in his belly.
He put his bag down by his cubby and walked right back out of the locker room, careful not to catch anyone’s eye on his way out.
Rebecca didn’t exactly make a habit of meeting any of them individually. Sure, she popped by for team celebrations and picked up the tab for them, wasn’t too shy about cajoling them into a round of shots these days either, but even so Jamie didn’t think he had ever spoken to her alone, even for a minute.
Jamie’s mind raced, sifting through memories of the past few weeks at top speed.
He had earned himself a yellow card in the match against Crystal Palace, but he hadn’t misbehaved or nothing, hadn’t gotten into any trouble beyond that, hadn’t been in the press for anything other than how good he played.
He’d been good, … right?
All those extra trainings with Roy had made him stronger and faster than ever, the new total football approach put him right into the most central role on the team, made him important … but maybe not invaluable?
The last time he had been called up to the operations offices for a meeting that had included Rebecca it had been in Higgins’s office. It was where they had let him know his loan had been resolved early, and he was to clear out his cubby and report back at Man City with less than a week to sort his affairs in London. He still remember how it had felt, walking out of there, with a bunch of freshly signed papers and a bottle of incredibly expensive whiskey to thank him for his contributions, adrift and shaken.
They couldn’t be letting him go again, right?
No, he had a contract. But then again, Rebecca had bought out people’s contracts before to get rid of them, that’s how Cartrick had gotten the boot.
Anxiety pooled in his gut, heavy as lead, by the time he made the long trek up to Rebecca’s office, the hallways and staircases stretching out like a bad fever dream.
He hadn’t been in that room since his very first day at AFC Richmond, when Rupert Mannion had made him stand by the floor to ceiling windows, showing off the Dogtrack like it had been his own personal kingdom, his hand uncomfortably low on Jamie’s back as he told him Jamie was its future.
Right now, Jamie would give anything to know he had a future at Richmond at all.
“Jamie, thank you for coming to up so quickly!” Rebecca was sat in the chair behind her desk, waving Jamie in when she saw him in the hallway.
The group assembled in her office made him pause in the door.
Higgins wasn’t there, which was … odd. He’d be here if they were firing Jamie, surely? But then again Liam from HR was there, and he wasn’t laughing either, which felt like a bad sign. He was standing next to Rebecca’s desk, holding some official looking paper, letterhead and everything. The very sight of it made Jamie sick. Next to him, and directly by Rebecca’s side behind her desk, stood Ted. Jamie didn’t even try to read him, he never got that right anyway, but he didn’t look like he was there for a good time.
And in front of her desk, in one of the two chairs, sat Roy, looking … unhappy.
“Come, sit,” Rebecca indicated the free chair next to Roy’s.
The owner, an HR rep, his gaffer, and Roy … this couldn’t be good.
He tried to catch Roy’s eyes, but Roy wouldn’t look at him. He was too busy glaring at the paper Liam was holding. Jamie could see his jaw clenching and shifting. His own mouth felt awfully dry, but this didn’t feel like the right kind of moment to ask for a water.
“Right!” Rebecca drew his attention back to her.
Jamie usually got so mesmerised looking at her, and he completely got why Keeley had always come home turned on and vaguely frightened after seeing her, back when they had still been dating. Right now, though, he couldn't quite manage to hold her assessing gaze.
She glanced between him and Roy.
“Do you want to take this, Roy, or should I?” She asked.
Holy fuck … was Roy going to be the one firing him? A year ago Jamie would have thought that Roy would have loved nothing more than that, but- but Roy and him were mates now, weren’t they? Or something.
“This is fucking stupid,” Roy protested, not budging even when Rebecca gave him a firmly disapproving look.
“It’s pretty valid, even if it is a formality,” Ted chimed in.
“Am I getting fired?” Jamie couldn’t stand it anymore, it just came out of him.
That seemed to startle Roy enough to finally look at Jamie.
“What? No!” He snapped, and Jamie couldn’t help but jump a bit, not because Roy scared him these days, but because his nerves were already fried.
“Sorry …,” he mumbled. “Just …” Jamie made a helpless gesture to point out who all was in the room right now.
“You’re not in any trouble, Jamie, and we’re most certainly not letting you go,” Rebecca had been tense before, like she had been bracing herself for the conversation, but now she did that thing people sometimes did where they looked at him and slowed stuff down a bit to catch him up. It made her voice sound softer, and Jamie felt himself relax a little.
“It’s about your extracurricular trainings,” Ted explained.
“With Roy?”
Ted nodded. “Do you like them?”
“What?” Jamie glanced at Roy, but Roy was giving him nothing, just watching him intently.
“Roy, why don’t you step outside for a minute,” Rebecca suggested.
The idea of Roy leaving right now made a surge of panic shoot through Jamie’s core. His hand shot out to catch Roy’s wrist on the armrest of the chair.
“No wait, wait! What’s going on?”
“It has come to our attention-“ Jamie turned his head to look at Liam. He had heard him laugh a million times, the sound carried all through Nelson Road, but he didn’t think he’d ever heard him speak. It came out in a much lower register than Jamie would have imagined. “… that Roy has been employing some rather unorthodox training methods in your personal trainings. Most recently, the Mirror has reached out to AFC Richmond's PR department to request a statement regarding photographs that depict you pulling Roy around in what looked like a rope harness.”
“Yeah, resistance training, innit?” Jamie was confused, looking between the lot of them.
“Right. There have also been several incidents on the premises, the most recent of which involved Roy asking you to carry him from the training pitch to the cafeteria on your back?” Liam looked at Jamie, like he was trying to read his mind, but Jamie had no idea what he was hoping to see there. He clearly expected an answer though, even if it hadn't been much of a question.
“Yeah, his knee hurt.” Jamie shrugged. He could feel Roy’s pulse where Jamie's fingers were wrapped firmly around his wrist, his heart beating as fast as Jamie’s.
“There’s also a bit of a new habit of the two of you disappearing into the boot room mid-training,” Ted added.
Jamie could only shrug again, feeling helpless. What the hell did they want from him?
Rebecca’s voice was soft when she spoke again.
“The reason I called this meeting is to make sure that you know,” Rebecca looked at Jamie intently, “that you are under no obligation to comply with anything Roy demands of you beyond the usual duties expected of a player. Not here at Nelson Road, and not during any kind of private training you two might schedule outside of business hours. This applies to any kinds of demands, whether they are reasonable … or unreasonable in nature.” She looked at Roy intently for that last part, and Jamie had a feeling she was implying something he wasn’t picking up on.
“This is ridiculous,” Roy said, though he sounded resigned.
“This is a lawsuit waiting to happen, is what it is! You should be interested in mitigating that,” Rebecca countered, sharper again now.
“Now now, you two are free to do whatever makes you happy,” Ted’s tone was deliberately calm to bring the tension down again. “The point is that there is a history between the two of you, and we want to make sure that whatever it is that you two do, both parties are equally enthusiastic. And that you, Jamie, understand that there is no pressure from the side of the club for you to do anything you’re not willing to do. Whether that’s getting up at 4 AM for extra trainings or … anything else that might come up when two fellas spend all their waking hours together.”
That gave him pause.
“Wait, so when you asked if I liked training, you meant …?” Jamie asked, acutely aware that he still had a tight hold of Roy.
“They want to know if I’m sexually harassing you,” Roy gritted out.
Jamie huffed a laugh. “Fuck, I wish!”
That did not get him the laugh he hoped for.
Jamie cleared his throat.
“I mean, no, that’s not what’s happening. I like it. The extra trainings, I asked for them.”
“Alright good, so then we can get to this.” Rebecca waved her hand towards Liam who put the paper down on the desk where Jamie could see it.
“I’d like you to return this signed after consulting with your own representative. It’s an acknowledgement that you are aware of everything we discussed, that you are under no obligation to attend trainings or other activities outside of your regular schedule. And that you are aware that not complying with requests from individual members of the coaching staff that fall outside of your regular duties cannot result in any consequences as far as the club's management are concerned,” Rebecca explained, pushing the paper towards Jamie.
Jamie glanced at the paper, he wasn’t a fast enough reader to get through it without an extended awkward pause though, so he picked it up off the desk, holding it carefully so as not to crease it.
He hadn’t realised how tight his grip on Roy’s wrist had become, but he abruptly let go when he realised he had been squeezing him hard. His own hand tingled where it lost contact.
“Right, yeah, good, no, I will!” He said. “So I’m not in trouble?”
“You are not. You may go now.”
“Right, cool …” Jamie stood, looking at Roy whose gaze remained fixed on an empty spot on Rebecca’s desk.
“It’s uh … it’s really good, you know. The training and all. Roy’s not done anything wrong or nothing.” He added because he had this sinking feeling that he was leaving the Headmaster’s office without his partner in crime.
“That’s good to hear, Jamie,” Ted assured him.
“Okay … right.” It was clear that they expected Jamie to leave and Roy to stay, and so he did, closing the office door behind himself. He paused just outside, his heart still not quite back to its regular resting pulse rate, his knees wobbly.
The door was too high quality to hear through, and so Jamie took a picture of the paper he had been given to send to his lawyer, sending it off immediately with a request to check if he should sign it.
He knew he should go downstairs, to training. He could see the team had already made it to the training pitch from the window outside of Rebecca’s office. That wasn’t what he wanted though.
Jamie needed to see Roy, needed Roy to look at him, talk to him.
Waiting outside the office seemed like a recipe for getting stuck talking to Ted or Liam instead though, so he made his way down into the lobby. Roy had to pass through there, whether he went to training after they were done talking or not.
It wasn’t long before Jamie could hear his footsteps on the stairs above him, deeply familiar on a visceral level, that click of Roy's knee and the way his left foot was placed more mindfully on each step than the right.
“What are you still doing here?” Roy asked when he spotted Jamie at the bottom of the stairs.
“Waiting for you.” Jamie had considered lying, but Roy never bought it when he fibbed anyway.
“You should be at training.”
“Yeah, no. I know. I’ll go in a minute just … are you okay?”
Roy looked tense, his shoulders up higher than usual and his general aura of ‘don’t talk to me’ intensified by magnitudes. He took the last few steps down, coming to a halt on the very last one where Jamie was blocking his way down, unless Roy wanted to side-step him. It put Roy about a foot higher than eye-level to Jamie.
His initial answer was a low growl, the type he got out of Roy so often when Roy wasn’t sure what to say, so Jamie gave him a moment to figure it out, watching Roy’s face intently. He was close enough to smell Roy’s aftershave, close enough to feel the traces of warmth from Roy’s body in the space between them. A part of him, an ever-growing one, wished he could lean into that.
“This- ,” Roy huffed, the hand that wasn’t holding onto the railing indicating the floors above them. “I didn’t mean to get you drawn into a meeting like that. You shouldn’t have been put in that situation.”
“Sounds like they were just trying to be careful,” Jamie shrugged. “Better talk about it than if something were wrong and everyone were looking the other way, innit?”
Roy looked at him intensely. “I shouldn’t be fucking doing things with you that make people want to call HR.”
“Fuck off!” Jamie huffed, a surge of fear and indignity clawing its way up into his throat. “You didn’t do nothing! Who cares what the fucking Mirror thinks?”
On any other day, Roy probably wouldn't argue with that, but he wasn’t ready to drop it, Jamie could tell.
“People read the Mirror,” Roy told him quietly. “I wasn’t fucking thinking about PR. That’s fucking negligent, that is.”
“No, ‘cause you were thinking about making me better.” Whatever history they might have put past them or not, Jamie trusted Roy on that. To only make him do what he knew would make Jamie better.
“Yeah, yeah … I was thinking about you, alright,” Roy sighed.
It made him smile, Jamie couldn’t even help it. After spending years thinking about Roy, it was a thrill to know he was on Roy's mind.
“I think we should cool it with the extra trainings.”
Jamie’s heart dropped.
“No!”
Roy blinked, his nostrils flaring in automatic defence, which Jamie much preferred to that tired resignation. “What do you mean ‘No’?”
“No!” Jamie shook his head. “I don’t care what I gotta sign, don’t do that.”
“Jamie, people think-“
“I don’t fucking care. They’re thinking wrong, you know that! You’re not fucking harassing me, or bullying me, or commercing me or nothing.”
“Coercing,” Roy said, his voice a little fonder now. And yeah, Jamie had felt it when he’d said it, one of those words hadn't been right.
“Right, that.” He looked at Roy, trying to implore him to talk.
Roy’s hand came up in the periphery of his vision, and Jamie waited for it to come to rest on his shoulder, but Roy just dropped it back to his side. He shook his head, seemingly at himself, or maybe at Jamie. Jamie didn’t know, but something was settling in Roy and he had a feeling it wasn’t anything he liked.
He put his foot between both of Roy’s on that last step and pushed himself up onto it, bring himself eye-to-eye with Roy, their chests touching in the limited space.
“Jamie … ” Roy’s lips moved like he wanted to say something else but lost the ability to do so.
“There’s nothing you would do with me that I don’t want, … coach.” Roy’s chest brushed against Jamie’s as his breath hitched. It made something in the depth of his bones burn, feeling Roy this close. It made his head swim, made him want to sway into the touch.
“What are you doing?” Roy asked, his breath ghosting over Jamie’s lips.
“I don’t know.” Jamie admitted just as quietly.
The pull was visceral, the distance just an inch or so to bridge. His lips brushed over Roy’s before he knew it, excitement mixing with fear in a dizzying swirl that left him off-balance.
Roy’s hand shot out to catch him by the waist as he swayed back, eyes wide.
“Don’t drop me … please?” Jamie asked. “Not for this shit.” He helplessly raised the hand that was still holding the paper. He needed Roy to keep doing this with him, he couldn't go back to whatever HR thought was normal, he just couldn't, not after he had had a taste of what it was like to have all of Roy's attention.
Roy followed the rustle of the paper, looking like he had just signed his own life away.
“Is that what you want?” Roy asked, looking as dazed as Jamie felt, like all that stress from the past hour and the sudden proximity had stunned him into honesty.
Jamie nodded, no hesitation.
He wanted to cling to Roy and beg him for anything he’d give him. Roy had to see that on his face when he looked at him, or at least he had to see something, because Jamie was rewarded with a small nod, and then another. Jamie nodded too, hoping they were agreeing to the same thing.
“I’m-uh … I’m gonna go back up there.” Roy told him. “I think we need to sign different stuff for this.”
“This? Us?” Jamie asked, feeling a buzz of relief course through his veins.
Roy nodded, making as if to pull back and go, before coming to a much better conclusion.
He pulled Jamie in for a kiss, searing and desperate. Jamie dug his fingers into Roy’s shirt clinging to him as Roy held him tight, keeping him slightly overbalanced on that last step and relying on Roy to hold him so as not to slip.
The world around him fell away, lost to the heat of Roy’s body against his own. Jamie didn't think he'd ever seen stars from just a kiss, but Roy made his whole body feel alight.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs above them made them pull apart, though far too late to avoid being seen. Ted and Liam looked down at them from the last landing and Jamie knew there was no way they didn’t look guilty as sin, pressed together, with their arms around each other.
Jamie could feel his cheeks turning red as all the blood that had gone elsewhere shot upwards again.
“This isn’t- we weren’t before!” Jamie scrambled to explain.
“Well, I didn’t think you’d get there until summer, good on you!” Ted said. “I think, Roy, if you’d like to go with Liam? Maybe Jamie doesn’t have the right forms after all …”
“Yep!” Roy agreed curtly, trying not to sound as caught as he was, and Jamie couldn’t blame him from wanting to get out of this particular situation fast. He let go of Jamie, but not before squeezing his hip.
“Be good,” he told Jamie, earning himself a breathless laugh. “We’ll talk after training.”
Jamie nodded, relieved, and damn near fell off that last step he had been balancing on without Roy’s grip to keep him there.
"You got it, coach!"
He could wait for a bit of paperwork to get sorted out, if it meant he got to have Roy afterwards.