Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A few weeks after Amsterdam Take Three, after being actually pretty satisfied with a loss at Arsenal, Jamie has a nightmare.

It's not out of the ordinary. Jamie has a lot of nightmares. He's used to it, and back when he was seeing Dr. Sharon she'd said that was to be expected for someone like him.

She'd also said for someone like him, part of getting better would be feeling worse first. Not that it ever really mattered in their sessions. Jamie'd done his feeling worse before he met her. Now he's better.

Jamie wakes up from the nightmare feeling small and watched. Typical. He doesn't remember any details. Whatever.

He doesn't have time to wallow in it, which is probably for the best to be honest. He's got training, and extra training, and he gets called up to play for England, which is crazy but also not that crazy because he's amazing obviously. He does good at being a friend to Sam, he thinks, doing what is probably the only thing he can but still feels like the least. He meets Phoebe and hits on her mum just to watch steam start coming out Roy's ears - which she knows perfectly well and seems to enjoy even more than Jamie does. He scores at Wembley, wins a few times there, dream come true. And when he gets back home, he has another nightmare.

Well, no. He had a few in between too. Floating in a formless nothingness that somehow managed to feel like it was spinning anyway, echoing with his father's voice bitching in gibberish. Short, simple, familiar nonsense that's only distressing for a moment. That shit hardly even counts as nightmares to Jamie anymore. It's just what happens when he goes to sleep. Most of the time nowadays it doesn't even suck enough to wake him up - and it's usually followed by something good, or at least a more peaceful nothing.

This one's a little different. There's still nothing solid, still his fucking dad yelling whatever bullshit, laughing meanly. But now there's a woman's voice too, smokey and slow, and the nothingness is cut through with flashing red. The woman's voice feels like a physical thing, crawling deep into Jamie's ears.

He wakes up feeling small and watched, with phantom sensation making his ears unpleasantly hot and tingly.

Jamie keeps having it a few nights every week from there, until it gets almost as familiar as the usual fare. He gets… weird about playing at City. Seeing Mummy makes him feel better, and seeing Roy and Keeley both in the flesh in his childhood bedroom feels a much better kind of weird too. He gets a standing-o for his fucking symbolic solo goal and cries about it. They win, somehow, even with Jamie on the bench after that. 

He texts his dad. 

The dream changes. Sort of.

Jamie wakes up from it the same as ever, that same old prey animal anxiety, the touch of the unknown woman's voice in his ears. But this time he wakes up in a warm, sticky mess.

Jamie stares at the wet spot for a long time, uncomprehending. That was not a sex dream.

Still, Jamie is not a teenager anymore. He's a grown man with a life that goes on. So he gets up, strips the bed and himself, and starts a cold water cycle so he can go naked back through the house to his en suite and have a warm shower. 

Roy has him doing double dutch with Phoebe and her friends before they go to school as his extra training right now, though he hasn't bothered to explain why. Jamie's not very good at it yet, so when he gets dressed he puts on an extra pair of socks to pad his already bruised ankles.

"You look like shit," Roy says immediately when Jamie opens the door before he knocks. He hands Jamie a sweating iced coffee with a bright pink straw. "Don't drink that whole thing before training. Wonders never cease, but I'm actually getting tired of seeing you puke." Jamie takes the longest, most obnoxious sip he can manage without choking. Roy gives him that fondly annoyed eye roll Jamie's starting to get addicted to.

"Are you having another fucking breakdown?" Roy asks as they amble, shoulders bumping, down Jamie's walkway to where the G-Wagon is waiting. It's the only time this morning Jamie will be allowed to move this slow.

"What?" Jamie laughs, but he can hear he sounds tired. Not as offended as he should. "I didn't have a breakdown."

"Uh-huh," says Roy. He steps on the back of Jamie's shoe just to be a shit. "Does your mother have a fucking telephone?"

"'Course me mum has a phone, the fuck?" Jamie reaches for the passenger side door, but Roy snaps at him like he's a dog and jerks a thumb toward the back.

"You know they'll want to fucking pile on you and shit, and you'll fucking love it," he accuses, as if it's a crime. Jamie rolls his eyes too, but Roy is right. The girls always swarm him, rambunctious and screaming and eager to tell him all their Year 4 gossip. And Jamie does love it. He climbs into the wide backseat and puts his feet up on the leather. Just to be a shit.

"Prick," Roy says, glaring at Jamie in the rearview mirror. Jamie sticks his tongue out at him. "You should call her." Jamie puts his tongue back into his mouth and his feet on the floor.

"I'm fine," he grumbles. Roy grunts, but he lets the topic drop. Probably just because it's so early in the morning and even Roy Kent is not that much of a drill sergeant. Actually, more likely because he's waiting to sick his interrogation squad on Jamie in five minutes. If anything is guaranteed to get something out of Jamie, it's the combined force of three nine year old girls.

True to form, Phoebe and her two friends whose parents don't mind Roy - or maybe just have never heard him say more than one sentence in a row - tumble into the backseat with Jamie before the car is even completely stopped in front of whichever one of their houses is the pick-up station for the day. Jamie kicks over to the far side of the seat and opens himself up so they can hurl themselves into his arms. 

Jamie likes when fans scream his name, obviously. He loves that stupid chant. He loves being the star footballer millions are obsessed with. But he also really, really likes being the Jamie these little girls are shouting about now.

They do their double dutch on a public basketball court, empty except for them because it's too early to be alive. The girls queue music up on Jamie's phone, cheerful depthless pop that Jamie won't admit to liking almost as much as they do. And also some Disney songs (duh). Jamie only gets hit with the rope twice in the first fifteen minutes, so Roy makes him spend the rest of the girls' time on one foot. The only mercy he shows is in not telling them that Jamie won't talk to his mum.

They take the girls to a greasy spoon for breakfast, where they spend most of the meal making fun of Jamie's protein-packed omelet and teasing him with their pancakes a la mode. He playacts like he wants what they have, pouting and miming tear tracks, pretending to try to steal some. After the majority of his life as a career track athlete and eating like it, that much refined sugar at once would probably send him into spontaneous diabetic shock, and only the first bite would even taste that good. He does steal a few of Roy's chips though.

After they drop the girls off at school it's back to training, now boring. Jamie stretches, warms back up, and then Roy sets Jamie to doing endless fucking burpees while he sits on a park bench sipping tea.

"Lotta jumping, Coach," Jamie says, mostly just to prove that he can speak and doesn't feel like he's dying at all. Roy smirks at him, knowing better.

"You're a fucking prick," he explains after he's done gloating. His favorite phrase. "You get fouled a lot. And even if you weren't a prick, you're the best player on the field most of the time. Now that Zava's retired." Jamie shows him two fingers for that, which finally makes Roy crack a full smile.

"So I'm jumping so I can land better when I get tackled?" Jamie asks, one third of the sentence at a time. Roy nods.

"Yeah, that too," he says, and doesn't fucking elaborate. Wanker.

When Jamie's chest starts to hurt, and he's not sure if Roy won't get to watch him puke again after all, he tells the ground under his nose, "Were just a nightmare, is all." He jumps back up, goes down again. Makes it easy to avoid looking Roy in the eye.

"Bicycles," Roy directs eventually. And that's that.

Ted tells them he's leaving in the same breath he says Nate's coming back. 

"We're gonna be doing another little switcheroo," he explains. "Except this one's gonna be a little more permanent."

The announcement has mixed responses in the locker room. Jamie himself finds it very weird to be on the other side of this situation, but he also figures that's gonna give him a pretty solid understanding of it all from Nate's point of view. He resolves to use that perspective, though he doesn't exactly know what he'll do with it.

They have a game on Saturday, second to last of the season, against Leicester. Jamie does take his tackles pretty well, it has to be said. He assists two goals before he scores one himself. That's his rule now. Two assists first and then he can do a solo, unless he gets the signal or something else special happens. He doesn't really need it. It's fucking fun being center like he's been doing since Arsenal. It's something he's grateful for. Something that gives Jamie a weird sadness for the man he was before who would never have gotten to play like this, that makes all the fucking around in between feel worth it. But it's nice to have a rule he came up with himself. It's actually really nice.

It's a tight match. The Greyhounds win 3-2, with Jamie's solo goal breaking the tie in injury time. In the locker room Ted says, "Wow, that was an exciting one."

"Yeah. Thrill to watch," Roy agrees. He's looking at Jamie when he says it. He's looking only at Jamie. When he sees Jamie looking back, he lets his mouth lift a little at one corner and gives Jamie a barely-there nod of approval. Jamie feels both like he's going to float away like a helium balloon and like he's butter melting into a hot, slippery puddle. But after the last few months of individual training with Roy, Jamie's starting to get used to that too.

It's actually really fucking nice.

"Oi, Jamie," Isaac calls, pitching his gruff voice over the cheers and chatter of the rest of the team. "You in't sitting out this time, bruv. Drinks on us."

Jamie argues with that all the way to the club Richard picked out. He only made one of those goals after all, but the entire fucking team insists. Jamie may have been humbled - a little - but he still in't about to turn away that much positive attention. Definitely not from people he's grown not only to respect, not only to admire, but also to really, really like. Maybe he earned it, maybe he didn't, but they're giving it freely and it feels good to take it. So Jamie does.

Seemingly every one of his teammates wants Jamie to try their favorite drink and he happily obliges, taking at least a sip out of each rocks glass, pilsner, and shapely cocktail flute that gets pressed into his hands. Luckily, Isaac puts a stop to that before Jamie dies of alcohol poisoning. He buys Jamie Jamie's own usual, knowing it without having to ask, which probably could've gotten Jamie buzzed all on its own.

They dance, all of them together, and Jamie's in the middle again, where he belongs, surrounded by a dozen warm bodies that he trusts, and the bass thuds through his bones, and the only thing that could possibly make this better is if Roy and Keeley were here too. If Roy gave him that look again, the one from the locker room, gripped him by the back of the neck like he had at the City match. If Keeley called him 'good boy' that way she used to that he'd always pretend was just a bit.

Jamie doesn't know which teammate he's dancing on, while Dani dances on him. The others are not dancing with anyone else in particular, as far as Jamie can tell (not that he's paying close attention), just fucking dancing, doing whatever. Whoever is behind Jamie is tall and solid, not moving much, not caring how Jamie is moving, with Jamie's back pressed against his chest, sweat through their shirts. Dani is cheerful and easy like he always is, and has good rhythm. He holds Jamie by the shoulder, drink in his other hand, and lets their legs intertwine. To the side, Colin has slowed to a distracted bounce, staring very much not at their faces.

Jamie's a horny drunk to begin with, and he was hot from the game and from Roy before they got here. This is almost too much. He debates catching Colin's eye to see if that could go anywhere. Before he can commit to that likely disaster, Isaac and Richard swan back into their group, bringing a flood of girls along with them. Dani is pulled away from Jamie immediately, but replaced just as quickly. Jamie's new dance partner puts his hands on her and Jamie forgets who Colin is.

The rideshare back to his place is a blur, in part because Jamie spends about half of it with his face in her cleavage, which is covered in multicolored body glitter. She whispers a stream of filth about what she wants him to do to her, her breath hot and heavy on his ear. The rest of him feels a little cold. Yeah, now that there's only two of them.

She doesn't touch him while his back is to her when he unlocks the door, despite her clear impatience. He reaches for the entryway lightswitch once they're in, but she grabs him before he hits it and uses him to press herself into the wall. She uses his hand, her grip tight on his forearm, to lift up the skirt of her dress. She slips her spaghetti straps off her shoulders and shoves the bodice down too, leaving the dress around her waist like a sash. No bra, no knickers. She grabs Jamie by the back of his head and pulls his mouth down toward her chest, but Jamie resists her.

"Wait, wait," he says, and laughs. "What's your name?"

"Don't worry about it," she says. She pulls at him again, and this time Jamie goes with a shrug. Not like he doesn't love having tits in his mouth. He feels spinny in the head. Right, because he's drunk. 

He goes to kiss her lips but misses and then makes like he meant to do that, mouthing along her jaw to just below her ear. She moans and arches her body into his when he sucks a hickey there. She tugs his shirt untucked, opens his trousers, makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat to find that he is wearing pants. He shoves them down for her, and she eagerly wraps her hand around him. He looks down to watch. Her nails are long, pointed, painted red. The color lingers at the edges of his vision.

"C'mon and fuck me, big boy," she demands. Her voice is low and gravelly with arousal. Jamie shudders at the name. He has to close his eyes and swallow hard, a few times in a row. "Oh, you like that?" Jamie doesn't answer. He tucks his face into her neck, lifts her when she gives him her weight to put her legs around his hips. It's not the same as 'good'.

"Condom in me wallet," he mumbles. She fishes it out without groping his ass while she's in his pockets. She strokes him a few times before she puts it on him, curling her shoulders in and dislodging his face so she can look down at his cock, thick and firm between her hand and her belly. She groans breathily.

"Yeah, big man, aren't you?" she says. Jamie shivers again. His arms shake. He presses her harder against the wall to make holding her up a little easier on himself. She knocks her head back when they both press Jamie's cock inside her together, her hand and his hips. He doesn't stop to ask if that hurt, if she wants some ice, a bag of peas. She didn't even want to give him her name, she won't like it if he jokes around like they're friends. He just bottoms out inside her and buries his face again when she digs her nails into his biceps and cries out, "Fuck, yes! Give it to me baby, show me how tough you are."

Jamie has a natural gift for two things: football and sex. He shows her how tough he is.

They have another round in Jamie's bed. She wants him on top again. Doggy style. He's even rougher with her there, now he has more leverage and his hands free. He squeezes her tits, harder than Keeley likes, pulls her hair, rubs her clit firm enough to make her squeal and clench tight around his cock. She holds onto his headboard the whole time.

"Loo?" she asks, still catching her breath after her third orgasm and Jamie's second. Jamie gestures toward it and she scoops her dress off the floor as she goes. She comes back clothed, hair finger brushed, makeup smears wiped away.

"Thanks, tough guy," she says with a grin. Jamie's chest clenches painfully. Hot seething rage burns through him out of nowhere.

"Yeah," he sneers. "Do me a favor, wait for your ride outside, would you?" The smile drops off of her face, but in a blink she scoffs and rolls her eyes. She sees herself out of his house, front door slamming behind her. Jamie doesn't drag himself out of bed until he hears a car door slam too.

He throws up in the shower.

Jamie is still angry in the morning. He doesn't do fuck all with his hair, doesn't pay attention to what he puts on, doesn't bother to mix his pre-training smoothie. He digs a single hard boiled egg out of the bowl of them in his fridge, eats it in two bites, and drinks a full glass of water so that he won't fucking pass out, but that's the most effort he's willing to put into anything other than whatever bullshit Roy has in store for him today.

"You look like shit," he says immediately when Jamie yanks the door open before he knocks. He offers the iced coffee, bright pink straw.

"Yeah, thanks," Jamie snaps. He doesn't take the coffee, and checks Roy's shoulder as he pushes past. He marches to the car and starts lightly jogging in place by the passenger side door, waiting for Roy to yell at him for being a moody bitch so he can act like he doesn't give a shit what Roy thinks.

Instead, Roy tells him to get in the back.

"You call your mum yet?" he asks pointedly when they're both in the car, Jamie's iced coffee and Roy's hot tea in the front cup holder together making each other lukewarm.

"Mind your fucking business, granddad," Jamie growls through his teeth. He tucks himself into an extremely uncomfortable slouch in the backseat, laying across the whole thing scrunched down below the windows. He folds his arms tightly across his chest and glares at his own knees.

"If you're sitting like that when I brake, you're gonna get a mouthful of Phoebe's school's football pitch," Roy warns. He's not yelling at all, which raises Jamie's hackles even higher. He's full of shit anyway, his footwells are pristine because he's a has-been and he doesn't have nothing better to do with his time than keep them clean.

The drive is silent except for the gentle thik-thok of Roy's turn signal. By the time they get to Phoebe's house, Jamie feels like he could fucking explode. He can't be a prick to kids though, he just can't, so he sits up to let the girls clamber in beside him. He can't manage a smile or a greeting of his own, but he lets them hug him. 

Before the last little girl has let go of him, Jamie feels his eyes filling up. He slouches down again and puts his hood up so they don't see. Gradually, the girls stop trying to talk to him. They must look questioningly up to Roy in the front seat, because he says, "He's not feeling good."

The girls rush to comfort him, "That's okay, Jamie," and "You'll feel better," sympathetic oohs and aahs, and pats on his head, shoulder, and knee.

"Settle down," Roy tells them after a few moments of that, and they do. The closest one snuggles into Jamie's side, warm and heavy, but otherwise the girls sit still and quietly as Roy pulls out of the driveway. She's blocked out by his hood, but Jamie's eyes are so blurry now he probably couldn't tell which one she was if he looked.

Jamie knows how to let out enough tears so that he doesn't actually have to really cry. He tips his chin up just enough that they run over his cheeks instead of falling and get soaked up in the collar of his shirt. He'll wipe his face on his sleeve when the girls are getting out of the car. Roy will know, but at least this way Jamie won't have to endure concern from a bunch of little kids. Won't have to make them upset too.

They don't do double dutch today. Instead, Roy tells Jamie to lay limp on the ground and has the girls try to drag him around and play tug-of-war with him. They obviously can't do fuck all with him - he probably weighs more than the three of them combined - so Jamie doesn't really get the point. It does eventually manage to make him laugh, though, and then quickly devolves into a tickle fight that Roy pretends not to catch.

They do breakfast at the same place. The girls are instructed to order something else this time so Roy doesn't get in trouble with their mothers. They end up with waffles with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Jamie is certain their mothers will not see any difference in that, but Roy allows it. No doubt he'll say they should have been more specific if he gets called out.

Jamie himself still doesn't have an appetite and just mumbles something about toast to the waitress. Roy doesn't let that fly and orders for both of them. Jamie eats what's put in front of him, making a show of being cranky about it even though it tastes good and makes him feel better.

It's back to burpees once the girls are dropped off.

"Nightmares again?" Roy asks casually, only after waiting until Jamie is panting for breath and drenched in sweat.

"Yeah," Jamie lies. Not like he knows what his problem actually is anyway. Roy grunts.

Eventually he says, "High knees," and that's that.

The next time Jamie has the nightmare it is a sex dream, which is fucking deranged and makes Jamie think he might be going round the fucking bend.

It's also about Keeley, which is even crazier because Keeley never did nothing bad to him when they were dating or even right after they broke up even though he was shit to her, and now she's one of his best friends. She's never hurt him, and he knows she never would. Jamie has no reason to be scared of her.

But that doesn't seem to matter to whatever part of him makes up his dreams. 

The nightmare starts with Jamie on Keeley's doorstep. She beckons him inside and he goes, but inside it's not Keeley's house. It's not much of anywhere, really, because it's a dream. It's just small and dark, with a red glow from… somewhere, or maybe everywhere.

Keeley pulls Jamie on top of her, and she's talking but her voice is all wrong and Jamie can't understand the words. He just knows she's complimenting him, and that it's making him feel like shit for some reason. They have sex and Jamie feels it, sort of, in the way you sort-of feel things in dreams.

He realizes the red light is coming from her body. It gets brighter and brighter and brighter until it wipes out everything else, and Jamie wakes up with spots in his vision. He's dizzy and terrified, and his fucking dick is still twitching.

The orgasm felt good, despite everything else. It's stupid to think it wouldn't, coming is coming. But it makes Jamie fucking furious.

It takes him almost ten minutes taking long slow breaths in the bathroom, carefully keeping his hands gripped tight on the sink - away from himself - to calm down enough to stop wanting to- to do something about it. Punch himself between the legs, or destroy everything breakable in his house with his bare hands, or go out and find someone who's arse he can kick. He has a pounding headache by the time he gets a fucking hold of himself, from how hard he's been clenching his jaw.

Jamie wants a strong drink after that, but he makes himself eat a handful of mixed nuts and have some orange juice out of the carton instead. He's a big boy. He can - he will - take care of himself. He even makes himself go back to bed, and manages to sleep until his alarm goes off an hour later too, if only because being that angry was fucking exhausting.

Roy doesn't say anything when Jamie opens the door to him this time. He lifts his gigantic stupid eyebrows, somehow pointedly but not judgmentally. Jamie nods miserably.

"Off day with me tomorrow," Roy says, once the girls have come and gone and Jamie is doing pushups with Roy's feet on his back. "Just regular training at the club. Sleep the fuck in." Jamie doesn't mean to, but he laughs out loud, blowing sidewalk dust up into his face. 

When Jamie doesn't respond to Roy's expectant silence, he digs his heels hard into Jamie's back until Jamie gasps in pain and lets himself collapse. He groans, high-pitched, drawn-out, and as annoying as possible, in a fake bid for pity. He pictures Roy's eye roll in his mind's eye, since he can't see it from face down in the dirt. Even today, it still makes him smile.

"Not having another breakdown," Jamie mutters when Roy starts growling. He curls his arms under his head for a pillow, facing away from Roy and into the distance of the park. "Only 'cause… Probably the same breakdown."

"Thought that was about playing at City?" Roy asks. His voice is oddly gentle, rare for him to use even on Phoebe. It falls over Jamie's shoulders like a blanket so fluffy it's weightless. And maybe it could smell like warm sugar or something. That'd be nice.

"Maybe," Jamie says, his voice mumbly and the sounds all soft, like the imaginary Roy blanket. "Maybe I was having two at the same time, then." Roy grunts.

"Bow pose," he says eventually. He leaves his feet where they are, but Jamie bends far enough that they end up sliding down his back to rest on his bum. And that's that.

After training at the club, Jamie decides it's time to start trying to figure this out. It doesn't take him long to retrace his steps back to Amsterdam. Roy must've been right, and now it's been brought up it's not going back down without giving Jamie hell first.

It's not that Jamie doesn't remember the event itself. It's just a little vague. Muffled, like. There's no feelings connected to it at all, emotionally. It's like something he saw in a movie that didn't properly catch his attention. A kid and his dad go to the red light district. Kid picks a prostitute. Kid goes inside with her. She turns off her light and draws the curtain over her window. They have sex. Kid goes back outside. His dad is proud of him, tells him he's a man now. Congratulations, son. Don't tell your mother. The end.

Jamie sits quietly in his living room, struggling to assign some kind of emotion to any of it. Minute by minute, play by play, he tries to feel something. Anything. But there's nothing there, and even now looking at it in hindsight Jamie mostly just feels tired. 

The nightmares, on the other hand, are almost nothing but feelings. There's fear and anger and regret and - once he manages to untangle it from the rest - something Jamie doesn't have a name for and couldn't describe for someone to give him the word if he tried. Maybe he should just… put the two together. Is that what happened, then? He's not sure.

Jamie makes and eats dinner on autopilot. No matter how tired he is, how little it seems to matter in the moment, Jamie can always rely on himself to do at least the bare minimum to make sure he can play. It's easier for dinner, when he can just pop a premade nutritionist-approved meal into the oven and then mechanically shovel it into his mouth without having to think about it.

Jamie puts himself to bed when he's done, and only remembers at the last minute to reset his alarm to a more decent hour so he can attempt to sleep in a bit like Roy told him to.

The nightmare this time is just the memory, devoid as always of emotion. He doesn't quite remember the details of her face so she doesn't have any. He doesn't quite remember the exact words she used, so there are none. It's just the impression of it all; she looked kind of like this, she said something kind of like that. It's an overwhelming sort of nothing, like that.

Jamie wakes up sticky again, and achingly sad.

It's hours before his alarm. He got used to the early schedule Roy set quickly. But Roy's word is Jamie's law at this point, so Jamie cleans himself up and tries to go back to sleep. It's not as difficult as he'd thought it'd be. He still wakes up again before his alarm, but just by a little. More importantly, he doesn't dream again.

Nate is back for training that day. He's wearing street clothes and looks oddly soft and strong at once. Jamie wonders if he's ever looked that way. Nate seems to be trying to hang back at first, quiet nods of greeting to each of them as they come in but not lingering on any one of them, no hellos out loud. Jamie takes it upon himself to fix that.

Nate looks mildly apprehensive at Jamie's direct approach, but he doesn't shrink himself and Jamie feels kind of… proud of him for that. He switches impulsively from the clap on the shoulder he was planning to a hug. It's just moments before Isaac and Colin come to back Jamie up.

"Good to have you back, coach," Colin says.

"Yeah, yeah," Isaac agrees. "What you been up to, bruv?"

"Other than roasting us on telly," adds Colin. He's laughing, not meanly, but Nate grimaces so Jamie elbows him. Isaac, too, knocks the back of his hand into Colin's chest in reprimand.

"Saw you went out with Anastasia," Isaac says over Colin's mumbly insistence that he was only joking. "Man, how did you bag that?"

"Hey, yeah!" Thierry calls out, and then suddenly the whole team is crowded around Nate, vying for his attention and pushing Jamie back into his personal space. "We were all talking about that."

"Yes, she is out of your league, no?" Jan Maas asks, to the typical chorus of groans. Nate doesn't seem bothered by it though.

"Oh, erm, yes- No, I mean- Actually Rupert set us up. Er- Mr. Mannion. Rupert." Nate jerks his head slightly as if to shake himself out of the net of what to name the beast. Jamie jerks his head too, 'cause his ears are filling up with cotton. It's hot in here suddenly, in the crush of everyone against the office window. "She wasn't really interested in me, she just wanted- Actually, I don't know what she wanted. Well, and I didn't really want her either-"

A sharp pain stabs up through Jamie's chest, like he's just done a thousand of Roy's fucking burpees all at once. It keeps him from taking a deep enough breath, so he just keeps gasping in tiny little gulps of air that don't make him feel any less like he's dying. It really doesn't help that it's so fucking hot, surrounded like this. His vision swims for a moment, and then closes in on a pen on Ted's desk through the office window.

Jamie scrabbles weakly for the door into the office. He's not actually as blocked in as it feels - he doesn't need to push past anyone.

Behind him, barely audible through the cotton, Nate is going on, "But I do have a girlfriend now. A proper one, I mean." The lads all yell and jostle Nate in congrats. By the time they're talking all over each other demanding details, Jamie has made it into the comparatively quiet manager's office and shut the door again behind himself.

"Jamie?" Ted asks softly, which is when Jamie realizes he's unaware of almost everything in his surroundings. He didn't know Ted was in here when he came in, he doesn't know now if Beard and Roy and fucking Trent Crimm are in here too or not. It's just Nate's voice in the back of his mind saying he didn't want her, and the pen on Ted's desk.

It feels exactly how it felt when he knew he was in big trouble with his dad, when he'd cussed at him or broken something or said Mummy was better than him - or when Jamie had punched him at Wembley. Nothing in the whole world would exist except Dad's voice and the shining ring on his finger. The word 'fear' can't even touch it, it's-

Oh.

"How-" Jamie chokes out, moving himself toward that pen, the direction he can only assume Ted is in. "Coach, how do I- How do you st-stop-?"

"How…?" Ted repeats. He sounds far away, so Jamie moves closer again. His thigh bumps into the edge of Ted's desk, and Ted swims into Jamie's vision when he puts a warm hand on Jamie's elbow to steady him. "Oh, are you having a-? Okay, yeah. Give yourself a big hug." Obediently, Jamie wraps his own arms around himself. Ted nods encouragingly. "Tighter, tight as you can. Good, yeah, there you go. Now breathe in for four-"

"What fucking Zava fucking bullshit," Jamie hisses. He grits his teeth and glares at Ted viciously. Ted's lips twitch before he gets all serious and concerned again.

"No, no, that guy was, uh…" He trails off and quickly gives up on finding a roundabout American way to say whatever he means. "We're just making sure you're getting the most of all this oxygen you're sucking up. Totally grounded, you know, scientific. Okay?" Jamie growls in the back of his throat, unthinkingly channeling Roy, but he nods.

"Good," Ted says again. "Good, okay, so you breathe in for four seconds. Yeah, good, just like that, and you just hold that breath right in there for seven seconds, okay? Perfect, you're doing great, and now you breathe out for eight seconds. And you just keep right on doing that until you get all loosey-goosey again." Jamie nods. It is kind of helping already. The rest of the room is coming back into existence around him, not just Ted and Ted's pen now, but the walls and corners of the room, the adjoining office, the training room through the window in front of Jamie, the happy noise of the team still going on beyond the window behind him.

"And, um," Ted adds, and now Jamie can look at him while he speaks. He looks down at Ted's chest again right away, but still. It counts. "If you know what did it, you can tell yourself a little something to make you feel better too. Mine are usually about somebody getting hurt, so I'll repeat to myself that he's okay."

"Henry," Jamie says. His voice is thin, but he figures it's an improvement that he notices.

"Sometimes," says Ted. Jamie's eyes snap back to Ted's. Ted smiles at him, a bit grimly, and tips his head toward Jamie. Indicating, like. Wide-eyed, Jamie breathes in for four seconds, holds for seven, and breathes out for eight. Ted holds Jamie's eye the whole way through. Jamie doesn't think anything in particular, but he focuses on the feeling of Ted giving a shit about him, his steady hand still on Jamie's elbow supporting him, the wall of noise behind him from his teammates who all have his back.

"Thanks," he breathes.

"Yeah?" Ted checks, dipping his head to keep Jamie's eyes even as Jamie sort of… melts, a little bit. "You good?"

"Yeah, good." Jamie nods and steps back out of Ted's grasp, unfolding his arms from around himself and shaking them out at his sides. He looks around, finally spotting Beard at his own desk with his feet up as usual. A thick paperback book rests open and page-down on his belly and he regards Jamie and Ted seriously. When Jamie looks at him he nods, and when Jamie nods back he picks up his book and goes right back to it like nothing's just happened. 

Roy isn't here and neither is Trent Crimm, both of which Jamie is relieved about. Trent's cool now, according to Roy, but once a journo always a journo. Trent will be, at the very least, nosy as hell until the day he dies. And if Roy'd seen that, he'd be on Jamie's case ten times as hard about calling his mum.

Jamie does the breathing exercise one more time, just to feel it do whatever the hell it does. He remembers again what Dr. Sharon said about people like him. He wonders how much worse he's going to have to feel before this gets better.

The final match of the season is against West Ham. Disco has been promoted into the spot Nate left. Nate spends the whole warm up time motor-mouthing at the other coaches all about his tactics. Ted's eyes glaze over, and soon after so do Roy's, but Beard nods along attentively through the whole hushed high-speed lecture. They end up using Nate's decoy play, and actually it is pretty fucking funny. Jamie's too happy when they win to be sad about the old him being too much of a prick to enjoy himself back when Ted first tried to run it.

City dominates in their game, of course, so Richmond comes in second overall. Second! So close they can taste it! Next season they're coming for it all. They're taking home a goddamn trophy if Jamie has to learn how to fucking fly to get it. But for now, this is enough. More than - Jamie really has never been happier.

They've got the usual post-match off day, and then there's a goodbye party for Ted before the off season officially begins. Ms. Welton has bought out Crown & Anchor for the day so they can all hang out somewhere outside the club without getting hounded. Jamie's buzzing for it, considering the last time the team went there all together he was too busy being a little bitch. He'll have to convince everyone to go for karaoke again too at some point. Apparently Ms. Welton's singing voice is wicked, but Jamie'd bet he could give her a run for it if he got the chance.

Dr. Sharon sits down next to Jamie when it's gotten dark and the party is winding down - or rather, the party is turning into a different party somewhere else because the granddads among them have to get back to the nursing home. Richard and Bumbercatch take one look at her and respectfully vanish.

"Hello, Jamie," she says. She takes a sip from her beer, raising an eyebrow at him over the rim. Jamie sighs, but he can't help a small smile too.

"Ted told you," he says. Dr. Sharon smiles back and sets down her beer.

"Unfortunately even the greatest friend isn't bound by patient confidentiality standards," she quips, and Jamie snorts. "I won't pressure you, but I have a few open slots if you wanted to take one. Weekly or monthly."

"Ah, yeah, I'll think about it," Jamie mumbles, rotating his tonic glass around and around in between both hands. He laughs shortly again. "Roy thinks I should call me mum." Dr. Sharon hums and takes another sip in the pause Jamie leaves. Hesitantly, he adds, "Can, uh. Can I ask a- uh, a professional question? I guess. Sort of."

"Careful, if it takes too long to answer I'll have to charge you." Jamie laughs again, less short. He makes a show of rolling his eyes, and Dr. Sharon smiles big enough that someone not sitting right across from her might even notice.

"How… How do I know what makes me-" Jamie breaks off. He turns his first finger around in a circle by his temple, not sure what words to use to say what he means. Or maybe he just doesn't want to say them. He can't really tell about that either, to be honest. Sometimes it feels like his feelings are a puzzle box and Jamie's just not smart enough to get in.

"Well, you can try to guess," Dr. Sharon says, thoughtful, sympathetic, and businesslike the way she always is. "But it's really just a matter of… fucking around and finding out." Jamie laughs for real at that. She always manages to say stuff in a way that makes it easy for Jamie to get it, but it never stops being a fun surprise.

Dr. Sharon leaves Jamie her business card and clears out with the rest of the elderly people after she finishes her beer in friendly quiet with him. It's nice. Comfortable, the way sessions with her just aren't because most times they're about stuff that sucks shit. Jamie programs her number into his phone before he loses the card like he knows he will. Just in case.

Jamie thinks about what Dr. Sharon said for a solid couple of weeks into the off season, trying to decide on some kind of method for fucking around so that he can find out. How the fuck do you test for something like that?

In the meantime, Jamie trains six days a week with Roy, five of those days with Phoebe and the girls, and about every three days or so he has a version of the nightmare. The most frequent is still the one with nothing really in it but the voices and the light, but every now and then dream Jamie goes inside a dream room with a dream woman and has dream sex with her that makes him feel cornered and sick in real life. Most of the time the woman in't anyone, but sometimes she's Keeley again, and once or twice she's Anastasia.

Jamie tries again to remember more, to remember some real concrete specifics, to remember what she'd said. Honestly, he doesn't really get why it's tearing him up so much. She'd been nice, he knows that at least. She hadn't teased him, hadn't done anything freaky. She'd had a good time, or at least she'd made absolute sure he thought she did. None of that seems like it should be 'traumatizing'.

He tries to remember what made him get so mad at the woman he'd taken home from the party after the Leicester match. Nothing stands out, but the more Jamie picks over the memory the more he realizes he's felt exactly that same way before. Even when he was with Keeley, he'd feel like that sometimes. He hadn't ever really thought about it, or if he did he'd probably just assumed he had a shit temper like his dad and then immediately stopped thinking again as fast as possible.

Eventually, Jamie concludes that he's going to have to fuck around. Literally. He tries, first, fucking around with himself. He sets aside time and lube to have the most thoughtful wank of his life. He cycles through every guess he has, which is not very many at all, with his wet hand on his cock and his eyes squeezed shut tight to help his imagination along. He doesn't find anything that makes him get angry or panic but he also ends up looking way too close at himself, metaphorically, to keep it up. So that method is right out.

Jamie considers trying to figure this out with some random fucking person for about five seconds. Just thinking about it ties his stomach into icky knots and makes his face burn so hot he starts sweating. That would probably mess up the finding out part pretty bad even if Jamie did try it out. So that's not happening either.

It takes Jamie another week to work up the courage to try for the only way to fuck around he can come up with.

Keeley answers the phone on the second ring.

"Hi, Jamie!" she says. It's obvious in her voice that she's happy to hear from him, which he's not exactly surprised at, but it still immediately makes him less nervous. He hopes she doesn't get mad at him. Most of the time when Jamie's being a prick he's doing it on purpose, but sometimes he really can't tell if something is a dick move or not.

"Hi, Keeley," Jamie says back. He's pacing up and down his walkway. He can never sit still on the phone. "Erm. So, are you and Roy back together yet?" There's a tense pause on the other line while Keeley, Jamie assumes, decides whether or not to argue with 'yet'.

"...No," she says eventually. 

"Good. I mean, not good, it's just I still don't wanna get between you." Some more of Jamie's nerves fall off. If they were back together this would be a dick move even if it wouldn't be if they weren't. An even bigger dick move than telling her he loves her. A way bigger dick move than that, a big enough dick move Jamie would know it and would have to come up with some other reason he'd asked. But that's if they were back together.

"Okay…" says Keeley. "What's this about, babe?" Out of enough practice to make a habit, Jamie doesn't have a reaction to the pet name.

"Uh," he stalls, nerves creeping back up on him. But he wouldn't have made it to where he is now if he couldn't power through. He wouldn't be Jamie fucking Tartt. "I were sort of wondering if you wanted to get laid."

Keeley laughs at first, and Jamie huffs back. It's just a natural reaction, really. It makes him happy when she's happy, he can't help it. Wouldn't want to. Not anymore, anyway, and he can hardly remember when it was different, when it felt like a power she had over him. But somehow, Keeley picks up that Jamie isn't kidding like he never could have if it were switched around.

"Oh," she says, soft and gentle, and Jamie- He doesn't know, he doesn't know what this feeling is. He doesn't know a lot of feelings. He loves her, that's the closest he can get. "Jamie, honey. That wouldn't hurt your feelings?"

"Oh," Jamie echoes her. "I dunno. Maybe." He hadn't thought about that. Would it hurt him to have sex with her, being in love with her, knowing she doesn't love him back? But that's not exactly true. Jamie's pretty sure Keeley does love him, just not the same way he loves her. The way she loves Roy.

Keeley laughs again, although this time Jamie can't guess what's funny.

"Okay, then I guess the answer is 'maybe'." There's another pause between them, Jamie staring unseeingly at his front door while Keeley sighs deeply. "I need to think about it."

Just after he finishes cleaning up after dinner that night, with sunset glowing almost painfully orange off of all the stainless steel in his kitchen, Jamie checks his phone to find a text message from her: i thought about it

Jamie texts back, should i come over?

Keeley sends him the squirrel emoji.

She has tea already waiting for him when he gets to her place. Jamie tips down onto her couch next to where she's curled up with her feet tucked underneath her. It's all so familiar - the low light, pink everywhere, the smell of warm Earl Grey, Jamie with pleasantly sore muscles from the day of training, Keeley giving him that easy grin. The only other places Jamie has ever felt this comfortable are on the pitch and in his mother's arms.

Jamie lets his head flop over onto the back of the couch and man-spreads until he can feel Keeley's body heat through his trouser leg. She rolls her eyes, but her smile doesn't fade. She uncurls slightly, makes contact, her ankle against his knee.

Grudgingly, Jamie realizes he has to explain himself - at least a little - for this to work. In the time between telling Roy and now, the truth has made itself a lot bigger and meaner. But Keeley has never pressured Jamie for anything (aside from, like, maturity and respect). He can give her just one of the monster's teeth and she'll take it.

"I'm trying to figure something out," he starts, keeping his voice low and soft to- well, mostly just because he wants to. Softness is part of the better man Keeley always knew he could be, the man Phoebe and her friends know, the one Jamie likes a lot better and is a lot more fun to be.

"Yeah?" Keeley moves again, uncurling almost completely so she can tuck her feet under Jamie instead, her painted toes burrowing insistently between the couch cushion and his heavy thigh.

"That's what this-" Jamie gestures from himself to Keeley and back again. She nods. She gets him. "I got questions, like. Can't get the answers by meself." He pauses, takes a deep breath. Firms up his jaw, meets her eyes. "Too scared to do it with a stranger."

Keeley's face melts. She reaches out to clasp Jamie's elbow, shakes him gently, just letting his body know hers is there. Then she seems to think back over the first thing he said. Her eyebrows pinch together slightly, her lips purse, she tilts her head like maybe she'll see him better at an angle.

"What questions?" she asks cautiously. Jamie shrugs like he doesn't know with no hope or intention for Keeley to accept that. She gives him a glare she could not have meant less if she tried, and Jamie grins. "How am I supposed to help you answer them, then?"

Jamie's smile drops as he sits up. He turns to face her with his whole body. Despite his suddenness, Keeley is mirroring him in an instant, serious face, holding both of his hands in her lap.

"I'm gonna tell you something that's not true," Jamie starts. Keeley's eyebrows pinch together again, but Jamie doesn't let himself worry about it even though he can't really tell if she's confused or pissed off. "Don't really want you to believe it. I mean," he laughs dryly, "you couldn't. Don't really want you to pretend to believe it either, though, yeah? Just… Dunno. Do whatever you'd do if you did."

"Okay…" Keeley says, unsure but still listening. Still touching him. When he opens his mouth and then stalls out once, she squeezes his hands and nods encouragingly.

"Okay. Never done this before," Jamie lies. Keeley still looks confused, so he rephrases in an embarrassed mumble: "'M a virgin." Keeley's eyebrows jump up and she looks, for just a moment, like she's going to start laughing at him. But then her eyes widen and her mouth falls open slightly. She squeezes Jamie's hands, using her grip on him to pull herself closer, their knees pressed together.

"Okay, Jamie. Are you sure you're ready?" she asks. She's careful only for a moment, and then she quirks her lips flirtatiously. Jamie huffs a tiny, breathy laugh. His shoulders drop and he nods with a smile. Keeley grins, wiggles a little, pulls herself closer again - his knees in between hers now. "Is there anything you really wanna try?"

Jamie hates to bring down the mood, but he has to be honest. "Don't know."

"That's okay," Keeley reassures him, thoughtlessly easy. She's so fucking perfect. "Is there anything you don't want to try?" Jamie shakes his head helplessly.

"Don't know." Keeley bites her lip and nods. She keeps nodding for a moment, over and over like Roy does sometimes when he's not sure what to do. She lets go of Jamie's hands only to start rubbing up and down his forearms over the sleeves of his hoodie. Jamie doesn't know if she means it to be sexy, but if she did or not it makes him body-conscious and shivery. He lets out a pleased sigh and leans further into her space. Keeley reads him easy as ever, her serious look vanishing instantly. She moves her hands up to grope at Jamie's biceps. He laughs a little and idly tenses his arms up for her.

"Have you ever been kissed?" she asks him. Her voice is low now, definitely meant to be sexy, and familiar in a way that makes Jamie feel as easy as Keeley finds him. Pavlovian, like she said.

"Ehh…" Jamie starts trying to remember what his real first kiss was like, if it was okay or not, but then decides he actually doesn't want to think about this that hard and just shakes his head. Keeley does that bobbing Roy nod again, but she snaps out of it quicker than Roy usually does. She takes Jamie's face between both of her hands and kisses him.

Jamie's eyes flutter shut. He tilts his head for a better angle and parts his lips, but otherwise passively lets Keeley have his mouth however she wants. Her lip gloss is slick and cherry flavored, which is honestly a little funny considering the scenario they're faking at. Jamie doesn't have enough breath to laugh at it though, not with the woman he loves sliding her tongue into his mouth.

The kiss deepens. Keeley drags her hands up again, one around the back of Jamie's neck and one buried into his hair where it gets long enough. Jamie moans, just a quiet half-desperate thing caught in his throat. He palms Keeley's waist and pulls her body closer. She helps, and then takes over, pushing Jamie back by the shoulder until he's all slouched against the cushions again and she's in his lap.

They break apart only when they have to to breathe. Jamie is left weak from head to toe, staring up at Keeley. Her hair falls around her face, around his, partially blocking out her pink and warm gold mood lighting and making her look like an angel.

"Hi," he breathes nonsensically. Keeley scrunches her face at him, giggles, rubs their noses together. Jamie spreads his hands as wide as he can over her back, wanting to feel her body on as much of his as possible. She rocks herself closer to him until she's seated with her legs spread wide over his hips, their bellies pressed together. If he could just look away from her face for a moment, her tits would probably be practically in his mouth.

Instead, Keeley puts her fingers under Jamie's chin to tilt his head further up, baring his throat to her. Jamie's heart races, but it feels like in a good way. When his head is back far enough, Keeley wraps her hand around it - or at least she wraps her hand around as much of it as her hand can fit, which is not much, but it still makes Jamie feel completely held by her, enveloped entirely, just like he wanted. He moans again, the same small animal noise, just a little less trapped inside him this time.

Keeley holds Jamie's head like that, gentle and inescapable. She caresses a tiny circle just under his jaw with her thumb. Then she puts her mouth there instead. She licks, kisses, just-barely scrapes her teeth on Jamie's vulnerable skin.

"Can I leave a mark?" Keeley's pulled back from him just enough that she can speak clearly, but Jamie resents even that much distance already. He gives his permission quick and half-breathless, pulling her back to him with firm hands between her shoulders. He just catches her sharp grin, the glitter in her eyes, as she goes down.

Jamie has been given hickeys before, of course he has. But those were just part of foreplay. Not even, really. They were part of flirting, part of deciding if you wanted to have sex at all, the same kind of step as picking who's place to go to. This is not like that at all. This is already the sex part.

Jamie clings to Keeley's back and squirms underneath her as she sucks his arousal up to the surface of his skin like she can taste it and it's fucking delicious. She takes brief breaks from the spot under his jaw she'd mapped out to visit his earlobe with her teeth, leaving that area wet and bare for just long enough that it starts to get cold before sealing her hot mouth on it again.

Jamie is panting and hard when Keeley pulls back again. He whines at the loss. She laughs against his cheek.

"Can I give you another one?" she asks. Jamie gapes up at her blankly for a moment, the words trickling into his ears on a sex-hazed delay. When he manages to hear them, he still can't seem to grasp that she's really asking again. Even as Jamie sits still and pliant where she put him, Keeley waits for him to answer before she keeps going - even though he already technically said yes. It gets suddenly overwhelming, the way it was overwhelming when the City fans cheered him even though he'd scored against them just because they thought he was worthy of it.

"Yeah," Jamie says, choked. "Yeah, but listen. I think I might cry. But don't mean I wanna stop, though. Is that okay?"

Keeley draws their pause out there, looking Jamie over carefully. She must find enough to reassure her that Jamie means it, because she breaks into a cheeky smile.

"Of course it's okay, Jamie!" she tells him, amusement round and warm in her voice. "That's completely normal. Your first time can be really intense." Jamie laughs, his tension broken along with hers. It's so silly, they're not even really pretending he's never done it before, but it still helps. He thought it was just to warn Keeley he'd be different, that he doesn't really know what he's doing anymore, that he doesn't know what he wants. That he's nervous. Might have to change his mind. But it seems like it's for him too. Takes the pressure off. He doesn't have to be strong or suave or talented. He can just… trust her, and feel.

That warm blanket feeling he gets when Roy's all nice to him after a hard training day comes back over Jamie's shoulders. Now it smells like Keeley, because he's in her house and she's on top of him, because when he sinks further down into her couch she follows him and her hair tumbles down to tickle his cheeks. Jamie digs his head into the back of the couch and rolls his face to the side to give her as much of his neck as he possibly can. Keeley laughs, but before Jamie can get embarrassed - although he doesn't think he could get embarrassed right now - she starts slowly, firmly grinding her hips.

"Fuck," Jamie bites out, and then Keeley's on him again.

She marks him up, alright. She sucks at that same place until it starts to hurt, Jamie cursing and crushing her body into his, and then she moves on to a new spot, over and over again. By the time Keeley's kisses gentle again, just soft brushes of her lips against his flesh, the entire left side of Jamie's neck - from just under his ear down to the bend where it turns to shoulder - is tender almost to throbbing. Jamie's trembling, he feels drunk, and his mouth is dry from how long it's been since he closed it.

Keeley's lips brush Jamie's ear, free of gloss now but still slick, when she whispers, "Do you want your cock inside me while I do the other side?" Jamie's moan is not small at all this time.

"Yes, please," he whines.

"Oh!" says Keeley. She sounds surprised, but when Jamie looks up at her, her eyes on him are as hot as he's ever seen them. "Sweet boy." Jamie can't help but groan again, high and needy. He drops his head onto Keeley's shoulder and pants against her skin. It's not quite 'good' but it's fucking close, and it's so much more now that Jamie is allowed to take it seriously.

Keeley levers herself up onto her knees, hovering over Jamie's lap and distracting him awfully by brushing her fingers repeatedly over the marks she made while he struggles frantically to get his trousers and pants off. He deprives himself of her petting for a moment to pull his hoodie and his t-shirt off, letting them drop over the back of the couch behind him. Keeley gets rid of all her clothes too, shirt and bra and fleece pajamas joining Jamie's bottoms in a pile at his feet.

Keeley gets a condom out of the box she keeps in the little side table. She looks at it in her hands for a moment, her lips twitching with suppressed laughter, but Jamie glares at her before she can start acting like she needs to show him how to put it on. Instead, she rips the packet open with her teeth and hands the condom over for him to take care of himself. When he's sleeved, Jamie takes Keeley's hips. She doesn't mind his hands are a little wet from the lubed condom. She sighs happily, wraps her arms around his shoulders, and kisses him again slow and sweet.

"Ready?" she asks again. Jamie swallows hard, eyes wet. He nods and kisses her back, kisses her again, again.

They moan together when Keeley sinks carefully onto Jamie's cock. His hands dig into her hips, step up onto her waist one after the other as if to pull her down further even when she's already fully seated. They both pant, breaths hot and intimate in each other's faces, giving Keeley's body a moment to adjust to Jamie inside her.

Then Keeley taps demandingly at the right side of Jamie's face and says, "Gimme." Obediently, he turns to offer up the unblemished side of his neck.

Keeley marks him up there the same as the other side, working him over thoroughly while she rides him and he fucks up into her. It feels so good it hollows Jamie out. There's nothing inside him, nothing around him, but pleasure and Keeley. Her breathy little moans, muffled by Jamie's skin between her teeth but so close to his ear. Her tits, soft and small, against his chest. Her thighs clamped around his waist, hers flexing under his hands. One of her hands is in Jamie's hair, pulling slightly every time she lifts herself up. The other one still holds his chin, keeping him where she wants him.

It feels so good Jamie forgets the first rule he was ever given about good sex. He comes first.

"Oh, fuck, Jamie, yes," Keeley hisses as he cries out sharply and fucks up her rhythm rutting through his orgasm. She sits up straight and gets both hands in his hair now, using it for leverage to ride him harder and faster until he's done and goes boneless under her. She lets go of his hair then, but she stays on his cock, getting her use out of it before it gets soft again. With her fingers on her clit and her eyes on Jamie's throat, Keeley brings herself off with a rough, broken whine.

Keeley collapses onto Jamie's chest. He brings his weak, shaky arms up to hug her close. Gradually, they catch their breath and the feeling comes back into Jamie's fingers and toes.

"Shower?" Jamie asks hopefully. Keeley shakes her head against his shoulder, but out loud she says yes. He carries both of their clothes up the stairs behind her. He considers putting them in the hamper, but he severely doubts there are any of his clothes here anymore even if he might've left some. He drops both sets on the floor instead, too lazy to sort Keeley's out.

The shower is already running, Keeley holding a hand under the spray waiting for it to warm up, when Jamie follows her into the bathroom. He looks at himself in the mirror and gasps.

Jamie's neck is vivid red on both sides, with spots of deeper purple. He grips his own chin to turn his head and behold the carnage, whistling out a low note through pursed lips.

"Holy shit, Keeley," he laughs. "Are you a fucking vampire or something?"

"You look hot," Keeley says instead of answering. She wraps her body around Jamie's from behind, both of them admiring him in the mirror together. She holds him low on his belly, down below his hips, with one hand. The other creeps its way up his chest, up over his collarbones, to gently scrape one of her manicured nails over the darkest mark on his throat. Jamie's breath catches and his eyelids flutter. He tips his head back and Keeley readily takes the opportunity to pet him more firmly, to hold him. He wishes, for just a moment, that she was taller so that he could rest his head on her shoulder, or that she was strong enough that she could catch him if his knees buckled.

"C'mon, the water's gonna run out," she murmurs eventually, and tugs him along into the shower.

They dry each other off with the same towel. Jamie stares regretfully at the pile of clothes near the door while Keeley digs in her dresser for something comfy to sleep in. She's got fresh pants and new pajama bottoms on, still topless, when Jamie decides to go for it and turns to catch her eye.

"Can I stay over?" he asks. Keeley looks surprised for a moment, but then she smiles sleepily and nods. "Here?" Jamie double checks, jerking his chin at her bed. He doesn't mean the guest room. Keeley smiles bigger and nods again, like she never meant the guest room either. She digs out a t-shirt. Jamie realizes it's his when she tosses it at him. Was his.

They're opposites when they climb into Keeley's bed together, Jamie with a top and no bottoms and Keeley with bottoms and no top. Keeley tucks herself into Jamie's arms, small and warm and familiar. He wants to kiss her goodnight but doesn't know if that's allowed, and this time he pussies out of asking.

"Did that help?" she mumbles. It takes a moment to parse the words, since her face is halfway buried in Jamie's freshly scrubbed armpit. It takes much longer to answer. Did it? Kind of. It certainly made him feel good. Made him feel better. Different. But it definitely didn't tell him anything about how or why he gets freaked out.

"Don't know," he says eventually, disappointed that's still the only answer he can give her. She hums in thoughtful acknowledgement.

"Did you like it?" she asks. That one is easy.

"Yes." Jamie nods too, presses his face into Keeley's still-damp hair, hugs her closer. "God, yes, Keeley. I liked it."

"Good," Keeley says, hugging him back, her grip weak since from the sound of it she's already falling asleep. "That's the important part. Good night, Jamie. Sweet dreams."

"Yeah," says Jamie. "Sweet dreams."

He hopes they will be.

Chapter Text

Jamie is different. Well, no. He's not really different, deep down, but he's… more. More thoughtful, more present, more open. More vulnerable. An even greater Jamie, like he'd said.

Keeley had already known this. Not just in theory either, she'd seen it with her own eyes. And she'd always known he'd get there anyway, from the moment he'd thanked her for believing in him. Still, it's another thing to be faced with it so up close and personal.

It's surreal, to wake up beside him. She has a job with regular morning hours now, and it's the off season too, so for the last week when Jamie's stayed over Keeley wakes up first. Jamie looks both soft and strong sleeping peacefully in her bed while the morning sunlight slowly spills over his face. His hair soft, dyed light, a little fluffy with no product (or sweat) in it yet. His jaw strong, a coincidence of genetics that makes him look as brave as he is.

Keeley reaches out and brushes her hand through that soft hair. Jamie mumbles breathily in his sleep. Something painful but not unpleasant happens somewhere deep in Keeley's chest.

She finishes her first coffee of the day in bed next to him, watching him sleep. Every now and then he mutters a little, completely indecipherable. It doesn't seem like a bad dream, though. He's like a puppy chasing an imaginary rabbit. Or more likely, a football. 

Sadly, Keeley can't sit around and watch him all day. She has to go to work, and it's extra important for her to be on time now it's just her and Barbara. She should probably hire more people, but after the disaster with Shandy she's been a little nervous to.

Still, Keeley doesn't want to wake Jamie up. He hasn't told her what's going on with him, what it is he's 'figuring out', but Keeley can tell it's been wearing him down. She almost doesn't want to know how long he's been going it all by himself. Knowing Jamie, it's way too long.

She leaves him in her bed, quietly setting her empty mug down on the bedside table. She selects her outfit for the day in slow motion to avoid any creaks or thuds from her dresser and her closet door, and she leaves her shoes off for now too. She does her hair and makeup in the bathroom, and is almost surprised when she comes back out to find Jamie still asleep. He's rolled over on his other side, and inched further down under the comforter so that just the tip of his nose is sticking out. Keeley really has to leave, but now she wants to let Jamie sleep even more.

She could give him Roy's key. It's not Roy's anymore since he broke up with Keeley and gave it back, after all. Now it's just a spare. Keeley digs it out and leaves it with a note telling Jamie to lock up behind himself on the bedside table by his side of the bed.

It doesn't have to mean anything. Not about either man.

Work is the same anticipatory, excited, proud kind of hellishly stressful it's been for the last few weeks. It honestly feels like if a football match lasted for 90 days instead of minutes. With the same inevitability for overtime. And Keeley 's the striker, instead of up in the stands cheering him on. And she doesn't have anyone out there proudly wearing her jersey. But she's not totally alone! She's got her keeper and her team's sponsor, Barbara and Rebecca, and most importantly Keeley has got herself. She can do this.

Keeley is dead on her feet when she gets home to find that not only did Jamie lock up after himself, he also made her bed, replaced the groceries he used to make his breakfast, cleaned her kitchen, and left her a note back thanking her for a lovely night and hoping she had a day just as good.

She texts him, you're too sweet

In seconds, he responds, just making a mend

Keeley smiles at the malapropism, bubbly and pink inside at how familiar it feels even though he's never said specifically that before. 

It's crazy that Jamie himself made sure Keeley couldn't regret dumping him when she had and it's only now, years later, she's spending her usual time doubting the decision. She can't help but wonder what would have happened if they'd stayed together then. Maybe Jamie needed that ending, maybe they both did, really. But then again, maybe they still could have become who they are now without it, at each other's sides.

There's no way to know. Just like there's no way to know if Roy would have stayed if Keeley had gone to Marbella with him, or if she'd still be with Jack if the leak had never happened.

There are some questions Keeley can get the answers to, though.

do you want to come over? she texts Jamie. no sex tho i'm fucking knackered just want some company

After typing the message and staring at it for a moment, conflicted, she adds, maybe a cuddle?

luv a cuddle, Jamie says. did u already eat? i can pick something up on the way

Keeley sends him the takeaway box emoji, and he responds with the car and a kissy face. Keeley laughs tiredly before dragging her feet upstairs to get out of her work 'fit and remove her makeup. Jamie arrives just as Keeley is pulling on some pajamas. He comes right in, confident enough in his welcome not to knock now she's given him a key (again). Keeley lingers on the stairs just to listen to him rustling around with his bags of food, mumble-singing some current Top 40 hit that Keeley wouldn't know. 

It's unbearably domestic. Like he's coming home to her. Like Roy used to come home to her - except for the singing, that's all Jamie. Roy would already be halfway through an animated retelling of the most egregious part of his day. Which would probably also be all Jamie. She misses him so much it turns her skin and bones into tissue paper, air whistling right through her. Keeley feels like she could start missing Jamie just as much right now. Preemptive, like.

Fuck, she needs to get a grip.

Jamie winks at her as soon as she comes into the kitchen. He knocks his shoulder into Keeley's when she sidles up to him while he sets out greasy boxes on the counter. Seems like he took her emoji literally and got Chinese.

"Just got the usuals," he says, sorting the boxes into two groups and nudging one over to Keeley. He adds with a grin and a flourish, "Also stopped in and got you some Crunchies. 'Cause I'm amazing." 

It's something special, Keeley thinks, that Jamie manages both to have been so humbled and to still be so in love with himself. It's good in moderation. Charming, even. It's also special that he still knows her favorites. For a while after they were done, Keeley had convinced herself he'd never known them in the first place.

Keeley eats the Crunchies first, because she deserves it. Jamie got her several, enough for her to eat a couple of them now and still have some for dessert too. She feeds him a bite of one from her hand when he pouts at her over his already half-decimated moo goo gai pan.

After dinner they do indeed have a cuddle, Keeley wrapped up in Jamie's strong arms, nose tucked under the plush softness of his jumper to press against the warm skin in the hollow of his neck, both of her legs thrown over top one of his. He squeezes her, and brushes her hair back from her forehead with his cheek like they're cats rubbing their scents on each other. They've got Glow Up going on the telly for background noise.

"Mad," Jamie says at one point. "She should've won it." Keeley makes a mindless noise of agreement. She's not paying attention. The smell of Jamie's laundry detergent is much more interesting right now. She could easily fall asleep right here, and he might even carry her up to her bed, turn off all her lights, and leave. He was a gentleman like that before, sometimes. Keeley wraps her arms around his waist, slipping one hand underneath his shirt just to pet at his hip and feel the warmth of his skin. He wriggles slightly under her touch, but doesn't pull away.

"Still no sex, yeah?" he asks, voice low.

"Mhm," Keeley confirms drowsily. "Just feeling you. Feel nice."

"Oh," Jamie says. "Yeah. Feels nice, yeah." There's a long pause between them, one Keeley doesn't realize at first is a pause because it's so long and she's so comfortable it just feels like quiet. But after a while Keeley notices that Jamie has gotten a little tense. She stays where she is even after she's noticed, just swiping her thumb back and forth over his hip bone soothingly.

Finally, Jamie asks, "Keeley?"

"Hm?" she says. She doesn't stop her petting or let go of him or sit up or look at him, pretending to still be half-dozing. Maybe Roy is just like Jamie sometimes, but other times Jamie is just like Roy, and Keeley thinks this is one of those times. She can't put him on the spot even slightly or he'll clam up.

"When we were dating…" Jamie says, slow and hesitant. Brave, always so brave. "I got mad sometimes, yeah? And never said why."

"Mm, I guess you did, yeah," Keeley admits softly, nodding against his chest.

"Did you-" Jamie stutters. "I mean, did you ever… like, guess?" Now Keeley has to look at him, but when her eyes catch his Jamie doesn't try to hide from her. He looks a little bit guilty, but to be honest Keeley feels that way too.

"We weren't good at being together," she says, and rushes on when Jamie grimaces. "I don't mean just you! I… I didn't really think about it."

"Yeah," Jamie laughs wryly. "Yeah, me neither." They let the show run for a bit longer but it can't be mistaken for quiet this time. The picture on the telly is just a blur of moving colors in front of Keeley's eyes as she thinks hard about the Jamie of this last week, the Jamie from years before, and all the Jamies in between. The differences, and the lack of differences.

"Is that what you're trying to 'figure out'?" she asks eventually.

"Yeah, sort of, yeah," Jamie answers promptly, easily honest. That's one way her two boys are not alike at all. Roy works hard to tell her things, but for Jamie it's as simple as choosing to do it. (Roy fails, but Jamie lies.)

"I can try to guess now," Keeley says, and then tucks herself back under Jamie's arm. "Give me a few days."

The next day, Keeley arrives at work to over 50 new emails, 16 phone messages, and a printed out set of suggested interview questions that Barbara has pointedly left on her desk. Keeley gets done what she can with the client work, all the while agonizing over hiring. 

The thing is she still wants to give people like her a chance if they want it. Underprivileged, undereducated people with talent and passion that goes overlooked because of their accent or how they dress or how much of them you can see on the internet. Especially women. Women who everyone else has decided are too pretty or too sexually available to be smart too. But then how do you vet? Shandy was smart and talented and passionate, she was just also… not a good fit.

And there's also the question of how will she find people to vet in the first place. The kind of people Keeley wants are probably not going to see a job posting for a publicity executive and think they should apply. Keeley certainly never did.

Keeley enjoys her regularly scheduled lunch-break cry, and then with her face still wet and her mouth full of falafel, she thinks about Jamie.

Frankly, Jamie's temper tantrums had never been that remarkable to her. He'd seemed exactly like every other 23 year old footballer Keeley had ever dated: macho and tough on the outside and a sweetheart on the inside, fun-loving all the way through. Maybe Jamie's outside had been a little bit tougher, a little bit mean, but his inside had been that same little bit sweeter. It was an even trade-off, until it wasn't.

Knowing about his dad - knowing more, actually, knowing the whole truth, the hard reality of it, not just the downplayed version Jamie was willing to say out loud - changes things, but not by that much. More of an intensifier than a modifier, really. Point to a pro footballer with no toxic masculinity issues at all and Keeley will call you- Well, she doesn't like to make a habit of calling people liars, so she'd probably go with 'hopelessly naive' or something, but the point stands.

In the end, that's all Keeley can really come up with, at least in the fifteen or so minutes she takes to eat. Jamie lashed out when his manhood was threatened, like all the others, and he just had a lower threshold and a sharper bite than the rest because he was less worried about being bullied and more worried about being beaten.

"Hm," he says when Keeley tells him this the next night. "Maybe." He looks painfully thoughtful, unconvinced but thinking it over with the utmost diligence. 

She's cooked for them tonight, the last of the footballer diet plan appropriate recipes Keeley still remembers. Roy got a bit obsessed with indulgent food basically the second the doctors told him he wouldn't play again. Cream sauce had been the only thing that could make him smile in the weeks in between the injury and his retirement presser - other than Phoebe, of course. Together, they'd forgotten how to navigate strict restrictions on fat and sugar, with a not insignificant deliberateness. As a result, Keeley can't tell if the meal tonight is blander than it's supposed to be or if it just tastes that way to her. Jamie offers no complaint, but he probably wouldn't either way.

"It's sex stuff though," he adds after they're done eating, telling it to Keeley's kitchen sink and the dishes he insisted he should wash since she cooked. "Specifically. What I'm trying to figure out, I mean. It's sex, because of." He doesn't say because of what, but in that particular way he has that Keeley knows he won't be finishing the sentence. Either he'll say something else instead, or he's done. Keeley puts a pin in it in her mind. Whatever this is, it's because of something.

"Well…" she says, still considering what she knows and what she doesn't and what she wants to say about it even as she speaks. "There are plenty of ways to challenge your sense of masculinity during sex. If that's what you're trying to do?"

"Trying to find where the line is, I guess, yeah," says Jamie. His shoulders are slightly tense now, and he scrubs a plate a little more vigorously than it probably needs. "On purpose, like, so it's not on accident." Keeley nods thoughtfully. She figures that makes a certain kind of sense. A very Jamie kind of sense, honestly.

"What about with men?" she asks, abruptly enough it makes Jamie jump slightly. The thought only just struck her. Jamie's bisexual, and in Keeley's experience things that are 'gay' are just as scary to men as things that are 'girly'. Surely there must be some relevant 'sex stuff' that Jamie has already explored with men just as a matter of being with them. Jamie makes a confused noise.

"Oh, you mean-" he says almost before his noise is done. "Haven't really… very much. I think it's the same as with girls, though- Women. Dunno, don't remember." Keeley smiles and shakes her head at his unnecessary correction. She also incorporates the knowledge into her understanding of Jamie. It certainly doesn't contradict her theory, then, if he's less experienced with men than with women, and he thinks he's had the same temper problem with them.

"Have you ever bottomed?" Keeley asks next. She bites her lip a little, trying to stay focused on talking about it instead of thinking too hard about it and getting distracted. Especially with his back to her still, providing such a thought-provoking view.

"Nah," Jamie answers, shrugging, unselfconscious. "Mostly just traded head." He finishes with the dishes and starts meticulously drying off his hands. He will almost certainly be stealing some of her moisturizer later.

"Oh! So you didn't top either?" Jamie shakes his head. Keeley mentally scolds herself for being so surprised. Gently though. It's just he's so sexually free, generally, and confident (and horny). She never considered he wouldn't have at least done that. She makes the slight adjustments to her perception of him accordingly.

It gets a lot harder not to get distracted, thinking what she's thinking now. Even though he's turned to face her.

"You have an off day training tomorrow, right?" Keeley hedges. Her voice is low out of caution, coyness, but it's already starting to slip into the huskiness of arousal. Jamie's eyebrows lift at it, his mouth amused and a little smug, before he drops his eyelids to half mast and leans toward her over the table.

"Yeah," he confirms, slow and magnetic. "You got plans for me?" The words sink through Keeley, heavy and warm. The way Jamie is so on board so immediately, the way he's instantly ready to do whatever she wants, to put the rest of his night squarely in her hands. Fuck, it's hot. She stands up, grabs him by the front of his shirt, and pulls him so far over the table he has to lift one leg to awkwardly half-kneel on it. He goes easy. So easy.

The kiss is not a particularly good one, the position not ideal, their teeth knocking together. But it's not about the kiss, it's about how if Keeley pulled Jamie any closer he'd have to crawl across her kitchen table. It's about how he'd do it if she made him. She doesn't - for now. Instead, she lets him go and makes for the bedroom. But maybe next time.

Keeley goes up her stairs backwards just so she can watch Jamie follow after her like he's attached to her by an invisible string. He can't keep his eyes off her. The only reason his hands are off is because Keeley keeps stepping just out of reach, leading him along. She doesn't let him catch up to her until the back of her knees hit the edge of her mattress.

Jamie's arms come around her as soon as Keeley stands still enough to let them. He kisses the side of her head first, breathing in the beachy scent of her shampoo. He sighs happily, and then stoops so he can reach her mouth with his. Keeley takes the lead there, licking into Jamie's mouth the way she'd dig her tongue into the juicy flesh of a ripe fruit. He moans softly, pressing closer to her, starving.

Much as Keeley could stand here kissing Jamie forever and never get bored, she does have an agenda for tonight. She pulls them apart, rolling her eyes fondly at the woeful pout Jamie gives her for that. She turns them around so Jamie is the one backed up to the bed, then pushes at his shoulders.

"Sit," she says. "Stay." Jamie grins widely at the pseudo in-joke before letting his tongue loll out and panting at her to play along with it. He obediently plops down onto Keeley's plush bedspread, purposefully bouncing slightly. He leans back on his hands and parts his legs, shaping his body into an incredibly hard to resist invitation. Somehow, Keeley manages to turn away. The smug look she catches on Jamie's face tells her he knows it took some effort.

Keeley has two drawers for toys, separated by typical use case. What she's looking for is in the second. Keeley keeps everything clean and rigorously organized, so she would never have to go digging around in here regardless, but the toy she's after also happens to be the most recently used in this drawer, right at hand.

The straps of the harness are thin and deep dark blue, currently tightened up as far as they go for neat storage. The pink dildo it came with is already fitted back into the base after its last wash, same with the tiny clit vibe tucked into its inside pocket, and the string on the remote control is looped around the waistband, so none of the pieces get separated.

Keeley grabs it and turns back to Jamie, holding the whole set out in her hands to show him. Jamie tilts his head curiously. She knows perfectly well he knows what a dildo is and what to do with it, but he obviously can't tell on sight what the rest of the contraption is for. Keeley holds the harness up to her crotch, the pink cock sticking out lewdly, swaying back and forth from the movement.

Jamie's eyes go comically wide, flicking rapidly from the strap up to Keeley's face. She raises her eyebrows in question. He swallows hard, clears his throat.

"Yeah, alright," he says, no real hesitation at all. "Let's do it, yeah."

Keeley bounces on her toes in excitement, bringing Jamie's easy grin right back. She tosses the strap-on onto the bed beside him, where Jamie gets preoccupied with it for a moment. Keeley gets his eyes back on her by throwing her dress at his head. He catches it against his face and laughs, before tossing it carelessly to the floor. Keeley couldn't care less about it either right now. Not with Jamie's big hands on her bare waist, pulling her in close so he can kiss up her belly. He follows his lips with his hands, until he's cupping her breasts and licking between them.

Keeley pushes one of Jamie's hands away so he can replace it with his mouth. She sighs at the wet suction on her nipple through the thin, soft lace of her bra. Keeley scratches dotingly through Jamie's hair as he services her. She lets him continue until his saliva has sunk in and wet most of the cup. The coolness of the room on her damp skin around the heat of Jamie's mouth makes Keeley impatient. She pulls his shirt over his head from the back, scraping her nails lightly against his skin as she goes. He moans softly, muffled with his mouth still full for a moment before his shirt separates them.

When Jamie's chest is bare, his hair disheveled with static, Keeley shoves him. He laughs softly and lets her push him around, flopping onto his back and tossing his arms over his head to preen for her. He really does still know all her favorites. 

Keeley slips off her bra and her pants first, and then quickly takes care of Jamie's trousers and pants too. His cock perks up to greet her, not quite as hard and pink as hers yet but getting there. Only now they're both gloriously naked does Keeley get the lube. She grabs her strap-on and tosses the bottle down in its place.

Keeley untangles the remote from the waistband with fingers clumsy with eagerness. Jamie's arse is a thing of beauty - all footballers' are, really, but Jamie's is on another level - and she's half mad with how excited she is to get to play with it. She tosses the plastic fob with its two buttons at Jamie's chest. He gets up on his elbows to dangle it by its string on two fingers.

"Vibrator inside," Keeley explains in a careless rush, loosening the harness straps and sliding them up over her thighs as she speaks. "Top button's for on or off, bottom's for different speeds. Don't," she adds knowingly. She doesn't need to look up from her task of getting the harness in position and pulling the straps snug to know Jamie's pouting about it but taking his hands off the buttons at her command.

Keeley nudges Jamie's knee with hers to encourage him the rest of the way onto her bed. He doesn't need words to get it. He scoots back and around, orienting himself properly with his head up by the pillows, hands tucked behind his head and ankles crossed to best display his frontal assets - face, biceps, cock, thighs, all framed or flexed. Knows his angles, Jamie. Keeley knows them too.

The lube is shiny, drizzled over Keeley's fingers. She wets them, and her cock, for now just for show. She's always liked the wet look, and besides it only feels right to have all her parts match. Jamie, apparently, likes the look too.

"Pretty," he mumbles, dazed enough Keeley doubts he meant to say it out loud. She smiles, and strokes the dildo a few times just to watch his eyes follow her hand up and down the shaft.

"Thank you," she says. Jamie blushes brilliantly, confirming her suspicion.

Still, he says, "You're welcome," and makes enough space for her in between his legs.

"Uh-uh," Keeley corrects with a snap. "Roll over, I wanna see." Jamie snorts knowingly, but his blush doesn't fade as he obeys her. He tucks his strong arms underneath her pillow and buries his face there. Keeley was honest about wanting to see - and touch, and she won't push now but maybe someday eat - Jamie's beautiful backside, but the position is a little bit for him too, so he can hide like that. She's noticed that does a lot to help men enjoy their first time at this, if they don't have to look up from all splayed underneath her, vulnerable on their backs with their legs around her narrow hips. Maybe Jamie's trying to find his limits, but Keeley has an ulterior motive to try to make sure this isn't one of them.

"Fucking hell," Keeley growls. She sits on Jamie's thighs and slides her hands firmly up both globes of his arse. Jamie's blush spreads over the back of his neck and starts to spill over his shoulders. But pretty as he is in pink, those shoulders are also getting stiff. 

So Keeley adds, light and flirtatious, "Really special I get to have both of your first times." A surprised laugh gusts out of Jamie and, just as Keeley meant it to, takes the building tension out of him with it.

"Lucky you," he says. His face is still hidden, but his smile is clear in his voice.

"Yeah, lucky me," Keeley agrees, soft and genuine. "Just relax. Let me take care of you." She gently squeezes her handfuls, releases them and rubs him, then squeezes again, over and over. It could be a massage if it wasn't so unavoidably sexual. It - or maybe her words - does the trick. Jamie melts under Keeley's hands, completely boneless. If not for the still deepening flush creeping further and further down his back and the shallowness of his breaths, he'd seem like he was asleep.

She works her way up to parting his cheeks, letting him get used to the feeling of being exposed a little bit at a time. When Keeley finally gets to glimpse Jamie's pucker, she blows a cool stream of air at it just to make him shiver. He makes a tiny, wordless complaint but he also shifts her around on top of him to spread his legs under her. Keeley grins. He's ready.

Her fingers are already a little wet from when she'd shown off, but Keeley squirts some more lube on them now anyway. Much better to have excess than not enough, in most things generally but especially this. Especially the first time. Thankfully Keeley still has shorter nails from being with Jack, so she doesn't need to be overly careful as she presses the tip of her index inside. Jamie hisses in a sharp breath. Briefly, Keeley pets comfortingly at the small of his back, but she can't resist sliding her hand back down to grope him more. He laughs again, this time a bit strangled.

Keeley pulses just the tip in and out until she can feel Jamie start to get impatient. When she pushes the rest of her finger inside him in one smooth thrust, he says, "Wah-hah?" and Keeley has to bite her tongue to stop herself from laughing at him. It's easier when he groans not a second later, a headily masculine sound of pleasure from deep in his chest.

"W'th'fuck," he mutters into the pillow, not talking to her. "Why does it feel like that? Jesus. Fuck." He groans again, sounding desperate and helpless, when Keeley starts up a slow, firm rhythm. It couldn't even really be called fucking him, not yet, with how leisurely she's moving in him, just with one thin finger. Even still, it only takes a minute before Jamie whines and lifts his hips for more. Keeley's only too happy to provide. More lube, another finger, and Jamie swears to put sailors and Roy Kent to shame.

Jamie's arse bounces obscenely when he starts thrusting along with her. Keeley knew it would, of course, but an expected wonder is still a wonder. She gives him a third finger and he dislodges her from his thighs spreading his legs for it. He's flushed almost all the way down to his waist now. Sweat drips down his spine to pool in the small of his back, sparkling like glitter in the peach fuzz there. He's lost track of cusses to say, just gasping Keeley's name over and over in between punched-out moans. Keeley vows she'll draw this part out longer next time, but right now she has to have him.

Jamie whines, high-pitched and wounded, when Keeley pulls her fingers out of him. She shushes him soothingly, lining her cock up with his stretched hole without making either of them wait for it any longer. Her legs are spread wide around his parted thighs, knees planted in the mattress on either side of him, ankles tucked under his shins, the two of them so woven together they'd be difficult for anyone else to untangle. 

Keeley digs her palms firmly into Jamie's back and pushes her cock inside him. He thrusts back to take it, and Keeley has to move one of her hands down to press at his hips because he's too strong and he's lifting her up enough to ruin her leverage.

"Stay," she repeats, actually a command now. Jamie chokes on air, immediately making himself go still and passive for her, trembling with the effort. Keeley thrusts, he moans shakily, she adjusts and thrusts again, he cries out. She grinds there for a moment, rotating her hips in tight little circles, until Jamie loses his breath entirely. Then she really starts fucking him, hard, aim true, and he stays.

Keeley moans too, at that, drunk on how submissive he's being and on the teasing grind of the clitoral stimulator inside her harness. She gasps out, "Good boy, Jamie." To her shock and utter delight, Jamie shakes apart instantly. It's like she electrocuted him, the way he shudders and his voice cracks and breaks open. "Did you-?" Jamie can't catch enough breath to answer with her cock still buried inside him, so instead he just nods with a soft whine.

"Baby," Keeley coos, sliding her hands up and down his slick, twitching back. He whines again, rounding his shoulders to press up into her touch. Keeley leans down to kiss the back of his neck, burning red. He hisses at the way that moves her cock in him. Keeley apologizes softly and sits back up, starts to pull out of him as gently as she can. She knows how intense being filled feels after you've come, how overwhelming, sometimes even painful. But Jamie scrambles to get a hand on Keeley's hip and keep her where she is.

"Want you," he mumbles, not quite shy. (Jamie is never shy, but sometimes Keeley can get him close, like this, and it feels like a fucking superpower. Like magic.) "More. Please."

How could Keeley possibly say no to that?

"Of course, baby," she says. "Fuck you as long as you want." Her voice is so warm and doting it'd be embarrassing if she could feel anything other than consuming desire. She thrusts, harder now, faster. She still keeps her aim right, too, maybe just to be a little bit mean, to see if maybe he likes that. Apparently he does. His back arches like it's a reflex.

Keeley adjusts herself so she's kneeling fully between Jamie's legs. She doesn't pull out to do it, and he moans brokenly with her every movement. She can sit a little higher this way, and he can spread his legs and stick his arse up as far as he wants without bucking her off. He stretches his arms out under the pillow to reach for her headboard, his back curled sharply just below the waist to thrust his hips into the air. His body is practically contorted into the first letter of his name. He's gotta be doing poses the yoga mums could only dream of to be this bendy.

Roy's making him do that.

Keeley's hips jerk forward more sharply at the thought. She grinds on the bump of the clit stimulator, uncaring of exactly how that movement will translate to the cock still buried in Jamie's hole.

"Fuck, Keeley!" Jamie bangs once on her headboard, mindless, his body rolling like waves in a waterbed. Keeley can't help but imagine what he might sound like calling out a different name. Roy would be rougher with Jamie than he ever was with her. He wouldn't be quite so sweet, quite so careful. He wouldn't follow the rules.

They all have them, men, these rules they have to follow during sex. Jamie isn't following those rules now; Keeley's fucked them right out of his head. And Roy wouldn't follow them with Jamie. He'd do whatever the hell he wanted, without worrying if it was right.

Keeley wraps her hands around Jamie's hips, imagining them bigger, with thicker fingers, and hair up the backs. She squeezes as hard as she can, fantasizing about leaving a perfect handprint there to last Jamie the night. She does the hip thing, or at least she tries to, not like she was ever capable of taking notes when Roy did it to her. She must do alright, because Jamie writhes.

"Fuck," Keeley bites out. She scrambles around desperately in the sheets, looking for her remote control. She finds it quick and makes a giddy noise of triumph. She shifts her stance again, leaning far over Jamie so she can grind with her body weight down onto the vibrator - and, incidentally, the cock, and from the way he chokes probably his prostate too. Then she presses on and lets her eyes roll back.

"Fuck's sake!" Jamie yelps. His body jerks forward away from her, then twice as hard back. Keeley swears too, her voice pitching high and wobbly. She digs her nails in to keep her balance and grinds against the toy even harder.

"Sensitive," she observes, panting. Faster. Harder again. Fuck. "My last girl couldn't feel that."

"Your last-" Jamie's voice goes almost as high as Keeley's before it breaks off. He's coiled up tight now, the muscles in his back and shoulders visibly tense. Keeley holds in a frustrated groan and pauses her humping, preparing to talk Jamie down and apologize for implicitly kind of sort of vaguely nearly almost calling him a girl. But Jamie doesn't tell her to take it back or insist he's a man or move away from her, and he doesn't get all weird and quiet like when something is actually really wrong either. He doesn't get angry like he's been worried about. He doesn't do anything, actually, except shudder and tremble and whimper, and fold his arms over top of the pillow to cover the back of his head with his hands.

Oh. Oh. He liked that.

"Yeah?" Keeley breathes. She leans as far over Jamie's back as she can while getting her arms around him. He's a lot bigger than her, so she can't hold him and talk into his ear at the same time like she wants, but mouthing wetly into his shoulder blade, licking up his sweat in between words, is almost as good. Jamie's abs clench under Keeley's hands as she slides them down, until she reaches his cock. She's not surprised he's hard again so soon with the way she's been fucking him, the way he's been moving with her, but it's still a little bit impressive - and hot.

"Yeah," she says again. She wraps one hand around him, flattening the other in the cradle of his hips to keep him pressed firmly onto her cock, to make sure he feels every single last twitch of her hips. "You gonna come twice like you're my girlfriend?" Jamie makes a half-shocked, garbled, noise - another one of those big heavy ones from deep inside him - and does exactly as Keeley said, spilling hot over her hand.

"Fuck, Jamie," Keeley grits out. She lets go of him and gets back to grinding on her vibrator, cock still in his arse, mindlessly using him for her pleasure like he really is her woman and she's his self-centered boyfriend - ha. Mercifully enough for Jamie, it doesn't take Keeley long at all to reach her own peak. And he stays for her the whole way through it, through the aftershocks, and her twitchy rush to find the remote again and press off, quiet and docile and sweet. Or maybe just truly fucked out.

"Ugh," he says when Keeley finally, carefully pulls out of him. "Ow." Keeley hums sympathetically. 

"Yeah, probably should've stopped after the first one." She pats his bum comfortingly as he lets his legs slide out from under him to lay flat on his belly.

"No," says Jamie. Keeley waits for him to say more but he doesn't, just gives her a tired smile when she leans to the side to catch a look at his face. She snorts and shakes her head fondly. Jamie has always liked overcoming a challenge, the feeling of having worked hard or done something new or better. Of course that would translate into sex too.

Keeley leaves Jamie to come down a little bit while she takes off the harness and rinses off the dildo and vibe. She leaves them both by the bathroom sink for a proper wash later, the harness and remote lined up along the counter space so all the components stay together. She fills her mouth rinsing cup with water from the tap for the two of them to share. Jamie will almost certainly need a snack too, but Keeley will let him sort that out for himself when he's ready.

He's still exactly where she left him when Keeley gets back into the bedroom, face-down in her pillow with his arms folded underneath, and lying in a no-doubt sizable wet spot. She offers him the water but he mumbles disinterestedly, so Keeley takes a sip of it herself and then sets it aside. She climbs back into bed beside him and doesn't mention the stain he's letting sink into her sheets. She doesn't particularly care, not with him looking so soft and content. If it won't wash out, it'll just be a reminder of a really good memory.

After a moment of comfortable afterglow quiet, Jamie says, "Do you know what? I don't think that's it."

Keeley chokes she laughs so suddenly. She thinks she might even have spit in his face a little, but he only laughs along with her. He finally turns off of his belly to wrap his arms around her when she insistently burrows into them, still laughing. She buries her smile against his throat.

Jamie doesn't end up getting up for a snack, and they don't bother cleaning up further or getting dressed. They just fall asleep like that, breathing in sync.

Keeley wakes Jamie with a kiss. She takes his mouth deep and commandingly before he's awake enough to reciprocate, leaving him breathless and disoriented, blindly chasing her mouth when she releases him. He collapses back into the pillows without much fight when he misses.

"How you feeling, babe?" Jamie groans softly, not unhappily, muffled by bedding.

"Not sore exactly," he mumbles, sounding less drowsy than lazy. Keeley loves that for him. "But aware of parts of my body I don't think I've ever been aware of before."

"Oh, yeah? That so?" Keeley slips her hand under the sheets, sliding it possessively down Jamie's back and over his arse, middle finger teasing like it might dip between his cheeks. He makes a small, throaty noise and lifts his hips into her touch.

"Well!" she says, grinning sharply. She gives Jamie a light, playful little smack before rolling out of bed. "Gotta get to work!" Jamie groans again, much less soft and not happily at all.

"Mean," he scolds her. But when he turns his head to look at her, his eyes are warm and shining and his mouth is curved in the same quiet smile he's given her for more than a year now. Lovelorn. Enduringly. That preemptive grief from before strikes Keeley just behind her breastbone, looking at him looking at her like that. She swallows the inappropriate feeling down, leaning in to have Jamie kiss it away.

They get dressed next to each other, Jamie in a combination of things he and Roy left here and forgot to take back, interrupting each other for more kisses the whole way through. They end up laughing in each other's faces again, because Jamie's shirt is on inside out and Keeley accidentally started putting her shoes on before her trousers. Jamie holds his hands up and backs off to let Keeley finish getting ready, since she's the one who actually has somewhere she has to be today. He doesn't fix his shirt.

The prospect of hiring seems so much less daunting today. There's just something about making a man come twice in less than an hour that makes a woman feel like she can do anything. Keeley sings, quiet and wordless, the closest approximation she can remember of the Top 40 Jamie had been singing when he brought the Chinese over days ago. She greets Barbara cheerfully, which gets her that flat look that has slowly become significantly fonder than it had started in response.

In her office, Keeley gets situated and into work mode, slipping her shoes off and taking a big too-hot gulp of her coffee to help her concentrate. She checks hers and Barbara's schedules for the day first, and marks in a meeting in the first available slot (in her own case, the only available slot). She makes sure to title the meeting descriptively, accurately, and succinctly, which she knows Barbara will really appreciate.

Hiring Strategy Meeting 10:30-11:15 stares out at her from the screen. Keeley feels good about it. In moments, the notification comes through that Barbara has seen and accepted the event. Fast and efficient, Barbara. Keeley couldn't ask for a better CFO - and soon, a friend. Keeley will wear her down. She plans to keep growing on Barbara relentlessly. Like zucchini.

They have the meeting, somewhat unnecessarily but it's good for the vibe, in the conference room. Keeley explains to Barbara what she wants to do and about her hesitations. Barbara listens, silent and neutral-faced, through Keeley's whole speech. Then she nods, and begins reworking the interview questions she'd found to fit their needs better. They also discuss the issue of finding the right people and getting them to apply, and together come up with a few ideas. They'll be a lot more work than just posting a job listing online would, but it's worth it.

Keeley gets significantly and suddenly much busier after that. She and Jamie don't see each other in person for weeks, Keeley too exhausted at the end of her days to even have him over for a cuddle. They still text every day, though, which is something they never did before. Back then they were either spending time together or they weren't, none of the in-between of texts or calls - except for long distance sex, of course. Now, Jamie even sends her a couple of good morning texts. Keeley had always figured she'd find something like that annoying, especially from someone so boisterous as Jamie, but it's so cute to know he's thinking about her when he wakes up.

She will have to warn him not to text her at 4AM when the season starts and his training with Roy gets moved back up that early again, though. There are limits.

Jamie also sends her selfies - silly ones, not just sexy ones - and pictures of things throughout his day. A dog-shaped ceramic pot with a cactus in it labeled 'succulent wiener,' a dandelion popping up out of the sidewalk, his incredibly boring lunch. Phoebe, sometimes with Roy and his hidden smile. Keeley aches looking at them, but it doesn't hurt to see him like it did when Roy first broke it off. Or maybe it does and Keeley's just a masochist. She wants more.

Even more notable, Jamie actually tells her real stuff. Not that he never told her anything before, but he'd always put it forth dismissively, and he'd almost never talk about anything good (other than, you know, himself). Now he tells her about his mum, about Simon, little things about being raised by her and then them and what they're doing now. He tells her about how his training is going, what Roy's making him do, the two of them spending ages coming up with increasingly improbable reasons for every new regimen. He tells her about being friends, real friends, with the lads, and how different it is from what he'd gotten used to having only rivals and temporary allies.

In return, Keeley tells Jamie about work, about the struggle to find a few good people to hire, about what she does day-to-day, about Rebecca and Sassy and Nora, about Barbara and how Keeley is slowly but surely making her love her. Jamie always says he's shocked and impressed Barbara's held out as long as she has.

She tells Jamie about Jack, about why Jack left and the absolutely fucked up way she treated Keeley after. She braces herself for a much more unnecessary apology, one that she'll actually honestly take issue with and not just for Jamie's sake. Instead Jamie just says, "That's so fucking shit, Keeley. That toplofty weasel." The relief Keeley feels, getting all that off her chest again and knowing Jamie can support her without making her problems about him, is immense.

Keeley's too tired and busy to miss Jamie on the days he doesn't call, but she still notices his absence.

At the end of two weeks Keeley has four new employees, a seemingly permanent headache, Barbara's middle name and zodiac sign, and a ravenous craving for Jamie's mouth.

She sends him twelve squirrel emojis. He sends back the crying laughing emoji and the skull, and then omw.

Keeley has him on his knees nearly the second he's through the door. She comes on his tongue once in the entryway, then takes him upstairs to the bed and rides his face there. She wanks him off onto her chest with him looming over her, face still wet.

"Miss me?" he asks facetiously as soon as she lets him go. She smacks his chest. He laughs and catches her hand, and holds it. He doesn't second guess himself, doesn't get self-conscious, doesn't decide by some arbitrary measure that he can't hold her hand for so long before it becomes romantic. He does the opposite, in fact, pushing at the envelope by bringing her hand up to his mouth and pressing his lips softly to the back of it. He watches her attentively as he does it. When she doesn't cringe or shake her head or whatever else he's watching for, Jamie turns Keeley's hand over and kisses her palm too.

That should be too much. She should pull her hand back.

She doesn't. She lets him kiss her palm and each tip of her fingers, lets him kiss the inside of her wrist and up her arm, lets him kiss her neck, the side of her face, her mouth. She lets him finger her slowly to a third orgasm, watching her face the whole time, close enough their noses brush every time Keeley moves.

They order dinner delivered in. Jamie answers the door for it covered only with Keeley's blazer held in front of his crotch. Keeley hovers on the landing, out of sight of the door, so she can watch him. He tosses her blazer over the back of the couch when the delivery person is gone, and turns with his hands full of takeaway bags to shake his hips at her. Dick waving, tongue out. Crass and obnoxious. But also funny and endearing. Unbelievable (but also predictable).

They eat in bed, sharing their entrees back and forth, taking bites from each other's hands. Keeley specifically ordered something within Jamie's diet restrictions so she could feed him as much of it as either of them wanted. The rubbish is left on the bedside tables for now, to be taken down to the kitchen bin in the morning. Keeley puts on a comfy nightie.

"Oh no," she says, not bothering even slightly trying to sound sincere. She pouts at Jamie over her shoulder and he grins, already knowing exactly what she's doing. "There's nothing clean left here for you to wear."

"How unfortunate," Jamie plays along. He tries to heave a huge, blustery, chagrined sigh but it doesn't come out right through his toothy smile. "Guess I'll just have to sleep naked. Hope you don't mind."

It's a little too early yet to go to sleep when Keeley gets back into bed and snuggles up against Jamie's warm bare chest. She reads aloud from Kay Parker's autobiography on her Kindle while Jamie follows along over her shoulder and pets her hair. When she starts to doze off, Jamie takes over reading for her. He stutters every now and then over the words, his cadence halting, but he stays relaxed and his voice rumbles through his body into Keeley's like the world's gentlest massage. She falls asleep so comfortably and gradually, she doesn't even notice it happening.

Keeley wakes up in the dark without Jamie's arms around her. He's still behind her, still asleep himself. Keeley yawns, rubs her eyes, and rolls over with the intent to insert herself back into Jamie's embrace. He's hard to see in the dark but London, like any big city in the 21st century, never gets pitch black at night.

Jamie's face doesn't look especially distressed. He doesn't say any words, or cry out. Still, it could not be more obvious to Keeley that he's having a nightmare. His cheek twitches; she figures he must be clenching his jaw. A horrible noise ekes out from between his teeth. It's so quiet it's almost inaudible, but that doesn't make it any less terrifying. He sounds like a trapped animal. Keeley reaches out to him cautiously, unsure if or how she should wake him up. 

Before Keeley can make contact, Jamie makes another noise. He moans. It's much more familiar than the one before, but made uncanny, eerie, by the way it's still so fearful. Keeley didn't know noises like that were even possible. It feels like having the entire world taken out from under her to hear something like that coming from someone she- Someone she loves.

When Keeley feels the warmth on her thigh, she thinks for a moment that Jamie has wet the bed. Which would be awful - for him - but it would make sense. It wouldn't make this horrible anti-gravity feeling in Keeley's gut get stronger, like it does when she realizes what that little wet spot actually is. Her head can't wrap around it - it just spins.

Jamie wakes up without Keeley's help. He flinches slightly, gasps, and his eyes snap open to meet hers. Waking reality slowly sinks into Jamie's brain, and Keeley watches it on his face. She's never seen him look humiliated before.

"That was a weird dream," Keeley whispers, strained and unsure.

"Yeah," Jamie croaks.

There's a pause, definitely a pause, obviously not just quiet, tense with its impending end. Then Jamie's face crumples and he begins to weep. His sobs are near-silent, but even more heartbreaking because of that. He moves to cover his face, but Keeley pushes his hand away and tucks him under her chin instead.

Keeley remembers Roy told her he'd done just this, when Jamie's dad had abused him in front of everyone at Wembley. He'd told her he couldn't think at all, was barely aware of what he was doing, just that he needed to do it. He needed to hold Jamie, he needed to make it okay. That's exactly how Keeley feels now. She wishes she could change Jamie's life around until there was no pain in it anywhere. The enormity of that wish, how small Jamie himself seems in comparison to it, is mind-boggling and even a little bit scary.

Jamie doesn't cry for very long, which is yet another thing to make this disorienting for Keeley. It feels like such a heartfelt, helpless expression of emotion should last for hours, or days, until it's totally exorcised from him, until he's empty and clean. But life just isn't like that. You can never get it all out.

He hugs her briefly when he's done, his grip weak. Then he pulls away and seems like he's going to get up. Keeley locks her arms around him, vice-like and reflexive.

"Where do you think you're going?" she hisses. Jamie goes stock still in her grasp.

"Gotta clean up," he explains, his voice dull and worn out.

"No," says Keeley. "That can wait. Not like I haven't slept stickier, in bed with you." Jamie doesn't quite laugh, but he makes a noise that might have been mirthful if it was a little more alive. The tension melts out of his shoulders and he settles again.

"I don't want to talk about it," he whispers after a moment. "Yet."

"That's okay," Keeley says. "Whenever you're ready."

"Yeah," Jamie agrees, mumbling and - miraculously, in Keeley's opinion - already sliding back into sleep. "Only when I'm ready." He says he loves her too, the words smeared into her tear-damp shoulder and fading into a breathy almost-snore at the end. Keeley pretends she didn't hear that part. She can only deal with so many feelings at once, and whatever all that was is a dozen all stirred up.

Jamie's up first in the morning, but not because he's running away. He wakes Keeley up with a quick, messy kiss.

"Hey, sorry," he says. "Didn't want to leave without saying goodbye. Season's starting soon, Roy's being a fucking twat about training again. You know how he is." He's weary but cheerful enough, and he doesn't seem like he's pretending. He kisses her again, a third time, and then he's gone.

Another few days pass, normal, uneventful, like nothing is different between them. Keeley supposes for Jamie, nothing really is. She tries to follow his lead. He said he'd talk about it when he was ready. She cares about him so much and she wants to know so she can help, but she trusts him too. He'll tell her if something's wrong. She has to believe that. Jamie never gave Keeley any reason not to believe that.

The night before the last off day he has before he and Roy go back to work, Jamie comes over before Keeley invites him. He knocks, which he hasn't done in a good long while now. He has a bag with him this time.

"No sex?" he asks, as if it's actually a question.

"Yeah," Keeley agrees, refusing to let herself make any connections in her mind until Jamie puts it all together for her himself. She stands back and gestures for him to come in. He smiles at her, bright as the sun after a very long night.

"Maybe in the morning," he says as he brushes past and dumps his bag at the foot of the stairs. "Pre-season starts next week and Roy's absolutely fucking me. Brutal." Keeley refuses to let herself make any (much more fun) connections in her mind inspired by that sentence either. Jamie said no sex tonight. Down, girl.

Jamie falls asleep almost immediately after sitting down, his legs tossed up over the arm of the couch and his head in Keeley's lap. She only wakes him when she's ready to go to bed herself so he'll come up with her. He forgets his bag, eyes barely open. Keeley brings it up for him, heavy but soft at her side. Clothes, more than one overnight's worth.

Keeley wakes up to the sound of her blender being used downstairs, at 5AM. She groans and wraps her pillow around her head in a half-hearted effort to block out the racket. Luckily for Jamie, he's done making his gross protein slop of a breakfast smoothie before Keeley can get annoyed enough to get up and tell him off. He doesn't come back up to bed, and Keeley spreads out over the mattress and sleeps without him for another two hours.

She finds him on her couch when she's done with her makeup, frowning down at a physical copy book with a gilded cover jacket. He looks up when he hears her heels clicking, seemingly with great relief.

"Hey," he says. "Coffee in the pot. I got a 'welcome back to the country' brunch on with Dani later, but is it okay if I come back here after 'stead of going home?"

"Yeah…" Keeley says. She looks over her shoulder into the kitchen toward the waiting coffee. Then she changes her mind and goes to him instead. She kisses him, sweetly at first, and then deeper, plucking the book he apparently doesn't like out of his hands and setting it face-down at his side to save his page.

Keeley takes her time feeling him up, out of caution more than leisure, wanting to make sure Jamie's really into this before she gets too ahead of herself. He clutches at her face and neck, uncareful of her hair or earrings, and kisses her back enthusiastically. He presses his chest up into her questing touch. He spreads his legs when she gropes at his thighs. So Keeley goes for the waistband of his trackies, and then to her knees.

Sugared black coffee and the aftertaste of jizz is a truly bizarre flavor combination, but not one new to Keeley. There's a lot to be said for a morning blowjob. A really bold start to the day.

Jamie has dinner ready for her when she gets home from work.

"Probably not as good as- as you're used to," he stumbles over not saying Roy, but not too glaringly, "but not as dull as it could be! I can cheat a little bit more than usual still, long as Roy don't find out." He winks at her as he hands over her plate.

"I won't tell if you won't," Keeley jokingly assures him. He snorts, pours them some wine.

"I probably will, though." He drops himself down into the chair beside her like his body is suddenly too heavy, but he's smiling as he does it. He smiles a lot lately. More than the first time.

"You tell him a lot?" Keeley asks, unaccountably nervous about the answer. She picks at the food, moving it around with her fork more than she's eating it.

"Yeah," Jamie answers, again so easy, so simple. He laughs a little, shakes his head. "More than anyone else, actually. In't that mental?" Keeley doesn't respond to that. It doesn't seem mental to her to tell Roy Kent everything. That was true for her too, not that long ago at all. Maybe it still could be, but… maybe not.

"Have you told him about us?" Jamie stops eating. He lets his smile melt away into something more serious, sits up straight.

"Not yet," he says. "Sort of a mutual decision, innit? Anyway." He cuts off to cough, to take a sip of his wine as an excuse to drop his eyes. "Weren't brave enough to ask, so I was just waiting for you to bring it up. You know, 'what are we?' Not that we have to be anything-!"

"I want to," says Keeley. "Be something. With you." Jamie stares at her, half shocked half not, his eyes wide and just a little bit wet.

"Obviously I want that too," he says. Keeley doesn't think that was that obvious, after all- "I love you, Keeley, but you love Roy. Don't you?"

"I do," Keeley acknowledges. She sets down her fork, folds her hands in her lap, holds Jamie's eyes as steadfastly as she can while she talks about this. "But he left- He left. He didn't even tell me why… I have feelings for you, too, Jamie. And I trust you. I want this. I want us."

Jamie chews on his lip and watches her for a long time, long enough that by the time he goes back to his food and Keeley copies him out of nothing better to do it's gone cold.

He says, very quietly, "Roy's my best friend. I don't wanna say yes right now because I want it so much - I want it so fucking much, Keeley - but then feel bad about it later and not know if I did something wrong or not. I have to think about it." Keeley holds her breath for a moment so she doesn't cry, somehow both in sadness and pride. Jamie became a better man, in part because of her, and she might lose him because of it.

"I understand," she chokes. She finishes her wine in one gulp and feels briefly guilty she won't be enjoying any more of the meal Jamie cooked. She can't bear for the conversation to end there, though, so she reaches blindly for a change of subject. "How was brunch? How's Dani?"

"Yeah, good," Jamie says, switching track with her instantly, sounding just as relieved as she is. "Yeah, his girlfriends came too. Or, you know, I don't know if they're his girlfriends exactly but, like, he's always having sex with them and taking them as plus ones to things when he's here. Um, Aisha and Juliette…"

Jamie doesn't sleep over that night, but he kisses her long and slow and sweet at the door, and he leaves the bag of clothes behind.

Three days later he texts her, i thot about it

Keeley answers, come over?

He sends back every single heart emoji.

Chapter Text

The season starts early for coaches. Roy's been stressed, feeling the pressure more and more as the time creeps closer that he'll actually have to do the job he accepted. He's been taking his negative emotions out on Jamie again, but the little prick almost seems to like it when Roy uses him like that.

Ted's been gone back to America for nearly two months now, but he's still here in the sheaf of notes and suggestions Roy repeatedly demanded he leave behind. Roy knew when he asked he'd probably hate all of it and think it was stupid and not to his style, and he was… well, mostly right. But he'd needed something to start with - something to start against - or he would have gone out of his mind second guessing himself until he ultimately told Rebecca to let Nate take over.

Instead, he has Ted's suggestions crumpled up in his waste bin (except for the tips Roy re-wrote in his own hand, on a pad of bubblegum pink sticky notes Phoebe got him as part of her annual back-to-work gift basket) and a comfortably solid plan of action. He has it all written down in his new bullet journal (added to the gift basket by Keeley, according to Ruth, along with a kitschy pocket sized self-help book about anxiety which Roy is pretending not to have seen so he doesn't have to decide if he feels defensive about it or not).

Roy gives Jamie an extra off day with him the day pre-season training officially starts, mainly for his own benefit. His office is all set up already, but he wants to get in a little early anyway, take a moment to really orient himself to the new position, get all… in touch with Beard and Nate. He'd told them to come in early too, all tensed up and ready to fight for it, but he hadn't gotten a hint of pushback. Nate even sounded eager. Roy had taken that out on Jamie too, all that pent up combativeness with no place else for Roy to put it. Jamie had ended that morning laying out like a starfish on the ground, sweating enough to form a puddle underneath him but smiling. 

Sometimes Roy thinks Jamie must've been specially crafted just for him - whether to piss him off or… whatever this shit is. But Roy's an atheist these days, has been since Granddad went. If anyone made Jamie, Jamie did.

Roy gets into his office at 6, hours earlier than he told Nate and Beard to come in. He'd quit with the 4AM shit with Jamie once he'd realized Jamie was really serious and would work hard and make the sacrifices. Wouldn't do to have him actually be sleep deprived, and also Ruth had torn into Roy a little bit about how health is not only physical and Jamie needed personal time to be a functional human being and not kill himself or whatever fucking shit. So training starts at 6, they have the girls for an hour, about an hour break while they eat and drop them off at school, and then another hour just Jamie and Roy, and another hour break for Jamie to rest before training at the club at 10. Over the summer, when both them and the girls were off for the season, Roy had let Jamie sleep in later and go home earlier. Jamie hadn't asked for that. Which is why Roy gave it.

Point being, Roy's used to an early schedule. Easy to fall back into it after his younger years spent training (almost) as hard as Jamie does now, probably couldn't shake it off again if he wanted to. An off day for Roy still starts at 5. He likes the mornings though. Most of the time.

Nelson Road is dark and quiet when Roy gets there, peaceful but baiting its breath. Full of potential, waiting for him and his players to bring it to life. He keeps as many lights off as he can without breaking his fucking neck, preserving the tranquil anticipation. It's so quiet, Roy can hear it when Rebecca gets there before anyone else. He texts her a good morning. She sends back the salute emoji, like a fucking dweeb.

With his phone already in hand, it's hard not to text Keeley too. But she'd said she'd needed more space, when they were together, and then she'd said she needed time after they hooked up. He's mostly sure she was going to say she didn't want to be just friends either before Jamie interrupted them in Manchester, but he's trying to be patient. He doesn't want to drive her away again, or hurt her by holding on too tight. But Roy has never tried to be balanced like this before.

So he texts Jamie instead. Jamie expects Roy to be intense and to be on him constantly. Even when they hated each other, Jamie never needed Roy to back off, always let himself get caught in Roy's gravity whenever they were in close enough proximity whether Roy should have mattered to him or not. He's easy.

you better eat a real breakfast before coming in, none of that smoothie & toast bullshit, he says. Jamie answers almost immediately with the middle finger emoji, and then a few moments later a picture of his breakfast. Orange juice, oatmeal, two boiled eggs, and a handful each of blackberries and almonds.

water, Roy commands.

coffee, argues Jamie. good morning to you to dickhead. you miss me or something?

miss making you suffer maybe, Roy says. There's a feeling when he sends that, but Roy doesn't immediately know what it is so he ignores it with the intent to do so until it goes away. Jamie sends back the tongue emoji, which makes it worse, so Roy puts his phone down with a growl. Three minutes later it pings with a new message, and Roy turns it over to see Jamie sent him another picture. His actual middle finger, warped slightly through the full glass of water it's posed behind.

For some reason, that's even worse than the tongue.

Nate arrives twenty minutes earlier than Roy said to. Roy gets up to greet him the way he would for somebody's mum or his boss or some shit, which is fucking stupid but after he's done it it's too late to not fucking do it. They nod at each other, at least that's fine, but then they stand there awkwardly for long moments. Nate fidgets.

"I'm sorry again," he finally breaks, "for kissing Keeley."

"I wasn't upset in the first place," Roy reiterates. "And neither was she. And we broke up."

"What? " Nate gasps, his twisting hands falling down to his sides in shock. "Why on earth-?"

Roy can't even begin to find a starting place to explain, and he doesn't want to, and - he breathes through mortified resignation so it doesn't show on his face - he finds he wants to wait until Beard is here to try. If he decides to try. Which he might not. It's none of their fucking business, and fuck knows if they'd have any helpful input besides. What that jumble of thoughts results in is a stony silence, though, so Nate's voice dies in his throat and he… Well, he looks resigned too, but the sad kind. Fucking hell.

Beard gets there at 8 precisely on the dot, thank fuck. Roy does the work first. He goes over his general plan, tells them what of Ted's method he intends to keep and what isn't important to him, outlines what he wants the pre-season training objectives to be. He takes questions and comments, of which they have few. Nate improves slightly on the objectives and adds a few based on the stats from last season, explaining each tactic and its justification in frankly unnecessary detail to an unblinking beady-eyed Beard with Roy providing particularly colorful color commentary. Beard gives Nate a very serious nod when he's done, insists on a couple of the Lasso-isms Roy doesn't care about, and then asks Roy if he's ever met his doppelganger. Nothing too unexpected there.

By the time all that's done, they have just under half an hour before the players start trickling in and making a nuisance of themselves. They'll all be thrilled to see each other again, it'll make such a racket. It'll delay them getting changed and out on the pitch by at least fifteen minutes. Roy's gonna let it happen. But between now and then, and for that fifteen after, they have time for… other shit.

Nate and Beard can clearly tell Roy has something to say, because they wait quietly. Beard is sitting in Roy's chair, Nate leaning up against the shelf he always used to sit on. Roy himself stands in the doorway to the office the two of them now share, his arms tightly crossed. He grinds his jaw.

"I'm not fucking saying it," he finally bites out. "And I'm not calling Higgins either." He rolls his eyes at the exaggerated way Beard's face lights up, and then rolls them harder when they both start fucking barking before the phone is even out of its fucking cradle.

Higgins gets down as remarkably quick as he always does, also already barking as he bursts in through the door and closes it behind him. The three wind down and then stare at Roy expectantly as a united fucking front. Roy concedes after only a few moments, curling his lip up to growl through his teeth. They all make considering faces and noises at each other before apparently deciding that's good enough.

"I have to say I think it's lovely we're still doing this even without Ted," Higgins says, still slightly out of breath. "Ooh, should we call Ted?"

"It's fuck-arse in the fucking morning where he is," Roy points out grumpily. It does feel odd not to have Ted demanding for Roy to bark at him. Fucking weirdo.

"I already talked to him today, he's not busy," Beard assures, reaching again for the office phone, no doubt to dial out and put Ted on conference.

"It's not even 10AM," Nate says.

"And?" Beard raises an eyebrow, dialing. Rebecca will have Roy's arse for the distance call.

Beard does indeed put the call on conference. Ted answers after five rings and a yawn. Beard, Nate, and Higgins all immediately start fucking barking. To his credit, Ted gets with it in only a few moments and sends his own brief, lethargic howl down the line.

"Alright, Roy," Beard says, leaning back in Roy's chair, self-satisfied. "Let us have it." Roy coughs, clears his throat, grinds his teeth again. But they all wait patiently, even Ted, woken up from halfway around the world at fuck even knows what hour just to hear what Roy's dealing with.

"I had sex with Keeley," he finally manages. The three in the room with him give each other sideways looks, and the silence on Ted's end is loud.

"Uh, yeah, buddy, we know that," Beard says, seemingly concerned for Roy's sanity. Roy uncrosses his arms sharply.

"Fuck all of you," he snaps. "I mean, we hooked up. The week before the City match Jamie got injured at." Higgins nods gently for Roy to go on.

"Then, when we were in Manchester, we went home with Jamie-"

"You went home with Jamie?" Ted interrupts, his voice crackling over the line from his sudden volume.

Beard is much calmer. He says, "Oh, is that happening now?" Roy glares at him.

"What the fuck does that mean?" he snaps, irritated to be interrupted when it's hard enough for him to fucking say any of this in the first place, and irritated again to be confused, and irritated a third time that Beard looks so fucking placid about it.

"Not yet," Beard says instead of explaining himself. "Got it. Go on."

"He fucking snuck out before curfew so we followed him, got showed around and all that while he was talking to his mum." All four of them intone a stereo 'Oohh,' which Roy ignores. "And I told Keeley I wanted to get back together."

Ted whistles low and long. Roy can picture him perfectly, his stupid kind and encouraging but also amused at Roy's expense smile, with his stupid fucking mustache, holding his chin in his hand. Dirty rom-communist that he is.

"What did she say?" Nate asks. His eyes are wide with the drama of the story, which Roy doesn't think is that fucking dramatic, actually, thanks.

"She fucking didn't," he rages softly. "She didn't get a chance because Jamie fucking walked in right fucking then, and we never fucking finished talking about it. I have no idea what she was going to say, and now it's two fucking months later and we've barely fucking seen each other."

There's a pause while they wait for him again. Roy chews on the rest of it for a moment before he spits it out.

"I want her back. I'm- I want to put the work in, I want to be… good enough. For her. But I'm not. She doesn't need me. What if I keep trying and it just makes it worse?"

"Of course she doesn't need you, she's a grown woman," Beard says. Fucking harsh, honestly, the prick. Higgins expounds, and softens the blow.

"None of us need each other," he explains, gentle but firm, the way he was with Beard about Jane. "Of course, we all need companionship in general, but we don't need someone in particular. A healthy relationship is two people-"

"-or more," Beard interjects.

"-choosing to be together because they want to."

"It's all just about if the stuff you want is worth all the stuff that don't butter your bread," Ted adds. "And it seems like that ball might just be in Miss Jones's court this round."

"I disagree," Nate says, which is shocking enough it has everyone silent and staring including Roy. Well, Ted isn't staring, but Roy's sure he would be if he was here. "I mean, not with the needing versus wanting bit, that's- yes. It's just, if you didn't get an answer, you should try again. She might be waiting for you, but if you back off too much she'll move on and you'll never know what could have been."

"Wise and well said, Nate the Great," Ted praises. "That is a can of condensed truth soup. It ain't pretty or particularly flavorful, but ultimately comforting and nutritious. Really hits the spot."

"You know, Sharon is setting up her permanent office today," Higgins tells Roy, smoothly moving along with Ted's familiar nonsense. "You might consider setting up an appointment with her to help you work through all this. Not that we aren't always here for you as well."

"Mm," Ted agrees again. "Highly recommended. She was not kidding about how good she is at her job, I tell you what." The lads make awestruck noises while Roy's head slowly spins.

He has no fucking clue how to respond to all that. He doesn't even know how to process most of it. Flabbergasted and fucking- touched , and desperate to have something to do that means he can stop looking at any of them, Roy reaches habitually for his phone.

There's a new text from Jamie ready and waiting there for him. It's from before Nate got here. oats were soaked in egg whites overnight

that's fucking disgusting, Roy says, and stays staring down at the phone until Jamie answers, letting everything else become peripheral for a moment. Distant and nonthreatening.

we can't all be retired senior citizens and have jello cubes for every meal

Roy doesn't wait for the old grief and identity bullshit that used to come with any reminder he's not a player anymore. He knows it won't be coming. It had already started creeping away, Roy clinging onto it because he didn't want to get past it, when he'd started coaching Richmond. Then Jamie single-handedly beat it into the fucking ground. It's a fucking dead horse now; it can't bother him anymore.

"Is that Keeley?" Nate asks, barely audible through the metaphorical pillow Roy's put over his ears. He grunts in the negative, relieved and focused on his distraction with texting Jamie back.

Roy scolds him, don't fucking text while youre fucking driving you dumb fucking fuck if you break my striker's leg in a fucking wreck ill fucking kill you

He looks up to find Beard and Higgins sharing a conspiratorial glance, Nate looking confused looking at them looking at each other. Beard seems to either lose or win a silent wager between the two. He switches his stare to Roy.

"Was that a smile?" he asks.

"No," snaps Roy. "If any of you fucks wanna go, go now. We have fucking shit to do."

"Actually, I need to duck out, great as it was hearin' from ya," Ted rushes to say. "Roy, good luck with your lady troubles." Roy growls, the other three say their goodbyes. Before he hangs up, Ted adds, "Hey listen fellas, why don't we make this more of a late lunch sort of thing y'all's time, in future." They quickly, and apologetically, agree. The room seems smaller when he's gone.

They sit in a mostly comfortable silence for a while, then. Isaac walks in, nods at Roy through the office window. Roy is about to call an end, is bracing himself for the disbanding round of stupid barking, when Beard breaks the quiet.

"Jane and I broke up." Roy folds his arms, now it's not his turn to be vulnerable and he can close off again without hindering himself. He, Nate, and Higgins all make sympathetic noises, Higgins significantly less convincing.

"She ended things," Beard goes on. "Like always. But… I think I'm going to not start them again. This time." That, like Nate disagreeing with Ted, is a surprise. Roy feels his eyebrows rise.

"Did something change?" Higgins asks.

"Yeah," Beard laughs. "Ted left. I haven't left his side in eighteen years. Now we're, what was it?" He gestures at Nate, and Nate picks up on what he means seamlessly.

"2,258.51 miles," he says promptly.

"We're 2,258.51 miles apart," Beard repeats with a sigh and a shrug. "And it's fine. I mean no, it's not fine, my brain is on fire. I woke up today at four in the morning so I could talk to him before he went to bed, and then I had a whole raw onion for breakfast. But on the outside. In the real world. Everything's… fine."

"But…" Nate hesitates before finishing, visibly conflicted. "Didn't you stay here to be with her?" Beard shrugs again.

"I guess now I'm staying for something else," he says simply.

Higgins says, "Good choice," and Nate says, "That's very brave," and Roy says, "Proud of you."

"Thanks, guys," says Beard, with that same small smile he used to get when they'd congratulate him for getting back with her. Roy struggles to breathe through an emotion again, this one a stabbing hope that this sticks. That his… friend gets to move forward and be happy, and that Roy will be there to see it happen. It hurts but it feels good, just a little bit too big for his chest. A stretch, painful for now while he's getting warmed up.

The rest of the players get there one by one, get in their kits, and wait before heading out to the pitch like they know Roy's going to say something first. Probably just habit from Lasso, the beginning of the last two seasons and the middle of the one before that when he first got here. Still, it feels good he doesn't have to tell them to stay.

Roy gives his little speech mostly to Jamie, even though he's really the one here it applies to the least. He already knows most of it, and the rest he doesn't need. But Jamie pays attention anyway. And he's not laughing, not goofing off, not smug, but he is happy. He's just. Happy.

The day is spent almost entirely on fitness training, Roy and the fitness coaches assessing exactly how much the lads have been slacking off on their down time, with a kickabout at the end. Jamie is fucking coasting through, having functionally not slacked off at all, but he's not being obnoxious about it. Roy keeps an eye out, but no one seems to resent him running circles around them. Some of them even tease him good-naturedly. Zorreaux calls him Gaffer's Pet. Jamie fucking woofs at him. Roy can't fucking get away from this shit.

After practice is done and the lads have all showered and gone home, after Beard and Nate have walked out together, after Roy has taken the little toy soldier Ted gave him before he'd stepped out to give his retirement speech out of the locked desk drawer and set it by his sleeping laptop, Roy goes upstairs.

He knocks softly on Fieldstone's office door. So softly he might be hoping maybe she won't hear and he can just go home and pretend he'd made the effort and it wasn't his fault if she didn't answer. Fortunately or unfortunately, Fieldstone calls for Roy to come in.

He opens the door, steps over the threshold, takes a breath to say he'd like to make an appointment, and then is buffeted down by a tidal wave of shame. He can't speak or he'll drown.

Sharon watches him standing there, silent and suffocating. Eventually, she gives him a merciful, closed-mouth smile.

"Do Monday mornings work for you?" she asks. Her smile gets a little friendlier, less professionally sympathetic. "None of the players want those."

"Lazy fucks," Roy chokes out. "Yeah, that's fine."

"Then I'll see you next week, Coach Kent." She nods, he nods. He takes a step back, closes her door in his own face, breathes through it.

Roy lingers briefly on the landing, waiting to see if Rebecca will come run into him on her way out. She doesn't, and Roy figures she must have already left. He did wait until he wouldn't have any nosy arseholes asking him questions before he came up here, after all. It only makes sense. She's Keeley's friend anyway. Not Roy's.

It's not until Roy gets all the way home and has his dinner well underway, and has had a glass and a half of red while cooking it, that he sees the texts Jamie sent after Roy told him not to crash.

dw not driving got a ride
and im ur centre now ;)

Roy automatically thinks, You're everything. He starts to think he means that in a Total Football way, that Jamie can and will play any position Roy or his teammates need him to, but then he feels like a coward so he stops thinking anything at all.

Thoughts like that may come easier with wine, but they go easier too.

Training starts in earnest the next day. Roy bumps Jamie's morning one-on-ones up earlier again. Now it's an hour just them first, then the hour with the girls after, and finally an hour for Jamie to rest and Roy to make sure not to be late as head coach like a fucking knob. The roster of girls starts rotating, the fussier parents selectively changing their tune about Roy now they can finesse some free early morning babysitting out of him. Jamie's presence probably helps there too. There's not a child, puppy, or mum alive who doesn't like him - once they've met him in person and don't just have his slutty, prickish reputation to go on. They don't know Jamie deliberately goads Roy into swearing in front of the girls so he can watch Phoebe charge him for it.

The Monday morning sessions with Sharon are… fine. They're exhausting, and deeply unpleasant, and leave Roy in a fucking hellish mood for training afterwards. He's pulling his own fucking teeth in there and he knows it. But most weeks, Roy feels like a better man on Tuesday. They talk about Keeley somehow both less and more than Roy thought they would.

He hasn't worked up the courage to follow Nate's advice - which is a fucking trip and a half. He and Keeley text almost every day, but awkwardly. Roy knows it has to be because neither one of them knows where the fuck they stand with each other, but every time he thinks about just asking her he fucking chickens out.

Roy and Rebecca do run into each other eventually. He walks her out to her car, and she asks him several poignant questions about the team that have him comfortably talking the whole way. Then, at the door, she pointedly asks him how everything else is going.

"I'm- trying," Roy admits. Rebecca smiles, sharp and unsweet but genuine.

"You and all the rest of us, Kent." Roy gets Grandad's recipe from his Mum and starts bringing biscuits up to Rebecca's office that week. It worked for Ted. Every morning but Mondays.

They play Aston Villa and win 1-0. They play Tottenham and win 5-1 because Barnett flips Jamie off himself, and at a nod from Roy Jamie plays like a particularly mean cat with a very unlucky mouse. Barnett spends his entire post-match interview bitching about Jamie. For Jamie's part, when the mic comes to him he smiles wide and says, "Yeah, it was fun, always love an easy one like that, really reminds you this is a game, do you know what I mean?" because he's the actual fucking worst and the best at it.

"What about Captain Barnett?" the journo asks him. Jamie puts on his trademark handsomely confused face.

"Oh, yeah," he says after a moment, to show he's 'just' remembered who that is, and nothing else.

"And you thought Lasso played mind games," Roy mutters when Jamie makes it into the locker room, elbowing him lightly as he all but skips to his cubby. Praise disguised as reprimand. "Really let him have it, didn't you?" Jamie tosses his shirt off, grins at Roy over his bare shoulder, winks.

"I'm a giver," he says. The phantom taste of red wine lingers in the back of Roy's throat.

Keeley is around unexpectedly often. When Roy sees her around it's either too early or too late for her to be having lunch with Rebecca. Besides which, from her texts Keeley is much busier than Rebecca right now and takes a working lunch most days. Still, it must be to see her. Maybe the only time Keeley has these days is on her way to or from her office. Roy tries not to worry about her being overworked. She seems happy, and she can take care of herself. 

He always tells her she looks nice when he sees her, and she always does. She seems to only get more beautiful every day. More beautiful, and more powerful. Roy's perception seems to change overnight, though he knows it must have been slowly transforming all this time. He couldn't drag Keeley down if he tried. It was churlish to think otherwise.

It's the Thursday after a Wednesday game against Wolverhampton (tie, 1-1) that Roy finally works up the fucking nerve. Keeley has come down to say hello to the lads. She walks in on Jamie's heels, not bothering to pretend to shield her eyes anymore. Some of the boys are only partially dressed, this time, but neither them nor Keeley make a production of it. Everyone cheers her arrival, like they always do, and she waves with both hands. Roy fucking adores her. He gives her a nod and a clear smile.

"I'll email you whatever Nike says, yeah babe?" she says to Jamie, after giving Roy her own slightly wobbly smile. He knows he's the one that shook her happiness like that, but today he's going to start trying to fix it. She nudges Jamie's shoulder, him already sitting down at his cubby and taking his shoes off.

"Yeah, thanks, babe," Jamie answers distractedly. It's a little odd for him to call her that post break-up, Roy thinks, but not remarkably so. They're both flirty, affectionate people, and they're close friends now that Jamie's not a fucking child anymore. Or it could easily be a simple force of old habit. He's not exactly paying attention, and she did just say it first. Roy might have been jealous about that before, but now he thinks it's kind of sweet.

"Bye, boys!" Keeley says to the lads, waving again and turning to leave. Jamie pays attention then, leaning forward slightly to- To look at her arse. Roy glares at him, half amused and half actually disappointed in his behavior. Jamie looks suitably chastised and averts his eyes. That sorted, Roy follows Keeley out into the hall.

"Keeley!" he calls, even though she's barely ahead, close enough he can reach out and gently tug at her wrist. He lets go when she stops and turns to him, not wanting to be too forward.

"Hi, Roy," Keeley says. She shifts on her feet, her eyes darting over Roy's shoulder and back again. That's fine, totally understandable. Roy's nervous too. He's already basically done this, though, so it's not that bad. He smiles, she smiles, and the jittery feeling is all but gone. She has the power to do that to him - make him feel better with just a look. Make him feel any type of way, really, practically on command, whenever she wants.

"Do you want to get a coffee? Not as friends," he asks. Keeley's smile instantly drops. Shit. "It's too much-"

"No, Roy-"

"Shit, it's not enough-"

"No! Roy!" Keeley gestures to cut Roy off. He snaps his mouth shut. "I… I got back together with Jamie." The floor drops out from under Roy's feet. The air goes out of the room.

He says, "You what?" but he can't be sure if it was fully audible past the catastrophic winds whipping up between his ears.

"I got back together with Jamie," Keeley repeats. She's wringing her hands. Roy's vision is slowly turning black at the edges.

"You mean you fucked him to get back at me," he growls. As before, it might be intelligible or not, but now because his teeth are clenched so hard they're about to fucking weld together. "Again."

"No," Keeley says. "I mean we got back together. Together together. Not… Not just friends." Roy does the breathing exercise Sharon taught him for anger management, even though he knows this is not really anger. At least it's not just anger. Maybe that's why it doesn't feel like the exercise is working.

"He's going through something, and he asked for my help," Keeley keeps explaining into Roy's tense silence. "So we- Then- So now I have feelings for him again. And…" She pauses here. She meets Roy's eyes, and hers are firm and rock-steady but also so, so sad it makes Roy's water in sympathy. She finishes, damningly, "He never stopped loving me."

"I didn't…" Roy starts, but he can't finish. Keeley waits for only a moment. A single tear drops off of her meter-long eyelashes. She's already turning away and leaving Roy standing there when she wipes it away before it can stain her cheek with mascara.

Roy stands there in the hall, failing to fucking breathe right, not quite noticing that the silence inside the locker room is just as oppressive as the silence out here with him. He remembers Jamie is in there. Jamie, who's been joking around with him, who's been smiling and laughing and taking Roy's orders and chirping 'Yes, Coach' at him like nothing is going on, who's been hanging out with Roy's fucking niece and drinking coffee Roy bought him, and winking at him and sending him fucking emojis, and for all that fucking time he's been dating the love of Roy's fucking life and letting Roy think he still has a chance.

He realizes Keeley's been here early or late because she's been dropping Jamie off. That Jamie has been waking up early to train with Roy and then immediately going to Keeley's house instead of his own. What little of Roy's vision isn't blacked out turns red.

He turns, barely conscious of what he's doing. His muscles are clenched so hard he knows he'll be hurting all over soon, but he can't currently feel that. He can't feel his nails digging into his palms, he'll just find the crescent shaped marks later.

Roy walks slowly back into the locker room, only a few steps. Jamie's locker is the one on the end this season, so he needs only to stop there to be standing by him. With the single straining thread of self control he has, Roy does not look at him. If he looks at him he'll fucking-

The image of Roy getting physical with Jamie in anger is dizzyingly vivid. He remembers what it feels like to break someone's nose under his fist, and the nerves in his knuckles conjure it up. He pictures blood on Jamie's face.

It makes him feel sick. Viscerally disgusted. It's revolting. But of course the rage doesn't go away despite that. No, Roy's fists stay clenched. Roy Kent's fists always stay clenched.

When he manages to speak it's like shoving the words through a mail slot that's too small, each sound getting some shredded off as it goes through.

"Do you need any more help?"

Jamie's voice is terribly small when he answers. "No."

Roy nods once, jerky and sharp. Then he goes into his office. He doesn't slam the door because if he does that right now the fucking window is going to shatter into a million pieces, and Jamie doesn't have any fucking shoes on. He sits at his desk, stares straight ahead only seeing the fight scene still playing on repeat behind his eyes, and tells Nate to lead training.

After thirty minutes of quiet and aloneness, the upsetting violent tableau finally fades from Roy's mind. After ten minutes of seeing nothing and doing nothing and feeling nothing, Roy has a deeply pathetic cry. When he's done with that, Roy lays his head down in his arms and has an even more pathetic sulk.

He's still there like that when training is over and Jamie knocks softly on the office door. When Roy doesn't answer, the fucking prick lets himself in.

"Hey, um," he says, and then stops. Roy looks up to see him eying his teammates through the window, every one of them pretending very poorly to not be rubbernecking. "Boot room?" Roy still doesn't answer, but he gets up and leads the way. Jamie closes the door behind them, which is good because Roy would definitely slam that one.

"Listen, I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner," Jamie says. "That were dishonest and unfair, but Keeley made me promise I'd let her tell you. But I'm still sorry, and I won't never keep nothing else from you ever again."

That's what he's sorry for. Roy's teeth won't come apart. He growls.

"Sh-she's really important to me," Jamie keeps trying. "But so are you. This don't have to come between us, yeah? I'm not gonna rub it in your face or nothing, I can even avoid it altogether! Obviously. Shit. Sorry- sorry again, for that part. Um."

Jamie's eyes start to look a bit wet. An inhumane, heartless, snarling little beast inside Roy says, Good. You should hurt too.

"Roy?" Jamie asks. His voice shrinks down small again, and his broad shoulders draw in to follow it. "Are- are we still-?" Roy pries his mouth open, one aching tooth at a time.

"I'll email you a training plan." He doesn't need Jamie's crumpled expression to tell him that wasn't what Jamie was asking about. The nasty thing in Roy howls. It isn't capable of feeling pleased; this is as close as it can get. Roy turns on his heel. He throws the boot room door open with such force that it bounces off the wall. It makes Jamie flinch; Roy doesn't need to see to know that either.

As he leaves, Roy hears Will tell Jamie, "Your life would make good telly. Like a dramedy. Oh, shit." He's swearing, no doubt, because Jamie has started to cry. Roy's too far away to hear what Will does or doesn't do about it, but he hates any option. Either Will keeps his distance and Jamie cries alone, which is an infuriating tragedy and just one more thing that's Roy's own fault, one more thing to burn him up from the inside, one more thing for the universe to punish him for.

That. Or, Will comforts Jamie. He hugs him. Holds him. Puts his soft little hands on Jamie's strong body to hold all the fragile intangible parts inside, and Jamie lets him. One more better man to replace Roy. One more less broken man to do what Roy did but easier and gentler and nicer and just fucking better.

When Roy gets back to the locker room, the lads are having an impassioned argument over whether or not Jamie would want them to wear trainers to his funeral. He tells them to get the fuck out of his club or it won't matter because they'll be in the casket with him. They go.

True to his word, Roy emails Jamie a training plan. He makes it harder and more unpleasant than he was originally planning on, and he sure as hell doesn't include any of his girls. One is more than enough for Jamie to enjoy without him. He pretends to think Jamie won't follow it anyway so it doesn't matter if it's needlessly difficult.

He doesn't bring Rebecca any biscuits in the morning, even though the latest batch hasn't run out yet. He'll fucking eat them himself, who gives a shit. He's retired, he's alone, he can do whatever the fuck he wants. Now he knows he's been cosying up to her while she probably knew Keeley'd gotten over him, he feels like the biggest fucking idiot alive. She was just letting him hang around out of pity, waiting for him to finally find out so she could stop wasting her time on him. Well fuck that, and fuck her.

Roy gives the lads absolute hell in training. All of them. They all know he's really running them so hard to punish Jamie, but this way they can't prove it. Jamie would just take it if Roy targeted him anyway, or refuse to. The rest of them actually suffer enough to satisfy him. A little.

Roy does indeed eat Rebecca's biscuits when he gets home. He eats all of them. He finds an unopened bottle of vodka in the back of his freezer, has all of that too, makes himself sick, and spends the entirety of Saturday hungover because he's fucking old.

Roy skips his Monday morning appointment with Sharon without letting her know he's not coming. On Tuesday, he's still the same prick. Sunday they play Arsenal. They lose 6-0. It's the only thing all week Roy hasn't been angry about, and the only thing he should have been.

He's late to his next Monday appointment, but he does go. He spends twenty minutes in bed debating if he's going to go or not and worrying Sharon will have canceled it after his no-show last week. But, he reminds himself, she'd said no one else wanted his time so even if she did cancel it she probably hasn't filled the open slot. Without the excuse, and without the fresh rage to fuel the pettiness to skive off, Roy has no good reason not to go.

He wastes five minutes out of his fifty on being late, and then he wastes another ten sitting there in tense silence. A quarter of his hour, gone. Sharon isn't tense. She's relaxed in her chair with her notebook closed in her lap, regarding Roy patiently.

"I missed you last week," she'd said when Roy sat down, and has waited him out comfortably since, while Roy grinds his teeth until his fucking jaw gets tired.

"I let my anger make some decisions for me," Roy finally manages. He's here for a reason. He doesn't want to waste the entire fucking appointment. Sharon looks sympathetic, as if Roy deserves that. As if Roy isn't the one who fucked up.

"Why don't you tell me what happened?" she prompts gently.

"Keeley got back together with Jamie," Roy answers. He wishes he had something to bite, or squeeze to death.

"That's what made you angry," Sharon says. "Tell me what happened."

Gradually, the rage sinks out of Roy, leaving him exhausted and both physically and emotionally tender. His knee hurts like hell, his shoulders and forearms are weak and sore, and he has a dull headache. His chest is tight. His eyes are hot. He feels ashamed.

"I accused her of fucking him to make me jealous," he lists off dully. "I took it out on the team in training. I was mean to Beard and Nate. I fought with Ruth. I skipped out on you. I ate Rebecca's biscuits. I… When Jamie asked if. I told him I'd email him a training plan."

"And did you?"

"Yeah, but that's not the point," Roy growls, frustrated. "That's not what he was asking. I made it about work to… hurt. his. feelings." He bites it out a word at a time. He feels guilty, but fuck knows if it's for hurting Jamie's feelings or for acknowledging to someone else that he has feelings to hurt. Or both. "He was asking if we were still friends."

"Are you?" Sharon asks. Roy stares at her notebook in her lap, still closed. He doesn't know the answer. He doesn't know how it could possibly still be 'yes'.

"Let me rephrase," Sharon says, a compassionate smile audible in her voice. "Do you want to be?"

They spend the rest of the appointment figuring out the answer to that together. Or rather, Sharon helps Roy figure out the answer she already knew, and then helps him talk himself out of feeling stupid about it. He brings up Rebecca toward the end, because maybe that's a little similar.

"Why can't she be friends with both of you, separately?" Sharon asks.

"What does it matter why," Roy mutters, cranky and petulant after having to be handled. "She isn't."

"Maybe not," Sharon acknowledges. "But why can't she be?" It's technically the same question, not really rephrased at all. Technically. Roy takes the point.

Roy bakes a new batch of shortbread late that night - too late, he should have been in bed an hour ago - feeling bumbling and foolish the whole time, like he's never baked before in his fucking life. He brings a box of them up to Rebecca's office in the morning, tired and nervous. I will not isolate myself out of fear, he repeats to himself, standing at her door. He'd thought a mantra was useless pop-psych bullshit at first, but making it almost a command like this is actually pretty helpful. Like he's Ella fucking Enchanted, breaking his own curse with sheer bullheadedness.

Rebecca looks relieved to see him when he finally manages to go in - without knocking, as always, Lasso style. And not just because of the biscuits she all but snatches out of his hands.

"For the record," she says archly after she's eaten one. "I told her getting back with him was a bad idea. Although to be fair, I told her getting back with you was a bad idea as well." Roy snorts. It's not like she's out of line to say so. Generally speaking, exes are exes for a reason. Most times they should stay that way. Still in love or not. It's a perfect fucking tragedy, but the fact it sucks shit doesn't make it stop being true.

"I appreciate your honesty," he says, droll. She smiles, and asks him what his first and best concerts were.

Next is Jamie. Sharon had told him not to rush himself, that he was allowed to be angry, he was allowed to feel betrayed, and he was allowed to have boundaries. If he's too upset to be a good friend to Jamie, being no friend for a while is better than being a bad friend and damaging their relationship worse.

On the other hand, Roy fucking misses him (ugh), and hurting him on purpose has been one of the worst regrets of Roy's long regret-full life. The final tip of the scales is a text from Keeley, telling Roy that Jamie turned her down at first, that he'd fought with her over him not telling Roy, and that if Roy has to be angry he should be angry at her instead. She even says please, all alone in its own message. And since he can't be mad at her - not for moving on from him after he left her - and he can't tell her no, his only option is to get over it. So that's what he fucking does.

Jamie's house in the tail end of dawn looks like a cottage in a fairytale, if fairytale cottages were made for rich city twats. Roy gives it an unintentional Kubrick stare from where he's leaning up against the G-Wagon, not quite ready to go all the way up to the door. To get that close. Hot tea, iced coffee. Pink straw. He doesn't know if that's actually Jamie's favorite color, but he always seems to go for it when he has the option. Him and Keeley both. They're like a matching fucking set. Like Barbie and fucking Ken, if Ken wasn't fucking pointless. No fucking wonder she chose him. Fuck.

"Fuck," Roy hisses out loud, as hot tea dribbles over one hand and iced coffee dribbles over the other. He's squeezing the cups. Maybe this was a bad fucking idea.

Too fucking late now, though - Jamie's door opens.

He's wearing all white, making him extra soft in the newborn daylight. White jersey shorts, white hoodie he'll wear until the sun's all the way up and he gets too warm, white headband, white trainers. It's a fucking stupid outfit, and impractical. It'll be a fucking nightmare to wash the sweat and grass out. Still. He looks nice.

He's finishing off a cold sandwich of some kind with one hand, messing about on his phone with the other, a water bottle tucked under his arm. As soon as his last bite is in his mouth, he tucks his phone away to adjust the bottle, and then finally looks up.

Jamie's eyes go huge and shiny wet the very instant he sees Roy standing there. He looks like a fucking blue eyed Bambi. It's intolerable.

"Changed my mind," Roy says gruffly. Jamie comes down his front walk in stumbling start-stopping steps, like he thinks Roy will disappear into thin air if Jamie spooks him by going too fast. Or maybe, judging from the way he tucks his chin down and holds his hands stiffly at his sides when he reaches him, that Roy might hit him.

"Can I hug you?" he asks. Roy blinks in surprise.

"No," he says shortly, mainly because he doesn't actually know if he wants that or not. Doesn't know what he thinks that would feel like, good or bad or both or neither. He pushes the iced coffee into Jamie's fumbling hands, not waiting for him to get a good grip on it before he lets go and turns away to get into his driver's seat.

Jamie doesn't drop the coffee and only spills enough of it to suck off of his fingers like a god damn heathen. The backs of Roy's own fingers are slightly sticky, but he's just going to suffer until he can wash his hands when they get to their destination like a civilized fucking adult. Water bottle once again tucked under his arm, Jamie reaches for the door to the back.

"No, get in the front. I'm not your fucking chauffeur," Roy corrects. He avoids looking at Jamie when he says it. He has a feeling he'll be avoiding looking at Jamie from now until he has to to make sure his form is right.

"Oh," says Jamie, in that terrible small voice. There's two versions of it, Roy's beginning to catch: scared and heartbroken. This one is the latter. Roy grinds his teeth together, gripping his steering wheel tight and Ella Enchanted-ing in his head, until Jamie is situated in the passenger seat and has his belt done.

"It makes more sense now I'm the manager for you to just come in early to work with me," he says first, because that's the easy part. "And. I. Wanted. To make sure. You knew. I'm here because I want to be. Not because Phoebe misses you."

There's a long, agonizing silence, and then Jamie says, "Phoebe misses me?" Roy growls, both annoyance and relief, and throws the car into gear.

"Yeah. She's being so annoying, won't let me hear the fucking end of it." Roy pauses, quiet while he pulls around and out of Jamie's drive. Then he adds cautiously, "You'll have to start coming around to see her on your personal time." He doesn't look over to see Jamie's smile, but it's like he can feel it on the side of his face, warming him in the shade of the car's interior where the sun can't reach.

"So," Jamie says, suddenly all business as soon as they get to Nelson Road after spending the entire drive over messing around with Roy's radio presets. "I figured you was mad at me when you put all that, and I dint wanna be worn out for training with the lads, so I sort of adjusted it a bit, but if you meant it I'll do it right like you said and all." Roy nods along while he speaks.

"No, you were right," he admits. He jerks his head out toward the pitch. "Go on, show me what you've been doing."

Jamie does as he's told, and Roy watches carefully. He's more surprised than he should be at this point, but Jamie made adjustments to the unsustainably ruthless plan Roy sent him that make it less grueling but still push him and maintain the purpose of the exercises, even if he doesn't know yet what Roy intends him to use it all for on the pitch. In fact, he's been even a little bit harder on himself than Roy would have been if he hadn't fucked off, even while admirably not allowing himself to be mistreated. His solutions to Roy's petty brutality are challenging, functional, and creative.

The fact of the matter is, Jamie doesn't need Roy either. If Roy wasn't here, Nate would take care of tactics, Beard would take care of attitude, and the fitness coaches and physios would take care of keeping the boys in shape and taken care of. And if they weren't there, some other fucks would do the job. Most importantly, it's Jamie himself who has the drive and imagination to turn himself into an athlete worth mythologizing.

But between every set, Jamie looks over at him sitting on the sidelines, and every time he lights up like it's fucking Christmas morning and he's gotten every last thing he asked for. Roy doesn't even have to do anything, doesn't have to say he's doing a good job, or nod in approval, or anything. He's just fucking there . And Jamie is so fucking happy that he is, even though he's training his damn self and he's got two dozen loyal friends and an incredible woman to go home to.

He wants Roy, too.

Jamie lopes over when the routine is done, breathing hard and sweating and with a fucking spring in his step. He pants with his tongue out, grinning around it, until he catches enough of his breath to ask Roy for his judgment. Roy is… in awe of him, honestly. He's amazing. He doesn't know quite how to say that yet so he hands over Jamie's water instead. Jamie groans lustily for it and begins guzzling it down, the column of his throat flexing.

"Don't- fucking, don't make yourself sick," Roy mutters. He's unwillingly glued to the tiny stream of liquid - water or sweat, who gives a fucking shit - winding its way down from under Jamie's chin to gather in the waiting pool between his collar bones. It's easy to see, here at the end of their first hour together, when Jamie's warmed up and hot and his hoodie is crumpled up next to Roy, leaving Jamie in just a loose t-shirt cut up to be sleeveless. There's a graphic on the front, pink and blue text stylized into illegibility. 

When Jamie's done with the water, he lifts the shirt up to wipe at his face, revealing his wet abs and pectorals - fat enough now with how buff he's gotten they could easily be called tits, if one was so inclined. Roy has a snap urge to grab the shirt, yank it all the way over Jamie's head, and tangle it hopelessly around his wrists behind his back.

Ah. So maybe he does know, now, what that feeling was. The one he had when Jamie let Roy control what he put in his body even from a distance, and then sent him a representation of his tongue. Bollocks. Like this fucking triangle wasn't already complicated enough.

He thinks, Good boy, but he doesn't say it. He thinks, That's my good boy, but he does not fucking say that, Jesus fucking Christ. Instead he says, "Got most of the concepts in perfectly. Only got a few corrections to put you through. You did very well."

Jamie drops his shirt slowly, but keeps a hold of it. "Yeah?" he breathes. His voice is small again, but not one of the two versions Roy knows. There's a short pause where Jamie sort of… squirms. "What's the corrections, then? Let's have it."

"Rest first, you're not a fucking machine," Roy says. He tears his eyes away from the line of damp skin showing where Jamie's shirt is twisted up to cover his hand instead of his belly. "Good," Roy can't help but add, can't help how warm he says it, when Jamie obediently sits down at his side and immediately starts chewing on the granola bar Roy hands him. Jamie makes a strange noise in the back of his throat, and then shoves the entire bar into his mouth at once.

Jamie spends the remainder of his rest period inside. Roy tells him as he heads in to get something more substantial from the caff while he's in there. Jamie gives him the bird, but also a thumbs up. Roy spends the time Jamie is gone sitting alone on the pitch, finishing his now cold tea, and thinking tactical, unsexy thoughts. When Jamie comes back out, Roy gets them right down to it. He makes himself maintain professionalism by channeling his own old motorbike-riding gaffer. He drives Jamie like fucking cattle, sending him back through the whole fucking routine. Twice.

When Roy finally calls it quits again, Jamie flops down onto the ground at his feet like the pitch grass is a plush king mattress and folds his sweat-slick arms under his head for a pillow.

"Good?" he asks, muffled from his mouth being half-buried in his elbow. Roy nods.

"Good," he confirms. Jamie grins so wide it must hurt his pretty fucking face.

"Us too?" he double checks. Roy lets his own mouth curve a little too, nods again.

"Yeah, we're good." Jamie makes a pleased little noise and closes his eyes- No, he's just blinking oddly slow. Roy looks closer. Are his fucking pupils dilated? Did he eat a fucking edible in his rest period? Did he fucking smoke? There's no way. No way. Jamie takes his career (his body) too seriously. Besides which, he wouldn't risk Roy's wrath for something so stupid. Right?

"Are you fucking high?" Roy blurts before he can stop himself. Jamie doesn't take offense, miraculously. He stays all mellow and… soft. In a good way.

"Dint do any drugs. Or drink," he says. He's not exactly slurring. He sounds sleepy, and happy, like Roy's just woken him up on a good morning after. He rolls his shoulders in the laziest, body-loosest shrug Roy has ever seen. "Just get like this sometimes, when you make it hard on me and I'm good for you."

Good for you. There is no appropriate response to that. One simply doesn't fucking exist. Roy chews his tongue raw, and Jamie dozes lightly at his feet until Roy nudges him and has him go change into his kit for practice.

For the rest of the day, and then the rest of the week, every unoccupied moment fills itself with either Jamie or Keeley. Keeley saying, 'Go on, show me then.' Saying, 'You doing exactly what I tell you to is so fucking hot.' Saying, 'Let it out, baby, I can take it.' Jamie saying, 'I'm your center now.' Saying, 'Make it hard on me.' Saying, 'I'll be good for you.'

They win against West Ham. It's a close and tormentous 4-3, but the boys celebrate like it's the win at last season's final anyway. The team lingers in the locker room after, spending long minutes just being happy and tactile with each other. Jamie pulls Roy into the joyful chaos, and then Colin and Isaac team up to drag Nate in too. Sam and Jan Maas make gestures for Beard, but he shakes his head and waves them away and they back off and let him just watch. The lot of them all walk out together, a tight group bottle-necked through the doors before spilling out over the car park.

Keeley is there, waiting at her car for Jamie. It's painful to look at her, to see her there the way she would always wait for him when she was the one who drove, the way he'd see her in the mornings before he'd all but moved in with her. The way he'd see her here when she'd been dating Jamie the first time, back when it hadn't mattered. Roy forces himself to feel that pain as it is, to not wrap it up in anger so he can throw it around and pretend that gets it out of him. It loses its sharpness after only a few moments, leaving a soft tender ache that doesn't quite still hurt. Only a distant cousin of the type of feeling Roy is always so fucking scared of, so fucking angry at being made to feel.

Roy can't quite manage a smile, but he does give Keeley a little wave. She looks shocked at first, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. But then she smiles. She touches her chest, her mouth, before waving back.

The moment pops softly when Jamie is given enough breathing room by his teammates to spot her. He breaks free of them and trots over like a happy puppy who's done a trick and is eager for his treat.

"Did you see my goal, babe?" he calls out to her as he goes. She takes a beat to roll her eyes for Roy before she turns her attention, laughing, to Jamie. She makes Roy smile with that, even if she doesn't stay looking at him long enough to see it.

"Of course I saw it-" she starts, but Jamie reaches her before she can finish, and apparently reaching her means kissing her whether she's still speaking or not. He wraps around her, her tiny body making his look much larger. She laughs again, into his mouth, before curling both hands into his shower-damp hair and kissing him back. They make out like teenagers pressed up against the side of Keeley's car, until Jamie gets handsy and Keeley playfully smacks him off of her. She shakes his chin in her hand, slips out from between him and the car, and then pushes him into it. He stumbles forward against glass and metal, giggling boyishly. She swats his ass lightly as he climbs in.

They're fucking gorgeous together, now, in a way they weren't before. And it's not just that Roy didn't notice it before, either. They've both always been fit as fuck, they've always looked good and made each other look better. But when they were together back then, something about them just didn't seem real. They were like movie stars. People you couldn't imagine still existing once you stopped looking at them. Now Roy can almost feel the heat of their bodies from here, smell their skin, hear them breathing. He can think of nothing else but how they will stay this touchable and alive when they leave here.

He's still thinking about them at home together by the time he gets home alone. His imagination seems to have suddenly realized it hasn't put the two of them together yet.

Roy knows what Keeley's like in bed. Or at least, he knows what she's like in bed with him. Roy would bet a thousand pounds things are different with Jamie. And maybe it's just wishful thinking, but he'd bet another thousand he can guess exactly how. He'd bet those thousand pounds that right at this moment, Keeley is telling Jamie what a good boy he is for playing well and it's going to his head more like a drug than a compliment.

Keeley was strict and stoic when Roy wanted her to be in charge, but Jamie wouldn't like that. With Jamie, she'd be sweet and doting. Hard to please, but effusively demonstrative when he met her expectations. And he'd always meet her expectations. He'd make her come on his fingers and his tongue - his two assists before he's allowed to get his, like he thinks no one has noticed is what he does on the pitch now. She'd pull his hair and he'd whine at the sting and ask her if he'd done well, and she'd tell him he had.

Roy has seen Jamie's dick. Not hard, but he's seen it. As he sinks down onto his couch in the dark and slips his hand into his pants to touch his own cock, he chooses to imagine Jamie as a grower. He pictures Jamie naked, flushed, filling out impressively under Keeley's impatient eye. On his knees. Sucking on her fingers, getting them wet for her to use, even though she won't need the help.

The scene changes when Roy starts to stroke himself in earnest. Jamie fucking Keeley up against her car in the car park at Nelson Road. Neither one of them gives a shit if someone sees them. Jamie's round ass bounces with his thrusts. Keeley's voice calling out Jamie's name, cracked with pleasure, echoes off the park walls.

Roy groans and shoves his trousers and pants down around his thighs to give himself some more room, to keep from making too much of a mess of them. He flexes his hips up into his fist with no particular finesse. He's having a fucking clandestine wank, he's not exactly trying to draw it out and make it special.

The scene changes again, flipping through scenarios rapidly, like his brain is testing each one out until it finds the one that breaks it. Keeley riding Jamie on the bench in the locker room, Jamie eating her out at her kitchen table, Jamie tied up in pink ropes to be mercilessly teased by Keeley and her magic wand until he cries.

And then they're at Roy's place. All three of them. Keeley and Jamie kneel at his feet with their hands tied back, right here on the couch just like this. They both open wide for him and he takes turns gripping one and then the other by their hair and plunging down their throats, mixing their spit together in their mouths with his cock. Roy bends Jamie over the arm of the couch and spanks him, then fucks him from behind while he has his face buried between Keeley's legs. 

Another switch, and Keeley bounces on Roy's cock while Jamie sits to the side with his calves and thighs latticed together but his hands free, begging to be allowed to touch himself. Keeley jerking Roy off under the table at a fancy banquet and only Jamie knows why Roy is sitting so still and staying so quiet. The same premise, but Jamie's mouth instead of Keeley's hand, though of course she's still in control of when and how fast and for how long, and people keep coming over to ask where Jamie is. Roy and Keeley in Keeley's bed, passing Jamie back and forth all night like he's a toy they picked out together.

Roy comes in his hand, picturing Keeley holding Jamie's face up to catch it - his tongue, his stupid fucking tongue out, it's always out, fuck-

The afterglow hasn't even started before it's over, smothered by guilt. Thinking about Keeley is one thing. She at least wanted him to see her like that, once. She'd willingly done everything Roy had imagined her doing, or at least had been happy to listen to Roy talk about it. But Jamie… There are about a thousand reasons why Roy shouldn't think of him like that, not least of which are that Roy is his fucking coach and that Roy knows he was-

Roy washes his hands upstairs in his en suite, then washes his face too, then keeps his wet hands there to press too-hard against his eyes. He checks his phone before he gets into bed, which is a mistake.

Keeley has sent him four back to back texts. First, jamie told me you made up. Then, thank you. Then, you're really important to him. And finally, a few minutes after the rest, it was good to see you tonight.

While Roy is still staring at Keeley's messages, at a complete loss for how to respond or if he even should - if it wouldn't be better at this point to try to make this break a clean one - a new text comes through, this one from Jamie.

He says, keel wants to ask u 4 coffee as friends but she keeps 2nd guessing y/n?

Roy sighs deeply. Is he strong enough to be her friend, for real this time not just waiting to take the next step? Well, if he can't be he'll eventually be too weak to be friends with Jamie too, apparently. This isn't shaping up to feel any different, minus that he almost had Keeley but Jamie's out of his reach from the beginning. Roy doesn't want to lose either one of them; both is just not an option. So it looks like he'll just have to be strong enough. No, he doesn't have to. But he chooses to be.

He sends Jamie, Y, and feels a little bit like he's being raked over coals when Jamie sends him back the confetti emoji and then, ill tell her! with the winking face and the sparkling pink heart. He tells himself it's worth it.

That one's not a mantra, because Roy won't be repeating it. He believes it already.

Chapter Text

Roy is there first. Much like Rebecca before that first date with Sam, Keeley sits in her car for long minutes doubting all her choices, doubting if he really wants to see her or if he just said yes to appease Jamie. That boy can really be relentless, like a dog with a bone.

But he's there, sitting alone and sipping his tea, just waiting on her. He doesn't smile when she comes up to the terrace table he chose for them, but he doesn't frown either. For Roy that's not bad.

"Hi," Keeley says hesitantly. She waves. It's incredibly awkward, and then her bag makes it worse by picking that moment to fall off her shoulder. She grabs the strap and drops down into the seat across from him before any other malfunctions can happen.

"Hi," says Roy. They stare at each other in tense silence until a server comes and takes Keeley's coffee order. Keeley asks Roy if he wants anything else. He shakes his head. When the server leaves to give the order to the barista, Keeley and Roy lapse back into silence again. Keeley searches his eyes, but she doesn't know what she's looking for. It wouldn't matter if she did anyway; that beautiful warm brown is just as opaque to her now as it was when he ended things.

Roy waits until the waiter has brought Keeley's espresso over before he speaks. Whether that's so they won't be interrupted by its arrival or because it takes him until then to put together what he wants to say, Keeley can't know for sure.

"You should have told me," he says.

"I know," says Keeley. "I'm sorry. I- I don't have an excuse. I'm sorry." She does know. She's heard it from Jamie nearly every day since she made him promise to let her be the one to break the news, and she's heard it from Rebecca twice, and she's heard it echoing around in her head in her own voice - her conscience - on loop that whole time. She could just never bring herself to do it. It wasn't fair to Roy, but it wasn't fair to Jamie either - Keeley hesitated because telling Roy would make it all so final. They've both chosen not to be together now. It's really, really over this time. Roy nods seriously along to her apology.

"You can't do that again," he says next, grim and- brave, the way Jamie is brave. Standing up for himself. "I'm not a fucking mind reader, Keeley. You have to tell me when you don't want- You have to tell me what you want." Keeley bites her tongue against telling him she does want him, that she never didn't want him. Maybe she should have been clearer about that then, but it's too late now.

"I'm not a mind reader, either. You have to tell me what-" Just as Roy did, Keeley cuts herself off before she bares the full truth of her matching self-pity. She's already asked him that anyway, tearfully but stubbornly holding her upper lip stiff and forcing herself not to repeat 'What did I do?' out loud no matter how many times it circled around in her head. He'd only said she hadn't done anything. Keeley doesn't have anything to tactfully switch to, though, so her unfinished sentence dangles conspicuously in between them.

"I wasn't good enough for you," Roy belatedly answers her now. His mouth twists - a sick, warped facsimile of a smile. "Clearly." A spark of righteousness ignites in Keeley at that. As far as she's concerned, she and Roy would still be together now if he hadn't decided they shouldn't be. He's the one who left an open spot for Jamie to step into, he has no right to act like that was some kind of inevitability. But Roy corrects himself before Keeley has to.

"No, I know," he says, holding up a hand as if to hold her back. "I know, shitty thing to say. We're all fucking… fucked, in all different fucked ways." He pauses there to transform. He melts for her, rounds out into something a little softer, a little more organic and pliable, like he used to when she'd smile at him, when she'd touch him. "He- Jamie's better?"

"Roy…" Keeley cautions. He shakes his head hastily.

"Than he was before, I mean," he clarifies. 

Keeley doesn't really need to think about it, compare the two boyfriend-Jamies in her mind, to know the answer. She just does it for fun. Jamie of the past, almost desperately eager to please but inattentive and thoughtless. Jamie of the present, independent and kind. Jamie then: angry, defensive, single-minded. Jamie now: sincere, responsible, curious. Some of it is just maturity, probably, but some - maybe even most - is all choice and hard work.

"He is," Keeley answers Roy with a helpless smile. "So much." She hides her smile behind the rim of her espresso mug at the look on Roy's face, unsure if it's pain or not. She can't lie to him about how she feels about Jamie, and she's learned her lesson about keeping secrets. If he asks, she'll tell. But she doesn't want to hurt him.

"Good," he says simply, firm and final enough Keeley knows he really means it. "You deserve to be happy. Both of you. Whether… whether that's with me or not." Something about the way he says that strikes Keeley as odd, but she puts it out of mind for now.

"You deserve to be happy too," Keeley tells him. Her voice comes out small, the way she feels thinking of him alone. She'll probably have the exact same grief he's having now when he moves on from her. She'll be glad for him as well of course, but there will never be a time when Keeley no longer thinks about when they stood side by side.

Roy makes a bitter, doubtful noise that crushes Keeley's heart. But then he shakes his head, like he's taking it back.

"I'm going to therapy," he blurts out abruptly. He fiddles with the teabag in his otherwise emptied cup as an excuse to avoid Keeley's eyes. "Same woman Ted sees. She was the team shrink season before last. Hired on now."

"Yeah, I met her," Keeley acknowledges softly. "Sharon, right? She doesn't eat sugar."

"Neither does Jamie if he knows what's good for him," Roy grumbles, finding a way to get on Jamie's case on autopilot. So apparently that's still his most beloved hobby. Not that Keeley's surprised, with how returning the favor has turned out to be one of Jamie's favorites too. Between the two of them always going on and on about the other, Keeley could almost feel like she has both of them with her whenever she has one.

The rest of their little coffee d- meeting goes, if not totally smoothly, mostly pretty good. Keeley gets Roy to smile at her a few times, and they stay long enough to order a second round of drinks and some snacks. It's relatively easy to skate past any awkwardness or snags in their conversation. All they have to do is go back to Jamie again. It seems a little counterintuitive, that talking about Keeley's new (old?) boyfriend would be so comfortable, but then again neither Roy nor Jamie have ever done what everyone else does. Keeley hasn't either, really. All three of them, they just do what works.

They part with a hug that is only slightly stiff, and another coffee meetup arranged for next week.

Jamie isn't around when Keeley gets home. He likes to maintain his own life separate from her, he did when they dated the first time too. It's odd sometimes, to hear about how much full-focus time he spends with Roy. Keeley, she knows for a fact now, couldn't handle that much intensity so often for so long, and by how their previous relationship went and how it's going now she would expect Jamie to need that same space. He only ever seems tired physically when he gets back from morning training though, never irritable, and never with a bad word about Roy. Not a genuinely meant bad word, anyway. Somehow, Jamie is perfectly comfortable both ways.

Keeley appreciates the time alone. Time to decompress after the stress of meeting with Roy, both knowing she was in the wrong this time and having to contend with her lingering feelings. More than lingering. But she doesn't regret her decision. There was something wrong between her and Roy, and while the conversation they just had was a little enlightening Keeley still isn't sure she knows what it was. What was wrong between her and Jamie is not only known, but fixed. And besides, Keeley meant it when she said Roy deserves to be happy too. He deserves to be with someone he doesn't doubt, who doesn't doubt him.

Keeley sets up a bath for herself. It was something of a symbol, with Roy, though it's one Jamie wouldn't need even if he knew it and was here to receive it. But it's also a routine now, and pulling out the stops like this gets Keeley in the mindset to relax. Each candle lit banishes a worry or stressor to the other side of the bathroom door. Each rose petal dropped onto the surface of the warm water, sending up fragrance as it rehydrates, grounds Keeley in her body and in the moment. Keeley's whole week sloughs off of her along with the dead skin off her feet.

KJPR's new employees are a little easier to get to know than the ones the VC had assigned, but they're all still just a little bit standoffish with Keeley. She figures it's because she's the boss, but it's still a little nerve-wracking to deal with. She's not worried they're judging her or doubting her skill, the way she was with the others, but her workplace is still a lot less friendly than she'd like.

She has two women, Maisie and Tegan, one man, Dénes, and Yaffe, who is neither. So far each one of them has done their job to near perfection, but have had very little proactive input and have responded with lukewarm hesitance to Keeley's suggestions for bonding activities. Barbara has told her a few times to give up. Keeley thinks she knows Barbara well enough now to take that as more of a 'be patient' than it sounds, though. Rebecca has said the same thing, and at their next coffee meet-up so does Roy. Still, Keeley invites every one of them to that week's Richmond match against Chelsea, comped.

"Is it weird, playing them?" Keeley asks Roy, at the same table as last time the day before the game. He shrugs.

"Played 'em before," he says. "On the pitch, too."

"Coaching's different, though," Keeley says. She can't know exactly how, but she knows he's different. So there must be something about it.

"Yeah, s'pose it is," he agrees, uncharacteristically easy. "It's not weird though, not like you're thinking. Proud of my lads. 'S like showing off to an ex or something." Keeley raises an eyebrow; Roy grins.

Only Yaffe shows up to the match. Keeley is thrilled to see them here, and even more thrilled they came wearing a fan jersey. Keeley yells happily and bounds up to them, pausing only briefly to make sure Yaffe's not cringing away from her before throwing herself around their shoulders for a hug.

"I'm so happy you made it!" she gushes. "Who've you got?" Yaffe grins back at her, slightly bashful, but they slip off their jacket and turn so Keeley can see 'Hughes' across their back.

"Ooh, great pick," says a pleasant surprise from the doorway. Keeley screams.

"Sassy!" Rebecca, Nora, and Yaffe all laugh at the two of them as they cling to each other and jump around in circles as well as they can in the narrow rows of the owner's box seating. Introductions are rushed, high-pitched, and slightly breathless, but Yaffe seems to take the chaos in stride.

Richmond loses, but not terribly. The handshake between Roy and Chelsea's gaffer lasts a little longer than necessary for sportsmanship, the two of them talking for a moment. Roy leaves the interaction with his mouth lacking grimness - the closest he gets to a smile when he's doing his whole I'm Roy Kent thing, except when the boys do something spectacular enough to force a real one to break through.

After the game, Keeley asks Yaffe if they want to go down and meet their man. The whole group of them go when Yaffe says yes, and they reach the locker room in time to hear the tail end of Roy's post-loss pep talk.

"-gonna fucking tell you to be a fucking goldfish. It's more important, in my pro-fucking-fessional opinion, to remember how fucking far you've come. You lot didn't get into the fucking Champions league by fucking accident, or by fucking luck, and you all fucking know it. Forget whatever the fuck else you wanna forget, but don't forget that."

"Wow," Yaffe whispers, and holds up nine fingers at Keeley's inquisitive look. Keeley laughs.

"That's not even a lot, for him," she says.

Each of them that the team already knows is greeted with an exuberant cheer of their name as they walk in, and after a brief pause for them to say what theirs is Yaffe gets the same treatment. Keeley marches Yaffe right up to Colin, while Nora sidles over to Sam and does actually a pretty good job of playing it cool. Yaffe strikes up a conversation with Colin with enough ease that Keeley feels comfortable leaving them to it so she can go fawn over her own man.

"Hey, babe," Jamie says as she makes her way over to him, waiting for her. Keeley puts her hands in his hair, dripping wet and going crunchy in spots where his sweat has dried in it. It used to gross Keeley out a bit, that very first footballer she'd dated, but now it doesn't put her off at all. If she's in the right mood, it can even turn her on. Just another little Pavlovian condition, previously established by others but reinforced with a diligence and talent unique to Jamie.

Keeley kisses him like it's three years ago, without thinking about where they are - in space or in time. He follows her lead at first, kissing her back in the steamy tone she sets, before he chastens things. Oh, right. Keeley is relieved not to hear any wolf whistling when she pulls back from Jamie's sweet mouth. She bites her lip and hesitantly looks over her shoulder toward the front of the room, where Roy stands with a perfect view of them.

He's looking, but he doesn't seem upset. He meets Keeley's eyes for the briefest of moments, before his gaze flicks down to her mouth, and then… over her shoulder, to Jamie. Unbidden, Roy's voice plays in Keeley's mind, nonchalantly confessing to her that he likes to watch couples have sex in the open. A zap of hot electricity sparks down Keeley's spine to her center. She looks away from Roy hurriedly, before he can catch her thinking about that.

"Get a ride with one of the boys, yeah?" she says to Jamie, dropping a much more perfunctory kiss on his lips. "Gonna go out with Rebecca and Sassy. Maybe I can convince Yaffe to come too."

"Mhm," Jamie agrees, letting her delay his answer with one more kiss. "Should I stay at mine?" Keeley holds her head firmly still on her neck to keep from looking backward again.

"No," she orders. She tugs restlessly at the front of his jersey. Lets him see the heat she's hiding from Roy. "Wait up for me."

"Yes, ma'am," Jamie says with a smirk. That phrase is going to become a new bell to make Keeley drool in no time.

On Monday, Keeley has Phoebe for a playdate. She'd been a little nervous that Ruth wouldn't want Phoebe to spend any Royless time with Keeley no matter what Roy and Keeley themselves had told her, but it hasn't been a problem at all. Compared to her brother, Ruth is remarkably laid back. But Keeley supposes you have to have a preternaturally level head to do what Ruth does.

Keeley had technically taken the day off, but she brought Phoebe in with her for a job tour the same way Rebecca had for Nora before. Barbara had regarded her stiffly but kept any disapproving comments to herself, and Phoebe had charmed the pants off of Maisie and Dénes. They'd cleared out by lunch, seen a film, and now they're back at Keeley's place finishing off with a little at-home spa treatment and an Eagles vinyl.

Phoebe is halfway through applying a silver glitter top coat over Keeley's freshly pink nails, both of their faces smeared with mint green paste, when Jamie comes in the front door.

"Oh," he says, stopping short in the entryway. "Hey, Phoebe. Sorry, did you tell me this was happening?" Keeley just shakes her head, knowing not to try to speak over Phoebe's exuberant greeting. Her excitement makes Jamie grin in an adorably soft way.

"I know Jamie's not technically a girl," Phoebe says to Keeley, like she's making an argument for why she should be allowed to keep a pet, "but can he stay for girls' night anyway? Please?" Keeley smiles over at Jamie, unsurprised to find him with the exact same puppy dog eyes on as Phoebe. Keeley wouldn't consider telling either one of them no.

So Jamie puts his things away while Keeley and Phoebe rinse their masks off, and then Keeley paints his nails while Phoebe painstakingly weaves two Dutch braids into his hair. Jamie teases them about their 'dad rock' and then pays genuine attention to Phoebe's impromptu lecture on the band's entire career.

"They're having a farewell tour," she eventually finishes. She and Jamie have switched by this point, with her holding up his phone so he can follow along with a Youtube tutorial as he does her hair. "It's only in America, though."

"Hm," Jamie says, ominously thoughtful. Keeley shakes her head sternly at him over Phoebe's head. He shrugs faux-innocently with a crooked grin. Menace. She'll have to warn Ruth.

Jamie and Keeley go to bed straight away, the moment Phoebe is gone. It's barely half eight, but by unspoken agreement they don't intend to go to sleep. Maybe it's just the girl thing, which is shaping up to be a pattern for them at this point, but something about Jamie letting himself be all dolled up in pink and glitter, sitting still, and minding his manners went right to Keeley's head. He hadn't had to pay into the swear jar even once.

He's only half undressed before Keeley's on him. She's rough with him when she kisses him, scratching at his scalp and pulling his head around - less to put him where she wants him and more just to move him. He laughs softly against her mouth. Everything about him tonight has been soft.

"Gonna mess up me hair," he reprimands in a low murmur.

"I'll redo it for you in the morning if you like it so much," Keeley promises. She doesn't let him answer; there are more important things for his mouth to be doing right now. She twines her tongue with his, wet and sensual, and swallows down his breathy groan.

Keeley corrals Jamie backwards toward her bed, hands still insistent and possessive against his scalp. Every now and then the chunky glitter on her nails catches on the texture of his hair product, tugging slightly at the strands and making them both shiver. She's never felt so much like she owns someone; she's never felt so much like she wants to.

Jamie trips elegantly, consummate athlete, when the backs of his knees hit the edge of the bed. His bare back hits the mattress with a whumpf. Keeley leans over him and closes a hand around his throat. She squeezes a little less gently than she might have done on another night, then curls her fingers into claws so she can dig her glossy, glittery nails into his vulnerable skin. Jamie chokes out her name, scrabbles for her hips to pull her on top of him. She sits herself where he puts her without resistance to tease. He's been good.

Keeley lets Jamie take care of both of their trousers and doesn't bother to take her shirt off. She can't bear to take her hands off of him long enough to tug it over her head. She can feel his pulse jumping against her palm, the heat of his flushed cheek under the fingertips of her other hand, then the swollen wetness of his rough-kissed lips, the scratch of his five o'clock shadow, the unbroken smoothness of his waxed chest, the firmness of his nipple when it pebbles at her touch.

The second Jamie's hands are free, Keeley is quick to occupy them again. She grabs him by his strong forearms, gripping him there tight enough it has to hurt at least a little, but he doesn't flinch. She plants his hands on the tops of her thighs, presses down on the backs to make his touch as firm on her as hers on him.

"Don't smear my hard work," she orders, referring to the pink on his nails that matches hers - sans the glitter.

It's a bullshit excuse. Jamie has braided Phoebe's hair, smeared his face with clay and washed it off, and eaten a clandestine handful of buttered popcorn since Keeley applied the last coat. Only polish remover is making that paint budge now. But Jamie nods and mouths his 'Yes, Ma'am'. He's gone all quiet like he gets sometimes when Keeley is really bossy with him. It does something to him for Keeley to truly take charge like this. It's like she can actually literally take his breath away, and all she has to do is command it. The power of it makes Keeley's head spin as if she's the one who's missed a few hits of oxygen. Like she's sitting on top of a mountain rather than over Jamie's narrow hips, so high up even the air itself struggles to get on her level.

Keeley arranges herself on Jamie's lap so that his cock slides between her wet folds when she rocks her hips. Okay, so maybe she will tease a little bit after all. How can she help it, when he makes such a pretty sound of pleasure and agony at it. And the textures of his cock, the ridges under the head, the vein down the shaft, all feel wonderful to rub her clit on. Keeley could make herself come like this, could make them both come like this, half-unsatisfying but still so good, if she wanted to.

The decision is made for her when Keeley realizes the nearest condom is a whole four feet away in her top sex drawer and she still can't stand the thought of separating from Jamie for the moment it would take to crawl across the bed to reach it. It's no real hardship, no downgrade, anyway - to use him like a masturbatory aid and watch him make a mess of himself over it. Keeley bites her lip and grinds on him with more intent.

Jamie catches her drift as easily as he ever does (nowadays). He whines a little, only a small portion in complaint, before helping like the perfect little sex toy he is. His grip on Keeley's thighs goes harder, hard enough she'll surely have at least the shadow of a bruise by the time they're done, and she's looking forward to it too - to pressing her own hands to the marks at work tomorrow, rewarding herself for all her tireless work with a little bit of irresponsible behavior, hopelessly distracting herself all day. Hand-holds secure, Jamie takes advantage of his position only three-quarters of the way onto Keeley's bed, feet on the ground, to thrust up into Keeley's rhythm.

Keeley wants Jamie to come first, again. She's more sympathetic toward men following that 'rule' now, after only a few times having it that way. It's addictive, getting to see him reach his peak while she's still as hot as she can be. Anyway, Jamie likes to be played with after he's done, likes to be strung out a little bit, overworked, lightly tormented. So Keeley doesn't even have to choose between coming last and coming twice - or more, if she wants.

"C'mon, baby," she encourages him breathlessly. "Let me see, sweetheart." Jamie chokes her name again at the loaded endearment. His rhythm falters slightly, but Keeley makes up for it for both of them by pressing her weight down harder. It's more work, sliding back and forth along the full length of him like this when if she was riding him she could use her coiled thighs to bounce, but it's worth the burn in her abdomen to watch the head of his cock come uncovered from her wetter and wetter with each pass.

"You'll be so much prettier all covered in come," Keeley continues, doing her best to talk him into going off faster. She's in a hurry, her own orgasm a steadily building heat in the cradle of her hips.

"Fuck's sake, Keels-" Jamie grunts from behind tightly gritted teeth. He's squeezing her thighs so tightly now with the effort to keep his hands where they belong that his arms are shaking slightly, his fingertips and the craters he's digging into her all pressed bloodless white. She can't feel it right now, but god is it going to hurt when he lets go. When she lets him let go.

"Be good, Jamie, let me see," Keeley demands. It's like a secret weapon, that word, 'good'. It never fails to bend Jamie exactly to Keeley's will, whatever the context. It's a power that could easily corrupt, but it's so true - he is so good, her good boy - she could never dream of abusing it.

It's a strange new sensation, to feel Jamie's cock jerk and pulse so close to it but not inside her, and bare. His spunk is burning hot against her clit - for just a moment; she doesn't relent in her rhythm as he comes. With her in the way, the first spurt puddles under the head of his cock, but the rest paints his belly in pearly white stripes just as prettily as Keeley hoped it would. Sweaty, flushed, boneless, and messy with jizz, Jamie makes a fucking gorgeous picture.

Keeley holds onto Jamie's wrists for leverage as she brings herself off on his oversensitive, slowly softening cock. He feels almost dainty in her grip, his breakable bones apparent - both his wrists in her hands and the ribs her knees grind against when her legs reflexively clamp around his body. He pants, his mouth and eyes both wide open and wet, mindless and more than happy to let her hurt him.

Keeley collapses onto the bed at Jamie's side when she's done. On her side, she lifts her knee up high so she can reach down and touch herself, to afflict more pleasure on her clit just to feel exactly how tender and sensitive rubbing off on him has made her. Jamie watches her at it, sleepy but unfalteringly captivated. She stops after only a moment; she doesn't want to come again, she just wanted to have a little bit of that same torment she gave him.

"Ah!" she scolds when Jamie moves like he's going to sit up and ruin her masterpiece. "Stay." She snaps for good measure, points down at the mattress underneath them. He smiles crookedly and lays still, palms carefully flat against the bedspread. He doesn't have her thighs to hold onto anymore, but he's maintaining the position anyway. In reward, Keeley murmurs the praise they both want him to have into his ear, "Good boy," punctuated with a lingering kiss.

It's impossible to admire him without touching him too. Keeley walks her fingers along his hip, watching as her wetness adds another shining stroke to the canvas of his skin. She meanders her way to the sticky mess on his belly, swirling her fingers around in it, still warm.

"Gross, Keel," Jamie says with an amused snort. Keeley hums in idle agreement. Then she scoops up a finger-full, and brings it to her mouth. "Oh." Jamie's breath hitches sharply as he watches her lick it off like frosting. 

With the buzzing power-high of playing Jamie like a game still clouding up the peripherals of her mind, Keeley dips her finger back into the mess for another taste. But this one she brings to Jamie's mouth instead. She's deliberately clumsy with it, smearing some along his bottom lip like gloss before sliding her finger deep into his mouth to coat his tongue with the rest.

It takes the two of them a long time to kiss the taste out of each other's mouths.

After they semi-accidentally get jizz all over themselves and the comforter rolling around and making out, after they've showered, and after Jamie has rooted through Keeley's cupboards for a snack while Keeley changed the sheets, Jamie holds his nails out above them. He tilts his hand back and forth, watching the lamp light shine off the glossy pink polish with a tiny, thoughtful pinch at the corner of his mouth.

"I won't be upset if you take it off before training," Keeley mumbles into the meat of his shoulder. "Or judge you, or anything." Jamie hums to acknowledge her, then shrugs and tucks himself all the way under the covers and turns to make himself the little spoon.

"Dunno," he says. "Think I'll keep it. They won't be pricks about it, yeah? Good lads. Maybe not for the match, though." Keeley kisses him behind the ear, leans over him to click the lamp off, and then settles back down to fall asleep with her face buried into the pillow between his neck and shoulder.

Keeley is woken up early by Jamie having that horrible, disturbing dream again. He's had it a few times with her by now, but she knows she'll never ever be used to it. He doesn't make any noise this time - it turns out he rarely does - but he gasps and flinches awake. It's only enough to rouse her because they're so tangled up together. He whispers an unnecessary apology Keeley is too asleep to refuse. He gets a hand towel from the bathroom to clean up, apologizing for that too before trailing off into half-bitter and half-amused mutterings about how he'd have thought having sex right before bed would let him stay dry through the night.

"Got ninety-nine problems," he mumbles drowsily as he tucks himself back into Keeley's arms. "Impotence sure as fuck in't one, innit." Keeley isn't sure whether or not to laugh at that, but Jamie kisses her back to sleep before she has to figure it out.

She's awake first for the first time in a long while when true morning comes around. She and Roy both have lunch and evening obligations all this week, so they're doing their coffee date before work today. Roy's lucky he and Jamie don't meet quite as early anymore now that they train at the club and don't have to travel after. Keeley still would have gone with him for breakfast before, but her company would have been a lot less pleasant. She needs sunlight in the mornings just as bad as she needs caffeine.

The table on the terrace he'd picked out that first time is their usual spot now, and he's waiting for her there like he always is. He's put together already, hair smoothed, beard trimmed, complexion even, eyes clear. As early in the morning as Keeley meets him now, she'll never see him fresh out of bed, soft and messy and vulnerable. Keeley takes a deep breath, tucks her grief away with her hair behind her ear, and takes her seat across from him.

They talk mostly like they used to, verbally pushing and tugging at each other in between small intimacies, dangerously toeing the line of flirtation. Keeley second guesses herself, debating on the just-friendliness of her every comment and gesture, but almost always a moment too late. It's only the tiniest relief to know Roy is doing the exact same thing. Every moment with him is one of those unanswerable questions, over and over again. But Keeley would rather wonder forever than open the box on Schrodinger's romance. At least in this case.

"Been thinking about doing some kids' coaching again," Roy tells her toward the end of the time they lotted out for themselves. "In the off season, one-on-one." Warmth swells in Keeley's chest, far too expansive to be blamed on the coffee she'd already finished a few minutes ago.

"Yeah? Rewarding, that, with Jamie?" she asks, though she knows the answer. He nods a little, cheeks going pink, like getting fulfillment from his career and relationships is embarrassing somehow. He hides briefly behind his mug. Keeley lets him.

Eventually he adds in a mumble, "Think he'd like it too." Keeley smiles widely. She agrees. "I didn't- He'll have to retire at some point, even if he makes it through to stopping with his joints all intact. He should start thinking about what's next now. I don't want him to…" He pauses, visibly wrangling his feeling(s) into manageable shapes. "It doesn't have to be like it was for me. For him." Keeley makes a delicate, thoughtful noise. Careful, but… Maybe not as careful now as she might've had to be a year ago.

"Have you asked him about that? If he has any plans?"

"No," Roy answers shortly, and picks up his napkin just to throw it down. Now Keeley's the one to hide behind her mug, empty as it is, so he doesn't see her silently laughing at his dramatics. She waits for the subject change she knows is coming, but to her surprise it's not as far off as she expects. "He still having those nightmares?"

Instantly, Keeley sobers. She sets down her kiss-stained mug, smoothing her own napkin flat for the same need to do something with her hands. "He told you about those?" Roy makes a noise to indicate ambiguity, lifts his hand to tilt it back and forth in the air. Sort of.

"Told me he was having 'em, that's it," he elaborates. If it were anyone else, Keeley realizes quietly, she would feel slighted that Jamie had told them outright - or maybe, on the other hand, she might have felt smug that he'd let her see it for herself. But it only seems right that she and Roy should be on even ground, where Jamie is concerned. However that ground happens to be gained or given.

"Me too," she says, shaking her head. "I keep telling him to call his mum."

"He still hasn't?" Roy demands, sounding genuinely outraged. "Fuck's sake, it's been ages! I'll take care of it." It has the tone of a threat, but Keeley knows Roy well enough - knows both of them well enough - to know it really isn't. Even if Roy keeps that air of intimidation, Jamie won't take it that way.

Their date winds down from there, both of them dawdling at the table with their empty mugs until their time together is stretched out past capacity like elastic about to snap. Roy gets stiffer every time he compulsively checks his watch. Keeley knows he doesn't want to keep Jamie waiting, not after their fight. Keeley herself should head to work soon too. But she doesn't want to go. She's got some sort of pressure under her skin, magnetically repelling her from the thought. Something that feels like stress or being smothered, but with the opposite charge.

She and Roy stare at each other over their long since finished breakfast. The air between them is thick with tension. With understanding.

Smirking slightly, Roy asks, "Wanna come watch me torture your boyfriend?"

She shouldn't. She should go to work. The team is fully onboarded now, familiar and efficient with their roles, and warming up to her too after Yaffe reported back about the match they came to and their night out with her. Technically, Keeley could miss a day now without much trouble; they've cut her workload down to just a little over a quarter of what it was. But the magnet hums.

"Yes," Keeley says. "I do!" Her cheer is maybe just slightly manic. Roy grins sharply at her.

"He likes that," he says, and- That's his sexy voice, the one that's a little bit bossy but softened out by heat. Keeley blinks in surprise. His face falls and he sits straighter.

"Sorry," he excuses himself, quick and frantic - as frantic as Roy Kent gets anyway. "None of my business." It really isn't, is the thing, but the problem is after all this time and heartbreak his voice like that still feels the same. It's a different kind of power, what Roy makes her feel versus what Jamie does. Keeley can't help but want to share the latter with him - or even better, mix them together and show him that. And she's certain Jamie won't mind.

Keeley reaches her foot forward to nudge at Roy under the table. She keeps her touch brief, just a tap. She doesn't stroke him, doesn't linger, and it's just the outside of his ankle anyway. That could probably be argued to be friendly, but she - knowingly - undermines that claim by lowering her eyelids at him and purring, "Yeah. He does."

The heat in Roy's eyes flares just enough that Keeley can see it shining there, before it gets slowly but quite surely smothered by guilt. Roy opens his mouth to say something - to confess something? Keeley thinks she knows what, if so - but closes it just as soon. He sighs, nods, digs out cash to tuck under his saucer, and then stands.

"Well, let's get on then."

At the Dog Track, Keeley tucks herself up in the stands just below the owner's box. Jamie gives her a confused little wave when he arrives. She blows him a kiss in return, and he flicks his tongue out for her. Roy makes an exasperated noise loud enough to reach her to go along with his eye roll, to be sure they both know how insufferable he finds them. In the quiet, Keeley can hear her and Jamie's laughter harmonize.

Roy puts Jamie to laying out tumbling mats, strangely enough. Jamie says something or other about Nate - probably about how he'll chew them out for fucking up the grass. Roy ignores his bratty commentary and sets him to doing timed somersaults up and down half the length of the pitch. Every time Jamie makes it back to him, sprawled and panting at his feet, Roy compares him to something notoriously slow - a tortoise, a grandma, traffic at Christmas - and makes him go again. Finally, when Jamie looks like a cartoonish blur from Keeley's vantage point, Roy is satisfied.

"Good," he says, authoritative and clear. Jamie collapses in relief. "Now fully up to your feet between each one. I want the same time." Jamie lets out an exaggerated groan of agony, but he does as he's told without worded complaint or hesitation.

Like some kind of superman, Jamie does actually manage to reach the time Roy set within the hour. Roy praises him again, this time in a full sentence, and then dictates yoga poses Keeley couldn't manage in a million years for his cool down. Even with Keeley positioned so far above them, Jamie contorted into unreal shapes after completing a Herculean task and Roy standing solid and imperious over him, they both look- Not like gods, they're too obviously human, and more appealing for that, but… Definitely beings fit to be worshiped.

Jamie stays on the ground when Roy is done with him. He pouts there until Roy capitulates to him and pours water into his mouth for him. Keeley's whole body flushes watching it. She wants desperately - with a hedonistic desire that goes beyond sexual - to be one of them right now, but fuck if she knows which one. Maybe the water. When Jamie closes his mouth, Roy keeps pouring, spilling water all over his face. This time, Jamie doesn't offer even a wordless protest.

In a moment, Jamie is back on his feet, going through the regular motions of post-workout, even if he seems a little bit wobbly on his feet. It's like a thirty-second clip of some avant garde porno accidentally got cut into a normal sports movie. Whatever that was, and now Jamie is just drying his face off and shaking his hair out and digging out a foil wrapped protein bar from his bag. Keeley has whiplash. Horny, existential whiplash.

Roy jerks his chin, Keeley thinks, up toward her. Jamie smiles blithely before disappearing into the changerooms, and then a few minutes later he's sidling his way down the row to stand at her side. He's not aroused. Not exactly. But he's that special kind of quiet, all happy and settled and loose-limbed and a bit empty-headed. It's a state that can only be called 'easy', if it can be called anything.

"Hi, baby," Keeley breathes, reaching for him. It almost seems harsh to address him any differently when he's like this.

"Hi," Jamie returns, all but floating forward into Keeley's space, into her grasp. "Roy said t'come see ya."

"Yeah?" Keeley says. She brushes his dripping hair off his temples where it falls forward from his headband. He hums in pleasure, not a moan but not any other kind of noise either. "He takes good care of you, huh?"

"Yeah," Jamie agrees, like their dynamic could ever really be encompassed so simply. He turns his head to kiss the palm of her hand, sloppily but dry. Just mouthing at her.

Keeley never really got how other women found it sexy to see a man taking care of a child. With Roy and Phoebe, she'd felt warm and happy, and they'd been cute - adorable, even. Almost unbearably so. But it hadn't made her want him, not like that. Maybe you needed a maternal instinct for that, and Keeley just doesn't have one.

But Roy taking care of Jamie… Now, that's something different. First, Jamie has to let him. Jamie has to give him that power, and then Roy has to take it. He has to accept - he has accepted - Jamie's vulnerability in a way he hadn't been able to accept his own, or Keeley's. At least, not when they'd been together.

She could be jealous of Jamie over it. She could be bitter he gets to have this from Roy when Roy couldn't give it to her. Just like she could be jealous that Jamie told Roy about his nightmares. But those feelings just… don't come. Instead, Keeley wants to see more. She wants to see Roy make Jamie airheaded like this on purpose. She wants to see Jamie ask him to. She wants to see Jamie eat from Roy's hand. She wants to see Roy spit in Jamie's mouth.

Jamie tilts his head curiously at her, a questioning crease coming between his eyebrows. His eyes are steadily getting clearer, the more distance - in space and in time - he gets between him and that state of simplicity. The dopamine rush, ebbing.

"What's that face?" he asks her. "What're you thinking?"

What is she thinking? Keeley's thinking about putting him on his knees right here, right now. She's thinking about shimmying off her trousers and pants, sitting in the fold out chair at her hip, and spreading out to tuck her feet over the armrests of the chairs on either side. While she's obviously not shy, she's not as much of an exhibitionist as Jamie is either. But it's just Roy who could see them now. Roy who would see them. If he stayed to watch.

Keeley looks down to the pitch. There Roy stands, still like a pillar of black stone at the bench, arms folded, looking up at her. At this distance it could be all in Keeley's mind, but she's certain the heat from breakfast is there again now. He's thinking the same thing.

The alarm of his phone in his pocket brings Jamie the rest of the way back to earth, and breaks the moment between Roy and Keeley. Jamie swears softly, pulling his face away from Keeley's touch to dig the ringing mobile out of the pocket of his stretch shorts. He swipes to turn the alarm off.

"Twenty min 'fore the lads get here," he tells her. "Gotta go get something from the caf unless I wanna swoon into Isaac's arms." After he says it he makes a considering face like he actually wouldn't mind that at all. Keeley laughs, exactly like he meant her to. He kisses the smile from her mouth, sweet and swift. Jamie leaves Keeley the way he came, skipping down the aisle as much as the narrow passage between the seats will allow.

Keeley glances down at Roy again when Jamie is gone. When she catches his eye, the heat from breakfast is followed again by the same guilt. He looks away quickly, finding something at random on the bench to fiddle with. Jamie's bag. The zip is undone, which apparently needs to be fixed urgently.

Guilt, that's another thing Keeley could feel. Maybe that she should feel. And it's another thing that doesn't surface. Keeley chews on her lip as she carefully sifts through whatever it is filling the place in her heart guilt would usually take. There's something curious there instead. Something a little too active to be hope. Something… ambitious.

Keeley carries that ambition with her to work. She's very late, but she secures a pitch meeting with a potential new client on a cold call within the first forty minutes at her desk. As she's walking out at the end of the day, not finding it necessary to hold herself past 5 after that, Keeley notices Barbara watching her. For the first time Keeley's seen - maybe for the first time ever - the other woman looks more nosy than judgemental or long-suffering. Keeley smirks and jerks her chin at her, bidding her to follow. Girl Talk is one of the top three best rewards of friendship, and Keeley isn't one to play hard to get. If Barbara's ready to receive, Keeley is ready to bestow. Not that she has much to say. Yet.

Jamie is already asleep in Keeley's bed when she gets home from drinks with Barbara. Normally, it would be a little early for Keeley, but she's tired from getting up to meet with Roy. She just strips down to her pants instead of bothering to change into sleep clothes, and climbs into bed beside Jamie. He grumbles something incoherent and a bit cranky before burying his face in her chest, all four of his limbs closing around her like mechanical traps. She'd think he was faking it to playfully motorboat her he lands so perfectly between her tits, but he immediately goes completely limp, starts snoring, and drools. Keeley laughs softly and wraps her arms around his head. His body weight will put her legs to sleep very soon, but that's something for future Keeley to wallop him with a pillow until he gets off her for. For now, she sleeps.

The dream doesn't wake Keeley up this time. She wakes up to the sound of the blender going downstairs, already cursing both Jamie and Roy under her breath as she's forcefully thrown into consciousness in the lingering morning dark. But her irritation is smothered and the bottom taken out of her stomach when she sees the fresh hand towel on Jamie's side of the bed, pressed under a heavy bottle of her conditioner to help it soak up the moisture below.

Keeley is still staring at that little tableau - so upsetting, so mundane - when Jamie comes back upstairs, smoothie in hand. He's visibly groggy, and naked, with a pillow crease across his face that Keeley can only just make out in the dim. When he sees she's awake, Jamie mumbles an incoherent good morning to her with his mouth full.

Keeley can't respond. She can't- She's glad, of course she's glad that Jamie seems okay, that he's not suffering when he's awake, but Keeley doesn't know how to pretend this is all normal. To let it pass by like she doesn't notice. She's really good - or bad, depending on how honest she wants to be - at ignoring things until they go away (or until they boil over or erupt) but she can't do that with this anymore. She can't keep running away from the assumptions, the jumped-to conclusions, the worst case scenarios that stalk her through every day that Jamie wakes up wet. They keep catching up to her and she has nothing to fight them off with.

So Keeley sits up to regard Jamie seriously, despite his bedhead. He looks back at her drowsily and she opens her mouth, but she can't think of a way to bring it up. She chews her lip, glances to the side at the towel. When she looks back to Jamie, his gaze has followed the same track, there and back to her.

"If you tell me to call me mum," he threatens, suddenly more awake, "I'm gonna fucking scream." His words and the look on his face are harsh, but he's still soft spoken in the pre-dawn quiet. Keeley offers a slightly stiff smile.

"Wouldn't be the first time I've made you do that," she jokes weakly. Jamie doesn't laugh. He only rolls his eyes and swigs another oversized mouthful of his smoothie. He turns his back to Keeley to cross toward her dresser, where he has an entire drawer all his own now. They've officially, measurably overtaken themselves from their first go, with that.

"First Roy, now you," Jamie mutters, irritably pulling out shirts, shaking them unfolded, and then shoving them back without either putting them on or refolding them. "Like I never thought of it. Maybe I got reasons, though, yeah? I'm not just stupid." Keeley's insides feel sharp and cold to hear him say that like she doesn't know it, or would ever imply otherwise.

"I don't think you're stupid, Jamie," she snaps. "Jesus, when did I say that?"

"And I'm not self-destructive!" Jamie adds, definitively no longer soft spoken, before Keeley can get more than a word in. He slams his smoothie in its plastic blender attachment cup down on the dresser. Icy pea-green sludge slops over the rim.

"I didn't say that either!" Keeley yells back. She doesn't know if she's raising her voice to match his or if he only raised his in the first place to match hers, but it doesn't really matter much now. Keeley finds herself standing up on the bed, her fists clenched at her sides, towering over Jamie from across the room. The conditioner bottle topples to the ground with a hollow smack. "I don't know what' s wrong with you because you won't fucking tell me!"

Jamie's fists are clenched too, and with the way he's looking up at her and the heinously stubborn, bratty look on his face, Keeley can hear him loud and clear in her mind telling her she can't make him.

Instead he growls, "There's nothing wrong with me." His teeth don't come apart to let the words through. His voice is low again, in a dangerous way now. The blushy pink light that starts creeping in through Keeley's window seems out of place on him. He looks like an entirely different man suddenly. The man he used to be, but the one Keeley herself never quite had to meet face to face.

Keeley waits for him to storm out. Or to say something horridly mean she can temporarily hate him for and then storm out. She waits to hear him stomp down the stairs and slam her front door shut behind him, to leave her to collapse into her explosive mixed feelings.

But Jamie doesn't go. He stays there like a stone, glaring up at her, with his expression challenging her to just try and move him - if she thinks she can manage it. They stay there in that strange and unexpected stalemate for so long that Jamie's alarm goes off. 

Keeley jumps at the sudden noise. Jamie doesn't, but he does look away from her at least, which is an embarrassingly huge relief. Something tells her she wouldn't really like what he was seeing in her right then. She sinks back down into sitting on the bed, letting the alarm go until it stops. It'll go off again in five minutes.

"I-" Keeley stutters. Like her voice flipped a switch in him, Jamie's shoulders drop immediately. His face doesn't soften exactly, but it loses that battle-ready edge. "Of course there's nothing wrong with you, I didn't… That's not what I meant."

Coolly unimpressed, Jamie folds his arms and raises both eyebrows. It takes Keeley a moment, but not long enough for the alarm to go again, to figure out what he's after. She smiles a little at it, the irony.

"I'm sorry, Jamie. I shouldn't have said that." He unwinds completely, though the nod he gives her is still sharp and jerky.

"Thank you for acknowledging my feelings," he says, slightly wooden the way things sound when they're rehearsed. "I'm sorry too. For yelling. And getting kale juice on your dresser. Prob'ly gonna stain. Read somewhere you could use it as dye."

Keeley lets him trail off, and when the alarm goes off again it doesn't startle either of them. Keeley leans over to flip Jamie's phone over and set it to snooze again. Five minutes. She can do better.

"I just want you to be okay," she says carefully. More careful of herself than of him, really. "I guess I just don't understand why you wouldn't…" Jamie rolls his eyes again, so Keeley lets her sentence die off prematurely. He's apparently heard it before, that his relationship with his mum seems so perfect and nourishing. That other people can't imagine he'd ever choose not to take advantage of it.

"It's a little more complicated between us than it looked when you guys went with me," he says, confirming that thought. "What you saw… It's like a habit we broke, do you know what I mean? Haven't really got back into it yet."

Keeley makes a low, understanding noise, even though she's not exactly sure if she does understand. Her relationship with her own mother has always been more of a chore than a habit, nevermind a good habit. If they could get even more out of practice with it than they are now Keeley would take that as a victory.

"Well…" she tries. "There's only one way to build a habit, right?" Jamie growls wordlessly, sounding very much like a younger, more toothless version of Roy. He glares off into the middle distance by his side of the bed, or maybe he's glaring right at that incriminating hand towel. Keeley watches as his shoulders tighten up again, as his hands flex compulsively at his sides. If he'd put on one of those shirts, Keeley knows, he'd be tucking his arms into the front of it and stretching out the hem.

"She knows what happened," he says before Keeley can get too worried he's upset at her again for pushing. "I told her. But she didn't tell me. She didn't say -" Jamie's breath stutters. His face gets that hard look on it again, but this time it doesn't reach his eyes. He won't let Keeley catch them, but even at an angle she can see them shine.

Keeley swallows, her throat gone tight around her heart, beating fast. She's so scared to know. But she has to, now. For her own peace of mind, sure, but she can't change her mind now without hurting Jamie too. She can't know how to brace herself, but she does her best, putting the metaphorical steel into her spine.

"What did happen, Jamie?"

He sighs first. He sighs so deeply, in fact, that he seems to shrink a few inches. Then, silently, he moves to the side table to thumb into his phone and turn his alarm completely off before it can interrupt them again. He sets it down right back where it was, and then he sinks right out of Keeley's view to sit on the floor, still as bare-arsed as the day he was born. Keeley tries not to think about when the last time was that she vacuumed there. There are more important things to consider right now, like whether or not she should crawl over to be there for him or if she should stay where she is and leave him his privacy. In the end, she avoids the issue like she'd done before, and pretends she hasn't made a decision.

"Told Roy this already. When we were there last season." Jamie's voice floats over to her, disembodied and tired but steady. His next words have that same rehearsed tone when he goes on. "When I were fourteen…"

The story is short and bitter. Keeley holds her breath through it all and it's not even long enough to hurt. His voice is not quite dull as he tells it, practically nonchalant. It's exactly the same as he handles the dreams, as just some slight inconvenience. Something that isn't very nice but isn't worth crying over either. Except, of course, that once he did cry. Whether it's resilience or some kind of fucked up emotional blockage or crossed wire, Keeley can't know. Even as Jamie's partner, it's not really her place to ask either - or at least it's not within her qualifications, as she just proved a few minutes ago.

"Anyway, so Roy said it were traumatizing, didn't he?" Jamie continues when the synopsis of events is done, more lively now that he's not reciting his past words over again. "Like, right off, yeah? First reaction. But when I told me mum…"

Keeley's decision unmakes and remakes itself, sending her scrambling over the mattress toward him. She flops down onto her belly and dangles both arms over the edge around him in the world's most awkwardly configured hug. He laughs, patting the back of her hand, and then gets up onto his knees so they can hug properly. His arms are warm over her shoulders, hands huge on her back.

"She didn't say nothing bad," Jamie assures Keeley. "She made me feel better and all, and she never let me off alone with him again after that, yeah? Not 'til it were my own choice. And she did a great sex talk and all. Obviously." Keeley laughs at that, strained as it is. He's not wrong, he's knowledgeable about sexual anatomy and he's clearly very comfortable with his body - and pleasure, in general. Keeley doesn't think she's ever gotten even a whiff of sexual shame off him. He's quiet after that, though, tucking his mouth into the curve of her neck as if to hold his own mouth shut.

"I get it, Jamie," Keeley says softly. She slides her hands up his back and into his hair, where she scritches gently at his scalp just to feel him get boneless and heavy. And Keeley does get it. Not exactly , no one had ever so blatantly pressured Keeley into sex like that, certainly not her own fucking parents, but she's a woman in society and the pressure comes part and parcel. More to the point, so does the lack of anyone using the big scary words no matter how much someone might need to hear them. Keeley shouldn't have had to figure out for herself that Jimmy was wrong to share her pictures, that her year 12 teacher should never have been interested in her in the first place, and Jamie shouldn't have had to find out he'd had a traumatic experience from his former childhood hero eleven years after the fact.

"That's what the dreams are about," Jamie finally confirms. He pulls out of Keeley's arms, but only to sit on the bed beside her. She rests her head in his lap instead of sitting up. "Not me mum, I mean, the-" He clears his throat. Keeley just nods; he doesn't have to say it yet if he doesn't want to. He doesn't have to say it ever, if he doesn't want to.

"What made you realize…?" she asks instead. "Was it just Roy?" Jamie's mouth scrunches in thought.

"No… Well, maybe," he says. He shrugs. "A bit at first. But then I had a shitty lay with a bird and got mad cross with her. 'S a bad look, innit." It's Keeley's turn to roll her eyes now, but she doesn't say anything about it. She knows Jamie isn't just concerned about how it looks to get upset with someone after having sex with them. He's just trying to keep it light. Considering the subject matter, Keeley thinks that's his right.

"You got triggered," Keeley says softly, realizing it herself as she says it. "That's what you were trying to 'figure out'? Your triggers?" Jamie groans theatrically, but he doesn't engage in any other dramatics. He reaches for Keeley's hair, twirling the strands in his fingers, untwirling, and twirling them again. Keeley can't help but smile. Soppily.

"Don't feel the same as when- other stuff," he grumbles, but she can tell by the loose set of his jaw, his exaggerated pout, and his continued petting that he's not really arguing. "Guess I had a panic attack too, though, which is regular. Stupid it's all called the same thing."

"It is the same thing, Jamie," Keeley insists. The charmed laugh she's holding back really undermines the authority of her tone, though. She sobers again quickly, thinking back. She hates the idea of hurting Jamie that way, and truth be told she doesn't really get what the purpose is. "You know you don't… have to know, right? We haven't run into one yet, just us. Have we?"

Jamie chews his lip briefly before admitting, "Not this time around." Keeley's heart stops painfully in her chest for a beat or two. "Weren't your fault," Jamie adds quickly. "I didn't know, yeah? That's why I should, innit." Keeley nods first, but then shakes her head.

"We don't have to go looking though, I mean," she reiterates. "If we find one by accident, we can just avoid it from there. Yeah?"

"Oh," says Jamie. Then, "Hm." Keeley waits in small anguish for him to think it as far through as he needs to and give her a real answer, but before he can his stupid fucking phone goes off again. Unlike Keeley, Jamie seems relieved for the interruption. "Ah, that'll be Roy telling me he's gonna fry my balls in oil for being late." He leans forward to kiss her before sliding his thighs out from under her head.

"Jamie," Keeley warns lowly. He's already the rest of the way dressed and ready to go by the time she's sitting up. He pauses guiltily in the door on his way out. Not guilty enough to change his mind and call to tell Roy to wait a little longer, though.

"We'll talk about it more when I get home," he tells her. "Promise." He even meets her eyes over his shoulder to say it.

"Okay," Keeley accepts with a sigh, but it's to Jamie's back. He's running now, like she'd expected before. It's just instead of running from her anger, he's running from her reluctance to intentionally hurt him. He probably doesn't even see it that way.

Well, Keeley thinks, fortunately for both of them Roy is about to put that boy through the fucking wringer. With any luck, he'll send Jamie back home to Keeley just begging to be treated delicately again.

Chapter Text

Jamie sets up an appointment with Dr. Sharon, 'cause he still doesn't want to call his mum. Well, no, 'course he calls her, he's a good boy, good son. Mostly. To her, anyway. But most of the time they don't talk about Dad, and they definitely don't talk about her. Plus, as comfortable as Jamie is bringing up sex stuff with her - which is very - there's still a fucking line at a certain point.

So… Jamie can't really talk to Keeley or Roy, or the lads either, though he's never exactly talked to them, like, directly about anything like this, even though he's pretty sure he could. But he can't talk to any of them about it because they won't get it, or they'll think they get it too much and get weird. And he can't talk to Mummy about it because- Well, mostly because he doesn't want to. But Jamie thinks, in this case, maybe what he wants actually is what's important. Seems right. Good excuse, anyway.

So he sets up an appointment with Dr. Sharon. They have it in her new office up near Ms. Welton's, all official-like and not borrowed anymore now she's hired on here for good. It's swanky and modernist and shit, and Jamie whistles appreciatively at the digs. She gives him an indulgent smile (which he's proper proud of himself for totally reading right). He grins at her, and her smile widens into a more uncomplicated sort of happy to see him as she gestures him into a nice cushy armchair set up to face hers over a tiny glass table with a bud vase and a short stack of boring-looking books on it.

Jamie doesn't clam up. He's good at this therapy shit. When he gets too nervous to bring up what he's actually there for, he finds other things to talk about so he's not wasting either of their time. He's pretty sure Dr. Sharon likes him as a person anyway, and he likes her too, so it's kind of like cutting her a fat check just to get to hang out with him, which is pretty generous of him. Even if they never get around to what Jamie's fucking problem is, he can just make another appointment, and in the meantime she doesn't interrupt him or make him feel bad or stupid for anything he says so he gets to get a lot off his chest either way. It's win-win.

This time is a little different. Jamie feels different about it. He's nervous, so he's talking about whatever comes to mind, Dr. Sharon patiently nodding along, asking those leading questions she has in her magical way that in't condensating like other people's. But the Amsterdam thing and the nightmares and the talk with Keeley and the stuff Jamie figured out about being mad at Mummy and also a bit of the way training with Roy can make him feel sometimes is all crowding at the back of Jamie's teeth, pushing and shoving to get out. It gets to a point that talking and not saying it is so uncomfortable it almost hurts, his teeth and his tongue tingling unpleasantly with the unsaid, and Jamie has no real choice but to fall silent.

Jamie can't speak for several long minutes, no matter how hard he tries, no matter what he tries to say, but Dr. Sharon is patient with him even through that. She just watches him and waits, gentle and non-judgemental without pity. His throat starts to hurt.

Finally, Jamie manages to bite out, "Something happened to me." Dr. Sharon nods encouragingly, somehow knowing he doesn't mean anything they've already talked about, knowing that's not the end of what he's trying to tell her. "Dunno if it's bad enough to call…" Jamie trails off, drops his eyes. Roy and Keeley both seem to think it's that bad, and Jamie doesn't think - or he hopes, maybe - that he wouldn't get angry with Mummy over not making a bigger deal of it if it… wasn't a big deal. But it still just doesn't seem like it should count. He doesn't feel like he was- Well. He just doesn't feel like it's that bad. Feels actually a bit guilty for even comparing it to what he knows is much worse.

"A lot of people feel like that. That what they experienced isn't bad enough to be abuse," Dr. Sharon acknowledges softly. She dips her head slightly to catch Jamie's eye before she goes on. "Abuse is a pattern of behavior. It's not how severe the actions, or how much the victim suffers, or even the intent of the perpetrator that makes it abuse."

Jamie nods uncertainly. She's told him that before. This is different, though. "Yeah, but… It only happened one time."

"If your father was the perpetrator, then we know it did not happen one time," Dr. Sharon insists. "Remember, it's the pattern. No single incident tips the scales, nor exists separately from the rest."

Using the same simple, nonchalant words he'd used to tell Roy and Keeley - something of a script, now - Jamie tells Dr. Sharon about Amsterdam. She reacts a lot like Roy did actually, nodding along to the story quietly and then at the end commenting that she understands how that could have an effect on him. Jamie tells her about the sort-of fight he'd had with Keeley too, and how he'd promised they'd talk about it more.

"And did you?" she asks. Jamie shrugs uncomfortably.

"Yeah, bit," he says. "Don't think she were too happy about it, though."

"What makes you say that?" Jamie shrugs again at first, but then remembers he's in therapy and it's all about him and Dr. Sharon won't judge him even if he's being a bit of a prick. He folds his arms and frowns, a bit pouty maybe but whatever. Her lips twitch. Jamie bets she doesn't think he noticed, but he did. It's okay to have a bit of a tantrum here.

"Honestly, think she's just pissed I won't agree with her," he says, even though he's not sure if he really believes that or not. He thinks probably they just aren't understanding each other, but Dr. Sharon has said several times that this is a 'safe space' where Jamie can say things he doesn't mean just so he can get them the fuck out his head, or figure out exactly what's wrong with them, or if they might even be right after all. "She don't want to upset me, but it's not like I'm trying to be upset just for the fuck of it, do you know what I mean? It's like you said, yeah? Only one way to find out what does it, so I gotta get it done so I know. It's the right thing to do."

Dr. Sharon makes a quiet, considering noise, and Jamie finds himself waiting with baited breath for some kind of brilliant revelation. Instead, she just makes a now-familiar request. "Walk me through that."

The first few times she'd said that, Jamie had felt like it was a trick. It was just like in maths in school when the teacher would make him 'show his work' so they could catch him thinking wrong and still mark him off even if he got it right, or mark him off twice if he got it wrong. But Dr. Sharon has never once made Jamie feel like he had a wrong answer. Not even when he definitely did. When she asks him what he was thinking, she actually really wants to know.

"Well…" he says slowly, working his way through the explanation carefully as much for his own benefit as hers. "It's like- I got mad at that girl I had over. Probably hurt her feelings, for one. And, uh. I just think if it was me in her place- Or, if it was me with Keeley. And Keeley felt like that sometimes, 'cause of something I was doing to her, only she dint never tell me so I just kept doing it and making her feel like that… Rather wouldn't have sex with her at all, honestly. So I gotta know so I can be able to tell her. Or, you know. Whoever. 'Cause they wouldn't want to do it."

Dr. Sharon smiles slightly. She takes a moment to stare at Jamie with a gentle sort of amusement that Jamie gets from Keeley and his mum all the time and used to get from Ted too, sometimes. Then she gives Jamie a slightly more pointed look and points out, "And you said you and she haven't been having much sex since that talk?"

"Yeah," Jamie confirms. She stares at him some more, waiting for him to figure something out. He stares back, waiting for the same thing. "...Oh. Well," Jamie throws up his hands, "how am I supposed to ever figure it out then?"

"Do you really need to?" Dr. Sharon asks. Jamie glares and opens his mouth, irritated to have to repeat himself which she usually doesn't make him do. But she shakes her head slightly to let him know she's not quite done asking. "Are you interested in having sex with other people?"

"No," Jamie says, and then immediately feels like a liar for some reason.

"Rather, are you interested in having more one night stands or other casual, short-term affairs," Dr. Sharon clarifies, apparently seeing something conflicted in Jamie's face. Right good at her job, Dr. Sharon is.

"No," Jamie says, and that feels much better.

"In that case, does it not seem redundant to go out of your way to find out what your sex-related triggers are with Ms. Jones when presumably the only person you need to be prepared to have informed discussions of the topic with is Ms. Jones herself?"

She pauses there to let Jamie parse through her point. He supposes she's kind of right. There wouldn't really be any difference between finding something Jamie doesn't like on purpose and talking about how not to do it again versus finding it by accident and having the same talk. Still… Something rubs Jamie the wrong way.

"I should know," he repeats, helpless and grouchy. Dr. Sharon makes another considering noise.

"Are you concerned that Ms. Jones wants to end her sexual relationship with you?" she asks.

"No," Jamie answers, and it's surprisingly easy. Their first go around he wasn't worried about it then either, but out of hubris. Then for a while he was a bit worried she wouldn't want to even be his friend, and then when they started up again this time he figured for a while he might just be a rebound to her. But he's confident now, more confident than he'd even realized. They have a real grown-up relationship now, one like what Mummy and Simon have. It's mental. In a good way.

"Then I don't see any practical reason for you to actively seek out this information." She pauses, tilts her head in that way that means she wants him to try some eye contact with her, to really hear her and take her seriously. "Jamie. You don't have to be ready to have sex with anyone who might be interested."

"Yeah, I know that," Jamie mutters petulantly. "I know what consent is."

"Of course I'd trust you to know that about yourself better than I do," Dr. Sharon agrees easily, sitting back again. "But sometimes it's helpful to hear these things said out loud, especially by an uninvolved party. And I think it's relevant here to point out that you're allowed not only to say no, but also to be unable to say yes."

Jamie doesn't ask what the difference is, even though he kind of wants to just to be difficult. He's pretty sure he gets it. He's also pretty sure it's not gonna sink in properly in just this visit. Still, he's here for a reason, and it can't hurt. "...say it again?"

Dr. Sharon smiles. "You don't have to be ready, Jamie. You don't ever have to be ready."

Jamie feels normal all the way home to Keeley's. He feels normal changing his clothes, kissing her hello, and cooking them both dinner. He feels normal all through eating that dinner sitting right across from her the whole time, while she tells him about some business stuff he doesn't understand and figures he's not really meant to.

And he doesn't exactly feel abnormal, watching her wash their dishes after. It's like when he's done with his weight reps - the Roy Kent kind, where he didn't start counting 'til it hurt - and he's just put the bar down knowing he doesn't have to pick it back up again.

"What?" Keeley asks when she turns to dry her hands and catches him staring at her in some kind of wonder. Jamie shakes his head.

"I'm just glad it's you," he says. She gives him a questioning look, but he can only shrug. He doesn't know anything else to say than what he already has. Except maybe… "I love you."

Keeley's face lights up brilliantly. "Yeah," she breathes. "Yeah, I love you too, Jamie." 

The morning brings training. Jamie hasn't been late ever since the morning of the fight with Keeley, and to be perfectly fucking honest he doesn't really count that first day when Roy showed up his house to drag him out as him being late either. Even if it did, that would only be twice Jamie's ever been late to training in his life, so he's not about to get worked up about it or take any of Roy's playacted grouching about it too seriously.

Even still… Jamie strategically doesn't mention it out loud when it seems like Roy doesn't go quite as hard on him in their pre-training training. He just feels a little smug about it to himself, privately.

Lucky he didn't speak, 'cause he would have spoken too soon.

When the rest of the lads have all arrived and got warmed up, Roy declares, "Everyone except Jamie is working on defense today."

"What 'm I doing, Coach?" Jamie asks - chirps, really, in a great mood from his breakthrough at therapy yesterday and the easy (so far) morning. He lets some of the air out of himself when he sees the way Roy smirks. "Oh no."

Roy's smirk turns shark-like. "Eleven vee one. Get him." While the lads cackle and banter him a bit, Roy adds, "As for you, Tartt, if you don't give me at least one fucking goal I'll run you so hard tomorrow morning you'll throw up 'til you turn inside-fucking-out. And you lot!" He rounds specifically on Dani. "If you fucking give him one for fucking free, it'll be your insides on the fucking out, got it?"

"Yes, Coach!" they all chorus.

"Then get fucking to it! Whistle!"

Nate sets them up with Colin in Jamie's usual place in center, the two of them smiling a little shyly at each other. Nate is also the one to blow the whistle, straight-backed and stone-faced and professional and honestly kind of intimidating even next to Roy. Then again, maybe Jamie isn't as intimidated by Roy anymore as he should be. Come to think, maybe a lot of the rest of them aren't either.

They're off, and with all eleven guys against him even as fast as he is now, Jamie is taken down almost immediately. They go again and Jamie lasts a minute longer, then gets fucking bodied. They go again, down he goes. Then on the fourth run, something new happens.

It's Sam who tackles him. Jamie reacts on muscle memory, the way most of the technique type stuff is always done at this level. It's a different muscle memory than usual, though. Jamie doesn't spin or lunge to try to avoid, knowing he's caught, but he doesn't tumble into a proper safe fall either. His feet go into the dance they've been learning all season, kissing the ground only as little and as long as they absolutely must, one at a time. Jamie can almost hear the smack of the rope against pavement, the tuneless rhythm of little girls' jumping rhymes.

Of course, as soon as he realizes he's doing it and looks, he trips, and goes down not proper and safe at all. He steps on Sam a bit and then faceplants hard into the pitch. Lucky he doesn't twist his bad ankle again.

"Oh shit, Jamie," Sam hisses, up on his knees in a second and reaching out to check Jamie over. Jamie isn't paying attention to him though.

He shoots up onto his hands and knees, whipping his head round to look at Roy.

"Bloody double dutch!" he shouts. Roy gives him a tight, satisfied nod, grim little smile on his face. A thrill shoots through Jamie from deep in his gut. He's on his feet before Sam can reach him.

"Start it again," Jamie demands, despite that not being his place really. But he's excited now, and friendly with them in other times, so no one takes issue with him overstepping a bit anymore. They don't wait around for one of the coaches to confirm the order, and they scrimmage again from starting positions.

They do that for the entire practice, the defensemen switching out with each other periodically so everyone - except Jamie - gets training in. The lads who are off go to do something with Beard at the far end of the pitch. Jamie doesn't know what and he doesn't bother to figure it out. He doesn't care.

In the end, Jamie doesn't score for Roy. On the other hand, with his very good double dutch skills, Jamie does miraculously manage to stay on his feet through more than a few unavoidable tackles. By the end of training, Jamie even manages to keep possession of the fucking ball through a tackle, before being taken down by a second one.

Jamie doesn't think his shins and ankles have ever hurt so bad in his fucking life, but the inside of his head has never felt better. He's gonna be such a fucking legend. He's gonna blow Zava and Roy Fucking Kent out of the fucking water.

"You're incredible," Roy growls at him when he calls training off and Jamie rushes over to him. "You're fucking incredible, Jamie." Jamie can't get a grasp on words, too worn and blissed out, so he just lets his mouth hang wide and his tongue loll out. Roy grabs him by the scruff and shakes him. Jamie moans out loud.

Roy's eyes widen and his grip tightens briefly.

"Good-" he says, but sounds like he's cut himself off short from saying more. "Good, you did good." Jamie whines softly, wanting to hear what Roy really means. Roy opens his mouth, maybe - hopefully - to say it despite whatever reason he didn't. But he snaps it shut again, and before Jamie can beg him, the team is piling onto his back, cheering and banging on over his new trick.

Jamie basks in it, of course. The touch and the noise, a majority of his favorite people all so close and so happy with him obviously going to his head and pushing him up even higher. He's not fully conscious of it, but he thinks he might end up with his mouth on some of them. None of them seem to mind it if he does, so he doesn't much care. All the while, though, Jamie keeps looking over at Roy.

Roy watches the celebration closely. Maybe even unblinkingly.

Impulsively, Jamie ducks his head into the coaches' offices before he goes home after changing out of his kit.

"Know you said I were good an' all," he quips to Roy, "but I still expect the punishment you promised tomorrow." Roy seems gobsmacked for a moment, but he recovers quick.

"Gonna make you regret saying that," he snaps back. "Make you regret being fucking born." Jamie grins at him and heads out.

"Mind your fucking business, yank," he hears Roy grumble as he goes.

"Does that apply to non-yanks?" Nate asks cheerily. Whatever answer he gets is a mystery to Jamie, since the last thing he overhears is him and Beard… barking?

The headspace is still going strong by the time Jamie makes it back to Keeley's place. She's working from home today, apparently, but she's on the couch with Sex and The City on, so Jamie knows she's not doing anything too important right at the moment.

On pure instinct, Jamie drops to his knees at her feet.

"Oh, hello," she says, snapping her laptop shut. She curls her fingers into Jamie's hair and Jamie groans, his eyelids fluttering and his mouth dropping open again. "Good day at training?"

"Yeah," Jamie breathes, burying his face needily in her thighs. "Did good. Roy said. Good. Incredible, he said I was." Keeley's fingers falter slightly where they've taken up scritching against Jamie's scalp. He whines and arches into her touch until she starts petting him again.

"You are incredible, Jamie," she says, slightly delayed. Jamie moans again. "Roy was impressed with you, hm? You must deserve a treat."

"Yes," Jamie begs. "Please, Keels."

"What do you want, then?"

Jamie reluctantly sits back, just barely out of her reach if she stays reclined the way she is, which she does. He sits prettily on his heels and dips his chin slightly, so that he can peer up at her through his eyelashes. Croquet-ish. Like Lana Del Ray.

"May I have your cock, please?" he asks sweetly. She wouldn't make him ask like that, if she even made him ask at all, he knows. But it just feels better, somehow, to make himself be all polite and nice, to put himself below her and pitch his voice up, a bit girly, and plead to get fucked as vulgarly as he can.

Keeley's breath hitches and she bites her lip. She leans forward so she can get her hands in Jamie's hair again, much less gentle with him now, tugging in the way that makes his bones melt inside him.

"Of course you may," she says, and she takes him upstairs and gives it to him.

Jamie's still catching his breath, flat on his back in Keeley's bed with her laying on top of him, strap still wet between his legs, when she abruptly lifts up to look him in the eye, digging her bony little elbows hard into his pecs. Ample as they are, it still stabs. He makes a noise of complaint, but doesn't push her off.

"So," she says. Her face is grim and serious but her eyes are bright. "Roy, yeah?"

"Yeah," Jamie agrees automatically. Then, "Er, what about him though?"

"Well, we could-" She pauses and Jamie watches in real time as the light of excitement in her eyes dims and goes out. "Okay, wait, I think we…" She gets up and does her post-peg routine, then gets perfunctorily dressed in a cami and boyshorts and brings Jamie a t-shirt. She knows him too well to suggest pants when he's in bed - and anyway, he's still kind of wet down there so he'd only have to change them again later probably. He kind of likes the feeling, and doesn't want to clean up just yet. He sits up to shrug on the shirt, though. If Keeley thinks it's important.

"Okay," Keeley says again, once they're both as dressed as they're going to get and they're sitting cross-legged on top of her blankets, facing each other. "Roy. I- You know I still lo- have feelings for him, yeah?"

"Yeah," Jamie repeats. He wasn't worried, but Keeley's seriousness is freaking him out a little. "Are you breaking up with me about it?"

"No!" Keeley assures quickly, leaning forward to grasp Jamie's hands. She seems to decide that's not reassuring or close enough and climbs partway into his lap. They're breathing the same air when she continues. "Whatever else comes from this conversation or doesn't, Jamie, I'm sticking with you. I want us to work, that's first priority. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Jamie says. He breathes a sigh of relief, and then plops a wet but chaste little kiss on Keeley's jaw, since he's there. "Okay, so… Roy?"

"I just… I think maybe you're into him too?" She says it kind of like a question even though it in't really, so Jamie doesn't know how to answer. She keeps going when he doesn't say anything. "You definitely- I mean, at least he turns you on. Right?"

"Well, he is fit," Jamie acknowledges. He had his late night visits with that poster on his wall as a kid, he wouldn't try to deny that, might even bring it up himself if he thought it were relevant or funny. If he had to pick a first celebrity crush, it would probably be Roy - although that Roy, the one on telly and in Jamie's adolescent head, is a different guy than the real life Roy.

Turns him on is not really the same thing as being fit, though, is it?

"He makes you get the way you get when you're with me," Keeley says next. Which is also a different thing. When Jamie thinks of it that way, though, yeah it's true. He weren't really thinking of it like a sex thing, like Keeley's implying now, even though it definitely happens during sex and when it happens outside of sex it makes him want to have some.

"Oops," he says, realizing some things. "Think I might've been accidentally hitting on him." Keeley laughs, gentle and sweet.

"Yeah, I think you might have too," she says. "But I think he's been doing it back, yeah?" Jamie shrugs. He's not sure. He's not so great at reading people usually - except Roy and Keeley are shaping up to be exceptions to that, at least certain ways. He's not exactly at his most detailed orientation when he's in that floaty being-good place, though.

"I flirted with him a bit too," Keeley confesses. "And he did it back. So I was thinking maybe we could… bring him in. To 'us'."

Jamie wrinkles his nose slightly. "You mean like cup holding?" he asks. Keeley's brow creases and she frowns. "I tried that once but I dint like it much. And Bumbercatch were upset at me over it later."

"Cup…?" Keeley mutters. "Wh- Bumbercatch?"

"I guess that were like the other way, though…" Jamie muses. "'Stead of me fucking you in front of Roy, it'd be Roy fucking you in front of me, yeah? 'Cause I'm the husband- Well, boyfriend, but."

"Oh! Cuckolding! That's not… really what I meant." Keeley tilts her head. She pets through Jamie's hair some more, which helps him not get freaked out again at the weird look she gives him. "You didn't like that?"

Jamie shakes his head. "Janet is so nice, really, but she were on about how much better I am in bed than her husband before I even did anything. And she kept saying about how young and fit I am, and how me cock's big or whatever… Dunno, guess it's all true - 'cept the cock bit - but I would've rather been in between them, to be honest." He shrugs, dropping his eyes from Keeley's face to her tits. Not 'cause he wants to look at her tits particularly, but because they're right there in his eyeline and they don't look back, and seeing them reminds him how soft and nice they are to have a cuddle with.

"You do have a pretty average sized cock," Keeley agrees. She scoots further into his lap and starts petting him, soothing strokes through his hair down the back of his neck.

The night he had with Janet and her husband, whose name he never even learned, plays like a muted video in Jamie's mind's eye, thankfully not entirely wiping out Keeley's tits and her comforting weight on top of him, the soft warm skin of her hips in the palms of his hands.

Slowly, Mr. Bumbercatch disappears from the scene and Janet becomes a faceless, featureless other woman. The compliments she showers him with are equally as unidentifiable, so generic they aren't even made up of any specific words in particular, only the gist of them: that there's something about Jamie that just makes him inherently good for having sex with, his body is desirable, and his masculinity is exactly the kind that pleases women.

"Maybe a bit below average," Keeley adds, belated and cautious, experimental. Jamie rests his head on her bare shoulder and nods. "Huh. I think maybe I have another guess... But Jamie, I really still don't want to- to test you." She starts to pull away from him. Briefly, Jamie's grip on her tightens, before he gently scolds himself and lets her go.

"You're right," Jamie blurts as soon as Keeley's settled down at his side on the bedspread again. "About- We don't have to go looking for stuff to go wrong." He repeats what Dr. Sharon said, in perfect verbatim and with all the same tones and that, the way he used to get in trouble for doing in school 'cause people think it's annoying or insulting when it's them. Dr. Sharon never has, though, and she in't here anyway, and also Ted thought it was - in Ted's words - 'a hoot'. "I don't have to be ready."

Keeley's slightly teary-eyed, but she smiles at him when she nods. "And we don't have to invite Roy," she adds. "It was just an idea." She smiles a little wider, takes Jamie's face between both hands, and rubs their noses together. "Just me and you against the world."

They settle back down into bed to have a cuddle before they go and figure out about dinner. After a few minutes, Keeley adds, "I'm sorry, you know."

"What for?" Jamie asks.

"I had you so wrong." Jamie shrugs, as well as a man can shrug when he's laying down with a beautiful woman in his equally beautiful arms.

"Yeah, but I had me pretty wrong too, didn't I." Keeley makes a face, like she thinks Jamie's letting her off the hook and she doesn't deserve it. A moment later she smiles at him, though, a little bit sad maybe but genuine.

"I'm glad I get to have you right, now," she says. She strokes a finger down the bridge of his nose. When it's in range, Jamie takes it into his mouth and gently sucks.

They end up ordering dinner in. Later.

Jamie has the nightmare again that night. An approximation of Janet turns into an approximation of Keeley turns into the vague shape of another woman, older than him but taller than him too, growing into a giant to make adult Jamie feel child-sized. She has no face, or it's blurred out or something, but Jamie knows she's wearing makeup from the sticky, waxy lipstick smears she leaves on his lips. 

"There, see?" she says inside his head, gentle and kind. "Easier than you thought, right? You're a natural."

Much like in Amsterdam the second and third times, Dad isn't there but Jamie can feel his presence anyway. Like a shadow in the window, behind the curtain.

He wakes up feeling paranoid, exposed. He notices groggily that he hasn't made a mess this time round, which is good because he doesn't want to leave the safety of Keeley's arms and her big fluffy comforter. He ducks his head underneath the covers and buries his face in her belly. She murmurs sleepily and pets through his hair like it's reflex. A few moments later she wakes up just enough to lift the edge of the comforter and peer down at him.

"Alright?" she asks. Jamie considers just saying yeah and leaving it. It's not a lie, really, he's just a bit uncomfortable and it's already wearing off anyway. In the end Jamie decides not to do that.

"Nightmare," he admits. Keeley hums in acknowledgement. She shifts around slightly so she can pet him again while still holding up the cover to see his face. He resists the urge to hide it under her shirt, and the longer he does the less he wants to do it. It's only Keeley.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" she asks.

"No," says Jamie. "I'm alright." Keeley stares down at him for a long time, for long enough that the last wisps of the specter of his father fade from off the back of Jamie's neck as if they were never even there.

"You sure?" Keeley whispers, almost managing to look really serious despite the pillow crease in her cheek and the bedhead Jamie knows is just out of his view.

"Yeah, I'm good," Jamie assures her through a smile. "Not battling nothing, anymore. Just is, yeah? Promise." He snuggles into her belly a bit more, letting her shirt ride up under his cheek so he can get his skin on hers now that he doesn't have to hold himself back from hiding. His morning stubble tickle-scratches at her until she squirms and flicks him in the forehead to get him to stop. He snickers, but he quits it.

They fall back to sleep together like that, Jamie struggling to breathe because as Keeley drops off she hugs him tighter and tighter round the head. He doesn't pull away.

When Jamie wakes up again, it's with an incredibly dry mouth from having to breathe through it for hours. He untangles himself from Keeley, from the fluffy comforter, and wobbles his way into his clothes in the dark. He uses his own toothbrush to brush his teeth in Keeley's master bathroom.

As he's pulling into the car park at Nelson Road, Jamie's heart starts to race. On the steering wheel, his palms start to sweat. He can't stop replaying Keeley's questioning in his head, can't stop thinking about how fit Roy is and how good it feels to work hard to please him.

On pure impulse, Jamie tugs out his phone and finally fucking calls Mummy.

"Everything okay, baby?" she says right off as soon as the line connects. It's a fair question; it's the fucking arse-crack of dawn on a Wednesday.

"Yeah, good," Jamie assures her quickly. "Sorry, um. I got- there's other stuff, but… You know I'm bi, right?" There's a very short - and very loud - pause, and then Mummy laughs, bright and honest and beautiful and fully at Jamie's expense. He rolls his eyes, but he can't help the grin. He likes a bit of banter anyway, and there's nothing in the world that could make him not like the sound of Mummy happy.

"Yes, baby, I know that," she says once she manages to stop laughing and catch her breath.

"Thought so," Jamie says. "Just figured I should make sure. You know, actually say it and all." She makes an indulgent sound of agreement, humoring him like, and then ruins it with a poorly choked back giggle.

"Thank you for telling me, love," she says, trying and failing to sound like she's taking it deadly serious. She gives up quick, laughing again. Jamie snorts too. "Any particular reason why you wanted to tell me right this very moment?"

"Dunno," Jamie says. Not exactly a lie, not exactly the truth. "Haven't figured it out yet. Get back to you on it, yeah?"

"Of course, baby, only when you're ready," Mummy says, which of course makes Jamie think about the 'other stuff'. He chews on his lip for a moment, then brings his thumb nail up to his mouth so he can chew a little harder. Mummy doesn't make any noises about hanging up, or start on her own topic. She knows all of Jamie's different types of quiet. She waits.

"Amsterdam," Jamie finally manages after a couple of false starts. From the sharp intake of breath audible over the line, he doesn't need to be any more specific than that. "You should have told me what that was." He presses his mouth tightly closed after that, forcing himself not to make her excuses for her. Not to rush on and say in a big, apologetic hurry that he knows she did her best, she only did what she thought was right, she'd never hurt him on purpose, that it was scary and complicated and she was dealing with it all by herself, too young just like him. They both know he knows all that. That's not what this is about.

"I didn't know what to do," she says at first. Jamie closes his eyes and waits for her too. Gives her the grace. It takes her only the space of a breath. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm so sorry."

"Thanks, Mummy," Jamie chokes, holding back tears just because he doesn't really want to walk onto the pitch all snot-nosed and he's already running late from this. "Talk about it more later, yeah?"

"Always, Jamie. About anything." They exchange their I-love-you's and their goodbyes, and then Jamie jogs out of the car park into the building.

"Where the fuck-!" Roy shouts the very instant he senses Jamie's presence.

Not really meaning to, Jamie blurts, "Finally called me mum." That sure shuts Roy up. Neat trick, too bad it'll only work once. He freezes like a fucking rabbit in a passing shadow, wide-eyed and unblinking and all. There's two takeaway cups in his hands, like always, but he's holding them too tight and the lid on Jamie's iced coffee has popped off.

"Good," he says stiffly. Jamie takes the coffee, blindly pressing the lid back on.

"Were about Amsterdam," he adds, just as impulsive as calling Mummy in the first place. Roy's jaw clenches and his crazy caterpillar eyebrows do something weird that Jamie can't assign a feeling to, except that obviously Jamie doesn't have to be any more specific than that with him either. "Got it sorted."

Roy's eyebrows do something else. Might just have a mind of their own, to be honest. "Don't… really think that's something you just- fix," he mutters. Jamie snorts.

"No, definitely not," he agrees. "But I got it sorted." Roy stares hard at Jamie's face, right in his eyes, like he's trying to look at all of Jamie's insides through them. Finally, he nods again, slightly less stiff but still visibly uncomfortable.

"Good." He gives it a pause, long enough for both of them to step away from the topic, to each take one long sip of their morning drinks. Then he barks, "Hands behind your back," and Jamie realizes all over again that he's in some trouble. (Two different kinds.)

Jamie's punishment for not scoring yesterday is to run an obstacle course that would have been an annoying little bitch by itself, with his arms wrapped up from wrist to elbow. It's bondage tape that Roy's used. Jamie is horribly distracted at first, wondering if he's supposed to know that or if Roy was hoping he wouldn't.

Then Roy makes him run the course about fifty billion times, and most coherent thought gets steamed into mush in Jamie's head like overdone broccoli. Roy's not done with him after the obstacle course, either. He leaves Jamie bound and has him try kicking rabonas like that. From the frankly evil look on his face as he watches from the bench, Jamie would guess that bit's just for the pleasure of seeing Jamie trip himself and fall flat on his fucking face over and over again.

So of course Jamie's half hard the whole time.

"Alright, alright," Roy chuckles the twentieth time Jamie eats shit. His voice is warm. His smile has gone less evil, fonder. Jamie's dick fills a little more. "Come over here, let's get you looked at."

Jamie stays on the ground on his belly for a moment. He knows it's not smart to do anything he hasn't done before when he feels like this, that it usually backfires and makes him feel bad later. But it's also not like he's out of his right mind. It in't even like he's drunk, really, he's just… Everything feels good, and easy, and simple, even though he just spent the last half hour failing pretty bad in front of someone he wants to impress. Jamie stays there thinking about it, just feeling the dirt on his face and tasting hints of grass in his mouth, his body weight pressing his semi-firm cock into the ground. He stays for long enough that Roy starts to look concerned, which Jamie can't be having because if Roy thinks there's even the slightest chance he has a concussion he'll bench him for at least today's training even if the physios say he's okay.

So he makes a decision. He gets up onto his knees, and he doesn't get up further than that. He walks on his knees across the pitch, watches with a thrill and a spike of heat as Roy's jaw drops. He's speechless, motionless, when Jamie comes to kneel between his feet. Speechless, motionless, and - when Jamie sneaks a peek before averting his eyes respectfully back to Roy's face - hard. Jamie lets his jaw drop too, tongue out to make more room in the cavern of his mouth, to give a nice clear view into his throat if Roy wants to look. Or feel.

Roy reaches for Jamie's face, but cuts the movement off before his touch lands. Jamie whines, quiet and not too pushy, but honest the way he can't help but be like this.

"Fucking…" Roy mutters, struggling. "Tart." His voice is so low and bitten off, Jamie's not sure if he was really supposed to hear that or not. Either way, he stops presenting his throat to give Roy a bratty little smirk instead.

"Born that, yeah," he quips. Roy freezes for a moment, but then finally rolls his eyes and growls. Jamie shivers at the noise. He sighs in bliss when Roy grabs him by the chin. He touches Jamie roughly but with care, turning Jamie's head this way and that to check his pupils, to swipe away dirt and grass stains to see if he's scratched up. He hesitates again for a moment at Jamie's mouth, but when Jamie stays docile at the brush of Roy's fingertips on his lips, he visibly puts aside whatever is holding him back. He opens Jamie's mouth with his fingers, letting them bump up against Jamie's tongue and gums as he checks for blood or chips in Jamie's teeth. It's not necessary, something even the physios would probably only do if Jamie complained. But they both know Roy's not doing it - and Jamie's not letting him - for football reasons.

"Up," Roy orders. His voice is warm and fond again, even warmer and fonder than before, enormously gentle compared to his handling. Reluctantly, Jamie rises onto his feet, and at Roy's twirly gesture turns his back. Roy unwinds the bondage tape with rhythmic, staticky unsticking noises that Jamie wouldn't normally hear if he wasn't so deep in his own body.

Jamie moans out loud, open-mouth and fluttering eyelids, when Roy starts massaging his hands and arms. Jamie could have just as easily told him he don't have any numbness or pain, and it's not exactly a sexual touch anyway, but it still gets Jamie fully hard. Roy curses softly. He tugs Jamie's arms backward, just a little, both hands firm around Jamie's forearms, like he's thinking real hard about pulling Jamie onto his lap but won't. Jamie imagines him doing it, imagines sinking onto his cock that way. He groans again, louder, panting, and wobbles on his feet. The idea, and how incredibly close it could be to reality, takes Jamie out at the knees. He has to lock them to stay standing like Roy told him to be.

But then Roy lets go. He pushes Jamie very gently away from him by the hips. Jamie can feel him pull back, more than just physically. It's a momentary struggle for him to turn off his obedience, but he manages it and turns around. Roy meets his eyes, but only just barely, looking wretchedly guilty.

"Sorry," Jamie says. It's a bit mumbly, but it's nothing Roy hasn't figured out before. "Should've asked first." Roy's face does some more weird stuff, stuff Jamie wouldn't have been able to read when he's normal let alone like this, steamed broccoli thoughts and hard cock and needy tingly empty mouth.

In the end, all Roy does is grunt, "Yeah," and send Jamie off to get his second breakfast from the caff.

Jamie uses his cheat day that night to make Keeley something special. She comes home a little later than usual, making up for her early day yesterday. Jamie's just finishing up the last of the sopes - the way Dani's gran makes them, or at least the way Dani said his gran makes them when he taught the team how - when she comes in. She follows her nose into the kitchen.

"What's all this then?" she asks. She stands on her tippy-toes to whisper a kiss on the back of Jamie's neck as she passes behind him to get to the fridge.

"Get the salsa out of there too, would you? Everything else's about done and ready for it." Keeley hums to show she heard him, collecting it along with her fizzy drink. They set the table together, Keeley laying down dishes and setting out extra condiments while Jamie tops the sopes with generous portions of fried beans, pork belly, salsa verde, and cotija. They sit down, and Jamie waits for Keeley to start eating before he does.

"So," he says once he's sure she's enjoying herself. "Roy."

Keeley looks up and grins.

They don't want to freak Roy out, so they don't angle for any changes in their combined schedule to talk with him about it. Instead, Keeley just shoots him a very casual text asking if Jamie can tag along to their next breakfast date. If he's put out or made suspicious by it, it's impossible to tell. All he sends back is 'ok'. No emojis or nothing.

The next date in't 'til bloody next Thursday. In the meanwhile, every day it gets harder (ha) for Jamie to resist Roy's grumpy, micro-managerial charms. He comes home to Keeley shaking with desperation, and she teases him wickedly before fucking him as sweetly as can be. It makes Jamie want Roy even more, has him gagging for a rougher hand, and Keeley fucking knows it too.

At training, they don't do the whole team verse Jamie again, but they do start incorporating his new trick into their drills. The lads seem very nearly as invested in Jamie managing it as he is, each one of them watching him closely and offering up encouragement and suggestions for perfecting the revolutionary new technique. Jamie almost wishes Trent Crimm would have written his book about this season instead of last, so he could mark down that Jamie is the inventor and the spearhead of this but he isn't bringing it onto the field alone. One in a million he is, and one of eleven. He wants that on record. But then again… maybe it kind of already is.

Over the weekend, Jamie goes up to Manchester to talk in person with Mummy. They send Simon out with instructions not to come back for hours, and they lay everything between them all out. Jamie talks about Amsterdam, and all the other little ways she missed the mark or let him down. Mummy talks about Jamie choosing Dad over her, and all the other little ways he let her down too. Jamie tells her about his nightmares, and she tells him about hers. He tells her about fighting with Keeley and how weird it was and he had no idea what he was doing or how to react when she apologized, and Mummy admits that she and Simon fight sometimes too even though they went way out of their way to make sure he never knew. When Simon gets home, the two of them are tangled up on the couch all covered in each other's tears and snot, still sniffling. He valiantly doesn't make any faces about it, even though Jamie knows he's a little bit of a germaphobe, and goes into the kitchen to bake something that obeys Jamie's meal plan but still tastes like sin because he's got superhuman powers.

On Tuesday, Jamie has another appointment with Dr. Sharon. He tells her about talking to Mummy and she's very proud of him. He tells her about his and Keeley's plan about Roy and she does not seem surprised. He jokes around a little about her knowing all about it before he did, and she only smiles and moves them on.

He has the nightmare again on Wednesday night. It's been more than a week since the last one, which Jamie is proper thrilled about. He'd kind of figured he'd just keep on having it forever but just wouldn't be so fucked up over it now he's talked it all out and stopped stressing himself trying to fix it and make himself be as sexually available and easy to handle as possible. But it really seems like it won't be as often anymore either. He messes the bed again, and wakes Keeley up in the process, and she gets all concerned and asks him if he's really sure about Roy - but this time when Jamie tells her he's really okay, she actually believes him.

Keeley is groggy and cranky in the morning, so Jamie forgoes his usual smoothie (and the oft-cursed blender noises that come with it) and makes them both the fancy hot chocolate drink out of the mix Bumbercatch gave him for last year's Secret Santa, with a shot of espresso from Keeley's even fancier coffee machine.

Keeley and Roy apparently have a regular cafe, and a table there that in't reserved but is always left for them anyway. It's from back when they were together just them two. Jamie should probably be jealous over that, at least he knows most other blokes would, but then jealousy's not really a feeling he's felt much of before (why would he, he's him) so he's not all that surprised not to. Instead, he just feels very special to get to come along.

Roy is already waiting when Jamie and Keeley get there. The way Keeley smiles and shakes her head slightly - plus the background info Jamie has for himself - Jamie figures Roy must always get here first, early every time. They sit, and Roy already has a cappuccino ordered for Keeley and an egg sandwich and a cup of oatmeal for Jamie. Jamie gives a cheeky little wink as he gulps down half his water glass. Roy watches him, burning heat in his eyes that makes Jamie actually thirsty as he drinks.

"I invited Jamie because we have something we want to talk to you about," Keeley says after a few measured sips of her frothy coffee. She's got her carefully neutral-friendly PR voice on - only 'cause she's nervous, Jamie knows, but he still shoots her a look for such a shit opener. His mouth is full of egg and spinach, but he don't feel the need to rush it down when he looks over at Roy and he don't look like he's about to have a heart attack or flee the country.

Roy just sits real still, and after a moment he grunts and gives a tiny little dip of his chin that could almost be called a nod for Keeley to go on.

"Well, we've been talking- I mean," Keeley's mouth twists slightly and her cheeks go very pink; Jamie starts chewing faster, "you've been hitting on us. Both." There's a slight emphasis on 'you', like Keeley has to make the excuse that Roy started it before she can admit to wanting him back.

If Roy'd had, like, blinds blocking him off before, metaphorically, now it's one of those industrial metal shutters they lock in the front of shops when they close overnight that comes down hard behind his eyes.

"Right," he says. "Well, you can fuck off then. I can- I can keep to my fucking self." Keeley's eyes widen, like she could never have expected him to get defensive. Her lip wobbles, like she's taking that as a rejection despite the revealing stutter and all. Well, Jamie can't really blame her, since Roy did dump her before. He finally chokes down his too-large bite of sandwich with an impolite noise.

And then, because he's just as much of a gigantic knob as anyone else, Jamie blurts, "Fuck's sake, no wonder you two broke up," which is perhaps one of the stupidest things Jamie's ever said in his life - and the competition for that is pretty steep.

Roy stands up so swiftly that his knee gives an audible crack, loud and gross enough to make Jamie cringe - though one thing (among many) to be said for Keeley is that she's unaffected by the noise. Roy looks like he's going to ignore it too and stomp off on it anyway. Jamie lunges to the side to grab Roy's wrist, half over top of their little table, noisily rattling all their plates and cups.

"Wait! That came out really wrong, I didn't mean it that way," he pleads. "We weren't trying to accuse you of nothing, mate. Not like we haven't been flirting with you too, yeah? I've basically been trying to suck your dick right on the fucking pitch for weeks, haven't I. Please let us try again?" 

Jamie doesn't pay any mind to the scandalized mutterings from a few tables back. He couldn't be fucking arsed about making a scene or about using foul language in a cutesy little place at six in the morning, and right now he couldn't really be arsed about this getting out either. His heart pounds hard enough to almost drown out the beat of Roy's pulse against his fingers. Roy glares at Jamie's face, glares at his hand, at him, at his hand, and then finally- Thank fuck, he sits back down. Stiff and glowering, but still there.

"I'm sorry, Roy," Keeley says, her voice small. "I'm- We just meant- We were wondering… if you wanted to be with us?"

There's a long enough pause that Jamie has to start eating again just for something to do with his hands and mouth that in't fidgeting around and making disruptive noise. Finally, Roy breathes a big long breath in and out deep and slow through his nose.

"With you," he repeats. His face and his tone remain completely flat, held so tightly under his control that he can't also express his feeling on top of all that effort.

"All three of us in a relationship," Jamie elaborates when his mouth is- well, maybe not empty, but empty enough. "Together. A throuple, like."

Roy looks from Keeley to Jamie, Jamie to Keeley, back to Jamie. Flat as hell. "A throuple."

"We - both of us - want to date you," Keeley tries again. Jamie nods.

"And also keep dating each other," he adds.

"Right," Keeley agrees. She makes a gesture over her coffee mug, something that indicates union that probably wouldn't translate very well if Jamie and Roy didn't know her so well. "Throuple." Jazz hands, minimalistic as far as those go, and then she awkwardly tucks her hands underneath her thighs.

Roy keeps looking back and forth between the two of them, both blinking wide hopeful eyes at him. Jamie holds his breath. He can feel Keeley doing the same at his side. Over long, agonizing moments, Roy gradually starts to unwind. His face softens out into a more relaxed neutral expression.

"Yeah, alright," he says. Simple as fucking anything.

"Really?!" Jamie and Keeley squeal in unison, and then giggle at each other, all of their nervous energy popping in the air, sugary sweet and pink like a big bubblegum bubble. The corner of Roy's mouth lifts and at last he relaxes completely, lounging back in his chair and stretching out his knee. His foot brushes up against Jamie's. Their eyes meet, just to let each other know it's no accident.

"Mint," Jamie sighs. His grin is bashful, but still it stretches his lips across his face wide enough to make his cheeks start hurting in short order.

"Yes, oh my god, I was so nervous," Keeley says. She laughs a little, untucks her hands to shake them out. "Fucking hell. Okay. Logistics."

They talk about it a bit, and realize very quickly it really in't near as complicated as they figured it would be. They in't gonna be monogamous obviously, but Keeley uses the word polyfidelity, and that's basically the same thing only with more than two people. Committed, she says too. Closed. They touch on the idea of hierarchy, all three of them rejecting the concept for them outright. Really though, saying they're all equally together in words can only go so far. They just have to show it. Beyond that, it turns out there's really not much logistics to discuss.

"So…" Roy says, once the practicality interlude is over. "Are we taking this slow, or…?"

"I can wait," Jamie offers with a shrug. "But I rather wouldn't. If that's okay with you two."

Roy looks at Keeley. Keeley looks at Roy. Their past, even though Jamie wasn't really there for it, is tangible to him too.

"I miss you," Keeley whispers. Roy looks at her with that kind of open, devoted anguish that somehow manages to feel good.

"Miss you too," he says. He leans forward again when Keeley makes a vague gesture as to reach for him, reaches for her too. They hold hands on top of the table. Staring at their fingers folded together, Jamie feels so buoyant and golden inside he could actually shoot sunshine out his arsehole if he had to.

"Fuck's sake, Tartt," Roy mutters as he pulls back to lounge again and Keeley discreetly wipes her eyes. "You look like you're gonna start shooting sunshine out your arsehole." Jamie laughs, absolutely fucking giddy.

"Can we have sex right now?" he asks brightly.

"Got fucking training," Roy says. "You're not getting it easy from me now we're- fucking boyfriends or whatever shit."

"Sex is good cardio!" Jamie cheerfully insists. "And I definitely don't want it easy." He winks just to make double sure the innuendo gets across. Roy rolls his eyes dramatically before glaring at him, but he undermines himself with his smile.

"I've already done my hair and makeup, and I have to get to work," Keeley says, siding with Roy. Traitor. She stands, finishing the last gulp of her coffee and pulling her purse and her jacket into order. Then she pauses, smirks, and curls a fist into Jamie's hair.

Jamie's breath catches as Keeley pulls his head slightly back, his cock giving a twitch of interest. She holds him there for a few seconds, her fist tight enough to tug at his scalp.

Then she chirps, "Have fun at training, boys!" and flounces off toward the carpark to leave Jamie, now squirmy and warmed up in a different sort of way, in Roy's capable hands. 

When he brings his head back into a natural position, Jamie expects to see his coach smirking at him, in on Keeley's teasing. Instead, Roy is staring at him with slightly parted lips, dumbstruck, wide-eyed, and pink-cheeked.

It's a fitting conclusion to the conversation: she got them both.

Jamie doesn't let Roy give him a ride to the pitch even though Roy offered. Jamie does think about it, but on top of not wanting to leave his own car in the cafe's carpark all day, Jamie thinks he should take the few minutes of distance to get a fucking handle on himself. He's good at this, really, even better at it now than he was his first go 'round at Richmond, and he was already pretty good then. By the time Jamie's parking again, he's a top-and-still-coming-up Prem league footballer and nothing else - nobody's 'fucking boyfriend' at all, let alone his coach's. Roy keeps up the same level of professionalism throughout all of training seemingly without effort, aside from a few heated looks that apparently can't be stifled. Jamie pretends not to notice those, though. Until later, of course.

It's a little harder to be stoic about it when, after training is over and Jamie is showered, back in his street clothes with damp hair, Roy stands in the doorway to the gaffer's office and says, "Jamie. C'mere." Although to be fair, Jamie doesn't really try that hard not to let his grin light up his face, or to hide it.

Jamie closes the office door behind him at the instructive jerk of Roy's chin. He turns to face Beard and Nate when Roy does the same. Roy just stands there for a good long while, or at least what seems like a long while to Jamie, standing there trying to stay quiet and still and wait patiently. Roy has his arms crossed over his chest, his strong arms all on display up to the straining hems of his short sleeves. Jamie keeps himself occupied with the sight while Roy stares at an oddly smug-looking Beard in stony silence.

Finally, Roy flatly says, "Woof." Beard lets out a whoop, thrusting his fist in victory even as he springs up out of his reclined slouch and goes for the office phone with the other hand. He presses and holds a speed dial button, which if he's honest Jamie did not know that old relic could have.

"Should we call Ted too?" he asks the room. "I wanna call Ted." The glee in his voice and on his face is frankly a little disturbing; Jamie doesn't think he's ever seen Beard have this much expression of anything, and somehow excitement is way worse than angry or sad would be.

"You always wanna call Ted," Roy and Nate say in unison, Roy growly as usual and Nate with a soft kind of amusement. Beard grumbles at them, but it seems a bit put on.

"How about Trent 'Strategically Placed Rainbow Mug' Crimm?" Beard suggests with a smirk after a moment.

"How about I piss in your cornflakes," says Roy. Beard gives a lazy shrug, unconcerned.

"It doesn't actually taste that bad," he says. Jamie takes a breath and opens his mouth - after replaying the sentence a couple times in his head to make sure he heard it right - but before he or anyone can respond to that, Higgins comes bursting into the room. He's ruddy-faced and short of breath, not helped by the fact that he's already attempting to bark before he's fully inside the office.

Beard and Nate take up barking and howling too, more solid sounds than Higgins's gasping yaps. Roy rolls his eyes so hard it's more like rolling his whole head, but he nominally joins in. "Woof," he says again. "Bark bark. You should all be fixed."

"Oh, I already am," Higgins says, straightening up from his winded slouch. He makes a snipping gesture with his fingers. "Five is quite enough." Roy and Beard both grimace at him, but Nate just goes right on being softly amused. He leans on his elbows on his desk, pushed up against Beard's like Ted's used to be, and looks in turns at each of the three other men like he loves them.

"This meeting of the Diamond Dogs is officially called to order!" Beard declares. He claps once, then leans back into his original position with his feet propped up on the edge of his desk. "Coach, tell us the good news."

"How about rat poison? You mind the taste of rat poison?" Roy growls at him. Beard just smirks and raises his eyebrows. Roy curls his lip, to the same complete lack of effect. "Right, fine. But I'm only telling you fucks this because the paperwork needs a witness on coaching staff to sign off on it."

"I suppose that's why you called a Diamond Dog meeting knowing that would include Leslie, even though he's administrative," Nate says, cool and calm. Roy glares at him, and Jamie can tell even from just behind Roy's shoulder that it's one of his fiercest. Nate gives him a big sunny smile in return. Jamie is shocked and impressed.

"Jamie and I are dating," Roy reports, not gracing Nate with a verbal response. Jamie blinks at him. 'Course, he knew he'd been called in here for a reason, and he doesn't know what else he could have expected, but it wasn't this. "Jamie and me and Keeley. All."

"Like a throuple, yeah?" Jamie adds cheerfully. "The three of us, equal-literal." He vaguely traces a triangle in the air. He's staring, almost dazed, at the side of Roy's face. He knows he must look silly, so lovestruck there should be shiny pink hearts floating in a glittery haze all around his head. He doesn't care, though, not when he apparently doesn't have to around- around Roy's mates! Anyway, the longer he stares, the redder Roy's cheeks get, and no way is Jamie about to look away from that.

"Wow, a throuple?" Beard drones. "That's so crazy and unexpected, Coach." His sarcasm would be more caustic and convincing if he wasn't grinning big enough Jamie knows he is because he can hear it in the way it shapes his words.

"We're very happy for you, Roy," Higgins says, so deeply earnest it even manages to make Jamie a little uncomfortable, especially stood in between him and Roy. "All three of you have grown so much over the past few years, and that's in no small part due to each other."

"Triangle's the strongest shape," Beard recites. "That's Total Football, baby! Total Romance? Hm."

"Either of us would be happy to sign off," Nate agrees. "Are you going to be telling the team as well? The rest of the coaching staff? Oh, and I do believe I've won the wager. Ted was closer but he went over."

"I hate every one of your fucking guts," Roy says. He turns a sharp near 180 degrees and stomps noisily into his adjoining office, no doubt to get whatever this paperwork is. He brings it in, enough pages to be a stack but thankfully not a big one, clipped with bright purple binder clips. He sets it right in the center between Beard and Nate, over top of the tiny divot where their two desks come together, like he doesn't want to pick which one of them to sign it. They look at it, then at each other, and then with an unreadable expression and deliberately telegraphed moves, Beard flicks the packet over to Nate.

Nate skims through, then signs and initials in the proper places with a very fancy looking pen. When Roy hands the paperwork over to Jamie next, Jamie reads through every page slowly. It's in part because he's just a slow reader to start with, and in part to be careful. Thankfully, it's not too lawyer-y and stiff and Jamie's confident he understands everything it says about him and Roy 'fraternizing' and what they're still not allowed to do on club property (bummer, some of that) and what they should do if one of them takes advantage. There's a spot for Jamie to initial at the bottom of every page, and then a spot for his full signature at the very end, next to Roy's and Nate's already filled in, and one blank line left for the club owner.

"You'll both get a copy in your Richmond emails as soon as it goes through Rebecca," Higgins informs them once Jamie has signed and handed the sheaf back to Roy. "There will be a link in there that you can use to request physical copies if you rather keep your records that way." Roy nods sharply.

"Gonna give it to her in person," he says to Higgins. Then he snaps his attention onto Jamie, all of it, direct eye contact, and there's that heat again, but this time it's not escaping out from under Roy's grip. Jamie's breath catches. "First thing in the morning."

Roy pushes and prods Jamie out into the hallway through his own office so he can leave the paperwork on his desk and grab his jacket without them having to separate. Jamie is all too happy to go wherever he's told, provided Roy keeps telling him with his hands. Their exit is heralded by a new round of barking from the Diamond Dogs, slightly more rowdy than the first.

"D'you think Keeley'd be cross if we started without her?" Jamie asks. He floats along backwards to stay facing Roy, walking only a few steps at a time before stubbornly halting so that Roy has to move him again. Not that Roy seems at all reluctant to do it.

"We won't go too far," Roy says. He throws Jamie out the heavy front door, making sure to move in a way that lets Jamie judge how hard he's going to shove him so Jamie can compensate.

"What if I don't have enough self-control?" Jamie asks as he deliberately backs himself up against the driver side door of the G-Wagon. He slouches down a bit, putting himself a little bit further below Roy than their scant inch or so of height difference. Roy bares his teeth at him. He presses his forearm hard across Jamie's shoulders, pinning him to the car and giving him a taste of the full strength Roy has never actually used on him before, and - maybe not this one on purpose, but Jamie's taking it - threatening to slip upward and crush Jamie's throat.

"You will," Roy growls. He leans all his weight on Jamie. Jamie carefully doesn't squirm; he doesn't actually know which one of them is stronger now, or heavier, and the last thing he wants is to accidentally buck Roy off. "You will because I fucking told you to. Hm?"

"Yeah," Jamie gasps. "Yes, Coach."

About halfway through the ride back to Keeley's place, Roy reaches over and flicks Jamie in the nose. Jamie yelps and rears back.

"Stop looking at my fucking dick while I'm driving," Roy orders.

"Well, maybe if your dick would stop waving around trying to get my attention-"

"Oh, fuck off." But he laughs, and at the next red light he gives Jamie a mischievous look out of the corner of his eyes. Pretending to be paying attention to the road the whole time, he reaches over and tugs Jamie's shirt up to his armpits, undoes the button and zip on his trousers, and then for the last blissful, maddening few seconds before the light turns green again, he slides two fingers deep into Jamie's mouth. He pets over Jamie's tongue, the sensitive roof of his mouth, and once he's had his fill of that he just thrusts his fingers in until he's stopped by his knuckles knocking into Jamie's teeth, reaching into his throat. Looking for Jamie's gag reflex, maybe. Jamie makes sure he doesn't find it. Roy may not moan, but he does grind his teeth so hard Jamie can hear that, which is close enough.

Jamie stays like that after the light goes, rumpled up with his chest bare, briefs-covered hard-on rising up from his open fly. He absolutely does not stop looking at Roy's dick - and he gets the bright idea to let his mouth hang open too, just enough to sweep his tongue back and forth over his plump bottom lip. Roy curses out every single motorist they get stuck behind the rest of the way, even if they're speeding. Did this to himself, though, didn't he.

Jamie lets them in, since Roy hasn't got a key anymore. Or rather, he doesn't have a key again yet. Roy follows him in overly close, literally stepping on the backs of Jamie's shoes, probably as some caveman way of telling him to take them off. Jamie does as Roy wishes, and then gets rid of his trousers too when Roy snarls at them like they insulted his mother. He goes to pull his shirt over his head next, but Roy stops him. Instead of letting Jamie take it off, he holds the shirt up to the same spot he'd put it in the car, taking advantage of where his hands have to be to dig his thumbs into Jamie's nipples.

Right. Got a thing for being partially clothed - or at least for Jamie being partially clothed. Noted.

Roy does take his own shirt off, and his shoes, revealing his natural fur coat and a pair of socks with blue and orange paw prints on. Jamie laughs at him, but it's short-lived 'cause Roy's barely got both feet back on the ground before he's shoving Jamie onto the couch.

Roy is laid out on top of him in moments, his body heat sinking into Jamie everywhere their bare skin touches. Jamie grabs Roy's hips, and Roy gets two hands in Jamie's hair, and then they're kissing.

Roy's beard is a bit scratchy it happens, but not near as scratchy as Jamie had thought a beard would be. It's far from unpleasant anyway, not an itchy, rough thing that irritates, instead an extra spark to Roy's kisses that leaves Jamie's mouth tender and tingling. A minute snogging Roy feels, in the pause between, like five minutes snogging someone stubble-free. It's the same effect on Jamie's neck when Roy abandons Jamie's mouth in favor of sucking a spray of hickeys all the way down the column of Jamie's throat and back up the other side.

It doesn't take long for Jamie to understand the appeal of keeping his shirt on only to ruck it up so it doesn't cover him. Even with Roy actually fully shirtless above him, there's something about it that just feels so much more exposed. Like he should be covered. Roy leans up just enough to cup Jamie's pecs like they're breasts, and they feel like breasts - like, psychologically. Jamie feels like he's showing Roy something intimate and just a little naughty by having his chest bare. He rolls his hips to grind their cocks together, feverishly thinking about those bras that are useless except for being sexy with the peek-a-boo slit down the fronts of the cups. He pictures himself in one, shudders. Remembers Keeley calling him her girlfriend, moans.

"Yeah?" Roy breathes, squeezing. "You like your tits played with, sweetheart?"

"Fuck. Yeah," Jamie gasps. Then, impulsively- "Got them done bigger for you." It's not even technically totally untrue. Jamie's chest has gotten notably buffer after all the individual training Roy's put him through, all the work Jamie's done, changing his appearance along with his ability, all on Roy's orders. Roy goes still in shock, eyes flying wide. The only part of him that moves for a second is his hard cock; even through Roy's trousers, Jamie can feel it twitch against his.

The front door opening doesn't quite interrupt them. It breaks the tension of the moment, but doesn't pull their attention far from each other. They both glance toward the door, not bothering to even adjust themselves enough that they can actually see it. Jamie sets them to frotting again, slow and firm, dragging their shafts all along their lengths. Roy groans and matches his rhythm without missing a beat.

"Slut," he growls. Jamie moans in response, quiet but shaky, and once he starts he doesn't stop.

"That's a pretty noise to come home to," Keeley murmurs. She circles around to the front of the couch so she can see them. She perches on the coffee table and crosses her legs, settling in to watch them. Jamie lifts his arms over his head and arches his back, wanting to feel like Keeley's getting a good look at his tits too. Wanting to feel like exactly what Roy said he was - something Keeley flat out refuses to ever call anyone, and something Jamie never would have known to ask for anyway. He's never felt it before, good or bad. He's over-aware of everywhere he can be seen, of how he can be heard, of how soft and open his mouth is, the growing wet spot on his pants.

Keeley reads him the way she always can now. Her eyebrows raise slightly, then quickly settle back down as she remembers Jamie being sort of a princess actually isn't a surprise to her anymore. She smirks, opens her mouth, no doubt to say something that would twirl them both around her fingers (oh, Keeley's fingers…) again. Except then she doesn't. A new realization seems to hit her and she snaps her teeth together with a click.

"Boys," she scolds gently. "Did you talk before you started messing around like naughty teenagers?" Roy groans impatiently.

"Talked at the cafe, didn't we." He buries his face in Jamie's armpit as soon as he's done whining, and proceeds to lick and suck at the bunched up fabric there barring him from the sensitive, vulnerable skin. He slobbers diligently until the shirt is thin enough for Jamie to feel him through, even all layered up. That isn't exactly new to Jamie. He's a pro sports player, a lot of the people he hooks up with want to get covered in his sweat and the musk that builds up in his moist dark places. Still, this is Roy , and maybe it's mad but it's all different even if it's actually exactly the same. So Jamie really, really doesn't want to make him stop.

But Keeley's right. Keeley's right, and it was Jamie's own fucking idea in the first place to top it off.

"No, we gotta," he says. He knows he's audibly reluctant, but he's trying his best. "Roy, mate. Get offa me." To his credit, Roy doesn't argue with that, just said straight out like that. The bare minimum, Keeley would probably say, but it's still nice.

Roy levers up on his hands, half of a push-up, hovering over Jamie to peer down at Jamie's face, grumpy about stopping just when they were getting started but clearly trying not to show it. Jamie smiles a little to see it, touched. The min again, but no sense in not letting it make him feel good. It's odd, really, how the absence of something can make you realize it was ever there. Jamie's not nervous at all. He's not nervous to have sex with Roy, or to not have sex with Roy, or Keeley, not nervous about going through something with them without knowing for sure what will happen. He's not even nervous about having a fight with them, not now he's managed that once already with Keeley. He gets his arms underneath him too so he can lean up on his elbows and give Roy a sweet little peck on the lips.

"'Bout limits and allat, yeah?" he says, back down on his elbows. Roy blinks once, twice.

"Fuck," he rasps, drawing it out real long. There's that tormented guilty look again - getting real familiar now. If Jamie didn't bloody well know better he'd have to guess Roy were Catholic. Roy fumbles to put some distance between them in a sorry rush. He gets just about onto his knees before Jamie grabs for him. He's acting just as much on his feelings as Roy is, so Jamie sort of… forgets Roy isn't wearing a shirt, and he grabs a fistful of belly hair and tugs it sharply before his brain catches up. Roy makes a very interesting noise. A bit shell-shocked - and possibly hornier than he's ever been in his life - Jamie lets go, dumbly petting over the spot as if to soothe it or put it back to order.

"Um." He clears his throat. "Uh. 'S just a couple, really. That I know of- That we know of. So far." Roy grunts, not uncurling. Jamie shoots Keeley a pleading look. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head at them, but she also comes over to tuck herself in between Jamie's head and the arm of the couch, where she can alternate brushing her fingers through both of their hair.

Roy whimpers and melts back down onto Jamie like snow in the sun when Keeley squeezes firmly at his scruff, burying his very hot face in Jamie's belly. Right. Also noted.

Jamie struggles valiantly to keep his brain inside his head for just a few more minutes, haltingly explaining to Roy all the various things he don't like, Keeley filling in with what she knows whenever Jamie falters or interjecting to say so when she's not into something he lists off either. He builds up to the Dutch elephant, starting off with just regular old turn-offs and slowly stepping up. Roy is quiet and still through it all, only nodding slightly or squeezing Jamie's waist whenever he decides Jamie needs encouragement.

He only has any questions at the end. "What- You don't like compliments? " His shoulders tense for a moment, like he's going to push himself up again to look Jamie in the face, but he doesn't.

"Just certain ones," Jamie corrects indignantly. "It's- I didn't come this way, d'you know what I mean? I'm not made for it."

"He likes to earn it," Keeley adds, which is true on its own, sure, but it in't quite right about this. Jamie lets it stand for now though, turning over in his head how to explain better. Roy breathes deep, and is the first to break the pause this time.

"You like it when I make it hard on you and you're good for me." Jamie's thoughts skitter around. He remembers saying that, deep in that easy, blissful, sexy place, not thinking about what it sounded like because he weren't thinking about fuck all. He clears his throat again, but his voice still cracks when he says yeah .

"Just… It's good if it's about what I do," he tries again. "Not if it's what I am. Yeah?" Roy nods his understanding. Keeley hums.

"Not always," she purrs, her voice dipping real low. "He really likes to be told he's as pretty as a girl while he's getting fucked." Jamie and Roy both freeze for a moment at that, too struck with want to move or breathe. Keeley grins smugly. Then, in a near perfect repeat of her tease at the cafe that morning, she gives Jamie a fleeting pinch on the nipple, and cheerfully declares, "Okay, Royo, your turn!"

Roy keeps his face hidden as he grudgingly lists the things he isn't into. At the end, like he's evening out the field after Keeley put Jamie on blast, he adds one thing he does like.

"Huh," Jamie says consideringly. "Could've fucked you off the bike path." Roy groans, embarrassed.

"Mood still there?" he mumbles after a moment. Jamie snorts. Keeley too.

"What does it feel like, granddad?" he jokes. "You're laying on it."

"Honestly, polyamory's perfect for Jamie," Keeley says. "I've never dated anyone who wants sex more. Maybe with two of us we can actually keep up!"

"Oh, fuck off," Jamie laughs, swatting at her when she gets up and dances out of his reach. "Can count on one hand all the times I wanted to fuck that you didn't."

"Huh, you're right," Keeley agrees, feigning having to think about it. "I guess polyamory's perfect for me too!"

"Think you can handle us, old man?" Jamie asks Roy, nudging up pointedly with his hips. "You won't have a heart attack or nothing?" Roy growls and grinds down on him back, firmly enough that the hard edge of his trouser button hurts on the way down, making Jamie tremble and moan under him.

"I'm gonna fuck you both until neither of you can fucking walk, and then I'm gonna fuck you again while you wriggle helplessly on my cock like a fucking fish on a hook."

Jamie squeaks. He hears Keeley gasp over by the stairs, one of her shoes hitting the floor with a thunk. When their stunned silence stretches, Roy finally looks at their faces again.

"Is that-?" he worries.

"Yeah, good!" Jamie assures in a hurry, nodding frantically.

"You two better get your tight arses in gear," Keeley calls from quite a few steps up from where she was a moment ago. "I'm already naked."

Roy and Jamie don't need to be told twice. They scramble after her.

In Keeley's bedroom, Jamie debates for a moment keeping his shirt on for Roy. He decides not to in the end, in part because he doesn't want to hassle with it trying to keep it rucked up so he can feel their skin on his, and in part because he just genuinely enjoys being naked. He tosses it and his briefs in the vague direction of Keeley's laundry hamper, not caring if they actually make it in or not.

Keeley is on her bed - a king, which is awfully convenient now, innit. She's at the foot of it, her heels propped up to either side of her, putting her beautiful cunt on display. She leisurely strokes herself, spreading her wetness to slick up every pink fold of her pussy because she knows how fucking good it looks on her. Jamie's mouth floods the instant he sees her like that - especially after Roy has teased Jamie's poor mouth already. He stumbles forward, more than ready to drop to his knees. But Keeley snaps at him and shakes her head before Jamie can fall.

"Remember how you said you would rather've been in between the Bumbercatches?" she reminds him with a cheeky little wiggle of her brows.

"The fucking who?!" Roy demands. Jamie glares half-heartedly at Keeley for telling on him. She sticks out her tongue.

"Do you want to get in between us?" she asks, her voice and her expression going slightly serious again for the genuine question. Jamie laughs a little, in awe. Less than two years ago, he was earnestly promising them he wouldn't.

"Yes, please." He looks over his shoulder for Roy to check, "Yeah?" and immediately gets distracted staring at Roy's dick again, now bare.

It's not like Jamie's never seen Roy's dick before. He's even seen it chubbed up a coupla times, that's just the facts of life in a training room shower. But this is the first time Jamie's seen it fully hard, red and dripping at the tip. Almost more importantly, this is the first time Jamie's seen Roy's dick when he was about to take it. Roy sees him looking - sees him fucking drooling, probably - and smirks.

"Next time. Or…" He goes on a little cautiously. "Could put you on your knees in front of the telly, have you suckling on it for hours…" Jamie whines softly.

"Need a pillow," he says, first thing his melted brain can come up with. Roy smiles.

"Okay, Princess." It could be insulting, maybe it's even meant to be, a little bit. But it's also… fucking- doting or something. It makes Jamie feel all shivery and weak. Like he could fucking swoon. He knows it's gotta be showing on his face, because he sees it reflected on Roy's.

"Come here you, both of you," Keeley pleads. She has the same look on her face too, but even without it the two of them would still be drawn to her like magnets. Jamie bends for her to hold him, to pull him down with her as she sinks onto her back. "Do it just like this," she says into his mouth, "so Roy can really pound you without hurting his knee." 

Jamie whines again, nodding. He sinks down onto his elbows over Keeley, her legs spread wide round his waist. He leans his thighs against the very edge of the mattress to bring his hips and cock in the right range to fuck into Keeley when she's ready for him, and so he can spread his own legs wide too. It's gonna be a bit shit on his calves, but it's not like he hasn't made them work harder and for longer before.

"Fuck," Roy groans from behind him, coming up close so he can grab possessively at Jamie's offered-up body. "Your fucking thighs, Tartt, fuck's sake. Gonna have to fuck 'em, come all over them. Fucking spank- You, uh, do you like…?"

"Yeah," Jamie pants. "Yeah, 's long as it's just your hand- Open hand. Yeah." He strains to thrust into Roy's bruising fingers, his thumbs digging hard into the thighs in question, right in the crease where they turn into the round globes of Jamie's arse. The sit spot, he had a girl once who called it. It's fucking sensitive, and also it's really close to his ballsack - and his hole - where Jamie is unavoidably vulnerable and desperately wants to be touched and stroked and very gently hurt.

"God, your fucking arse too, fucking- Unbelievable." Roy moves his hold upward, squeezes whole handfuls of Jamie's cheeks with a grip that has to be digging ten little crescents into his skin.

"Make yourself useful, baby," Keeley instructs. She lifts one of her breasts toward Jamie's face, and Jamie immediately fills his mouth with it. She sighs happily. "Good boy."

"Fuck," Roy curses when Jamie moans at that.

Keeley drags her hands down Jamie's back, taking care to scratch him all the way. Roy swears again. He obligingly takes his hands off of Jamie's arse with Keeley's shoo him away. Jamie whines at the loss, but only for a tiny moment. Her grip on him there is much gentler than Roy's was, but she uses it to pull his cheeks apart enough for him to feel the cool air all along his crack from tailbone to bollocks. He can feel his hole winking at Roy in the open, Jamie's body begging for his attention better than his mouth has ever managed. It brings the feeling of 'sluttiness' surging back. Jamie moans as lewdly as he can and tries to make his hole pulse more obviously, to make the feeling stronger.

"Fuck's fucking sake," Roy wheezes. "Fucking hell. Fuck." Keeley laughs delightedly. She tells Jamie he's a good boy again, setting him to almost-not-quite helplessly humping the bed between her legs. He's close enough to her cunt that the sheets are slicked for him.

"I'm gonna-" Roy stutters. "Fuck."

Yeah, that's the idea, Jamie thinks, and is honestly a bit surprised Keeley doesn't say it out loud. He only realizes why she hasn't, that she knew Roy was talking about something else, that she served Jamie up just like this with a damn agenda in mind, when he feels Roy's breath on his rim. Jamie makes a sharp noise and accidentally bites Keeley's tit. Good job she likes that.

Jamie knows about rimming, just like he knew about pegging before Keeley did it to him. He's licked his shares of arseholes, and he's watched a lot of porn, gay porn in particular. But - least in Jamie's experience - it's just not something women like to do to men as much as like it done to them, and neither one as much as men like doing it to other men. For a while Jamie went with a girl who were always dirty talking about doing it to him, but he didn't really give her much of a response one way or the other to work with so she never actually tried it. That's as close as he's got.

So Jamie's not really sure what the fuck he was expecting, but he cries out in shocked pleasure when Roy's tongue lands on his taint and it's hot and wet. He closes his lips on Jamie's skin and sucks at him, and Jamie's already hoarse. He ruts - really definitely all the way helpless now - cock slipping and sliding on Keeley's wet sheets, against the slick back of her thigh. Her tit falls out of his mouth because he can't keep it closed, moaning and drooling into her soft skin instead. She grabs him by the hair and yanks his head back so she can watch his face as Roy open-mouth kisses the short way to Jamie's quivering hole.

"God Jamie, you are so fucking sexy when you get your pussy played with," she tells him fiercely.

"Fuck, Keeley!" Jamie whines. His voice pitches high - not on purpose, not this time. All the same, it makes Roy growl against Jamie's rim. Jamie cries out when he finally delves his tongue inside, girlish and sharp. The noise of himself like that gets to Jamie too. He falls apart. He starts begging.

"Please- Please- Roy, please- Fuck, oh fuck, Roy- Fuck me, fuck me fuck me fuckme fuckme-!"

Roy in the bedroom is apparently a lot nicer than Roy on the pitch. He doesn't make Jamie wait. He takes his mouth away and stands straight again. He leaves the foot of the bed for a second, already knowing from when they were together where Keeley keeps her lube and condoms. Left exposed, Keeley still holding him open, Jamie can almost convince himself he really does have a pussy. Roy's beard has left him hot and extra sensitive, and his hole is so soaking wet it's leaking, a ticklish trail dripping over his sac.

Roy comes back with the supplies quick, crowding in against Jamie's back so Jamie finally gets his first feel of his dick, the wet tip brushing teasingly over the insides of Jamie's thighs, bumping up against his balls.

"Oh fuck, I need it, Roy, please," Jamie whines.

"Slut," Roy calls him again, but it couldn't sound less like an insult if he tried. "Bet you want me to fuck you bare and come inside, too, don't you." Jamie can't breathe, he wants that so bad.

"Yes," he chokes out.

"Gotta wait a bit for that," Roy promises, even as he hugs loosely around Jamie's waist, condom in hand. "But soon. I'll pump you full and plug you up." He takes Jamie's cock in his hand at the base, the other hand tucking Jamie's head into the condom and starting to roll it on.

"Fuck, wait- wait!" Jamie gasps. Roy immediately freezes, and Jamie tries to bring himself back from the brink. He doesn't want to waste the condom, or give Keeley a disappointing fuck. On the other hand, she did make him come multiple times when she fucked him the first time, and a few times after that, and that was just her all by herself, so maybe…

She reads what he's thinking in his face before Roy even has the chance to ask what's wrong or start panicking. She pushes the condom away, but traps Roy's other hand where it is. She covers the unheld length of Jamie's shaft with her flat hand, rolling her wrist back and forth to massage his glans with the base of her palm.

"Silly us, forgetting you're supposed to always make your girlfriend come twice," she coos, thick with false sympathy. Jamie writhes in their shared grip on him, desperate for more friction than they're giving him now that he knows they're gonna let him finish and then keep him going anyway. "Is that right, baby? You want your boyfriend to finger-bang you until you squirt before he stuffs you with his cock?"

"Fucking Christ," Roy swears, almost drowned out by Jamie's renewed begging.

"Go on, then," Keeley orders Roy, having to raise her voice a little to make sure he hears her over Jamie's repeated yeses and pleases.

Roy presses his fingers into Jamie's hole, just using his spit to slick the way for now. Inside it feels just as good as it always does, but Jamie's rim and the delicate skin all around it is sensitive after being eaten out and having Roy's stubble prickle and scrape at it. Jamie cries out at the stretch, the extra tenderness. Less sound comes out of him that it should - he's lost his voice.

Keeley finally starts to actually jerk Jamie off when Roy's got three fingers in him. His thrusts and her strokes are out of time with each other, leaving Jamie's head spinning from overwhelming, shifting points of pleasure. It doesn't take long for Jamie to spill, shaking to pieces between them. His cock spurts all over Keeley's neatly groomed mound, twitching in her hand like a livewire. She keeps stroking him, and Roy keeps holding him, keeps fingering him, and it fucking hurts but Jamie's hardness doesn't go down even a little bit for even a second.

"There you go, baby, see? We'll take care of you," Keeley says, rubbing her thumb along Jamie's slit a little harder than is very nice. He whimpers pitifully, but his hips jerk toward her touch. "You just look pretty and come as many times as you want."

"Making a list," says Roy, biting into the hickeys he left on Jamie's neck, deepening them from red to purple. Jamie can't help thinking how everyone will see them tomorrow. "Gonna tie you down, see how many times I can make you come before you start fucking crying." Jamie's next moan comes out warbled and thick, letting him know it wouldn't take very many. He laughs darkly. "Right. Have to be a different metric, then."

Jamie stays as still as he can manage, trembling, as Keeley picks the turned aside condom back up and rolls it onto his overstimulated cock. Behind him, Roy stays crowded in close enough to him to let Jamie feel his hands move as he puts the other one on himself. The lube makes obscene slick noises. Jamie curses, his scraped out voice barely managing to make the words clear.

"Same time?" Keeley asks Roy, talking past Jamie's head.

"Count of three," Roy agrees. They shift around a little, Keeley hooking one leg up over Jamie's hip and Roy catching her behind the knee to pull all three of them closer. She tucks her other leg into the bend of Jamie's knee, holding him to the bed and helping him stay half-crouched. She lines Jamie's cock up at her entrance, and Roy lines his up with Jamie's.

"Two," says Roy. Jamie chokes at him skipping one, taking away that precious moment for Jamie to try to prepare. "Three."

Keeley lifts, Roy shoves, and Jamie screams. He loses his footing for a second, slipping, but the two of them move him back where he's supposed to be and he digs his toes into the carpet to stay there. They don't check if he needs a moment, which is for the best because Jamie doesn't think he could manage to say yes out loud. This time they match their rhythm, so that Jamie is buried to the root in Keeley's delicious heat at the same time Roy's cock fills him completely. He loses all track of himself, of anything at all beyond the pleasure.

"Ah- Oh, good boy- Good boy, take it," Keeley chants in between sweet, breathy little moans. Jamie babbles something or other back, but he hasn't any clue what or if he's even audible anymore. Roy swears and bites across Jamie's shoulders. He picks up the pace, and Jamie keens.

"You gonna come again already, greedy girl?" Roy grunts. Jamie whines, but Keeley beats him to it, her hand tucked between them to rub frantically at her clit while Roy's powerful thrusts into Jamie drive Jamie's cock into her. She comes hard, clenching around Jamie almost painfully tight. She shouts, several cries of ecstasy one after the other. She throws her head back, her body arches, her toes curl against Jamie's burning calf.

It's a domino effect from there. Keeley pulls Jamie's second orgasm out of him. His own tightening on Roy's still moving cock is almost painful too, the friction of Roy's hard thrusts heightening so much Jamie feels like he should catch fire. He comes near silently this time, not for lack of trying. Everything goes white and he thinks he might have died of happiness, until Roy brings him back by crushing finger-shaped bruises into his hips. Jamie shudders violently and his balls squeeze out one last spurt at the feeling of Roy's cock pulsing inside him. Fuck, if that's what it feels like with a barrier, Jamie can't wait to have Roy bare, deliriously wonders if he'll be able to feel the spray of jizz inside him, how deep it will go if he can.

Once they've all managed to catch their breath, Jamie makes the executive decision that he should not be responsible for any cleanup this go. He attempts to announce this decision to the other two, but it only comes out in an incoherent raspy mumble. 

Even so, Roy says, "Yeah, me too." Keeley scoffs at them, but she untangles herself and lets Roy and Jamie collapse while she wets some wipes in the bathroom sink. Roy rolls Jamie over onto his back for Keeley to reach all the sticky parts, then gracefully lets Keeley take care of him too instead of doing it himself under Jamie's sleepy, contented gaze.

"T-shirt?" Keeley asks Jamie. She tosses the soiled wipes into the hamper on her way over to her dresser, leaving Jamie's haphazardly thrown clothes on the floor.

"Yes, please," Jamie tries, with a little bit more success. She brings him one, and Roy a pair of Jamie's pants which are definitely not the cut he prefers but just as definitely are a cut Jamie and Keeley really want to see him in. He makes a big grand show of being cranky about it, but he puts them on. Keeley hands him a shirt too. Jamie thinks nothing of it until Roy just holds it in his lap for long, quiet moments. When Jamie looks closer, he realizes the shirt is Roy's. Keeley kept it. Roy pulls her into an achingly sweet kiss before he puts it on. He turns to give Jamie a kiss too, getting so far as to reach for Jamie's face before his eyes go wide.

"Fuck," he says. "I fucking tore your throat out. I killed you." Jamie laughs. He grabs Roy's hovering hand and puts it on his tender, bitten up throat instead of his jaw where it was headed.

"I think 'm alright," he croaks. "You won't be surprised to know I like showing off." Roy rolls his eyes, but he also can't resist digging his thumb into one of the darkest marks until Jamie moans.

Eventually, they feel rested enough for one of them to order delivery for dinner. Roy tells Jamie it's a cheat day, and sticks to it even after Jamie tells him he already had one this week.

"You get an extra one when we both fuck you at once," he says, Coach voice and all.

"We should try double penetration," says Keeley. Roy grins like a shark at whatever Jamie's face does.

When the food arrives, Jamie whines and pouts until Keeley gives in and lets them eat in her bed. Roy watches Jamie eat way too closely - not that Jamie actually minds it - for, like, three-quarters of the meal. He seems to snap then, and takes Jamie's food away from him, only to take over feeding Jamie himself. Jamie stares up at him as he does it, flat on his back in Keeley Jones's bed, being hand fed by Roy Kent.

"You would like that," Keeley snorts, shaking her head. Roy is still feeding Jamie by the time she's done with hers. She shoves the garbage onto the side table to be taken to an actual bin in the morning, and then crawls over Jamie and over Roy to wrap herself around his back, content to slip her hands underneath his shirt and pet at his chest and belly hair and watch him spoil Jamie with her chin tucked over his shoulder.

They go to sleep with the lights on, too lazy to get up and turn them off. Jamie wakes up in the morning, snuggled up to Roy's front and reaching around him to get hands on Keeley too. His legs feel like they'll fucking fall off if he so much as stands on them, but he gets up with Roy and does yoga with him in front of Keeley's couch, coffee table pushed out of their way and Sky Sports muted on the telly. He feels better after, but he's still grateful when Roy takes it a bit easy on him at training.

The lads all take the piss out of Jamie about his bruises, but he grins and lifts his chin proudly. He glances over at Roy in the gaffer's office, unsurprised to find him already looking back. Jamie raises his eyebrows in question, and Roy answers with the particular eye roll that means 'Might as well' or maybe 'Alright, if you want'. So Jamie tells the team who the bites are from, basking in the uproar.

He gets a congratulations text from Ted. In a month or so, after a few more sessions with Dr. Sharon, Jamie will call him up and have a conversation with him not unlike the one he had with Mummy only a few short days ago.

They lose at City. They win at Arsenal. The next game against Tottenham, Jamie finally manages to successfully pull his new trick in a match for the first time - on Barnett, of course.

Will gets a sick tattoo. Nate and his incredibly cool girlfriend Jade get engaged. Richard's burner Twitter account, where he posts nothing but snide French disses of wines and football teams that are very hard to tell apart, gets found out and several of his Tweets turned into memes. Declan gets dumped, which is fucking mad honestly. Dani adopts a dog, and then adopts another dog, and then adopts another dog, and then adopts another dog. Isaac finally gets a promotion deal with Rolos. Rebecca, strangely nervous, solicits Dutch lessons from Jan Maas. Every now and then when Keeley has business at the club and comes down to meet Roy and Jamie on their way out, Bumbercatch looks between the three of them with narrowed, suspicious eyes. Ted visits in the summer, in the very small window between when Henry's school lets out but the Prem football season still has a couple matches left to go. He takes Jamie aside special, just so he can apologize (again) in person.

Jamie still has the nightmare sometimes, along with the others that came before it: the one where his father's disembodied, wordless voice taunts him from all directions; the one where nothing happens and no one's there but Jamie feels the pain of remembered hits; the really weird one where a magician puts him in one of those boxes but doesn't do any trick and just saws him in half. Like Roy said, and Dr. Sharon, that stuff doesn't just go away. But now sometimes the dream changes into something different halfway through. 

In the dream, Jamie is young. His father is there, just out of view somewhere, both unreachable and inescapable. There's a window lit up by red light, casting the silhouette of a woman in a harsh glow. Jamie walks up to it because he has to, and he is so so scared. 

But when he gets closer, the glass vanishes. The woman across from him is just Keeley. He doesn't have to look, but behind him now is just Roy. There's no window, there's no light, and Jamie is a man.

He wakes to the same reality: a grown-up in the dark between two people he loves. Roy's beard is scratching the itch it put between Jamie's shoulder blades, and Keeley’s hand is squashed under his face in a way they'll both be unhappy about come morning. 

Sometimes Jamie still gets scared. But sometimes Keeley and Roy get scared too. Sometimes they fight, but they're figuring out how to make up with each other, and it gets easier every time. Roy's black t-shirts are next to Jamie's colorful henleys in Keeley's top drawer. She grumbles and curses them out without vowels when they get up together at five.

There's no glass. No light. No father. And Jamie never had to be ready.

But he is now.