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The first time it happens, Rebecca nearly knocks Ted arse over tip back down the stairs on her way down from her office.
“Ted?” she exclaims, hand darting out to catch him by the arm.
“Woah, there, boss. Those are some quick hands. Hey, now that I think about it, we could use another goalie! O’Brien seems to have a recurring butt problem and if anything happens to Zoreaux it’s not looking too good--”
“Ted, Ted.” She raises her hands to stop him before his train picks up too much speed. “Is everything alright? Did you need something?” It’s quite late and the club is quiet. She hadn’t even realised there were others still here.
“Oh, uh.” He looks strangely stumped by the question, his finger scratching at one eyebrow. “No, not really. I just saw your light was still on. Kinda unusual for this hour, thought I’d see if you needed help with anything.”
She frowns at him. “I was thinking the same for you. Wasn’t training over awhile ago?”
“You know me,” he responds easily, hand shoved in his pockets, “always burning the midnight oil.”
“Right,” she says, squinting suspiciously at him. “So, since we both agree we’re here too late, shall we get a move on?” she asks, gesturing at the staircase behind him.
“Oh, right, sure!” He spins on his heel and starts heading down the steps, hugging the right railing so they can walk almost side-by-side. They make easy conversation on the way down and all the way into the car park, where she bids him goodnight and doesn’t think about it again.
Until it happens again the next week. This time she’s still sitting at her desk but her eyes are glazing over every time she tries to read the next paragraph on their new sponsorship contract. Still, she needs to return her notes by the morning or this will never get done.
The rap on her door shocks her upright out of her slouch. She frowns at it. Keeley and Higgins had stopped by to bid her goodnight more than a half hour ago and the cleaning staff tended to avoid coming in while her light was still on.
The door opens a second later and it's Ted that pokes his head in. It’s an entrance that would be normal by anyone else’s standards but for him, it’s practically timid.
“Hey, boss,” he greets and though the words sound cheery enough there’s a weariness to his voice that makes her own shoulders slump back down again in sympathy.
“Hi, Ted,” she responds, watching him as he pads into the room. He eases himself into his usual chair, surprisingly not quite collapsing in it the way she’d almost expected him to. “Everything alright?”
“Oh, just fine,” he says, running his hand through his hair.
“Did you need something?” she asks, wondering what would have to be so urgent as to require a visit at this hour, especially when he was so clearly exhausted.
“No, not really. Just saw your light on again, thought I’d come say hi, is all.”
She hums, not quite convinced, but then he’s off on some story about his graduation prank, sparked by a memory of a different night in an office, and she props her chin in her hand and just listens, too grateful for the paperwork reprieve to do anything else.
Embarrassingly, it takes until the third week for her to put the pieces together. She blames the many weeknight dates she’s been going on lately, they’ve left her mental calendar a shambles.
She’s in the car park when she spots him, pushing out of the training facility with his head down, hands tucked in his pockets.
“Hi, Ted,” she says and his head darts up. A split second later a bright smile breaks across his face and he seems to straighten a little.
“Hey, boss,” he says in that bright, artless way that makes the person on the receiving end feel like they’ve just been handed a bowl of sunshine. “Stopped by your office earlier but must have just missed you. How was your day?” he asks, coming over to where she’s paused on her way to her car.
“You know,” she says contemplatively, “actually not...horrible.”
“That’s a rave review if I ever heard one,” he says with a chuckle.
“I suppose I’m just trying to...what is that horrid phrase you used the other day? Keep it real.”
The phrase feels painfully awkward in her mouth but the look of delight on his face is worth it. He opens his mouth to respond when the training centre door opens again and they both turn.
Dr. Sharon comes out, shouldering the door open as she unfolds her bike with both hands. She plants it on the ground and spots them when she glances up.
“Goodnight Rebecca, Ted,” she calls, climbing on.
“Night, Doc!” Ted immediately calls back, giving her a little salute.
“Goodnight, Dr. Sharon,” Rebecca replies, waving at her as she pedals off.
She peers over at Ted but he’s still staring after Dr. Sharon, hands curled tight around the straps of his backpack.
“Did you need something?” she says and he glances at her questioningly. “Earlier, I mean. You said you came looking for me?”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” He tugs at the straps of his bag, hitching it up by his ears. “No, I was just...just saying hi, I guess.” His gaze skitters away, settling somewhere on the ground between them.
“Right,” she says, feeling a bit perplexed. “Well, I’ll see you in the morning,” she says, rubbing his shoulder as she steps past him towards her waiting car. “Sleep well, Ted.”
“You too,” he says and it’s only once they’ve driven through the club gates that she realises what an abnormally normal parting response that was from him.
She’s mulling over the rest of their interaction, something about their conversation almost giving her a sense of deja vu, when they pass Dr. Sharon biking down the road and all the pieces suddenly snap together like magnets.
The regular timing of Ted’s evening office visits seems obvious now and it all leaves her a little breathless with wonder as she considers the ramifications.
Amongst the other feelings she didn’t want to look too close at, she was proud of him when he’d mentioned he was going to start seeing Dr. Sharon. But she can’t imagine it’s comfortable, talking to someone like that in a regularly scheduled sixty minutes each week. The concept has always seemed strange to her, steadily opening up wounds over each session and then letting them bleed openly in between.
It does something strange to her insides when she realises that Ted has been seeking her out as a bandage.
The next Tuesday comes along, just like it’s supposed to, and this time she’s prepared.
He raps on the open door with one knuckle and walks in with a ‘hey, boss’, his other arm folded tight across his chest. This time he does flop into the chair, slumps bonelessly like gravity is working extra hard on him today.
She closes her laptop and looks at him, a sharp pang in her chest as she spots the puffiness around his eyes. “Water?” she asks, sliding a bottle across the desk at him.
“It’s not fizzy, is it?” he asks, eyebrows raised. “I mean, I don’t think either of us want a repeat of that situati--”
“No, Ted,” she interrupts loudly. That moment can definitely stay in the past. “It’s not fizzy.”
“Okay great, thanks,” he says, grabbing it and twisting it open in one smooth motion. He takes a deep gulp, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth as he places the bottle back down half-empty. “So, how was your day?”
She marvels at him for a moment, how he still manages to be so genuinely interested in hearing about her even when his brain must still be recovering from an hour spent dissecting difficult memories and troubling behavioural patterns (she assumes - she’s not exactly experienced in this area).
“Rebecca?” he prompts. Not for the first time in one of these new evening visits, he looks uncharacteristically unsure about his place here, sitting in front of her.
“So I was thinking,” she starts, and his brow furrows. “Not that I still don’t appreciate your biscuits”—he looks suddenly alarmed and she hastily adds—”I definitely do and I want to keep eating them.” God, why the hell does that sound so dirty? “I mean,” she tries again, then sighs. “Oh, sod it.”
She opens her drawer and pulls out the packet of Sour Patch Kids, placing it flat on the desk between them. “Here,” she says, pushing it towards him. He reaches for it, his eyes crinkling around the edges as he picks it up.
“In addition to Biscuits with the Boss, I thought it’d be good to have a little Candy with the Coach once a week, in the evenings. Maybe around this time? You know, since mornings have started to get a bit hectic and usually Higgins or Keeley are about. Not that I mind them being about. It’s nice, actually, keeps things a bit lively. But as owner and gaffer, I think it’s important that we have a little time just the two of us. And sugar of course. Can’t forget the sugar!” She realises she’s rambling now but he’s just staring at the packet in his hands, not saying anything, and she’s terrified of what the silence will bring. She squeezes her eyes shut for just a moment and forces herself to take a deep breath. “So what--what do you think?”
There’s a sharp crinkling noise as his hands tighten around the plastic packaging. When he looks up, she’s a little horrified to find his eyes are wet. “Oh fuck, Ted, I’m so sorry. I’m sure you must be super sensitive to anything from home right now and I--”
“Don't--Don’t apologize.” He’s shaking his head as he says it, his voice hoarse. “This is…” He looks back down at the packet, his thumb swiping over the bright lettering. He clears his throat. “Weekly Candy with the Coach,” he murmurs. He raises his head again, catching her eye. “I was that obvious, huh?” he asks wryly.
“Well, I suppose I could ask the same,” she says, feeling her face heat a little as she thinks of her little speech. He laughs and something settles in her chest at the sound.
“Thank you, Rebecca. I would love to have candy with you every week.” He tilts his head and gives her a soft smile, tiny compared to his usual toothy grin but somehow twice as much of a sucker punch to her stomach. “I really can’t say enough how much I appreciate how truly kind you’ve been to me.”
She feels abruptly sad as she looks at this man, who’s done so much for everyone around him, who’s changed all their lives in more ways than any of them could have imagined, and thinks about how such a small gesture as this had undone him.
“I think you’re underselling yourself,” he says when she points this out to him, determined along with everything else to help him see what he’s not been seeing. “You know,” he says, ripping open the pack of candy, “you asked me, each time I’ve been by after a session...I don’t know if you realised this but you always asked me if I needed anything.” He stretches his arm out across the desk and tilts the open bag towards her.
“And as I recall you always said no,” she points out. She peers into the open packet at the gummies, then shoots him a skeptical look over the top. He shakes the bag at her encouragingly and she sighs, plucking one daintily out with the edge of her fingers.
“It’s because,” he says, pulling the pack back towards himself, “by the time you asked me that, I usually already had what I needed.”
“And what was that?” she asks, squinting suspiciously down at the colourful blob in her hand.
“Just to hear your voice,” he replies and when her head snaps up at him, he’s looking down into the packet, poking through the gummies like he’s looking for a specific colour and very carefully not meeting her eye.
“Oh,” she says. And since she absolutely cannot seem to conjure up another word in response, she shoves the gummy into her mouth.
Which was definitely a mistake. “Oh, god!” she splutters as the sour taste hits her tongue.
Ted laughs at her expression. “Keep chewing, you’ll get there. First they’re sour, then they’re sweet.” He sing-songs the second part in a way that makes her sure he’s reciting something. “It’s their tagline,” he confirms, waving the packet.
She chews with a disgusted wariness, keeping the candy in her teeth and off her tongue as much as possible. Eventually it does dissolve to just a pure sugary taste that’s altogether not that much more pleasant. Once she’s choked it down, she snags the bottle of water back from his side of the desk, glaring at his amused face.
“That was foul,” she says once she’s swished a couple of sips of water around her mouth.
“Yep, sure didn’t seem like you enjoyed that one bit,” he says, nodding in agreement. He gets to his feet, clutching the packet tight in one hand. “Well, I’m excited to see you try a different flavor next week!” And before she can rebut that particular statement, he’s backed all the way up and out through the door, throwing a cheerful ‘goodnight, boss!’ and a wave her way before he turns.
Her tongue still feels sticky with candy and the memory of the unpleasant first bite is still sharp in her mind but watching him go, 1000-watt grin firmly back in place, she suddenly finds that the taste in her mouth is just the right amount of sweet.
Maybe there is something to that tagline after all.