Work Text:
“We should leave Dani in the nine spot up top, and Jamie can take the eleven on the left wing.”
“Jamie’s left foot cross is hot garbage.”
“He can cut in and use his right – or better yet, we’ll put him in the seven spot on the right and move Colin to eleven,” Roy explains. “Either way, Dani stays up top.”
“No,” Beard shakes his head. “Jamie should be up top; he’s got more goals than Dani this season already.”
“It’ll go right to his head,” Roy argues.
“I disagree,” Beard shrugs.
“Or,” Nate interjects for the fifth time, the first one loud enough for anyone to hear, “we put them both up there.”
Beard crosses his arms.
Roy blinks.
“We go from a 4-3-3,” Nate erases the midfield and forwards on the white board, “to a 4-4-2. We drop Colin to the midfield and push Sam to the outside winger. Then we can have Dani in the ten and Jamie in the nine spot.”
Beard takes a deep breath.
“It would leave both of them up field more often,” Roy considers.
“Yeah,” Beard says slowly, “but I’m worried about the gap it’ll leave in the middle of our field—
“Knock knock,” Higgins says as he taps on the open office door.
“Higgins,” Beard bows his head, “to what do we owe this pleasure?”
“Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt your strategy session – oh a 4-4-2, how interesting… you know that could solve your Jamie/Dani problem, but what would that do without Sam in the middle—”
“Higgins,” Roy cuts him off, “state your business.”
“Right,” he pulls his phone out of his pocket, “ah, I was hoping to find Ted down here, do any of you know where he is?”
“No.”
“Haven’t seen him.”
“He’s not coming in today,” Beard answers calmly.
“Why not?” Higgins asks.
Beard, knowing full well that it’s September 13th – and a Friday this year, to make things even worse – and knowing exactly why his best friend never works on this day, tries to keep Ted’s personal life personal. “All he said was that he was taking a personal day on the thirteenth.”
“Does he just really like scary movies or something?” Nate laughs.
“I could see that,” Roy adds.
Beard stays silent, not wanting to go into it without Ted present.
“Do you think he’s with Rebecca?” Higgins asks.
The room falls silent.
“Who’s with Rebecca?” Keeley wanders in, glancing at everyone around the room. “I was just looking for her but she’s not in her office.”
“She’s not coming in today,” Higgins tells her.
“Why not?” Keeley asks.
“Sent me a text five minutes ago,” Higgins reads off his phone. “It says, ‘taking the day, see you on Monday’ and that’s it.”
“I hope she’s okay,” Keeley leans against Roy, who wraps his arm around her.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” he reassures her.
“She’s probably with Ted,” Nate adds.
“Unlikely,” Beard mutters to himself.
Higgins shrugs. “Well, I’ve got to take her morning meetings now – Keeley, do you think you could take the lead on the one with the advertising team for me?”
“Yeah,” she nods, patting Roy on the hand before standing up straight. “I have a great idea to pitch anyways, it’s about new warmups for the boys.”
The two of them walk back through the locker room and to the upstairs offices to deal with the executive parts of the day.
“Right, so like I was saying…” Nate tries to start back up.
“What are we gonna do about the gap in the middle?” Roy asks.
Coach Beard is half listening, but the more functional part of his brain is scrolling through his messages on his phone. One new message from Ted.
From: Coach
Coach loved “Thinking of you today. I’ll bring coffee over in the morning.”
Beard smiled at his phone for half a second before he started typing a new message.
To: Coach
Boss is out today… She with you?
He shoves his phone back into his pocket and focuses in on the strategy session.
“We can’t move Isaac; we move him, and it disrupts the entire team flow.”
“He’s not a very versatile player then is he.”
“You don’t want him to be versatile, you want him to lead.”
“Gentlemen,” Beard clapped. “Let’s test the front four at practice today before we go rearranging the back line, okay?”
Ted’s phone buzzes on the coffee table in front of him, and the sudden noise in his eerily quiet apartment makes him jump. Every nerve in his body is on end – it doesn’t take much to startle him today.
He looks at the screen and sees the three older unread messages and one new one. Ted swipes up to unlock his phone and scrolls up the list of unopen texts until he reaches the top.
The messages from this morning still go unread – two heart emojis from his ex-wife, an invitation to call at any time today from Dr. Fieldstone, and a picture of the latest Lego build sent over from his son’s iPad. He appreciates them all, but it took every ounce of energy he had that morning to simply respond to Beard’s text with a heart bubble – there was no way he could do all the others, not right now at least.
What intrigues him, though, is the new message from Beard that has absolutely nothing to do with the anniversary Ted is trying really hard not to think about.
From: Coach (Beard)
Boss is out today… She with you?
Ted frowns at his phone. He can’t think of a reason why Rebecca would be out today too unless she was maybe feeling under the weather. He writes back.
No. She sick?
It’s only another minute before Beard writes back.
From: Coach (Beard)
Said it was a “personal day”. Coincidence?
Ted starts to type a response, but there’s something nagging at the back of his mind. His thumbs are moving with minds of their own, deleting the first few characters of his reply text before closing out his messages with Beard. He scrolls down until he finds his messages with Rebecca, and starts typing.
To: Boss
Where are you?
He sits for a minute, waiting for a response but one doesn’t come. Ted drops his phone back on the table and runs his hands through his hair. He takes a few slow, deep breaths before standing up and heading to the bathroom.
Twenty minutes and one scalding hot shower later, Ted’s dressed in his finest sweatpants and the t-shirt from his favorite barbeque restaurant back home. His hair is still dripping onto his shoulders a little, and the front pieces are curling into his eyes with the lack of product holding them back.
He cracks open his first beer of the day, taking a big swig before reaching for the television remote. His phone catches his eye, sitting just a few inches away, and he picks it up to look at the lock screen again.
No new messages.
Ted leans back against the couch cushions, taking another sip of his drink as he unlocks his phone. He starts typing.
To: Boss
You okay?
He turns the phone over in his hand for a minute before reaching for the remote again. The television turns on, and he’s scrolling through the channels, trying to decide between When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail when his phone buzzes again.
From: Boss
Home.
Another buzz.
Not my best day. I’ll be fine.
Ted frowns at his phone again, his mustache starting to curl into his bottom lip. She says that a lot I’ll be fine but he rarely ever believes her. He knows she likes her distance sometimes, but he also knows that every once in a while, it’s nice to have someone in your corner that understands. He sends back a response.
Like hide under the covers all day kinda fine?
He takes another sip of his drink before sending a follow up.
Or drink until you can’t see straight kinda fine?
Ted barely has time to press the lock button, much less put his phone away when a picture of a glass of wine shows up on his screen.
Rebecca snaps the picture of her glass of wine, and on today of all days it actually makes her smile a little bit.
I’ll give you one guess
She sends the picture and the message before taking another sip of her drink.
The three dots appears for a moment, and then disappear. It happens again.
Rebecca’s staring at her phone, patiently waiting for Ted to craft what she’s sure will be a response that’s the perfect blend of folksy and caring southern charm. It’s not until she finishes the glass that she realizes it’s been ten minutes and the bubble has appeared, disappeared, then reappeared several times and still no answer.
She tops herself off and that’s when the bubble disappears entirely.
Rebecca drops her phone on the kitchen counter, and it doesn’t make nearly as loud a sound as she was expecting. Maybe that’s because it lands on the cork to her bottle of wine, and the phone slides on to the counter while the cork shoots out across the room.
“For fucks sake,” she mumbles, rolling her eyes.
She wanders in the general direction of the flying cork, searching high and low for it. She knows it went over by the window, but whether it ended up on the floor or hidden in plain sight she’s not sure of. Rebecca gets down on the ground, searching around the end table and under the rug for any signs of it, but she’s coming up empty.
It’s not until she’s pushing herself back up to her feet that she spots it.
It landed in her potted plant, hanging from the ceiling by the window so it can get all the sunlight it needs. Rebecca reaches under the leaves to grab the cork, but when her fingers search it out, they brush by something else on their way.
She frowns, removing the cork and reaching back in to pull out whatever other miscellaneous item might be hiding in there. It’s half buried in the soil – no doubt it’s been there for a while – but eventually she manages to dislodge it from its hiding place.
It’s a little green army man, his bottom half covered in dirt and his top half discolored from being in the sun every day.
Your first line of defense, she remembers, and the memory brings the second smile of the day to her face.
The sharp knock on the door wipes it away instantly.
Ted balances the brown paper bag in his arms and knocks again, louder this time. It’s only a couple seconds before the door opens a few inches, the chain lock still in place.
Rebecca’s face peers through the crack in the door. “Ted?”
“Hey, boss,” he smiles softly.
“What are you doing here?”
Ted raises the bag in his arms. “I brought reinforcements.”
“What are you talking about?” she asks, pocketing the little green army man on the other side of the door.
Ted pulls one of the bottles of wine slightly out of the bag.
“Ah,” Rebecca blinks. “Okay then.”
She shuts the door, removing the chain lock before opening it up wider and letting Ted into her home. He steps over the threshold, tipping his chin down as he squeezes past her. She doesn’t know if it’s out of politeness or secrecy, but she smells the faintest hint of beer on his breath anyways.
“Did you come here from the office?” she asks, closing the door behind her.
“No ma’am,” he shakes his head. “I don’t work on this day – I was at home. Thought maybe we could spend the day alone, together.”
“Why aren’t you at work?”
“Why aren’t you at work?” he spins the question back to her.
Rebecca reaches up in her cupboards to grab a second wine glass. “I’m not feeling my best… mentally, that is. So, I took a personal day. Is that a crime?”
“No, it is not,” Ted answers. “At least I hope it’s not, because I took one too, and that would be really bad for the team if their coach and their boss both get arrested on the same day.”
“Why did you take the day off,” Rebecca hands him the glass, “if you don’t mind me asking.”
Ted twirls it around in his hands for a minute. “I don’t mind you askin’, but I hope you don’t mind me needing at least one more of these before I think I can talk about it.”
“Well then,” she hands him the corkscrew, “we’ve got work to do.”
“Aright,” he grins.
“So, is this what you were going to do today as well?” she asks. “Drink, and then sort of just stare at the wall, thinking, until you slip slowly into madness?”
Ted raises his eyebrows. “Well, ah, no, not exactly.”
“Oh,” she blinks. “What were you going to do then?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugs, “but I’m sure we can come up with something more fun than that.”
“Fun?” she asks skeptically.
“Yeah,” he smiles. “We could watch a movie, or play a game, or—”
“A game?” she raises her eyebrows. “We’re grown adults.”
“All the more reason,” he shrugs. “Kids aren’t allowed to play poker. You got a deck of cards?”
Rebecca opens her mouth to argue with him, but something else comes out. “Yes.”
And so, they sit on the floor on either side of her coffee table, the rug soft beneath them and the radio playing quietly in the back. They play poker and go fish and every other card game either of them can think of from when they were kids. They drink and they laugh, and eventually they get so wrapped up in each other that they forget what they’re even doing home in the first place.
It’s not until the early afternoon does one of them finally break their bubble.
“How do you keep winning?” Ted asks.
“I told you,” Rebecca shrugs with a smirk, “I’m excellent at that game.”
“Yeah,” he smiles, “you absolutely are.”
Rebecca stands up to refresh their glasses, but by the time she makes it over to the kitchen counter her mind has wandered. She’s starving all of a sudden – or maybe it was gradual thing but the alcohol kept her distracted.
“Ted,” she calls out, “do you want to order a pizza?”
“Yes ma’am,” he calls back. “I can never say no to pizza.”
“I know this place that delivers, it has the best spinach and mushroom pizza I have ever eaten.”
Ted wrinkles his nose. “Back where I’m from, there are only two acceptable pizza toppings – pepperoni, and barbeque sauce.”
“Barbeque sauce?” she asks, appalled.
“Yep,” he smiles. “It’s God’s gift to man. And if you don’t like either of those, you can always go with the classic.”
She pauses. “I can do half cheese,” she negotiates.
“Sold.”
Ted moves to clean up the cards, claiming he can’t possibly lose another game in one day. Rebecca moves to the other room to order the pizza, and Ted goes to change the radio station because the one they’re listening to has been playing commercials for twenty minutes.
He flips through the channels, still unfamiliar with the local stations around here, until he picks up on something that makes him backtrack. He finds the station again and lets the first few notes of the song float through the house, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
“Alright,” Rebecca walks back into the room, “they said it’d be here in—”
We’re no strangers to love
You know the rules and so do I
Ted glances at her over his shoulder, only to turn around when he sees her frozen in the doorway.
“Do you remember—”
“Yes,” she cuts him off, eyes wide and almost afraid.
A full commitment’s what I’m thinking of
You wouldn’t get this from any other guy
Ted frowns. “I can turn it off if you’d—”
“No, it’s—” she shakes her head. “It’s just that… I couldn’t forget that day if I tried.”
Ted nods.
“This is the first year—” she cuts herself off. The first year she can’t be mad at him, is what she was going to say but she’s not even sure if that makes sense. Part of her still hates her father, but he’s dead and he’s never coming back and part of her knows that fate is far worse than having your daughter hate you.
She can’t call him, this year, in a few days when her anger subsides, and her mother wants them all to get together for dinner. She can’t push the awful memories aside and smile through the meal as he attempts to make her laugh, just like he used to when she was a kid. She can’t have that this year, for the first time, and it’s…
“The first year is hard,” Ted says quietly. He makes his way over to the couch and gently pats the seat next to him.
“Yes,” she agrees, joining him on the cushions, “it is.”
“It gets easier,” he tells her. “It never really gets better… but it gets easier. Just a little bit.”
She tilts her head, remembering that she’s not the only one in the house that has lost a father.
“Ted,” she starts slowly. “How did you handle it? When your father died, what did you do?”
He blinks and the light in his eyes goes dark. There’s a long pause before he speaks again.
“I didn’t do anything,” he says quietly. “For almost a year, I just… I did nothing.”
He’s staring at a spot just over her shoulder, but his eyes are unfocused. He’s not really looking at anything in the room – he’s seeing dart boards and black ties and his mother falling apart in his arms.
“I was stuck,” he continues. “It was like someone switched on my autopilot and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. I did the bare minimum at school, just enough to pass eleventh grade, I – I stopped playing football because I couldn’t be bothered to show up at practice… I tried to hold my mother together with my bare hands, I—”
Ted’s voice cracks and he looks down at his lap. Rebecca reaches out and rests her hand on his shoulder, giving him the strength to keep going.
“Like I said, the first year is hard,” he blinks back the tears.
“Was it sudden?” she asks quietly.
“What?” he looks at her.
“When he died – were you expecting it?”
He stares at her for a minute, and he can feel the rage start to bubble in his chest. Why would she ask him that? Is she trying to make him mad? He almost snaps at her – almost lets her bear the brunt of his misplaced aggression, but then he remembers to breathe again.
He can hear Dr. Fieldstone in his head telling him to work on his breathing and it’s another minute before he stops seeing red. Another minute before he remembers that Rebecca has no way of knowing what happened to his dad.
Rebecca sits patiently, watching as Ted is fighting his own internal demons. She holds on to his hand, lightly running her thumb over his knuckles and she thinks that maybe it’s helping.
“Did I… Do you know how he died?” he asks her.
“No,” she answers. “I don’t think so.”
“He killed himself,” he says quickly. “I was sixteen and I was… I was in the house and he just…”
The look of pure shock on her face only lasts a second before she quickly hides it, not wanting to upset Ted any more than he already is. The tears are pooling in his eyes, and she can see the scared sixteen-year-old hiding in every line of his face.
She wraps her arms around his shoulders and pulls him into a hug. He goes easily, burying his face in her neck and holding on to her for dear life. They stay like that for a little while, Ted silently crying while Rebecca keeps him close.
Eventually the tears subside, and Ted manages to continue his story.
“That was thirty years ago, to this day,” he whispers. “And I still kind of hate him for it.”
Rebecca freezes. “Did you say thirty years ago today?”
“Yeah,” he nods, pulling back from her embrace. “That’s why I take this day off every year. It’s the anniversary, September thirteenth, nineteen ninety—”
“One,” she finishes for him. “That’s… that’s the day…”
Ted looks at her. “What?”
“That’s the exact day I caught my father cheating on my mother,” she tells him, her brow furrowing. “Me and Sassy, we were… we weren’t supposed to be home, but we were and we saw him.”
“In 1991?” Ted raises his eyebrows.
“The exact same day,” she nods. “And I’ve hated him too. I’ve had this anger inside of me every day since then. Except now it’s…”
“Different?” Ted guesses. “Because there’s no one here to get mad at anymore.”
“Yes,” she blinks, and it brings her back to the present moment.
They’re still on the couch holding hands and she’s searching his eyes like they hold all the answers in the world. Maybe they do – he does seem to have an answer for everything, even if it’s silly, even if it’s wrong.
“Do you ever think our lives are connected?” she asks him before she knows what she’s saying.
“Sometimes,” he smiles at her, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear and then resting his elbow on the back of the couch. “Sometimes it feels like fate just knows that we’re both supposed to be here, together.”
“Like we were always destined to meet,” she smiles back at him. “Even if it was under the most bizarre circumstances.”
“Yeah,” Ted chuckles. “I’ll tell ya – if you had told the Ted of two years ago that one of his closest confidants was the owner of an English football club, he’d have laughed right in your face.”
Rebecca giggles, squeezing his fingers briefly.
“But now…” he continues. “Gosh, Rebecca… I don’t know where I’d be without you.”
She grins. “Nor I without you, Ted.”
There’s a moment – maybe – it’s hard to tell it flashes in front of them so quickly. The tension is thick and Rebecca swears there are sparks in the air. Her heart is racing a mile a minute and his is beating so hard he thinks it might break through his chest.
For a moment he thinks that he might kiss her.
For a moment, she thinks she might let him.
The doorbell rings and she blinks first, causing him to pull back just enough to break the spell. Suddenly there’s too much space between them and the rest of the room comes back into focus. The radio has changed songs three or four times by now, and in another few seconds the doorbell will ring again.
“I think that’s the—”
“Pizza!” she remembers. “Right. I’ll get it.”
Rebecca walks over to the door, taking her time going down the front hallway to collect herself again. She thanks the delivery boy and tips him well before bringing the food inside and setting it on the counter. It’s not until she watches the car go back down her driveway that she remembers a question from earlier, and decides that’s as good a starting point as any to bring them back to some normalcy.
“Hey Ted,” she starts, handing him a slice and resuming her seat on the couch. “How did you know where I lived?”
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and waves it in the air. “I have your location, remember?”
Rebecca rolls her eyes. “Fucking Keeley.”
“Oh, come on now, you know she’s just looking out for you,” Ted grins. “Besides, she’s right.”
“It’s bad enough that I have to tell one person when I’m going out on a date,” she counters around a mouthful of pizza, “but to have to tell two people about it—"
“Having at least two people know your location at all times – especially when you’re going out with strangers from the internet,” he shoots her a look, “is the bare minimum of safety procedures any adult living alone should follow. It’s your first line of defense just in case you get kidnapped or murdered.”
That line plays over in her head for the second time today. “Speaking of which,” she grins, “guess what I found today.”
“A million dollars?” he guesses excitedly.
“No, Ted,” she shakes her head, “it’s something you gave me.”
“It’s not my biscuit recipe, is it?” he asks, wide eyed. “Because that is top secret information and I’m gonna have to ask you to relinquish all rights that information.”
“No,” she laughs, “although I will keep asking until you hand it over—"
“Not a chance.”
“—but it’s actually this.” She pulls the green army man out of her pocket and holds it up for him to see. “He was half buried in my planter hanging by the window.”
“Would you look at that,” Ted takes the figurine, examining it closely.
“Not sure how he got there,” she lies, knowing full well the exact day she threw it carelessly over her shoulder, “but I guess he’s been up there looking out for me all this time.”
“I got these guys set up all over my apartment,” he tells her. “Yeah, we tested it once, me and Beard, and there isn’t a single seat in there where you can’t see at least one green army man.”
Rebecca smiles. “Is that second on this list of safety procedures for single adults?”
“Yes ma’am,” he nods, taking another bite of pizza, “and if Henry ever sends me more of these guys, I’m coming to do your house next.”
She laughs, and it almost makes her choke on her food. After she swallows and remembers to breathe, she backs the conversation up a few steps. “So, who has your location? You know, so you don’t get kidnapped or murdered.”
“You and Higgins,” Ted answers easily. “And Beard, but he’s had it since way back when.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah,” he nods. “That man gets lost faster than anyone I know – he just needs some sort of beacon to help bring him back home at the end of the day. I’ll tell ya, when we first moved here, it took him a week to find the pub on his own.”
“Isn’t it just at the end of your street?”
“Yes ma’am,” Ted laughs.
The two of them spend the rest of the day eating and drinking and just generally enjoying each other’s company. They share stories about their dads – good and bad, and every single one makes them cry – and hold each other when it gets hard. It’s a sad day, just like it has been and just like it will be every year, but this time it’s a little bit easier. They lean on each other as the day goes on, and by the time the sun sets they both feel just a little bit better than when the day started.
Besides, they know that if you care about someone, and you got a little love in your heart, there ain’t nothing you can’t get through together.