Chapter Text
“Plucking up courage he seized hold of the thorn and drew it out of the lion's paw, who roared with pain when the thorn came out, but soon after found such relief from it that he fawned upon Androcles and showed, in every way that he knew, to whom he owed the relief.”
“Androcles and the Lion” by Aesop (traced by Joseph Jacobs)
Beard awoke to the sound of Rebecca softly tapping away at her laptop, the faint, rhythmic clicking on the keyboard enacting a janky little melody. She was sitting in a firm yet comfy-looking lavender colored chair with her Macbook in her lap, looking as put together as ever, although she’d paired her silk blouse with a pair of jeans instead of the usual pencil skirt.
“Where am I?” he asked more blurrily than he’d intended. He felt completely wrung out. The taste of the booze still lingered in his too-dry throat so the momentary blackout wasn’t that odd, but he was still surprised to wake up in a place he’d never been before. It had been years since the last time he’d done that. Had things really gotten that bad without him even noticing?
“One of my guest bedrooms. You were tired. We let you rest.” Rebecca’s tone was measured, but Beard could sense her worry. It took him a moment to register what she meant by we.
“Where’s Ted?” He’d brought him here, Beard was pretty sure, foggy memories from the night before slowly resurfacing.
“Work.”
“Oh shit, I’m late.” Beard sat up, regretting the hurried movement when his head immediately started spinning.
“Relax. I’m sure your boss will understand,” Rebecca said dryly. “Besides, it's nearly noon. Ted gave the team some excuse about you being sick.“
“You should have just woken me up. I’m a little hungover. I’ve worked through worse.”
She gave him a look.
“Uuuh.” Ted, fearless as he was, had never been put off by Rebecca’s intimidation tactics, but Beard couldn't deny that that piercing stare of hers had an effect on him. “Obviously not while working for you?”
Rebecca refrained from commenting on that. “He told them you’re staying in with the flu.”
Beard groaned. Ted was a terrible liar. Knowing his tendency to exaggerate, the team probably wouldn’t approach Beard with a ten foot pole for the next week, barring him agreeing to coach in a hazmat suit. “He probably made it sound like I have the plague.”
“All the more reason to stay put for a little while,” she replied diplomatically.
“Don’t you have to work?”
Rebecca gestured to the laptop. “I’ve got a couple of calls I need to make this afternoon and some reports to fill out, but it’s nothing that can’t be done from here. I already told Leslie I’d be working from home.”
Beard adjusted himself in bed with a grunt. He was wearing one of Ted’s t-shirts, he realized. They must have brought a change of clothes from Ted’s place. Or had he changed there? He remembered drinking whiskey, hogging the bottle and refusing to let it go, but after that everything had gotten blurry. Maybe he’d hurled on himself? That didn’t seem entirely out of the range of possibility. “Higgins won’t find it suspicious that neither of us is at the club today?”
“I doubt it. If he suspects we’re having some sort of clandestine dalliance, so be it.” She looked him over. “I could certainly do worse.”
Beard blinked at her. He could have sworn that she and Ted were building up to something, even if Ted hadn’t said as much, but maybe he’d gotten it wrong. He doubted Rebecca had actually meant anything by it, but the comment was definitely suggestive enough that if Jane knew she had made it, she would have skinned her alive.
Fuck. Jane. It was coming back to him now. Something in his gut twisted. He put his hand to his stomach just to make sure he hadn’t gotten stabbed.
“Come on. I promised Ted I’d try to feed you.”
Food was sandwiches of the fancy store-bought, pretty damn tasty variety, and Beard was happy to fill his growling stomach, trying to ignore how the twisted-gut feeling still wasn’t going away even as his hunger was sated. Rebecca took out her phone and began typing.
“Are you texting him?” He didn’t like to think about Ted right now. Didn’t like to think about how much of a mess he must’ve been for Ted to pass him off on Rebecca instead of leaving him to sleep off his hangover in peace.
She offered him a sympathetic smile. “Just wanted to let him know that you’re eating. He was worried. I imagine he’s still worried.”
Beard nodded at that. Worry was practically Ted’s default setting, at least as far as Beard was concerned. At least lately. “Why did he bring me here?”
“As I understand it, he was afraid she’d go looking for you at his flat. Seemed like a bit of an extreme measure if you ask me, but Ted was adamant.”
He shrugged. “She probably would. If she’s decided she doesn’t hate me. Or if she’s decided she really hates me now.”
“Does she often decide that? That she hates you?” There was something in Rebecca’s inquisitive tone that rubbed him the wrong way, like she was putting together some version of Jane in her head based on what he was saying. But that wasn’t fair. Jane hadn’t done anything wrong. Not really.
“Ah,” Beard said.
“What?”
“He brought me here because he thinks you’ll get through to me. Because Ted thinks I’m like you. But I’m not.”
“I highly doubt he’d make that comparison.”
“I think he compares us all the time,” Beard replied. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was a statement of hope or something closer to an admission. “Look, I don’t know what he told you, but Jane’s not— it’s not like that.”
“Like what?” She looked at him expectantly, a perfectly plucked eyebrow slightly raised at him, and he briefly considered shutting his yap. It was usually his preferred course of action in cases like these. And maybe it was just the hangover, how completely and utterly tired he felt, or that painful, twisted, stabby feeling still in his gut, but for once, he didn’t quash the compulsion to say exactly what was on his mind.
“She’s not Rupert. I’m not gonna pretend I have the full picture here. I just know your ex did a number on you. But that doesn’t mean that you know anything about— I love Jane, okay? I love her. We’ve had our differences, and it’s… I think it might be over now, between us, but she’s not some cartoon villain or some evil fucking sadist. I’m not a—” He stopped, catching himself before the word reached his lips, but Rebecca could tell what he’d been about to say. Of course she could.
“You’re not a victim like me.”
He wanted to refute her, to tell her that he hadn’t really meant it like that at all, but there was no use. He had meant every word.
Rebecca pressed her lips into a thin line and put her sandwich down, only half-eaten. She stood up from the table. “I have to take some calls in my office. I’ll be back within the hour.”
She didn’t turn to look back at him as she walked away.
Well, that could definitely have gone better.
Beard just sat for a minute, watching the door Rebecca had closed behind her. He considered staying put, awaiting her return like a well-trained dog who's been told to sit until she was ready to come back and accept his apology. He’d done that with Jane sometimes if she’d been particularly mad at him. Just sat around all day, waiting for her to return. Sometimes hours had gone by, and he had been nearly out of his mind, hungry and unable to think of anything else but whether she would decide to forgive him. She’d liked that, usually, and had shown him her appreciation. Expressing remorse had its rewards.
Rebecca’s words reverberated through his still-aching head. Does she often decide that? That she hates you? But it hadn’t been like that, not really. Jane had had her reasons to be angry. Beard had had plenty to atone for. And it wasn’t like he wouldn’t have been able to get up and leave if he had wanted to. Jane hadn’t trapped him there. After all, he’d been the one to leave this time. That proved it, in a way. It couldn’t have been that bad if he could leave. Could it?
Fuck it. He got up, permitted himself the freedom to at least get himself a glass of water from the tap, and once he’d allowed himself that much, it was easier to venture further, perusing Rebecca’s house a little. He didn’t get very far though. Her house was massive and unfamiliar and he wasn’t even sure where her office was — didn’t want to accidentally walk in on her during a meeting, making things worse than they already were. He considered going in search of his phone. It must be up in the guest bedroom along with his other things, but something stopped him. What would he find if he went looking for it? Messages from Jane asking him where he was or telling him she never wanted to see him again? Maybe even messages from her asking him to come back, asking him where she might find him. Of course, there was also the possibility that she hadn’t tried to contact him at all — that she had respected the way things had been left between them, and demanded nothing more of him. Every outcome was equally desirable and disturbing.
Instead, he headed for the living room where he noticed a book on the coffee table, the only bit of clutter in the otherwise pristine house he had found so far. He picked it up. He could read while Rebecca made her calls. That usually served him well enough as a distraction.
He was engrossed enough in the words that he didn’t even register Rebecca opening the door.
“You like Woolf?”
He jolted, genuinely startled by Rebecca’s voice, and when he turned around to look at her she seemed pained at his reaction. There she went again, making inferences about things she didn’t know anything about.
“Your bookmark is still in there. I just— I didn’t know what else to do. Felt invasive to go digging through your shelves for something else. Besides, it’s good.”
“I wouldn’t have minded.” She seemed sad, her eyes a little puffy, but she was calm too, no trace of malice in her tone.
“You’re not—”
“You were expecting me to be angry.” It was a statement, not a question.
He had. Jane would have been livid about the book, he realized. But that didn’t mean anything. Jane just didn’t like it when he touched her stuff without permission.
“I won’t deny that I was hurt by what you said earlier,” Rebecca told him, as if there was any way Beard could’ve avoided noticing that her eyes were red from crying. “But I’m not angry with you.”
He hated that he’d made her cry, and hated too that she’d tried to hide her tears from him. Not that he’d ever given her much reason to trust him with her tears. If she wanted to keep away from his prying eyes a little, he couldn’t blame her. God knew he would’ve done the same. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have implied that you were—”
“You were upset. I understand.” She huffed, swallowing half a laugh. “Shit, now it sounds like I’m comparing us again. It’s just that Ted hasn’t really been—”
“Talking?” Beard had noticed it too. Ted had been on edge lately, and while it hadn’t gotten so bad that the endless stream of Ted Lasso babbling had been entirely muted, he’d refused to voice whatever had been going on with him, and Beard had been too caught up with his own balancing act to check in.
“Precisely. But there’s clearly so much anger he’s not expressing. I almost wish he’d let it out on me. It’s like he doesn’t trust me enough to open up, and if that’s the case then—”
“Then where does that leave you and him?” He’d had similar thoughts himself before. What was 28 years of friendship good for, if Ted wouldn’t even talk to him?
“There is no me and him,” Rebecca said, but it came out as more of a question than a statement.
Beard shrugged, tactful enough to not state the Sure, not yet outright. “It’s not about him not trusting you. It’s about not trusting himself. He’ll get there.”
“Look, I don’t know why you’d have this impression, but he and I aren’t—”
“Dating?”
“We’re colleagues, that’s all.”
He gave her a look that conveyed the comment he didn’t want to make, that they were sure spending a whole lot of time outside work for a couple of people who were just colleagues.
“We’re colleagues who are also friends,” she relented. “Like the two of you.”
Beard tried not to let on how ironic he found that statement. “So all those early morning cookie sessions, the after work rendezvous, you wouldn’t think of those as dates?”
“I wouldn’t, no. We just like each other’s company. He means a lot to me. I’m sure you can understand that.” She hesitated, then added. “He promised he’d come over later.”
“Oh?” Beard raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t,” she said, a little annoyed, but he could tell she was blushing. “He’s coming over to check up on you. In the meantime, I thought we might go for a walk? Getting out of the house helps. Trust me on that.”
He made no effort to hide his skepticism.
“That’s not me making comparisons. That’s me making an objective observation about the mental health benefits of non-strenuous exercise and fresh air. Been to Kew Gardens lately?”
He hadn’t. When he thought about it, it did sound sort of nice. He shook his head in response and went to get his shoes.
He found his jacket, his shoes and his hat in the entrance hall by the door where they had been neatly placed between Rebecca’s coats and considerable collection of heels as if they belonged there. He could only assume Ted or Rebecca had placed them there, and he found himself oddly touched by the care with which they had put them away. He wondered how long Ted had stayed after he’d brought him here last night. Maybe it had taken him a while to convince Rebecca to let him stay. Not that he thought she needed much convincing — there were few things she wouldn’t do for Ted, he knew. She might even go to the same lengths for Ted as he was willing to himself. Not too long ago, he would have thought that impossible, but it was hard to ignore just how close Ted and Rebecca had grown lately, just how much their friendship had evolved over the course of this season. As far as Beard was aware, most people hadn’t caught on yet — even Roy hadn’t let on that he thought anything was particularly out of the ordinary. But Beard had seen Ted’s increased efforts to always meet up with Rebecca in the mornings before work, sometimes spending so long up there in her office that he had been late for practice. Their after hours drinks dragged out sometimes too. Beard had even called Ted up once only to realize that they had gone to a restaurant together. Pizza, sure—nothing fancy—but still dinner. Rebecca had yet to extend an invitation for this little after hours ritual to any of the assistant coaches.
“You find everything you needed?” Rebecca’s voice pulled him out of his train of thought.
He put on his sixpence and tipped his hat at her in response.
It was a nice day, only a little overcast which was about as good as you could expect for London this time of year, and Rebecca seemed in her element, smiling faintly as she walked at a leisurely pace. Beard tried to walk in line with her steps, even if he couldn’t quite match her vibrant energy. They walked in silence like that for a while, and Beard couldn’t exactly deny that Rebecca had been right — the fresh air kind of helped. And even though spring was still a few months away, there was no denying the beauty of the gardens.
“Ted used to take me for walks, back in the day. Way back, long before Henry was even born.” Beard usually didn't like to dwell on the past. There was too much of it, too much anger, betrayal and heartbreak. Too many regrets. But he’d been thinking about Ted all day—of everything he’d done for him—and there was something terribly alluring about finally being able to say just a fraction of it out loud to someone who could maybe actually understand the strange miraculous wonder of Ted Lasso. “I was in a bad place. Ted would joke that it was just because we both needed the exercise, but I think he just wanted to make sure I left the house once in a while.” Maybe it was force of habit or maybe it was self preservation, but Beard refrained from getting into just how far off the beaten path he’d gotten back then.
“Ted’s good at that sort of thing,” Rebecca replied. There was a fondness in her voice Beard could hardly fault her for, but which still made something within him ache.
“Did you go on a lot of walks? After…” He didn’t finish the sentence, knowing how she’d reacted the last time he’d brought up her ex-husband.
“No. The tabloids were kind of relentless at the time, so I didn’t leave the house much. Didn’t want to be caught at yet another unflattering angle. I still don’t jog anymore, even though I used to love jogging. There’s simply no way of doing it gracefully.”
Beard instinctively wanted to call bullshit. Not only because it honestly struck him as extremely unlikely that real life Amazon Rebecca Welton had any unflattering angles, but because the very concept of jogging being in any way enjoyable was kind of hilariously absurd to him. He held back on expressing any of those thoughts though. He’d worked in sports long enough to know what she meant. Endorphins really were a hell of a drug. Not as good as regular drugs, but definitely up there.
“I finally went ahead and got a pilates machine, but it’s hardly the same. I did leave the country for a bit though. Got on a yacht in Mallorca.”
Beard only had a vague idea what people even did on yachts, but gave an impressed nod anyway.
“It wasn’t exactly prime weather for a beach holiday and the paps found me anyway, but I still think I needed it. If you’d like, we can arrange for you to take some time off too. If I had to do it again, I would have gone further south, maybe stayed a little longer.”
“I’m guessing there are a lot of things you would have done differently,” he muttered, trying not to sound too bitter. He knew why Rebecca had hired them to begin with, had even had an inkling of it before she spilled the beans to Ted, but Beard still hadn’t fully mastered the art of forgiveness and every interaction he’d had with his boss ever since had been tinged with a slight level of discomfort, he’d only recently begun to be able to shake. Over time, the bitterness had finally faded, but the mess with Nate the previous summer hadn’t helped things — yet another addition to the endless string of professional disappointments stacked on top of the personal ones.
“Yes and no.” There was softness in her expression as she looked at him. “It’s hard to regret the things you’re grateful for.”
Beard thought he understood what she meant, but he didn’t want to talk about his own regrets. He just lowered his head, avoiding her gaze, his hand instinctively reaching up to adjust his sixpence a little. It had taken him a while to get used to wearing anything other than the baseball caps he’d grown accustomed to, but over the course of the past year, he’d hardly worn anything else. He wondered what would happen if he threw it out, stopped wearing it now, how long it would take him to adjust to never wearing it again.
Rebecca didn’t seem to mind that he’d stopped talking, and the silence as they carried on was remarkably comfortable. She didn’t seem to be put off by his preference for quiet, nor did she feel the need to end the quiet by babbling on ad nauseum in order to dispel any potentiel feelings of discomfort the way Ted sometimes did. She just left him space to think. It was nice.
They kept in motion, never hurrying, but rarely idle, only stopping to a halt a handful of times. Their first stop was the predictable fan sighting. Beard still didn’t really know how to react when people recognized him on the street, but Rebecca was perfectly amicable, smiling and nodding her way through the conversation, even as the supposed Richmond supporter got a little too harsh about their latest tied game. Fan interactions had gotten a whole lot easier now that they were winning more games than they were losing though, and Beard even managed an only slightly sarcastic “I’ll bring it up with the other coaches” in response.
Their second stop was a large, friendly lab that nearly broke away from its leash in excitement at the sight of Beard, furiously wagging its tail as he crouched down to rub it under the ears. Rebecca smiled at him, bemused.
He looked up at her. “What?”
“You just reminded me of Ted just then. Something in your smile I suppose. I forget how similar the two of you can be at times.”
Beard could really only take that as a compliment.
The third time they stopped was in the depths of the Arboretum, surrounded by an impressive, unruly mass of varied trees where Beard noticed a large, ancient-looking oak, and couldn’t suppress the urge to walk up to it, carefully reaching out to touch it with his bare hands, feeling the chipped bark against his palm. “I used to cut down trees, you know. Mostly pine, but oak too. I was actually pretty good at it.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “I’m a lumberjack world championship qualifier.” He usually liked to add a bit of pizzazz to the statement, playing it up like yet another oddly shaped puzzle piece that made up his mysterious persona as opposed to a consequence of him spending four summers in a row working his butt of at a lumber mill doing backbreaking work in order to pay off his student loans. But it didn’t feel right today. He didn’t mind being mysterious, but he wasn’t feeling up for making an effort with the pretense of it.
Their fourth stop was when Rebecca noticed a small, redridged, brown butterfly with soft-looking wings sitting undisturbed on a bush, seemingly unbothered by their proximity.
“White-letter hairstreak,” Beard noted.
Rebecca seemed almost annoyed. “What, you’re also an entomologist now?”
He’d actually looked it up on his phone a few weeks ago, after he and Ted had spotted one in an elm tree near the pub, but he liked that Rebecca was impressed with him, and didn’t want to ruin the air of mystery completely so he merely shrugged. “I’m a man of many talents.”
“I’m glad you can recognise that,” Rebecca said, and she seemed so earnest that he felt bad for having given her the wrong idea about him. He wasn’t talented. If anything, he was a jack of a couple of trades and a master of none.
“No, I mean- it’s not that impressive. I googled it when Ted asked me recently.”
“I think you underestimate yourself,” was her only reply.
There was still plenty more of the gardens left to explore when Rebecca started to guide him back in the direction of her house. “Ted will be at my place at around seven. We should probably head back soon. Wouldn’t want to keep him waiting.”
Beard agreed, looking forward to seeing Ted’s face, but as they left the gardens, he felt a stab of disappointment too. He’d have happily walked with her for another hour. The walk had lifted his spirits considerably, a nice respite from everything that had come before it.
“I’ve arranged to get delivery from this lovely Italian place nearby,” Rebecca said when they entered her house, removing her overcoat with admirable elegance.
“Guessing you don’t mean you’ve ordered pizza from your local, dodgy pizza joint?” He had a tendency to agree with Roy that the occasional hair in your food was part of the experience, but something told him their boss didn’t share that opinion.
Rebecca shrugged, and hung her coat up. “Yes, well, I try to avoid cooking whenever possible, but I thankfully make enough to be able to avoid any worries about the potential health hazard and subpar dining experiences when ordering take-out. You can put your shoes and jacket back where you found them. And the hat, I suppose. I know you prefer wearing hats most of the time. I wouldn’t find it rude or anything if you keep it on indoors. If you’re cold, I mean.”
Beard tried not to laugh at the last addition. He was sure she knew he wore them for the simple vanity of hiding his bald spot. He took off his sixpence, folded it up and considered it with a newfound bitterness. It felt suddenly fragile in his hands. “Jane gave me this hat.”
Rebecca stopped, and turned to look at him. The obvious pity in her eyes made him uneasy. “I always hated it. It makes you look older than you are.”
“You don’t have to hate everything about her for me,” he told her.
“I know,” she replied. “But I’m going to anyway. Hope that’s okay.”
Beard tried to suppress a smile at her matter-of-fact dismissal. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with getting older.”
“You’re right, there isn’t. I used to idolize youth, but looking back, I was probably just too young and foolish to know any better.”
“I don’t want to be younger. There’s not a whole lot about my youth worth idolizing, but sometimes I feel like I’ve wasted all this time...”
“I don’t like to think of it that way. Not anymore. All those years I spent chasing after Rupert’s approval can certainly feel like a massive waste of time, and it’s not as if I learned all that much from the whole ordeal. But I did learn some things, at least after the initial pain subsided, and the parts that were nothing but misery for misery’s sake… well, I suppose I’ve realized that it’s best to look forward.”
“Be a goldfish.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s something Ted likes to say to the team,” he told her, but then waved it off. “Never mind.”
“Oh. I suppose he doesn’t talk much about the team. He’ll say if he’s worried about one of them, but he rarely gets into details about the coaching itself.”
“What do you talk about?” He’d never really given much thought to what the topic of conversation might be that Ted had found so enrapturing that it frequently made him forget the time.
“I suppose it depends.”
“Do I come up?” It felt a little crass to ask, but given her reaction earlier, he was suddenly starting to wonder.
“Sometimes.” She kept her tone neutral. For all he knew, it could mean he’d come up once or twice, or it could mean they talked about him every single day. “Ted does most of the talking. He’ll ask about my wants and my past and my worries, but some days I like to just let him go off on his tangents. He talks about how clever you are, how dedicated, how lost he sometimes thinks he’d be without your guidance, your friendship, your infinite fountain of wisdom.”
Beard's heart stopped a little at that. He felt sort of pathetic about how much her words affected him, but then that wasn’t anything new. “He likes to exaggerate things.”
“I don’t know about that. I think he’s probably right about most of it.” She seemed so sure that he struggled to refute her.
When Rebecca gestured for him to come into the living room with her, he followed easily, and he was grateful for the short lull in conversation, grateful for the moment to gather his thoughts a little, as they got comfortable on the couch, resting their tired feet, a notable inch or two of distance between their thighs. At first he thought she was staying quiet for his sake, but then he noticed the way she was fidgeting with her hands, eyes darting around the room a little uneasily like she was building up the courage for something.
“You know,” she said after a few moments, finally looking directly at him, although she seemed a little nervous to do so. “Ted told me something about the two of you a few weeks back.”
“Was this during one of your non-dates?”
“Oh shush.” She gave him an annoyed yet friendly shove on the shoulder, but she was smiling through it, suddenly less on edge. “We were talking about what we were like when we were younger, and I asked him about you, about when the two of you first got to know each other at uni. He didn’t get into any specifics, but I got the impression that perhaps the two of you— that you’d maybe been his first love in a way.”
Beard nodded. He knew Ted had never told Michelle about any of that, but it somehow didn’t surprise him that he’d told Rebecca, even if it had only been in the vaguest of terms. “I think he was probably mine.”
“Did you and he ever—” She trailed off, hesitant to complete the sentence.
He raised an eyebrow. “Fuck?”
“Yes. That.” She didn’t seem particularly shocked by the notion.
He shook his head. “We never really acted on it.”
“That’s a shame,” she replied earnestly, her eyes a little sad.
“We did kiss once, but just the once, a long time ago.” It had been a good kiss, long and deep and genuinely felt, but they had chalked it up to the booze, agreed it shouldn’t be repeated. Even though he was sure he wouldn’t have acted any differently had he been stone cold sober. “We were never very good at timing.”
“You still love him, don’t you?”
He tried to brush it off, keeping his tone neutral, matter-of fact. That was all it was when it came down to it, after all — a fact. “I’ll always love him.”
“You know that wasn’t what I meant,” she said.
He held her gaze then, made sure she could sense he was being honest with her. “You know that’s not what I’m telling you.”
Rebecca considered him for a moment. “Would you tell me about it? About how it used to be?” Her tone was calm, but her eyes were wild with curiosity.
“Not much to tell. We were friends, and we knew it was more than that, but we were young and it was the nineties and we weren’t really ready to accept what it meant. After that, I got all fucked up — it wouldn’t have been a good idea. When Michelle got her act together and asked him out, I didn’t even mind. They were a good couple back then. I was rooting for them. By the time they finally admitted to themselves it wasn’t going to work out anymore, I had Jane to keep me occupied. Timing wasn’t ever right.”
“So that’s the only thing that ever stood between you? Timing?”
He shrugged. It was more complicated than that. He and Ted were both believers in signs, and what is bad timing, if not the universe telling you to let go?
“Nothing standing in between you now then.”
“I think we both know that’s not true,” he told her, looking at her pointedly.
“What? Me? You honestly think I could even have a ghost of a chance against 30 years of friendship?”
“28,” he corrected. And he did in fact believe just that. Not that he could blame Ted, exactly. Rebecca was undeniably extraordinary.
“You do, don’t you?” Rebecca said, slightly stunned.
“Look, I’m a 49-year-old balding man wearing a sixpence because I can’t let go of the closest thing to a steady relationship I’ve ever had. And it wasn’t even that steady.” Or healthy, really, although he still had a hard time admitting that part out loud. If he was honest with himself, healthy had never entered the picture with the two of them, not even in the beginning. “And you’re... I mean look at you.” He gestured at her in a sort of general way. Surely, she knew the effect she had on people. It was kind of hard to miss from where he was sitting.
Rebecca blushed a little, but gathered herself, composing her expression into something more skeptical, her left brow arched slightly at him. “You’re saying my 48-year-old mess is different from your 49-year-old mess just because I look good in a pair of heels?”
“Well, no, not exactly. Besides, I look fucking great in heels.”
That made her crack a smile finally. Ted was always going on about how great a smile she had. Beard hadn’t really gotten the big whoop before, but he was beginning to get it now.
“Somehow, I don’t doubt that,” she told him.
“I’d show you my catwalk, but I don’t think we’re the same size.”
“Tragic.”
They just sat there, smiling, for a moment, until the door rang, and Beard tensed, hurrying out with Rebecca to open the door, finding a polite yet somewhat apathetic delivery guy who handed them their food—a collection of pasta dishes in expensive looking packaging—before turning away.
Beard had a hard time disguising his disappointment. “When did you say Ted was coming?”
“He’ll get here,” she stated simply, and there was surely more to it than that, but before he could ask, she was changing the subject. “What did you mean with that thing you were saying earlier about goldfish?”
“Got a ten second memory.”
“That’s actually a myth. Goldfish are surprisingly intelligent creatures. They remember where they come from. They learn from their mistakes.”
He knew that, but still. “It’s a metaphor.”
“For what? Ignoring your traumas and hoping that will magically make them go away?”
“I mean, sure.” To her credit, he was sure that was part of what Ted liked about that philosophy, a convenient excuse to not dig too deep into old wounds. “It’s better advice for ensuring a good athletic performance than it is as a general life philosophy. But, it’s also like you said. Sometimes you gotta move forward.”
“But change has to come with that. After everything that happened with Rupert, I’ve made some important changes in how I view myself, others, love.” Something in Rebecca’s face changed at the last word, and she grew quiet. She had that look in her eyes that he knew she thought was empathy, that look that meant she was trying to make him see that she understood, even though he knew she couldn’t possibly understand. “But it took me a while. It takes a while.”
For a moment he considered letting her keep the feeling that she was helping, but leaving it there felt dishonest.
“I told you. Jane’s not Rupert.”
“I know,” Rebecca said, but there was a hesitancy in her voice.
“Do you? Because you keep treating me like you understand, but I don’t think you do. She’s not… she never meant to hurt me. She’s maybe a little intense...”
Rebecca scoffed.
“Okay, so she’s very intense. I always liked that about her, believe it or not. She’s passionate, and sometimes that makes her aggressive, but it doesn’t come from a place of aggression. She’s just insecure. She’s been hurt so much in her life, and being with me — I think I gave her some consistency. I’ve never tried that before, being the least fucked up one. It felt nice. Felt like I was helping her. But she was still so terrified half the time, and I never knew what to do about it. Opening up only freaked her out, and then she’d use it against me when things got too much. And it was a shitty thing to do, I get that. I know Jane’s not perfect, but she’s not a monster. She’s just a scared, fucked up, broken person like—“ He stopped, feeling all the anger turn to desperation, feeling his eyes start to mist. Shit. This was exactly why he’d learned to keep his cards close. He didn’t want Rebecca seeing him like this.
“Like you? Is that what you were about to say?”
He could feel the frustration building up inside him, and then sour, turning it inward until it mixed up with the regret. He nodded. “I just left. Didn’t even say goodbye.”
“Ted told me,” Rebecca said calmly.
“She wanted me to stay, begged me to, and I just crept out of there in the dead of night like a coward.”
“Ted didn’t quite phrase it like that, but I gathered as much.”
He lowered his head, putting his hands in his hair, shielding himself, feeling suddenly naked without his hat on. He kept them there. “I told her I’d never leave her. I told her, and then I did it anyway. You don’t think that makes me a piece of shit?”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. You couldn’t have known. Sometimes we make promises we can’t keep. It’s only human.”
“I think she blames me. She should.”
“A relationship shouldn’t be an endurance test. You were never under any obligation to stay. That’s not how these things work.”
He appreciated Rebecca’s efforts and resented them all at once.
“It’s not about obligation. I’m worried about her. What she might do. Jane can be… unpredictable.”
“You’re worried she’ll hurt you?” It was only barely a question.
Beard just shook his head. Jane had hurt him plenty already, but she wasn’t dangerous. It wasn’t like that. Why couldn’t she see that it wasn’t like that?
“Oh,” Rebecca said, realization suddenly dawning on her. “You’re worried about her.”
“I know I wasn’t much better, but sometimes she’d say things—we’d both say things—and it wasn’t like we meant it, at least not like that. But I can’t help but wonder if I’m gonna suddenly hear that she—” He stopped, the thought too horrific to voice.
“I won’t pretend to know what she would and wouldn’t do, but you must know that you’re not responsible for her actions.” She winced. “Fuck, that makes it sound like I’m even considering that possibility. I’m sure she wouldn’t.”
“You don’t know her. She lashes out sometimes when she’s upset. Takes things out on herself.” She’d taken things out on him too, but he’d been able to take it. He didn’t break apart at the seams like she did when everything became too much to bear. At least not anymore. Not since Ted. He was almost certain he wouldn’t have this time.
“I’m sorry,” Rebecca said. “If it seemed like I was making comparisons before. I hope she gets the support she needs. No matter how much I may resent how she treated you, she deserves that. Everyone deserves that. But I think it’s clear by now that you shouldn’t be the person to offer her that support.”
Beard nodded at that. “Because I couldn’t save her.”
Rebecca looked pained, but he didn’t resent the way she looked at him anymore. She was only right to pity him. “It wasn't ever your job to save her.”
“Ted saved me, you know. I was all fucked up and he just pulled me out of the downward spiral and let me stay with him until I was back on my feet. I’m not sure where I’d be without him. If I would even be-” Beard let out a deep breath. “He saved my life.”
Rebecca put a hand on his shoulder, the touch oddly jarring in its tenderness. “Sounds like Ted to me.”
“I don’t know why I can’t do that for people.”
“You can,” she told him. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the part you played in getting the team back on track. But that’s not what romantic partners are for. You can’t be someone’s parent and nurse and lover all at once. It isn’t healthy.”
Beard thought back to a too-hot day in August back in Kansas, what felt like a lifetime ago, when his best friend had held him in a not-tight-enough hug on his first day out of the detox center.
“You know what’s funny? That’s what Ted said.”
Rebecca didn’t laugh. Maybe it wasn’t that funny after all.
They stood like that for a moment, considering each other carefully, before the doorbell finally broke their staring contest, jolting them both out of their trance. Beard barely had the chance to notice the flush suddenly creeping up Rebecca’s neck before she turned and rushed for the door.
Beard turned to look as she answered the door. He wasn’t exactly surprised to see that it was Ted, but he was surprised to find that it wasn’t Ted he saw exactly, but some bygone version of him, all that past between them floating up to the surface. Maybe it was just some trick of the light that had altered him, but there was a light in Ted’s eyes as he saw Rebecca that made him seem younger somehow, more like the young man Beard had gotten to know all those years ago, vibrant and almost glowing.
When Rebecca and Ted hugged their hello, Beard heard her whisper. “Did you...”
“Yeah, yeah. Everything's alright. I got it covered, don't you worry, Tim Curry.”
“Hey,” Beard said, and Ted seemed to only now fully register his presence. “What are you two whispering about?”
“What? Uh nothing, Coach,” but he must have known that Beard could look right through him.
Rebecca rolled her eyes. “God, are you always this bad of a liar or does he make you extra stupid?”
Beard made a show of mulling it over. “Definitely a combination of the two.”
Ted looked between them, guilt-ridden. That wiped the smirk off Beard’s face. It wasn’t like Ted to knowingly keep things from him.
Beard looked at Ted to show him that it was okay, that whatever it was, he could take it.
“I uh— went to make sure Jane was holding up okay. I don’t know if you can remember, but you were pretty darned shook up about how she’d react last night and I just wanted to make sure someone was looking after her.”
“Oh.” Beard didn’t know what to ask, what he hoped for. “Is she—“
“She’ll be alright. Took her to her mom’s place.”
“Oh,” Beard repeated dumbly. “That’s…” Jane had made a point of not introducing him to her mom. Giving his issues with his own mother, he hadn’t exactly been able to hold it against her, hadn’t wanted to push, but everytime Jane had visited her mom without inviting him along, he’d felt a stab of frustration, more sure every time that he was the one she was embarrassed about, not the other way around. The idea that Ted had met her before he had made him want to throw up, but the knowledge that Jane had someone—someone who wasn’t him—to take care of her filled him with a sense of relief. He and Jane had spent so long in their bubble, caught up in nothing but each other that he’d all but forgotten that they both had other people to rely on — he didn’t bear the sole responsibility for her care, and she wasn’t the only person left in the world who could love him. He wanted to tell Ted all of that, but all he managed to croak out was a pathetic “Uh, thanks, Coach.”
“No worries, buddy.” Ted’s smile was all open affection. It hurt knowing how much Ted loved him and how little he deserved it.
They hugged then, and Beard had trouble keeping it together, lost as he was in the closeness of Ted, the familiar scent and the warmth of the embrace. He gripped a little harder, trying to steady himself against his body, burrowing his face in his neck, willing his tears to dry before he let go, before Rebecca saw.
“Please, come in,” Rebecca said when they finally pulled apart, helping Ted out of his jacket. There was an intimacy to the gesture that made Beard wonder how many times she had done it before. “There’s food.”
“Don’t worry,” Beard added. “She didn’t cook.”
“Just because I don’t enjoy cooking, doesn’t mean I’m a complete disaster.” She only seemed a little offended. “I’ll have you know I make a mean coq au vin.”
“Can’t wait to taste it,” Beard said honestly. Seemed he wasn’t the only one with hidden talents.
Ted looked between them, eyes a little wide, and then his expression changed, lips curling up into a careful grin. “Would you look at that? I ain’t even been gone a full day, and when I come back here the two of you are as tight-knit as the socks my nana used to make me every Christmas.”
Beard and Rebecca shared a glance, quietly agreeing to let Ted believe things had gone over significantly more smoothly than they actually had. He was grateful she allowed him the shred of dignity of not bringing up his outbursts, even if he assumed it was probably more about not needing Ted to know she’d been crying herself.
Rebecca opened a bottle of sauvignon blanc that was paired really well with the meal. Beard told her as much.
“You’re also a wine connoisseur now?”
“Beard was a line cook for a while back in the day. Picked up some trade secrets,” Ted said proudly, and Beard was glad to have him here with him again, the man who knew him so well that he could speak on his behalf, could allow Beard to recuperate a little in his muted bubble.
“I’m impressed,” Rebecca said. “You really are a man of many talents.”
“Y’know I’d nearly forgotten about that,” Ted said. “You don’t really talk about it much anymore.”
Beard shrugged. “No use getting bogged down by the past.”
“I don’t know about that,” Rebecca said, nudging him softly under the table. “Seems like sometimes the past is how we learn.”
Beard didn’t respond, but he nodded at that a little, returning her careful, knowing smile.
The conversation went on for a bit, comfortable and easy, only dying down as they ate, and by the time they were ready to put their plates away, it was as if all remnants of resentment had drifted from the room.
Ted got up from the table. “Let me get the plates. You two just sit right there and let me do somethin’ nice for ya for a change.”
“Ted, you’re literally always the one doing something nice,” Rebecca insisted, stopping Ted in his tracks as she took the plates from him and headed over to the kitchen.
“She’s got a point, Coach,” Beard agreed, getting up to help her while Ted stayed put, clearly itching to be of assistance.
“Well, uh, still. Thanks for dinner,” Ted said. “I appreciate it, Boss.”
Rebecca smiled and looked between them. “It’s been nice, having company.”
Beard nodded in agreement, smiling too. He’d woken up in a hungover haze of doubt and frustration, and Rebecca had somehow managed to make the day kind of… wonderful.
A look came over Ted’s face then that Beard, for a change, had a hard time decoding. If he had to guess, it seemed like Ted had suddenly been hurt by something, but Beard couldn’t for the life of him figure out what could have brought it on, and before he could ask if something was wrong, Ted spoke. “That’s real nice to hear. I’m glad you two got a bonding experience out of it. You plan on sticking around, Coach?”
Beard hadn’t actually thought that far ahead. He hadn’t asked to come here, but he’d grown thankful of the hospitality all the same. She really had gone above and beyond already. “Don’t want to overstay my welcome.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Rebecca said firmly. “You stay as long as you like. God knows I have the room.”
Beard wanted to protest, but Rebecca had that look about her that reminded him of the ruthless businesswoman she was, accustomed to intimidating men with a lot more guts than he had himself.
“Like you just agreed, Ted’s always the one doing something nice. I think it’s time someone else starts taking care of you a little.”
“You’ve got a great headstart it seems, Boss,” Ted said.
“Yeah,” Beard agreed with a smile, looking over at Rebecca from across the kitchen. “She does.”
Ted had that look about him again, that unfamiliar, almost hurt expression. “Well, I’ve better get going. Henry’s gonna be in the school play, and I wanna hear how his first day of rehearsals went. But I just wanna thank you both a bunch for a heckuva lovely evening.”
Ted and Beard hugged their goodbye — a warm and familiar hug that wasn’t quite as desperate as the one they had greeted each other with, and then Rebecca saw Ted out to the entrance hall. Beard wanted to follow, suddenly nervous about spending even a few moments alone, but he needed to give them this time together without him, abundantly conscious of the fact that he was getting in the way of things, depriving them of yet another night spent alone together, casually denying the obvious.
A few minutes went by before he finally heard the front door close, but there was no sound of footsteps, and after a few moments, he started to wonder if Rebecca had maybe left with Ted. Would they just leave him here like that? Or had they opened the door simply to close it again? As much as he was unsure of what he might find when he went out to the entrance hall to check, he didn’t think he could have predicted the sight of Rebecca curled up around herself sitting on the floor with her back against the front door, arms wrapped around her knees, crying.
When she didn’t react to his presence, he finally asked. “Are you okay?”
Rebecca froze up at his words, but still didn’t speak, and then got up, refusing to meet his gaze, adjusting her shirt a little. She swallowed, wiped her eyes and then finally looked at him, face serious. “It’s been a long day for you. Maybe you should just go back to your room. Everything you need should be in the ensuite restroom or in your backpack by the bed.”
“What happened?”
“Don’t,” she said firmly, raising her voice, and then softened, adding “Please, just don’t.”
She hurried up the stairs, and Beard watched her leave, failing to come up with anything he could possibly say to her.
When he went upstairs himself, Beard found his phone, carefully placed on a dresser, charging. It was put there with the screen facing down, and he considered leaving it there, but the temptation was too much, and he turned it around, feeling the strange pressure of his finger on the button as he turned it on. There was nothing inherently shocking about the notification on the screen, but it still managed to shake him to his core. Jane had called.