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Friday
“One more, coach?” Beard asks, tilting his empty pint glass in Ted’s direction.
“Nah, think I’m all set,” Ted says. “I gotta go home and rest up. I’m, uh, about to have an unusually social weekend.”
“Oh?”
Ted grabs his jacket from where it hangs over the back of the empty chair adjacent to his, shrugging into the sleeves as he explains his weekend. “Yeah, tomorrow afternoon Keeley has to go to some wedding she’s not super excited about, and she invited me as her plus one on account of, you know, her and Roy being on a break, and I’m guessin’ Rebecca’s got other plans that night, otherwise I’m sure she’d’ve been the the lucky one. Then on Sunday morning, Rebecca and I are driving out to her mom’s house for this big brunch party Deborah’s throwing for all her friends. She hasn’t been back that much since the funeral but her mom’s really insisting she shows up for this one. And then, you know, Monday’s a bank holiday but Roy asked if we could meet up at the Dog Track anyway for something he wants to go over in person. He already told me he wasn’t planning on quitting his job, which is what I was afraid of, so now I’m just excited about the mystery.”
“Weddings and moms and secret missions,” Beard says. “Your favorites.”
“I know! Let me tell you, I am feelin’ like quite the social butterfly all of a sudden.” Ted flashes Beard a grin. “But don’t worry, coach, I won’t let it go to my head. I’m just glad our friends know they can count on me for this kinda thing. Dreaded social obligations and awkward mom stuff and…whatever it is that Roy wants.”
Ted draws up the zipper on his jacket and stands, and Beard stands, too. They walk together in the direction of their flats, which is usual, and when they part ways at Ted’s door they hug, which is neither usual or unusual. Just a thing that happens sometimes, whenever one of them needs it. Beard slaps Ted on the back as the hug wraps up, which makes Ted realize Beard thinks Ted is the one who needs this particular hug. “Good luck with your complicated life, buddy,” Beard says, in a voice just a touch more earnest than usual.
Ted chuckles a little as he runs up the stairs. Complicated? His life is simple. Well. British football leagues are a little complicated. Navigating life with an anxiety disorder gets tricky from time to time. Parenting across two continents isn’t the most straightforward endeavor. And of course all human beings contain complicated, messy multitudes. But friendship? Showing up? Easy as pie.
*
Saturday
The wedding is glitzy and showy and pretentious and it shouldn’t be a blast, but it is. Ted doesn’t get a chance to meet the bride or groom, but he never expected an introduction. There are over 300 people in attendance, and Keeley isn’t close with any of them. The bride is an old friend from school who would’ve been sad if Keeley didn’t attend, and—as she explained in the Uber on the way to the wedding—Keeley’s only met the groom one time and didn’t like him much when she did. And so they’re physically present at the wedding, but Ted feels more like a fly on the wall than a proper guest as they occupy a pew near the back of the church. It’s kinda fun, hearing the words strangers choose when they commit their lives to each other. Even if a few of the words give Ted a bit more insight into why Keeley isn’t this couple’s number one fan.
It’s strange, Keeley whispers into Ted’s ear during the reception, to attend a wedding celebrating a marriage you don’t think will last. And might even hope doesn’t last. It’s a rather somber thought to utter on any occasion, but particularly an occasion strung with this many fairy lights.
At one point, a few old friends of Keeley’s, all young women in sequined cocktail dresses, bound up to their table, demanding an introduction to the new boyfriend. Keeley laughs and introduces Ted as her “dear friend” and turns the attention back to the other women. Ted watches in wonder as Keeley squeals over one woman’s engagement ring and the color of another’s dress, picking out something to compliment in everyone. It feels genuine but practiced, so different from how it felt when he showed up at her doorstep this afternoon and she told him she loved his dark blue suit. “It was sooo nice catching up,” Keeley says, “but I think I’m gonna try to convince this one to hit the dance floor.” The women get the hint and go back to their table, and Ted wonders why they weren’t seated at that group’s table since they appear to be the only other people Keeley knows.
“None of these people follow football,” Keeley explains. “Otherwise they’d have known who you were.”
Ted scoffs. “Please don’t think I’m offended.” He remembers that before the interruption, they’d been talking about doomed marriages. “You know what, we actually should dance.”
He isn’t surprised that Keeley takes him up on the offer—she’d put the idea out there in the first place—but he is surprised when the many-songs-long playlist of upbeat, crowd-friendly pop tunes takes a sharp turn into ballad country as soon as they step onto the dance floor.
But Keeley knows just what to do. She holds up her arms so they’re suspended in midair in perfect position, making it easy for Ted to step forward and take one hand in his. Her other hand lands on his shoulder as he places his other hand at her hip. She grins up at him, and she’s so shimmery and lovely, and he had no idea wedding interloping could be this much fun. For the first song, they mostly just sway side to side in place, but the next song is slow too, and the next, and they stay on the dance floor, gradually incorporating a bit more nuance into their movements. They burst into laughter after they only barely pull off a spin, and return to the gentle sway for the rest of the song.
When Ted looks down at Keeley as the song fades away, there are tears in her eyes. “Hey,” he murmurs. “What’s wrong?”
She doesn’t respond in words, instead opting to bury her face in his chest, staying planted there as the playlist turns uptempo again. The other dancers pulse on the dance floor, and the contrast with Ted and Keeley’s stillness makes the dancers feel like a school of fish rippling around an obstacle. He places a hand on her back, pressing just gently. Is it possible that the sob that shudders through her is a response to his touch?
“What’s wrong?” he tries again. “Friend. What’s wrong?”
Keeley pulls away enough to look him in the eye, and he loosens his grip. She wipes her eyes with her palms, applying barely any pressure so she can swipe at her tears without wrecking her makeup. “I just had a stupid thought while we were dancing.” She glances to the side, at the exit. Turns back, forcing a smile in transit. “Some kind of ‘in another life’ bullshit.”
“Keels—”
“Forget I said anything.” She takes a step back, and Ted’s arms fall to his sides. “Thanks for being my plus one. I think we’ve put in enough time, don’t you?”
It takes a while to get the Uber. The wait is quiet, and so is the drive back to Keeley’s house. “I’ll get out here too,” Ted says when they pull up at Keeley’s door. “I was thinking I could use a walk.”
Before starting his walk home, he walks Keeley to the door. “Thanks for inviting me,” Ted says.
Keeley’s already got one hand on the doorknob, but she freezes in place, smiling up at him with an only slightly rueful expression. “I—” she says, and immediately scrunches up her face in preemptive regret. “You know, Roy and I still talk all the time.”
“Yeah? I kinda picked up on that from him.”
“We still say, like, I love you and stuff. I’m the one who wanted a little space, but…” She trails off.
“But that’s not really what you want?”
“Exactly. But my life managed to get a bit complicated, so—I dunno.”
He doesn’t know what she means, if it’s possible the complication could be nothing more than a tiny crush on him, blown to outsize proportions on a dance floor. Doesn’t know if she wants him to ask. So instead of prying, he tells her everything is going to be fine and she says “Yeah” and sounds unconvinced and she walks into her house and he walks down the street in the direction of home.
*
Sunday
Ted thinks of the brunch as Tetris. Deborah is at the top of the screen, lobbing uncomfortable conversational tiles at Rebecca, who waits at the bottom. On the way into Deborah’s house, Rebecca asked Ted point-blank to act as a buffer, and that means running interference on Deborah’s tiles, rotating them and shifting them so they go down a bit more easily.
Until this morning, Ted didn’t know a brunch could have courses. He doesn’t remark upon this revelation out loud, figuring Deborah already thinks he’s a little bit of a fool. At least, that’s the impression he gets anyway. And besides, he doesn’t have time for the awed American routine. He’s got to stay sharp. He brings Rebecca a Bloody Mary when she gets caught in conversation with one of her mother’s friends, and he compliments Deborah on her lace tablecloth, and he redirects when one too many people insinuate to Rebecca that her gaffer might be ‘something more’ and it’s all just turning tiles, making things fit, making things a little easier.
They don’t drive back to London until mid-afternoon, after the other guests leave, after a delicious cup of coffee and some quieter—and far more pleasant—conversation with Deborah. Rebecca and her mother still perform a bit, perhaps because of him, but he gets the feeling that a few more conversations like this one and he might get to see the real Deborah, the perceptive and slightly silly woman lurking far beneath the surface at whatever that brunch was.
The drive home is nearly silent, but it’s the comfortable silence of not needing to talk anymore after using up a lot of words. Ted likes watching Rebecca drive; he likes her confidence exiting roundabouts, and the way her steady grip on the wheel makes her forearms look strong. Occasionally, his thoughts dart back to yesterday, to the tears in Keeley’s eyes, to the conversations he didn’t mention to Rebecca this morning when she asked how the wedding had gone, and that’s a strange feeling—he’s usually never distracted from Rebecca when he’s with her.
Before terribly long, the car rolls to a stop. Rebecca puts the car in park when she’s made it to the closest available parking spot near Ted’s apartment. “Do you have a moment?” she asks.
“Of course,” he says. “Whatever you need.”
“I’ve been sleeping with Keeley lately,” Rebecca blurts. She’s been staring ahead of her, as if she feels the need to watch the road even though the car is parked just around the corner from Ted’s apartment. “While she and Roy are on a break.”
Oh. This must be what Keeley meant by complicated. He’s an idiot. Again. “Wow, that’s—”
“And I really like it,” Rebecca admits, and Ted wishes he could cool the red in her cheeks and take away her embarrassment. It’s easier to focus on the color high on her cheekbones than to think about the way this news is making his stomach leap with discomfort and happiness and disappointment. “She and Roy are going to get back together, and I want that for them, I really do, but…I don’t want what we have to end. God, it sounds so selfish. I mean, Keeley and Roy were made for each other. I know they were.”
“Do you kinda just wish you could fold yourself into it? Maybe just a little bit?”
She rests her head against the headrest with a thunk. “Maybe.” She closes her eyes, and maybe she’s imagining them, imagining herself there too, but if it’s a daydream, it lasts only briefly before she opens her eyes and looks at him again. “And that isn’t even what I wanted to talk to you about, I only wanted to thank you properly for being there with me today, but I wanted you to know. And I’m so—I’m so confused, I think, because being there with you at that insufferable brunch, it…it worked so well. Didn’t it?”
Ted’s heart kicks up a notch. “It sure did. I’m really glad you invited me.” She’s confessed something, maybe lots of things; now it’s his turn. He hopes it’s not new information, but just in case: “I love spendin’ time with you, boss. Doesn’t seem to matter the when and the where, you know?”
Rebecca smiles, a little tremulous. “That’s how I feel too.” She sighs. “There was a moment, um, right after Eunice Brookfield was bragging about how this summer she’s taking her fourth grandchild on a European tour, and how it’s been such a blessing to be able to do this for all the grandchildren, one by one, just an endless parade of adorable children and cash to spend on them, and Mum said ‘must be nice’—there was a moment where you looked at me with such a perfect what the fuck is wrong with these people expression on your face that, totally magically, only I could see and it…it felt almost real.”
“What about that wasn’t real, Rebecca?” She has to understand that much. He doesn’t know what he hopes for, doesn’t know what it means, but she has to know it was real.
“You’re right,” Rebecca says softly. “Of course it was real. It just felt—like partners. Erm, you know. Like allies.”
“Yeah,” Ted says. “I get that.” He feels, suddenly, like he’s back at Deborah’s house, but looking through a window. Another Ted and another Rebecca are at the table, partnered and in love and pulling faces at each other to get through another interminable social event at his mother-in-law’s. Themselves, but in some kind of other life.
He unbuckles his seatbelt. He needs to do something before he goes, but he doesn’t know what, and in desperation he lands on pressing his thumb against her wrist for just the slightest instant. “You deserve that holiday tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll see ya Tuesday, and thanks for having me.”
He doesn’t turn back, but he only hears her car engine start up again when he’s rounded the corner and is nearly to his door.
*
Monday
It’s easy to find Roy at the Dog Track. Countless rows of seats, and only one man. Roy watches him approach. Ted’s five minutes early; he wonders how long Roy’s been here, waiting to say whatever he needs to say.
Even though they’re colleagues now, and proper friends, Ted knows not to sit in the seat directly next to the one Roy occupies. Most days, he’d try his luck, but something tells him today isn’t one of those days. He leaves one seat between them and tries to get comfortable even though Roy hasn’t said anything yet, not even hello.
“What did you mean,” Roy finally says, “when you said you wanted to coach with me for the rest of your life?”
“That night at your old pitch.”
“Obviously.”
Ted clears his throat and shifts in his seat. “I was quoting When Harry Met Sally. Thought a little movie moment might help you see my side of things.”
“Yeah, I know. But did you mean it?”
It’s been over a year since that night, but the memory feels fresh. “I meant it,” Ted says simply. “And look, Roy, I know I got all nervous when you told me you wanted to meet up and I made you promise you weren’t gonna quit your job, but—I can take whatever you need to tell me, okay? Even if you’ve decided coaching at this club isn’t for you anymore. I happen to think you’re brilliant at it, and I mean that in the British and the American sense, to the extent there are slight connotative differences between the two, but—I can take it. Okay?”
“Not the conversational direction here,” Roy says, a little desperately, like the words aren’t so much a human sentence as a honk extruded from a goose.
“Well, I’m real glad to hear that. What’s on your mind? I’m not that good at guessin’ games, apparently.”
“I want to get back together with Keeley,” Roy says, and the question of whether he knows that Rebecca and Keeley are sleeping together immediately burns through Ted’s mind, and is immediately put to rest: “I know about her and Rebecca. I’m good with it. They’re—I’m glad for them, all right?”
“Me too.”
Roy looks at him. “Oh thank fucking God. You knew too. I was guessing.”
“As of, uh, yesterday. But yeah, I knew.”
“It doesn’t bother me at all. And I think—I think Keeley and I’ve had the space we needed.” Roy’s profile shifts so his face can accommodate a smile. “We talk basically every night. We text every day, every time one of us has a break. We’ve slept together four times, not that I’m counting. That’s what ‘space’ looks like for us. So it’s fine.”
“I’m happy for you.” He is happy, but it’s bittersweet—he thinks of Keeley’s arms suspended midair, ready for him to dance. He thinks of Michelle, and huffs a rueful laugh.
“What?”
“I was just thinkin’ of my ex-wife and me. All that stuff you and Keeley still do together, all that stuff you still are to one another…we had the reverse. All that stuff stopped long before we stopped being married.”
“Guess I’m lucky.”
“Guess you are.”
“But I’m also a total fucking arsehole, because I can’t stop thinking about that night.”
“You’re gonna have to lay it out for me like I’m a real doofus, okay Roy, what night—?”
“The one where you quoted When Harry Met Sally at me. The one we were just fucking reminiscing about.”
“Oh.”
“No one’s ever said they wanted to do anything with me for the rest of their life.”
“Well, I meant it,” Ted says, feeling repetitive but uncertain what else there is to do. “I know that realistically, another club might make you an offer you can’t refuse, and we’ll both get old and have to retire eventually, but you never stop being a coach, once you get started with it, and—I hope we’ll always be in each other’s lives.” It’s the kind of heartfelt speech that would’ve earned him rolled eyes and some choice cuss words a couple years ago, but now Roy is glued in his seat, eyes glittering with something frantic.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” Roy says again, through gritted teeth. “It’s making me stall things with Keeley, it’s making me feel sick at work. I can’t stop thinking about the way you looked when you said it.”
“Roy—”
“I’m so sorry.” It’s a fervent apology, hushed and horrified.
Ted stands up, and immediately regrets it because he can feel the way Roy flinches, can feel his certainty that he’s about to leave. The pain of just thinking about causing that kind of pain makes him rash—he sits down quickly, in the seat directly next to Roy’s, and the space has only just closed up between them when he places his hand over Roy’s where it rests on his knee. It’s barely any pressure at all, barely even hand-holding, but it makes Roy tremble.
“Don’t fucking hold my hand like that if you’re just some straight fucking heterosexual, white bread fucking bastard—”
Desperate times and what they call for—Ted doesn’t let go. “I’ve never fucked bread, white or wheat or rye or any other variety. So you can put that rumor to rest right now.”
That startles a laugh out of Roy, just barely. Eventually, Ted manages to thank him for telling him, manages to suggest that they’ll figure it out, that it’ll all be fine, and they go their separate ways. But first, they stay exactly as they are for a long time.
*
Tuesday
On Tuesday, Ted brings Rebecca biscuits and she eats one while they chat about how nice it was to have a bank holiday. They look at each other from across the desk and smile at each other, and Ted hopes the depths behind her eyes are conveying the awareness that things are complicated now, and he hopes his eyes are telling her the same thing. As he walks downstairs for training, he thinks about Sunday, how he’d wanted to take Rebecca’s hand as they sat side-by-side at the big mahogany table in Deborah’s formal dining room, how they’d caught each other’s eye every time the conversation was too ridiculous for words, how some perverse part of him wanted to end up in more and more absurd situations with Rebecca, just so he could catch that wild amused-appalled look in her eyes again, and feel how her willingness to let him see it meant they were on each other’s side.
At training, the team spends the first half hour on conditioning, running laps around the practice pitch. Beard spends the time setting up cones for drills. Ted and Roy run together, and Roy’s knee necessitates a slow pace that feels perfect to Ted. Some of the faster players lap them, and Ted senses Roy getting frustrated but neither of them speak. When Roy first started coaching, he found any excuse not to join the team on runs, even though Ted knew he was working out and jogging on his own time. By the final third of the run, Roy’s breathing is labored, and Ted is grateful he’s already flushed from the exertion because he’s certain his cheeks have gone pink at the intimacy of the sound. When they’re finished, Will has sport drink ready to go, and Ted can’t turn away from the tilt of Roy’s neck as he drinks, the drop of bright blue liquid that escapes and runs down his chin, the sound of the white paper cup crushed in his fist, the swipe of the back of his hand against his mouth.
When work is over, Ted checks his phone, and Keeley’s texted him a few times, first to announce that the friends whose wedding they attended have filed for divorce, followed immediately by a “kidding!” and a whole string of the rolling-on-floor-laughing emoji, which they’ve already agreed is a favorite because they both, as it turns out, involuntarily think every time about the emoji face being attached to a body that is literally rolling on the floor. An hour or so after the first texts, she’d texted him a photo of her iced mocha, and thanked him again for being her plus one: You’re a great friend. Sorry I made it weird. He texts her back right away, full of reassurances that she didn’t make anything weird, and that they should get mochas together sometime soon, and that she’s a great friend, too.
It’s a very, very weird Tuesday.
That evening, he and Beard have dinner together at the pub, and when they’re done eating and done with their pints, this time Ted says yes when Beard asks him if he wants another. He catches him up on Saturday and Sunday and Monday, and the story is a long one even for him. By the time he’s finished, Beard is nearly done with his second pint, and Ted hasn’t touched his. He takes a long, cool sip, and Beard uses that time to say “Wow.”
“There’s only one thing I can think to do, Coach, and that’s to get all of ‘em in one room and ask ‘em out.”
He expects Beard to talk him out of it immediately, but Beard nods slowly. “That’s a lot better than what I thought you were gonna conclude. I thought you were going to ignore it forever. Noble misery.”
“Oh, you mean my whole life MO? I don’t think that’s gonna be possible this time.”
Beard’s eyes go just the slightest bit wide.
Ted continues. “And I know, uh, this might be a whole lot of new information about me, and I’m sorry. I kinda feel that way myself.”
Beard shrugs. “Not necessarily that new.”
Ted takes another drink. “It’s impossibly selfish, I know—”
“No it isn’t.”
“Million ways it could go wrong.”
“Still worth a try.”
“And I don’t even wanna think about all the conversations I’d eventually have to have about all this—God, Henry and Michelle and my mom and maybe even the papers—”
“Comes with the territory.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“If you think this puts the club in jeopardy, I won’t do it.”
“Isn’t that the whole reason you’re in London? To put the club in jeopardy?”
Ted doesn’t miss how quietly they’re both talking now, even though no one is listening nearby. They agreed long ago that Rebecca’s failed plan would never get out in the open.
There’s more to say, but Ted runs out of conversational steam then. They finish their beers in silence, and at the end of the walk home, Ted is definitely the one who most needs the hug.
*
Wednesday
Wednesday is like Tuesday, except at the end of work he starts a group text with Rebecca, Keeley, and Roy. He’s a little surprised—or maybe not surprised at all—to notice there are already a few texts in the thread, mostly from a couple months ago, when Roy and Keeley were still officially together. An article about the club, the odd meme, a text from Keeley confirming a plan to meet for drinks one Friday evening. That had been a good night, and the memory of it makes it easier for him to compose a text now: Please come over tonight, if you can. All three of you. I’d really like to talk.
They’re good friends, so they text him back right away and settle on eight p.m. They’re good friends, so they’re there for him when he needs them.
At 8:02, right when he’s about to panic at the idea of needing to entertain one or two of them if someone is running late, the buzzer sounds and he unlocks the downstairs entrance and opens his door and all of a sudden all three of them are on the stairs, and even more suddenly all three of them are seated on the couch, looking about as cheerful and confident as if they were about to be executed. He takes the loveseat, alone.
“It was an interesting weekend, huh?” he says, having no idea if this will make sense to anyone but him. “I don’t think it was some kind of coordinated effort, all those not-a-dates y’all took me on, but I’ve been thinking, and I—I think I could date all of you.” Silence everywhere in the room. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I could do it.” He shuts his eyes and presses his fingertips against his eyelids, hard enough to get a sense of the eye sockets. When he opens them again, everyone is as solemn and still as they were when he first said the words. “God, this is embarrassing. Okay, just—let me down easy.”
“Ted—” It’s Rebecca speaking, and his name is the softest sound. He’s Tetris; she’s the player.
“It’s just, I saw each of you over the weekend, and you all very unexpectedly seemed to want to ask me out, but mostly you all needed to talk about each other, and I was thinking maybe I could be like a, uh, like a pinch hitter. In the lineup, but mostly just. Subbing in. In case of emergency. Because y’all need each other, and I get that, but I think you might want me, too, but if I’m wrong, I’m wrong, I can totally take it.”
“Oh, Ted.” Keeley, this time.
“If the baseball reference is confusing just picture, uh, any other sport. Somebody coming in when they’re needed—”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Roy growls.
“It’s unattractive,” says Rebecca.
“And unnecessary,” says Keeley.
Ted doesn’t know what he pictured—he hadn’t let himself picture anything at all. He has no strategy for what to do next, now that he’s dropped the truth bomb, and a lack of strategy is a bad plan for a pinch hitter or a husband or anyone in between. But he looks at the three of them on the couch. Roy, who’s already signed up to strategize with him for the rest of their lives. Keeley, who’s talking right now, who’s actually moving things along by explaining very vehemently that she didn’t invite him to that wedding because she knew he’d be willing to attend an undesirable event but because she knew he’d make it fun. Rebecca, who takes his side even when he mixes up the sugar and the salt.
Rebecca, who’s scooting over on the couch to sit closer to Roy—and oh, that’s an image, that’s a piece of the equation he’d never thought about before, and now it’s the only thought in his mind, almost.
“I have no idea what happens next,” Ted says, every word a thrill.
“You should come sit with us, then,” Rebecca says, and it’s only her speaking but it feels like consensus. “Sit here with us and we can talk.”