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There is something about grabbing a pen, and writing things on physical paper that makes a handwritten note much more important- it instantly feels closer to you. Especially nowadays, when everything is technology based, and carrying a pen around is seen less, and less.
Not for Ted, he loves how the tip of a pen feels as it dances on paper. His coaching job usually keeps him surrounded by younger people; so he’s aware just how old school it is to carry around a pen, and worse, a notebook. But, to his defense, it’s everything he’s known since he was a little kid.
It was the night before his first day coaching the Greyhounds. He had just called home to check in with Henry, and hoped that Michelle would start feeling better now that he was giving her the space suggested by their couples’ therapist.
“That’s what I’m doing, I’m giving you that space,” he wasn’t sure what he said wrong, but Michelle was mad again, insisting that the space was good for both of them.“Yeah, and myself.”
He disconnected the call, feeling guilty that he had messed up again, it was hard to learn what not to do when there was always something new that bothered her. Unsure what to do with all that pent up energy, he found an easy shortbread recipe, and decided to throw all his energy into baking it. He liked to bake, it was such an easy, and relaxing activity that required just enough focus to quiet down some parts of his mind. Especially when he couldn’t sleep, or felt like he was brewing a whole batch of bad feelings.
Besides, he also loved that baked goods were a surefire way to get people to open up to you, only failing once in a blue moon. But, that’s another story.
The first thing he learned after meeting Rebecca Welton was that she had put up some walls around her. Someone had dimmed her light, and she was fighting to stay afloat. He knew it would be a challenge to scale those walls around her, but these cookies would be the perfect first step.
“Biscuits, gotta remember that! Not cookies, biscuits,” he repeated to himself, mixing the sugar with the butter.
Twenty minutes later, the biscuits were in the oven. He took the time to look through the things he had already unpacked, and found this pocket-sized navy notebook that he had purchased on a whim. Without thinking twice, he slipped it in his olive green backpack. New job, new notebook. You never know when you could need to write something down.
The next morning was full of first day jitters, he tried to convince himself that they were the good kind of nerves. “The kind of nerves that are from taking a step in the right direction, like good luck nerves,” he wasn’t sure where he was going with it and was just waiting for Beard to stop him. He usually limited his rambling to a couple of minutes, but that day, he was uncharacteristically supportive and let him go at it all the way to work.
As soon as they arrived at the building, Ted told Beard that he was going to stop by Rebecca’s office first to check in, and then he’d meet them at their office shortly. Beard simply nodded as a reply. He knew that Ted had always been pretty eager to establish good relationships with everyone, especially when they looked harder to crack from the outside, and after meeting Rebecca yesterday- he probably suspected that she would be Ted’s first target.
Her door was open, he knocked before he entered, and enthusiastically greeted her as she shut her laptop to greet him back. She looked a bit taken aback, but he knew it was just part of her shields.
“I have somethin’ for you,” he said, placing his olive green backpack on the chair closest to her desk. Her eyes widened, he unzipped the backpack, and pulled out a small light pink box. Not cookies. It seemed like she was about to reject them, so before she had a chance to- he opened the lid of the box to show her the buttery treats.“I think y’all call them biscuits over here, but I don’t recommend you slather these in gravy.”
“Those look delicious. I can’t.”
“Come on, give it a try,” he insisted. Hoping the baked goods theory would work with her.
She bit into the biscuit, her face softening as she chewed, “Fuck me! Where did you get these?”
He hummed, pleased with himself, and with the fact that she wasn’t one of those rare people that rejected sugar. He didn’t know what to do with those.
“I tell you what, I’ll start bringin’ these in every morning, and we’ll call it Biscuits with the Boss,” he said, excited at the idea.“We really can’t be partners if we don’t get to know each other,” he continued.
She lightly shook her head, looked down at the biscuits, and then, at him.
He took a seat, pretending he hadn’t noticed her internal debate, “We’re gonna start simple, real easy first concert, best concert.”
She seemed confused on how to deal with him, but he was used to that. He had a good understanding of how much he could push to get people to let him in.
He pointed at her, “You go first.”
“Uh, Spice Girls…and Spice girls!”
“Same answer for both! I love that.” That would be the first thing he’d learn about her.
He quickly gave his answers before she stopped him, and weakly smiled as she tried to say that she wouldn’t have time for Biscuits with the Boss.
“I hear you Boss, loud and clear,” he smiled, picked up his backpack and started making his way out of her office. He would try again tomorrow.
“You’re going to show up tomorrow with biscuits, are you?” She asked, trying to keep her gaze glued on her screen. The baked goods theory continued to work, that moment, he knew she wouldn’t say no if he came back with biscuits the next day.
Later that day, he opened that small navy notebook and wrote his first note.
He didn’t know why he wanted to write it down, he just felt like physically seeing her answer on paper would help him see that he was, in fact, connecting with her. It wasn’t even a proper note, just two words on the first line of the first page- Spice Girls.
Without fail, he baked her the same biscuits over the first season, just slightly altering the recipe until he could say it was perfect, and always packed them in the same little pink box. It became part of his weekly routine, a part that he enjoyed and loved taking the time for her. Every morning, he stopped by her office to drop the pink box off, immediately receiving a wide smile from her as she opened the box, and then, they shared a couple of minutes. Sometimes he had a question, and sometimes an anecdote that he hoped would get her to open up about herself. There was one morning, where she started it off, and he was thrilled. He could finally say that she had let him in.
What had started as him trying to climb up Rebecca’s walls to get to know the person who behind the title, slowly became something else as he got to know her, she was so much more than what met the eye. The light she emanated was beautiful, and he was even more fascinated that she didn’t seem to know just how special she was, something her turkey ex-husband had made her believe, but he didn’t like thinking about that.
Ted continued writing down everything he learned about her, all the small things, the funny moments, but it’s never a complete note. He only wrote a couple of words, anything that easily triggered the memory back up of when she shared it with him.
By his second season at Richmond, almost two-thirds of the pages of the notebook are filled, he decided he wasn’t going to buy a new notebook, just goes back and writes in any open space.
That year, when Christmas Day came around, what could’ve been a bad day ended up being one of the best days he had since coming to London. It started with a perfectly timed tinsel message, and Rebecca checking in with him when he needed it the most. She asked him to join her for an unknown destination, and without hesitation, he accepted.
The drive to the first neighborhood was exciting, she hadn’t driven in a while, but today, she said she felt like doing things on her own. He enjoyed seeing the was her face lit up as she showed him around. The mystery destinations had been to deliver gifts to kids in various needy neighborhoods. She explained that it was sort of a personal tradition during the holiday season, except for the one year that she had other things in mind.
“Oh, yeah. Like what?” He asked, hands in his pockets, as they walked back to the car. The day had gone by so fast, that he wasn’t sure when it had become night.
She sheepishly laughed, both aware that it was the reason she ended up hiring him.
That night he wrote a page in the little worn out notebook, words that reminded him of their lunch, the moment they sang in front of the Higgins’ house, and just about anything that would remind him of every shared moment they had today.
He no longer wondered why he felt like he had to do it, he knew why, but refused to admit it to himself. There were other things in his mind that were taking a toll, he hated being a burden, and wouldn’t do that to her.
His third season in Richmond has come unexpectedly fast, but the thing that doesn’t change is his time with her. He admires her from afar, knowing that there was no way that his feelings could be reciprocated by her, but continues to consistently write every single thing he loves about her in this worn out notebook.
Loves.
She has opened up to him way more than he ever thought possible, and the relationship between them feels genuine, he has a connection with her that feels special. It’s friendship, trust, care- it’s every good thing imaginable. He isn’t going to risk changing that, losing someone like Rebecca because of some one sided feelings. He preferred to keep his feelings to himself, no matter what.
The team is back in the Premiere League but is struggling, and he’s worried that he is going to fail her. If he fails, he’ll break the promise he made to her after they were relegated.
Winning the whole fucking thing.
Today isn’t special, he talks to her the same way he does every morning, after a laugh, and some reassuring words about the team- he leaves her office to start his day.
***
Rebecca watches Ted leave her office, she loves spending a little bit of every morning with him, turns out Biscuits with the Boss is one of her favorite parts of the day. Spending a couple of minutes not worrying about what is the next stressful thing around the club right now, or how is the world working to fuck her over.
Biscuits with the Boss was her moment of zen.
She laughs out loud at how silly it sounded to call Ted her moment of zen. Who would have thought? He is so different from everyone, he is nice, and kind. She never knows how to exactly describe the way she feels about him, she just knows it’s special. No other man has ever made her feel safe the way he does.
“Hi Babe!”
Rebecca snaps out of her train of thought, and immediately gets distracted with Keeley. She sits in the chair across from her desk, where Ted usually sits, and spends a couple of minutes catching up with her before she absentmindedly looks down.
“What’s this?”
Rebecca looked up from the note she had been writing down as they talked. Keeley was holding a pocket sized navy notebook, one she had never seen before.
“Found it on the floor,” Keeley passes the notebook over to her.
She looks at the plain cover, closely studying it with the hope to see some inscription on its face before she opens it. The notebook either belonged to Higgins…or Ted.
“Open it!”
She hums, she runs her fingers over the cover, and something about it makes her hesitate.
“If you don’t open it, I will!” Keeley lunges over her desk to take the notebook from her hands, quickly failing to take it out of her tight grip.
“Fine,” Rebecca huffs, looking at her friend with a smidge of annoyance.
At first glance, the notes look wicked disorganized, that is until she recognizes the penmanship. Shit, it’s Ted’s notebook. Now that she knows who the owner is, it doesn’t feel right to look through it. She’s going to stop looking through it, and wait until he picks it up after he notices it’s missing. It looks worn out, clearly important to him.
Right as she flips the pages one last time, she recognized something on one of the pages- it’s about her. She looks back at the pages she already passed, and starts matching every word like a puzzle piece to things she had talked about over the years during Biscuits with the Boss.
“What the fuck?” She yells angrily. “What the fuck is all this?”
Keeley stretches her neck, trying to see what is making her angry, she closes the notebook, and places her hand over it, pressing it against the desk.
“What? Is it yours? All your dirty secrets, Rebecca?” Keeley says lightheartedly joking, but Rebecca could only see red.
She exhales slowly, trying to calm down, it’s not Keeley’s fault. “Something like that. Mind if we pick this up another day?”
After a couple of years of friendship, Keeley seemed to recognize when she needed to step back, and not push buttons.
“Yeah, no problem, love. Do you need help with something?”
She shakes her head, and thanks her for giving her space. Keeley gets up, and waves at her good bye one last time, when she straight bumps into Ted.
“Ted!” Keeley greets him excited.
“Hey Keeley,” he smiles at her. “I was just checkin’ if I misplaced somethin’ over here—“
Rebecca can see him from where she was sitting, she feels her cheeks burning up, and doesn’t want to talk to him right now. She is irrationally furious at him. Angry at herself for thinking he was different, humiliated that she let her walls down around him, and sad that she felt life was flipping her off with this one.
Keeley exchanges a couple of words with Ted before she leaves, and he continues to look around the lobby area in front of her office.
Everything about their relationship went up in flames the moment she laid eyes on that fucking notebook. It bothers her to know that she was right to initially keep him at bay, and maybe she should have stuck to what life had already taught her—
The last time someone had insisted that they just wanted to get to know her.
She promised herself that after Rupert, she would never let someone trick her into believing that she was special, and yet.
Ted isn’t Rupert.
She rejected Rupert the first time he asked her out. But the bastard came back every night to the place where she worked, asked for a drink, and sat there until closing time. His charismatic personality slowly broke her down, making it impossible not to love a man that kept coming back over six weeks to spend time near her. She was under his spell, and before she knew it- she was colorblind to every other red flag.
“Even if we don’t date, just getting to know you would have been worth it.”
There were nights where his words haunted her, she hated how easily Rupert made her fall for him, how naive she was to believe it was going to be forever. She hated that man for making her think she was lucky that he wanted her, making her feel less than she should feel.
The day Ted came into her office with that little box of biscuits, he insisted that they had to connect because she was part of the team. He made her feel part of the same family that she was trying to destroy, and it didn’t matter how hard she tried not to let him in- he was kindness in such a dark stormy year that he won her over.
What if it was just to get something from her?
What if she fell into the same trap again?
Ted isn’t Rupert.
She looks down at the notebook, unable to figure out why he kept notes on everything they had shared if not to use against her. What if he’s just like Rupert? What if these are his true colors?
Ted pops his head inside her office, “Hey boss, I think I mighta dropped something around—“
“This?” She lifts the notebook.
He blushes, takes a couple of steps into her office, “Yes, ma’am.” He tries to take the notebook back, she didn’t want to have the thoughts that were infecting her mind right now, it didn’t feel right.
Ted isn’t Rupert.
She wants to trust him.
She pulls the notebook back towards her, and blurts out everything she has been thinking for the past five minutes, “What the fuck is all this, Ted? Were you just doing some reconnaissance on the boss, or what? Figuring out a way to get information out of me? For what?”
He presses his lips together, furrows his brow keeping the confused look in his eyes.
“Taking notes on every moment we spent together, and for what?” She yells, unable to stop, grabs the notebook and flips through the pages in his face.
“I’m sorry, what’s goin’ on?” He sounds apologetic, and bewildered at the same time. “It’s just an old notebook I carry around, very heavily written in, and yeah, some things are about you. But, I don’t—“
“Take it!” she throws it back at him. “Let’s keep this professional from now on. I don’t want you coming here every morning anymore!”
“I can drop ‘em off without staying,” he says quietly, but she doesn’t want to listen.
“Get out.”
He takes the notebook, turns around and starts making his way towards the door. She feels her heart racing so fast that it wants to burst out of her chest, and she can’t deal with all the emotions trying to spill out of her. Why did it feel like a betrayal that could break her heart?
He’s almost at the door, when he stops, turns around, and places the notebook back on her desk, “I don’t need it.”
“What?”
“If whatever I wrote in there has you upset, then I don’t need it. I don’t want it either.”
She looks at the notebook on her desk, and it upset her more. What is he getting at?
“How else are you going to gather all your notes? Remember details about what we’ve talked before?” She says frustrated. Thinking about a time when he brought up something she had shared during their first year, and she was impressed that he would remember something so insignificant, when in reality he kept everything in a book.
Ted runs his fingers through his hair, breathes out, and slowly says, “Like I said, I don’t need it…I know it all by heart.”
A very incredulous laugh comes out of her, a bit mocking even. She’s feeling so angry and frustrated, that she can’t even begin to comprehend what he’s saying.
“I make notes on things I find important, always have,” he continues.
“This is everything.”
He shrugs, “It’s all important…to me.”
She sits back in her chair, stares at him as she crosses her arms in front of her.
He furrows his brow, slipping his hands back into his pockets, he takes a couple of steps closer to her, “Your first concert was the Spice Girls, also best concert. Favorite book is Pride and Prejudice, not because of Mr. Darcy, you love how it reminds you of the countless times your grandma read it to you…”
She mouth falls open as he starts reciting everything he knows about her. He not only says what they talked about, but adds little details that she knows he didn’t write in the notebook. He says every detail with such confidence, that it makes her feels like he’s reliving the moment.
“—You love the color pink, because of this short period where you claim you weren’t girly at all. Think you called yourself a tomboy? Hard to believe, but I told you I wanted a picture, and I’m still waiting.”
“Ted.”
“The tea one is obvious, but that day I just felt like asking anyway…”
She stands up, goes around her desk, and stops him from saying anything else, “Ted! Please stop!”
“Your middle name…” he whispers, intending to continue.
“You made your point, I believe you,” she stresses, still letting her doubts cloud her judgment.
Ted isn’t Rupert.
“I think…I don’t know why I even thought of you and…no, it doesn’t matter,” she adds.
He keeps his gaze locked in her eyes, nothing but a kind and understanding look that makes her feel like an idiot for letting her past muck her present.
She picks up the notebook again.“But, why?” She can’t help herself, and mutters the question that keeps bothering her. It felt like the answer was right in front of her, and she still couldn’t see it. What was wrong with her?
Ted scans the room, lightly rocks from side to side, as he looks back at the door. Takes a deep breath, considering his answer, and shyly smiles as he slowly exhales.
“I respect ya, Boss, and because I do, I’ll be keepin’ that answer to myself, if you don’t mind.”
She didn’t know how to reply to that, and silently nods, still questioning Ted’s sudden inability to answer her.
He looks down at the notebook on her desk, and in a low voice adds, “I mean it, you can keep that.”
Rebecca leans back on the chair, speechless, she opens her laptop and tries to focus on whatever she had been doing before all of this happened. What was she doing?
Why did it matter if he wrote all those things about them?
That night, Rebecca couldn’t stop thinking about Ted, and the fucking notebook. She gets a hold of Keeley through FaceTime, and tells her what happened after she found that notebook. She thinks that telling Keeley will make it better, and that she will tell her she was right to react the way she did. She thought she was upset at Ted for having that notebook in the first place, for thinking that he pretended to care, but even after he proved that none of it mattered, because he could tell her every detail about their conversations- she was still frustrated, and mad.
“What did you do?”
“What do you mean, what did I do? I was furious, I yelled at him for it,” she defensively replies.
“Why?”
“Writing everything I ever shared with him! It was like he didn’t need to pay attention if he had to write it down,” she feels the calm tone she put on slip away.
“But, he proved to you that the notebook didn’t matter, and just how much he knew about you. He just started reciting it, Rebecca? That’s fucking adorable.”
“Ugh, stop.” In hindsight, she did love it, but she’d never admit it to Keeley.
“He didn’t want to explain why he had all those notes…I don’t know babe, but sounds like Ted has some feelings for you,” she covers her mouth to hide her giggle. “Not surprising, if I’m being honest.”
She feels her body tense up at the mention of feelings, “Keeley, I don’t…”
“I knew those biscuits were laced with something!” Keeley jokingly adds, interrupting her.
“Shut up!” She laughs, loosening up while they change subjects, and finish talking about thirty minutes later.
If Keeley is right, and Ted has feelings for her. She couldn’t lie to him, he didn’t deserve that, and she didn’t want to break his heart unknowingly leading him on. Because that’s all it would be, leading him on a path that she couldn’t reciprocate. She didn’t like him that way.
He’s her friend, her confidant, the person that makes her feel like she can shine on the days that didn’t feel that way, he is the one she wants to hear from when she’s having trouble…he is everything she didn’t know she needed in her life.
She couldn’t like him…that way.
The next morning felt off from the moment she woke up, even more as she stepped into her office- something was wrong. She looks around the office, everything is the same, unmoved since she left yesterday, except there is one thing missing.
For the first time in almost three years, there is no pink biscuit box waiting for her.
She suddenly feels guilty that she never took back the moment she yelled at him to stop coming every morning. She didn’t mean to stop it, she quickly scans her surroundings hoping she didn’t see the box- nothing. It feels like something is stuck in her throat, she looks around the office again, and it feels empty.
It wasn’t the biscuits.
“Ms. Welton?” A male voice pulls her out of her thoughts.
“Higgins!” She places her hand over her chest, simultaneously jumping in her chair.“You startled me!”
“Sorry! I was just wondering if you had time for us to go over the financials from last month, so I can start working on an estimate—“
She absolutely hates doing that monthly meeting, even when Higgins handles most of it, but she already feels terrible, so why not now.
“Yes, okay. Let’s do it right now. Come on, bring all of that nonsense here,” she says, hoping her tone sounds friendly, and not annoyed with her own words.
Five minutes later, she has several papers spread out over her desk, while Higgins read numbers and estimates from the previous month. This meeting is the one necessary evil in between every other thing she has Higgins doing.
At one point, she raises her gaze bored of staring at numbers, and sees Higgins looking at the navy notebook she had left on the desk since yesterday.
“Ted left that here.”
He hums, trying to seem uninterested, even though she could easily tell he knew more than he was saying.
“What do you think?”
He looks up from the folder on his lap, “About what?”
“Take a look at it,” she says, pushing the notebook towards him. “Tell me it was wrong that he did this. It wasn’t right.”
Higgins makes a gagging noise, as he takes the notebook in his hands.
“Leslie!” The clearest giveaway sound.
“I am sorry Rebecca. I do not know what you want me to tell you.”
“That Keeley is wrong, and Ted couldn’t possibly have feelings for me! That…” she points at the notebook. “I’m not mental about that. I just need someone—“
“I will look,” Higgins says, a bit desperate. She stops venting, and stares at him as he opened the notebook.
A little smiled forms on his face as he flips through the pages, a smile he quickly tries to hide when she exasperatedly huffs.
“Not you, too!”
“M-may I say something? Ask s-something?” Higgins stammers. She nods, and he gives her the small notebook back.
“During our first couple of dates, Julie and I talked about everything. We felt like we wanted to know everything about each other, no question seemed too silly, we just liked to hear each other talk and wanted to know—“
“As cute as that is, is it going somewhere?”
Higgins stops, and gently smiles at her, “You know all of these things about him too, correct? Just because you didn’t write them down, it does not mean you don’t know them.”
“So?”
“It is the little things Rebecca, the little things that slowly but surely lead you somewhere, and I think you know where that is.”
For every one of her answers in Ted’s notebook, she knew what he had shared that day. She knew every single little thing about him, she remembered the details of every one of his stories because she loved learning about him, too. Some nights, she found herself googling, or trying to understand whatever obscure reference he had talked about during their Biscuits with the Boss of the day. She laughed at his jokes, not because she felt like she had to, but she genuinely found him funny. Their relationship was special, she knew that, but she also knew that everything she felt towards Ted went beyond what she was willing to accept. Until now—
Fuck.
Higgins continues, “I know you didn’t miss the lack of biscuits, you missed having Ted stop by. Please listen to yourself about this, and trust that you can have it.”
She stares at the papers in front of her, the numbers make less sense than they did minutes ago, she turns to look at Higgins. He is staring at her, waiting for something to happen.
At the same time, she overhears the whistle outside, she looks towards the window, and for the first time, notices her heart yearning for something that she could have…if she was brave enough.
Higgins suppresses the grin he wants to make, and moves his eyes towards the door.
“Ugh, fuck you Higgins,” she gets up, and leaves.
She runs downstairs, Ted is not in his office, and the locker room is empty. She makes her way to the pitch, the team is training while Roy observes from the other end of the pitch. Coach Beard, and Ted are standing just a couple of meters from her.
“Hi Ms. Welton,” Will says, shyly.
She waves at him, keeping her eyes glued on Ted as she walks towards him. The players start getting distracted by her presence, but right now, she doesn’t care.
“No one said to fucking stop!” Roy yells from the other side. “Whistle!”
“Hi Boss,” Ted says softly, taking off his sunglasses. “Are you—“
“Shut up.”
She leaves any doubt, hesitation, and worry out of her body for one moment, and lets her body decide what to do. In the blink of an eye, their lips collide, what starts as an unsteady kiss quickly turns into the most tender kiss she has ever received.
The way everything suddenly pieced together, no doubts that she was standing in the right spot, and meant to be there. His hands firmly wrap around her waist, as he sweetly reciprocates her kiss, lips softly gliding over hers as she gets lost in the moment. It feels like she is awake for the first time. Electricity running through her skin, making her feel alive, making her feel like…like she’s been struck by lightning.
The team starts to tease with little whistles, and several going, “Ohhh!”
She breaks their kiss, meeting his hazel eyes looking straight at her, searching for an answer to what just happened.
“Uhm…biscuits,” he says hazily, loosening his grip.
Rebecca smacks her lips together, realizing that she had just kissed her gaffer in front of everyone.
She quietly says to him, “I didn’t mean it. When I said don’t come back.” Something about the moment made her crack up, everyone looking at the them stunned, the impulsivity of doing it, and most of all. She just felt it, that feeling where everything was going to be okay, because she just found her person.
“Office…my office,” Ted stammers, grazing his hand over hers, and immediately changing his mind.
She nods, fixing her skirt as Ted gives Beard a look, to which Beard replies with a light head tilt. They walk off the pitch, and the last thing she hears is Roy yelling “whistle!” again.
Ted didn’t say a word until they make it into his office, she closes the door behind them, and quietly stares at him as he searched his backpack.
“Ted?”
He places a pink box on his desk, and it instantly fills her with warmth. Of course, he still brought one with him.
She stands across from him, about two meters apart, “I was angry because finding that notebook made me think of Rupert, and I never wanted to put you and him in the same memory. I thought it cheapened everything we had gone through, and I just couldn’t, I didn’t want that.”
He winces at the comparison, and furrows his brow.
“He never cared about anything I ever told him, and I often had to repeat myself when I mentioned things that I had already shared with him,” she explains, just letting everything come out of her. “Unlike him, I knew everything about him because I listened. It was fucking lonely, and I never wanted to feel that way again.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—“
“It’s not your fault. It was my insecurity that I took off on you, and I couldn’t even understand why it bothered me so much. It was also that insecurity that didn’t let me see beyond what had just happened between us, and I…” she let her voice crack a bit, hoping to be able to say everything she needed to.“I am sorry I didn’t see that the notebook was just proof that you had been listening to me, to every stupid thing I ever shared with you.”
“Not stupid,” he interrupts, a small smile briefly appears on his face.
“I couldn’t see that you were telling me more by not answering my question,” she continues. “How long has it been, Ted?”
He looks at her, “Time wasn’t right.”
“How long?”
“It was a crush at first,” he says, with a shrug. “Feelings that you think will go away, but when they don’t…oh boy.”
She widens her eyes, giving him a look that insisted on an answer.
“Last year around Christmas,” he finally admits.
She feels heaviness in her chest, thinking about all the times they had spent together after that, and how she had failed to see it.
“I’ve been looking in all the wrong places for something that I already had. The biscuits are lovely, and all, but it’s you who I miss in the mornings. Your silly stories, puns, and everything about you that I adore. It is knowing that no one else will make me feel as safe as I feel when I’m with you,” her voice breaks as she is finally able to admit her feelings. She sobs, “I feel like I always knew, but I was scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“Maybe I didn’t know how to love…or, I couldn’t be loved,” she cries.
He closes the gap in between them, sweeping a lock of her hair to the back of her ear,
”I beg your pardon, but I don’t think you’ve met the person I’ve gotten to know for the past couple of years. She’s this incredible woman that was a little hard to get to know at first, walls were up high like skyscrapers, but once you put in the effort- she was worth every minute.”
“Ted…”
“Turns out, some fella made her believe a bunch of silly baloney, but she fought through it, and learned that it never changed who she was in the inside. Anyone who got through her walls, could see it so clearly. Her pain wasn’t due to a broken heart, it was because she had so much love to give, and no where to put it. So, no. I will disagree with you sayin’ you didn’t know how to love.”
She grazes his arm, barely able to contain her tears anymore.
“Tell me who wouldn’t love someone like that, because, golly!…I fell for her,” he smiles. “I fell for every part that she dared shared with me. It was slow, and fast at the same time, and I wouldn’t change anything about it.”
Rebecca shakes her head, eyes staring at him as the tears stream down her face.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s just…when you say things like that,” she wipes the tears from her cheeks. “I believe it.”
“Well, then, I guess you should get used to it.”
She lets out a breathy laugh, “Should I?”
He traces a finger up her arm as he hums in agreement, then leans forward and kisses her. This time, every movement much more deliberate than the first time. Without breaking his kiss, she drapes her arms around his shoulders, gently pressing him closer to her. The way his lips run over hers feel newly charged with this fiery desire that she hadn’t felt before, and it makes her desperately want more. He places one hand on her waist, and the other on the small of her back, deepening their kiss as her body aches to feel him closer.
She pulls away, trying to catch her breath as she looks into Ted’s eager eyes. She trails her hand down his chest, and in a low voice says, “If I stay here a little longer, I will not be held accountable for my actions, Coach Lasso.”
He pouts, and replies, “We wouldn’t want that, Boss.”
“Oh, and I will be taking these,” she stretches her arm around him, and grabs her pink biscuit box. She licks her lips as she’s about to turn the doorknob, turns back around—
“My house. Tonight?”
He warmly smiles back at her, “Yes, ma’am. Can’t wait.”