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“Never thought that I’d see something sadder than a box of puppies all whining for their mother,” Ted says in passing to Beard one day when Jamie’s in earshot.
For a second, Jamie’s not sure what the fuck they’re talking about, but then he sees the way Beard looks back at Roy, and then it all clicks.
“You know, it’s more likely that the mother dog is depressed after her puppies have been weaned.”
“Is that so? Well, I’ll be damned. In that case, Roy looks about as sad as a mother dog seeing her puppies off to new homes where they’ll subsist on pet store kibble.”
Then, they’re off, closing themselves into their office.
Jamie’s not entirely stupid, alright? He can make sense of kineticism or kinney sics or whatever Isaac calls it. Lacing up his boots, he keeps his gaze on Roy through the hair falling in his eyes, trying to figure out if this really is sadder than a gloomy bunch of puppies.
Watching Roy grunt with only half the effort as usual, Jamie decides it’s that and worse – this is just as bad as puppies and kittens being depressed.
He gets it. Sort of. When he and Keeley split up, he hadn’t really been self-aware enough to be dejected at the time, but as he’d grown as a person, he started to realise just what a good thing he’d lost out on.
Roy’s smarter than him – on account of him being ancient, obviously – so it’s probably hitting him way quicker. It’s obvious what Roy needs. He’s honestly surprised none of the others have seen it.
After Jamie and Keeley had called it quits, there’d been one thing that helped him move on like nothing else – physical affection. Sure, maybe he should have waited a bit before he moved on, but he’s old now. He’s wise. He’s basically a hot Yoda.
It’s been weeks of Roy’s being on his own and Keeley’s off with her new girlfriend. Roy’s probably abusing his own right hand and grunting and growling at anyone who tries to get close. Or, worse, he hasn’t been touching himself at all, and that’s a kind of horror that Jamie wouldn’t wish on anyone.
“You’re wearing your idea face,” Isaac says, stopping in front of Jamie on his way to the pitch.
Jamie keeps his eyes on Roy, attentive and thoughtful and brilliant. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I’ve got a genius idea,” he admits.
“Gonna share?”
“Only if it works.”
There’s a lot that could go wrong in this plan. For one, Roy could headbutt him. Or punch him. Or slap him. Or knee him in the balls. He might bruise him. He might just insult his hair again.
There’s also a very real and exciting possibility that if this goes well, he’ll do none of those things and be so grateful for Jamie that he might even reward him. Jamie could even get a hug out of this, if he plays his cards right.
Maybe if he’s really, absolutely, stupidly lucky, he might get a bit more than that.
Not for the first time, Jamie’s hoping that lady luck has got a thing for fit footballers and is willing to help him out.
Jamie’s not completely dense.
He knows that if he’s starting on this journey to Roy’s physical satisfaction, it’s not going to happen all at once. He’s going to have to go at it slowly. Jamie going in for a hug made all the alarms go off. That means that if he wants to work up to Roy feeling comfortable enough to have it all the time, he’s got to start small.
Lucky for him, they’re football players. There’s no shortage of opportunities to get your hands on someone.
The first strike has to be casual enough to not trigger alarm bells (or a fucking knock to the head), but firm enough that he can escalate.
Opportunity shows up at halftime against Tottenham, when Roy calls him over to discuss a play they’ve been working on during training. It’s a long shot, obviously, with Zava hoarding the ball like it’s one of his kids and he’s been neglecting it, but it never hurts to be prepared.
“So when the opportunity comes, you take it, yeah? Just like we practised.”
“Right, yeah, got it,” Jamie guarantees, eyes flicking up and down over Roy’s dark charcoal gray t-shirt, seizing on his shoulder.
This is it. This is the opportunity he’s been waiting for.
Jamie launches himself into the dangers of Touching Roy Kent territory with a cautious clap on his shoulder. Roy doesn’t growl or shove his hand off, so Jamie risks a brief squeeze.
That seems like maybe he’s pushed a bit too far, given the way Roy narrows his eyes at him. “Don’t fuck up the second half,” is the only warning Roy gives him, mentioning nothing about the hand. In fact, because he doesn’t shove it off, Jamie’s able to let it linger for a couple more seconds before Roy stomps off to have conversations with some of the other players.
Fucking success.
Is it really going to be that easy? It’s just training of a different kind, right? So, logically, he starts small and then moves on to more difficult attempts and eventually, Roy’s gonna have all the intimacy a man could want.
Is it too early to call himself a genius?
Nah, thinks Jamie. It’s never too early when he’s just that good.
Is Jamie surprised that Roy invited him out for a drink?
Honestly? Yeah. When they’d finished their third training session of the day and Roy had grunted that Jamie should join him for a drink, he’d half-thought he’d started to hallucinate after one too many burpees.
“Here,” Roy says, pushing a stout his way. “You deserve this.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“No, get your fucking ears checked,” Roy growls quickly – too quickly, it definitely was a compliment. Jamie’s not about to argue, especially seeing as there’s every chance that Roy decides tomorrow is the day that Jamie needs to cut carbs fully out of his diet.
“Thanks, then?” Jamie’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never comes. The only evidence that Roy’s warming up to him is the drink and his continued (though silent) presence.
Sure, he’d bought him a beer, but he’d also made Jamie puke from doing too many burpees followed by sprints and then he’d put his boot on Jamie’s back and made him do push-ups. This might just be repatriations (and yeah, he knows that word, Dr. Sharon had taught him all about it when he’d been going through his apology tour).
Jamie thinks about lobbing an easy conversation topic into the mix, but opts not to. Instead, he lets the silence continue into awkwardness and then beyond it into something that’s almost nice.
Roy doesn’t leave, not even when the silence gets so awkward that Mae interrupts to give them some weird facts about Richmond. They sit there and drink their beers, staring at the same wall. They’re almost syncing their breaths together.
It’s a bit like meditation, honestly, only not that fucking Zava bullshit. This is Roy Kent meditation – angry, annoyed, and without a single noise.
When Mae goes to get the bill, Jamie decides to put the second step of his plan into action. He absently reaches an arm around Roy’s shoulders, draped casually as he picks up a napkin, trading it to the other hand and leaving his arm wrapped around Roy’s shoulder, in a casual way, his hand nowhere near Roy – for both deniability and security reasons.
It’s a light touch, nothing more, and in the crowded bar, Jamie’s got every excuse for it.
“Thanks for the drink,” he says, and leans a little inwards, ready to blame it on the sudden press of people in the bar, now that it’s getting late.
Roy doesn’t shove him off, but he tenses, just a little.
(Add one in the column for ‘not touching himself at all’, thinks Jamie)
“I’ll see you at four AM,” Roy grunts, as he ducks away.
“Yes, Coach,” says Jamie with a pleased grin, watching him go and knowing, now, that this plan is actually going to work out. Slow and steady, that’s how the ninja turtles win the race.
“What the fuck is happening here?”
What’s happening, in Jamie’s opinion, is one of the best days of training they’ve had in weeks. Now that Zava’s fucked off, they’re on a losing streak, sure, but at least the locker room’s back to a relative normal – at least, for Richmond.
After all, they’re in the middle of what Ted’s calling mobility and agility exercises while he and Beard finalise whatever master plan they’d come up with in Amsterdam.
“It’s Twister!” Dani says excitedly.
Roy’s eye twitches and he growls. Jamie’s well-versed enough in Roy’s non-verbal language to know that means he’s about to storm off, but between Jamie’s competitive streak and the desperate part of him that wants to be able to touch Roy again without him flinching or headbutting him or punching him, he knows he has to do something.
He knows exactly how to play this.
It’s just going to have to wait until he gets his hand on yellow, carefully moving it around Isaac’s foot on red.
“Leave him be, Dani,” Jamie scoffs. “He’ll just collapse on the mat. Roy Kent’s not flexible. He’d lose in the first round.”
Another Roy Kent grunt, but this one isn’t dismissive. It’s speculative and challenging, now. It’s progress.
Jamie blows a strand of hair out of his eyes, fixed on Roy, baiting him.
“Fuck it, count me in,” Roy sneers. “I’ll show you flexible.”
“Take my place,” Zoreaux insists, squirming on his stomach under the bridge of Isaac and Bumbercatch’s bodies. “My left hand is dangerously close to getting stepped on, and I’m gonna need that.”
“For the game,” Colin says helpfully.
“...that too.”
Jamie’s heart is pounding in his chest as he watches Roy size up Zoreaux’s position, contorting himself into a position that looks a bit like a human pretzel, but is done with ease. In fact, it’s a bit suspicious how easily Roy’s managed to get himself like that, but Jamie’s not in a position to ask questions.
After all, the bridge of his hips are currently hovering just above Roy’s arm, with his forearm grazing Jamie’s arse, and another spin is on the way.
The next move is right hand, red, and Jamie instantly sizes up where he has to go. It requires twisting his body and suddenly he’s on top of Roy, who’s acting like he’s about to audition for a circus, but isn’t breaking a sweat doing it.
Meanwhile, Jamie’s arms are shaking, his twisted-up legs are cramping, and his dignity is on the line.
“Didn’t I train you better?” Roy grunts up at him.
Jamie’s not so sure it’s the flexibility and the endurance that’s the problem. See, he’s perched above Roy, just inches, and that little accusation had been breathy and distracting and suddenly Jamie’s mission to touch Roy is a problem, not because it exists, but because right now, there’s too many witnesses.
“Fuck, I’m going down!” is all the warning they get from Isaac. He collapses and that knocks Bumbercatch over, and because Bumbercatch’s knee had been on Jamie’s hip, his stability gives and Jamie ends up right on top of Roy when they collapse.
Mostly, at least.
Because Roy’s caught him by the hips, letting Jamie get his feet on the ground and preventing Roy from getting completely trampled.
“I win,” Roy says with a smugly gleeful look in his eyes.
He’s still got his fingers pressed against Jamie’s hips – a reverse of Amsterdam and the bike – and Jamie suddenly forgets that this is about him conditioning Roy to the casual art of intimacy.
Suddenly, this feels like it’s very much for him.
The chatter around them reminds Jamie of the audience he’d been annoyed about, climbing off Roy in a hurry and deciding that he’s not gonna ask himself about the new things Roy had made him feel, under him and breathing heavily while he locked eyes with Jamie. It’s a door he hadn’t intended to open, but it’s been there, all along.
He’s back on his feet, but he’s still unsteady.
In the wake of things he doesn’t want to think about, he decides to go back to what he knows best – antagonising Roy.
“How the fuck did you get that flexible?”
Roy grunts and throws a towel at Jamie’s face, which manages to shut him up. When Jamie pries it off to wipe at the sweat from his brow, Roy’s eyeing Jamie with a weird glint of manic contemplation.
“...How about I show you?”
Wild alarm bells start going off in Jamie’s head. He can’t have figured it out this quickly, can he have? Is he that much of a Roy Kent prodigy that Roy is actually inviting him around for a fuck? Did Jamie trip past the revelation that this process is as much for him as it is for Roy and end up in the reward?
“Bring a yoga mat at seven in the evening tomorrow, I’ll text you the address. Try not to let them eat you alive.”
“Why do we need yoga mats?”
Roy gives him an incredulous glare. “For the yoga that we’re going to do?”
That’s how Jamie ends up walking into an actual lion’s den of middle-aged women who scream so loudly when he turns up at the door that Jamie thinks this is part of a long-term plan to deafen him.
“Told you I knew him,” Roy grunts as he walks behind the gaggle of women, sipping a fucking glass of rosé, and leaving Jamie to answer a thousand questions about Lust Conquers All, what his ab routine is like, and whether they can touch his hair.
“Ladies! Ladies,” Jamie protests, and lets his ego out for the first time in … well, a few days. It’s not like Jamie’s ever been one to subdue it. “I’m happy to answer all your questions.”
“Such a handsome boy,” praises Janice. “We still can’t believe you know our Roy.”
Jamie’s eyebrows shoot upwards. “Our Roy?” he echoes with a smirk at him.
“Are we fucking doing yoga or not, because this one needs to work on his core!” Roy snaps, pointing an accusatory finger at Jamie.
“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll have him bent over in no time,” Linda guarantees with a smack of Jamie’s arse. “Unless you’d like to do it yourself?”
Roy growls at her as he yanks Jamie’s yoga mat from him and rolls it out on the floor, pointing emphatically at it. “You, down there. Now,” he says, like this is some fourth iteration of training that day, but Jamie’s happy to oblige, winking at the yoga mums as he gets on his back. “On your stomach,” Roy snaps.
Jamie rolls his eyes, but flips over – probably a good thing. Too much in the other position and he’ll start getting flashbacks to earlier today. Besides, the happy flutter of conversation about his arse is appreciated.
“Aren’t you lot doing this, too?”
“Fuck no,” Roy snorts, and that’s when Jamie notices he’s the only one with a yoga mat. “You’re the entertainment for the week.”
“Lust Conquers All took a week off,” Janice explains helpfully. “And Roy was so sweet to offer us a chance to meet Jamie Tartt!” There’s a titter of approval and humming that goes around the room.
“Downward dog,” Roy barks at him, the same way he’d told him to pick up the pace when sprinting at five this morning.
This might not be a part of Jamie’s plan, but at least he’s getting an insight into other parts of Roy’s life. Besides, Jamie’s still got an ego like a sunflower, constantly soaking it up and preening in the direction of where the praise is coming from.
Five yoga mums fawning over his arse and a bunch of rosé as a reward?
Jamie can get on board with that.
Jamie’s pretty sure that after a two hour training session with Roy, he’s meant to be the one limping around and hissing in pain. Fuck, Jamie’s got an actual session with the team later, but he’s fine.
Roy, though?
He keeps cursing (par for the course), growling (pretty standard Roy Kent), but there’s this flicker of actual pain in his eyes that makes Jamie think twice about reaching into the vault for a ‘you’re so old the dinosaurs want to know what it’s like being ancient’ barb.
“Okay, what the fuck?”
Roy grunts at him, and normally for six AM, that’s normal, but seeing as Jamie can visibly see the way Roy keeps grabbing at his thigh, he can tell that it’s not just because it’s early and he’s mad at the world (which is an improvement, seeing as he’s not just mad at Jamie these days).
“Working on those corners fucked with my quad,” Roy growls. “Usually, physio unfucks it for me.”
Something bright and shiny sparks an idea in Jamie’s mind. This is an opportunity. They’ve already made it this far, he can actually make it so that he gets his hands on Roy with him actually asking for it.
He’s gotta play this one cool. If he oversells it, it’ll all go to shit and that’ll be weeks of work down the drain.
“You know, it’ll be ages before they get here to start appointments,” Jamie says, aiming for casual and breezy. “It’s not that hard, though, I bet I could work on the worst of it.”
Roy stares at him through narrowed eyes of suspicion. For a moment, Jamie thinks he’s pushed too far, but then Roy takes a step and his knee buckles. Jamie stomps down on the urge to celebrate, but he knows he’s got him when Roy barks out, “Fine!” and heads over to the sidelines.
Jamie trots behind him, knees up to keep the blood warm.
“Fucking stop prancing like that and flaunting your body in front of me.”
“Why? It’s a good body.” Jamie can’t help it. He knows he’s meant to be going slow, but Roy can’t just give him a perfect opportunity to flirt and expect Jamie to miss out on it. Once Roy settles onto the bench, Jamie sinks down to his knees beside him, deliberately stretching back to sit on his heels.
Roy sneers at him. “I’ll slash your Achilles, see how you like it then.”
“Whatever, just think about twenty years from now when you’ll be dead and I’ll have a hip replacement, if you need to get off.”
“Is everything sexual with you?”
Seeing as Roy’s laid out with only a pair of shorts and his t-shirt and Jamie’s almost crawling up the bench to get his hands on Roy’s thighs, he’s not sure how anyone would go into this situation and not see the sexuality in it. He’s pretty sure even Kitman would’ve seen it.
“Relax, would you?” Jamie snaps, when the first touch of hands to Roy’s skin makes it feel like Jamie’s pressing his fingers into a stone fortress. “I’m trying to help you!” He thought they were over this, by now.
It’s not like the floodgates open or anything. Roy doesn’t go soft under his hands, but there’s this tiny bit of give and Jamie’s able to start working his fingers into Roy’s muscles without feeling like he’s somehow going to get repelled backwards.
“Sometimes,” Jamie starts, haltingly, not sure if he’s about to ruin this, “I think that maybe you train me the way you do because you miss it.”
“Miss what? Playing?”
Jamie nods, pressing his thumb deeper into Roy’s IT band, even if it makes him clench and hiss. “It fucks with you, but you do it. And you’re up early, and you’re always there,” he says, trying not to get stuck in the thought of the times people hadn’t been there for him.
Roy’s leaning back on his elbows, watching Jamie work. He hasn’t shoved him off, so Jamie gets a second hand in there, manipulating Roy’s muscles with equal parts firm touches followed by soft pressure, just letting his hands warm him up.
“So I’m never gonna be out on that pitch again, big whoop.”
Jamie raises both brows at him, ready to mock him.
“Fuck off,” Roy growls. “Lasso’s infected me. There’s no cure.”
“It’s not so bad, is it?”
Roy grunts, which Jamie understands now as ‘yes’, because he’s learned to speak fluent Roy Kent in the last few months. He keeps working his fingers into the tight muscle of Roy’s thighs, getting a bit deeper than before.
“He’s pretty good at making us better, though. You’re a better coach than you used to be,” Jamie points out.
“Goes both ways,” Roy says back at him, as Jamie moves his palms and slides them a few inches up. He’s still tracking along Roy’s quads, only he’s moving towards his hips and the fabric of his shorts. “You’re a better player, I mean,” he grunts as he sucks in a sharp breath of air, and when he speaks next, it’s barely sound for the way it’s mostly exhaled. “Not coach.”
There’s a line here – and not just a physical line of Roy’s shorts, but there’s a metaphorical one too.
Jamie decides to charge past it, hoping he’s not offside and the next move his hand makes isn’t to relieve the pressure of an aching knot in Roy’s quads. It’s easier, slower, and tentative. It’s a hell of a fucking risk, but he’s still there and he’s still working on it and Roy’s not moving.
Honestly, Jamie wonders if he’s even breathing.
“Jamie.”
“Yeah?” He’s an idiot full of hope as he looks up, eyes big and wide, waiting for Roy to give in – ask for something, ask for anything, ask for me. Jamie’s convinced he’s made it as obvious as he can. He’s even caught the way Beard keeps giving him knowing looks, like he’s figured out this little chess strategy of Jamie’s.
The thing is, Jamie can only do so much. In the end, it’s gotta be Roy who opens up and lets himself have it, and he knows that’s asking for miracles.
“You’re ready to show those pricks out there what you’re made of. No more holding back. Got it?”
This feels reductive. Redundant. Rewinding?
Whatever it is, it’s backwards, because Jamie’s already taken that step up and Roy knows it. He takes his hands off Roy’s hairy leg, watching as he gets up and starts grabbing his shit in short, panicked little bursts.
“Yeah,” Jamie says slowly. “Right. Got it, Coach.”
There’s something he’s missing. He doesn’t think Roy’s figured out his plan and he hasn’t threatened to boil Jamie’s balls in tea, so he’s not angry. Well, not angry about this, because Roy Kent is still always angry about something.
Roy grunts as he pushes towards the training room, hopping into his sweatpants, leaving Jamie in his wake.
“What the fuck,” he exhales in wonder and confusion.
Then, it hits him.
He’s got Roy on the ropes. His plan is actually working and Roy likes being touched, which means that Jamie gets to accelerate and keep going. Not everything’s lost.
Jamie doesn’t have to stop. He gets to keep going, and if that isn’t the best news since they named him fashion icon of the week (for the fifth week in a row, albeit in the Sun), then he doesn’t know what is.
It’s another night after training at the bar. By now, Roy doesn’t flinch when Jamie drapes his arm around Roy’s neck and he doesn’t push him away when he leans in to talk to him so his words don’t get lost in the din of the bar.
Roy’s been buying them drinks all night and even though Jamie’s got a pretty good tolerance, he’s pretty sure that all the training is weakening it.
“Surprised you let me drink,” Jamie mumbles.
“What?”
“You!” Jamie says, leaning closer until his lips are basically an inch away from brushing against Roy’s earlobe. “Isn’t training supposed to be about eating a proper diet and not drinking and shit?”
“Too fucking late for that,” Roy says, shoving a tequila shot Jamie’s way.
Jamie eyes it warily, not sure he wants it when the room has already started spinning. Roy bought it for him, though. That makes it precious. It makes it special. Jamie’s pretty sure that this started a long time ago, as a kid staring up at a poster on the wall, but he knows he’d do just about anything for Roy Kent.
If that means drinking another shot, then he can do that.
“D’you remember that time when I talked about you dying?” Jamie rambles, his palm drunkenly resting on Roy’s chest, stroking and patting him over his charcoal t-shirt, pressed up against him snugly and he can’t even blame the crowds.
Roy grunts a confirmation.
“I don’t think about that anymore, but I think about you, a lot. Think about the poster on my wall,” he mumbles, sipping his beer now that the tequila has been downed, and sliding his palm over Roy’s shoulder. “Think about my old tapes and how confident you were in ‘em, how good you were, and now you’re making me be like you, be better than you. And all I wanna do!” Jamie says loudly in his ear. “All I wanna do is touch you and make you feel better! I know things are fucked up between you and Keeley, and I know it’s shit without her, but I’m here!”
For most people, Jamie Tartt is more than enough.
For Roy, apparently it’s enough to make him look like he’s having a stroke. “Outside,” Roy growls at him. “You’re drunk.”
He is, but Jamie’s not entirely sure what’s going to happen. Still, he follows after Roy with blind faith, following his every order like he has for ages. When he dawdles a little, Roy reaches back for him, grabbing him by his shirt in a bunch of fabric.
It yanks Jamie’s breath away, heart pounding in his chest, and he trips after him to wherever it is Roy wants him. He’ll follow him anywhere – already has, will again, and he’ll enjoy it every time.
“Don’t think I can give you a tour of this place like Amsterdam,” Jamie quips. “But I could always try.”
Roy doesn’t say anything as he brings them around the corner, where Jamie’s foot catches on a stray bit of pavement and he nearly trips face-first, if not for Roy catching him with ease, holding him up.
They’re so fucking close. Roy’s got his arm around Jamie’s shoulders, holding him up against the brick wall in the alley. Jamie’s drunk, but he’s pretty sure Roy’s not just holding him so he won’t trip.
Jamie tips his head back, scraping against the brick, looking up at Roy through half-lidded eyes. “Why do you look at me like that?”
“Like you’re a fucking prick?”
“No,” Jamie says. “Like you don’t know what to do with me.”
“Because I fucking don’t know what to do about you.”
He sounds so fucking lost about it, too, like he’s bewildered and angry and furious and keen and excited all at the same time, which Jamie understands. He’s spent a long time sifting through the same emotions, and now they’re outside and Jamie’s drunk and he’s been trying to warm Roy up so he enjoys being touched.
“Coach,” Jamie murmurs, his eyes stuck on Roy’s lips as a brilliant idea strikes him like lightning.
If Roy didn’t know what to do with him before, kissing him might be like tossing a grenade into the situation, but Jamie honestly thinks it’s the best idea he’s ever had. He grabs at Roy’s neck, fingers slipping a little for the sweat and having to adjust.
He could say it’s for balance, but they both know it’s not.
“Roy,” Jamie says, next, swallowing hard as he lets his eyes falls shut before drifting forward, eager to give Roy the intimacy he fucking deserves.
At least, he’d meant to. He doesn’t get very far, because Roy’s hand is on his shoulder, keeping him back. “You’re very drunk,” Roy says, and when Jamie opens his eyes, he discovers regret is the emotion dominating Roy’s face, not anger like he might have expected.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t want it.”
Roy lets out a disbelieving scoff. “Fucking prick,” he exhales, and pins Jamie back against the wall with a firm shove that awakens other parts of Jamie.
He rolls his hips up, head still back against the bricks, staring at Roy with a pleading and earnest look, brow raised as he tries to invite Roy to come back, to take Jamie up on his offer, or maybe just to do anything.
“No,” Roy announces. “Not like this.”
“But maybe, like something else?”
Roy grunts, but this time, Jamie can’t read it. For months he’s been able to anticipate every one of Roy’s moods and responses and nonsensical grunts, but this one is a mystery. It leaves him swaying a little and renders him completely fucked, because this is the important one. This is the one he’s supposed to figure out.
Instead, he’s got nothing.
“Get home, get sober,” Roy says sharply. “And I’ll see you at four in the fucking morning.”
It’s probably a threat, but Jamie sags back against the wall with relief that he hasn’t fucked things up so badly that he’s lost out on his training. More than that, there’s something like hope building in Jamie’s chest, because Roy didn’t say: No, not ever.
He just said: Not like this.
Somehow, in all this, Jamie went from trying to give Roy something to desperately wanting something from Roy – and maybe he hasn’t managed to get it, but Jamie’s nothing if not persistent.
He’ll figure this out. Somehow.
“Hiya Jamie,” Keeley says warmly, nearly scaring the shit out of Jamie.
Jamie glances over his shoulder, confusion joining the party. “Keeley.”
“Yeah, Jamie?”
“This is the men’s bathroom. Why are you here?”
“...Jack’s here to watch the PR event and she just went into the women’s bathroom. Things are still a bit awkward between us, so I’ve been trying to avoid her.” She gives him a nervous look. “I wanted to talk to you, a bit, too. I’ve seen you with Roy lately. You two have been getting close.”
Does Keeley know that Jamie’s stupidly fucked things up? He’d meant to help Roy, not develop some stupid crush on him like an idiot. His heart pounds madly in his chest, his mouth going dry, and suddenly there’s another big worry on the horizon.
She’d said that things with Jack are awkward, plus, things are over between them.
Does that mean she wants Roy back?
Suddenly, Jamie feels a fierce flare of possessiveness, because he knows it’s not like Roy’s his or anything, but he’s had him for nearly every hour of the day for the last few months, and he’s not sure he’s ready to give him up.
“I noticed that maybe you and Roy were getting closer,” she echoes again, a little more tentative, “and I don’t wanna get in your way! I just thought…” She looks nervous and uncertain and still really fucking cute and fit, because she’s Keeley. “I thought maybe you might let me help you.”
Jamie’s head hurts. He’s still stuck in a world where Keeley’s mere presence of being single might mean that Roy won’t need Jamie anymore.
“Pretty sure the minute you tell Roy that you want to get back together, he’s gonna forget I exist,” Jamie says, trying to pretend like that doesn’t matter. He leans up against the wall with his elbow, but he fails epically at attempted smoothness, given the way his eyes stay tight with tension in the reflection of the mirror.
Keeley reaches for his free hand, holding it with both of hers. “I don’t think he will.”
“How?” he snorts. “You got a magic Roy Kent 8-ball?”
“I know him,” she agrees. “I know what he’s like when he wants something and won’t let himself have it. I know what it looks like when he’s pent up and needs release. I also know what he looks like when he doesn’t know how to say the thing that’s twisting him up inside.”
Jamie’s head hurts, but he’s pretty sure his heart hurts worse.
He really fucked up. He’s spent all this time trying to make it so that Roy Kent doesn’t mind being touched and wound up getting some kind of stupid crush in the process.
Only Jamie Tartt could try and make things better for Roy Kent and end up making himself miserable in the process, pining over someone who’d hated him only a year ago (maybe even six months ago, he doesn’t know how Roy’s head or heart works).
“I was just trying to help him out.”
“You’re very sweet for that.”
“Yeah, except, I fucked up, because now I really want him.”
Keeley’s face is going through a lot of sympathy and fondness “It’s hard, isn’t it? Once you get past the surface, it’s really difficult not loving Roy Kent.” She seems to catch herself, a wistful look in her eyes. “Or just wanting him,” she says, giving Jamie an out.
He doesn’t get defensive or insist he doesn’t love Roy. He does love him. He really does, he’s just not entirely sure what type of love it is, but he knows it’s there and he’s not planning to deny it.
“What sort of help were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I could be your coach for this,” Keeley admits. “I went through the Roy Kent gauntlet. I know all the pitfalls, what you shouldn’t say or do.” She gives him a hopeful look. “You deserve nice things, Jamie, and when you get down to it, Roy’s one of the nicest.”
He should probably ask if Keeley wants Roy back. Maybe that’s going to happen at some point, but right now, all he wants is to find out what it’s like to kiss Roy and touch him and have those hands on him all the time.
“I’m ready, coach,” he says eagerly.
“Great! Though,” she says, before a nearby toilet flushes, “could we maybe do this somewhere else?”
She’s always the clever one, Keeley Jones. “Definitely,” he agrees, and leads her out so they can get started on a whole new world of skills for Jamie Tartt to excel at.
Jamie’s opportunity to strike comes only hours later.
Roy’s alone in the office, and Jamie is on a high from Keeley's encouragement, and right then, he knows that if he doesn’t talk to him this exact minute, he’ll do something stupid like chicken out and he’ll never get a chance.
“Where’s everyone gone?” Jamie asks as he closes the door behind him, ambling over to the bookshelf to fidget with some of the books – mainly because he’s got to do something and if it’s not this, then he’ll mangle and stretch yet another shirt with his hands.
Roy rolls his eyes. “He didn’t shrink himself and get stuck in the pages of Trent’s bullshit books,” he says. “They took him to the media event.”
Jamie could ask why Roy didn’t want to go. He could ask whether Roy had seen Keeley today and how he feels about that. He could ask all kinds of things, but he’s only really wanted to ask one question ever since he ran into Keeley in the men’s room.
Actually, if he’s honest, he’s wanted to ask since he woke up with a piercing hangover after too many shots, haunted by the memory of Roy so close and yet so far away in that alley.
“Can we talk?”
“You can.”
“Right,” Jamie agrees, thinking of Keeley’s advice. “Will you listen?”
That catches Roy off guard. Even Jamie feels weird saying it, because it’s a lot like Dr. Sharon’s back and she’s giving him therapeutic tools to communicate. Still, Keeley had insisted that being open and honest in communication with Roy will help to make it clear what he wants.
“Okay,” Roy says slowly, perching on the edge of his desk.
Jamie exhales sharply and pushes himself away from the books to head towards Roy, making sure that all the blinds are down, the doors are locked, and he triple checks that William Kitman isn’t lurking in the corner, as he’s prone to do.
When he’s sure they’re alone, he listens to Keeley’s voice in his head telling him to go for it and then, he just … does.
“You said, in the alley, not like that. Does that mean that if I were gonna try something with you, here, when I’m sober and I can make it clear that I want it, that you wouldn’t shove me away?”
There’s a dark cloud on Roy’s face, one that Jamie’s seen a lot before. He really thought they were past this, and Jamie can’t afford for this to get fucked up, so he keeps going.
“Coach.” He pauses, remembers the part about being a human being and not just one of Roy’s players. “Roy,” he says instead, heart pounding in his chest. It feels a little like they’re back in Amsterdam and he’s waiting to see if this time is the time Roy won’t fall off the bike.
His mind slips back to the feeling of his hands on Roy’s hips and it gives him a vivid reminder of why he’s doing this.
“I do want it,” Jamie insists. “I want you.”
“Fucking hell,” Roy exhales, shaking his head as he looks up at the ceiling. “Why?”
There’s disbelief on his face. There’s doubt, and even a little bit of irritation, but more promising is the way Roy’s smiling a little. Jamie can tell he’s looking up so Jamie doesn’t see it, but it’s easy to clock when he knows where to look.
“Because you’re Roy fucking Kent,” Jamie scoffs. “I’ve wanted you since I was thirteen years old and learning how to touch myself, staring at your poster on the wall.” That’s not a thing he’s told anyone before, but it feels right to finally let it out. “You’re a prick, but you were my idol and now, you put in so much work and so much of it is for me.”
Jamie shrugs, forcing his hands out of his shirt.
“It’s really fucking hot, you know,” he finishes. “All that attention on you? All that devotion?” Jamie risks another step, toe to toe with Roy. “If you gave a fraction of the time you give to me to anyone else, I guarantee they’d want it too.”
He waits a beat. Then another. Then, for good measure, just one more.
This time, Jamie doesn’t hesitate at all as he reaches out to cup Roy’s neck with his palm, practically crawling on top of him so he’s all but perched in his lap as Roy rests against the desk and Jamie leans on him.
Roy doesn’t shove him away, which means Jamie’s grand plan worked.
The best way he knows to celebrate is to keep going, which is when things go a little less methodical and a little more off the rails with desperation as he kisses Roy, hungry and fierce and needy.
The scrape of Roy’s beard on Jamie’s smooth skin feels like it could make him faint for how good it is, but he keeps going, only for Roy to make a tiny noise in the back of his throat – something that nobody would be immune to.
“Fuck,” Jamie keens when Roy takes over, clearly needing to be in control. He grabs at Jamie and shoves his knees on both sides of Roy’s hips, letting him clamber a little higher as they make out (he’s making out with Roy Kent, what the fuck, holy shit, how is this his life?).
Jamie’s definitely gonna have pink and scratchy skin for days. Good thing he’d already bought the good lotion for that.
Eventually, Roy sets Jamie back on the ground, chasing the last fierce kiss with something softer and calmer, but no less all encompassing. He doesn’t let Jamie go far, and when Jamie even tries to step back a little, Roy stops him with a tug of his hips.
So Jamie stays – and fuck, but he likes the little bit of force.
“Spent months working on you,” Jamie murmurs, glad that his face is tucked near Roy’s neck because he’s pretty sure the smug grin on his face would get him headbutted, otherwise. “Trying to soften you up, get it so you’d be open to being touched. I would’ve worked so much fucking faster if I knew you made sounds like those.”
“Tartt,” Roy growls.
“Yeah, yeah, shut the fuck up,” he pre-emptively mirrors Roy’s words. “I’ll do you one better. Do it for me.”
That kicks off another round of them fighting to control the kiss, but within five seconds Jamie gives up and lets Roy take over, enjoying the thrill of his hand cupping Jamie’s jaw while the other gropes his arse, and he definitely likes the promise of Roy’s cock pressing up against him.
True, fucking next to Coach Lasso’s office is a step too far, even for Jamie, but the fantasy is nice to imagine.
Well and truly shut up, Jamie eases back again, flushed and silenced and kissed stupid.
“Don’t think for a second this means I’m gonna ease on you. It’s still gonna be 4AM,” Roy warns, his hands possessively tight on Jamie’s hips in a way that makes him a little lightheaded. “Still gonna make you run until you puke and lift weights until you can’t move.”
Jamie knows.
“Stop trying to turn me on,” Jamie counters with a cocky smirk – and oh look, there’s his voice.
He risks a look and yup, there it is. Roy’s grinning right back at him, even if he’s shaking his head like he can’t believe it. “Prick,” he accuses.
“Granddad,” Jamie retorts.
Roy shoves at Jamie’s face, pushing him physically away. “Get the fuck out of here,” he says. “Go home.”
“And I’ll see you at 4AM?” Jamie suggests.
“Nah,” Roy says, eyeing Jamie with a determined and hungry look. “Let’s call it midnight instead. I’ve got a special warmup in mind for you.”
He nearly trips over his own feet at the thrill of Roy turning up at his place for that. It’s only a little past six, now, which means Jamie’s got a few hours to wait, aware the anticipation might just kill him.
“Don’t worry, coach,” Jamie says with a grin. “I’m ready for anything.”
He leaves on that victorious note, triumphant and a fucking winner. It’s almost better than scoring a goal, better than being promoted, even better than playing a game after Zava fucked all the way off.
It’s months of work paying off and giving Roy what he’d thought he needed while Jamie figured out what he wanted – and honestly, it’s better than he ever could have pictured. He’s got some great coaches and mentors in his life and he knows, by now, how to make sure he doesn’t fuck up a good thing.
It’s time for him to put his money where his mouth is – and maybe, he’s eager to put his mouth in a few other places, too.
Now, he’s off to call Keeley with the news and to prepare himself for midnight, already thinking of the pyjamas (or lack thereof) that he’ll wear. He might not know the answer to that yet, but he does know one thing –
Midnight can’t come fucking quickly enough.