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Colin fell silent. The locker room was quiet.
There. Done. Out. He’d done it and his heart was racing so very fast but no one was yelling and the looks his teammates were giving him ranged from calm acceptance (Sam) to obvious surprise and confusion (Dixon), but there was no anger, no disgust. A few nods, a couple of shrugs, a murmured good for you, man.
All in all, that could have been worse—
“What the fuck’s going on here?”
A familiar drawl cutting through the stillness of the room like a lancet through tender meat and oh, and dammit, how the hell had Colin missed that Jamie wasn’t there with them yet? Must have lingered on the pitch with Roy for some extra-curricular coaching tips, same as always these days, and damn, damn, damn, now he’d have to do this shit all over again…
Practice makes perfect.
Colin took a deep breath. He was a strong and capable man. ”I’m gay,” he said. It did feel a little easier this time. Just barely.
“Yeah,” Jamie said, agreeably enough. After a long moment of looking oddly expectant, he added: “And?”
Colin shook his head, slightly puzzled and slightly hating how relieved he felt at Jamie’s non-reaction. Hated that he needed to worry about people’s reactions whenever he spoke of his sexuality. “No ‘and’. I just… I just wanted everyone to know.”
“Yeah, okay, but like, we knew that already?”
Stunned silence, then, spreading through the room once more. Jamie’s eyes wandering from face to face as his own scrunched up in his signature look of disbelieving incomprehension.
“No we didn’t,” Isaac said eventually. “I mean, I knew, but only like a week ago.”
“What, really?” Off everyone’s incredulous stare, Jamie hurried to add: “I mean, I figured we all knew, we just didn’t talk about it because of leaks and homophobia and stuff.”
“Yeah, but—“ Isaac started, but Colin interrupted him, having sufficiently recovered from the shock to speak:
“What do you mean you knew? How?” Had Jamie caught him kissing Michael too? Colin really needed to be more careful.
Or maybe he didn’t. Not anymore.
“Pretty obvious, mate. Like, you had this whole crush on me two years ago.”
“You knew about that?!” Colin’s voice rose an octave, but he didn’t care. Fancying Jamie Tartt, back when the striker first arrived at Richmond, had been six hellish months of notlookingnotlookingnotlooking and being unable not to look, being hyper aware of the other’s presence at all times, constantly trying to make him laugh and getting such an incredible rush whenever he succeeded... But he’d been so sure he’d managed to play it cool.
Appearantly not.
“Uh, yeah. Always know when people are attracted to me, mate. It’s like a superpower.”
“You never made fun of me for it… “ Which was really what had convinced Colin that he had managed to hide his feelings quite well. In no world he could imagine would the Jamie Tartt of two years ago have hesitated to pounce on such a delicious weakness.
But Jamie’s eyebrows rose a good two inches. “Why would I make fun of someone having a crush on me? I mean, come on.” He made a sweeping gesture towards his body and face. “But I was with Keeley so it wasn’t going to happen and when we broke up you were over me, so.”
“Hang on a minute,” Van Damme said. “Are you saying that if you hadn’t been with Keeley, it might have happened?”
Jamie shrugged. “Yeah, sure, why not? He’s a good-looking lad,” he offered, with a friendly smile thrown Colin’s way.
Murmurs of agreement at that. Dani reach out to squeeze Colin’s shoulder.
This wasn’t going the way Colin had thought it would at all.
“Yeah,” said Cockburn, “but, he is a lad.”
Jaime rolled his eyes. “Yeah, thanks Cockburn, hadn’t noticed.”
“Ah, so you’re a bisexual?” Richard nodded to himself, not looking particulary surprised.
“Dunno, mate. I guess? Hadn’t really thought about it.”
Now that caused a ruckus, with players chiming in to offer their (more or less informed) thoughts on the topic and speaking over each other and Jan Maas telling them all that actually.
Jamie seemed unbothered by it, shouting back and telling them to fuck off and fistbumping Bumbercatch and laughing. Quietly, Colin sat back on the bench and watched. Feeling a tension he hadn’t known he carried slowly melt away.
Just like Jamie, wasn’t it? Casually stepping into the spotlight and stealing all the attention without even really trying? Somehow turning even this – this huge, important, life-altering moment of Colin’s – into a sidenote in the Jamie Tartt show.
Colin really didn’t mind, though. In fact, this was perfect. He could just go about his life, loving men and neither having to hide nor crow about it, and Jamie could be… well, Jamie… and if someone ever needed to step up and be a spokesperson for the queers of AFC Richmond, it wouldn’t have to be Colin.
And if he ever broke up with Michael and Jamie was still single and Bumbercatch (supposedly) still straight… Ah, well. Burn that bridge when he got to it.