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After seeing Moe lick his Animal Crossing cartridge and Richard drink some vile concoction of pickle juice and peanut butter, Jamie decides when it's his turn, he's definitely picking "truth."
He doubts there's a question that he's going to mind answering. He's not embarrassed by much, not with his teammates anyway, and if they're going to ask him about his sex life, well, he can tell them all about things he's picked up from Keeley's copy of the Carmel Sutra, if they really want to know.
But somehow he isn't prepared for Colin asking, "Okay, boyo, Mister "I'm flattered," who was your first crush? I'm really hoping it was a guy."
It was a guy.
Very specifically a guy that all of them know, and that he still has a very large, very unrequited crush on.
He opens and closes his mouth a few times, fish like, trying to figure out who he should name instead.
"Jamie, mi amigo, you have to tell us now," Dani says. "Those are the rules."
Jamie fiddles with his hoodie strings and makes a face. "It's embarrassing, alright."
"You are rarely embarrassed, Jamie Tartt," Jan says and there's a lot of murmurs of agreement from around the room.
"How bad could it be, bruv?" Isaac asks.
"It's bad, lads. It's bad," Jamie says, resigned to telling them the truth. He puts his head in his hands and mutters, "Roy. It's Roy."
Jamie expects this revelation to be met with some amount of shock, either because it was a guy or because it was Roy, but, weirdly, no one seems particularly surprised by, well, either of those things. Though, maybe, a little confused.
Sam frowns at him. "I'm sorry, Jamie, but I think you misunderstood. We're asking who your first crush was, not your current ..."crush"?"
Sam says "crush" like a question, and that confuses Jamie even more than the lack of surprise. But since he's already told the lads it was Roy, and no one is telling him how messed up that is, he figures he may as well keep digging his own grave. Because having a crush on the same man for 12 years is kind of embarrassing. Even for him. "Uh, no. Roy was me first crush, mate. Saw him in a match on the telly and begged me mum to take me to a Chelsea match the next weekend... in London. Got me a poster and got it signed and all. That was when I was 12. Started wanking to it when I was 15."
This revelation, however, is met with surprise and some raised eyebrows.
"That long, huh?" Colin asks.
Jamie just nods, miserably.
His wanking material has changed surprisingly little since he was 15. Sure, the real 3D Roy growling at him during training is a lot more realistic than the 2D version, and, you know, comes with a lot of additional sound effects.
And Roy's personal training methods really provide a lot of material.
But, like, the real fucking thing? That'd be fucking mint.
But, like, the sex itself isn't even really what he wants.
Well, it's only part of what he wants.
He wants for Roy to not leave after their evening training.
He wants for Roy to know his way around his kitchen so intimately, he never has to ask things like, where the caldera, or whatever the fuck that thing to drain pasta is called, is.
He wants to doze against Roy's shoulder on the couch after dinner, while Roy's half paying attention to whatever's on the telly and he's scrolling through Insta.
He wants for Roy to follow him into the shower afterwards and wash his hair with his fancy salon shampoo while explaining why three in one is a crime. (His hairstylist said so.)
He wants to crawl under his covers with Roy and have Roy's taut and muscular form curl around him all night long.
He wants some, like, domestic relationship shit.
It's just. They're so close to it already.
He's with Roy constantly.
At work. At home. At Roy's kebab shop that he still can't believe Roy's actually shared with him.
He went by himself once and the guy at the counter asked what the hell he did to get Roy to bring him there multiple times, since, apparently Roy usually threatens to throw anyone who sees him there out and headbutt them on the way.
And Roy cooks for him all the time. It just makes sense for both of them to have dinner at his or Roy's, depending on where they end up, after evening training. Roy just doesn't know his way around Jamie's kitchen like he does his own. At least not yet.
And they're often on the couch afterwards, with Jamie knocking his knee against Roy's because he doesn't dare to lean against him, afraid Roy will shove him off.
And, there is, against Jamie's better sensibilities, a bottle of three in one in his downstairs bathroom.
He's mulling over all of this sullenly, picking at the carpet on the floor of Isaac's living room when Isaac says, "Bruv, you saying that you and Roy aren't already dating?"
Jamie is positive he didn't hear that right. Because what the fuck.
"No...why would you think that?" Jamie asks.
There's a chorus of 'personal training and Amsterdam and windmills,' and Jamie's getting the distinct impression that the lads think he had an even better time in Amsterdam than he actually did.
The amount of backslaps he got on the bus afterwards are starting to make a little more sense.
"You saying that 'finding a fucking windmill' wasn't a euphemism?" Colin asks, sounding a little disappointed.
"I'm starting to wish it was," Jamie says.
Isaac stands up and gestures around the room at all of them. "Forget "Truth or Dare." We have a new mission for the night. How do we get Jamie and Roy together?"
"Easily," Jamie says, "you don't. Roy's not interested in me. Not like that."
Literally the entire team bursts into laughter.
"Jamie, Jamie, Jamie," Sam says, ruffling his hair, "Roy pays more attention to you than any of us, and, yes, yes, we know you're the central cog, but that's not why. It's because it's you."
"You're lucky we like you both, Boyo," Colin says.
"It is favoritism," Jan says, "but we allow it because we think you two belong together."
"You're soulmates," Moe says nodding solemnly in that serious way of his.
"Uh..." Jamie stammers. He's completely lost the thread of what's happening here. And he has no idea how to get it back.
"I've got it," Colin says suddenly, snapping his fingers. "Drives me mad when Michael wears my kit. Got to find an old kit of Roy's...oh! A Chelsea one. Roy'll lose it."
Most of the lads agree, saying that they love it and lose it when their girlfriends wear theirs.
"I can pick Roy's lock," Moe offers.
And, at the indication that his teammates are going to break into Roy's house, Jamie comes back online, "No, uh, not necessary. Got one."
The jersey that Roy has on in the poster in his childhood flat in Manchester? He's owned it since he was 17. He would have gotten it at that first Chelsea match in London, when he was 12, but he knew his mum couldn't afford it. He saw the price tag and didn't even ask. He knows she would have bought it anyway.
XXX
Before Jamie really understands what's happening, because he hadn't realized they meant they were doing this right now, he, Dani, Colin, and Sam are in Sam's new car driving to his flat.
They follow him into his room and watch as he shifts some things around before pulling a box out of the bottom drawer of his dresser and slowly, reverently unfolding Roy's number 6 Chelsea kit.
He's always intended to keep it as a collector's item, so it's never been worn.
He pulls off his hoodie and the t-shirt he has on underneath and pulls the jersey on.
He looks in his mirror and sticks his tongue out at the mirror a few times for good measure.
He feels good in this.
The jersey fits him like a glove, and he privately thinks having it on might be what it felt like to Cinderella to have the prince slip on her lost slipper.
He looks at himself in the mirror for a bit too long because Dani, Sam, and Colin eventually come up behind him and start doing bunny ears over him and making silly faces. He does it right back to them until Dani and Colin grab him by the wrists to pull him back outside.
Then Sam makes them stop at his flat to pull a single rose out of a vase on his kitchen table, blushing as he tells them Simi gave the arrangement to him.
Then they're pushing Jamie onto the walkway to Roy's house.
Part of him hopes Roy isn't home, so he can tell the lads they gave it a shot, but it wasn't happening.
But, well, Jamie knows Roy too well now. He knows that Roy is probably in his bed reading Percy Jackson, because Phoebe recommended it to him last week, with his tea going cold on his nightstand.
He knocks and waits, clutching nervously at the rose, for what feels like an eternity before Roy opens the door.
Roy opens his mouth to say something. Probably to ask why the fuck Jamie has showed up on his front step with absolutely no warning.
But he takes in the single rose and his own kit and just gapes.
And Jamie knows his heart is on his sleeve, well, his whole bloody torso, really.
And he has no idea what Roy's thinking.
Neither of them say anything for an awkward amount of time.
But Roy isn't shoving him off his step, so he takes that as a good sign.
"Jamie ..." Roy finally says. And the way he says it is so soft and tender, Jamie thinks he might burst.
"Roy..." Jamie says back, because he doesn't know what else to say.
But apparently it was exactly what to say because the next thing he knows, the rose is falling on the doorstep as Roy tugs him forward and pins him against the open door, crushing their lips together.
Almost immediately, a car horn starts blaring right out front, and they both hear Dani, Colin, and Sam cheering wildly.
They simultaneously raise their middle fingers at Sam's car until they hear the engine roar to life and take off down the road.
Then Roy drags Jamie into the flat and pulls him up the stairs to his bedroom.
And Jamie lives out a few teenage sexual fantasies before they're both worn out and slumped on the bed. Jamie's laying face down in Roy's pillows as Roy traces along the letters of his last name along Jamie's back.
"Could wear the one you got me, next time," Roy says.
"Saying there's going to be a next time?" Jamie says.
"Of course there fucking is," Roy says. Then he pulls back and pushes at Jamie until they're facing one another. "Jamie, I've wanted this for a while. I want you to know that. I'm fucking trying to get better at saying what I want, but with you, well, it's ...I think, sometimes I still forget that I don't hate you anymore, that you really are my best friend, and that I probably actually fucking love you..."
"You love me?" Jamie says.
"Yeah, I think I fucking do," Roy says.
Jamie grins to himself. He didn't dare to dream it, even after Roy pulled him in the front door. But that means he gets it all. The fulfillment of his teenage sexual fantasies and the domestic relationship shit. The whole fucking package.
"Good. Because I fucking love you," Jamie says.
XXX
When they walk into Nelson Road hand in hand on Monday, there's a fair amount of cheering until Roy gives Jamie a peck on his cheek before closing his office door, giving all of them the finger, and shutting the blinds.
Jamie just grins.