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“Right, new plan for training today! For the awareness bit, we’re gonna tie you fucking knobheads together. Get dressed, tie up, and be out on the pitch in five.”
Roy dropped the spools of red string on the bench in the centre of the room. He walked out of the room before they could say a word.
Jeff was halfway through tying the string around his waist when Colin asked, “Did he say ‘you’ or ‘your?’”
The team froze.
As one, the team turned to Jamie, who had stopped lacing up his boots to take the roll from Jeff. Freshly awoken from his between-trainings nap, he did not look like a paragon of answers; he looked like someone who was trying to transition from ‘tie boots’ to ‘tie self’ and coming up short.
When he realised he was being stared at, he blinked blearily under the attention.
“What? Don’t look at me,” he complained. “I’ve been up since four. I wasn’t paying any attention.”
Sam rubbed his hands together nervously. “I didn’t want to be the one to say it, but I heard ‘your.’”
“He said ‘get dressed’ first. That implies an order of events he’d like to happen,” Jan argued. “Why would he tell us to get dressed and then tie our penises together?”
Moe looked at him shrewdly. “So you admit you heard ‘your’ too.”
“You’re all being mental. Why would Coach have us do that?” Isaac turned to Jamie. “Back me up, man.”
His brow furrowed like he was doing some complicated maths in his head. Finally, he shrugged. “I mean, he tied me to a bike this morning and had me pull him around, so maybe?”
Colin snapped his fingers. “Like Rocky?”
“Eh?”
“Rocky Balboa?”
Dani perked up excitedly. “Oh, that is the guy who goes--?” He mimed throwing his arms up and shouting.
“That’s the one, boyo.”
“Hah! I wish to be like Rocky!” Dani announced, eagerly grabbing the offered string from Jamie. Van Damme nodded beside him in agreement.
“Hold on, now, Rocky didn’t go around tying dicks together, bruv.”
“That we know of,” Moe retorted.
"Yeah, I haven't seen any of the new ones," said Colin.
“Creed was dope,” said Declan. “Michael B. Jordan pulled a plane in that one.”
Jan scoffed. “You mean his stuntman pulled it.”
“I don’t like Rocky,” Richard added, though no one had asked.
“Guys, we do not have time to argue,” Sam implored. He worried the spool between his hands, turning it about like a puzzle. “We have to be on the pitch soon.”
“Sam’s right. We’ve got to make a decision,” Isaac said authoritatively. “What do we think? And it has to be unanimous, it can’t just be a few of us out there with strings tied to our willies.”
Everyone looked around the room, waiting for someone to speak first.
Jan spoke first by dropping his shorts. “I do not wish to be tied to a bike if we are wrong. It is better to be safe than sorry. Hand me the string.”
---
Beard lowered his sunglasses. “Uh, Coach? You seeing what I’m seeing?”
Ted watched in confused awe as the team marched out to the pitch like a clustered, delicate group of tadpoles with red string hanging out of their shorts. “Roy, what the hell did you tell them?”
“What?” Roy turned around. He stilled. His body tensed all at once, and every trace of an expression left his face except for his eyes.
His eyes blazed with mirth.
“The plan,” he answered. He walked away to give himself a moment by the water cooler. The HR write-up better be worth it.
Ted turned to Beard. “Am I having a seizure? Was that in the plan?”
The world’s careful-est procession was almost upon them. Beard pushed his sunglasses back up. “Best not to ask, Coach.”
---
The HR write-up was worth it.