Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Colin stared incredulously at the message that had just popped up. An unknown number (but, his iPhone suggested, maybe Liam Mitchell?) that just said, "hey so i guess Tartt outed the both of us"

Colin blinked at the message. Then read it again. He clicked his phone off, as if someone else would lean over and see some incriminating evidence (and hadn't that happened before? Isaac, grabbing the phone out of his hand ) Then, unable to help himself, he read the message for a third time. He frowned.

Around him the locker room hummed with the usual jittery Friday energy. After the half-speed drills and conditioning and strategy and game tape earlier in the week it was almost a relief to get to the all-out practice matches. Their opponent tomorrow was someone they'd beat easily with Zava earlier in the season and could maybe be toppled. This wasn't Man City with their losing streak or West Ham with their unstoppable formations. And he, Colin, had been feeling particularly good about the matchup, about playing out in front and assisting and passing to Dani and Sam and even Jamie fucking Tartt.

Jamie Tartt, who was sitting down the bench, bobbing his head to some music as he stripped out of his ridiculous multi-layered street clothes.

Be calm, Colin said to himself even as the larger, angrier, gayer side of him screamed Fuck that.

"What the hell did you do this time, Tartt?" Colin spit out. On his feet. The burbling conversations around him all stopped as everyone's heads turned towards Jamie who was, to be honest, the usual cause of locker room strife.

Jamie raised an eyebrow. He was still pulling his jersey over his head. "You're going to have to be more specific, mate."

"Yeah, use your words, Colin," Isaac reminded him.

Dani leaned over to Richard, "Did he say 'what' did you do or 'who' did you do?"

"With Jamie, I think they are one and the same."

Colin spun around to the rest of the team. "I'm getting texts from fucking unknown numbers saying," Colin opened up the message as if it wasn't already seared to his eyelids. "'Hey so I guess Tartt outed the both of us.'"

Every man in the locker room glared at Jamie, who put up his hands as if proclaiming his innocence. "Colin, mate, I'm not outing anyone. I never...who would I even tell?" Now Jamie looked like he was actually contemplating the problem. "Who would I even out, except for you?" He scratched the back of his neck. "The only other...whatever I know is your fit boyfriend."

Colin sprung at Jamie, hands going for the collar of his piney. "Keep Michael out of this!"

Jamie flinched and Isaac steppe between the two players, putting a shoulder between Colin and the striker while saying over his shoulder, "This is really out of line, bruv. We swore not to tell anyone!"

"And I didn't!"

"It is another matter entirely if Colin's partner is involved," Sam pointed out. "We don't mix family into our fights."

Jamie backed away from a still-furious Colin. "Obviously! But I didn't. I don't go around outing people."

Colin's phone pinged. The unknown number again. Can't believe Tartt would do this to a player on his own team.

Colin's hands were shaking too much to even form a reply. "I need to go call Michael." He jabbed a finger in Jamie's direction. "I told you. I told all of you. I don't want this to be news. I don't want to be a poster child or a martyr or a symbol. I just want to do my job."

He stormed out of the locker room and a few of the guys peeled off to trail after him. Isaac, tucked next to Jamie no doubt out of some sense of captain's duty, glowered at the striker. Sam remained, too, looking thoughtful. "Who did you tell, Jamie? Perhaps Rebecca—Ms. Walton—or Keeley or...someone could get to the story before it hits the press."

But Jamie was done being helpful, his expression set to glowering and defensive. "You think I don't have enough problems on my plate without going through this shit?" He rolled his eyes. "And look at you! You don't even believe me!"

"I believe that we all make mistakes sometimes," Sam said placatingly.

"Fuck this," Jamie muttered, shouldering past Sam and Isaac and the rest of the now-glowering locker room.

The door to the coach's office opened and Ted stepped out, eyebrows climbing his forehead as he surveyed the quiet team left behind. "Something up, fellas?"

"I'll be out on the pitch," Jamie said. It was far beyond protocol. He might even get fined for not being in the pre-scrimmage meeting. But if he didn't run he would burst.

Ted didn't even have to look behind him, didn't even have to signal. Roy was already following Jamie out the door.

The scrimmage was brutal.

The boys who had followed Colin out of the locker room had all taken up his vendetta, and even Isaac and Sam seemed reluctant to interact with Jamie. Which was understandable, because watching Jamie Tartt play angry was like watching a razing. His philosophy seemed to be "fuck it and fuck the consequences." He stole passes. He darted out of position. He scored goals and no one celebrated.

"Alrighty, Roy, why do I feel like I'm watching practice from two years ago?" Ted winced as Richard's tackle sent Jamie to the turf, hard. "I thought we were past all of this animosity?"

"Fuck if I know."

"Didn't you all come out here twenty minutes before the rest of us? What did you talk about?"

Roy rolled his eyes. "We didn't talk. We ran."

Ted glanced over at Beard. "Men, am I right?"

Beard, arms crossed, was glaring at the men on the pitch. "Richard, back in position! Tartt, one more pass like that and you'll be benched tomorrow."

Jamie, jogging past, rolled his eyes. "Right, go ahead, bench me when I'm the only one scoring any fucking goals."

Ted tapped Beard on the shoulder. "Run it again, Coach. I'm going to go check on something." The last time they'd seen Jamie this out of sorts hadn't actually been two years ago. It had been two months ago, on that day that still haunted Ted, when Jamie had spent an entire practice assuming he'd be raped at the end of the day.

The intervening months had brought less progress than Ted would have hoped. Jamie, who by all standards could have avoided the coaches, now left most every day with Roy Kent, the two having reached some understanding in that office. Beard had made a target for his axes in the shape of James Tartt, Sr. Trent Crimm had kept his mouth shut but his laptop open, and Ted knew, just knew, that this academy story would be his big scoop, would blow the whole thorny business of youth football wide open.

And Ted had told Rebecca and Higgins the bit he could share, the part he could control. James Tartt was already banned from Richmond games but if he was breaking into Jamie's house, threatening their star player, then that was Richmond's problem.

Six weeks ago Ted had asked Jamie to go with him up to Rebecca's office. The striker, normally all energy, had grown stiller and quieter with every step. Only once they were outside the office did Jamie stop moving, as if his feet simply wouldn't propel him any further. "Coach, if you could just give me a heads up—only, if I'm being traded again—I just need to wrap my head around it, before I do something stupid in front of Mrs. Walton."

"Woah—no! Why would we trade you, Jamie? You're our ace." Ted's heart broke as he looked at Jamie, who was looking at the ground. He pushed open the door before Jamie could get more wrong ideas in his head. "Ms. Rebecca, maybe you could help me reassure Jamie here that we aren't going to be trading him anytime soon."

"Not this season at least," Rebecca smiled warmly. "The offense wouldn't survive another loss."

Jamie didn't look at all reassured as he slunk into the office. "So...what are we talking about?" He glanced around the room. No Beard, no Roy, but Trent Crimm was standing in a corner, barely looking up from his furious scribbling. Higgins sat across from Mrs. Walton, next to a sharply dressed police officer.

Jamie's face lost all color at the sight of the officer. "Christ. Did someone die?"

"Stop guessing things, Jamie," Ted said, patting the man on the back. "Officer Chakrabarti is here to help us out with your father."

"Ah, right, but I don't really need to talk to a copper. No offense, officer."

Chakrabarti, a prim woman with her hat tucked under her arm, nodded as if she heard similar dismissals all the time. "When you were growing up, Mr. Tartt, did you often report crimes or violence to your local constabulary?"

Jamie snorted and Ted looked between his player and the officer. "I'm guessing there was some kind of British version of 'snitches get stitches.'"

The officer, who was a part of the force that would help with the crowds after the game, who had, though she would never own up to it here, a son who wore his Tartt jersey up until the moment she had to wrestle it off his back for the washing machine. Hrishi was so attached to the jersey and the player that Chakrabarti, for her son's birthday, had brought Hrishi down to Nelson Road very early one Saturday morning to watch all the players get on a bus. Some of the players had smiled at the assembled crowd of the loyal few, and Dani Rojas has signed the jersey of a girl around her son's age, but Jamie Tartt, bundled in baffling clothing head to toe, hadn't even seemed to notice the crowd and definitely didn't notice Hrishi, who was waving furiously at his favorite player as Tartt climbed onto the bus.

So. Chakrabarti already had a few opinions about Jamie Tartt before this conversation. When Walton had reached out to the department about protective orders for one of her players Chakrabarti had expected a groupie, a girlfriend. There had been a stalker a few years ago. There'd been a rise in racially charged threats in the years since Sam Obisanya had made a name for himself on Richmond.

A father demanding more from an ungrateful son? Chakrabarti was prepared to go through the motions and send Jamie Tartt on his way.

But as she began filling out the paperwork, and as his answers came, a slow unspooling, she felt her annoyance overtaken with the sort of protectiveness she'd only known since Hrishi came into her world. A motherly surge. "So other than the incident at Wembley last year, have you and your father been involved in any physical altercations?"

Jamie squirmed at the question. He'd sat down for the beginning of the conversation but sprung up every so often to pace around the room. Other than a few murmured assurances, the assembled team—manager, owner, even the reporter—were quiet throughout the proceedings, though Chakrabarti noticed on their faces the same heartbroken anger she was beginning to feel. "I mean. He comes 'round sometimes."

"And what normally happens when he comes around?"

"Mostly it's fine. He lets me know whenever I do something wrong in a match. I've got a spare room that he likes to take." Jamie wouldn't look at the officer but he did look at his coach. "I can handle me Dad."

"Sure you can," Coach Lasso affirmed. "But what happens on the days when it's not mostly fine?"

Jamie rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Dad has these friends, right?"

"A Mr. Bug, if I remember correctly," Higgins put in.

"Nah, he's just Bug. Ain't no mister about him. And Denbo. I think Coach Beard ran into them once?" Jamie shrugged. "All three of them together is...I usually just scram if they're all around. They rile each other up. Treat me like I'm still a kid. Boss me around, like. Fetching bottles and whatever. And, yeah." Jamie's ears turned pink and Chakrabarti knew that this fit, young, athletic man found everything about these questions mortifying. "They slap me around a bit. Um. I've got." Jamie had been rubbing at his collarbone and now he glanced at Rebecca. "If I took off my shirt I could show you..."

"I've seen you in multiple states of undress, Tartt. I promise not to be scandalized."

Jamie wiggled his eyebrows. "Knew you were looking, Mrs. Walton." But the teasing was more habit than anything, and the smile dropped as he rolled his shirt up to the collarbone.

"Oh, my word." That was actually Higgins, who blanched. Trent Crimm, still in his corner, pursed his lips and definitely did not count Jamie Tartt's abs. Instead, he counted the pockmocks of burns that dotted Tartt's collarbone.

"Got some more on me arm but they're from years ago." Jamie rolled his shirt back down, that flush never leaving his face. "Um. Is that, like, enough?"

Rebecca, hands folded on her desk, didn't need a little boy back home to make her feel protective. She had twenty boys downstairs. A locker room of talent and a city that liked to turn on its own team. She would keep them safe. "You know your father is already banned from Nelson Road."

"Right." Jamie shrugged. "He's a Man City fan anyway."

"But we do need you in top form." Rebecca sensed that Ted's American lovey-dovey wouldn't work on Jamie, that professing that she cared about his well-being and wanted him to be safe and whole would only result in more teeth-grinding, more embarrassment. Being an asset to the team, taking care of himself so he could play another game of football, and another, and another...that was something Jamie knew how to do. "So we're going to need you to do everything the good officer here tells you."

"Unfortunately," Chakrabarti said, "most protective orders need to be issued by a court. Step one is reporting to the police, which you're doing, but we would need to take your father to court on criminal charges."

"Breaking and entering's a criminal charge, right?" Ted, three times during the conversation, had reached out like he was going to put a hand on Jamie's shoulder. And three times he'd pulled back. Now he put his hands in his pockets.

"And the next time that happens you need to file a police report." Chakrabarti fixed Jamie Tartt with her best mother-knows-best glare. "Get somewhere safe. Call the police. Then we can charge him and issue the restraining order."

It was Higgins who asked the question on everyone's minds: "But you can't issue one now?"

Chakrabarti sighed. "It's a horrendous system, I'll admit it."

For the first time all day, Trent Crimm spoke up from his spot in the corner. "There's been threats," Crimm said. During press conferences always seemed so mild-mannered but Chakrabarti saw the flinty steel in the man. "I have some written records. Jamie's father threatened to kill him, and if you can wrestle the story out of him again I think Coach will tell you that the threat is very real."

Rebecca's face swiveled over to Jamie, who seemed to be trying to disappear into his shoes.

Chakrabarti blanched. "A court needs to issue the restraining order. But, Mr. Tartt, if you feel unsafe we really are just a phone call away." She hesitated, then patted Jamie Tartt's knee. "You're my son's favorite player. You need to keep yourself safe, okay? If only to make a little boy happy."

Tartt nodded, scrambling out of the seat again. "Right. Right. Yeah. I'll call you next time." He backed towards the door. "If you don't need anything else I think I'll just..."

He wavered in the doorway. As soon as Rebecca nodded, he fled.

It was Trent Crimm who broke the silence. "We all know that Tartt will never call the police on his father, right?"

Colin didn't have to open his door to see that Jamie Tartt was waiting outside. This wasn't Love, Actually. He had a camera on his doorbell and could talk to Jamie through the speaker.

And he did. "Fuck off, Tartt."

Michael, who was on the other Mario Kart controller, rolled his eyes. "Do you think he's actually going to leave?"

"Well, I'm not letting him in."

Jamie rang the doorbell again, leaning against the wall and squinting above the door as if trying to suss out where the camera was. "I've got all night, Colin. We need to talk before the game tomorrow."

Michael jumped over Colin's Bowser to pull ahead in Mario Kart. "He's right, you know."

Colin snorted. "Tartt's never right. About anything." He missed the ramp and missed the jump and fell right off of Rainbow Road which didn't at all feel like a pointed metaphor about his sexuality and the very conversation he was trying to avoid.

Michael nodded at the screen where Colin's Bowser was stuck in ninth place. "You play like shit when you're angry."

Eventually, Jamie stopped ringing the doorbell. He slumped on the stoop of the porch, scrolling on his phone but looking at the door every few minutes as if he could will it to open. Not that Colin was obsessively watching the camera or anything.

When the leaderboard appeared on the screen they both stared at Michael's little figure as he jumped under confetti. "Would it really be so bad?" Michael's voice was soft in the big room. "If it did come out?"

He probably meant well. Michael hadn't spent every day of his last ten years imagining the media frenzy that would surround that first out gay Premier League player. Colin used to wake up, as a teenager, and wish that someone else would do it first. When marriage equality passed. When the women's leagues started showcasing their gay stars. When actors and musicians were outed or outed themselves. In so many ways it felt like elite male sports was the final frontier. He'd take an American Football player, or hockey star, or baseball legend. Some high-profile statement from someone. Anyone.

And year after year he started getting the creeping sensation that maybe it would have to be him.

Colin had broken up with men over this before. Some guys wanted him to be the activist, pushed him to come out so they could...what? Bask in the glow of the ensuing chaos? Others, like Michael, were out in every other area of their lives, to their parents and coworkers and friends, and found the constant nights in or secretive nights out to be stifling. But Colin wasn't built to be an activist. He admired the civil rights fighters of the past but he was always acutely aware that those fights had come at a cost.

It was only recently that he'd realized that keeping the secret cost him something, too. That night in Amsterdam, when he thought Trent Crimm would just run with the story, he'd felt fear but also...relief. It would be over. One way or another it would be over. And it if had to happen, let it happen now. While he was with Richmond, and these boys, and Coach Lasso and Ms. Welton. In this season where the locker room, at least, had his back.

Colin let himself fall backwards into the couch, feeling Michael fall with him, the other man curling his body so he could rest his head on Colin's chest. The easy closeness. "It's not about you," Colin promised, a hand tangling in Michael's soft, soft hair. "Swear to god I'm not, like—"

"I know."

"It'll be awful. It'll be awful for the team. It'll be awful for you."

"I think the coverage might be kinder than you expect."

Maybe there'd be a veneer of propriety, but the UK wasn't exactly known for having a press corps that pulled punches. The press had run down a princess. Had chased away their most beloved prince. And Colin was basically nobody. He didn't have Tartt's talent or Kent's attitude or even Sam's charisma. He would make a mess out of this.

And would be the other voices: the bloggers, the opinion writers, the Community with a capital C that Colin had never had a chance to be a part of. Coming out now had rules, and steps, and rituals, and the LGBT+ community did a good amount of policing on its own. There'd be attacks from that side, formed as questions: Why did he wait so long? What was he doing to support other LGBT+ players? As a white, cis, rich man, wasn't he in one of the most (relatively) privileged positions, and so what exactly was he afraid of, anyway?

He took out his phone and swiped until he could see the doorbell camera. Jamie was still on the steps, head pillowed in arms resting on knees. Asleep, but there.

"Either let him in or send him away," Michael murmured. "You've both got a game tomorrow."

Which is how Colin ended up pulling open the door quickly enough to send Jamie flinching, scrambling to his feet. After what happened at Wembley Colin might have felt bad about it, but tonight he had no room for sympathy for Tartt. When he'd thought Trent Crimm was going to out him he'd had that kernel of relief, but at least Crimm was a reporter, or a reporter on sabbatical, or whatever. There was no relief at the thought of the old bully of the Richmond locker room telling secrets for his own amusement.

Jamie blew out a breath. "You know how to let a man stew, Hughes."

"Keeley and Ms. Welton already said they'd try to pull the story once they know who has it." And hadn't that been a fun conversation for Colin? He'd felt like a child, slinking off to the principal's office to confess a crime. And it didn't matter that they'd both said all the right things—the first expression that crossed Ms. Welton's face had been a sort of knowing resignation. As if, even while listening to Colin, all she could envision was the trouble this would cause her. "You could help by telling us who you told."

Jamie looked around the walled courtyard. "Can I—look, we should probably talk about this inside."

Colin put up a hand to block the doorway. "Michael's upstairs. This isn't his problem."

Jamie blanched, keeping one eye on the hedges as if expecting a pap to burst out of the bush. And if this got out that would be what happened. Fuck this life. "You got the wrong end of it, mate."

"Oh, we are not mates today."

"I don't think that message was about me outing your...whatever. Sexuality. Not directly. It was about—fuck." Jamie ran a hand through his hair. He looked disheveled, and there as a welt on his temple, a bruising scratch that Colin knew came from being tackles and going down hard. "I don't even know how it got out. But I think that message was about Forsythe."

It took Colin several long seconds to place the name. "From the Academy?"

Jamie nodded, looking miserable. "I didn't tell anyone about the gay thing, swear down."

Now Colin had to drag Jamie inside. Even though he knew there were no paps in the bushes hearing the phrase "the gay thing" out loud made the little hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "But you were talking to someone about the Academy?"

"Something happened—with—well, with Roy—Coach Kent—and I said to a—friend." Jamie closed his eyes. "I mean. You remember how Forsythe was at the Academy."

"He was a creep. Tried to get me to suck him off to keep my spot on the first squad." Colin frowned. "You thought I'd do that? What, just because I'm gay I earned my position on my back? Fuck you, Tartt! I told him to fuck off. Got stuck on the reserves for two years."

Jamie shook his head. "I saw you, mate. I saw you coming out of his office."

"Yeah? I was always in his office. He always had a list of shots I could have taken. Assists I could have helped with. He yelled at me, he wasn't—" Colin crossed his arms. This was maybe worse than Jamie going around telling people he was gay. At least that was true. "Christ, Tartt, you're painting me as some victim."

Jamie put a fist to his mouth. "I didn't mean—"

"Who the fuck did you tell?"

"Hey?" Michael appeared at the top of the stairs, his knuckles white were they gripped the banister. "Is everything cool down here?"

Jamie looked between Colin and his boyfriend. "I'll—I'll try to fix it, alright? But I just needed you to know that I'm not...I wouldn't out you. Not like that."

"This story is worse, Jamie."

"I know," the striker moaned. "I know. I'll fix it."

Jamie was shaking. His hands were shaking and kept fisting into the bottom of his shirt, stretching it out. Colin watched the motion critically. It drove the kitmen mad how Jamie stretched out all his jerseys.

"Hey," Michael was closer now, right next to Colin. "Why don't we all take a deep breath? Let me make you a cuppa."

Tea? Colin still was wavering on whether or not Tartt deserved a first to the face. Jamie must have felt the same way because he was shaking his head, hand scrabbling for the doorknob. "Nah, mate, thanks, but it's a long walk home."

Colin rolled his eyes. Of course Tartt would walk here and not think about the return journey after dark. "Don't walk home. Look, I'll call Kent and—"

Before he had time to finish, to actually get that pot of tea on, to be the bigger man and try to figure all this out like adults, Jamie had already turned tail.

And Michael turned to Colin, his eyes all questions. "Who's Forsythe?"

Chapter Text

Colin collared Isaac on his way into the locker room the next morning. "I need to talk to you."

"Boot room?" Isaac asked, already heading towards the closet that may as well be labeled Have Secret Conversation Here.

"Did you talk to Jamie last night?" Colin asked before the door had even closed.

The captain winced. "I was going to, I swear, but then it was Jan Maas's birthday and I had to practically sit on that lot to stop them from going out all night the day before a match. You want me to talk to him now? Jan's still pissed about the party thing, I bet he'll be right scary."

"That's the thing—I'm not sure Jamie outed me."

Isaac frowned. "Didn't you get a text that literally said that Jamie outed you?"

"Right, but I don't think it means what we think it means."

Isaac's frowned deepened. "Wait—no. Wait." He scratched the back of his neck. "Is this some new PC thing I'm supposed to know about? Are we not saying 'outed' anymore?"

Colin laughed and it had an edge of mania to it. He and Michael had been up all night talking and convincing themselves of a few things. It was a self-reinforcing cycle. Michael would suggest something and use scant evidence to back it up, and Colin would build on that suggestion. And in the early hours of the morning they'd convinced themselves of so many things that it made Colin's heart pound to remember them now. In the fluorescent lights of the training room their speculations felt wild and unreasonable but they'd gotten there so sensibly, so logically. He wanted to tell Isaac about it all, about Jamie on his doorstep and his fumbling apology. But they all needed to play well today, and in the end, Michael was right - none of them were at their best when they played sad and angry.

Isaac waved a hand in front of his face. "Col? It's just we've got a match in less than an hour, so..."

Colin looked up at Isaac. He was Jamie's best friend on the team. If Colin told him everything he suspected Isaac would murder Roy Kent and the rest of the team would help him. But they'd lose the match. Emotions and football were a delicate balance.

"Just tell the lads, yeah? That Jamie and I talked and it's all good. No need to go avenging my honor."

A smile spread across Isaac's face. He really didn't like conflict on the team. "Yeah? Good on you, then." He clapped Colin on the shoulder and was already calling for Richard and Dani, the biggest gossips, as he walked out of the boot room.

They lost the match anyway. It wasn't a clusterfuck, it wasn't one of those games that went from bad to worse. They lost one-two. Dani had the goal with an assist from Jamie. They'd been tied until two minutes into extra time when a penalty kick slipped into the corner of the net, and then it was over.

It was almost worse than the real awful games, because there were fewer missteps to dwell on. Just a little faster, a little cleaner, a smidge more accurate and the scales would be tipped in their favor.

"Well, fellas," Coach Lasso said as they all slumped on the benches. "That's the sort of loss we can all be proud of."

Two years ago they would have argued. Said that there was no loss they could be proud of, that the score was all that mattered, but today Sam nodded a little, and Dani clapped a hand to his own chest, and the whole locker room seemed to exhale as one.

"And I hear we've got a birthday to celebrate," Lasso said, his gaze flitting over to Jan Maas. "Where's the party starting, big man?"

Sam cleared his throat. "I would have offered a dinner at the restaurant but I know the Dutch have their own birthday traditions."

"Correct," Jan confirmed.

"They just get fucking wasted," Isaac was already shaking his head but he stood on the middle bench in the locker room. "Alright alright! I know it's more fun to party after a win but we need to have a proper birthday for Jan here. So anyone who wants to party find a buddy."

"We will be hitting the town." It was sometimes hard to tell when Jan was excited but today he was nodding enthusiastically. "You might want a change of clothes."

The post-loss funk of the locker room turned to a buzzed excitement and Colin took the opportunity to slide up to Jamie. The team had respected their truce but still gave Jamie a bit of a wide birth. Even Dani was sitting on the other side of the locker room. "What do you say, mate?" Colin asked, using the term he'd rejected from Jamie just the day before. "Be my party buddy?"

Jamie grinned, then looked past him. "I just need to check in with Coach first. Got training in the morning, usually, but the way Jan goes I bet we'll be on the Continent by 4 am."

Colin frowned. "You need to check with Roy about whether or not you can go party? The gaffer practically ordered us out! Roy can't stop you from being with the team."

"Ah, he probably won't, but I should check anyway."

Colin looked around the locker room. No one was paying attention to their little corner. Isaac was trying to wrangle names into a group chat and Jan kept changing up where he wanted to go first. "Hey. Last night—"

"We can just forget about last night."

"Thanks for explaining," Colin said as sincerely as he could muster. Earnestness wasn't something he excelled at. "I told Isaac we made up."

"Figured that out when I wasn't being tackled into the dirt."

Colin dropped onto the bench next to him. "But—what you said about Forsythe—"

Jamie looked stricken. But determined. He opened his mouth only to have any secret he was about to spill cut off by a yell on the other side of the room. "Yo! Tartt!"

Colin grabbed Jamie's wrist as the striker jumped at Roy's yell. Jamie stared at his grip, then looked him in the eye. You don't have to listen to him, Colin wanted to say. He wanted to say: Tell me what's wrong. Why are you bringing up Forsythe? What secret do you think you're spilling? What secrets are you keeping now?

But he couldn't say any of that in the Richmond locker room. He let go of Jamie's wrist and the striker fisted his hands back in his shirt. Stretching it out. "Text me when you're ready to go out," Colin said.

Jamie nodded, ducking his head as he crossed the room towards an angry-looking Roy Kent.

By the second club Colin's energy was definitely flagging and he couldn't stop looking at his phone. "I might call it a night!" He yelled in Dani's ear. The striker had brought one of his girlfriends and Colin had been third-wheeling it for either three hours or ten years depending on when you started keeping count.

Dani peeled his eyes away from the blonde in his lap. "Go? But we are still missing our ultimate wingman!"

"What do you need a wingman for?" The blonde pouted. "You have me. You have Desiree and Renee and Penelope. And your friend is not interested in any of us. Or anyone he could pull at a club like this one"

Colin punched Dani in the arm and the striker looked stricken. "I did not tell her anything!"

"Oh please, it is obvious."

"Hopefully not too obvious," Colin sighed, thumbing open his phone to the conversation thread he had with Jamie. At eight p.m. he'd thumbed up the message Colin had sent about meeting at Nelson Road at nine-thirty. And then...nothing. Colin had even let the others go ahead of him, all except Dani who reminded Colin of Isaac's buddy system rule and insisted on staying (and making out with the blonde) for thirty minutes while Jamie Tartt did not show up.

And now it was midnight, which meant they were officially two days past Jan's birthday, which meant Colin would not be considered a dick for leaving. He had a warm companion waiting for him in his own bed in his own house and they had game tape from an annoying loss on Monday and Jamie Tartt wasn't where he'd said he was going to be.

Dani glanced at Colin's phone. Why did his teammates keep doing that? "Are you worried about Jamie?"

Colin put his phone face-down on the bar. But who was he kidding? He picked it back up again. "He said something last night—"

Dani shook his head, gesturing to his ear and then to the club at large. This was, of course, one of Jan's picks which meant it was, of course, blasting some trashy Eurodance at top volume.

Colin smiled tightly. "I'll see you tomorrow." He edged towards the door, slapping Richmond players on their backs when he saw them on the dance floor. He caught Isaac's eye and gave him a two-fingered salute. He grabbed Jan in a hug and pounded him on the back. "Happy birthday, mate!"

"Ah, Hughes! The night is young!"

"But I'm not!" Colin said, and tonight he didn't feel young, he felt old and rumpled and a bit grumpy. That nagging frustration at Tartt had been bubbling all night and if he didn't leave it might burst out of him.

Oh. Colin shouldered open the club door and felt that pang of relief that came with stepping out of sweaty-loud-hot and into cool-night-quiet-breeze. It was better with mates on either side and chips to eat but it was relief all that same, and that emotion helped Colin identify another. He wasn't frustrated at Jamie. Like Dani had said back inside—he was worried about him.

And maybe they all were, since Wembley. No one had intervened, and Colin knew that they all felt like shit about it afterwards. No one had even helped Jamie. No one except Roy Kent.

Forsythe. Roy. A dad who liked to mock Jamie, humiliate him in front of his friends, take swings at him. Men who all had too much power over Jamie.

And Jamie wasn't fucking answering any fucking messages.

So Colin added one more the line of texts he'd already sent: leaving the club now stopping by yours.

He sent a follow up: not an option just need to see you're alright.

Still nothing. Not even dots. There were so many rational explanations: Jamie was showering or having sex or fast asleep or...a plane somewhere without cell service.

Or, his imagination supplied, he could be hurt.

He'd needed to check with Roy to see if he could go out. Roy woke him up for early morning one-on-one practices. And hadn't Forsythe at the Academy done something similar? Isolated boys. Got them alone. Dangled positions like carrots. Roy was a coach, and he was the one person on the planet whose football knowledge Jamie respected.

Roy had dragged Jamie off the bus in Amsterdam and kept him out all night.

Roy had stayed with Jamie after Wembley, after the rest of the team watched Jamie's dad rip into him, after they all did nothing to help or to stop it. They'd all gotten on a bus and left, and Roy and Jamie had stayed behind.

A hand landed heavily on his shoulder and Colin squirmed away, dropping into a fighting stance for an instant before Dani Rojas in triplicate swam into view.

"It is the buddy system tonight, amigo."

"I thought you already had a buddy."

Dani laughed. "Ah, she is not yet ready to leave."

Colin raised an eyebrow. "So you left her with the lads?"

"She is her own woman! I do not decide for her, just as she does not decide for me." Dani nodded sagely. "And I have decided to go with you and check on our friend Jamie."

Colin ran a hand through his hair. "It's after midnight..." he began.

"Si! So the night is still young!"

Dani's open enthusiasm made Colin roll his eyes but his smile was all affection. "Okay. Okay! But he's not texting me back."

Dani tapped his own forehead. He'd obviously thought about this problem. "Ah! But have you tried Coach Kent?"

.

Roy only looked at his phone because he wasn't really asleep. It was one of those nights when he lay in bed and his knee ached and he thought of all the ways they could have won the fucking match and his mind wouldn't turn off long enough to go to sleep. Beard and Lasso had gone out with the lads for the first drink of the birthday celebration but Roy had begged off, thinking a steam in the shower would do him some good. Now he wished he'd gone out if only so he could get out of his own head for five fucking minutes.

Christ but he needed to get laid.

He had one hand absentmindedly fisting his cock when the text buzzed from the nightstand. His sister was always on him to have sleep mode or whatever but she didn't need to know that he kept his alerts on for her, that he needed to know he was reachable if something were to happen.

(He would remember her showing up on his front step with a split lip and a black eye in every one of his nightmares.)

(And he'd hugged her and she was shaking in his arms and that reminded him of Tartt, of Jamie after Wembley cracking open body and soul. And his cock pulsed in his hand. Not over Tartt crying but—just flashes—how he'd laughed in Amsterdam, how he always looked for Roy on the sidelines, opening his front door their first morning of training without anything on down below—)

Fuck. He really needed to get laid if Jamie Fucking Tartt was the best his imagination could supply.

That's when he looked at the message. Hello Coach Kent! Have you seen Jamie tonight?

From Rojas. Roy could have just left it. Could have rolled over and taken pressure off his knee and tried to chase sleep again.

But sleep wasn't his companion this evening. He grabbed the phone and typed out with a single thumb. He went out with the lads.No he didn't.

No Jamie from Sam.

Haven't seen him. From Isaac.

What kind of twenty-first century birthday party was this? The boys were supposed to be getting plastered and instead they were all stuck to their phones. Roy opened a new thread with just Rojas. Did you try calling him?

Can you?

Roy banged his head against his pillow, elbowing himself upright. He typed out one final message. He's probably asleep.

Probably Dani agreed.

But even though Jamie Tartt circa two years ago would have bailed on a team outing without warning, the Jamie Tartt who trained with Roy, who was the center of the offense, who had bargained his body in exchange for his teammate's safety...their current Jamie was a tad more reliable than that.

Roy was lacing his shoes before the second ring. He was grabbing his keys off the counter by the time he reached Jamie's voicemail for the first time.

Colin glanced at Dani's phone because that's apparently what they did now. "I thought this was going to be a mission for just us dos, muchacho."

"Si! But Jamie is Coach Kent's como se dice...? Ghost? Shadow?"

"Shadow," Colin confirmed, hesitating. He didn't know how to share with Dani all that he suspected. It was an energy. A vibe. How Jamie sometimes flinched when Roy yelled. How Jamie used to peddle backwards out of the long reach of the Captain, when they were both on the field, both equal as players, and now they weren't.

He pulled up Uber to call a ride over to Jamie's place and realized they were half a mile from his house. The night air was cool and bracing and the thought of waiting on this corner for a car to show up honestly made Colin want to crawl out of his skin.

So he started walking.

Dani kept pace, lacing his fingers behind his neck and staring up at the blinking city lights. "I am surprised you are Jamie's buddy this evening," Dani said. There was always a smile in his voice but his tone now sounded dangerously close to that serious-earnest-something that came along with too much to drink.

"Yeah," a new voice said. "Thought you'd be shot of Tartt after yesterday, no matter what he said to make up."

Colin rolled his eyes as Isaac fell into step on the sidewalk. He wasn't sure he even wanted Dani along on this...walk. Mission. Thing. He wasn't even sure he wanted to be walking towards Jamie Tartt's house instead of heading home. Michael would be asleep but he said he liked being woken up by Colin after matches, that he liked how Colin would start touching him before he was all the way awake. So hot, he said. To be woken up by a fucking fit footballer.

It was one of his favorite part of match days, to be honest, and he was putting it off because Jamie Tartt hadn't shown up to a club.

"Are you all bailing on Jan?" Colin asked. "Go back to the party."

"Dragging Tartt out is part of the party!" Another new voice. Jan's voice. Bright from drink.

"And if he refuses to come we can party there!" Another new voice. Richard? Was the whole team going to head en masse to Tartt's house?

Isaac kicked a stone ahead of them on the pavement. "Would still like to hear the answer," Isaac muttered. He tried to kick the stone again, missed, grabbed Colin's arm to steady himself. Someone was passing around a flask and Colin made sure to pass it over the Captain's head. "You were pissed yesterday and today..."

Colin shrugged. "Yesterday was a misunderstanding."

"And today? Tartt's probably just licking his wounds. No one likes being in the wrong."

Except he wasn't in the wrong. There was no story, Keeley and Ms. Welton had promised that. They'd looked and called in favors and wheedled and the story about Colin and who was currently in his bed wasn't anywhere, not a peep. And Jamie had apologized anyway. Had come over to his house and talked about Forsythe. Had run out when Colin brought up Kent.

Jamie had to ask if he could go to a birthday party.

"Kent didn't come out tonight, either," Colin said, picking his words out slowly.

Isaac stared at him and forgot to keep walking and got run into by Sam, which caused a bit of a chain reaction. "Woah! Woah woah woah. Kent and Tartt?"

"Is that the gaydar thing?" Richard asked.

Colin snorted and he heard one of his other teammates take a swipe at the Frenchman. "He doesn't need to be gay to see it," he heard Sam hiss. "We all have eyes, don't we?"

All the sudden there were heads bobbing all around him. Dani sighed. "Coach Kent and Jamie will make such beautiful babies."

"Not exactly how the birds and the bees work, amigo."

Dani grinned, his head still tipped towards the sky. "Well then they would have such beautiful fucking."

"Ew!"

"Shut it!"

"He's right though!"

"You shut it, too!"

All the boys were laughing and Colin wanted to laugh with them. It was amazing—crazy—incredible—after ten years of constant worry to have his secret out, to have friends by his side, to have promises of acceptance and protection. To have them make jokes, and not feel like it was at his expense but that he was included. A person with a life simple and welcome enough to make jokes about.

Isaac squeezed his arm. "Um, no offense, Hughes."

"Oh—no. It's not that." He wished he could picture Roy an Jamie as romantically involved. He wished he could picture anything other than Jamie stretching out his shirts, head bowed and shoulders tense.

But he didn't give voice to his fears. Not until they rounded the final corner and saw Roy Kent standing outside of Jamie's house with blood on his hands.

Chapter Text

Officer Chakrabarti rarely worked nights, but she'd switched shifts. OT for Hrishi's upcoming birthday (he wanted, to no one's surprise, another Jamie Tartt jersey, this one in the color of their away kits with the new Bantr logo so he could stop putting masking tape over Dubai Air). Saturday nights after home matches could be raucous. Chakrabarti had asked one of the office's crime analysts about the statistics of rowdiness following wins and losses and they'd ended up pulling data from the last several seasons to see whether or not, according to the data, the police force should be rooting for the home team.

Which is why she was the officer nearest to a desk past midnight when a 9-9-9 dispatch cracked with the name 'Jamie Tartt'.

After their conversation at Nelson Road Chakrabarti had opened a file. Restraining orders in the UK were notoriously finicky business, particularly without a minor involved, but she pulled the usual information for the initial report. Tartt had never spoken to the police after an incident, but he had given permission for her to access his medical records. They were, unsurprisingly, incredibly detailed. Weight. BMI. Speed. Strength. All numbered and labeled like a commodity. Which, Chakrabarti reflected, it kind of was.

And of course he had an extensive list of injuries. Sprained ankles, pulled hamstrings, a mild concussion a few years back. All easily dismissed as wear and tear sports injuries from an elite player.

But she'd broken out her highlighter. Medical files always offered less information than you wanted, all facts without context. Where did the broken nose at nineteen come from? Why the bruised cheekbone the year before? The file cut off at eighteen, minor records hidden behind a court subpoena. Chakrabarti filed the subpoena, told herself nothing would come of any of it, and tried to forget about Jamie Tartt for as long as her son would let her.

(She'd had one disquieting conversation. When she'd stopped by Nelson Road for the medical records they had been delivered by none other than Coach Lasso himself. She didn't have opinions one way or the other about the American gaffer, and only knew of his controversy through Hrishi who, though an avid fan, was a child and easily swayed by the opinions around him. Hrishi had called the gaffer a soft touch, and certainly the smile the American had for Chakrabarti was disarming, but his grip on the medical file was firm even after she'd reached for them.

"Can I file the restraining order?" The coach asked quietly. "I've done it before. I used to coach high school players. I've been through the process."

Chakrabarti wasn't a woman often moved, but the note of a plea in the coach's voice was touching. This wasn't a man worrying about a star athlete. This was a coach, tasked with the safety of twenty young men. She tried to deliver the blow gently: "This is not America, Coach Lasso. Only a judge can put a restraining order in place."

The Coach nodded, the mouth under his mustache pressed in a thin line. "It's a hard thing. The last time I filed for one of my players—I mean, it was obvious. His dad came to the games. Screamed things from the stands. Everyone heard him. Everyone saw. But paper has no teeth, you know? Kid's mom ended up moving him out of state. He left in the middle of the season. Apologized and everything. Said his mom thought it was the only way to keep him alive."

Chakrabarti nodded. "It's a process more than protection. I wish it wasn't so."

Coach Lasso looked like he wanted to say something else but someone down the hallway called for him. He let go of the folder and was gone.)

Paper has no teeth. That's what Chakrabarti thought as she answered the call about a domestic disturbance at the house of the most famous footballer in town.

Roy had just hung up with the police when something slammed into him.

His first thought was that James Tartt Sr. was back to finish the job he'd started on his son. His second thought was that Colin Hughes packed one hell of a punch.

"What did you to him?" the younger player hissed. He was half Roy's size but had the element of surprise on his side and managed to slam Roy against a wall.

"Colin!" Someone else pleaded, and Roy took his eyes off of Hughes long enough to see practically every member of the Richmond squad spilling off of Tartt's front step in the moonlight.

Fuck. Jamie was going to hate this.

An elbow jammed into Roy's windpipe. "What. Did. You. Do?"

Roy focused back on Hughes who looked both fiery and fierce. He wasn't backing off. The rest of the Richmond's lads weren't pulling him off. Some of them had their arms folded, shoulders tense. "'S not my blood," Roy ground out.

"I know. It's Jamie's." Colin's eyes narrowed and Roy lashed out, just trying to put some space between him and the kid that was attacking him.

Instantly Colin had players flanking him on either side, and some of the lads had circled around near Roy, ready to grab him should he launch himself at the younger man. If all this wasn't so incredibly misdirected Roy might have been proud at the unity the squad had built.

"I mean, I didn't do it."

Fifteen Richmond lads frowned at him in the white porch light and Roy thought: fuck, some of the most famous faces in town are out here where anyone could see us. And then he thought: fuck. They think I'd hurt Tartt.

Of course Roy had been in fights before. He'd fought Tartt before. But he wasn't prepared for the swooping feeling in his gut as every man on the squad crossed their arms. As Colin looked like he was about to tear into Roy again. It wasn't just that he abhorred the men who dealt in fear and violence, like the man who'd turned his smart, strong sister into the type of person who had to leave the room whenever he yelled. It was that he'd never been on this side of the equation before. The rest of the boys was the squad. And he was their coach, he was a part of Richmond, but he'd crossed that divide. The "them" to their unified "us."

It made him a little sad. And very proud.

"What's all this, then?"

Roy closed his eyes. "Tartt, I thought I told you to stay inside."

"Well," the boys all turned towards Jamie, who stood in his own doorway in loose sweats and no shirt, which only seemed to highlight the injuries splattered across his face. "Now I kind of wish I had."

It took Isaac's veiled threats and Roy's furious glares and Jan's immediate disinterest with the whole situation and declaration that the party should continue back out on the main strip to get the majority of Richmond boys out of Tartt's house.

"Ah, muchacho, I hate to leave you behind!"

Jamie tried to grin at Dani and winced as his lip split open again, blood blooming against his teeth. "You'll have to pull all the tall girls at Jan's Eurotrash clubs and think of me."

Jan flipped them off and Dani saluted. All the boys patted Jamie on the shoulder or arm, avoiding the places with bruises, and drifted out into the night.

"You sure you don't want to go with them, Captain?" Jamie asked.

Isaac stuck out his chin. "You want me to get you a mirror, Tartt? Stop asking stupid questions."

Jamie had shrugged on a shirt seemingly just to fist his hands in the bottom hem. "I know you don't like cops."

Roy rolled his eyes. "Who likes cops? Hughes, what are you still doing here?"

Colin had closed the door behind Dani but stayed in the foyer, one eye on the car park. The police should be here any minute, hopefully not asking too many questions if they had to pass basically the entire Richmond squad on the way. He crossed his arms and settled next to the big window, keeping a stony gaze on Roy.

The newest coach rolled his eyes. "You ready to explain why you came at me on the porch?"

"To be fair, bruv, you looked a right mess with all that blood."

"Dumb nose bleed," Jamie said, one hand on his face to catch the blood that had started again. Roy and Isaac scrambled to grab towels and Isaac pressed one too hard, made Jamie hiss and pull back. Pull into Roy who clucked quietly, a soothing noise like one might make to a child or a dog or to Jamie Tartt as he mopped himself up under the blue mood lighting of his too-big house.

Oh. Colin watched Jamie turn slightly, present his face and the bloody mess of towels to Roy with a frustrated, defeated sigh. He saw Roy grab his chin so, so gently, and tip his head forward ("don't lean back, all the blood will go down your throat"). It reminded him of the boys on the walk here, betting on what Roy and Jamie would look like in bed and Colin not even listening because he was the only gay player in the Premier League and certainly the only gay man in the locker room.

(Besides Trent Crimm).

(And. Statistically.)

Colin had been so mired in memories of the Academy, of Forsythe, of being fourteen and realizing what the Coach was implying, what he wanted in exchange for a spot on the first team's roster. How he'd felt sick and exposed and indignant. And all those feelings had been with him since last night, since Jamie had brought up a ten-year-old ghost in his own living room. That he hadn't seen...hadn't been able to fathom.

Jamie had wanted to ask Roy about going out. Had followed him off the bus in Amsterdam. Sought him out after games. It wasn't because of pressure, or abuse, or any of the things that had gone down at the Academy. It was...well. It was the same way Colin turned towards Michael. How the other man could make him feel safe and seen. How Colin planned his life around seeing him, being with him.

Loving him.

Roy snapped his fingers again. "Hughes? If you're staying making yourself useful."

Flashing lights coming down the darkened lane, and yellow lights snapping on in the bedrooms of nearby houses. Isaac grabbed Colin's arm. "Get 'em to turn off those blinding things and see if we can do this inside."

"Someone should text Keeley," Colin muttered. "There's going to be pictures."

From the other side of the room, Jamie sucked in a breath. "Told you it was more trouble than it was worth."

"We can handle trouble," Roy growled, replacing the bloody napkin with a new one, his voice rough and fond as he kept a hand on Jamie's shoulder. "But you're worth it."

Roy let Isaac ride to the hospital with Jamie. It was his prerogative as Captain, and Roy knew that clenched-jaw, hard-eyed stare from his own days out on the pitch, when a missed foul or dirty tackle would send his blood boiling, every man on that field warranting his protective charge. That was his good reason to stay behind and clean up the mess. The less good reason: that Roy was still vibrating with anger, that he couldn't look at Jamie's face without wanting to stalk off into the night and bury his fist into someone that deserved it. And he knew that the anger bled through his pores. And he knew that it scared Jamie. And he didn't want to scare anyone. He wanted...

Jamie, all soft and fond smiles, flashing in his mind when he was alone in bed.

He threw a shattered mug into a trash bag and it slipped, slicing the tip of one finger. "Fucking hell!" He flicked the blood onto the floor. Hughes had found a mop but had ended up on his knees. Blood needed scrubbing.

The player looked up then, raising an eyebrow. "You're just making more of a mess."

"Why are you still here?" Roy growled, wrapping a paper towel around his finger and sweeping more broken wreckage into the bag.

Hughes leaned back on his heels. "Why are you?"

Because he hadn't gotten here in time. Because after the text from Rojas he'd raced across town, taking the front porch steps two at a time. The lights were on. The door was open. He'd been thinking about Wembley. About the meetings Ted had attended, the ones he came back from muttering about how the U.S. wasn't ahead of the curve on many legal matters but here, this, seemed like too many hoops to jump through. And he thought about the other problems: the stalker, back when Roy was captain, who'd sent love letters, then violent descriptions, then death threats, who'd shown up to a player's backyard on the day he threw his nephew a birthday party. The fans, who thought they were owed wins, owed explanations, owed retribution. The coach from Tartt's past. The one who had made him think, just a few months ago, that Roy wanted Jamie on his knees.

(and it flashed again in Roy's mind, Tartt kneeling, but not like he had before, not scared, not righteous and frightened. Just soft, that mouth already quirking into a smile)

(but it was impossible, so impossible, while Roy was coach and Jamie his player. Obligation and power yawned like a chasm between them.)

He picked up another broken mug and hurled it into the trash bag, the crunch of the landing not quite the satisfying shatter he'd imagined.

Hughes watched all this. And stood up. "Can I have that plate?"

Tartt Sr. must have done a similar exercise, sweeping the contents of Jamie's drying rack onto the counter and floors. By the time Roy had arrived the man was gone, and Jamie was on the floor in the kitchen, dabbing at his face with a towel. He'd flinched when Roy slammed the door but had softened, even smiled ghoulishly through his bleeding lip, when he saw Roy standing there. "Four a.m. already?"

Roy handed the plate over and opened the trash bag wide so Colin had room to dunk. It didn't even break. Might have broken the tile floor. "Fucking shatter-proof dishware," Roy grumbled, grabbing the plate again. It already had a chip in it. There had to be some way to get it to break completely.

Colin snorted. Found a new angle. Tried again. This time it cracked in two. "Jamie came by my place yesterday. He was asking me about...well. About an old coach we both had."

Roy closed his eyes. As if this night needed any more bad guys. "Forsythe."

Colin raised a eyebrow at him. "Do you know what that name means?"

A whole well of questions wrapped up in one, but there was no reason to deny it. Roy nodded.

Colin picked up half a plate from the trash just to smash it again. "Don't do that," Roy muttered, "you'll cut your hand."

"Don't need a hand to play footie," Colin pointed out, but he let the plate slip through his fingers. "He accused me of...doing that. With Forsythe."

Roy frowned. "But you didn't?"

Colin bristled. "No! Just because I'm gay doesn't mean I'll be sleeping my way to the top."

"Don't have to go with being gay," Roy said.

The younger player gave him a searching look. "I guess not. But it got me thinking. Got me in my head about what used to happen at the Academy. How Forsythe would control some boys. How he'd isolate them." He wasn't looking at Roy anymore.

Three months ago Roy would have been apoplectic at the accusation. Sure, as a player he didn't mind brawling his way to the top of the pecking order. He knew there were some scrums and scraps on the way to the top, turned a blind eye to other lads fouling each other in practice or on the pitch. He'd started at Chelsea at seventeen and some of the Richmond boys weren't much older than that. But he worked so well with Lasso because even if he didn't mind running players until they puked or gold ol' fashioned public humiliation he couldn't do what other coaches did to keep their players in line.

When Jamie had come into the coach's office all those months ago and offered to do anything to keep Obisanya safe—a misunderstanding, but one that Roy still thought about every single day, how Jamie had fallen to his knees in the office, how he'd said Roy could hit him, hurt him, fuck him, as long as it was secret and as long as he didn't do it to anyone else—Roy had run, and found quietude with Beard in the parking lot. "I thought a coach hit him," the inscrutable American had admitted. Because some things were universal.

Colin's shoulders were tense, his hands balled into fists as he searched Roy's face, awaiting a reaction. Roy snorted. "Ted would be proud. Look at you, Colin Hughes, trying to rescue Jamie Tartt from the big bad coach."

"What is this world coming to?" Hughes said. His eyes swept the ruined kitchen. "Turns out you weren't the enemy at all."

"Yeah."

"I thought...I thought Ms. Welton or someone was helping Jamie with his dad."

"This might shock you, Hughes, but it turns out cops is this country can do fuck-all to protect people."

Colin nodded. "And after tonight? I mean, Jamie gave a statement."

Roy wanted to believe in a perfect world where systems worked but earlier tonight he'd walked through the open door of the most famous football player in town to find him crumpled on the ground because his father, who'd threatened him in public, had done what everyone knew he'd do and followed through on those threats. This wasn't some random incident. This wasn't unforeseeable. This was wealth and privilege and maleness and whiteness and all those other things that were supposed to keep you safe swept aside like the illusions they were. Jamie's phone had broken. He couldn't call for help.

He could have died.

For the first time all night that thought pushed itself to the surface. Jamie could overpower his father, that much was certain, but there was too much of the peacemaker in him, the child who wanted to impress. He'd admitted to the police that he'd let his Dad in the door. Given him the first beer. Talked with him about the game. That he was there for hours before he took the first swing.

("He'll kill me," Jamie had said in the coachs' office two months ago. So simple, those few words, and he was so certain of their truth.)

(Ted had begged the police to intervene. Keeley had reached out to Rebecca. Higgins had banned Tartt Sr. from the Dog Track. They'd known. They'd all known.)

Roy wished there were more plates to break. He considered taking crockery out of Tartt's cupboards, smashing it all into little pieces, buy him new stuff in the morning. Fieldstone would probably advise better outlets for his anger.

He blew out a long breath and met Hughes's concerned gaze. There was at least one problem he could deal with tonight. "Speaking of statements. Tartt told me about that text you got yesterday."

After the cleaning, after the trash was taken out, after the clock pushed past two while they stood in someone else's house, perhaps it was time to leave, regroup in the morning. But when Kent circled back around to Forsythe he put the kettle on, a habit so domestic and so British that Colin took up his role and slid onto a stool at the newly-bleached bar.

"Should we be doing this here?" he asked as Kent found two unbroken mugs.

"I don't want Tartt coming back to an empty house."

Colin bit his tongue before he could ask what there was between Roy and Jamie. He figured he couldn't both in one night accuse Kent of abusing a player and suggest they were lovers. He filled up a mug with tap water. There'd been shots at the bar and bleach and blood were a sobering combination but now that he'd sat the world was spinning.

"So," Colin sighed. "Forsythe?"

The name kept ringing throughout the weekend. Like an omen, like a distant dinging of a death knell. You'll have to deal with me eventually, the name promised. But not yet, Colin wanted to beg. Please, please not yet.

It was strange to watch a man count through breathing exercises. Would have been funny if they'd been in the locker room. "The text you got yesterday. Who was it from?"

Colin pulled out his phone and realized he'd missed a bunch of WhatsApp messages, the notifications piling up. He swiped them away and scrolled down to the unanswered string of numbers. "I don't know the number, but the name Siri guessed is 'Liam Mitchell'?"

"Calling Leanne Michels Home," Siri chirped.

"Shut up, Siri!" Roy growled and Colin yelped at the same time. They locked eyes with each other. And started laughing.

Kent had to brace himself against the marble countertops as the laughs burst out of him. Colin held onto the seat of hi chair, feeling the knife's edge of hysteria, feeling like a bubble bursting, feeling like a man in the early hours of the morning in way over his head. The birthday party. Losing the match. Walking down the street with the lads kicking a pebble back and forth, musing about how Roy and Jamie would look in bed. Video games last night and a knock at the door.

A knock at the door.

The knife tilted. Colin swam back to the surface of the real world. "Jamie back already?"

"Why would he knock on his own door?"

Another knock. Pounding. The door knob turned and caught on the lock.

Roy stalked over towards the door and Colin only just managed to swipe the knife out of his hand as he blew by. "Are you crazy?" he hissed, prying the handle out of Roy's grip. "What are you going to do with a knife?"

"You saw what that man did to Jamie!"

"And going to prison's going to help?" Colin dropped the knife into the sink and followed Roy to the door.

The knocking had stopped. Before Colin could peer through the window he heard the voice. "Colin? Is that you?"

"Who's that?" Roy asked. He was at the window but of course he wouldn't recognize the man Colin shared his life with. Not like Michael came to any of the Richmond parties, the charity functions. He didn't sit in a box with the wives and girlfriends.

But he was exactly who Colin needed to see. The woozy, sideways feeling stabilized when he opened the door and rushed into Michael's arms.

"Oh, thank god," Michael breathed. He pet Colin's hair and managed to stagger the two of them inside, shooting only one wary glance at a confused Roy Kent. "Close the door, mate. I think I saw a pap outside, it's why I went around."

"Who are you?" Roy asked, closing the door and shutting the blinds for good measure.

By way of explanation Michael extracted one of his arms from Colin's embrace. He handed his phone to a still-glowering Roy. "I got worried when you didn't come back," Michael said, and Colin remembered the text he'd sent, hours ago, telling Michael he was leaving the party, be home in 15 minutes. "And you weren't responding to any of my texts. I...well. I don't have the number of any of the friends you were with."

He glanced at Roy and took a step away from Colin. Straightened his shoulders. The fingers that had been entwined with Colin's fingers dropped loosely. Colin knew this stance. He hated this stance. He'd perfected this stance. It was the quick adjustments you made in public to not look Too Gay. Stop holding hands. Stop pointing your body towards each other. Lower your voice and mask your feelings.

"Roy knows," Colin reminded him. "All the Richmond lads know." And, because he could, he grabbed Michael's hand, firm and fierce. "Roy, this is my boyfriend Michael. Michael, Roy Kent."

"No shit," Michael seemed a little dazed, eyes flicking between the coach and the player. "Anyway. You didn't come home. I knew you were at a party. I saw the match. Thought you might want to get wasted."

Colin had forgotten about the match. Their chances at the Premier League were dwindling. "Fucking embarrassing."

"You played well," Michael said kindly. There was a stereotype that gay men didn't know or care much about sports but that stereotype had never met Michael, who had grown up supporting Chelsea with a bellowing passion. Later, when they're finally alone, Michael will punch Colin's arm, annoyed that he finally met Roy Kent and he'd squandered the opportunity. "But losing's no fun. Figured you'd wake me when you got in. Made the mistake of opening Twitter before I went to bed."

He thumbed open his phone and held it up so Colin and Roy could see the headline splashed across the small screen: POLICE RUSH TO SOCCER SENSATION'S MANSION! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHO'S INVOLVED IN THE DISTURBANCE!

There were other stories piggybacking on the first: WHAT SHOCKING INCIDENT PROMPTED THE EMERGENCY RESPONSE?...WHAT DARK SECRETS ARE UNCOVERED BEHIND CLOSED DOORS?...CHAOS AT RICHMOND STAR'S MANSION...

"They don't say anything." Michael let Roy take the phone out of his hands. "The only concrete thing is that some Richmond players were involved and police were called to a house. This house."

"They reported the address?" Roy growled.

Michael shook his head. "I tracked Colin's phone. Was there a disturbance at a soccer sensation's mansion?" He looked pointedly around the immaculate living room that belonged to none of them. Not a pillow out of place. Even Roy had swapped his blood-stained shirt for a slightly too-tight white tee. Jamie had offered him a Kent jersey, which was apparently something he had in his closet, and Roy had told him to fuck off, and that had perhaps been the only normal moment of the entire crazy evening.

Roy was still scrolling through headlines. "I've got to call Keeley. What a way to wake up. You two should go home."

Michael squeezed Colin's hand and it would be so easy to follow him back to their bed. They could have a lie-in and come back to everything in the morning.

Instead Colin sat down on the couch. "Jamie was supposed to be my buddy this evening. I can't just leave him behind."

Chapter Text

Officer Chakrabarti filed the paperwork from the hospital so she wouldn't have to make the fifteen-minute trip back across town to headquarters. Luckily in the digital age she could do almost everything from an iPad, even clock out, which is what she was doing as the sun poked its first graying shadow over the horizon. She hated the discombobulation of night work, especially these one-off evening shifts. Some people could sleep with the sun out, swearing by white noise machines and black-out curtains, but those people weren't mothers to eight-year-old boys. She was looking forward to a few hours of shut-eye when she caught sight of Jamie Tartt hovering near the end of the hospital corridor, a mulish look plastered all over his face.

"Come on, Jamie." The man at his shoulder was trying to steer him. "We can head out the back."

"But the car's right there," Tartt complained with a tinge of a whine.

"And about forty paps are right next to it."

"It's six in the morning, they should be sleeping."

"We should all be sleeping," the other man muttered, and Chakrabarti recognized Isaac McAdoo, the Richmond Captain. Out of context of the pitch and dressed in incongruous party clothes he was thumbing on his phone with one hand and keeping a grip on Tartt with the other.

Jamie sagged against the wall. "Sure. Whatever. Sorry."

"Stop apologizing, mate."

"Sorry," Jamie said again, rubbing at his eyes, wincing as if he forgot about how bruised his face was. Laughing at himself in that way people laughed after accidents in the early dawn. That manic edge.

"Won't be much longer now," McAdoo promised.

Chakrabarti thought of Hrishi's warm body snuggling up against hers. He was getting too big to join her in bed but post-night shift were the exception. When her husband got up to make the coffee Hrishi would take his place, burrowing into the blankets, his feet always so cold against her shins. He always wanted to know what had happened in the wee hours, convinced the world was more interesting and dangerous after dark.

She hadn't told him about her encounters with Jamie Tartt. She didn't know how to explain to a little boy that his impervious idol was also someone's little boy, and that not everyone was capable of loving their children.

But Jamie was her son's favorite player, and she could rattle off more stats about his history and teams and body than she could recall about her own family members. And he was someone's boy, and he looked it with that tired slump against the bare hospital walls.

She put up a hand, catching the attention of the two men. McAdoo saw only her uniform, straightening and setting his jaw. Tartt's eyes skipped over her face and he managed a wane smile. "Looks like the fun's over for now, officer."

"The judge will issue the order on Monday morning." Chakrabarti winced. "It is a public process. I apologize for not foreseeing this media frenzy from the beginning."

"Yeah, it's a right mess out there."

"I'm parked out back," Chakrabarti offered. "I can drop you home if you want."

Jamie raised an eyebrow. "You can't still be on duty."

Chakrabarti took her keys out of her purse. "You're on my way home." And if that wasn't true than he wasn't too far out of the way, not in the sleepy Sunday morning traffic. "I'm surprised there isn't a larger contingent of players to shepherd along."

"The boys'll check back in come morning," McAdoo said, keeping one hand on Jamie's arm as he fell into step beside Chakrabarti. "Well. Later in the morning. They trust me to keep an eye on things." His chest puffed out slightly.

"Thanks for the lift," Jamie muttered as McAdoo went back to his phone conversation. "Sorry you got dragged into it."

"Don't apologize," McAdoo said in a tone that suggested this was a regular admonishment.

"I'm sorry you got hurt, Jamie." Chakrabarti cleared her throat. Thought of the call coming over the radio. How inevitable it had all felt. It was the worst part of domestic violence, knowing all the signs and knowing how little the law could be extended into someone else's home.

"That we can apologize for," McAdoo said. He let out a whistle when he saw Chakrabarti's car. "Sweet! Can we run the siren?"

McAdoo claimed the front seat so Jamie slipped into the back. "You got an artist in the family?" he asked, nodding at the ornament draped around the rearview mirror. Hand drawn with clovers and horseshoes and rabbits with enormous shoes, all symbols of good luck.

Chakrabarti touched it. "My son."

"A fan?"

Scattered among the symbols were Richmond banners, flags, jerseys. "He's eight," she said, like an explanation. McAdoo was hunting around for the siren button but Chakrabarti locked eyes with Jamie in the back. "He's your biggest fan. I'm getting him another Tartt jersey for his birthday so I can finally wash the one he has without a fight."

The smile that spread across his face was so genuine that the wince that came when it pulled on the bruises stabbed at Chakrabarti's heart. "That's sick," Jamie muttered, leaning back against the seat.

She wondered if he'd been a boy with a jersey he wouldn't take off.

.

The boyfriend had fallen asleep on the couch and when Colin went to drape one of Tartt's gray blankets over him he'd made the mistake of sitting down. Now the two of them were curled around each other, Hughes's cheek on the Asian man's shoulder as dawn filtered into the living room. Roy's eyes burned but he was nursing another cup of tea and felt like a live wire. He could have gone back to his house. He wanted to go to the hospital. Instead he texted. And waited.

The knock, when it came at the door, was accompanied by a jiggling of the handle. Roy didn't reach for the knife this time, though he did make a note to talk to Beard later. Ted would be all plans, shoring up of emotional damage, but Beard would catch Roy's gaze and nod. They had talked, once, about killing James Tartt, Sr. That kind of machismo banging of the chests. Except now Roy had seen Jamie on the floor of his own kitchen, useless phone cradled in one hand, trying to stem the blood with another. And it didn't feel much like machismo anymore.

But the knife wasn't needed now, not when it was Keeley at the front door.

Roy threw open the door and found he couldn't quite look at her. They hadn't been together in months. He'd never told Keeley about that afternoon with Jamie, how he'd slid to his knees for Roy and bargained to be a shield for the other lads. It would have meant explaining the ghosts in Jamie's pasts that made him think it necessary. It might have meant confronting that instant, that heartbeat, when Jamie folded and Roy's whole body pulsed with desire.

Keeley lifted a brown paper sack like a prize and sidestepped Roy into the living room. "I come bearing gifts," she proclaimed before her eyes landed on something and her voice dropped to a whisper. "Aw is that the boyfriend? He's right fit. No wonder Colin hid him away."

"Don't be nice to them," Roy growled. The paper sack smelled like bread. "Hughes decked me. Landed a proper punch."

"Well, I'm sure you deserved it." Keeley beamed at the men still wrapped around each other on the couch. "You ever think about how everyone looks young when they're asleep?"

Keeley moved unerringly around the kitchen, grabbing a mug, a knife, a bowl to dump the bagels into. Moving like an ex-girlfriend moved through a space, and once upon a time that would have made Roy jealous to see but now he felt a stab of something else entirely. Fondness. Glad, maybe, that Keeley had been looking out for Jamie long before anyone else was.

"They are young," Roy muttered. Now that he was no longer the oldest person on the pitch he didn't feel his age like a physical weight anymore, but it showed in other ways. He was twice as old as some of the players, and being around rich twenty-somethings was a trip. They could buy their mums a house but couldn't name the Prime Minister. But there was something inspiring about seeing an entirely new generation come up. When Colin had made his announcement to the locker room he'd been met with smiles and shrugs. The team rallied against racists. The world of showy masculinity Roy had entered via the Chelsea locker room all those years ago would not have accepted the changes with such open hearts.

Keeley put on a pot of coffee to go with Roy's weak tea. The smell, the bustling, went a ways to soothing Roy's frayed nerves, but her presence still made him feel on edge. "You know me Mum would always feed us before giving us bad news."

Keeley had her head stuck in the fridge. "Lucky I brought my own spreads. I forgot that Jamie never has anything good to eat."

"I thought you were used to dating footballers?"

"You have Nutella at least."

"Only because you bought it." It had taken Roy months after retiring to start keeping foods in the house because he liked the taste of them. There were all these think pieces now about nutrition and athletes and disordered eating, but that term didn't quite fit. Ordered eating, Roy thought of it. Eating in order to do his job.

"Keeley," he said, because he didn't want to talk about bagels or spreads, because his skin was on fire. "What's the bad news?"

She finally stilled, one hand splitting open a bagel. "Did you know Jamie gave a statement to the police?"

"I was next to him when he did it."

Keeley bit her lip. "Did you know that the officer is recommending a court order?"

Roy hadn't been at all the same meetings Ted and Rebecca were in, but he'd heard of them. "That's the goal. You didn't see him, Keels. His arms—someone held him. Pinned his arms down so he could get beaten."

"Just to be clear, I'm not talking as Keeley who really wants Jamie to be happy and okay. Okay? I'm talking as someone who has to think about the team's PR. Court orders are public record, Roy."

And in all their fighting, their tunnel vision, maybe a little of their desperation to do something productive for Jamie, not even Richmond's owner had considered that. "Fine," Roy said. "We'll deal with it."

"It'll be a story."

"We'll deal with it," Roy repeated. "What are they going to say? He wasn't using drugs, or caught in an affair, or gambling. He didn't hurt anyone. He didn't do anything wrong."

He could never control his temper. He was shouting by the end, his hands gripping the countertop he'd had to wipe down because of the blood on it, and Keeley looked sad and the lads on the couch stood up, staring at Roy warily.

"I know. I know! I—shit." Keeley had come over to maybe give Roy a hug but her phone started ringing. "It's Rebecca. Sorry. I'll just..." she glanced at Hughes and the boyfriend and stepped down the hall.

Hughes squeezed his boyfriend's hand. Michael. The name came back in a rush. Michael, who had brought the story into the house with him. "Bathroom," Hughes muttered. "Get me some tea?"

Which is how Roy ended up in Jamie Tartt's kitchen with Colin Hughes's boyfriend making a cup of coffee and a cup of tea next to him. The stranger kept glancing at him as he moved around the kitchen, his movements as uncertain as Keeley's had been sure. He opened four drawers looking for spoons, and winced as the cutlery clanged against itself.

Roy watched his movements and rolled his eyes. "Fucks sake. You've been talking to Hughes."

In the whole long night he'd plastered over the accusation Colin had hurled against him. That he was hurting Jamie the same way Forsythe had. Isolating him. Grooming him. He'd tucked that in a box right next to the way the whole of Richmond had planted themselves between Roy and Jamie. As if Roy was the one to be afraid of.

"Oh! Um. No. I mean, obviously I have." Michael dumped sugar into the tea. "It's just. I come from a massive Chelsea family?" the sentence had a question mark at the end and the younger man was flushing furiously.

It was so unexpected that Roy let out a bark of laughter. Michael's cheeks remained pink but his shoulders relaxed a little. "My sister would die if she was here, to be honest." He wavered, then said. "Colin and I did talk about the...the other thing. After Jamie came to his house. The way he was acting. Scared." Michael shook his head. "It's the way you act when you have a secret. I should know."

Roy thought about the court order. The bruises that could be hidden by long sleeves and make up. Thought about how Colin didn't bring this man to matches. "The secret's not about me."

"I know. We talked about that other coach, too. From the Academy." Michael eyed the bagels and split one open. "The thing about secrets is they always feel like the end of the world. Until you tell them. And the world doesn't actually end."

"Still hurts, though." Roy wasn't sure which secret they were talking about anymore. There were so many threads of miscommunication, and the only common denominator was how much pain they'd all been through because of it. Starting with the boys at the Academy, desperate for their one shot. Starting with men with big tempers and quick fists.

He closed his eyes and saw his sister on his doorstep, Phoebe cowering behind her leg.

He saw Jamie on his knees. Colin in the locker room, wild-eyed, before admitting one of the most fundamental parts of himself. All secrets. All fear.

"It hurts to keep a secret," Michael said. "But once you tell it...there's an ache, sure. But I think that's mostly relief. Because once you tell someone, you're not alone anymore."

He'd been winding a teabag through his fingers but now his hands stilled, his eyes lighting up as Colin came back into the room, attaching to his boyfriend's hip like magnets. Hughes took the teacup and pressed a kiss to Michael's cheek, but not before darting a glance at Roy. A question. A flick of fear.

The problem, after all, was never the secret. Being gay wasn't the problem. Being abused, getting hurt, that wasn't the problem. The problem, always, was the world's reaction.

.

That week, amidst all the other things he dreaded about the story being picked up, Jamie had room to feel his stomach flip as he was summoned post-practice to Welton's sundrenched office. At least this time they were relatively alone, that Indian officer gone in the days since the court order and the coaches trying to salvage something like a game plan. So it was just Rebecca, sighing, asking if he wanted to do the mid-week presser. "If you don't, we can try to fend them off. But a direct statement might be better."

Trent Crimm, who was in the corner of the office with his little notepad, raised a finger, shaking his head. "The best thing to do is take all the mystery away from it. Bare facts to all the outlets at once. Make them all report the same story and the news cycle will wear itself out."

Jamie wasn't really in the mood to do what Trent Crimm asked him to do, but he was a journo and Jamie desperately wanted this to stop being A Thing. He understood, more than ever, Colin's pleading with them to keep his secret. It wasn't shame, exactly. He was so used to lying about his father's abuse that everyone's patient worry felt like a balm. They all said it wasn't his fault and he actually believed them. But being the face of A Thing was exhausting. This week he wasn't Jamie Tartt, Football Star; he was Adult Survivor of Domestic Violence, and the way he carried himself would be scrutinized under that lens.

He nodded to Ms. Welton. "Sure. Yeah. Whatever you think is best."

"Obviously Coach Lasso will be with you. He is quite adept at deflection when he wants to be."

Jamie nodded tightly, leaving the office as quickly as he could without looking like he was running away. The windowed room still gave him nerves, made him think of being traded away like so much paper.

He rolled his eyes as Trent Crimm fell into step beside him. "Respectfully, Crimm, fuck off."

The journo snorted. "I believe we're heading in the same direction."

Jamie considered taking the stairs out of spite but he was honestly drained, felt like he'd been running on a sleep deficit all week and the Richmond lads were being downright weird, giving him space and giving him looks and being all protective and shit, running at basically half-speed during training this morning. In spite of their care Jamie throbbed, his torso having settled into one big bruise. Nothing was broken, not even his nose with its prodigious bleeding, and Roy had stood with his arms crossed as the trainers gave him the all-clear. Despite their assurances he was wheezing by the end of drills and Roy had called him over to the sideline for the last half hour, pointing to the bench and placing little cups of Gatorade into his hands.

So. No. Not really a stairs kind of day.

When they got into the elevator Jamie jabbed at the button for the training room only to have Crimm slam the emergency stop button. "Oy! Fuck off, mate." He glanced worriedly at the ceiling. "We're not in a TV drama. You just broke the fucking elevator!"

"It's not broken, just delayed," Crimm said with the prim crispness of a newsman who had used this trick before. "I needed to talk to you and I had a feeling you wouldn't talk to me."

Jamie folded his arms over his chest. "Because you're the one who reached out to Liam Mitchell? Yeah, figured that out for meself, thanks."

Crimm winced. "It was supposed to be a subtle overture, but I do admit my investigative reporting skills have gotten a bit rusty."

"He doesn't want to do the story," Jamie muttered. "And Colin's not even a part of the story. He swears he turned down Forsythe, which makes sense now I think on it since he played reserves for at least two years while we were at the Academy."

Crimm's eyebrows crept into his hairline. "Really? Good. That's—well. Not good for the story." He frowned. "But good for Colin."

"Yeah, good for bloody Colin." But Jamie's words had no heat. "And bully for me. You can't run the story, Crimm. You see what the press is like this week. And that's just for a restraining order against my own fucking father. Your story would be—an investigation. Hearings. Months of news. Years of news. I can't do that. I wish I could but I can't."

He thought of the gymnastics girls, the American ones, how their faces used to be about Olympic gold medals and now were linked intrinsically with sexual abuse. And that wasn't even a coach, wasn't quid pro quo. The Academy...it would make the world question everything. Every elite British player would be suspect. Did they get there on talent alone? Or sleep their way to the top?

And with Jamie, at least, they'd know the answer.

He slumped against the side of the elevator, glancing again at the ceiling. "Can you make it start up again?"

"It would be different," Crimm said. "If we control the story. Contextualize it. This would be—thousands of words. A cover story. An expose. Or a magazine article. Fifteen thousand words."

"I don't know how more words is going to help. Won't change the facts. Man said he'd put me on the starting line up if I sucked his cock and I did and now I'm here."

"A man used his position of power to pressure you into unwanted sexual acts," Crimm said, gently.

"Potato potato," Jamie muttered, saying the word exactly the same both times.

Crimm snorted, then leaned on the wall next to Jamie. "It's shitty to say that other boys came after you. It shouldn't be the job of victims to speak out. But other boys came after you. And you should speak out."

He pushed a button on the panel and the elevator lurched back to life. Jamie's stomach swooped, which had nothing to do with their movement and everything to do with how he'd felt, for the last five days, like he was falling.

"When you do the midweek presser, stick to the facts and tell some jokes." Crimm ripped a page out of his notebook and handed it to Jamie. "It's a first draft. I've never been much good at humor. But remember that these are all sports people. They want the story but more than that they want to be able to say that Jamie Tartt was in good spirits and looks healthy for the game on Saturday."

He walked away, leaving Jamie to scan the page he'd just been handed. A few hastily scrawled lines. Jokes, Jamie realized. Jokes to add to the presser, to let them know everything was fine.

He stuffed it in his pocket. He might be thick but he didn't get this far in life without knowing how to take a little direction.

.

Ted wasn't much of a criminal mastermind, but he'd sent Officer Chakrabarti some thank-you biscuits and offered to take her to lunch and she'd said something about a third-grade birthday party. The whole plan was an invitation planted near Jamie Tartt's seat on the bench, and a week to the day after one of the worst wake-ups of Ted's life he was watching the most talked-about player on the team pull up to a row house in a middling part of town.

He hitched his grin up higher when Roy Kent unfolded from the passenger seat. "Now this is a party!"

"How'd you know about this?" Jamie asked, looking between Ted and the brick house.

"Don't worry, I RSVP'd for both of us." He swept his arm out expansively, wanting to usher the men inside. Wanting, honestly, to bundle them up.

For the past couple weeks he'd been toying with...well. That was a decision for after the season. Even if coaching didn't match the physical exertion of being on the field, sometimes he felt like his heart broke every season. And not just the regular adrenaline of sports, the drama of a good match. He saw young men at this incredibly pivotal time of their lives. Birthdays and holidays. Engagements and babies. Deaths. He still remembered walking into the locker room when he coached at a small college to find the quarterback alone among the lockers, sobbing. A twin brother. An overdose. Elite athletes often had over-invested parents, parents who felt like they had a right to their child's career, to their earnings, to their body. There'd been the restraining order. Threats. Mysterious bruises.

But none of that compared to waking up to a phone call. He'd expected Henry. Henry, who forgot about time differences, who had woken him up before. He hadn't expected Rebecca, telling him she was picking him up on the way.

He'd glanced at the clock. Not yet six-thirty on a Sunday. "On the way where?"

"Oh," Rebecca sounded winded. "Oh, Ted. Have you not seen the news? It's Jamie."

In that instant there'd been a bolt, hot fire starting in his belly and climbing up his throat. Because of course it was Jamie. It had been about Jamie for months. Since the incident in the locker room, when Jamie had spent an entire practice thinking he, Ted, had blessed a plan that involved raping players.

It wasn't something he could talk over with Dr. Fieldstone, who was somewhere between friend and long-distance therapist. She was a mandatory reporter. If she knew that there was a possibility of minors being in danger she would have to escalate the complaint.

(Ted had talked it over with Beard, after Trent cleared out of the locker room at the end of that terrible day. What they should do. What their role in this grand scheme was. Back in the States, working for schools, he'd been a mandatory reporter. And as a human being with a conscience and a child of his own he kept superimposing Henry's face on top of Jamie Tartt's, thinking of the summer camps and soccer camps he sent Henry to, of all the time, since the divorce, that Henry was alone in the care of adult strangers. There was obligation there. But he also had an obligation towards Richmond in general and Jamie in particular, and Jamie had said that his Dad would kill him if he told the truth, and Ted couldn't balance that math, the unknown children against the twenty-five-year-old in his locker room.)

The inevitable had come to pass. A phone call before the sun was up.

But this was a happy ending, right? Roy Kent rolling his eyes as Ted hustled them up the short lawn towards the screaming sounds of a child's birthday party.

"This is mental," Jamie muttered, stopping short and only getting swept forward by Ted's still-outstretched arm. "I weren't even invited. I just...the Officer lady gave me a lift home last week. Said her kid was proper batty for Richmond."

"Nah. He's batty for you," Ted reassured him. "Come on, don't chicken out at the finish line."

"I was promised cake and ice cream," Roy said in the deadpan tone of someone who could not give two shits about cake or ice cream. He put his own arm behind Jamie.

Who dug in his heels. "Yeah, but, all that was last week," Jamie protested.

"After losing!" Roy said, rolling his eyes. "You scored the game-winner last night. You could eat for free anywhere in Richmond."

"Could I?" Jamie wondered aloud, not quite meeting anyone else's gaze. "After...you know. Everything else?"

Everything else. The press conference on Wednesday. How Jamie had fielded it all with a smile. Keeley had dropped by and put makeup over his bruises so they wouldn't show under the harsh fluorescent eyes of the cameras. Ted had weathered the storm by his side, cutting in only on questions he thought were incredibly out of line, like when a tabloid in the last row asked Jamie why he hadn't fought back. Jamie had a notecard in his hand, and at first Ted had thought it might be a dry list of statistics, of how many men and women were subjected to domestic violence every day. Maybe in a different setting they'd be scrawled there, the percentages, the cold facts. But Jamie had a list of jokes, and an easy smile. He'd been a star for years. He knew how to play to fans. Answer all the questions. Pivot everything back to the match on Saturday.

Outside the controlled space of the press conference was a different story.

McAdoo was red carded in yesterday's match for punching an opposing player. The striker had dodged the blow so it didn't break his nose, but the ensuing scrum had taken several minutes to sort out. A red card for Isaac, yellows for other players. By the time the Captain made it to the sideline Ted had backed up a step because anything he was going to say, Roy would say it better.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" Roy raged, going chest-to-chest with the player.

"You would have done the same," Isaac promised, his eyes flinty. "He was saying—"

"I don't care if he insulted your grandma!"

A ref came over to usher Isaac off the field and the crowd erupted in boos to see their captain out of the match. Isaac's face could have been carved from stone, ancient and unrepentant. This wasn't a man who was sorry for what he'd done, which is why Ted followed him to the mouth of the tunnel.

"It weren't about my grandma, Kent," Isaac ground out. "It was about Jamie."

Jamie, who was tearing up the field like a comet streaking across the sky. Ted nodded, mostly to himself. Isaac was hot-headed and loyal to a fault. The only way he was leaving the match early was to protect his Richmond boys.

Roy stopped walking so abruptly that Ted almost ran into him. "Back to the game, boy-o?" Ted asked, nodding at McAdoo as he disappeared into the stadium.

The crowd gasped, the held breath of a collective watching a moment unfold. And then the Dog Track was on its feet, screaming, hugging, the score inching up by one for the home team.

Jamie scored the only goal. There were two more fights on the pitch.

The official coverage was restrained, all stories linking to societies for domestic abuse victims and listing numbers for helplines. But real life wasn't a think piece. Weaknesses were exploited. The scrolling hellscape refreshed with new hot takes on what this meant for Richmond, for Jamie, for men in general. Masculinity on the decline. Proof that men just weren't built how they used to be. A hashtag trending: #RealMenDontGetHit

There was nothing to say to that. Nothing that didn't sound straight out of a 1980s PSA. So instead Ted encouraged the lads to get Isaac and Jamie out to celebrate the win, and Sam suggested starting with drinks at the restaurant "to make sure we are all accounted for this time" which got him a round of applause and playful ribbing about his fit head chef.

All Ted could do was leave the invitation in the locker and hope. The news would cycle. The bigots would find a new target.

Not that it solved today's problem of Jamie Tartt wavering on the threshold of a birthday party, hoping that everyone present would remain civil. Ted used to think these were American problems. Kansas problems. The cities where he encouraged white players to pair up with Black ones. The stadiums where he knew to throw the slightly built kicker a pair of headphones before taking to the practice field. To see the universality of injustice only made it that much sadder.

He could offer Jamie an out. Could tell him to sleep through the next dozen news cycles, to stay indoors. But he was a coach, and Jamie had made it 90% of the way here on his own power. All he needed was one last push.

Ted put a hand on his player's shoulder. "Game faces," he instructed, putting on his own smile as he rounded the corner of the house. "Officer Chakrabarti!" He could feel Jamie shudder under his hand. It reminded him of the horses on his granddad's farm, the spooked yearlings ready to buck or bolt. "What a beautiful home you have!"

The noise in the backyard quieted quick as a record scratch as everyone turned to stare at the newcomers. Ted heard Roy snort and didn't have to look at the other man to know he was doing the arms-crossed glaring bit. He hitched his smile higher and scanned the crowd: parents and family, a group of women surrounding Officer Chakrabarti, all dressed in festive colors with their hair down. He aimed his grin at the host and took one step in her direction before children burst off the lawn. They wore an assortment of jerseys (he'd never get used to calling them kits) though most sported hometown Richmond colors. Sweaty boys and some girls following in behind a boy wearing a battered cardboard birthday crown.

"Ohmygod Hrishi! Jamie Tartt is at your birthday party!" one of the boys in Richmond colors crowed.

"This is the best day ever!"

"And Roy Kent!"

"He's here, he's there, he's every—"

"Deepak!"

"Ohmygod wait he can sign my shirt?"

"Hrishi he can sign your new shirt!"

The crowned boy pushed out from the breathless gaggle of children, his eyes comically wide as he stared at Jamie. He took a deep breath. "That goal yesterday," he declared, "was so sick."

Ted felt Jamie relax. "If you've got a net I can show you how it's done."

The cheers that went up from the crowd of children made the adults simultaneously smile and wave at them all to quiet down. One of the girls waved frantically at Roy until he knelt down and addressed her by name, asking if she was signed up for football again this season.

Which left Ted to drift over to the adult's table. The men all stuck hands out, or slapped him on the back. "Heck of a game yesterday, Coach."

"The boys do their best," Ted said, wondering how different the reception would be the day after a loss.

"Shame to lose McAdoo," an older man muttered. "But it's always impressive to win with ten."

Chakrabarti—which, Ted realized, might be her last name, making half the people in the crowd Chakrabartis—Officer Chakrabarti took the wrapped present out of Ted's hands. "I don't think any gift could live up to a real life Jamie Tartt." She smiled. Everyone looked younger out of uniform. "Thank you for bringing him."

"It was Jamie's idea. A thank-you for all your help last week."

Chakrabarti blanched. "In the end I wonder if we do more harm than good. The media..."

"Can't control anything but our own actions," Ted reminded her. "And you were on the side of the angels."

The wall of adults had pivoted to watch the action in the small field behind the house. Roy was putting the children into a couple of lines after sticking Jamie in the net. "Who wants to try to score on the great Jamie Tartt?" Roy asked while Jamie rolled his eyes.

A dozen hands flew into the air and Roy set everyone into lines. Everyone except the crowned birthday boy, who had planted himself next to Jamie in the goal. "You're going to have to take both of us!" Hrishi declared, grabbing Jamie's hand and squeezing it tight.

It was a scrum. A game. Jamie couldn't take standing in the goal for very long and ended up passing to each of the kids in turn before remaking the hooked shot he'd taken in the match the day before. Hrishi stuck by his side like a shadow, staring up at his idol, eyes wide with devotion.

Ted hoped it would help. A real-life antidote to the nastiness of the anonymous internet. Even the adults, who had to have been bombarded with all the stories this week, talked of Richmond with nothing but fierce fondness, the ranks of the community closing like a protective shield around "their boys." These boys.

Ted's boys.

.

Colin let up his pace slightly to jog next to Jamie. They had two laps to cool down, and usually Colin, one of the fastest on the team, would ignore all of Roy and Beard's pointed comments about pace and whatever and just run, lapping the rest of the team, enjoying the wind in his face as his brain served up every missed pass or slipped tackle from the practice.

But today had been a good day, perfect weather and high spirits. It was Jamie who had started the celebratory mood, actually; there was a party being thrown by one of the other contestants from that shitty reality show, lots of models and top-shelf booze, and the whole team was invited "as long as you show up looking well fit, lads, I don't want to be bringing no flakes to this party."

The party, and Jamie's lifting spirits after weeks of skittish seriousness, made the whole team buzz. Giddy. Relieved. Like they were all given permission to be happy again.

Which of course was terrible timing, because Colin had already told Trent Crimm what he was going to tell Jamie, which meant he couldn't sit on this decision for much longer.

"What's up, boy-o?" Jamie asked. He never sounded winded, which usually annoyed Colin. Colin's one thing had always been his speed, but Jamie didn't seem to mind jogging near the rear of the pack even if everyone knew he could go faster. Smelling the roses, that's what he always said. Stop speeding and live a little. "Roy's already offered to be my buddy tonight, so you're off the hook."

"I fucked up that job already."

"You came to check on me," Jamie said, his tone surprisingly husky. "That ain't nothing."

Colin knows there were other nights, maybe a lot of other nights, where no one checked on Jamie. Which is why Colin has to ruin this perfect day. Why he has to do this.

"...to the party?"

Colin blinked. "Sorry. What?"

"I said you know you can bring your boyfriend to the party. Plenty of the blokes coming are bigendered or what have you."

That made Colin bark out a laugh loud enough for Zoreaux, who also jogged near the back of the pack, to shoot him a strange look. "Bisexual. And I'm sure plenty of blokes are also bringing their phones."

"A no-phones party would be sick, though."

"I'm not brining Michael. I'm not coming out."

Jamie closed his eyes as they ran into lap two. "I mean. Can't say I blame you, but I do think—"

"I'm not coming out," Colin said before he lost his nerve, "because you should tell someone. About Forsythe. About the Academy." Jamie slowed down enough that Richard almost ran into him and Colin had to double back, ignoring their teammates' odd looks. "Trent Crimm told me about the story."

"I can't. Colin. Maybe you're not seeing—but ever since the judge's decision—"

"Being afraid of the reaction isn't a good enough reason anymore, Jamie. Forsythe is still a coach."

Colin wondered if Jamie knew he was shaking his head, quick as a reflex. "This will be so much worse. I can't—me Dad—"

"Oh!" Colin gripped Jamie's shoulder. "You thought I'd let you do it alone?"

Jamie's eyes were wide and glassy. "I thought you said you never—with Forsythe—"

"He still propositioned me. I can testify to that. Look, if I come out today and helped Crimm with this Academy investigation it would look...well, people wouldn't have to jump that far to connect the dots between 'gay player' and 'sleeping with coach.'" Colin knew that he wouldn't be able to put it off forever. Michael deserved a proper boyfriend who could take him out in the light of day. But saving the children seemed as good a reason as anything to lay low another few months.

Jamie stopped running and they drifted to the side. Coach Kent started yelling at them to keep up the pace but Colin waved a hand and it had been such a sufficiently shitty month that even Kent shut up about it. "I can't stand any of it. Feels like me heart is going to explode. I try to sleep—you've bruised your ribs before, right?"

"Year ten. Felt like I couldn't breathe."

Jamie ghosted a hand down his side, his face a wince. "Me body's a bit fucked still and then me head...I know Crimm's right. I know there's still kids back there. And I know that I shouldn't fucking read fucking Twitter."

The discourse had turned cyclical and ugly, Jamie's court order and public statement that sometimes the monsters were inside the house had turned into an international Topic of Concern. It kept that awful hashtag trending, an admonition, a threat: #RealMenDontGetHit.

Jamie slumped against the fence. "They're right though. What kind of man just takes it from their Dad?" He ran a hand through his hair. "And next it will be 'Real men don't suck off their coaches for a fucking spot on a fucking team.'"

"Don't know if that would trend abroad," Colin joked weakly.

Jamie glanced at him and snorted. "Maybe not."

Colin sat in the grass beside him. "Michael and I talked about this last night, and he brought up those girls again. The gymnastics ones from America."

"Poor sods."

"He said they were brave." Colin chanced a glance at the striker. "For speaking up. And the judge thought they were brave, and the media thought they were brave."

"It's different for girls."

#RealMenDontGetHit.

"Maybe," Colin acknowledged. "But, fuck all, Jamie. You're brave, too. You are! You wear all those awful clothes for one thing."

"Just because you don't understand fashion..."

Colin barked out a laugh, which he was pretty happy about because he could see tears pooling in Jamie's eyes and he had always been a sympathetic crier. "You speak up for yourself. And you speak up for the team, now, too. And you'll speak up for the boys still going through it. Because you're Jamie Fucking Tartt."

He pushed himself to his feet and held out a hand. "What do you say?" Colin smiled and pretended his heart wasn't thumping wildly in his chest. "Want to shake the foundations of English football?"

"This is all just a bid to get more airtime for your Welsh Independence slogans, ain't it?" Jamie tipped his head back to the sky. "Fucking hell. At least you have your fit boyfriend. I'll never get another date after this."

Colin thought about Roy smashing the plates in Jamie's kitchen. About how even once Jamie had gotten home from the hospital, Roy had sent everyone home but had stayed behind. To keep an eye on things. How he'd touched Jamie's shoulder and the striker had softened, gentling to the touch.

But all that was in the future. Jamie hadn't seen the signs, not yet. Right now he was only seeing a teammate with his hand out and a shitty proposition about being better and doing the right thing. And after three years under Coach Lasso maybe he was finally ready to hear about all that, because Jamie, going against years of self-preservation instincts, bit his tongue and grabbed the hand.

"Alright then, lad." Jamie nodded, almost to himself. "Let's go."