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Liam Opara was having a horrible, no-good, very bad day.
And that was before his boss’ boss swept into his office at 9am on the dot to awkwardly ask for four sets of the standard internal relationships paperwork. Judging (rightly) by the look on her face, he decided that any pesky clarifying questions weren’t necessary, and that he would just give her the paperwork so she would leave his office posthaste.
Deep into his mid-morning tasks fueled by three cups of coffee and a dream, Liam was startled to see his boss lurking in his doorway, Richmond-branded clipboard at his side. Well, he heard him before he saw the bespectacled man.
“Leslie, you know, you really ought to go ring your GP,” he said as delicately as he could, clearing his throat in a poor imitation of his boss’ weird choking sound. Flushing all the way to the tips of his ears, Higgins awkwardly scurried into Liam’s office, closing the door firmly behind him.
Liam started cold-sweating immediately, and to his dismay, his favorite pen decided to leap out of his hand, slippery from his sweaty palms. It crashed on the floor, and he just hoped it wasn’t broken. His mum had given it to him when he graduated uni, and he had kept it for his whole career so far, refilling the fancy ink when necessary.
“Am I…you’d tell me if you were going to fire me for any reason, right? I’m not getting fired, am I?” Liam said, choking down a slightly-hysterical laugh that was one of the reasons he lived up to his office nickname.
His boss looked startled, blinking at Liam owlishly, before settling in the chair opposite Liam’s over-full desk, brimming with papers and reminders for himself and other various paraphernalia.
“Liam, why would I fire you?” Higgins asked slowly, hands tapping away on the arms of the chair.
He sounded genuinely confused, and Liam cursed himself for even asking. What if he had just planted a seed in the man’s head that would lead to his eventual firing months later? He’d only have himself to blame. Liam couldn’t bring himself to break the silence, so he decided to wait the other man out.
Higgins seemingly shook himself out of a daze, and clasped his hands in front of him.
“I’m sure you know why I’m here,” Higgins said thoughtfully. “Did Rebecca come to see you today?”
Liam still wasn’t used to being on a first-name basis with his boss’ boss—it was too…weird, and it unnerved him somehow. Her predecessor, the arsehole that he was, was incredibly keen on formality, and Liam had never really interacted with him much.
If he had to guess, he would have said that Leslie Higgins had used himself as a makeshift human shield, taking the hits himself and protecting the administrative staff of AFC Richmond from the whims of their mercurial former club owner.
Ms. Welton—Rebecca—wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows from the beginning, but the thaw in the club’s structure had been a surprising, and welcome, change, from the previous regime. Much more informal, more collaborative, and Liam was absolutely gobsmacked to discover one day that he actually did quite enjoy pulling up to Nelson Road and walking into work every morning. He minimized his computer screens, and turned his attention to Higgins.
“You mean…I mean, ah—” Liam stuttered slightly. Get it together, man, he internally chastised, willing his nervous system to throw him a bone and chill the hell out for a minute.
“Yes,” Liam said cautiously, unaware if he would be revealing a secret or not, suddenly cognizant of his duties as head of human resources at AFC Richmond.
Higgins grimaced slightly, and rushed to apologize for how cagey he was being.
“I didn’t want to say anything out of turn, but if…Rebecca’s come to you this morning, correct?” Eagle-eyed, his boss waited for Liam to nod in confirmation.
“Right, so you’ve given her our standard internal relationships HR paperwork, yes?”
Liam gulped, reliving the scary-yet-impressively-regal way that Rebecca Welton swept into his office just hours earlier.
“Yes, sir, and I told her the paperwork was pretty self-explanatory, but to contact me directly if she has any questions. I dunno why she asked for so many copies though, but it’s not my business,” Liam trailed off, wondering if his boss knew any further details.
Just then, he heard a calendar chime indicating a new meeting had been added to his calendar, and inwardly cursed that he had forgotten to mute his computer before Higgins’ arrival. Navigating to his calendar, Liam nearly choked on his own spit, and he swallowed hard, nerves roaring back to life.
“Why do we have a meeting this afternoon with Rebecca?” Liam asked faintly, mouth suddenly dry as the Sahara. He watched his boss tap at his phone, accepting the calendar invite.
Higgins grinned wryly, shoving his phone into his jacket pocket.
“Oh, Rebecca just wants to make sure everything’s above board and all,” Higgins said absentmindedly whilst jotting a note down on the top of his paperwork.
“Everything…?”
“Oh, you’ll see—I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise,” Higgins grinned, winking at Liam as he made his way to the door.
“See you at 4, hey?” Higgins saluted, whistling jauntily as he sped off down the corridor. Liam had never been more confused in his life, but couldn’t wait until whatever the meeting was about this afternoon.
Liam Opara had never ever felt more awkward in his life. He truly wanted to sink into the floor, quit his job, move to a foreign country, enter witness protection etc. He cursed his father who drilled into his head “early is on time, on time is late,” because here he was, decades later, sitting in excruciating silence in his boss’ boss office while waiting for the other meeting participants to arrive.
Just then, like he manifested his appearance, a rumpled Higgins entered the room, wide-eyed and slightly out of breath. Both Liam and Rebecca looked at the man in alarm.
“Leslie?” Rebecca asked slowly, rising to offer him a water bottle from the nearby mini-fridge.
The man in question held his hand up, slowly catching his breath, and muttered something about Jamie and Isaac having a contest of some sort that might have ended badly if Higgins hadn’t alerted the managers. Liam was suddenly very glad to be firmly in the admin camp, a bit removed from the rowdy but well-meaning footballers.
He went to check on who else was due at this meeting because he had assumed it was just Rebecca and Higgins, and Liam’s eyebrows shot up toward his hairline when he saw who was on the meeting invitation. He barely registered the slight dip in the sofa as his boss sat down next to him.
His head was spinning, but he didn’t have time to collect his thoughts before Ted Lasso cheerily bounded into the room, high fiving what Liam thought was a coat rack in the corner. He was followed by Roy Kent at a more sedate pace, and the bearded man nodded sharply at Liam before taking a seat in one of the chairs by Rebecca’s desk. Ted perched on the other end of the sofa closest to Roy.
“Keeley call yet?” Roy grumbled, and Liam fought the urge to flinch for whatever reason. He was…absolutely not intimidated by the footballer, not at all!
“Not yet, but she’s due back any minute, I’d expect,” Rebecca replied, setting a few more water bottles and some crisps on the coffee table in front of Liam and Higgins.
The statuesque blonde returned to her desk, settling in and tapping at her phone screen while they waited for the straggler to arrive. The clack of heels sounded on the staircase, and seconds later, the woman in question appeared.
“Hiya, babes,” Keeley said to the room as she slung her bags by the door and beelined to Ted on the sofa, settling closer to him than Liam would have thought they were both comfortable with, but again, not his business.
He shuffled through his nearly empty folder, having just brought it for a prop and something to do with his hands. Liam still wasn’t quite sure what he was doing at this meeting, or what it was for, other than it had something to do with Rebecca scaring the daylights out of him in his office earlier that morning.
“Right, so…let’s just rip off the bandaid, shall we?” Rebecca said, making a face at Ted who beamed back at her.
“I am just so thrilled that my American idioms are making their way into your fancy schmancy lexicon, boss!” Ted said.
The coach wrapped an arm around Keeley who snuggled into his chest, having kicked off her shoes moments earlier. Liam felt like his brain was breaking but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, so he tried to pull the remnants of his tattered focus back to Rebecca, seated behind her desk looking like a powerful queen on her throne. Good for her.
“I’m calling this meeting because I want to play by all the rules this time,” Rebecca said, ignoring a snort from Roy as he waggled his eyebrows at her.
Liam felt like he should raise his hand, and as if against his will, he felt his arm lift to the ceiling. Rebecca’s eyebrow quirked up slightly as she gestured for him to speak. His mouth felt like it was full of the saltwater taffy his mum used to buy him when they’d go to the beach on school holidays.
“Excuse me, but…” he stuttered, glancing at Higgins in hope that his boss would throw him a lifeline. Higgins was listening intently to whatever Keeley was showing him on her iPad, and hadn’t even seen that Liam was trying to get his attention. Liam decided to soldier on.
“What are we here for, again?” he cleared his throat, willing his voice to hold out. “If someone could catch me up to speed, I’d be grateful. Apologies, but I feel incredibly unprepared—”
Taking pity on him, Rebecca cut Liam off gently, and he fell silent.
“First things first, Liam,” Rebecca said, a hint of a sparkle in her eye. “I called everyone here today so that we’re all on the same page. Please hold any questions you have until the end of the meeting and we can answer as many as we can.”
Liam was slightly confused by the “we” statements, but stayed silent, nodding at the blonde in an encouraging way as he felt himself slip into his HR!Liam persona.
“I know I collected those forms this morning from you, Liam, and we’ve all had time to fill them out, but wanted to provide some context. As head of HR, you’re responsible for overseeing employee relations and so on.”
Liam nodded in response, and Rebecca glanced at Ted who pushed up the sleeve of his jumper, stretching his arm in front of him. Liam blinked hard.
“Ted, I didn’t know you got a tattoo,” Liam started slowly, eyes narrowing slightly as he took in the full design. Ted grinned at Liam, and Keeley snuggled into his chest even more, arms wrapped around his torso.
“Well, Liam buddy, here’s the thing—a bit of a new development has happened here at ole AFC Richmond, and we needed to fill out some paperwork and have a chat about it. Basically, the T-L-D-R version is—hey Keels, did I get that right?” Ted trailed off, waiting for Keeley’s response.
“Right, so the TLDR version is that the four of us—Rebecca, Keeley, Roy, and I—have a soulmate tattoo situation and are in a partnership.”
Liam heard a slight ringing in his ears, and he fought for a semblance of composure.
“I—congratulations to all of you, then,” he said slowly, smiling at Ted. “That’s wonderful news.”
“Thank you, Liam, means a lot from you, buddy,” Ted replied with a wink, knowing that Liam was out of his element in this situation.
“Alright so…you filled out all of the appropriate HR forms, correct?” Liam asked generally, slipping back into his HR persona with ease. He scanned the room for a second and then—
“Well, as you know, there are a lot of different power dynamics at play here, so I suppose, I mean—my job now is to make sure that none of you three are being coerced by Rebecca. I know, I know , the tattoo situation alleviates these worries slightly but I do have to do my duty and check in with each of you to ensure that’s not the case,” Liam said as he rambled slightly toward the end.
“Hey,” Roy said quietly from the corner, and Liam startled so badly that his knee knocked the edge of the coffee table.
“How come we didn’t fill out any paperwork like this, Rebecca?” Roy smirked, and Rebecca rolled her eyes at him fondly.
Liam was confused and decided to just shut his mouth for a minute. Did they —no, he must be misinterpreting. Whatever, it was…he didn’t need to know.
Keeley cackled out loud and made a quip about Roy helping Rebecca get her groove back when she was in her villain era, which Liam decided he was going to simply ignore. Not his business.
“Hey Liam?”
The man in question snapped to attention, head tilting to the mustached man.
“Yes, Ted?”
“I know you probably can’t confirm or deny this, but I’m just curious, did Beard and Barbara have to fill out any of this paperwork? Or not, because Barbara’s only contracted by AFC Richmond, and still works full-time at KBPR,” Ted asked curiously.
Liam choked on his own spit, face reddening with exertion. Fortunately for him and his ethics, Keeley answered the question for him.
“Yeah, I think they did have to fill this out, babe,” Keeley said, squeezing her arms around Ted’s waist.
“Barbara, god love her, was pretty annoyed about the whole thing, but she told me that Beard made it worth her while, and then we had some girl talk that I’m not going to repeat in this room,” Keeley said smugly as Higgins’ choking sound made a reappearance.
“Okay, then,” Rebecca said smoothly, winking at Keeley as she got up from her desk. “I think that’s everything then,” she crossed the room to hand a stack of paperwork to Liam, keeping the copies for herself.
Liam followed his boss out of the office, shutting the door behind him, and walked as if in a daze, back downstairs. He was surprised when Higgins followed him into his office, yet again taking a seat in front of Liam’s desk.
Liam sat down heavily, reflecting on his weird day thus far, and Higgins broke the silence.
“Yeah, I know, mate, it’s a lot to take in,” Higgins said with a grin. “I was taken aback at first, too, but it just makes sense in a strange and wonderful way. Sorry to bookend your whole day with this, I didn’t realize Rebecca was so concerned about the paperwork. She wants to do everything by the book this time, it’s really sweet.”
Liam’s brow furrowed in confusion. He was definitely missing something, but he probably partially blacked out in Rebecca’s office earlier.
“Wait, what do you mean “this time?”” Liam asked, and his boss just chuckled and waved him off, mumbling about a need-to-know basis.
“Have a great night, Liam,” Higgins said as he exited the office and began to head back upstairs.
Liam Opara was having a horrible, no-good, very bad day, but at least he lived in a world where soulmate tattoos existed and finding your person (or people) was possible.