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I have absolutely nothing to wear.
The thought flits through her mind, gone as quick as it came, and she has to scoff with the absolute incorrectness of the statement. The neatly organized racks of blouses, dresses, slacks, and skirts that make her closet look like one of those expensive little boutiques that Keeley loves to drag her to on their bi-weekly outings would beg to differ.
This is getting ridiculous now, she knows. The take-the-world-by-storm-businesswoman part of her mind reminds her that if she stays in here much longer, clad in only her bra and knickers, contemplating the merits of dresses versus sleeveless blouses in the heatwave that’s settled heavily over Richmond, she’d be late to work and that just wouldn’t do. Especially on the first day of training for the season. It’s the woman-with-way-fewer-fences part of her mind that Ted and Keeley have been slowly but steadily coaxing out of the shadows that needs to catch up.
With a huff of frustration, she snags her most dependable black skirt from the lower rack and slips it on. At least she’s halfway dressed now, and maybe that decision was enough to get her through the worst of her decision paralysis.
She thumbs through the array of sleeveless tops for what feels like the millionth time, eyes finally catching on a new blouse that she’d yet to wear. It was made from pale pink, lightly patterned silk and had a high cowl neck. She pulled it from its hanger and came to stand in front of the full length mirror, holding it up to her chest. She appraised herself in the mirror, narrowing her eyes and contemplating the image.
Soft footfalls on her bedroom carpet gave her a few seconds of advance warning before Ted appeared in the closet doorway, a mug in each of his hands. He smiled brightly as he moved past her to place her tea on top of the jewelry drawers, stopping for a moment to press a soft kiss and a “G’ morning, Rebecca” to the corner of her mouth.
“What do you think of this one, Ted?” Rebecca turned away from the mirror to face him.
He leaned against one of the floor to ceiling cabinets that stored her coats, and sipped his over sugared, poor excuse for coffee while he considered her.
“I think you’re gorgeous. Absolutely breathtaking.”
“The top, Ted.” She turned back to the mirror again with a roll of her eyes. “I bought it a few months back on a girls' weekend with Keeley and Nora, and I let them convince me that it was appropriate for a woman of my age to wear, but now I’m thinking that they were wrong.”
“It looks perfectly professional for a woman of any age. And I’m not just sayin’ that because I’m partial to the color,” Ted responds with a grin.
Cheeky bastard. She dropped the blouse onto the growing pile of rejects and threw her head back with a groan.
Well, that was not the response he’d been expecting. Concern quickly replaced the mirth he’d been wearing on his face.
Hey,” Ted abandoned his mug next to her untouched tea and took up a place at her side, running a soothing hand across the bare skin of her lower back. “I recall a goofy man once saying that ‘fashion’s all about confidence’, and I remember you listening and taking his advice before. What’s keeping you from taking his advice now?”
His eyes met hers in the mirror for a split second before she averted them and went to stand in front of the sleeveless blouses again. She mindlessly flipped through the tops again, taking time to gather her thoughts.
“These past two months have been absolute bliss, Ted,” Rebecca began hesitantly. “Holing up here or at your flat, eating takeaway and watching movies. Learning how we slot into each other’s lives. Getting a chance to know Henry over FaceTime.” Rebecca turned towards Ted a bit, enough that he could see the soft smile gracing her face that she always wore when talking about or to his son. He watched her draw in a deep breath, seemingly bracing herself for what she was going to say next.
“And I just don’t think I’m ready to share it, this beautiful thing we’ve got going, with the world yet. Because when the world knows, then it thinks it gets a say, and I don’t want to hear anything the world has to say about you and I.”
“I agree with you a hundred percent, darlin’,” Ted reassured her, moving so that he could cup her cheek gently and run his thumb against her cheekbone. “But you kinda lost me on what that has to do with what you’re wearing today.” He admitted.
“The press has been writing articles about what I’m wearing and speculating on it for years. I mean you said yourself, that you’re partial to the pale pink! Everyone knows that you bring me my biscuits in those little pink boxes, so they associate the color with you. If I wear a mock or a turtleneck in this weather, people’ll assume I’m hiding a hickey. God forbid I wear a pale pink turtleneck like the one I tried on earlier! I’d be more subtle if I showed up wearing a kit with your name emblazoned across the back of it!
“Darlin’, I don’t think anyone’s going to guess we’re together based on what you’re wearing.”
“You have met Keeley, right?”
“Okay, you make a good point.”
“I’m supposed to look normal, and I’m pretty sure that every one of these tops” she gestures to the pile of fabric in front of the mirror, “screams ‘Randy Rebecca Lassos Lasso’, or whatever the fucking headline of the week is, from the mountain tops. And I can hear how absurd that sounds-”
Ted cuts her off with a gentle “No, I get ya. Not absurd”, and she takes a moment to run her hands over face and draw in a few deep breaths.
“Okay, how about this. Don’t wear anything new today. I know how excited you were to get to wear some of the new stuff you bought, and boy howdy am I excited to see you wearing them because I saw some of ‘em in previews and dang were you stunnin’ in them. But I’m thinking we should save that excitement for another day.” He wrapped his hands around her wrists and gently pulled her hands from where they’d still been pressed to her face.
“Wear something you’ve worn a million times before, something that you’ve worn to the club since I’ve been working there. Then nobody can say anything because we weren’t together then.” His hands slid from her wrists so that he could wrap her fingers in his own. “I’ll even take it one step further and not compliment you on the one you pick, though it may kill me, so you have no thoughts of me associated with your blouse at all. How’s that?”
“That’s,” she pauses for a second to think it over before bringing her eyes up to meet his, “very sensible, Ted. And maybe a little overkill with the no-compliment addendum, but we’ll stick with it. Thank you.” She gives his hands a quick squeeze of assurance before stepping away from him to grab her mug of tea, feeling more fortified than she had earlier, and continue flipping through the sleeveless blouses for what will hopefully be the last time this morning.
He watches her pull a deep orange, almost rust colored silk blouse from the rack and give it a once over. She pulls it on carefully over her head so as to not disturb her already perfectly styled chignon. Final decision made.
Ted intercepts her before she can step in front of the mirror again to put the finishing touches on her look, catching her loosely around the waist and holding her against his chest. “I’m gonna get going. Gotta get back to my place so I can meet up with Beard from the right direction. ‘Cause let me tell you, that man is perceptive with a capital P.
She snickered at his reasoning. “Right, I suppose that’s for the best. Showing up together in my car would render all the bedlam this morning moot.” She quirked her lips into an embarrassed grin and pulled him tighter to her chest. “I’ll still see you for biscuits this morning though, right?”
“Already counting the minutes! People would definitely know something was up if I didn’t show up for Biscuits with the Boss.” He returned her grin before he leaned in to place a lingering kiss on her lips.
“Alright then, go if you must.” She stole a second, much quicker kiss from his lips while one of her hands drifted down to grope his ass. He pulled away from her hold reluctantly with a laugh.
On his way out of the bedroom he heard a muffled curse of “damn khakis” and he vowed to let her know all of the thoughts he’d had about the blouse she’d donned when they inevitably saw each other that evening. All of his thoughts from today, and from way back on the first day that they’d met.
***
The morning had been a whirlwind, as all first days back are, filled with quick but affable greetings with his returning players, and longer, get-to-know-yous with the new players that were joining the team this season. There was also the quickly growing stack of paperwork that he’d been procrastinating for the past few weeks that needed to be taken care of. But who could really blame him. He had much more important things to focus on. Upstairs. In a beautiful office overlooking the pitch.
So it wasn’t until Ted blew his whistle to send the footballers into their warm-up drills that Ted had a moment to catch up with the coaching staff.
Coach Beard and Roy had each used their two month break to travel. Beard had taken Jane on a whirlwind backpacking trip that Ted had dubbed the seven weird wonders of the world (or “the internet, because its www! Get it?”). Roy had finally gotten his chance to whisk Keeley off to Marbella now that her work and their second-chance romance had settled in. Nate had stayed in town, working on himself and on his relationship with his parents.
“What about you, Coach? Did you finally make it to Abbey Road?” Beard asked pointedly, still skeptical about Ted’s slightly flustered answer of sightseeing as his reason for staying in London for the summer rather than heading back to Kansas to see Henry.
“Sure did, Captain Kidd! Even got my photo taken so I could send it to Henry. I did have to convince a few bystanders to be George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr though.” He retrieved his phone from the pocket of his khakis, eager to show his buddies the great photo that Rebecca had taken. They didn’t need to know who was behind the camera though.
The coaches crowded around Ted’s phone as he pulled the photo up on the screen. They’d only had a second to look at the screen before a series of text notifications appeared at the top of the screen with a ding!
Ted froze in place and sucked in a near-silent breath that he hoped the others wouldn’t notice. To anyone else, the texts would have seemed completely normal and not suggestive at all. The issue was that he knew the sender of the texts well and his friends that were currently reading the text messages with him also knew the sender well.
Rebecca aka ‘Da Boss’ 💜
My morning sugar rush has run its course.
I may need a pick-me-up after training.
After an expectant pause, Beard placed a heavy hand on Ted’s shoulder and squeezed, “So. What else did you get up to over the break?”
Ted looked up from the phone a little too quickly, feigning a sudden interest in the warm-up drills that he’d seen the boys run hundreds of times. “Alright, fellas. Y’all are looking warmer than the leather seats of my mama’s pick-up when she’s forgotten to park it under a tree.” That visual earned him a few hisses and grimaces from the footballers. “Take five for water and to towel off before Coach Beard gets y’all’s butts burning even more with some conditioning.”
Roy appeared in front of Ted, and his arms crossed, eyebrow raised stance had Ted rocking back on his heels. Beard gave Ted’s shoulder another squeeze, this one a bit harder than the last one. Behind him he heard Nate mutter “what is going on?” under his breath. Apparently the distraction was for naught. Good thing diversion was one of the things Ted was best at.
“Hoo boy. Is it hot out here or what? This reminds me of that one day at Wichita State where it was so hot that we had the boys experiment on whether rolling in mud like pigs do to stay cool was actually effective. Do you remember the results, Coach? I think we could probably stand to test that again. Nate, you think we could get some cold mud out here on the pitch-”
“Are you out of your mind, Ted? That would absolutely ruin the turf!” Nate responded in outrage at the same time that Beard chimed in, “Scientists proved that false. Pigs don’t have sweat glands and it's possible that they just like to roll around in the mud.”
Bingo. Crisis averted. Ted pulled at the neck of his polo, billowing it in and out in a dual purpose attempt to mitigate the heat and his fluster while Nate continued his rant about turf care.
“Fuck’s sake!” Roy growled, reaching out to grab Ted’s collar and tug it to the side to reveal Ted’s collarbone. With the hand that wasn’t holding Ted in place, he dragged Beard over to his side so that they both stood in front of Ted, looking at the newly exposed skin.
At the knowing smirk that bloomed across Beard’s face, Ted glanced down. He already knew what he’d see. Yep, there it was, on full display. It was a few days old at this point, but the discoloration was still dark enough that there was no mistaking the fact that there was a hickey on his collarbone.
“I… you know what, I just remembered that I need to do something inside. Y’all can handle training right? What am I saying? Of course y’all can handle training! Yeah. Okay, I’ll be back in a Jif, which is the superior brand of peanut butter by the way.” Roy let go of Ted’s shirt with a light shove, effectively cutting off his rambling.
“Yeah, yep, I’m gonna go” Ted started shuffling backwards as he threw a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of entrance to the club. He could’ve sworn he saw a hint of a smile on Roy’s face before he turned and hightailed it off of the pitch.
As he reached for the door, he heard a low, coarse yell from behind him. “You hurt her and I’ll bury you.” Well, at least they had Roy’s approval.
Ted made his way quickly through the locker room and up the stairs toward Rebecca’s office. Better to come clean right away, since they were no longer keeping secrets from each other, just from their friends.
Ted took a moment to gather himself outside of her door and threw a prayer out to his mother’s God that this not be the thing that ends the best thing he’s had in many years. He didn’t think Rebecca would mind their friends knowing, though it probably wasn’t ideal. She was, however, still working on forgiving Nate for selling Ted’s privacy to the press.
After a round of Dr. Fieldstone’s prescribed 4-7-8 breathing, Ted gave a quick knock on the door in warning and let himself in.
Rebecca wasn’t behind her desk like he’d expected her to be. She was sitting on the couch opposite Keeley, reading something off of the phone that Keeley had shoved in her face and wearing a face that he recognized as feigned indifference. At his appearance in the doorway though, he watched her expression shift to one of reluctant acceptance.
“Why don’t you ask him yourself, Keeley?” Rebecca oriented her body towards his and gave him a deadly raise of her eyebrow.
“Ted Lasso, you minx! Who gave you the hickey?”
He knew there was no use denying it. Keeley Jones was like a dog with a bone when she got an idea in her head, and he was not a good liar. So he opted to beg for forgiveness.
“I’m so sorry, Rebecca. You were right about the importance of clothing. I’ll never wear a polo again! In fact, I’m pretty sure that a cool front has blown in since I came up here, so I’ll pull on the jacket that I keep in my office before I go back out.”
The squeal that Keeley let out was easily heard from the pitch.