Chapter Text
The day following the confession is torture. Once they’d got up to the bedroom, neither of them had kept track of the time and he and Jamie are very nearly late for training. They rush into the locker room with no time to think about keeping up appearances. Everyone’s eyes snap up to them and Roy mumbles an excuse about traffic and walks straight into the coaches office. He gives the same excuse to them and thankfully no one seems to question it. His almost-lateness turns out to be a blessing in disguise as Ted doesn’t start with his usual small talk, just dives straight into discussing the drills for the day. Once they’ve gone through the plans, Roy risks a glance at Jamie and sees he’s already changed and laughing along with something one of the lads has said. He’s fucking beautiful when he laughs. He’s always beautiful. Fuck. Roy tears his eyes away from him. He turns his attention back to the coaches resolves to avoid staring at Jamie for the rest of training.
That, it turns out, is a much harder feat than anticipated. Jamie is working through every drill with his usual brilliance and grace and it’s hard not to stare, especially when it comes to the passing drills and Jamie’s in the centre of it all, commanding the field like he’s conducting an orchestra. He forces his attention onto the other players, watching them one at a time with laser focus and shouting out instructions before moving onto the next player. It seems to do the trick and gives Roy something to think about other than the image of Jamie in his bed that morning.
Ted calls the end of the drill and tells the players to take a rest and do some stretches, then sidles up next to Roy.
‘Everything alright with you and Jamie?’ Fuck, Roy had thought he’d been doing well.
‘Everything’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be?’ He responds, carefully keeping his voice and face neutral.
‘Just you haven’t said a word to him all training. A real blast from the past from when you were first coaching. Wanted to check there’s nothing I need to be concerned about.’
‘We’re fucking fine. He was fucking perfect, didn’t need me to say anything.’ Roy regrets the words as soon as they come out of his mouth. It’s not that they aren’t true - even though he’d been pointedly avoiding looking at Jamie, it was impossible not to see his influence as the ball made its way around the team - it’s the stupidly wide grin that spreads across Ted’s face.
‘Alright then, I’m glad to hear that. And I have to say I’ve been real pleased with how the two of you have been getting on this season. It’s certainly beyond my wildest hopes from back when I first met the two of you.’ Roy almost laughs at that. If only he knew all of it, he’d probably lose his fucking mind. Instead he just gives a vague grunt of agreement. If anyone had told him two years ago that he’d voluntarily move in with Jamie Tartt he’d think they’re crazy, though if he’s being completely honest with himself he’d have been a little less surprised about the fucking him part, even when he hated him he’d unfortunately been aware of exactly how attractive he was, and thoughts of pushing him against the wall and fucking him until he couldn’t speak may have popped into his head once or twice.
Roy tries not to ignore Jamie for the rest of the day, though that’s hard when every time he looks at him he just thinks of him in his bed. Not even the sex, though that was brilliant too, but after, when Jamie had laid down next to him looking totally blissed out, the way his smile had widened when he’d caught Roy staring. He has to snap himself out of his thoughts several times, but he makes it through the day with no disasters, at least until the end of the day when he gets up from his desk ready to leave and sees that Jamie isn’t there anymore. He panics. Has Jamie already left? Did he go back to his own house? Has he realised that he doesn’t actually want to live with Roy and everything he said that morning was just a heat of the moment thing? Had he realised that Roy was way too much and wanted nothing to do with him anymore? Roy feels his throat close up and something that feels suspiciously like tears form in his eyes. He’s absolutely not going to let anyone see him fall apart over this so he stalks out the locker room with his head down and straight out to his car. He doesn’t notice Jamie standing there until he almost walks straight into him. Jamie looks up at him with wide eyes.
‘Are you ok?’
‘I… thought you left.’ Roy blinks rapidly to try and cover up just how close he’d been to crying over this. God he’s pathetic.
‘Oh sorry. I umm… wasn’t sure if I’d be coming home with you.’
‘Of course you’re coming home with me, you fucking live there now. Unless you’ve changed your mind. I know it’s a lot. We can go slower, or forget about it all together if that’s-‘
‘Roy!’ Jamie cuts him off sharply. ‘Of course I haven’t changed my mind. I thought maybe you had. You’ve kind of been ignoring me all day.’ Jamie fiddles with his hands nervously and Roy realises he’s been a complete idiot.
‘Fuck, sorry. I’ve been ignoring you because I don’t know how to look at you without making it obvious how I feel and we haven’t talked about telling people yet so I didn’t… I was an idiot, sorry.’ Jamie’s face breaks out into a small grin.
‘Can’t resist me?’ he teases and Roy doesn’t even have a rebuttal for that, because no, he can’t. Jamie’s face turns a little more serious. ‘About telling people… I don’t mind. I don’t think I’m ready to go public yet but the team and coaches if you wanted to.’ Roy nods. It would probably be good for at least the coaches to know, make sure their relationship doesn’t fuck with playing at all, and the team will probably be annoying and tease them about it, but it will all be in good fun and Roy somehow doesn’t find the idea of it as abhorrent as he feels like it should be, in fact he almost feels warm imagining it.
They go home together and they don’t train that evening, just talk. They talk about how they’re going to tell people. Jamie’s going to tell his mum and Roy his sister (he’s going to wait a bit before telling Phoebe – he doesn’t want to break her heart too if it doesn’t work out). They don’t want to make a big announcement with the team, they’re just going to let it happen naturally, not bother being too discrete about it at the club. They talk about Jamie moving in. He’s not going to sell his house yet, it’s not like they need the money and this way he doesn’t have to move everything at once. They’ll make a trip over there after training tomorrow to pick up essentials and the rest can follow after. After they’ve got those topics out of the way they just talk about whatever, about football, about things they’ve seen on the TV, about anything that comes to mind. The conversation flows easily and when Roy goes to the kitchen to make dinner, Jamie follows him there and continues to natter on, asking all sorts of questions about what Roy’s making. They eat and Jamie raves about Roy’s cooking as he always does, then they clean up in sync with Jamie washing and Roy drying and putting things away. Then they plop themselves on the sofa and put on a random detective show that comes up on the TV. Jamie snuggles up into Roy and Roy puts an arm around him. It’s a fucking perfect evening and the best part about it is that Jamie doesn’t leave at the end. They go to bed together and it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
The next morning isn’t rushed like the previous one had been. They’re both reluctant to leave their positions of being cuddled up next to each other, but they make it out for a run and breakfast in plenty of time and end up arriving early for training. Roy has a few things to catch up on, having arrived late and left so abruptly the previous day so he goes straight to his office and Jamie wanders off to god knows where.
As the other coaches start filing in, Roy realises he’s going to have to figure out how to tell them about him and Jamie. Before he can figure it out, Higgins walks into the office looks a little confused and turns straight to Roy.
‘Hi Roy, Jamie just came into my office asking to change his address on the records and well… I thought I should check with you because it’s the same one we have down for you.’ Ah, so that’s where Jamie had wandered off to.
‘Yeah,’ he replies, no point in beating round the bush now, ‘we live together now.’ Beard lets out a gasp and Ted immediately swivels around on his chair so that he’s facing Roy with a grin from ear to ear.
‘Since when?’ he all but squeals.
‘Since yesterday. Also,’ he adds, figuring it’s best to get it all out the way at once, ‘we’re… together.’ He doesn’t really know how to describe exactly what he and Jamie are, dating doesn’t seem to quite cover it. Trent is the first to respond to that.
‘Together romantically?’
‘Yes,’ Roy confirms. If Ted and Beard’s squealing was bad before, it’s so much worse now. He also sees Beard not so subtly hand Trent a ten pound note. ‘We’re not making a fucking big deal about it. I’m telling you so you can make sure it doesn’t interfere with work.’ They settle down a bit but the grin on Ted’s face doesn’t subside.
‘Well from my perspective, if you’re happy, I’m happy.’ Roy looks out to the locker room and catches Jamie’s eye, who had obviously been watching all the commotion. Jamie smiles at him and Roy feels himself smiling back.
‘Yeah I’m happy.’
---
Every time Jamie wakes up with Roy’s arms around him he feels for a moment like he’s dreaming. Then he remembers he’s not and he feels on top of the fucking world. He’s not sure he’ll ever get used to this, used to waking up with Roy, going to bed with Roy, doing everything with Roy. He’s not sure if he’s been more than a hundred meters away from Roy even once since they got together. Keeley would probably say something about healthy boundaries or whatever, but Jamie doesn’t want boundaries and it doesn’t seem like Roy does either which is why Jamie is a little thrown when Roy informs him he’s going to be out the next evening and won’t be back until late.
‘What? Why? Where are you going?’
‘Yoga,’ Roy answers gruffly and Jamie’s eyes widen in surprise.
‘You do yoga? Wait why are you going to be back late? How long does yoga take?’ Jamie doesn’t know a lot about yoga but he’s pretty sure it isn’t usually a many hour activity. Roy lets out a long sigh.
‘We do yoga first then we watch shit TV and drink wine for the rest of the evening.’
‘We? Who’s we?’ Jamie is utterly baffled. He feels like he’s unlocking a whole new part of Roy’s life that he had no clue existed before.
‘The group of women in their sixties that I do yoga with,’ Roy says with an almost pained expression. Jamie’s eyebrows shoot right up to the top of his forehead.
‘Can I come?’
‘No!’ Roy barks out immediately, leaving Jamie feeling a little dejected. He knows he and Roy don’t have to do everything together, but he wants to meet Roy’s friends and the fact that Roy didn’t even think about it before saying no kind of hurts.
‘Why not?’ he wines, trying to make it seem like he’s just being annoying rather than actually hurt.
‘They can’t meet you.’
‘Why? Are they homophobic or something?’ That would make sense Jamie supposes, and it would mean it wasn’t anything about him specifically, though he wonders why Roy would willingly hang out with a bunch of homophobes.
‘Of course not.’ Roy lets out another long sigh. ‘They can’t meet you because they don’t know who I am. They don’t know shit about football and to them I’m just some bloke named Roy. But they know who you are because they watch fucking Lust Conquers All and if they met you I’d have to try and explain how I know you and they might find out the truth and I don’t want that because I like just being Roy sometimes.’
‘Oh… Yeah, I get that.’ Jamie’s still reeling from everything he’s just learnt about Roy, but he really does get it. He often wonders if people would like him if he wasn’t Jamie Tartt. If he had a bunch of friends who didn’t know who he was he doesn’t think he’d want to risk them finding out either. The tension that seems to have built up in Roy’s shoulders releases and he smiles at Jamie.
‘We could do an early dinner beforehand if you’d like? Just something simple.’ Jamie beams.
‘Yeah that would be fucking mint.’
Jamie’s glad Roy wants to make time for him even when he has other plans but he still doesn’t like the prospect of spending the rest of the evening alone, so as soon as he gets into training the next morning he asks the lads what their plans are for the evening.
‘Roy’s busy so I’ve got the evening free,’ he explains.
‘Well it’s your turn to host FIFA night bruv,’ Isaac says and the rest of the team murmurs in agreement.
‘Yeah, it’s been ages since you’ve hosted,’ Colin adds. Jamie realises he can’t remember the last time he had the lads round to play FIFA. He’d got out of the habit when they’d all been infatuated with Zava (he didn’t want that dickhead anywhere near his house) and with his training with Roy taking up most of his time, he’d never got round to inviting them again. It would be nice to get back to doing that regularly.
‘Sure. I mean I’ll have to check with Roy first but I’m sure he’ll be cool with it.’
‘Why do you have to check with Roy? I thought you said he was busy,’ Colin asks.
‘Well it’s his house too, so I should probably check it’s ok with him even if he’s not going to be in.’ Suddenly the whole dressing room erupts into chaos and Jamie belatedly realises he hasn’t gotten round to telling the lads about him and Roy yet.
‘You live with Roy!?’ someone shouts. It’s hard to work out who’s saying what with all their voices overlapping. Jamie grins. He’s already caused some chaos, why not create a bit more?
‘Of course we live together. He’s my fiancé.’ That causes the exact reaction he’d been hoping for. Anyone who wasn’t already paying attention whips up their head and the shouts grow louder and more unintelligible. ‘Oi lads, calm down. Can’t make out a word any of you are saying.’ The lads begin to settle down and they all automatically defer to Isaac as their spokesperson.
‘You and Roy are engaged?’ he asks. Jamie nods. ‘Since when?’
‘Last week.’ Isaac furrows his brow.
‘How long have the two of you been dating?’
‘’Bout a week.’
‘But you just said you got engaged a week ago.’
‘Yep.’ Jamie decides that he will absolutely not be elaborating on any of this. For starters is fucking hilarious to watch as the cogs try and turn in the teams brains, and second it feels private, like that morning in Roy’s house was just for the two of them, and he didn’t want to share it with anyone.
Something seems to break the team out of their stunned silence and suddenly they’re all talking over each other again. Isaac tries and fails to bring back a bit of order, but the shouting continues until Roy walks into the dressing room.
‘Oi, what the fuck are you all shouting about?’ The shouting dies down immediately. Sam’s the one to speak up.
‘Coach, is it true that you and Jamie are-‘
‘Yes,’ Roy cuts him off before he can finish. ‘No fucking questions. If you’re not out on the pitch in the next minute then you’re all doing an extra ten laps around the field.’ That gets everyone scrambling up and heading out of the door. A few of them stare at Roy and Jamie as the walk past, but no one lingers, the threat of ten extra laps being sufficient to prevent that. Soon Jamie’s the only one left.
‘You too Tartt, don’t think I’m going to go soft on you just because we’re…’ Roy gestures between the two of them. Jamie rolls his eyes.
‘Obviously you’re not going soft on me Coach. Just wanted to ask if you’d be ok with the lads coming over to play a bit of FIFA while you’re out?’ Roy stares at him for a while and his face pinches up into a slight look of disgust. Jamie worries to a moment that he’s going to say no, but then his face softens.
‘It’s your fucking house too, of course you can have friends over.’ He still doesn’t seem particularly happy about the idea and Jamie realises he probably hasn’t had anyone else from the team over before.
‘You sure? We can just go to Colin’s or something if you’d rather.’
‘I’m sure. Just as long as they don’t expect me to cook for them.’ He’s almost smiling now and Jamie relaxes a little bit.
‘Course not. I’ll tell them to come over after dinner.’ Roy nods.
‘Right, well fucking get out of here then, your minute is almost up.’ Jamie’s pretty sure it’s already been a minute. Maybe Roy is getting soft on him after all.
FIFA night with the lads is great, even though he has to keep stopping them from trying to snoop around Roy’s house. The sofa in Jamie’s old house had been picked out by an interior designer so it looks stylish but wasn’t particularly comfortable. Roy’s sofa is the opposite, definitely wouldn’t be described as stylish, but it’s comfortable as fuck and as such Jamie almost falls asleep on it multiple times throughout the evening and has to be jostled awake. By around 10pm they decide to take pity on him and all head out with a promise to do this again soon. Jamie should probably head up to bed, especially if Roy’s still going to expect them to wake up at 4 tomorrow, but Roy isn’t back yet, and Jamie has gotten accustomed to having Roy’s body in bed beside him over the last week, so he doesn’t much feel like going to sleep alone and decides to wait up for Roy. Though it turns out with Roy’s comfy sofa and no one to jostle him awake, it’s pretty much impossible to not fall asleep and within minutes he’s out cold.
He's only woken up again by someone placing him on a bed.
‘Roy…?’ he murmurs. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Putting you in bed you muppet. Why the fuck where you sleeping on the sofa?’
‘Didn’t want to go to bed without you.’
‘Idiot.’ Roy rolls his eyes but he’s also smiling, so he’s clearly not actually annoyed.
‘How was yoga?’
‘Good. Maureen’s got a new boyfriend so we heard all about him. Then I let slip I was seeing someone and they spent the rest of the evening interrogating me about you.’
‘Sorry.’ Roy furrows his eyebrows.
‘The fuck are you apologising for?’
‘You don’t want them to know about me.’
‘I don’t want them to know about me. It was… nice getting to tell them about you. Just had to leave out a few details. How was FIFA?’
‘The lads were asking about you too. Didn’t tell them much, but I liked it too.’ Roy nods and smiles softly, then places a kiss on Jamie’s temple and tucks the two of them into bed. Jamie’s about to fall back asleep when he suddenly hears Roy let out a loud ‘fuck!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘We haven’t told Keeley yet.’ Jamie’s eyes widen.
‘She’s going to be so mad if she hears it from someone else.’
‘I’ll invite her over for dinner tomorrow.’ Jamie nods in agreement. Sounds like a plan.
---
Keeley wakes up to a couple of text from Roy.
Would you like to come for dinner tomorrow?
Jamie will be there too.
She grins. Obviously whatever conversation Roy had had with him had gone well and she’s intrigued to see more of their new dynamic so a dinner with the two of them sounds great. She quickly checks her calendar and is relieved to find she doesn’t have any meetings finishing late, so shoots Roy a reply telling him she’ll be there.
The work day passes quickly. She finds herself oddly nervous as she stands outside Roy’s door. She’d consider herself friends with both Roy and Jamie now, but still she wonders if it will be weird having dinner with two of her exes, who may or may not now be dating each other.
Some of her nerves settle when Jamie opens the door and greets her with a wide smile.
‘Keeley! Good to see you! Roy’s in the kitchen cooking. It already smells fucking delicious so we’re in for a treat I reckon.’
‘Good to see you too!’ She opens her arms and Jamie instantly takes her up into a hug. It’s nice seeing him like this, so open and warm in a way he never was when they were dating. They wander into the kitchen together and Roy lifts his head and smiles as they walk in. He looks more relaxed than she’s seen him in a long time, perfectly at ease dealing with the various pans in front of him.
‘Glad you could come. I’m making curry.’
‘Smells great, I’m looking forward to it.’ She replies. Jamie perches himself on one of the stools next to the counter and she follows suit. They chat as Roy cooks. Jamie asks about her day, then recounts his own (and by extension Roy’s). The two of them do most the talking, with Roy chiming in occasionally. By the time dinner is ready, Keeley’s face almost hurts from smiling. It feels so natural spending time with the two of them like this, getting to be friends with both of them. She’s really glad it all worked out this way, even if it involved some heartbreak along the way. Though as much as she’s loving this new dynamic between the three of them, she still hasn’t got the answers she was hoping for in regards to their relationship with each other, so she decides to just straight up ask as soon as they’re all sat down with their food.
‘So, anything the two of you want to tell me?’ The two of them lock eyes and the way they look at each other is enough to give her the answer, but she still waits expectantly for them to actually say it.
‘We’re together,’ Roy says at the same time as Jamie says ‘We’re getting married!’ Keeley’s eyes widen in shock and she almost misses the glare Roy sends Jamie’s way and his answering eyeroll.
‘Alright!’ Jamie exclaims then turns back to her. ‘Roy’s being all weird about how he have to try living together and stuff for a while before we get married even though he’s the one who brought it up in the first place.’
‘You brought up marriage?’ She asks Roy and a blush spreads across his face.
‘Didn’t mean to,’ he mutters. ‘Just slipped out.’ She turns to Jamie to see if she can gauge anything more about his thoughts on the whole thing, and he’s smiling widely, looking at Roy with complete adoration.
‘Well it seems like it worked out.’
‘Yeah, only because this one seems to be just as fucking weird as I am.’ Roy looks at Jamie fondly and Jamie sits up proudly like he’d just been complimented. Keeley wonders if she should have predicted this. She’s known from the start that they’re both a lot more alike than they’d wanted to admit and they’re both very intense, so maybe she should have expected that it would end up like this once they finally got over themselves. But up until now she couldn’t have imagined the two of them looking at each other so lovingly, or Roy confessing that he wants to marry Jamie and Jamie having no qualms about that, despite the fact that they’ve only been dating for- Keeley realises she doesn’t know exactly how long they’ve been together. It’s only been a bit over a week since her dinner with Roy so it’s not been long regardless, but she wants to know the whole story.
‘Come on then, tell me how it happened. I want to know all the details.’
They launch into the story. Once again, Jamie does most the talking with Roy occasionally piping in (‘The little idiot didn’t even know if there would be kissing involved before saying yes!’). The story is incredibly sweet but also batshit insane and Keeley is so invested she hardly touches her food. The story gets to the point of Jamie dragging Roy up to what had just become their shared bedroom before Roy cuts Jamie off. Keeley lets out a moan of disappointment. She may no longer be interested in dating either of them but the idea of the two of them having sex is incredibly fucking hot and she’d have quite liked to know how it went.
‘What?’ Jamie also moans. ‘It’s Keeley, she’s had sex with both of us before.’
‘It’s fucking different. The shit we do is just for us. It’s none of her business.’
‘Aww,’ Jamie coos, giving Roy a wide smile. Keeley could almost throw up with how nauseatingly cute these two are.
‘No offence,’ Roy adds belatedly, looking at Keeley. She puts on a dramatic sigh.
‘Fine, I suppose I’ll have to do without hearing about your incredibly hot sex.’
‘It was so hot!’ Jamie exclaims, shutting his mouth immediately when Roy turns to him with a glare. Keeley can’t help but chuckle, and Roy’s mouth twitches into a slight smile too, instantly bringing back the wide grin on Jamie’s face. She hadn’t been sure what to expect for this dinner, but it certainly wasn’t this, certainly not something so absurd and yet so warm and solid.
‘Alright, alright,’ she raises her hands in mock surrender. ‘I won’t pry any further into your beautiful love story, but for what it’s worth, the two of you seem perfect together, even if I think you’re both completely mad.’
‘Thanks Keeley, we really appreciate it. And we really appreciate you.’ He turns briefly to Roy, a silent communication passing between them with a slight nod from Roy. ‘I don’t think either of us would be here without you, so thank you, for putting up with us and being a great friend even when we were being idiots.’
‘Of course, I love both of you, and I don’t think I can take too much of the credit. I know the both of you have done a lot of work to get here. There’s just one thing I want you to promise me.’
‘Yeah’, ‘Anything’ They both say.
‘Don’t stop putting in that work, yeah? You’ve got something great here. Don’t let yourself give up on it.’ They both take her words in very seriously and look at each other for a moment then her.
‘I won’t. I promise.’ Roy is the first to speak.
‘Yeah, me too.’ Jamie adds, grabbing onto Roy’s hand and gripping it tightly. Keeley’s pretty sure they’re going to be alright, and she for one, can’t wait to receive their wedding invite.