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She wishes she could say that she doesn’t know how it happened.
To put it simply, it’s a futile, desperate hope that parachutes up and away on a dandelion seed, floats toward greener pastures with dreams of germination only to be snatched out of the air by a toddler with sticky hands. So not only are those dreams of rebirth now crushed, but she’s covered in the mysterious, possibly nefarious substance that seems to be ever-present on the hands of children. Jam or glue or sweat, not that she would know. Not that it actually matters.
What matters is that she can’t feign ignorance with any credibility, can’t even convince herself that she was caught unaware, that she’d been so entangled in the moment it had been impossible to pause, extract herself, and take inventory. Because it hadn’t been one moment – it had been a series of moments that became progressively longer and more frequent until they hadn’t been moments at all, until they’d been days that had turned into weeks that had turned into months.
And all of that has culminated in this new, terrifyingly wonderful reality where Ted Lasso is as integral as breathing, a problem that would have been perfectly avoidable were Rebecca of a hardier constitution.
She knew what she was doing– what they were doing– recognized the intricate steps of this particular dance for what they were and chose to dance them anyway.
Is it still a trap if you walk into it knowingly?
Not that Ted would ever think to lay a trap for her.
Ted, who’s kind and good and bakes the very best biscuits she’s ever tasted, who was meant to be little more the collateral damage of a scorned woman and ended up becoming that woman’s best friend. Never before had failing felt quite so right.
Ted, who’s currently sat beneath her, a hand gripping one of the thighs bracketing him in and the other tangled in her hair, his mouth pressed against her own.
“Fuck me.” She drops her head against his shoulder, breathes the words into his neck. He smells like his cologne, but also like her, her own perfume and the hand soap from her kitchen and the particular wine she’s taken to drinking in the past few weeks.
She sits back enough to erect some distance between them, moving the hand that had been clutching the inside fabric of his jumper to press against her temple. The backs of her fingers burn where they’d been splayed against his undershirt, the material so thin she might as well have been touching the skin of his stomach.
Only she hadn’t been touching his skin, a fact that’s sure to haunt her forever. The thought borders on histrionics, she knows, but it certainly doesn’t feel like exaggeration in this moment.
It feels like heartbreak; in this finite moment that will never repeat itself, that she won’t permit to turn into days and weeks and months, into a lifetime, it feels like a tragedy.
But there is no life in this, not for Rebecca, and she knew that.
She knew that.
She nearly topples over in her haste to stand, Ted’s hand moving from her thigh to her hip to brace her, keeping her on her feet, and that, his hold steady and warm and splayed wide, fingers lightly gripping, sends her retreating further. She catches herself from falling this time, staggers backward on shaky legs lest she fling herself back onto his lap, and holds his gaze for only a second before she can bear it no longer and looks away. The devastation in his eyes is difficult to misconstrue.
It’ll be impossible to forget.
“I- gosh, I’m sorry, Rebecca. I don’t… I shouldn’t have–”
“No, Ted,” she cuts in. It feels strange to speak, as though her lips have forgotten how to form the proper shapes required for speech, as though they were rewired the moment they touched Ted’s, and oh, he would love that, wouldn’t he?
But she can’t let him speak, not when his voice is low and gravelly, accent thick, not when he sounds so terribly sad that she feels her resolve weaken. It’s her fault. She did that to him.
She folds her arms beneath her breasts, tightens them around her stomach and pulls in an unsteady breath. “You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. Please, don’t apologize.”
“It sure don’t seem that way,” he says after a moment, looking for all the world like he’s to blame even though she was the one who had first kissed him.
“I promise,” she reassures him. “It’s not you, Ted. It’s m…”
The realization of what she’d been on the verge of saying strikes her too late, however true it might be, and incredulity twists his features further.
“Yanno,” he starts, blowing out a breath. “I didn’t think people actually said that IRL. That means ‘in real life’, BT Dubs. That means–”
“I know what it means, Ted.”
“Right, right. Anyway, I always thought that that’s just what people said when they tell their friends how their partner broke up with ‘em, but I guess cliched sayings are cliches for a reason.”
She doesn’t have ample time to worry over what she might say to that before he’s plowing on, eyes wide and earnest with a slightly frenetic shine in them. She knows what he’s doing – the rambling allows for a certain distance, his safety net when the words he’s hearing or the words he wants to say are too much – but she’s unsure how to stop him, if she even should.
“But hey, look Rebecca. You don’t owe me an explanation. At all. I mean, I’m always standing on that metaphorical frontline of ‘no means no’, yanno? And your ‘no’? Heard it loud and clear, my dear. Oh, shoot! Forget that. I didn’t mean to–”
“Ted,” she interrupts as gently as possible. He seems relieved, doesn’t even start up again when she has to take a pause to consider her next words. “It really isn’t you. You… you are wonderful.”
“C’mon now, boss. You don’t gotta say that.”
“It’s the truth. I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t.” She doesn’t expect those words to evoke more malcontent, but his face contorts briefly, looks a bit like he’s had the air knocked out of him, so she barrels on. “I just mean that you are one of the very best people I know in the world. Anyone would be lucky to have you in their life. You’re… well, you’re practically perfect.”
She waits the appropriate length of time for the Mary Poppins reference, selfishly eager to have him break the tension, but it doesn’t come. He only nods, stares at some indeterminable point on the floor, his forehead creased and his mouth shaped into a crooked line. She wants to press her lips to his just to smooth it out.
She wants him to look at her, to read on her face everything she can’t find the words to say. Wants him to understand that she believes everything she’s telling him, that he really is the most wonderful person in the world and that she feels terribly lucky to have been given the privilege of knowing him, that she won’t dare ask for more, no matter how badly…
“Just not for you,” he mutters. Something strangled crawls from her throat, his eyes snapping up to meet hers, and hoping for that was a mistake, too.
He looks like he has something to mourn.
“Ted, I–”
“Nah, boss, don’t you sweat it.” He’s on his feet and smoothing out his clothes before she knows what’s happening. “We’re all good, scout’s honor. And I actually was a scout, so don’t go worrying over my authenticity. If you want, I reckon I could get in touch with the ol’ Skipper: real nice fella, friends with him and his son on Facebook. Yanno, in case you wanna check my references.”
He smiles at her, eyes squinting and dimples surfacing, but it’s devoid of his usual mirth, the joy that nearly always presents itself when he looks at her.
She did that, and it’s terrible in a way that few things are capable of being terrible these days, and she wants to cry, to beg him to understand what she can’t say, but that wouldn’t end well, either.
She doesn’t say anything, and he nods once more before he goes to let himself out.
“I’ll see you Monday mornin’, boss.”
“I kissed Ted.”
Keeley pauses mid-greeting in Rebecca’s doorway, her eyes growing wide and moonlike. She stutters out something unintelligible before shouldering past Rebecca into the house.
Rebecca’s answer is immediate.
“Alright,” she says. Rebecca closes the door and turns to meet her head-on. “On a scale of one to holy fuckshit, how badly are we freaking out about this?”
“Holy fuckshit,” Rebecca says immediately. She takes a breath and tacks on, “And then some.”
“Right.” Keeley takes her hands and guides her into the living area, pushes her onto the couch and makes for the wine fridge.
It’s Sunday, two days after she’s last seen or heard from Ted and one day before she’s set to see him again, and she’d rung Keeley in a panic a half hour ago. Despite her new job and her big girl responsibilities, Keeley rushed right over because she’s Rebecca’s friend and a good person and probably hadn’t remotely considered the absolute lunacy she’d be walking in on when she agreed to come.
“Let’s hear it,” Keeley says, pushing a glass of wine into Rebecca’s hand and dropping down next to her. “From the top.”
Rebecca downs the glass in one go, and then she tells Keeley about the biscuits and the gala gown, the tearful confessions in the alleyway and the way Ted had gathered her into his arms and not let go, not even when she’d frozen and hadn’t known what to do at first, hadn’t known how to react to a seemingly selfless, kind touch. She tells her about the boys using their bodies to spell out a message to her on the pitch, about the gaffer who dotted the i, about painting his fingernails because she couldn’t decide on a shade and he’d offered up his own hands.
She tells her that those weeks after their promotion when Ted had left for Kansas to visit Henry were perhaps more disorientating than the first weeks he’d been at Richmond. There were no biscuits, no first/best questions, no winding tales about someone’s nephew’s pony named Rainbow Sparkles that he’d somehow managed to relate to her dislike of camping. There were no knowing eyes or dimpled smiles except through a screen, and she’d ached for the loss in ways she never expected.
“The day he came back…,” Rebecca says quietly, gripping the stem of her glass. She closes her eyes, still feeling the soft fabric of his navy sweater on the pads of her fingers, the warmth of his body on the backs of them.
“That’s when you knew?”
“That’s when I knew,” she sighs. “Granted, I hadn’t planned on actually doing anything about it. But then I’d turn to look at him, and the way he looked at me, sometimes, made me wonder…”
Made her wonder if he wanted her as badly as she wanted him. Somewhere during those months —between casual touches (a hand resting lightly on the small of her back while quitting a room, her taking his arm when walking to and from places, the both of them leaning instinctually into the contact) and evenings that turned into nights that turned into one of them crashing at the other’s place, and surveying a room to find him only to see that he’d already found her, his eyes kind and reverent and staring at her like he was looking at something precious and impossible, when in reality he’d only been looking at her — she learned that he did want her in the way that she wanted him.
In the way she wants him still, always and forever, so encompassing it allows no space for stipulations or contemplation.
“Oh yeah, babe. Ted’s always looked at you like that.”
“He has not.”
“He so has. You just didn’t notice because you weren’t looking.”
“Maybe,” she concedes, for it doesn’t really matter whether Ted has always looked at her like that or not.
What matters is that she knew where they were heading and she didn’t put a stop to it. What matters is that in the months since he’s been back, she’s found herself seeking out his gaze from the owner’s box and losing track of time more than she ever had before during biscuits with the boss, arranging her meetings so that they never cut her Ted-Time short in the mornings. They sometimes do breakfast, and usually lunch, and he goes with her to pick out birthday gifts for her mum and for Sassy and Nora, and she with him for Henry. She even helps him post them, though she still maintains that it’s not her job.
But it’s also not her job to love him, so she figures she’ll be allowed a few more exceptions.
“God, Rebecca, that’s almost sickening,” Keeley says, nose scrunched up. “Like, in an ‘I ate too many marshmallows and chocolate chips and feel like I’m gonna barf’ sweetness overload kinda way.”
“It’s not sweet, Keeley,” she groans, standing to refill their glasses. “It’s terrible. Awful. The absolute worst thing that could possibly happen.”
“Even worse than Sam?”
“Yes,” she says immediately, depositing her glass in the sink and drinking from the bottle’s neck instead, offering it up to Keeley upon her return. “I cared about Sam. I still do, if not in that way anymore, of course. But it’s different with Ted, because he’s… well he’s—”
“Because he’s proper in love with you?” she asks. Rebecca bumbles through a protest, but Keeley holds up a finger threateningly. “And because you’re proper in love with him?”
“Fuck!” She snags the bottle back from her friend. “Yes. No. I don’t know.” She takes a sip. “Apart from you, he’s my best friend. I can’t lose him.”
“I don’t think there’s even a remote possibility of you losing him, babe,” her friend says. “He’s mad about you! Roy told me that the boys have a bet going for whether Ted can make it through training without breaking away to talk to you.”
Rebecca scoffs. “He doesn’t come up every training to—”
“Yelling through your window counts,” she points out. Rebecca flushes, which sets Keeley giggling. “See? Now, tell me how you go from being in love with your gaffer to being in love with your gaffer and shagging him.”
“I didn’t shag him!”
“You swear?” Keeley asks, pinky finger extended skyward. “I wouldn’t blame you. Ted’s fit!”
Rebecca agrees, but she only sighs and links her pinky through Keeley’s.
“Yes, I swear. I told you: we kissed.”
“Are we talkin’ a polite goodnight kiss? Or more of a ‘one hip shift away from a home run’ kiss?”
“In the middle, I suppose.” Keeley quirks an eyebrow. “Fine. Leaning more toward the second one.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere! Okay, so who jumped who?”
“I… I didn’t jump him.” She shoots Keeley a withering glare, but the woman’s grin only widens. “Alright, maybe I jumped him a little. I don’t think he minded.”
“Of course he didn’t bloody mind! Did you forget the bit where you’re the sexiest person in every bloody room you walk into?” Her smile is so wide, Rebecca worries for her jaw. “And the bit where he’s in love with you?”
“I do wish you’d stop saying that.”
“It’s true, and you know it. But fine,” she huffs, holding up her hands in mock surrender. “Oh, I know! Did you lay one on him mid-ramble? I always figured that’s how you’d do it.”
“No...” She cocks her head. “Have you thought about this a lot?”
“Stop changing the subject, you unfairly fit woman!” Keeley says, though the tops of her cheeks are beginning to pink. Rebecca doesn’t think it’s from the wine. “So if not mid-line, how did you end up locking lips with Lasso?”
Despite herself, Rebecca chuckles at that, and then sets about thinking of how to answer Keeley’s question, wonders how much would be too much to give away.
In the end, she tells her everything.
It was a normal Friday night, meaning that she and Ted would either be going for dinner at the pub or staying in to cook. They chose to stay in at hers this particular Friday, both dropping by the supermarket on the way back from the club. Ted had promised to make her his mom’s lasagna, which he claimed would “knock her socks off.”
“I’m not wearing socks, Ted,” she joked, extending a leg to poke him gently in the calf with the tip of her heel. His gaze locked in on an expanse of skin left exposed where her dress had ridden up, a small ways above her knee on her inner thigh, before he checked himself and gave a bashful grin.
“Idiom, baby,” he said, and then he winked, and she nearly fell ass over tit in the middle of Sainsbury’s.
Thankfully, they returned to the flat without further mishap, and he set about pulling everything they’d purchased out of the bags and lining the ingredients on the island.
“Put me in, coach,” she said when he’d successfully unearthed the necessary bakeware from her cabinets, most of which he either purchased himself when he’d deemed her supplies lacking or found nestled on a high, forgotten shelf. His attention turned from the box of noodles in his hands to her, a grin urging the corners of his mouth up.
“I have half a mind to keep you benched after the last incident, young lady,” he said, and they both laughed as they recalled the last time she’d offered her assistance. How she had managed to let the pancakes catch fire in the few minutes he’d been gone to the loo, neither of them could have said.
Luckily for them, Coach Lasso is well educated on protocol in the event of a kitchen fire.
“That’s probably the safest option.”
She rose from the stool and moved around him to retrieve a bottle of wine, because that she could manage perfectly well without incident, and resisted the call to stamp a kiss on his cheek as she made for the drawer with the corkscrews.
“You can help if you want to,” he said after she’d passed him a glass. From anyone else, it might have been a concession. From Ted, she knew that it was a genuine offer.
“I was only being polite,” she responded, a coy smile tugging at her lips as she reseated herself. “Besides, I much prefer to watch you.”
She really shouldn’t have been teasing him all things considered, but the flush on his cheeks, the little grin he’d struggled so valiantly to tamp down, the way his gaze had rapidly bounced between her and the space in front of him as though he couldn’t bear to look away from her any more than he could bear to look directly at her — she had been ultimately powerless to resist.
The lasagna did, indeed, knock her socks off. He’d even managed to convince her to eat a second helping, which is what had led to her lying back on the couch with a full stomach and groans falling from her lips, her head pillowed on his lap.
“Damn you, Lasso,” she grumbled, and when he chuckled, she felt his body shake with it. His fingers carded through her hair, and she felt so content she could have fallen asleep.
“I told ya. Best dang lasagna you ever tasted, huh?”
“It was, indeed,” she confirmed, and his answering, pleased hum shot right through her. Like lightning.
Damn you, Kent.
She angled her face into his stomach, his fingers moving seamlessly to trace the exposed plane of her cheek, trailing from her brow-bone to her temple, gliding down to linger briefly on the skin just beneath her lower lip before returning upward. She felt every brush like electrical sparks upon her skin.
“So what makes it so good?” she asked after a moment, if only to distract herself from the roiling in her stomach that had very little to do with its fullness.
“Hmm?”
“The lasagna.” Her head tilted to lay flat against his thigh once more. She thought maybe he’d been dozing off, but when she opened her eyes to look up at him, she saw that he was gazing down at her.
“Oh,” he said with a grin, gently untangling a knot he’d come across. “That, ma’am, would be the secret ingredient.”
“The secret ingredient?” Her mouth curved to sport a grin of her own. “And what might that be?” His smile widened above her, a beloved dimple making itself known. “What? Have I not got the clearance for it?”
“Well,” he drawled, and she felt that shoot through her, too. “It wouldn’t be very much of a secret if I told ya, now would it?”
She leveled him with a playful glare. “Did you spit in it?”
“Did I what?” he choked out, laughter rumbling through him and catching her up in it. “Did I spit in it?”
“Well, did you?”.
“You were right there the whole dang time! Did you see me spit in it?”
“I could have gotten distracted and missed it,” she countered easily, because the truth was that she had, in fact, gotten distracted multiple times. He likely could’ve gotten up to a whole roster of unseemly practices and she would’ve been none the wiser, too focused on watching the muscles of his forearms work to notice much else.
He laughed again, nails gently scraping her scalp and sending frissons through her. She really needed to extract herself before she did something stupid; she was in a very opportune position should she decide that she wanted to do something stupid.
“Cinnamon,” he said eventually. She lifted herself into a sitting position despite everything in her protesting the act, and bent a knee to lay between them, sliding in a bit closer to make up for the loss of touch.
“Really?”
“Really, really,” he said, his fingers twisting together in his lap. She worried for a moment that he’d been on the verge of having a panic attack, but his breathing came normally and his face appeared calm. She took one of his hands in her own, though, just to be sure, and the corners of his lips quirked up, his head turning to angle toward her from where it had been resting against the back of the couch
“And the biscuits?”
“Your biscuits?”
“Mhm,” she hummed, running her thumb along one of his knuckles. “What’s the secret ingredient there?”
“Oh.” There was a quality to his voice that struck her as odd, something perhaps tinged with embarrassment, and she lifted her gaze to his face. His cheeks were flushed, his head turned back to a neutral position.
“What? Do you spit in those?”
He laughed again, but it sounded a bit forced, and his cheeks had deepened in color. She hadn’t expected the question to spark such a reaction, but her curiosity was certainly peaked.
“Ted?” She squeezed his hand lightly. He lifted his head from the couch and turned to mirror her position, his gaze finding her own and holding it for a moment.
“Well,” he began, sucking in a breath. “That would be a dash of vanilla and a heapin’ spoonful of love, ma’am.”
She stared for what seemed to her a long while until, suddenly, it clicked, sharp and jarring inside her, her mouth falling open and her grip on his hand tightening. She watched him watch her, his eyes darting between her own eyes, her mouth, their entwined hands, and she could see the anxiety that his confession had unspooled inside him, was awed by the courage it must have taxed him to give it to her.
From anyone else, it might have been a line. From Ted, she recognized it for what it was.
“Fucking hell,” she muttered, and the last thing she saw before she launched herself across the space separating them was his face scrunched rather endearingly in confusion.
“And then you shagged him!” Keeley squeals, clapping her hands together. A pair of cymbals and a jaunty suit and she’d be fit for the toy shop, Rebecca thinks.
“I did not shag him.”
Keeley shrugs. “Just figured I’d try my luck one more time.”
“However many times you ask the question, the answer will stay the same.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Keeley waves her off. “And then you snogged him a bit before losing your shit and kicking him out.”
Rebecca freezes.
“I didn’t kick him out,” she responds with a hint of indignation.
“But you lost your shit, yeah?” There’s pity in Keeley’s eyes, and Rebecca despises it because she knows it’s deserved, knows that what she did was pitiful and pathetic and borderline cruel. “Hey, now. It’s alright, babe,” Keeley coos, and she doesn’t realize she’s crying until Keeley swipes her thumbs beneath her eyes. “It’s Ted. He’ll forgive you.”
“He won’t,” she mutters, knowing it’s untrue even as she says it. She knows he’d forgive her nearly anything if she asked it of him, because he’s just so bloody good.
“You know he will, Rebecca.” She takes the bottle from Rebecca’s hands and sets it on the end table, scooting closer until she’s near enough to wrap her arms around Rebecca’s body.
She’s so small in stature, but Rebecca has rarely ever felt so shielded, so protected, and she rests her head atop Keeley’s and allows herself to be comforted in the way that Keeley, herself, once taught her how.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Keeley says after a bit, and Rebecca huffs because she should’ve known better. Keeley doesn’t want to simply comfort her; she wants to help make it better, and there is no making this better.
“There’s nothing left to say,” she says. Keeley tilts her head up, forces Rebecca to meet her eyes, and waits.
In a testament to how much she loves and trusts this little lion of a woman, she’s finally able to voice her fear. It’s staggeringly simple for how much power it wields over her: she doesn’t deserve Ted.
If she wasn’t enough for Rupert, how is there a hope in hell that she could ever be enough for Ted? And yes, she’s accepted— with Keeley’s help and not a small amount of introspection— that Rupert’s treatment of her was largely dependent on his own shittiness as a person and not indicative of her deficits, but no amount of reassurance in the world could persuade her of her goodness being a match for Ted’s.
He deserves someone as good as him, only because she’s of the firm belief that there isn’t anyone better. He’s not perfect, but he’s accountable and dependable and so kind it makes her teeth itch just thinking about it, and she will never hold a candle to that raging fireball of goodness, no matter what strides she’s made in recent years.
“That is utter horseshit, Rebecca,” Keeley interrupts, and Rebecca’s surprised to hear that her voice is pitched and wobbly.
“I thought you wanted me to be honest.”
“Oh, babe,” Keeley mutters, reaching up to wipe away moisture from beneath her own eyes. “That’s not honesty. That’s Rupert, may his soul burn in the pits. That’s you believing the worst of yourself because that’s what he taught you believe.”
“No, I—”
“Yes, Rebecca.” Steel threads between her words, and Rebecca instantly falls silent. “You trust me, yeah?”
“Of course.”
“Then believe me. Every nasty thing you believe about yourself comes from that vile, piece-of-shit scumbag,” she spits out. “You are good enough for Ted. You’re kind and smart and funny, not to mention insanely fucking fit. Have I ever told you that before?”
“Once or twice,” Rebecca manages.
“Oh, good. Anyway, you’re a catch, babe. I mean, have you done right shitty things in the past? ‘Course you have! We all have. Did I tell you about the time I took a piss in my schoolmate’s book bag?”
That gives her pause.
“I thought you did a shit in her locker?”
“Separate occasion, but yeah, did that too,” Keeley confirms, and suddenly Rebecca is laughing. Hiccuping, riotous laughter in the joyous thrall of the best friend she’s ever had, and she doesn’t know what she’s done to deserve Keeley in her life, but she vows not to let a day pass without reminding her that she’s appreciated.
“God, I love you,” she sighs, tucking her face in Keeley’s neck. A small hand comes to cradle the back of her head, the laughter fading away. “Do you promise?”
It’s a whisper between them, but she doesn’t have to elaborate, doesn’t need to explain to Keeley that she has to know for sure, needs to be absolutely, unequivocally certain that she’s worthy of loving Ted. Of being loved by him in return.
“Positive.” She leans back enough to place a small kiss on Rebecca’s nose. “And I love you, too.”
Keeley has to convince Rebecca to wait until she’s sobered up before trekking across London to Ted’s flat.
“He doesn’t live across London! He’s a 15 minute walk in that,” she flings her arm out, “direction!”
“Babe, I promise that you will be thanking me for making you wait,” Keeley insists, reaching for the hand left hovering midair and using it to pull Rebecca into the kitchen.
“Fine,” she huffs, dropping into a stool and watching as Keeley busies herself with making tea.
“Fuck, you’re cute when you pout. The only form of payment I’ll accept for that imminent gratitude is a kiss on the lips.”
“Sure,” she says. Keeley’s shock is visible on her face. Rebecca smirks. “If you can reach.”
“I’ll climb you like a tree, Rebecca Welton,” she professes, grabbing a dish towel and flinging it at the blonde. “Don’t think I won’t!”
She has to convince Rebecca to make the 15 minute walk to Ted’s flat once she’s sober.
“He hates me.”
“He does not hate you.”
“I was horrid to him. You didn’t see his face, Keeley. It was heartbreaking.”
“Right,” she says, using her body weight to tug Rebecca toward the front door. “So go over there, kiss him, and make it better.”
“I hate you.”
“You don’t.”
“You’re right,” she groans, stooping to press a quick peck to Keeley’s lips. “I don’t.”
She’s halfway down the front walk when she hears Keeley squeal. The smile doesn’t leave her lips until she’s nearly to Ted’s flat.
She allows herself one full minute of pacing in front of Ted’s building — and then an added 30 seconds because she’s already decided that she’s pathetic, so what’s the harm?— before she starts up the steps.
Another two minutes is spent before his door in serious contemplation of her life choices and an inner debate over how exactly she’ll murder Keeley and dispose of her body — it’s tiny, so she imagines it won’t be terribly difficult.
She knocks, and very nearly doubles back and runs. Runs where? She doesn’t know. Away. Far, far away. Maybe she’ll pay a visit to Queen Lillian, ask her how she managed to sweep her beau off his lily pad without colossally fucking up both of their lives.
She wonders if Ted’s seen Shrek, thinks he probably has if his obvious appreciation for a good soundtrack is—
“Hey, Rebecca.”
She hadn’t heard the door open, hadn’t even been turned to face it, and she’s not ready dammit, but she turns toward the sound of his voice anyway, a million, fuckface butterflies erupting in her gut.
He’s obviously a bit surprised to see her, but he doesn’t seem upset or angry, doesn’t look like he’ll slam the door in her face. He’s even smiling, just enough to lift his cheeks, to soften his eyes, and she knows she’s a cliché, might even be a serious contender in giving Bridget Jones and Anna Scott and Kathleen Kelly a run for their money, but everything, honest to God, goes quiet.
“Hi, Ted,” she says. Her voice is steady, and she smiles at him, and the fuckface butterflies disappear as his own smile grows. “Can I come in?”
“‘Course you can,” he says immediately, opening the door without a moment of hesitation. She brushes past him and wonders how she thought for a moment that she could be without him when she loves him so dearly.
“Just…” he starts, eyes darting from her to the coffee table. His laptop is set up, the little green light shining and indicating an ongoing call.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Ted. I didn’t mean to…”
She hears movement from the other side of the screen and wonders what Henry is up to, thinks idly about a future where she might be welcome during these FaceTimes with him. Hopes desperately that he’ll like her, because she knows without any reservations that she’ll like him.
“Nah, just give me one sec.” He holds up a finger crookedly in her direction as he makes his way around the couch.
“Ted?” A voice calls from the screen. It doesn’t belong to Henry. “Is everything alright?”
“All good, Robin Hood,” Ted responds, dropping onto the couch. Rebecca walks further into the flat, the compulsion to see his screen replacing any thoughts of propriety. “Little John just showed up, though, so I’m gonna have to cut this short. Sorry ‘bout that.”
“That’s alright,” says the disembodied voice. Rebecca creeps closer, sees a flash of wavy blonde hair and tan skin and red lips. “Are we still on for tomorrow?”
“You betcha!” He smiles at the woman. “And hey, thanks again. Don’t know what I’d do without ya.”
“Anytime, Ted,” she coos, voice syrupy sweet and soft, and Ted’s smile widens, and Rebecca wants to vomit. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He closes the laptop, and Rebecca knows that she should at least pretend that she wasn’t being a nosy old crone, standing over his shoulder and staring at the woman on the screen, but she’s rooted to the spot.
“Can I getcha some tea, boss?” Ted asks, rising and moving toward the kitchen. When there’s no immediate response, he changes course, coming to stand before her. She won’t look at him. “Rebecca?”
“I…” She can’t find the words. She had them, had so many words that she might even have been able to outtalk him, but they’re gone now. She swallows.
“You alright?” There’s confusion and concern, and he pitches his voice low like he’s worried he might upset her, which is ridiculous because she’s the one who showed up without notice at his flat, behaving like some mute madwoman.
He raises a hand, then seems to second guess himself, leaves it hovering awkwardly in the space between him. He’s afraid to touch her, she realizes, and it serves to snap her out of the daze.
“I’m sorry, Ted,” she says again, gaze locked in on his twitching fingers. “I shouldn’t have… I should’ve called. I didn’t mean to interrupt…” She waves a hand toward the coffee table, toward the laptop where he’d been speaking with the woman before she showed up. “I should go.”
“Now hold your horses there, little lady,” he says immediately. “It’s A-okay. We were just about finished anyway.”
She blinks. Nods. Watches as he pulls out a kitchen chair and gestures to it because he still won’t touch her. And she’s glad for that, she thinks as she plops down gracelessly, because she doesn’t know what she’d do if he touched her, doesn’t know how she’d resist begging him to love her instead of whoever that woman is.
“I’m gonna make you a cup of tea,” he decides, and she nods again. He goes through the motions with an ease that suggests he’s done this before, and she knows intimately how much he abhors the beverage, can’t help but wonder if he keeps tea in his flat and knows how to make it because he’s made it for her.
“Here ya are.” He places the cup before her, drops down into the adjacent chair. It looks to be a perfectly prepared cup, but it makes her nauseated.
“I shouldn’t have come,” she says, watching the steam curl through the air.
“Well, if it’s any consolation,” he says after a moment, “I’m glad you did.”
“You are?”
She looks at him, finally, and wants to disappear. He just looks so sad, though she can’t fathom why. Maybe she’s infecting him with her own sorrow.
She should leave.
“Of course I am,” he says softly. He clearly hasn’t shaved, a couple days’ worth of stubble covering his cheeks, his chin, spreading down his neck. She wants to drop kisses down the column of his throat. Wants to run her fingertips along his mustache, press her thumb gently into his lower lip, coax it open enough to kiss him there, too.
She forces down a sip of the tea because he made it for her and because he’s looking at her like he worries about her.
“This is… surprisingly good,” she says slowly, choosing the words carefully.
“Why, thank ya,” he responds easily, a genuine smile ticking his lips up. “I’ve been practicin’.”
Something cracks open inside her chest, halts the breath in her throat.
God, she’s an idiot. Of course he wouldn’t love her, would have already found someone beautiful and kind and more worthy of his affections. Someone more wonderful.
Rebecca pictures it easily: the woman from the laptop with her curly hair wet from the shower, long and shining and soaking through the back of one of his t-shirts, one with a Kansas team’s logo on it. She would come up behind him in the kitchen, wrap her arms around his body and place a kiss to the nape of his neck while he made her tea. She’d have to rise up on her tiptoes to reach, and he’d turn and smile, swivel them so he could lift her up onto the countertop and kiss her properly.
“Rebecca?” Ted’s voice cuts through the vision like a stone disrupting the clearness of still water, and the woman’s face, already murky, washes away entirely.
“I love you,” she says on an exhale. “And I know I have no right to tell you that, but… I don’t know that I could forgive myself if I didn’t. Not that I deserve even that much, but I’m selfish.” She sets the cup down, slams her eyes closed and wills away tears. “It’s selfish of me to love you, and it’s even more selfish of me to tell you that I love you, but I trekked across London so I could. And now I have, so I’ll just…”
She motions toward the door and rises from her chair, the legs grating as they slide across the floor. She’s crossing into the entryway when she feels his hand encircle her forearm, the touch light but enough to strike her motionless.
“Why?” he asks, tugging gently on her arm, urging her to turn and face him. She can’t, can’t look at him and see how terribly she’s fucked this all up, but he tugs again, so she does.
“Why what?”
“You said it was selfish of you. Selfish to…” He loses traction, swallows around the words that he apparently can’t bring himself to say.
“To love you,” she finishes for him. Disbelief softens the lines of his face, and he stares, eyes wide and mouth agape. “Yes.”
He clears his throat. “Why is it selfish, Rebecca?”
“Because it just is, Ted,” she says, perhaps a bit too harshly, regrets it instantly when his mouth snaps closed and his forehead creases. It’s unfair of her to be aggravated that he isn’t understanding something she hasn’t explained.
She tries again.
“You’re wonderful,” she begins, an echo of the other night. “Arguably the best person in the world. Anyone would be lucky to have you, and whoever she is…” She breaks off, feels an emotion well up in her throat that makes it difficult to speak. “She is lucky to have you. I’m sure she’s wonderful, too, and better for you than I ever could be.”
He blinks at her, sucks in a breath like he’s about to interrupt, so she spits out her next words.
“And it was selfish of me to begin with, to love you, even without her in the picture. Because you’re… you’re you. You’re Ted bloody Lasso, and I’m not—” She gasps in a breath, vision blurring. “I’ll never—”
“Rebecca, stop. You—”
“I’m so sorry, Ted,” she interrupts, presses a shaking hand against her abdomen and blinks away tears. She tries for a more measured breath and somewhat succeeds. “I’m sorry to put this on you; that… it was selfish of me, and I’m sorry. Truly. Please know that I won’t allow this to affect our working relationship.” She grabs her purse and shrugs it on her shoulder. “Richmond will be lucky to have you for as long as you choose to stay. And I’ll be lucky to count you as a friend. If you’ll still have me, that is.”
She nods succinctly, as though that settles it, wipes away the tears that managed to escape, and turns to leave, hand wrapping around the doorknob.
“Rebecca Welton, don’t you even think about openin’ that door.”
Somehow, she hears him over the sound of her heart thundering in her ears, and she freezes. He sounds almost angry, which she supposes she deserves.
“Turn around.”
She sucks in a shaky breath, holds it for a brief moment, and lets it out. Against her better judgment, she turns, finds herself practically chest to chest with him. She doesn’t know when he’d gotten so close.
“Do you mean it?” he asks. His breath is warm on her face, and he smells of peanut butter, and her brain short circuits.
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He nods his head, squeezes his eyes shut for barely a moment before he opens them again, and lets out a quick breath through his nose. It almost sounds like a laugh. “Good. That’s real good.”
And then he’s kissing her, dipping his head the barest amount because he has to when she’s flat-footed and she’d come over wearing her trainers, so she cranes her neck slightly and meets him in the middle.
It’s the easiest thing in the world to kiss Ted Lasso, to let him pull her body against his with an arm curved around her waist, to tilt her head to the side when the hand on her cheek urges her to. He opens his mouth, and his tongue tastes of peanut butter and a bit like whiskey, so she knows that she’s not the only one who’s partaken in day-drinking.
She feels drunk all over again.
Feels her back hit the wall, the hand that had been on her cheek now cushioning the back of her head. Feels the drag of his mustache against her face, relishes in the scrape of it— because it’s him, because she’ll be aware of all the places he’s touched her even after she leaves his flat. A burn that soothes.
Feels his hands grip her waist, her shoulder, her thigh, feels him urging her to hook her leg around his waist so he can press in closer, and she does, and he does, and he’s everywhere.
She feels reckless and alive and wonderful. Feels like she could be the most wonderful person in the world, if only he never stopped kissing her, if only he would love her.
“I love you,” he says against her mouth, and she pulls away, cups both of his cheeks in her hands, and laughs in wonder.
His lips are swollen, pupils blown, breaths coming quick and shallow, and he’s looking at her in the way she now remembers him always having looked at her, like she’s the one responsible for configuring the whole of the night sky, except now she knows what it means.
“Are you sure?”
Later, when the adrenaline has dissipated and she’s alone with only her recollection of this moment, she’ll likely be mortified, but now…
“I’m sure, sweetheart,” he says. “Sure as I’ve ever been about anythin’.”
It’s easy to believe Ted once you know him, and she does know him. Her body sags in relief, leg dropping back to the floor and head falling onto his shoulder, his arms tightening their hold around her so she doesn’t fall. She turns her face into his neck, kisses just beneath his jawline.
“I’m sorry,” she breathes out. “I fear I’ve made a fool of myself.”
“Fear not, tater tot,” he says, placing a kiss to the top of her head. “You did no such thing.”
A hand runs up the length of her back, his fingers trailing over her spine, and she wishes he would slip it under her shirt so she could feel the touch on her skin.
“I gotta ask, though. Who… well, you said ‘she’s lucky to have you.’”
“Oh.” Her face burns hot in remembrance, and she nestles it more firmly against him. “I don’t rightly know.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” she says again, craning her neck so her voice isn’t muffled. “You were speaking with someone when I arrived. I just assumed…”
The words hang between them for a moment before she feels his body begin to shake.
“Are you laughing at me, Ted Lasso?” She pulls back enough to see his face, arching a brow at the mirth she finds there.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he manages, and to be fair, he does appear to be trying to reign himself in. “Oh, shoot. I’m not laughing at you, I swear.”
“Mhm,” she hums, but his joy is contagious and she feels her own mouth twitching.
“That was Leena, the therapist Doctor Sharon referred me to. I’m talkin’ with her til Doc gets back,” he explains. “I told you about her, I think.”
He had, indeed, mentioned to her that he was seeing a new therapist while Sharon was away for a few months visiting family; her brain had simply neglected to supply that information in the crucial moment.
“Christ, I’m an idiot.”
“Hey, now.” He steps back a bit, only enough to fit an arm between them and curl his fingers beneath her chin to tilt her head up. “I gotta be honest with ya, boss. I don’t appreciate hearin’ you talk down on someone I love.”
To her horror— and exhaustion because, frankly, she’s sick to death of crying— tears prick her eyes. She swallows thickly and nods.
“Alrighty, then.” He steps back further, sliding a hand down her arm until he reaches her hand and links their fingers together, leading her out of the entryway and into the living room.
“Tea’s probly cold by now,” he says, a hand at the small of her back to guide her to the couch. “Want me to whip up another cup real fast?”
“No,” she says, reaching around to catch his hand and pulling him down to sit beside her. He chuckles, opening his arms to accommodate her, humming his approval when she fits herself against him, legs slung across his lap and arms wrapped around his torso.
“Can’t say I blame ya,” he says. “Tea don’t come close to good, old-fashioned cuddlin’.
“You know, for someone who claims to despise tea, you prepare it very well.”
“Hot dog!” he exclaims, and she nearly starts from the abruptness of it. “Two compliments from my favorite person in the same day? If I weren’t already the happiest fella alive, this would surely give me the advantage.”
“You ridiculous man,” she tuts, but she’s laughing. He smiles down at her like he knows her admonishment lacks any real weight, and she’s glad of it. Her smile softens, and she arches her body until she’s level with his face, waits until he nods before she leans to kiss him. The sigh that escapes her when she pulls back can’t be helped. “You ridiculous, wonderful man.”
Something sharp flashes across his face, molding his mouth into a thin line, and she can see that he’s weighing something, debating whether or not to let it out.
“Tell me.”
“You don’t gotta answer if you don’t wanna,” he starts. “But it’s ‘cause of him, ain’t it?” Her eyes snap down, and he runs his hands along her jean-clad thighs, squeezing lightly. “Why you sorta shut down on me the other night, I mean.”
She inhales sharply, summons enough courage to nod.
“Yeah,” he says lowly. “I thought so.”
It shouldn’t surprise her, but sometimes she forgets that he’s able to read her so easily. Her body slinks back down to lay against him, head falling against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and the beat of his heart is a comfort. A reassurance that gives her room enough to be brave. “I’d convinced myself that I… that I’m not enough. And I know you’re not him, not remotely close to being like him, but that almost makes it worse, doesn’t it?”
“How so?”
“I could live with disappointing him. I mean, I disappointed him every day for 12 years, and it was… it was awful, truly.”
She takes a steadying breath and sits up, ghosts the tip of one finger down his face, passes it across his mustache because she can’t remember a time where she hasn’t wanted to and now she can. Because those 12 years were a misery, yet she somehow came out on the other side: worn down and jagged along all of her edges, but with this beautiful man who says he loves her anyway.
Her thumb runs along his bottom lip, applies just enough pressure to have his mouth falling open, and then she shifts her hand to cup his cheek, and she kisses him. He melts into her, liquid sugar on her face and in her hands and against her tongue.
“But you, Ted,” she says after a moment, marveling at all the places their bodies touch. “I couldn’t bear to disappoint you.”
“Rebecca, yo—” The words are swallowed up into her mouth, and he allows the interruption, chases her lips when she goes to pull away.
“I know,” she says.
He pecks her lips once more before drawing back.
“I’m glad you know, but I’d still like to tell ya, if that’s alright,” he says. His fingers trace aimless patterns against the outside of her hip, across the top of her thigh, the pressure light but soothing.
“All right,” she says eventually. He rewards her with a smile.
“You ain’t ever gotta worry about not being enough for me, sweetheart,” he says, and she tries her very hardest to believe him. Because this is Ted, and she knows Ted. “There ain’t a thing about you that I’d change. As long as you’re you, you couldn’t disappoint me if ya tried.”
“I did try,” she points out. It doesn’t matter that it ended well; she’d brought this good, kind man across an ocean with the intent to sabotage him. She still doesn’t understand how he forgave her so easily, gave up trying long ago and never did find the right words to tell him how desperately grateful she is for that forgiveness.
“That wasn’t you though, was it?” he asks. “Or at least, it was only a real small part. Everybody’s got some bad in ‘em, honey, and seems to me like you’ve been on the receivin’ end of that bad for a long time, from people who were s’posed to love and care about you no less.”
“That doesn’t make what I did all right,” she says after a moment.
“You’re right. It sure don’t,” he agrees, and she heaves out a sigh, hides her face in the curve of his neck. “But it does make it easier to understand why you thought you had to do what ya did. And you made it right in the end, didn’t ya? Told me the truth and put yourself out on the line and asked me to forgive you. You didn’t have to do that, but you did.”
She hums noncommittally, thinks that she almost hates how he simplifies things, how he’s always poised to turn the other cheek and take whatever people throw at him without protest, without regard for his own well-being, all in favor of ensuring the welfare of the ones who hurt him most.
“You didn’t deserve that, Ted.
“I know, sweetheart,” he says, and she’s so relieved to find that she believes him. “I know you, Rebecca. You’re a good person. I forgave ya a long time ago, but if you ever need remindin’, you just let me know, okay?”
“Okay,” she breathes out, lifting her head to kiss his stubbly cheek and reveling in the smile that the action evokes, pressing another kiss to the dimple she adores so terribly. He angles his head toward her, beams down so warmly she thinks she might dissolve into atoms, and brings their lips together softly.
“Thank you,” she says once they’ve parted.
“Don’t think I’ve ever been thanked for a smooch before, but you’re mighty welcome,” he says in a teasing lilt, ducking down quickly to kiss her again.
“I meant for forgiving me,” she manages between an onslaught of tiny kisses, trying and failing quite magnificently to maintain an edge of exasperation in her voice.
Though on this front, she doesn’t fault herself too harshly; it would be next to impossible to be anything but joyous when Ted Lasso is kissing you.
“Oohhh,” he acknowledges animatedly, nodding his head, lightly bumping their noses together with each downward slope because he hasn’t moved very far back at all. “You’re mighty welcome for that, then, too.”
He kisses the tip of her nose, eliciting a giggle from her, his smile widening. It’s the most wonderful thing she’s ever seen in her life, kind and honest and simple in its beauty, and she loves him, she loves him, she loves him.
And by some miracle, he loves her, too.