Chapter Text
Jamie gets his new meal plan from the club’s nutritionist during the second week of pre-season. He gets his prehab routine from the physios, too, and his new strength and conditioning plan from the fitness coach, and spends some time looking through all of it.
The club is going environmental, so it’s all electronic-only, and Jamie swipes his fingers down his phone screen and pinches to zoom in and make sure he hasn’t missed anything. He’s got a surprisingly reasonable exercise plan, even though the single-leg work looks like it’ll be murder on his thighs. Suspiciously reasonable, really.
“Uh, has Roy seen this? Only cos, last year…”
“Roy’s seen everybody’s plans, Jamie,” says Roberto—the fitness coach—with a patient voice like he’s trying to calm down a spooked horse. Good lad, Roberto, though he’s dead wrong about whatever he thinks is going on here.
“Let me know if you need me to explain any of these, alright? We got a new leg press for calf isolation, and the TRX…”
“Sound.” Jamie nods along, listens where he needs to, and then goes looking for the nutritionist to ask about his meal plan.
That one goes even weirder. The nutritionist, Alexandra, is a new hire; she gives Jamie a politely bemused look, and tells him that of course she’s forwarded every player’s schedule to the first team manager. Then she tells Jamie that his iron is low.
“Always gets like that in the summer. I‘m fine,” Jamie promises, then skulks away feeling a bit mardy. So what if Roy got forwarded everyone else’s plans—Jamie’s not any player, is he? He’s Jamie Tartt.
The next day is brutal, with a beasting of an afternoon session on top of morning conditioning. Jamie has sweated through three shirts by the time they’re done, and chugs two energy drinks before getting into the shower on shaky legs. He knocks on Roy’s office door as soon as he’s done washing up, still in his pants and slides and a too-small shirt that stretches nicely across the shoulders.
“Hya, coach. Coach. Got a question.”
He smiles bright at Beard’s weirdly intense stare and perches right on the edge of Roy’s desk. Roy leans back in the chair and does the eyebrow thing, not saying a fucking word.
After a few moments, Jamie says. “Can I ask?”
“Can I fucking stop you?”
“Uh, yeah? If you say no,” Jamie says. “So, can I ask you a question?”
“No,” Roy says. He goes back to doing whatever the fuck on his laptop, his mouth so neutral that Jamie would bet his car that it’s taking Roy everything not to smirk.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Beard says.
Jamie slides off the desk. “‘Kay then, good talk. Thanks for hearing me out.”
“Oh, fucking hell. Come back here, Tartt. What is it?”
“You know what, maybe I should leave,” Beard says to nobody in particular.
“What the hell, man, no,” Jamie says. “It’s really just a question, swear down. The new meal plan, I wanted to check if it’s alright with you?” he asks, looking at Roy. “Because last year you wanted to go over it together and I weren’t sure you’d seen it yet.”
“I have to go call Jane,” Beard announces to the room at large.
Jamie blinks. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Fuck if I know. He’s thinking about proposing,” Roy says as if that explains it. He’s a bit red in the ears. “And I’ve looked at your nutrition plan, yeah. In fact, I’ve been reminded that I don’t have a degree in nutritional biology, so if you’ve got any questions you’d better take it up with Alex.”
“There’s three free meals a week instead of two,” Jamie says, because last season Roy brought his cheat meals down to just one a week.
“You’ll be playing more matches this season.”
Right, because they’re in the Champions League. Still seems incredible, that—Jamie catches himself sharing a grin with Roy, and for a moment everything is perfect.
But, seriously, his plan is still fucking weird. “Right, but, here it says, seven units of alcohol a week, not counting the cheat meals. Seven.”
Jamie lets that last word hang in there, half expecting Roy to throw in a ‘Not for you, Tartt!’ like in the good old days.
It doesn’t come.
“Roy, I said seven units. That’s, like, three pints of beer, on top of the cheat meals. Last season, you didn’t even let me drink one—”
“And you bitched about it all the time, didn’t you?”
Jamie frowns, because when has that ever stopped Roy? “Yes, but…”
“So, what’s the fucking problem?”
“I just wanted to check with you! Dickhead. Wanted to know if it’s alright.”
“It’s fine,” Roy says. “Anything else?”
“You’ve looked at my gym routine too?”
That gets him a growl-like hum that Jamie has learned means yes. He squints in Roy’s direction. “Bit light, innit?”
“It’s fine. You’ve got lots of proprioception and that shit is tough. Takes fucking forever. And I told you, you’ll be playing more this year—travelling more, less time for recovery. Better light than injured, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Jamie says, though his brain is still stuck twenty seconds ago when Roy remembered about all the fucking balance drills in Jamie’s plan without having to look at it. Unless he just guessed?
Jamie walks out feeling strangely bereft and he doesn’t even know why. He’s got a photoshoot for the new season’s kits, so he heads to the press room and catches Beard out in the corridor, loitering.
“Alright, coach?”
Beard gives him a long, weird look. Doesn’t even grunt, like Roy might have. Just stares, all intense, like he knows something Jamie doesn’t.
Jamie’s always liked pre-season. It’s fucking gruelling and every night he falls asleep tired to his bones, but it’s fun, and everything looks shiny-bright and full of promise. There’s a feeling in the air that anything could happen—even if, so far, most of what’s been happening is twice-a-day training sessions that seem designed to kill them, and whatever passes for team-building activities when your boss is Roy Kent.
Last year, Ted had them play Duct-Tape Skis and do puzzles that he said had been a hoot among his Kansas college students. Roy makes them do a fucking mud run.
It’s on a ten-mile course with obstacles called names like Mousetrap Plunge and Arctic Enema, and by the end of it they’re all splattered with dirt and sweating like pigs. Jamie’s trainers went from light blue to mud-brown, and he’s going to be washing dirt out of every crevice for days.
They even get video, courtesy of the PR guys who’re taking shots for Richmond’s socials—Jamie gets a peek at it later, and they look like an army of zombies. Mint.
Last year’s camp had been in the Brecon Beacons, and Colin had insisted on teaching everyone the proper Welsh pronunciation of every place they passed through. Ted had them play charades, saying it’d help with team synchrony, and he’d looked proper shocked at how competitive they’d all got about it.
This year they’re in the Midlands, a pretty backdrop to Roy’s near-sadistic fitness sessions. They’ve booked two floors of a hotel outside Grantham for the week; Jamie’s sharing a room with Cockburn, who’s an insomniac but considerate about it, and he’s only had to hear a dozen jokes about the new series of Lust Conquers All starting up soon.
One evening, after a sadistic hill sprint session that turned their calves into stone, Sam suggests they have a movie night in the media room. They end up watching The Lion King, Jamie’s first time watching it in years, and he just knows he’s going to have the Hakuna Matata song stuck in his head for days.
“Thank you for showing me this, Sam,” Dani says, after, as they all walk to their bedrooms. “I never ended up seeing it before. I love Timon.”
“Good choice, good choice,” Jamie nods. “Solid lad.”
Sam’s got other priorities. “What, never watched it? You hadn’t even seen the musical?”
“There’s a musical?”
By the next morning, Beard and Sam are having a heated conversation about Hamlet over breakfast, and Isaac tells the whole team that he’s always wanted to go to uni when he’s done with football, and study English Lit. Bumbercatch chimes in to say that he’s doing a part-time degree in chemistry, for reasons that Jamie suspects are better left unknown.
“Aren’t you all men of hidden depths,” Beard says, so serene that it’s scary.
That’s how Beard, the nosy fucker, makes them all play Two Truths One Lie, like they’re in some American teen movie. He tells everyone with a straight face that it was ‘Excellent for communication’ back when he coached college kids in oval-ball football, and maybe they’ll all learn something new about each other, and wouldn’t that be fun?
“You’re so full of shit,” Roy says, admiringly, but by then the whole team is caught up in a fierce debate to decide if Richard lied about shagging Rita Ora.
After that, they’re off. Dani’s probably telling the truth about climbing to the Chopicalqui summit, and Jamie’s quite confident that Bumbercatch is lying about his motorcycle collection—what’s the point, if he can’t fucking drive them?—even if that means he has to be telling the truth about the pet tiger. Nobody guesses the truth about why Jamie learned to play the guitar, but fair enough—these days, it’s not like he needs help to get laid.
The coaches join in, too. Jamie can’t begin to fucking guess a thing about Beard, who could say he worked for Mossad for a decade and Jamie would still at least consider it. He figures Roy should be easier—sometimes, Jamie’s almost embarrassed to admit just how much he knows the life and career of Roy Kent—but instead he’s left completely slumped.
He ends up cornering Roy about it after they all break apart to go to sleep, looking for answers.
“What do you mean, Mourinho was your favourite coach? He called you an uninspired party boy. Yelled at you on the pitch twice.” Jamie shakes his head, baffled, and that’s not even the worst of it. “And why the fuck would anyone eat raw liver for three days?”
“Sunderland,” Roy says like that explains it. It very much fucking doesn’t.
“No cookers in Sunderland, is that it? Wait, is that cos you were there in the Dark Ages? No electricity?”
Roy stops walking and tilts his head to the side to look at Jamie. “They hazed the fuck out of me at Sunderland. It was the Dark Ages. Loads of old-school shit, and I was the only lad there with a London accent. You can’t imagine half of it.”
Jamie nods. “You’re right, I can’t. Weren’t even born, so.”
It’s worth it for the split-second outrage burning through Roy’s eyes, before he shoves Jamie with a laugh.
“Prick,” he says, fondly, and starts walking again toward the lift. Jamie falls into step and bumps Roy’s shoulder with his own.
“Tough lad, weren’t you?”
“The toughest,” Roy says, completely straight-faced, as the doors slide closed.
The corridor is empty when they get out of the lift, all thick carpets and rustic décor. They technically don’t have a curfew, but Jamie’s so knackered that his bed is looking much more inviting than playing pool and watching telly in the lounge. Besides, with Dec still downstairs, Jamie gets first shower. Plenty of time for a leisurely wank.
“This is me.” Jamie nods in the direction of the room he shares with Declan. “Goodnight then.”
“What, already?” Roy looks surprised. “Thought you just needed something from your room. You’re not going back downstairs to the other idiots?”
“Nah. Tired. Some mean old bastard woke me up at seven this morning and worked me to the bone.”
“I woke you up at four for two months last season, and you lived.”
“You call that living?”
Jamie shoves his hands down his pockets. He shifts from foot to foot as he eyes Roy up and down. Roy has been looking jittery since they all got together for the pre-season, the frown on his forehead etched deeper than usual, and half the time Jamie wants to hug him. He usually settles for absolutely fucking nailing their training drills, which always puts a smug little smirk on Roy’s face, a gleam in his eyes that Jamie’s getting a bit addicted to. He likes being the object of Roy’s rare smiles a bit too much.
“‘Sides,” Jamie says, “I know it’s early, but I’ve gotta do my skin routine and condition my hair. You know how it is.”
Roy was with Keeley for over a year, so he definitely knows how it is, but he rolls his eyes at Jamie anyway.
“Go and fuck off then. Have a shower, do whatever shit is that you do to your hair—”
“Yes, coach.”
“…and go to sleep.”
“Can I have a wank too?”
Talk about a fucking howler. It’s like kicking a penalty at a bad angle, watching the ball and knowing it’ll go wide but you can’t do shit about it.
Roy’s eyebrows go up and Jamie’s face burns. It’s too late to play it off as a joke even if he wanted to
“Why the hell are you asking me?”
“Uh.” Jamie tries for a shrug that probably looks like he’s having a fit. “Just checking, coach.”
“Fuck’s sake,” Roy huffs. Then his face changes. “What if I said no?”
Jamie opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.
Then he tries again. “Are you going to say no?”
His voice is raw over the sound of the blood thumping in his ears. Jamie feels disconnected, like the distant throb of an injury when you’re on painkillers, a remote spectator to whatever the fuck is happening. Roy’s frowning at him like he’s trying to read Jamie’s mind, and the intensity of that look is doing things to him. Jamie shifts on his feet.
Roy’s eyes, unquestionably, flick down to his crotch.
It’s just half a second, then Roy’s gaze snaps back up, and his face is all impassible but the tips of his ears are red, and Jesus Christ, Jamie’s definitely starting to get hard.
“Go to bed, Tartt,” Roy says, and then turns on his heels and walks off even though that’s not the direction his room is in. Jamie wants to call him back. He wants to say sorry, maybe. He wants to run after Roy and force him to turn with a hand on his shoulder and ask, ‘But, coach… can I?’
Instead, Jamie goes to his room. He strips, and his cock is fully hard already, because he can’t fucking stop thinking about Roy outside in the corridor, and Roy’s eyes, and Roy’s voice when he said, back in May, that Jamie could drink beer as long as he was with Roy.
He showers and washes his hair and puts on leave-in conditioner so he doesn’t have to stand naked under the shower for a minute more. He moisturises, applies eye cream, and goes to bed and waits for his erection to go down.
What if I said no?
He doesn’t touch his dick.
Jamie wakes up the next morning half-hoping that maybe it was all a dream, but his memories are still too sharp. That, and he’s got a massive stiffie.
He styles his hair and brushes his teeth, wondering the whole time what the fuck he should say to Roy. Nothing sounds like the best option by far, at least for a few days. They’ve got a pre-season friendly against Villa over the weekend, and maybe they can have a proper conversation after.
No first plan survives contact with the enemy—Jamie’s got no idea who said it, but it works for more than football. In his case, first contact is accidentally meeting Roy’s eyes over breakfast, which makes Jamie’s tongue go dry and sluggish in his mouth. His brain is fuzzy, the back of his neck hot, and he completely forgets whatever he’d started to tell Sam.
After their morning session, Roy gives him the same amount of feedback as everyone else, and Jamie wonders if that’s going to be it—polite pretence unless he pushes it. Fucking weird, the idea of Roy politely doing anything.
In the afternoon, though, Roy seeks him out during a water break.
“Jamie.”
“Coach?” Jamie asks, all normal. Roy sighs.
Jamie looks at him. Waits.
“You sleep well last night?”
“Sound, yeah.” A perfectly normal answer to what’s, on the surface, a perfectly normal question. Then Jamie has to go and be a complete fucking idiot.
“What about you, then? Get a good night’s sleep?
Roy's face does a thing. He looks almost guilty, all shifty eyes and jaw tightly set—and ain’t that fucking thrilling to consider.
“Good enough,” Roy says, and something twists in Jamie’s guts. Anticipation, maybe.
At Villa Park, Jamie gets a brace in the first half, and it’s probably the best he’s played since the Etihad. He’s subbed out early in the second, but the advantage holds and they walk away with a 2—1 for Roy’s first match as a manager. Roy can talk as much as he wants about how friendlies don’t really count, but he looks right chuffed anyway.
In the dressing room, they all make plans to go out together. Normally Jamie wouldn’t go round bars in Birmingham after a victory, but this was a friendly; the mood is relaxed and the stakes low, and he knows plenty of good spots for a fun night out.
“So, uh,” he asks Roy. “You coming out with us for a bit?”
Roy gives him a look. “Sure. Bet you lot are just dying to have me there.”
“Stop fishing for compliments, Roy. You’re the cool boss. Oi, lads…” Jamie raises his voice, “Roy’s buying first round tonight, alright?”
“Oh, am I?”
“Yes. Don’t be a tightwad.”
For the rest of the evening, Jamie tries to think about things that aren’t Roy. He even manages it, for a while. But he still finds himself searching for Roy all the time, tilting to catch a glimpse like a bloody sunflower, if the sun was Roy Kent with a beer in hand and a small smile.
Roy catches him looking once, as they’re both listening to Sam tell stories of the Nigerian national team. Jamie’s head snaps away like he’s guilty and then immediately feels stupid about it. It’s not like Roy told him to knock it off. And he’s not doing anything bad, anyway.
When Roy gets up, saying something about going to settle the tab, Jamie follows him.
“Buy me a drink, coach?” And then, before Roy can pretend he’s stupid, “I’ve not had anything yet. I know I can buy my own drinks. I want you to choose.”
Roy stops dead. He’s got his fist clenched, his spine rigid. They are in the middle of a crowded bar, but might as well be alone with the way the air is sizzling between them.
Roy pushes his shoulders back and looks very deliberately down at Jamie, and his face doesn’t betray much, but Jamie’s an expert at reading his body language by now, and he obviously likes what he sees.
“Alright then, let’s get you that drink.”
Roy orders a Pornstar Martini and doesn’t even make fun of the name. It’s got vanilla vodka and passion fruit in it, and Jamie actually really likes it, but, the thing is, he would’ve happily taken anything Roy had got him.
“Thanks.”
The glass sits between them on the counter, and Jamie runs his finger up and down the glass stem. Roy looks from Jamie to the glass, and he’s got the same face he makes when Jamie does something sexy and impressive on the pitch.
“You can drink,” he says after a long moment, and only then Jamie lifts the glass and brings it to his lips. Closes his eyes and takes a sip. He throws his head back as he drinks, and he fancies he can feel Roy’s eyes on his throat.
“You know, just because it’s called that, doesn’t mean you have to look like a porn star when you’re drinking it.”
“Then it’s working, yeah?”
He throws Roy a cheeky wink and gets back one of those eyerolls that feel nothing but fond. Jamie settles more comfortably on his stool and stretches out his legs, relishing the pleasant low-grade arousal. It’s very public like this, not even in a private booth, and they’ve probably got discreet eyes on them, a zoomed-in phone camera or two.
“So, how’d I do today, coach?”
“Is that really what you want to talk about?” Roy asks, softly curious. Like he’s trying to figure out what’s going on here, how to play it.
“You can’t be surprised.”
Roy snorts. “Fuck, no. And you played fucking well, you cheeky prick.”
Jamie brightens up. “Thought so, too.”
“You played like you wanted everyone to look at you. It was bloody gorgeous,” Roy says, all casual like he’s not aware that he’s got a direct line to Jamie’s dick when he says shit like that.
“Course, now I’m going to expect you to keep playing like that for the whole season.”
“I can do that.”
Jamie takes another sip from his glass. Shifts a bit on the bar stool. The jeans he changed into make his bum look great, but they’re suddenly a bit tight over the crotch. He licks the sweetness off his lips.
“You know, I haven’t got off in days. Since that night.”
That hit Roy’s buttons, Jamie can tell. His eyes are heavier now, all dark and hooded, flicking down to Jamie’s mouth.
“You haven’t got off in days,” Roy repeats, voice low. “Because I didn’t give you permission.”
“Is that…” Jamie pauses. Picks his words carefully. “Do you want it to be like that? Because—”
“Get up,” Roy interrupts him. He looks Jamie straight in the eyes. “Go to the loo. Have that wank right now.”
It’s like all the oxygen went out of the room. “Christ, Roy.”
“Now,” Roy says. His voice is like steel, his cheeks pink in the dim lights. Jamie stands up and knocks back what’s left of his drink.
“Yeah, I’m…”
Jamie points a thumb behind himself, to wherever the fuck the loo is. He goes.
There isn’t much of a queue for the toilets, but it doesn’t mean they’re empty. Jamie keeps his head down, doesn’t look anyone in the face, and his cock springs hard in his hand as soon as he shoves down his jeans in the toilet stall. He stands with his back against the door to steady himself, his knuckles in his mouth to muffle any sounds and his other hand wrapped in a fist around his cock, red and leaking already.
Jamie can’t remember the last time he got off in a fucking toilet, nevermind without someone else in there to distract from their surroundings. The tiles are dirty and it’s vaguely smelly, and he shouldn’t be as turned on as he is, hips bucking into his hand like he’d die if he doesn’t get off right now—like Roy said, Jamie thinks, and then his dick jolts and he’s coming down the fucking toilet, blinking hazily, red-faced and damp with sweat.
It should be disgusting. Instead, he feels like he’s walking on fucking clouds.
thanks, he texts Roy and then goes to wash his hands.
When Jamie emerges from the loo, the rest of the team are clustered together, debating where they’re going next. There’s a club round the corner that’s just tidy, Colin says, and Reynolds thinks they should go to Flight Club instead. Isaac is talking with Roy—sitting on the stool Jamie left free, in front of Jamie’s empty glass—and Roy’s head snaps up as soon as Jamie gets there. His eyes burn.
“Back to the hotel by two, alright?” Roy’s saying. He turns from Isaac to Jamie. “This goes for you, too,” he adds, and Jamie can’t say anything of what he’s thinking about, not with Isaac right there.
“Go on, Tartt,” Roy says, more softly. “Have fun. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
