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It’s not a particularly unusual morning.
He’d woken up, got dressed, made himself some coffee with Rebecca’s fancy French press and gone over the news of the day. He’d made another two cups to go, one for Beard and one for himself.
Rebecca had still been asleep—rare, but not out of the ordinary, and he knew she had a 10am meeting with Higgins and a minority owner, one she’d been dreading for days. He hadn’t thought much of it, other than his slight surprise that his puttering around hadn’t woken her. She’s generally a light sleeper, he’s found, but if she slept through him getting out of bed, he wasn’t going to chance waking her up to say goodbye; so he’d left her a little note and an army man on his pillow and took off, met up with Beard.
The boys are off today, so it’ll just be the Coaching staff, running through some film and plays and gearing up for the next match.
They decide to sit outside on the pitch, the day sunny and almost warm. Roy spends most of it cursing and Beard is mostly quiet and Ted talks a mile a minute and it’s all normal, but it feels good—feels right.
He finds his days always start better when he wakes up with Rebecca, and tries not to read too much into that too early on. But he knows he’s been happier. Knows, ever since they stopped dancing around one another and gave into the pull, that they’ve both been happier. Both smile more. Laugh easier. She makes him so happy, he feels a bit stupid with it sometimes. That just catching a glimpse of her in her office window, or slipping his hand around her back as he moves through her kitchen can bring him such joy. But he isn’t willing to look a gift horse in the mouth, and figures it’s entirely worth Roy’s groaning and Beard’s sideways smirks.
He expects, when they break at 11:30am, to go back to his office and do a bit more work. Expects Rebecca will be back around noon, and he’ll take her some lunch. Expects his office to be quiet and empty. But as Roy peels off to go find Keeley for lunch, and he and Beard make their way down the hall, there’s the unmistakable sound of laughter coming from the locker room.
He glances at Beard and Beard looks back with a shrug, and they both peer around the door. There’s no one in the locker room, but the door to their office is open and he hears muffled laughter, a squeaking noise, a, “No, no, not like that!” that’s a breathy giggle.
A very familiar, breathy giggle, and they both step in quietly.
Ted sets his backpack near the door, and when they look in, the sight makes him bite his lip to contain his laughter.
It’s Rebecca, in his favorite blue top and a tight skirt, sitting in Beard’s chair, trying to show Higgins how to spin it around. He keeps tangling his feet together and pitching forward in Ted’s chair, and every time he does Rebecca giggles, brings a hand to her mouth to smother the sound.
“How are you so terrible at this?” she asks, as Higgins tries again to get the chair to turn on its own.
“I think it’s broken.”
“It’s not broken.”
“It could be broken.”
“I know for a fact that it isn’t,” she says, and Ted tries desperately not to flush pink, remembers last week when she’d found him downstairs after hours, when she’d straddled his waist in that chair, skirt hiked up over her hips. When they’d made out like teenagers until they were both panting and breathless and how she’d dragged him home, how they barely made it out of the car, poor Charlie, before he had her in his arms, kissing her senseless as soon as the door shut behind them.
The chair is fine, he knows that, and Rebecca demonstrates again, drawing his eyes down her legs to her feet, where somewhere along the way she’s lost her heels, traded them for fuzzy slippers.
“Like this,” she says, and scoots her slippers against the floor until she’s got enough momentum to lift her legs up, the chair still spinning.
Higgins tries again, brow pinched in concentration, and this time he’s able to turn. Rebecca lets out a triumphant noise that spills into a laugh, and then they’re both spinning around in the office chairs, completely oblivious, and joyful, and Ted’s heart feels light.
He loves to see her smile, see her let her hair down just a little. Loves even more when she does so in front of her friends, people she trusts that aren’t just him.
She’s clearly drunk, and so is Higgins, his suit a bit rumpled and his hair at all angles; but they’re happy drunk, and Ted watches as she spins, and spins, and then spins a little too fast and grabs the table to steady herself with a nervous, “Oop!” that finally makes him laugh.
He stifles it immediately, but Rebecca whips her head around, a brief flicker of fear in her eyes before she realizes it’s just him, and Beard, and she’s in safe company.
Her shoulders relax, and while she looks a little embarrassed, she does point her finger at him, wiggling it in a way he thinks is supposed to be stern.
“You,” she says in lieu of a greeting, drawing everyone’s attention to her, “are in trouble.”
Ted blinks, takes in the way she’s trying so hard to sound serious, but her lips are pulled back in a slight smirk and she’s wobbling a bit as she stands, crossing the room.
Beside him, he hears Beard make an “ooo” noise as he trades places with her, reclaiming his chair, and Higgins joins in, still rolling around.
Not too concerned—and more than a little amused to see Tipsy Rebecca before noon on a Tuesday—Ted points at himself and plays along,
“Who, me?”
“Yes,” Rebecca says, stepping into his personal space, her index finger poking into his chest. “You.”
“What’d I do?”
Rebecca blinks, almost coquettish, except that her eyes are sparkling from the alcohol and she’s a bit unsteady as she steps even closer.
Ted instinctively steadies her with his hands on her hips, and then doesn’t feel much inclined to let go when she sways into him, says,
“You left early.”
He frowns, trying to remember a meeting, or evening, or other such time he would have voluntarily left her presence.
“When?”
“This morning.” Her expression morphs into a true pout, fingers coming up to tease the collar of his shirt, and he has to swallow, tries not to remember a few nights ago, her lips at the place her hands are now, the little bruise she sucked into his skin.
She’s still not making a whole lot of sense, and he glances to the side to see Beard, hiding an amused smile, and Higgins, still turning slowly in the chair, head tipped toward the ceiling, eyes closed.
He looks back at Rebecca, the way she’s peering just slightly up at him in her slippers, and his hands soften on her hips, cradle her to him gently.
“I left on time,” he reminds her, and Rebecca huffs.
“Yes, but I was still asleep.”
“‘Cause you had that late meeting,” he nods. “How’d it go?” he asks, though he can imagine, if both Rebecca and Higgins are nearly drunk already.
From the chair, Higgins whines, “Dulllllll,” his feet kicking slightly at the floor. “So dull.”
“Dull,” Rebecca agrees solemnly. “And painstaking.”
“And pointless!”
Ted stifles a laugh.
“That good, huh?”
“He’s a twat,” Higgins says, and Ted’s eyebrows shoot up as he looks over at him, now moving the chair side to side, eyes still closed, head bobbing like he’s listening to music no one else can hear. “A misogynist twat.”
Rebecca hums in agreement and Ted feels his hands tighten around her on instinct, his voice dropping,
“What did he say?”
But Rebecca just smiles at him, so soft and sweet, slipping her hands over his shoulders to hold the back of his neck, like they’re slow dancing.
“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” she promises, fingers curling through the hairs on his nape.
He relaxes slightly. “Well. Good,” he says, and hears Beard snort, but Rebecca just grins.
“My white knight,” she murmurs fondly, and he feels a thrill at that, the easy way she’s holding him, her bright eyes, the affection so clear in her gaze he has to tamp down the urge to kiss her right there.
“Darn tootin’,” he says instead, and Rebecca laughs, her head tilted back, bright and unabashed and he grins at the sound. She so rarely laughs around anyone else, it’s a delight to see, and even Higgins pops his head up to look at her, a fond smile on his face.
“Thank you for my army man,” she says when she quiets. “He came with me to the meeting.”
“He’s a crack shot,” Higgins agrees, and Ted frowns.
“The army man?”
Higgins nods seriously. “Must have taken out Mr. Twaty about ten times.” He sighs. “Alas, plastic bullets.”
Beard snorts and Ted isn’t quite sure what to do with that information—will find out, later, how Rebecca had pulled the little army man from her purse halfway through the meeting—and halfway through their fourth mimosa each—and positioned him behind Higgins’ coffee cup. How, apparently, she’d made little pew pew! noises as “Mr. Twaty” was talking, causing Higgins to choke on his drink every time. Evidently, the man hadn’t noticed any of it, but the image is enough to make Ted laugh and Rebecca flush and Higgins to look at her proudly, like she’d done something heroic.
He supposes, if saving Higgins from boredom counts, then she had; but now Rebecca is still looking at him, brows pinched, tapping his chest with a finger.
“Don’t think that gets you out of trouble,” she scolds, and Ted looks back at her, smiles.
“Still not sure what I’m in trouble for,” he admits, and Rebecca huffs.
“You left early.”
“So you said.”
“So I didn’t see you this morning.”
He nods, and then remembers, “I got your biscuits right here—” He moves to get his backpack, but Rebecca clings to him, and he shifts back into place, frowning.
“I know,” she says, “but biscuits are for work.” She taps his chest again in a rhythm with her words. “Biscuits with the Boss.” She frowns, like a thought has just occurred to her. “I’m going to be late.”
Ted chuckles. “Think you missed it by about two hours,” he says, and her expression drops, like it’s the worst thing he could have said, and Ted smiles. “How about Brunch with the Boss today? Think she’d make an exception?”
Rebecca grins, easily distracted. “Will there be mimosas?”
Higgins says, “Ooo, mimosas,” and Ted nearly bites his lip to keep from laughing.
“Pretty sure that can be arranged, though it seems like y’all mighta started without me.”
“Did we mention he was terribly, terribly dull?” Higgins asks with a tired sigh, and Rebecca nods seriously in agreement.
“The dullest.”
“I guess I can let it slide,” he says, and Rebecca beams, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek.
“Good boy,” she says, and if he needs a moment to process the way that makes him feel, well. He figures everybody in the room will understand.
Still, he slips an arm around Rebecca’s waist, grabs his backpack, says, “Shall we?” and gestures toward the door.
“We shall,” she says, takes one step, and then stops. “Wait.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“I’m still mad at you.”
“You’re mad at me?”
She nods, so solemnly it’s funny, with the way she’s gone back to pouting.
“You didn’t wake me up.”
Ted blinks, still not following. “Was I supposed to?” he asks, and Rebecca rolls her eyes.
“Obviously.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Rebecca stills, like that hadn’t occurred to her. “Oh.”
Ted swallows a laugh. “I can, uh. I can wake you up next time?”
She nods. “Yes.”
“Okay,” he agrees easily, and then asks, “Why am I wakin’ you up early again?”
Rebecca sighs, like it’s painfully obvious and he’s just being slow. “For my good morning kiss.”
Ted blinks, his heart stuttering. “Your good morning kiss?”
“Yes. Every morning you kiss me goodbye before we leave, and this morning you didn’t.” She looks at him gravely. “So you owe me.”
Ted’s heart skips and he thinks he hears Higgins say aww but he isn’t paying attention and neither is Rebecca. Her eyes are locked on his and she’s so beautiful, and funny, and silly, and mysterious and he loves her so much he thinks he might burst from it.
“Well, now that is an egregious error on my part,” he says, and Rebecca nods. “I can see why I’m in trouble.”
“Lots of trouble,” she agrees, and Ted grins.
“Mind if I try to rectify the situation?” he asks, and he expects Rebecca to look over at their audience—Higgins, who’s now watching them, rapt, and Beard, who has his chin in his hand and a small, satisfied smile on his face.
She’s never much liked an audience, prefers to keep things between them, keep the public displays of affection to a minimum.
But today she nods, tilts her head, and smiles.
“I think you’d better,” she says, and he can’t help but smile, but reach out and brush the little hair that’s fallen in her face back behind her ear. Rebecca’s eyes flutter shut at the touch, and she tilts into him, so his palm covers her cheek.
Her hand moves to cover his wrist loosely, and she blinks at him, her smile soft and warm and sweet.
“Ted,” she murmurs, and he kisses her—slow and chaste, just a barely there brush of his lips, but Rebecca hums, closes her eyes and leans into him, her other hand moving to his chest, over his heart.
When he pulls back, her eyes are still closed, her smile serene.
“Good mornin’,” he murmurs, just for her to hear, and her eyes open and her smile widens and it’s like looking at the sun, he thinks. Or a sunflower—the way she blooms.
Ted’s heart squeezes almost painfully in his chest, but it's a good hurt, as Rebecca slips her arm around his waist. She glances back and gives a nod to Higgins and Beard, and Ted does the same, sees Beard give him two thumbs up when Rebecca turns her back. She tugs him out the door, and he waits until they’re out of earshot before leaning in, an arm around her,
“You didn’t tell Higgins what we got up to in that chair, did you?”
Rebecca snorts. “You think he’d be sitting in it if I had?”
Ted nods. “Good point.”
She looks up at him, then, cheeks faintly flushed, a bright twinkle in her eyes. “If you hurry, we could get up to some stuff in my office, too.”
“Why do I have to hurry?”
Rebecca grins. “‘Cause I’m gonna beat you,” she says, and it’s all the warning he has before she takes off at an awkward run, her slippers catching on the floor, and Ted throws his head back and laughs—her little waddle, her giggles, echoing through the corridor, the look she throws him over her shoulder.
He breaks into a jog, catches her easily, just manages to wrap an arm around her waist before she gets to the stairs, and Rebecca lets out a little yelp when he hauls her against him, one that dissolves into a laugh as he presses her gently against the wall, his nose at her neck.
“Think you forgot you’re dealin’ with a professional athlete,” he says, and Rebecca snorts, even as her hands come up to wind around his neck.
“A coach does not an athlete make,” she says, and adds, “Besides, you had the advantage.”
“Oh?” he asks, thinking of her slippers.
But instead, she smiles at him, soft and terribly besotted. “I wanted you to catch me.”
Ted softens, his heart on fire. “Always will,” he promises, and Rebecca’s smile softens, too, before she leans up and kisses him, her hand gentle on his cheek.