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They don’t tell Michelle right away. She’s already asleep by the time they get back from the station, and Beard’s too shredded by guilt to think beyond his own exhaustion. Beard feels Ted’s eyes on him as he makes for the couch. Michelle’s folded the second-hand comforter with the floral Grandma print over the arm and left him a freshly plumped pillow. There’s so much love and care in this house. Just a few hours ago, the sight of it would have been enough to make him shove it all onto to the floor and walk out into the night.
Ted’s at the doorway hanging up his jacket, looking ready to sleep for three days straight, but he must notice the way Beard’s frozen up at the sight of the couch. It’s all made up for the guest Michelle thought Ted had allowed into his home — a college buddy, someone who deserves a place in their life. They really are good people. Ted and Michelle weren’t playing a long game with him; there’s no hidden fees or small print, no trapdoor waiting to open up underneath his feet. Sometimes kindness is just what it looks like, unbelievable as it seems.
‘Hey. Don’t you go looking like that,’ Ted says. He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself as well as Beard. ‘What happened tonight? It’s gone. Water under the bridge. Chalk it up to a moment of madness.’
Beard’s spent the whole ride back from the station silently tearing into himself for taking Ted’s generosity and throwing it back in his face. Silently because he knows, without having to be told, that Ted won’t want to hear a word of it. Now he’s back in the house, he’s painfully aware that it wasn’t just Ted he was screwing over.
If he’d snapped and taken the car on the first night, it would have made a sick kind of sense, but he’s been sleeping on the couch for almost two weeks now. That’s long enough to know their routine. He knows Michelle and Ted carpool to work, Ted dropping her off at the biology department before zooming on to his little office and frown at the paperwork he can’t get his head around. Practice runs into the evening two or three nights a week, so sometimes Michelle stays late in the staff room, finishing up grading or working on lesson plans. Other times she hangs around late in sports bars, reading or gossiping or laughing it off when the locals talk shit about her husband’s team. Waiting for Ted to finish up coaching and drive the two of them back. He knows how intertwined their lives are; how Michelle needs the car just as much as Ted does. Love has locked them together.
It’s weird that he knows their lives so well. It’s even worse that he could have known them so well and still decided to fuck them both over. But it hadn’t felt like a decision. It had felt like some long-ingrained instinct taking over, fear and resentment and a feeling impossible to name or even look at too closely. He can still feel it as he sinks onto the couch — worse, now, because it hasn’t faded with the theft or the rush of Ted’s forgiveness. It’s beginning to take a familiar, terrible shape. He’s beginning to remember why he left Kansas in the first place.
The couch dips as Ted sinks into place beside him.
‘Listen,’ Ted’s voice is urgent and conspiratorial. It sounds like he’s trying to make some kind of bargain. ‘Michelle don’t have to hear a word about this. Not if you don’t want her knowing. It can just be between you and me.’
Ted’s a sweet guy who met the love of his life in college and married her and made a life with her here. They’ve filled up their little house with second-hand furniture and homemade soup and they’ve even found a space for Ted’s deadbeat buddy. When Ted loves someone, Beard imagines, it feels simple and safe and true. Ted doesn’t fall in crazy, stupid love with total strangers. He’s never, to Beard’s knowledge, made a murder-suicide pact with a woman he’s known for all of six weeks. He’s never taken a three-day trip across Europe because a guy with a set of first-edition Asimovs was amused by the way he moved his hips.
And Ted doesn’t fall for married men, Beard’s pretty sure. He doesn’t keep turning the shape of them over in his mind, long after he missed his shot with them. If Ted turned up on his old buddy’s doorstep in need of help, that’s all he’d want — help. No ulterior motive. No quiet, gnawing desire. So Ted doesn’t understand how he sounds right now, making all these promises about what they will and won’t tell Michelle.
‘Thanks,’ Beard mutters, knowing Ted’s already tolerated more thank-yous than he’d prefer. As if Beard could ever thank him enough. As if he’s not thinking of pressing Ted up against the wall right now and mouthing at his neck until he moans and writhes, Michelle or no Michelle. As if there aren’t a million ways of showing gratitude, and as if he isn’t mentally charting every one of them. He makes himself look at Ted. ‘But we gotta tell her. It’s her car too.’
It’s something he has to keep reminding himself. Everything in this house belongs to Michelle, as much as it belongs to Ted. The faster he gets that into his head, the better.
Ted studies his expression, like he’s trying to decide whether Beard means it or whether he’s just trying to say the right thing. Eventually he seems satisfied. His hand sits heavy and warm on Beard’s shoulder.
‘You’re not wrong, Buddy.’
No he is not. He doesn’t say it, though. It was hard enough being right in the first place.
‘Hey, it’s a good thing you’re here to keep me honest, huh?’
He gives a half-hearted shrug. He doesn’t exactly feel like a model citizen right now, and Ted lying about it won’t change that.
‘I mean it. I ever tell you you’re the smartest guy I know?’
‘I don’t know, man.’ The words don’t come easy. Words haven’t come easy for a long time. Maybe he really was smart, back when Ted used to know him. Or if he was dumb, he was dumb in ways that can be excused when you’re nineteen and no one’s taught you any better. Now, over fifteen years later, there’s no excuse. He’s just an asshole who can’t even jack a car right. ‘I fried my brain after college.’
‘Hey. I don’t wanna hear it. That was an unqualified compliment, not an invitation to a pity party.’ Ted’s grip is still firm and warm, even as his voice turns mock-stern. ‘In fact, I’m inclined to take it further. Not only are you the smartest guy I know, you’re the kindest too. Yeah, you heard me. And the most handsome.’
He can’t help but laugh at that. He caught sight of his haggard reflection in the swing door as Ted walked them in. But the laughter comes out all choked and messy because he knows Ted means every word he’s saying, whether Beard deserves it or not.
‘Still got those big strong legs, ain’t you? And those big brown eyes, too.’
That familiar voice, thick with that beautiful Ted Lasso sincerity. Ted sounds happier than he did in college, maybe because he’s given up any hope of football stardom or maybe because he found that soulmate he always wanted. Running out of things to chase always sounded like death to Beard, but it’s working for Ted. Marriage has settled him in ways that suit him.
Or maybe, some stupid and destructive part of Beard’s mind whispers, he’s just glad to have you back.
He reaches up to where Ted’s hand’s resting on his shoulder. Covers it with his own and squeezes. He doesn’t let things go further, not even when he feels Ted’s breath against his neck. Doesn’t even let himself picture where things might go.
‘Tomorrow we tell her,’ he hears himself say. ‘She deserves to know.’
‘You know it, Buddy,’ Ted sounds touched in ways that don’t make sense. He gets to his feet and shoves his hands in his pockets. Shakes his head and looks Beard over, like he’s seeing the past overlaid with the present. ‘Boy, you seem like a guy worth keeping around. Let’s keep on keeping each other accountable, huh?’
Beard and Michelle haven’t told Ted yet. Beard has the feeling that if he leaves it up to Michelle, she’ll never mention it out loud, to him or to Ted. She and Ted match up just right in that respect. Couple of experts in sweeping things under the rug.
Michelle’s ironing the laundry. Beard’s folding. He could do it all on his own by now, but she insists on supervising him after his first crumpled effort three weeks ago. Now that he’s in the groove, he likes it. It’s simple, repetitive, satisfying. And Michelle’s watching him work, her critical eye following the motions of his hands, sweetly correcting him when he gets too rough with a silk blouse or his folds are uneven or his piles start to teeter. Turns out he likes this side of her. He’s almost certain she’s noticed him liking it.
They haven’t told Ted yet, but Ted has to have noticed something too.
Michelle doesn’t hang around in the sports bar after school on Ted’s late nights any more. Now there’s someone in the house to keep her company, she catches the bus home when lessons end. Beard’s got himself hooked on a soap opera that runs in the early evenings and she sprawls on the couch beside him, sharing a bag of dried apple slices, laughing at the plot twists and debating the heroine’s romantic prospects. Beard has awful taste in men, she tells him decisively. She probably thinks the women he picks are no good either, but she’s more reluctant to admit it.
Other nights Beard meets her at the sports bar, where she tells him about her day and they watch whatever game there is to watch. Sooner or later Ted will bounce into the bar, fresh from practice and desperate to talk through the highs and lows of college sports. Turns out he’s got some strong opinions on what being on a team can do for a young man’s sense of purpose in life, and hearing all that clueless optimism catches at something deep in Beard’s gut. He could use some help getting wins, though, and it turns out Beard has some opinions on that front.
The three of them fit in Ted’s little car just fine. Turns out it’s not Ted’s property Beard wanted to steal. It’s his whole life.
When Michelle says, ‘Beard, could you give me a hand with the dishes?’ Beard says, ‘Yes, ma’am’ and hops to it.
When Michelle observes that the cobwebs are building up in the ceiling corners, Beard snaps to attention and goes hunting for a feather duster.
When Michelle starts vacuuming, Beard immediately starts clearing the furniture out of her way. No discussion needed. They’ve figured out how to move around each other, same as him and Ted.
He makes a point of fixing up the place whenever he has time on his hands. He repairs the stuck lock on the bathroom door and puts up shelves for the unsellable ornaments Ted keeps rescuing from junk stores. One warm Sunday he finds a leather strop, a whetstone and a spot in the backyard to sharpen all the knives in the house.
‘It’s real convenient,’ Ted muses, ‘but I’m gonna miss crying over the onions.’
‘He likes to feel like he’s going deep when he makes hot dogs,’ Michelle adds, patting his arm. She’s smiling at Beard like he’s a witness and a co-conspirator, which is how he feels more and more, the longer he stays here.
Ted’s out coaching. Beard’s folding. Michelle’s ironing. The weeks have stretched into months and he’s still on the couch, still finding tasks to justify his presence in her house. He’s not thinking too hard about it.
She talks about school and how young the moms seem. About her mother and all the places her mother never got to visit. About the trip to Paris she sometimes plans on her lunch breaks, flipping through holiday brochures and imagining flights she can’t afford. About her thirties and how fast they came without her noticing. How old she can’t believe she already is, and all the things she meant to do by now. The looming pressure to start a family — and she doesn’t seem to notice that she says ‘start a family’ but means ‘have a baby’ — before it’s too late.
‘Me and Ted got together so fast. Most of my friends were still single, and here I was married — to an amazing guy, obviously.’
‘The best guy,’ Beard says, and he means it, but he makes it sound perfunctory. He’s trying to give her permission to have a feeling that isn’t just about Ted.
‘I feel like I skipped the fun part, you know?’ she says, and Beard makes a noncommittal sound. ‘You know, the really wild stuff?’
And then she says, ‘I mean, if anyone knows about the fun part, it’s you, right?’
And then she says, ‘Oh god, I’m sorry, that’s not how I meant it.’
And then she says, ‘Willis, would you please say something so I know I haven’t hurt your feelings?’
What he wants to say is, she and Ted are perfect for each other. The two of them could look all over the world but there’s nothing they need that they can’t find inside this little house.
The other thing he wants to say is, it’s almost terrifying how easy it is to overdo the fun part. The fun part can slide, without warning, into what was supposed to be the rest of your life.
The thing he doesn’t want to say, but should, is that Ted and Michelle should have kicked him out after he stole the car. Stealing the car was a big red warning sign and they smiled and sailed right past it. So whatever happens next, they’re partially responsible, because they both knew what kind of guy they were letting into their house.
Instead he leans against the arm of the couch and looks her up and down. When he speaks, it’s a version of himself from before prison but after college. A constructed self who knew how to have a good time. Everyone wanted to know that guy, and no one wanted to hang around him too long.
‘You really never had any fun before Ted?’ he says.
Her laugh is startled but she recovers quickly. ‘No need to rub it in.’
‘No, I mean— there’s still time.’ He feels treacherous and loyal at once, just saying it. He resists the impulse to avoid her eyes. ‘He didn’t have much fun before he met you either. You could both—’ he tries to think of a way to express what he’s implying that won’t sound sleazy or opportunistic. But there’s no word for it that he likes the sound of. The cool guy persona’s already slipped, so he settles for a vague wave of his hand, ‘you know. Things happen.’
She meets his gaze and then looks him over, as though she’s seeing him for the first time. It shouldn’t surprise him that she seems interested. Lots of people have found him interesting. He’d just assumed, for some reason, that Michelle was above that sort of thing.
‘Maybe,’ she says. And what he thinks she means is, maybe they happen to other people.
He’s surprised by how quickly they’ve forged this quiet alliance. Maybe it’s because she loves Ted so deeply. She loves him enough to sacrifice her fun years for him, and all the years after that. She was willing to shut herself off from the rest of the world because Ted Lasso is more than enough, which makes her better for him than Beard could have ever been.
A part of him can already hear the paper-thin but not untrue excuses they’ll make to each other: It won’t count as adultery because they both love Ted. Loving each other is just another way — a more exciting, stupid and catastrophic way — of loving Ted Lasso.
He imagines her gasping, arching into his mouth. Telling him just how much pressure she likes as he eats her out. And then not telling him anything at all. The words all dropping out of her mind, just like the good times stole all of his. That’s the thing about having fun: When you go hard enough, you forget to feel guilty or stupid or selfish.
Instead they let the subject drop. They find separate chores to do in separate rooms and disappear inside their heads. When Ted gets home that night, Beard’s in the kitchen prepping onions on autopilot while Michelle’s folded up on the couch. ‘Hey honeybun,’ he hears Ted say through the half-closed door, the smile in his voice beautiful and lacerating. ‘What’cha doin’ in my best friend's bed?’
‘Funny you should say that,’ Michelle’s voice, half joking and all nervous. ‘There’s something we should probably talk about.’
This is it. The moment he finally crosses Ted Lasso’s line and gets kicked out. He looks up at the cupboard door that he remounted three months ago, at the potted plants lined up on the windowsill and the racks of dishes that fill up faster now there are three of them in the house. Ted and Michelle will go back to normal, and he’ll figure out what’s next. He’s overstayed his welcome in plenty of homes. It happens, over and over. No big deal. But the knives must need sharpening because Beard’s eyes are stinging and blurry as he dices up a neat little heap of silver.
But they don’t kick him out. Miraculously, they invite him upstairs. Again and again, he shows them how he likes to have fun. And they show him how they like to make love. He even starts thinking the words make love without embarrassment or irony. It’s easy to be wholehearted and full-throated with Ted, just as it’s easy to team up against him with Michelle.
It’s easy to sit back and watch them kiss, jealousy blissfully absent because he’s here. He’s right here with them. He likes moving inside the periphery of their glow. He likes the way Ted’s eyes soften at the sight of him and Michelle moving together. The way Ted clutches him close, his hand gripping Beard’s shoulder or forearm or the nape of his neck as he shudders on the brink of orgasm. They’re as generous with their bed and with their bodies as they are with everything else.
Beard might never forget the sensation of Ted’s mouth — clumsy and enthusiastic and determined, the first time. How he scrambled up the bed afterwards to kiss Beard through the aftershock of orgasm. How he leaned across Beard’s worn-out body to kiss Michelle when he was done, talking in an unfiltered rush of raw exuberance.
You see that, Sweetie? Never done that before. How’d you think I did? He looks pretty wiped out, huh? Think he liked it? Should’ve left some for you, shouldn’t we? How we gonna make that up to you? What’cha laughing at, huh? This is a big deal, I just lost one of my virginities. Only got about three left now, if we’re keeping count.
He learns the ways to tell when they’re reaching their limits: Ted’s too-quick smile when he dislikes an idea but doesn’t want to say so; Michelle’s exasperated laugh; the two of them quietly picking up each other’s signals and making space for each other when they need it. Beard grew up in a house where every argument was a battlefield. Maybe there’s something to learn from Ted and Michelle. They keep things at a steady simmer. No problem is allowed to get so big they can’t tidy it away or smooth it over.
He likes how much they laugh, in and out of bed. How they anticipate each other. How Ted curls against him and wraps his arms around him after sex but lets him loose in the morning. They never try to move him into their bedroom and he’s grateful because he’d hate to have to turn them down. Ted makes pancakes and coffee on the mornings after they hook up, and the sight of it fills Beard with hope and dread at once because he’s not built like Ted and Michelle. He’s not made for this compact, contained happiness.
Whatever’s happening here, it’ll have to end. This moment is brief and thrilling and temporary, like everything good in life. He gasps into Michelle’s mouth as she kisses him, sweet and deliberate. One night, moving slowly so Ted can admire her technique and study Beard’s reaction, she reaches down to stroke him with a too-light grip that might be inexperience or might be intentionally teasing. Beard closes his eyes and whimpers, trying to picture a lifetime of what they’re doing. But the image of their future won’t solidify in his mind. He misses them already.
Ted and Michelle haven’t told him yet, but he’s already figured it out. And he has an exit strategy in place.
He catches Michelle emerging from the bathroom looking queasy for the third morning in a week. She’s trying to keep the symptoms quiet, but it’s hard to hide when you share a roof and sometimes a bed. Beard insisted on keeping his spot on the couch, even though Ted and Michelle have never once kicked him out or failed to invite him in. And now he’s sure he made the right decision.
Ted’s been walking around with a little more nervous bounce in his step than usual. He hasn’t said the words out loud yet, but Beard can see that he knows for certain he’s on the verge of fatherhood. Probably knows it with more certainty than Michelle and whatever doctors they’ve been consulting with, because when Ted knows something for sure, he knows it. He’ll will it into existence if it needs a little shove.
So it’s coming. Beard tries to think of it as a person — an imminent person — and not an event, because it’s harder to resent a baby for the too-soon end to whatever’s been going on between them.
He waits for them to break the news. Starts packing up his shit, slowly and quietly so they don’t notice. The books that have started collecting in to-read stacks and to-reread stacks and already-read stacks. The new shirts and underwear he’s somehow accumulated. The beard oil in the bathroom cabinet. He doesn’t get rid of it all in one go, but the clutter in the house slowly recedes as he makes little donations here and there. He wonders if he can possibly fit his new life into the rucksack he arrived with, and the answer is a definitive no. This is what comes of getting comfortable. He let himself settle in the spot that was supposed to be temporary, and now the party’s over.
Ted and Michelle will have to move, sooner or later. Maybe not right away. They’ll be able to fit a crib in their bedroom, but the kid’s only going to grow. They’ll get a bigger house, find ways to make their salaries stretch further and the only thing left will be a strange, pleasant memory of a time between times. They’ll be parents, and that’ll suit them. It was always going to happen this way.
Beard’s trying very hard not to be mad at a baby who barely even exists.
He’s looking into shoebox-sized studios, wondering how long he has before things start to change for real. Ted and Michelle won’t kick him out right away, he knows them too well to be afraid of that, but the space they’ve made for him — in their home and their lives and sometimes in their bed — is going to be squeezed, whether they like it or not.
He finds Michelle washing the breakfast dishes, Sheryl Crow crooning over the radio’s tinny speaker, and grabs a towel to help. As he falls into place beside her, she bumps his shoulder with hers. It feels affectionate and apologetic at the same time.
‘Sooo,’ he says, drawing out the vowel as if they’re gossiping or playing around. ‘How’d you like the fun part while it lasted?’
‘Please don’t say it like that,’ she says, and that’s new. Michelle used to like it when tough conversations started with a joke. Her wrists are turning pink where they’re submerged in the too-hot water. He wants to pull her hands out of the suds, press a clean towel to her palms and kiss the insides of her wrists. ‘I don’t regret it, but a part of me wishes we’d never—’
‘Yeah,’ he mumbles, thinking about Ted, flat on his back and panting. The sweat gathering in the hollow of his throat, waiting to be kissed clean. He’d caught himself thinking, the first time, that if it only happened once, he’d be satisfied with just that. Now he thinks they could have run the whole playbook and it wouldn’t have been enough. ‘I get it. We’re good.’
She’s smiling, but she can’t keep the crack out of her voice. Her shoulder is still brushing his and she leans against him. He tries to memorise the gentle weight of her. ‘You don’t have to be so nice about it, you know.’
But he does. That’s how it works in this house. The line is drawn without a cruel or difficult word. In theory, it should be painless.
Michelle disappears upstairs while he’s clearing the kitchen table that evening. Ted slots in beside him, gathering the plates and cutlery while Beard scoops up the dishes and serving spoons. Ted’s the one who baked the lasagne. He’s the one who bought the groceries. It’s not his day to wash up. But here he is, quietly stacking plates, one eye on Beard. When the table’s cleared, he nudges Beard and nods at the sunflower pattern on the corny thrift store tablecloth.
‘It’s pretty, ain’t it? Makes the place feel like a real home. Always makes me think I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, when I see those sunflowers.’
‘Yeah.’ Apparently Ted still likes to ease his way into tough conversations. Michelle might have changed, but he hasn’t. ‘What’s up, Ted?’
‘Figured you and Michelle already had a talk about her situation,’ Ted says. ‘So I guess I’m not breaking any news when I tell you I’m gonna be a dad.’
He isn’t, but it’s the first time any of them have said it aloud. Ted’s voice is hesitant, like he’s ashamed of all the joy he’s feeling, and suddenly Beard’s ashamed of all his petty little sorrows.
‘Yeah. I’m happy for you.’ He means it. A family is the one thing Ted’s always been certain he wanted. It’s impossible not to be happy for him. But he keeps his eyes on the faded sunflower pattern on the cloth, hoping Ted won’t press him. Three nights ago, Ted slumped against him on the couch while they were watching a movie, reaching out to lazily unbutton Beard’s fly while Beard contemplated angling his neck to kiss Ted’s temple. In the end he’d decided to wait and kiss Ted afterwards. If he’d known this was all coming to an end so soon, he would have kissed him twice.
‘Nothing’s changing right away,’ Ted says, not meeting his eye. ‘But, hey, you probably won’t want to be involved when Michelle’s body gets all—’ he looks like he’s trying and failing to come up with an unappealing description of Michelle’s body — ‘and sooner or later, the two of us are gonna be too tired for anything, uh, recreational.’ There’s something regretful in his tone, as if he’s the one getting dumped. ‘And I know you ain’t into relationships or kids or…’
‘It’s all right,’ Beard cuts him off. ‘I get it. I’m looking for places.’ He scoops the dishes up and jerks his head in the direction of the kitchen. Ted trots beside him, nervous and relieved and unhappy all at once.
‘Well, like I say, no need to rush things. Ain’t nobody getting kicked out of Casa Lasso.’ There’s a forced brightness in Ted’s tone, like it hasn’t occurred to him that Beard might not want to hang around and watch his family change shape into the thing it was supposed to be all along. ‘But, uh, regardless of how that all falls out, I got an ulterior motive here.’
He lets the stack of plates land, too heavily, on the countertop. He doesn’t seem to notice the way they rattle, he’s too busy turning to Beard and flashing the smile that no one on Earth has ever said no to. It’s an ominous, irresistible smile, promising nothing but wretched, excruciating happiness.
‘If you’re gonna get your own place, you’ll need to pay the rent, right?’ Ted says, all coy like he doesn’t know the answer. ‘Get a steady job or something.’
‘Or something,’ Beard repeats, not quite agreeing.
There’s a part of Beard that’s always wanted to run a mile when he hears the words steady job. It’s the same part of him that recoils at terms like lease and binding agreement and commitment and partner. It was the reason he never made it any further than Ted and Michelle’s couch, but now it’s the reason he can’t stay there.
‘I’m thinking, all this pressure with the family, I’m gonna need some help with the team,’ Ted’s still talking, absently stroking his moustache. ‘Gonna need an assistant coach too, ideally with a strategic mind and a mysterious past. I’m thinking we could bring home a few trophies, get our names out there, maybe move up to KC and start making some real change. And, just as a bonus, it means we get to see each other all the time. How’s that sound?’
It’s the hardest sell Ted knows how to give: A decent offer and an unvoiced plea. And something in Beard knows Ted’s asking this question because it’s the easiest thing to ask for. It’s something Ted’s certain he wants, and it’s something he’s sure Beard will agree to. That’s the thing about the Lassos, Beard’s starting to understand. Ted and Michelle never ask for more than the other one can offer. In theory, it means no one’s ever disappointed.
Ted puts a hand on his wrist. ‘How’s that sound, Coach? You wanna make me the happiest man in the world?’
It’s the kindest, most fucked-up breakup Beard’s ever endured. He wouldn’t expect anything less. He thinks about hoisting Ted up to the countertop and kissing him stupid. About making promises he can’t keep and demands Ted can’t fulfil. For the briefest moment, he lets himself think the words family and forever. But that’s not the offer on the table, and it’s not where this thing’s going.
Instead he breathes in the moment, feels the world transform around him and lets himself be exhilarated by new possibilities.
‘Yes, Coach,’ he says, and the snapped syllables feel clear and true. They say everything he means and more. And if everything he feels is more complicated than yes, Coach, there's no need to tell Ted or Michelle.