“Glad we got the chance to do this,” Ted says, his smile warm and his eyes soft.

Rebecca finds herself melting, not an unusual sensation for her at this stage. “Me too.”

Henry’s spending the night at a friend’s house, and Ted and Rebecca are taking the opportunity to go out to dinner—not in their usual Richmond haunts, but at a lovely Greek restaurant in Notting Hill. Ted has taken the opportunity to discard his current uniform of loose t-shirts and soft sweatpants for a nice suit with a forest-green shirt, the top two buttons undone, and Rebecca is very much looking forward to peeling him out of his clothes at the end of the night.

They’re not front-and-center in the restaurant, but they’re not exactly hidden away either—it’s a quiet table in the back, but there are still people around them, and Rebecca’s caught a couple of diners doing double-takes, so far nobody’s approached them, and Rebecca has yet to see anyone take their phone out for photos or video. All in all, it’s easier than she would have expected to focus on Ted, on their conversation, on their date, rather than worry about any potential response or reaction.

Ted’s finished Anna Karenina, and has moved on to Rebecca’s dog-earned collection of Golden Age mysteries. Rebecca is smiling as she listens to Ted’s earnest opinions on Lord Peter Wimsey and his romance with Harriet Vane, “—now I’m trying to reserve judgement, but there is a time and a place to announce to a woman you have feelings for her, and when she’s sitting in a prison cell on murder charges just ain’t it,” Ted wraps up, nodding emphatically.

Rebecca smiles into her wine glass. “Yes, you prefer to wait until you’ve moved into a woman’s house, with your son, and have been platonically sharing a bed with her for ages—”

“Hey now,” Ted protests, though the broad smile on his face undercuts it rather. “You moved me into the house—”

“Some people would call that a declaration,” Rebecca says loftily, and Ted raises an eyebrow at this.

“Some people haven’t watched you make grand gestures practically every week for seven years,” he points out. “Remember that time some influencer tried to start a feud with Keeley and you tried to call up Mark Zuckerberg to have them banned from Instagram for life?”

“I still think Mark could have been more accommodating,” Rebecca sniffs, and Ted laughs.

His hand is resting on the table, and Rebecca idly reaches out to stroke the back of his hand with a finger. Ted catches her fingers with hers, and for a moment, they are that couple, lovingly gazing at each other over a table in public as they hold hands.

Of course, in the next moment, Rebecca has to excuse herself to use the loo, but at least the moment happened. After using the toilet, and taking the time for the customary bout of primping before the mirror—reapplying her lipstick, making sure that her dress is lying as it should—Rebecca turns to go, but is caught by her reflection in the mirror.

She looks good, of course, that’s not the surprise. What is surprising is how…happy she looks. There’s a glow to her face that has nothing to do with the Charlotte Tilbury makeup she’s wearing, an ease to her posture that can’t be blamed on the wine she had with dinner.

Rebecca looks happy, because she is happy. What a radical concept. What a wonderful state of affairs.

Smiling, Rebecca exits the restroom to find that Ted has been cornered by a Richmond supporter. This time, it’s an elderly Irish woman, chatting Ted’s ears off while her two younger companions (daughters, Rebecca’s guessing, from the mildly exasperated looks on their faces).

“But you’re feeling all right, then?” the woman’s asking now, and the genuine concern in the question is nice to hear. Rebecca avoids social media as much as she can, but she still has to be aware of it, and the growing demands from Richmond supporters to have Ted return as soon as possible, never mind his health, has set her teeth on edge lately.

Ted smiles and nods, “I am, Eileen, thank you for asking.”

“That is excellent,” Eileen declares. “Because I tell you, this Kent lad’s doing his best, but I’ll feel much better once we have you back in the technical area.”

“Dugout, Mammy,” one of her daughters says in long-suffering tones, then frowns. “Is it dugout?”

“I think that’s in baseball,” her sister says, then shakes her head. “Wait, why am I answering the question when there’s a soccer coach right in front of us?”

Before Ted can reply to this whirlwind, he catches sight of Rebecca, and his smile growing, calls out amiably, “Hey, Rebecca, I was just having a nice chat with Eileen and her daughters here.”

“I can see that,” Rebecca says, smiling back as she walks up to her seat, but doesn’t sit down just quite yet, as Eileen seems dumbstruck looking at her, in a way she hasn’t seemed to be with Ted. Bemused, Rebecca stands still for a moment, letting the woman look her fill.

“Lord love you,” Eileen says at last, after silently looking Rebecca up and down—Rebecca has more than a foot on the woman, at least. “Your legs really do just go all the way down to the floor, don’t they?”

“Yes, they do,” Rebecca agrees, for lack of anything better to say.

Eileen, who seems the affable sort, nods as though Rebecca’s said something incredibly wise. “Magnificent.”

“Jesus, Mam,” one of her daughters is saying now, the one who thought dugouts are only for American baseball, “his date’s come back, let them get back to their meal—”

Her sister elbows her and hisses, “That’s Rebecca Welton! She owns the club!”

“I know that, I’m just saying that in that dress—”

While the sisters bicker, Eileen’s gaze is now caught on Rebecca’s feet. “You’re wearing heels, I like that,” Eileen says. “Any man looking to make you smaller so he feels larger isn’t a man worth keeping.”

Rebecca finds herself smiling back. “Yes, I’ve found that out myself,” she agrees, glancing at a pink-cheeked Ted, as she finally takes her seat.

Eileen cackles. “So you have!” She nods once more and says, “I’ll leave you to it and take my girls elsewhere.” She reaches out to shake Ted’s hand, telling him, “Ted, you’re as lovely as people say you are, which is the best compliment I can give a man.” She turns to Rebecca and adds, “Make sure we get this man back on the sidelines soon, eh?”

“We’re doing our best,” Rebecca says with a warm smile, but out of the corner of her eye, she sees a flicker of movement—as if Ted’s twitched his shoulders or something.

But when she turns back to him, he’s smiling and at ease, saying, “Now how long do you think it’ll be before that ends up on Twitter?”

“Bold of you to assume it hasn’t already been filmed and posted on TikTok,” Rebecca says dryly, but adds, hesitant, “Do you—we should have talked about this before, but will you mind? If this goes public, if people start asking questions?”

Ted looks as if he doesn’t understand the question. “Bit late to mind it now, we’re already here,” he points out. “And why on earth would I mind people knowing I’m with you? That’s like winning the lottery and burying the ticket in a hole in the backyard.” He reaches out to take her hand again, saying tenderly, “I’d have to be a fool to mind being seen with you, and I think we’ve had enough of that already, don’t you?” His smile turns a little rueful, as he adds, picking up his drink, “Or so Beard and Higgins keep telling me, they are being very free with their opinions on how long it took us to get our act together.”

“Really?” Rebecca asks, picking up her own wine glass. “Keeley and Sassy just keep giving me sex advice,” and smirks as Ted chokes on his non-alcoholic cocktail.

*

They don’t get stopped by the paparazzi on the way out of the restaurant, but pictures do make it onto social media; by the morning, Rebecca’s getting calls from Richmond’s PR team, headed by Keeley’s replacement, Helen Kamara.

“Want me to come in with you?” Ted offers as Rebecca puts on one of her earrings, dropping a kiss on her bare shoulder.

“No, no, it’ll be fine,” Rebecca says. “You’ve been living with me for ages now, surely this can’t be causing that much of a stir.”

But when she walks into her office to find not only Helen, but Roy, Beard, and Higgins waiting for her as well, Rebecca starts to worry she might be wrong on that point.

“I see this is going to be a group discussion, then,” Rebecca says, as mildly as she can manage as she seats herself behind her desk. If she’s going to be forced into a group chat about her romantic relationship in this context (and not during a cozy teatime chat with Higgins where they are emphatically off the clock) she wants to be in as powerful a position as possible. Helen and Higgins are sitting in front of her, and Beard is settled in the back of the room, leaning against the wall, looking between them all with interest. Roy, meanwhile, has his arms folded across his chest, his face set into his usual glower.

Once she’s settled in, Rebecca squares her shoulders and says, “Right. How much of a fuss are people making about me and Ted?”

But, to Rebecca’s surprise, Helen looks nonplussed at the question, tilting her head. “Fuss? What fuss?”

“The fuss that has us all in this office doing damage control?” Rebecca prods, growing confused herself.

“Ah,” Higgins says. “I think we may have a bit of a misunderstanding here. Helen—”

Nodding, Helen steps forward and says, in her crisp way, tossing her dreadlocks over one shoulder, “Rebecca, if I can be candid?” At Rebecca’s nod, she says bluntly, “Most of our supporters and the media already think you’ve been dating for years, it’s old hat to them by now. The majority of the comments on Twitter and Instagram are about identifying the designer of your dress, not about whether you and Ted are a couple.”

Rebecca takes a moment to let this sink in, promptly has a vision of Mae and the punters at the Crown and Anchor debating the state of her love life, and just as promptly discards it for the sake of her sanity. “And the tabloids?”

“Oh, you’re in the tabloids,” Helen confirms. “But after your ex-husband’s outburst, it’s just not the right sort of environment for them to try and make a scandal out of it.”

“Plus they already caused enough of a fuss when Ted and Henry moved in,” Higgins points out. “The two of you going out to dinner just can’t really compare.”

“Then…why are we here?” Rebecca asks.

It’s Roy who answers. “We think it’s time Ted came back to the team.” In the back of the room, Beard’s chin dips down, so that his baseball cap is covering half his face.

“I’m sorry, what?” Rebecca stares at them all, then says slowly, “Listen, I know Ted’s looking a lot better these days, but he still hasn’t been cleared for work by his doctors—”

“No, no,” Higgins says quickly. “We mean Ted should come in to visit the team, not that he should jump right back in as manager. Certainly not.”

“A visit?” Rebecca repeats, sitting back in her chair.

“He can stop by during a training session,” Helen explains, with more than a touch of excitement. “We’ll have our in-house cameraman nearby, capture some footage, a few photos, and post it all on our official social media posts. It’ll give a real boost, and…we could use a boost right now.”

Rebecca takes a breath. “A visit from Ted isn’t going to push us any higher in the standings.”

“No,” Helen agrees, “but it will quiet some of the fans wondering why Ted Lasso is well enough to have a night out in Chelsea, but has been missing in action from the stadium for almost two months now.”

“Now hang on,” Rebecca begins, heated, but Higgins holds up a hand.

“We know that’s not what it is, Rebecca,” he says, in his gentle way. “It’s just what people are saying.”

Rebecca presses her lips tightly together. “I don’t want Ted pressured into this,” she says finally. “He nearly died in this office, he should have as much time as he needs, and some whingers on Twitter or Reddit or wherever shouldn’t bloody change that.”

“No one wants to pressure Ted into anything,” Helen begins soothingly, but Roy cuts her off.

“It’d be good for the players to see him,” he says, hands shoved into his pockets. Something about his stance reminds Rebecca of Ted, when he’s facing up to do something. “Be a boost to team morale as much as anything else. More, even.”

That does get Rebecca’s attention. The team’s hanging in there, and is probably doing better than expected given the injury crisis that’s hit so many of the players, but they’re still sitting in eighth, four places away from a Champions League spot. Ted can’t fix Taylor Komoh’s ankle, or Isaac McAdoo’s knee, but Rebecca’s watched the man work miracles for seven years now; she can’t discount the human factor, or how much of an impact it could have.

It’s odd. As Ted’s partner, she’s spent months defending her right to wrap the man up in soft wool until he’s cleared by the doctors. As the owner of AFC Richmond, who has responsibilities to the employees and the fans and the stakeholders, and who is all too aware of what it will mean if the team doesn’t qualify for European football next year…

She can, unfortunately, see the point that Helen and Higgins and Roy are all trying to make.

She looks towards the back of the room, where Beard has stayed silent all this time, even as he’s watched everyone speak with his usual owlish expression, head tilting back and forth as he considers everyone's point.

Rebecca asks him, a little pointedly, "And what do you think, Coach Beard?"

Beard makes a show of pausing to consider it, before saying briskly, "Team could use the chance to see Ted."

"There you go," Helen says triumphantly, as Roy and Higgins nod in agreement.

And so, reluctantly, Rebecca concedes. “I can talk to Ted, see if he’d be comfortable stopping by. That is all I will be doing, and if he’s not ready, then he’s not ready, and we’ll just have to come up with some other heartwarming viral moment for the masses.”

Helen and Higgins are graceful in victory, Beard his usual laconic self, and the conversation moves on to other, just as necessary topics. Eventually they all move to leave, but Rebecca calls out as Roy starts to follow them out of the office, “Roy? Can you stay behind for a moment?”

“Sure,” Roy says.

Once the door’s shut, Rebecca just goes for it. “You know that even Ted would be struggling with the team if he were in charge now, right?”

Roy doesn’t play coy or dumb—the man is physically incapable of it, Rebecca’s convinced. “It’s not about that, Rebecca.”

She lifts her eyebrows and asks, “Isn’t it?”

Roy is quiet for a moment, before settling down in the chair facing her desk. “It’s not,” he begins slowly, then grimaces. “Okay, yeah, sometimes there is a voice in my head going, what would Ted Lasso do?” He tilts his head back and forth on the last few words, almost making them into a song. “But Ted’s been keeping his distance, and we all know why. It’s my job to prove he doesn’t have to.”

Rebecca nods in understanding, but says, “I have every confidence in you and the team, Roy. I mean that.”

“I know you do,” Roy says, inclining his head. “But the players miss him. It would be a boost, having him around, even if it’s just so he can tell us another insane story about his aunt in Missouri or wherever that got hit by lightning three times.”

“Great-aunt in Texas,” Rebecca corrects without thinking, and Roy smirks.

“Well, you would know.”

Rebecca waves it off, but can’t help but smile herself. “Okay. I’ll talk to Ted then.”

“Good,” Roy says, and just like that it’s all settled. For the moment at least.

*

Ted is very quiet when Rebecca talks to him that night at dinner. Rebecca finds herself speaking more quickly due to sheer nerves, although why she’s nervous about this, she can’t say.

“And Roy’s really okay with this?” Ted asks, a crease between his eyebrows as he looks down at his half-eaten plate.

“He really is,” Rebecca says. “He think it’ll be a boost to the team’s morale.” She’s quiet before adding, “He says the players miss having you around. And that you should tell the story of your Great-Aunt Peggy being hit by lightning again.”

A corner of Ted’s mouth tilts up, amused and skeptical. “Now I know you’re lying about that last part.”

“Well, it’s what he meant,” Rebecca says, pleased with herself for making that line between Ted’s eyebrows disappear, even temporarily. “But if you don’t want to, or even if you don’t want it to be on camera, that’s all right, really—”

“I’ll do it,” Ted interrupts.

Rebecca pauses. It’s what she wanted to hear—at least she’s pretty sure of that, but she still has to ask, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Ted says, his face smooth and unworried, his gaze steady and clear. “It’ll be good for the team, and I miss the players too. As long as Roy doesn’t feel like I’m stepping on his toes, I’m good to go.”

He’s lying. Rebecca can’t point to why she’s so sure of it, but she is. For whatever reason, Ted absolutely does not want to do this, but is still agreeing to it anyway. Rebecca wants to press him on it, but has no idea where to start, and Henry’s at the dinner table too, the last thing she can do is start interrogating Ted in front of him—

“I wanna go too,” Henry pipes up, watching them both closely. “Can I?”

“Yeah, why not,” Ted says. “I’ll write a note to your teachers, get you excused from school for the day.”

“Cool,” Henry says, and pokes at his grilled chicken.

“All right,” Rebecca says, putting a smile on her face. “Excellent.”

She doesn’t get a chance to corner Ted about it until they’ve gone upstairs for bed (Henry had a school project he wanted Ted’s help with) but she doesn’t let herself off the hook, asking as she scrubs her face clean of that day’s makeup, “Ted, are you sure that you want to visit the team this week?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Ted says, and Rebecca glances out through the open door to see Ted stripping down out of his jumper and into one of his sleep shirts, this one a ratty Sporting Kansas City shirt that she’s fairly sure he got as a gift.

“Because,” Rebecca says, wiping away the last of her makeup remover, “—you don’t seem like you do.”

There’s a pause, and then Ted moves to stand in the doorway, eyebrow raised. “Is there a required level of enthusiasm I should be showing here?”

His voice is very mild, and Rebecca feels her shoulders going back without meaning them to. “Of course not,” she says. “I just—I want to make sure none of us are pushing you into something, that you’re not just saying yes because you feel like you should.”

Ted’s mouth purses for a moment, then he makes a little face. “Suppose this is what Doc was talking about,” he mutters, and at Rebecca’s confused look, makes a stronger face and explains, “Doc Fieldstone—Sharon—she was saying how if you’re never saying no, people can’t trust that you mean it when you say yes.”

“Oh,” Rebecca says, and turns that over in her head. “That’s actually rather sensible advice.”

“Yeah, turns out the shrink’s a smart one,” Ted says dryly. “So that’s why I’m telling you—I want to do this. I should see the boys, and I want to see the boys, and you can trust me when I say that. Okay?”

Rebecca still has her lingering concerns, but after a moment, she exhales, choosing to believe him. “Okay,” she agrees. Ted gives her a small smile, and drops a soft kiss on her bare cheek, before speaking in a lighter tone, "Besides, Beard thinks it's a good idea."

"Beard's spoken to you about this?" Rebecca asks, momentarily surprised—although now that she thinks about it, of course Beard would've approached Ted about this himself.

"Yeah, we went over it during our phone call this afternoon," Ted says easily.

Rebecca blinks. "Beard does phone calls?"

"Well, it's mostly just me talking, with him adding a couple of words or noises every few minutes, but we've got a bond," Ted explains.

"I'm just surprised he's willing to use a phone for calls," Rebecca admits. "In seven years, I don't think I've ever spoken to the man on the phone, he just texts like he's from Gen Z." And the texts, when they arrive, are in the style of team mtg @ 7pm while Rebecca texts back, Thank you.

As if he’s reading her mind, Ted smiles and says, “You just think that because you’re the type of person to text someone a sentence with the word ‘whilst’ in it.”

Aggravated (and relieved to feel aggravation instead of this nagging little worry) Rebecca huffs and says, “Whilst is a perfectly natural and reasonable word to use, you just don’t like it because you’re American and your country has discarded plenty of perfectly useful words from your lexicon.”

The resulting argument lasts for exactly as long as it takes for Rebecca to climb into bed, and climb onto Ted’s lap and kiss him quiet, pulling back only long enough to murmur, “I know what you’re doing, you’re just trying to egg me on.”

“Maybe,” Ted admits, smiling up at her, his hands resting on her hips, the touch easy and natural, as though they’ve been like this for years. “You gotta admit we’re having fun, though.”

“I can think of some other fun we could be having,” Rebecca tells him throatily, and leans in to prove it.

*

On the day of Ted's visit, Rebecca has to put in an extra half-hour onto the schedule, because she knows that the team won't be the only ones who have missed having Ted around. She's proven right from the very second Ted steps out of the car, and the man who's in charge of mowing the field gets straight off the machine to jog up to greet Ted, a huge smile on his face. The resulting in-depth conversation about sciatica is…well, it’s a lot of things, but the nicest word for it is astonishing.

Everyone wants to say hello, they all want to shake Ted's hand and say they're glad to see him back and looking so well. Henry sticks close to his father's side throughout, and so he comes in for his fair share of questions about how he's adjusting to life in England, with a few extra comments on how much he looks like his dad.

Rebecca ends up playing the role of timekeeper, finally dragging Ted off from an earnest conversation with old Owain Williams, Richmond's academy director—Ted's always wanted to keep a closer eye on the academy than most Premier League coaches bother doing, Rebecca’s always assumed it’s a throwback to his days coaching teenagers in America.

Finally, she has to loop her arm through Ted's and literally drag him off in the direction of the training grounds, with Ted calling out a goodbye to Owain over his shoulder.

It's all fodder for the camera following them around, of course, but Rebecca doesn't worry—she actually rather likes the thought of the image that they make together, her and Ted arm in arm, with Henry right at Ted's other side.

And that's how they walk out onto the pitch, with Ted only stopping once their feet touch the grass.

"Ted?" Rebecca asks.

Ted has a faraway look on his face. "It's all right, just give me a second.”

Rebecca does—she means to, at any rate—but just then Sam Obisanya turns from where he's been stretching out his legs, and his face breaks out into that famously bright smile. "Coach! It's Coach Lasso!"'

Because they're standing arm in arm, Rebecca is close enough to feel it as Ted takes a deep, steadying breath, before he slips free and steps forward just in time to be surrounded by a large crowd of boisterous, grinning footballers.

“You look good, Coach!”

“Haircut’s looking crisp, eh?”

“Look like you’re about to be on the cover of Men’s Health, right lads?”

Rebecca discreetly steps farther back, behind the cameraman, because this isn’t about her, not really. This is for the players, and the fans that will be watching this later on Richmond’s various social media accounts.

When Rebecca watches the artfully-edited video that the PR team puts together, complete with music that threads the line between charming and cheesy, she’ll notice how natural Ted makes it all seem—the way he seems to have a moment with every player there, from the veterans like Sam and Jamie, Jan Maas and Isaac (whose knee injury has improved to the point where he can do some light training) and to the younger players just fresh out of the academy, like Seb Moran and Ander Zárate, filling in at midfield and centerback respectively.

There’s a quiet word and an arm around the shoulder for Etienne Lefebvre, whose error at leftback cost them the game at Wolves in midweek, and Lefebvre’s usually solemn face is wreathed in smiles by the end of their little chat.

And of course there are shots of Ted with the coaching staff—in earnest conversation with Colin, standing side by side with Beard, listening carefully as Roy speaks (that’s a deliberate editing choice, Helen will explain, avoiding anything that makes it look like Ted is the one giving a lecture).

There are even a few shots of Henry with the players, kicking a ball back and forth with Sam and Jaime, laughing at something that Jaime’s said. Rebecca’s always thought he more closely resembles Michelle in his features, but Henry’s expressions are an echo of his father’s, especially when he’s laughing.

But at the center of it all is Ted, Ted smiling, Ted laughing, Ted striding around the pitch in his puffy coat and khaki trousers, as if he’d never left, as if the past two months were just a dream.

It’s a great video, and it’ll do exactly what they intended from the beginning: rack up the views, get them good press, reassure the fans without damaging Roy’s authority as manager.

It’s a great video, and it doesn’t tally with what Rebecca actually sees in the slightest. What she sees isn’t just the brightness of Ted’s smile, but the stiffness in his shoulders, how his hands never seem to leave his pockets and how tense the corners of his mouth are when his smile slips—though the smile never seems to slip for long.

It all makes for a faintly surreal day, Rebecca standing to the side in her peacoat and heels, wondering if it’s just her that’s seeing this—until she happens to catch Coach Beard’s eye, and he looks from Ted to her, and then dips his chin in the tiniest of nods.

Okay. So it isn’t just her seeing this. So now what is she supposed to do about it?

But of course, Beard is already well ahead of her, plotting what at first seems to be a detour but turns out to be a shortcut.

Not that he does it himself, of course. What he does, once Ted and Henry have left for the day but Rebecca’s stayed behind to review financial reports, is to send Colin up to see her.

“Ms. Welton?” Colin asks tentatively, hovering in the doorway. “Could I come in for a moment?”

“Of course,” Rebecca says, gesturing at an empty chair. “And call me Rebecca, Colin, I’ve told you before.”

Colin ducks his head, smiling. “Sorry. I know you have.”

But once he’s sitting down, Colin doesn’t seem eager to begin speaking—drumming his fingers on his knees, looking everywhere but at her.

Finally, Rebecca has to prod. “Colin? Was there something you wanted to speak to me about?”

“Coach Beard said I should talk to you,” Colin explains. “We were talking earlier, and then he said, ‘Think you should talk to Rebecca’, and so here I am.”

“Okay,” Rebecca says, striving for patience—honestly, this is what she gets for hiring a coaching staff comprised entirely of eccentrics. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Here’s the thing, it’s about Ted,” Colin explains. “Well, it’s about me first off, and then it applies to Ted, if you catch my drift.”

“I don’t, but I’m hoping to shortly.”

“So it’s like this,” Colin says, taking a breath. “After my accident, when I woke up in the hospital, the nurses and the doctors, they all did their best to prepare me for what was coming next. The surgeries, the physical therapy, what might be fixable and what would never be fixed.”

Rebecca sits back in her seat, surprised. She’s never actually had a conversation with Colin about the car accident that ended his career—she’d visited him in hospital, of course, and she’d immediately backed Ted when he’d insisted on bringing Colin onto the coaching staff—but she’d never, in all that time, actually heard Colin talk about the accident.

“And they did a good job of it, telling me,” Colin says, his gaze faraway, caught in a distant place that Rebecca’s never been, “But what they can’t tell you, what no one can tell you, is who I was going to be when it was all over. Because I wasn’t the same person I was before the car crash. Not just because I couldn’t play anymore—that was what I did. Not who I was, do you understand?”

“I—I’m trying to,” Rebecca admits.

“Even if I’d walked away from the crash without a scratch on me,” Colin says, looking at her earnestly, before adding, “Hell, even if I’d been able to walk away, period—I still wouldn’t have been the same. Getting that close to dying—it changes you. It changes what you want, what’s important to you.”

Rebecca swallows, as understanding washes over her. “And that’s what you were saying to Coach Beard, that he thought you should repeat to me.”

Looking deeply relieved, Colin nods. “Ted—well, it’s different working with him now as a coach than as a player. You see things differently, I guess.”

“But you didn’t,” Rebecca starts, then checks herself. “I’m sorry. Do you feel that you can’t talk to Ted about this?”

Colin shrugs. “Well, I still was his player, wasn’t I?” he points out. “It was like today out on the pitch—Ted shows you what he wants you to see. Because he thinks that’s what his job is.”

“So you told this to me instead, because…”

Colin just shrugs again. “Well, you’re the boss. Roy says you could stand in front of a rampaging rhino and make the rhino back down.”

Despite the seriousness of the conversation, Rebecca has to smile. “A rhino?”

“Rhinos are terrifying,” Colin tells her very solemnly, then gets to his feet. “Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say.”

He heads off for the door, in his blue Richmond tracksuit, this former player who is now the first openly gay man to coach in the Premier League, and Rebecca calls out impulsively, “Colin?”

He turns back at the door to look at her, face curious.

Rebecca smiles. “I rather like who you’ve turned into.”

A shy, crooked smile spreads across Colin’s face. “Thanks. Me too.”

*

Rebecca is the one who is fairly preoccupied that evening at dinner. She does her best to cover it up, listening as Henry outlines the history assignment he’ll be working on, an idea he got from Colin, where he plans to outline all the ways that the Prince of Wales title is a tool of “English colonial oppression.”

“God, you must be Colin's favorite person,” Rebecca observes.

Henry beams. “He’s gonna help me learn how to pronounce all the Welsh words and names,” he says proudly. “I already know how to say Owain Glyndŵr.”

“I’m sure it’s gonna be great, buddy,” Ted reassures him.

Henry nods, confident. “Colin says it’s enough to try to get it right, that that’s more than most people bother with.”

“Colin’s very wise,” Rebecca agrees, remembering how she’d just gotten proof of that this afternoon.

Ted’s watching her closely, and Rebecca smiles at him reassuringly, before offering to Henry, “We can probably do a weekend trip out to Wales, if you like, see Caernarfon Castle.”

Henry’s eyes light up, and they start planning the trip out right then and there. After dinner, Henry goes to his room to work on his schoolwork, and Rebecca starts to clear the dishes from the table, but Ted stops her with the gentle question, “Everything all right, Rebecca?”

Rebecca pauses, before carefully setting the dishes in the sink. “I rather think I should be asking you that question, actually.”

When she turns to look at him, Ted looks genuinely surprised. “Becca, sweetheart, I don’t…”

“Everyone thought today went really well,” Rebecca says, evenly. “We got lots of great footage for the PR team, and the players were thrilled to see you.” She pauses before saying next, “But I’m not so sure you were thrilled to be there.”

Ted inhales. “Rebecca—”

“Did I push you too much?” Rebecca asks urgently, unable to keep the words back any longer. “Was it too much, too soon? And don’t tell me there isn’t anything wrong, Ted, I know you. You think I can’t tell by now when you’re having to grit your teeth and bear it? You think I couldn’t see how stressed you were today, with your hands in your pockets and your shoulders all the way up to your ears?”

Ted is quiet for a long moment. At last he says, quietly, “It wasn’t…it wasn’t that bad.”

Something inside of Rebecca eases, at hearing Ted admit the truth. “But it wasn’t good either.”

Ted slowly sits down at the kitchen island. “No,” he admits heavily. “No, it wasn’t.” He looks up at her with a sorrowful expression. “I wanted it to be. God, you have no idea how much I wanted to just walk in there and feel nothing but joy. And I did feel joy, it just…it was work too.” He laughs a little, looking down at his hands. “It didn’t use to feel like work, this job.”

Rebecca exhales. “But now it does?”

Ted lifts a shoulder, not quite looking at her. “Now I’ve got Henry living with me, I’ve got you, I’ve got…” his throat works as he continues, “I’ve got Doc Sharon looking me in my face and asking me why I’ve been working myself to death for years, and I’ve got Doc Bhamra telling me I can’t keep working myself to death, and I—” He stops.

Rebecca wants to press, to push for more, but for once when it comes to Ted, she shows restraint. She waits for him to speak instead.

And he does, glancing up at her as he admits, “I don’t know how to do this job, coach this team, and not give it everything I have. But giving it everything I have is…Rebecca, it was wrecking me. Most nights during the season I couldn’t even get to sleep, I barely used my kitchen to do anything but make you biscuits, I couldn’t read a book or watch TV or do anything except eat, drink, breathe this sport.”

He stops to inhale sharply, shoulders heaving, and Rebecca just watches, squeezing her hands together, her throat stinging. Part of her is already self-flagellating, whispering about how she didn’t know, how could she have not known—

But isn’t that the point? They wouldn’t have gotten here, Ted wouldn’t have landed in that hospital in the first place, if it hadn’t been exactly this bad.

Ted’s eyes are wet now, and he says to her, urgently, “I’m so grateful for this job, this team. I told you years ago, you changed my life when you gave me this job, and I wouldn’t take it back for anything, Rebecca, not a damn thing in the world.”

Somehow, through her stinging throat, Rebecca smiles, and finally presses. “And?”

A corner of Ted’s mouth tilts up, despite his obvious pain, because he knows her too, and he knows what she’s asking him for—that final piece of truth that’ll settle this at last. “And when I think of going back, about picking it all up again—I feel like I’m setting my foot into a bear trap on purpose, just waiting for its jaws to snap shut on me. I can’t…I don’t know how to do the job I was doing and be a good dad to Henry, a good partner to you. And I don’t…”

He trails off, and Rebecca picks up the thread. “And you don’t want to go back and try to do the job a different way,” she finishes for him.

Slowly, Ted shakes his head.

Rebecca breathes in and out. She thinks for a moment, keeps quiet until she knows what she should say, and exactly how she wants to say it. And then she comes forward and stands before Ted, carefully holding his face, so dear to her, in the palm of her hands.

“Seven years,” she says. “Seven years, one Premier League title, two FA Cup titles, multiple runs in the Champions League, and one promotion from the Championship. That is a hell of a run by any measure, Coach Lasso.” As a tear finally slips from Ted’s eye, Rebecca gently presses a kiss to his forehead, and she finishes, “And it’s a hell of a legacy to end on.”

Ted lifts his chin a little, his face so heartbreakingly open as it searches hers, looking for something—and she can feel it in his body when he finds it, the tension leaving his shoulders at last. “Thank you,” Ted whispers, before dropping his head to rest against her shoulders, his arms coming round her waist to pull her in a close embrace, as he finally puts that last burden down.