Chapter Text
Rebecca was one of his best friends. He loved her…Not like that though. It was completely platonic between them. He just liked spending time with her, every day. He just wanted to make her smile and laugh and watch the way her mouth quirked or her eyes did that cute little crinkle thing when he was successful in his mission. He just liked to check in with her as often as possible in case she needed him and not at all because he sometimes missed her when she was gone. He cared a lot about his friends, that was all.
Ted would often say that he held her in the same regard that he did Beard and Roy and sometimes even Keeley. Yep, she was on the same level as the rest of them. All good…No, great friends. Noting more. Just a bunch of best buddies, working together, spending their lives together, growing old together…wait…no. Yes, all of them he means. Yep, all of them were the same, best friends…nothing less or more.
Ted stressed this point so often and so intently than everyone else around him didn't have to wonder who he was trying to convince. To everyone else, it seemed plain as day that Ted had more than friendly feelings towards Rebecca and vice versa but they were both blind to their emotions and too damn stubborn for their own good.
Both Ted and Rebecca insisted to anyone and everyone that they were just friends and nothing more and so no matter how many people tried to make them see the light they stayed in denial.
…
She didn’t notice how close she became to Ted until one day when he was late for biscuits with the boss. He’d been having a tough morning, sleeping through his alarm, forgetting his umbrella and getting soaked in the rain and then getting dragged straight onto the pitch for early training the moment he got to work so it made sense he didn’t deliver her biscuits until later in the day.
What didn’t make sense was the pit in her stomach when he didn’t show up at his usual time or the sinking feeling she felt when she heard his voice on the pitch later, knowing he was there and hadn’t come up to see her.
She rationalised that it was just sugar withdrawals. Yes, that is all it was. She had been having those damn biscuits every day at almost the exact same time for years now and missing out on them just made her feel off. It made sense.
She didn’t think too much about how when he bustled into her office later in the day with wet hair and rambled explanations/apologies? Her heart seemed to jump in her chest and how with the first bite of her biscuit she instantly felt calmer because that meant nothing. Didn’t it?
Rebecca felt antsy the rest of that day and rather than trying to work out why she decided that she must need a project. She needed something to put her energy towards, something to channel the energy that was currently wasted on confusing emotions. As she looked towards the couch in her office that Ted had just vacated she remembered how last movie night she’d been looking around her sitting room and it had just felt somewhat…blah. So she decided to remodel the sitting room in her house. Yes, this was a good plan, a new space and a place to put all her energy, she wasn’t avoiding anything she was just focusing on a new project, perfect.
…
Ted didn't understand why the guys were once again asking him about his feelings for Rebecca, he was sure he put this topic of conversation to bed for the last time a week ago but here were the questions again.
“I don’t know what you fellas are talking about. Becca and I just lost track of time talking in her office and I wasn’t even that late to practice, wait…training, day training.” He mumbled yet again giving himself a reminder of the different phrasing used in this country.
Roy and Beard looked at each other and silently decided not to comment on the use of Becca as a nickname as opposed to Boss which they'd gotten told off for bringing up last week when someone else interjected.
“You were twenty minutes late, coach” Jamie commented from the side of the pitch.
“Oi! Less eavesdropping, more dribbling” yelled Roy before turning back to Ted with a curt “what he said” motioning towards where Jamie had been.
“Well, it was important stuff” Ted mumbled looking back to the pitch.
Beard and Roy shared a look then turned back to him with disbelief across their faces before Roy asked “What was so fucking important today?”
Ted paused before quickly spitting out “sheneededhelppickingnewcushions” hoping to the powers that be that they took the semi explanation and left it at that.
They didn’t. Beard quirked an eyebrow at Ted as he refused to take his eyes off the pitch and Roy raised a “fucking, what?”
Ted sighed looking back to the coaches knowing that he wasn’t getting out of this one today. “She needed help picking out new cushions for the sitting room she’s redoing in her house.”
He paused for a moment looking back into their knowing faces and began rambling. “That’s a big decision y’know, there’s a whole lot of colours, and shapes, and textures and you don’t wanna get too many cause then you’re overrun by cushions and you don’t wanna get too little cause then what are you gonna do when you need padding for a fort or things to cuddle during movie night?….and she just wanted an outside opinion.”
He took in another large breath looking at the pitch, continuing “It could have been your opinion, or Issacs or even Will’s opinion but I was there with her biscuits and she…needed an opinion. Completely normal. Noting to do with me n her, which again ain't anything. Just some platonic chit chat and exchange of opinions. So I have no idea what you fellas think but it was just some good old fashion interior design conversation with a good friend, that’s all.” As Ted began to get somewhat defensive the guys reeled in their judgment and tried a different approach.
“Coach, we just think maybe you should think about the fact that this is the third-morning training that you’ve been late to this week” Beard tried.
“Yeah, and it's fucking Wednesday” grouched Roy.
“All because of biscuits with the boss running over cause you want to spend time with her and that may mean something.” Ted looked back to them and Beard wrapped up with “Just a thought coach.”
They paused with the statement up in the air then collectively decided to leave the conversation at the natural stalemate they seemed to reach, all focusing back on what the boys were up to on the pitch.
…
Ted thought about his relationship…no, friendship with Rebecca because it was just that. A friendship. A close friendship, but a friendship nonetheless. Sure they spent most of their time together with biscuits with the boss during the day, lunches in her office and sometimes drinks at the pub or even movie nights outside of work but that didn’t mean anything. She was his friend, she didn’t feel anything for him beyond friendship and that was that.
He did most of that stuff with the guys too anyway, well, except for biscuits with the boss but that started out as just a way to get to know his boss who he felt didn’t like him at the time. There was no romantic intent behind it, he’d been married when he started that ritual after all and that’s all it was a ritual. She just happened to love his biscuits and after he’d hopped over her walls he just happened to like watching her love his biscuits so the ritual continued.
He did have to admit that these days they were closer than ever, but that was a good thing, right? They had a great working relationship. He could practically predict what her opinions would be most of the time and she always knew what to say to get his head back in the game. Their relationship was good.
Rebecca was his friend and he spent a lot of time with his friends so of course in his much time spent with her he noticed that she was an attractive woman. That meant nothing.
You could acknowledge when your friends were attractive and still be completely platonic, heck Roy was a handsome man and he and Keeley made a beautiful couple and Ted could even see the allure of Beard’s…beard and that meant nothing. So it definitely meant noting when he noticed how beautiful his very platonic, good friend, Rebecca just happened to be. It was just a fact, nothing more.
…
Keeley smirked at her from the other side of the couch as she looked at her phone. She felt her friend's eyes on her and had tried to ignore them since Ted left her office but she couldn’t any longer. Putting her phone down and looking over at the buzzing blond she sighed “what?”
“You and Ted were cosy when I walked in”
Knowing Keeley was going to say something outlandish was one thing but when she actually did it always threw Rebecca whether she expected it or not. “What are you insinuating here, Keeley?” Rebecca asked, squinting at her friend.
“Oh, I'm not insinuating anything.” Rebecca sighed in relief thinking she was wrong about the direction this conversation was going, until “I’m just saying that you and Ted were all pressed up against each other on the couch when I walked in and that you looked very comfortable” she said with an eyebrow waggle that Rebecca had come to recognise as the first sign of an impending headache caused by her best friend.
“What are you…?…no…we weren’t… I don’t …even..know.” she took a breath “I surely do not know what you mean” Stuttered a suddenly flustered Rebecca.
“You sure you’re not shagging Ted?”
“What!?”
“Because it seems like you two are and if you haven’t told your best friend that you are shagging the lovely, fit Gaffer who is head over heels for you, then that is just rude and bad friend behaviour. Also if you're not shagging that man then that’s just a wasted opportunity that you should get on top of if you know what I mean” she said with a cheeky look on her face.
Rebecca closed her eyes and rubbed her temples she was too tired today to deal with this line of questioning that seemed to have become a weekly occurrence at this point.
Choosing to ignore the last sentence, especially the part about Ted being head over heels for her, which could not at all be true she sighed, “Keeley I’m not going through this again. Ted and I are not shagging, there is no attraction between us, we just are friends. What you walked in here to see was just two friends discussing cushions.”
“Cushions for sexy times?” “No, cushions for my sitting room”
“And you were pressed up against his side because?…” “We were both looking at the iPad! We were looking at sample pictures” she squeaked defensively.
“Mmhmm…” Keeley hummed disbelievingly about to launch into a further line of questioning when Rebecca stopped her.
“No. No mmhmm, there is nothing at all going on between Ted and me and I’m tired of having this conversation. Ted and I are friends and that’s it and I’m sick of everyone else saying otherwise. Now either we stop talking about this or I’m leaving the room.”
“Okayyyy, sorry babe just thought I'd ask” Keeley apologised “now why don’t you push that wonderful body of yours up against mine while we look at that iPad and find me a dress for the Galla coming up?”
Rebecca sighed in relief now that this particular conversation was coming to its conclusion and motioned Keeley over to her side to start looking at dresses.
They continued to look at dresses for about half an hour before Rebecca decided she needed to get back to work and Keeley got up to leave the room. Just before Keeley left however she stopped at the door looked back to her friend and said,
“Babe just think about the Ted thing, cause I think there is something more there than you’re willing to see and if you opened your eyes you’d see the way that man looks at you and know there are feelings there. It could be really good, for both of you.” Before Rebecca could do anything she was gone and Rebecca was looking at the empty doorway questioning everything.
…
Rebecca didn’t think Keeley was right but after this particular conversation, she couldn’t stop her annoying little voice from shooting off her mouth in the back of her mind. So when Ted came in for biscuits with the boss the next morning Rebecca decided she was going to prove Keeley wrong and watch as Ted reacted to her in only platonic ways.
Yes, then she could go back to Keeley and preach that she was right, that there is nothing between them and that maybe she should get her eyes checked or stop reading so many of those terrible romance books.
That is until Ted walked in. Now that she was looking for signs she wasn’t sure if she was seeing them everywhere because they were actually there or just because she was looking for them.
The first sign that caught her attention was the way his eyes lit up when he saw her. She always knew Ted was expressive and had a nice smile but there was something about that look when he first saw her already looking at the door waiting for him that took her breath away. It was almost like he couldn’t believe she was real and was more excited than ever just to see her face. That was odd.
The next sign was when he passed over her biscuits and their hands brushed, of course, their hands brushed. The biscuit box was only small and cradled in his big strong hands there was only so much room for her own hands to reach for it without unintentional touching his.
Wait…big strong hands? Had she always thought that about his hands?
Anyway, the jolt of electricity and the sudden urge to avert her eyes from his earnest gaze was definitely a sign.
After that, their interaction was fairly standard. Aside from catching some looks in her direction when she wasn’t looking at him, which she usually wouldn’t have seen before, it was a fairly normal situation. They chatted about the team and some of his plans for them, she asked how Henry was and he asked how the sitting room remodel was going. It was then that she got another sign.
As they went over to the couch so she could show him some photos she noticed something that she never noticed before. As she sat down on the couch and crossed her legs demurely her tight skirt rose up to her thigh and for just a second she noticed his gaze flickering.
That couldn’t have happened. No, her mind must be playing tricks on her. Because if what she thought she saw had actually happened then that would mean Ted was looking at her legs and that wasn’t very platonic at all. She looked at his face for any sign that something out of the ordinary had happened but as he looked at the iPad she found nothing.
She went back to showing him the photos thinking about how she would confirm what she saw and decided to try something. She shifted the iPad off of her lap holding it sightly higher and seemed to focus her face on only the screen. When she was sure that he thought she wasn’t looking at him at all she slowly uncrossed and recrossed her legs the other way now pointing towards him. With his assumption that she was not looking at him in place, she noticed his gaze follow her legs and watched as he took in the slightest gasp as her skirt rose more.
Huh, that was interesting.
Eventually, he had to go down to the pitch joking bout how “Royo’s gonna kill me if I’m late to prac…training, again and a dead coach is no good to anyone” she laughed along at the statement and said goodbye and proceeded to mull over her findings.
…
She had great legs, she knew that. It was rare for women her height and build to not have great legs and she knew people looked at her legs but she’d never noticed Ted looking, at least not until today.
Keeley said something a few weeks ago about her being completely oblivious to the way that people looked at her but that couldn’t be true, was it?
She thought that Ted only saw her through the lens of being his friend, she wasn’t even sure he noticed she was a woman at all and that was fine because that’s all they were, friends. She’d definitely checked him out before, very much aware that he was an attractive man, but she'd never seen him do the same and she thought he never had, until now. Maybe he had been looking at her in other ways and she had just been too oblivious to see it.
This thought was a dangerous one because it lead her down the rabbit hole of how many times had Ted checked her out? Was it just her legs or was he looking elsewhere? Was it normal for friends to look at each other like that? And why did the idea of Ted looking at her give her butterflies?
She had to get answers to her questions, she had to know and she would find out all that she wanted to know.