"Are you okay?" Keeley asked, getting herself situated on the comfortable private jet seat. "You've been the walking dead all morning. And don't say it's a hangover because no one was more drunk than I was last night."
Alex chuckled, "just tired." The answer she offered was barely accepted by her companion. Rebecca ended her conversation with the captain at the front of the jet and started toward her seat across from Keeley.
"Bullshit." Keeley argued.
"What is?" Rebecca asked, exchanging glances with both of them as she settled into her seat as well.
"Oh my god," Keeley gasped. "You fucked Roy."
Alex choked on the sip of water she had taken, "I absolutely did not."
"You what?" Rebecca whipped her head between the two of them in shock.
"I didn't sleep with Roy!" Alex defended. "We just...kissed."
Keeley let out a squeal and leapt from her chair into Alex's lap, wrapping her arms around her. Alex couldn't help but laugh in response, but shook her head.
"Oh, no!" Keeley looked down at her, standing up. "It was shit?"
"No," Alex shook her head, couldn't help but smile slightly at how far from shit that kiss was. "Definitely not."
"So, what's the problem?!" Rebecca interrupted her reverie with urgency.
"He disappeared just after. Said nothing about it." Alex nodded a thanks for the tea the attendant had put on the table in front of her.
"Well, once we get back to Nelson Road, he's going to have me to answer to," Keeley threatened.
"No, Keeley." Alex cut her off, "that's alright. I can talk to him myself."
"Maybe he just needs time to get his head sorted," Rebecca offered, sipping her own tea.
"Yeah," Alex agreed. "Maybe."
"And where did you end up last night?" Keeley spoke up, pointing a finger at Rebecca. "I didn't see you once we got back to the suite."
"Well, I went down to the bar and had a nightcap," Rebecca said knowingly, winking.
"You didn't!" Keeley shouted, "the waiter?"
"Tell us everything!" Alex exclaimed, happy to have something to think about other than that kiss.
It was frustratingly difficult to forget just how good someone felt in your arms when they were working your body over in an insanely good massage. Even a day later, Roy was fighting every millisecond of that memory. He felt himself grunting at the feel of the pressure he utilized on his legs. Alex found it impossible to ignore the thoughts of that evening as she worked her hands over his calf, ignoring how similar the sounds he made were from the ones she had caused the night before. No words passed between them, but the air was thick with everything that was going unsaid. Alex had reminded herself that there was a time and a place for these types of discussions, and neither of those were in the midst of her professional tasks with one of her players.
After Roy's massage, Alex excused herself to her office. Roy cursed himself for not speaking up and saying something. He left her sitting on the table, staring at the wall in deep thought.
When Ted entered his office and found Roy staring at the Pyramid of Success, he was pleasantly caught off guard.
"Hi Roy," Ted greeted him in usual friendly, Lasso fashion. He was met with nothing but a characteristic Roy Kent grunt. "Something on your mind?" Ted prodded.
Another grunt.
"Is that grunt all I get to go on?"
Grunt.
"Alright, I'll give it a shot." Ted was never one to back down from a challenge. "Lets see you are thinking about buying your first house!" Roy shook his head, trying to steel himself to say something. "No, not that. Okay," Ted thought further, "You just realized your dad might be a little racist?"
"Stop!" Roy interrupted in defeat. "He's in his 60s and he's from South London, of course my dad's a little racist!" He conceded, "Look..there was a moment the other night…"
Silence fell over the room. It felt impossible for him to admit the events of the other night and how unsuccessfully he had handled them. Ted looked up at him, a gentle encouragement, but no urgency to add to the pressure Roy was feeling.
"I kissed Alex after karaoke. But I fucked it because I didn't say a word to her about it after. I just walked off like a fucking idiot. And now it's been two days and things are back to normal but not fucking normal and I fucking fucked the whole thing." The entire time, Roy found himself unable to meet Ted's gaze.
"Whoooweee! Looks like our very own Roy Kent is a little lovelorn. And I know just what to do." Ted reached down and pulled his phone from his pocket. The smirk on his face as he tapped away at the screen made Roy anxious.
Roy swallows and shifts from one foot to the other, "What're you doing?"
"Don't you fret, my fine, furry fella. In a matter of minutes, your relationship dilemma will be in the past, for I am rounding up the diamond dogs!" Ted announced this decisively, as if that were going to somehow put Roy at ease.
Annoyed, Roy began to regret ever opening his mouth. "Who the fuck are the diamond dogs?"
"It's just a group of people who care, Roy. Not unlike folks at a hip hop concert with their hands not in the air."
Before Roy could respond to the absolute nonsense that had just come from Ted's mouth, the office began to crowd with the most unlikely group of people imaginable.
"So this is about you and Alex, right?" Nate was the first to ask, entering the room and taking a seat on the bookcase to Roy's left.
"Saw this coming," Beard added, taking a comfortably reclined seat as his desk.
Leslie came from the doorway behind Roy. "Nothing like the early days of courtship," he said excitedly, taking his place leaning against the wall.
Roy looked around the room in disbelief. How had he gotten to this point? "Okay, this is my fucking nightmare."
"I think the idea of you and Alex is like cookies and cream." Ted was tickled. "And I think we all agree that two great tastes go great together. Am I right?"
"Perfect analogy," Beard agreed. There was a general consensus from the room.
"Yes, I am into her, but she's the physio for the team. The person who is actively tending to my shit knee every fucking day." Roy gestured to his right knee.
"I don't see how that's a problem," Higgins started. "There are no policies against it."
"It's not just that-" Roy began.
"So you're saying you're worried that you're going to really struggle spending time at work and your personal time with a woman you adore," Ted offered for him. Roy felt the heat rise in his face.
"No, it's just-"
"Or that he's going to see her so much that he's going to get sick of her," Beard suggests.
"Or that she's so good at her job that she may stick around for another season," Higgins added.
"I'm afraid I'll fuck it all up!" Roy exploded. The room went silent. Roy was surprised by his outburst, as it was exactly what had been sitting at the forefront of his mind, but the last thing that he was going to say out loud.
"Then you know what you should do, Roy?" Ted got to his feet and gripped Roy's shoulder comfortingly. Roy did not find it comforting and shrugged him off. "You should do absolutely nothing at all. Ignore it." Ted turned and proposed his idea to the room. "I think he should just let all of those feelings bottle up and then watch her move along and end up with someone else. Then it won't be his problem to deal with anymore."
"Oh, I love when Coach does the sarcasm thing!" Nate exclaimed, giddy.
"I don't want-" Roy started to defend himself, but Ted didn't give him the opportunity.
"I get it," Ted started in, "you'd hate to have an actual shot at a good thing that just may mean you don't have to be so angry all the time. You may just have something, or in this case, someone, to look forward to at the end of a long day. Hell, at the end of a long career." Roy swallowed hard at the idea. "I'd hate to see a guy like you end up in a situation like that."
To this, Roy had nothing to say.
"So, Coach," Ted looked over at Beard with a sly smile. "What do we have to say about Roy facing his fears of being happy?"
"Grow up." Beard looked at him pointedly, "and get over it."
Ted threw his hands up in the air, "the Diamond Dogs have struck again!"
The entire room erupted into pants, howls, and barks. All of which Roy was far too happy to leave behind when he marched out of the office and down the hall. Even if the sound of the Diamond Dogs' cheers grew quieter, their words certainly did not.
.
Keeley clicked away at her computer, her thumbnail caught between her front teeth as she worked diligently. She flipped through the proofs that had been sent over from the ad agency that had worked with Isaac on an ad for Rollos. The shoot had gone well, despite Isaac eating far too many of the candies and then complaining about an issue with quality assurance as he nursed a stomach ache. Knowing that Richmond was soon facing relegation and it was important for any ads featuring a player to hit the market before that occurred, she felt the urgency as the work day ticked away.
"Shit," she groaned when the low battery alert came up on her laptop. Quickly, she reached down for her bag, rifling through it for the cord to give her just a few more minutes to complete her final task for the day. "Shit, shit, shit." The cord was nowhere to be found. Frustrated at her own eagerness to get out of the house that morning, she quickly saved her progress to the USB and pocketed it. Surely there was another computer she was able to use for the remaining twenty minutes of her work.
"Higgins," Keeley knocked twice on the open door of his office with a smile.
"Oh, hello, Keeley." Higgins looked excited to have a visitor. He shuffled some of the paperwork in front of him and offered her a seat in front of his desk.
"Thanks," she smiled, taking a seat and resting her bag on her lap. "I don't want to be a bother, but I was wondering if I could possibly use your computer just for a bit to finish up these approvals for Isaac's Rollos campaign?"
"Oh, of course!" Higgins was all too excited to be helpful. "I've got to get going anyway, I have to pick my son." He stood and started to collect his things. "Take my seat here. If you could just lock up when you're finished, that would be great."
"Sure thing," Keeley agreed, walking around the other side of the desk to get to his chair. "Thank you so much for this. I won't be long."
"No worries. Take all the time you need." He smiled at her kindly as he donned his coat. Just before he closed the door behind him, he turned to Keeley. "And the password is Cindy Clawford. Caps on both c's." He tapped his nose and closed the door.
"Cindy Clawford," Keeley repeated under her breath, typing it into the computer just as he had instructed.
With a sigh, Keeley smiled to herself, happy to tick the final task of the day from her list so she could go home and enjoy a well deserved glass of wine. Grateful to Higgins for lending her what she needed to complete it all, she closed out of the windows the computer that she had created. Behind them all was an open window of his photos, opened to a picture of his family. It looked like it was Christmastime, all of them in gaudy sweaters and santa hats. She smiled and clicked forward through a couple of the photographs, all capturing the family in varying levels of planning. Clearly, they had a few failed attempts at timing a photograph in which they were all ready.
Giggling to herself, she clicked forward. But the next photo made her breath catch. The next photo was the photograph that Keeley had lost sleepless nights over. The one Rebecca had so kindly offered to make disappear to ease her mind. The whole event had solidified her trusting relationship with her now boss.
"What the fuck?" Keeley whispered to herself as she flipped between several shots, clearly taken from the same vantage point, all of which were of the same moment caught between her and Ted. Keeley's mind was reeling 1,000 miles per hour. Impossible to pin down why on Earth Higgins would have these saved to the photos on his computer.
Forgoing all mindfulness of the man's privacy, Keeley clicked the "back" button to review the source of the photographs she had been viewing. There was a massive folder titled "photos" that was an unfortunate dead end when it came to giving up sources from which these images came. Keeley bit her lip as she pursued further, getting back to the documents that were on Higgins's drive. Folders with labels like "Player Contracts," "Scouting Reports," "Fiscal Reports," all were useless. The only one that seemed very out of place was "Instructions for Higgins," a copied folder in which she found herself clicking without thinking.
It was only in the folders that stood alone at the end of the list that she found what she was looking for. A copied folder labeled "Keeley and Ted." She clicked through its contents in disbelief. Each of the shots were inside, glaring back at her. Screenshots of detailed instructions to the photographer. And even worse, one of the messages between Rebecca and Higgins where she laid out exactly the plan. Sick to her stomach, but wildly grateful for Higgins's clear inability to part with a single piece of information, she closed out of every tab, locked the office door behind her, and stormed off for Rebecca's office.
"Oh," Rebecca was so happy to see Keeley marching into her office. "Hi," she sighed, sitting up in her chair.
Keeley crossed the room with purpose, her face did not mirror Rebecca's welcoming expression. "I was just on Higgins's computer. You arranged for the paparazzi to take those photos of me and Ted."
"What-" Rebecca began, but Keeley didn't allow her to continue.
"Don't deny it or pretend you don't know. I've seen every photograph and every screenshot." Keeley swallowed and pressed her lips into a thin line. "Either you come clean to Ted or I do it for you." With that, she turned and walked back out of Rebecca's office, leaving the woman stunned.
Alex swung open the door the minute she received the "I'm outside" text. There at her door was a very distressed looking Keeley, a bottle of white wine in her hand.
"I know that alcohol doesn't solve everything, but between the two of us, it's got to help something, right?" Keeley chuckled, holding up the bottle as Alex ushered her into her apartment.
"What the hell's happened to you?" She asked, crossing the room to the kitchen, searching of two clean wine glasses.
"I don't even know where to start," Keeley sighed, dropping her bag on the floor and leaning against the island countertop. She rested her head in her hands. "Did you get anywhere with Roy today?"
Alex laughed out loud, "I'd much rather discuss whatever it is you've got going on."
"Shit, that bad?" Keeley winced. Alex nodded with a deep sigh, tipping a generous pour into each glass. "Fuck."
"You've got to be absolutely fucking kidding me," Alex was at the bottom of her glass by the time Keeley had finished sharing all of the information she had stumbled on while in Higgins's office. "What did she say?"
"Absolutely nothing at all." Keeley tipped the glass back to catch up to Alex. "I didn't give her a chance to say anything."
"Do you think she'll come clean to Ted?" Alex reached over and topped both of their glasses off.
"She doesn't have a choice," Keeley tipped her glass to help it fill quicker. "I'm not going to let her make Ted look an absolute asshole for some sick game."
"I just can't believe…"
"Is no one who we fuckin' thought they were?" Keeley mused, staring at the glass in front of her. Her question resonated deep in Alex's guts.