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Roy knows the day is going to be bad when before they even get to training, he finds Jamie Tartt in front of him. He is not in the mood to deal with whatever Prince Prick has decided to make his business today, so he bites out: “Piss off, Tartt.”
However, Jamie does not piss off, instead he squares his shoulders, a determined look coming over his face that Roy only ever sees on the pitch. He doesn’t know what could be so important that Jamie is choosing to be stubborn in the face of Roy’s foul mood and he doesn’t care to either. By the looks of it, he’s unfortunately going to find out anyway.
“You shagged one of Spice Girls, right? Like a hundred years ago. Were you gentleman enough she’d text you back?” is not what he expected Jamie to say.
“What?”
“Fucking ‘ell, are you going deaf in your old age?” Jamie rolls his eyes. “The Spice Girl, do you have her number and would she text you back? Keep up, old man.”
“Why the fuck to you care?” Roy grunts annoyed. He doesn’t like being called old, he’s not even fucking forty, he’s just in a career where people retire young. And he definitely doesn’t want to do anything for Jamie Fucking Tartt, especially not this. “I’m not going to set you up with a fucking Spice Girl.”
Jamie makes a face at that. “I don’t need you to set me up with a Spice Girl.”
“Then why the fuck are you bothering me about one?” Roy growls, getting fed up.
“Because I need you to ask her to sign something!” Jamie explodes, a silence falling over the locker room after his outburst and an embarrassed flush on his cheeks. It’s splotchy and Roy takes a small amount of pleasure in Tartt being an ugly blusher.
The rest of the sentence processes and he blinks: “Why the fuck do you need me to do that? You can still get something signed yourself. You got enough fucking money. Or send a fucking message online, isn’t that the only thing you do on your fucking phone?”
“Already tried that, didn’t I,” Jamie complains, looking more embarrassed. “I want to have a specific message signed on it, it’s important. Can you just ask?”
“What is so important?” Roy asks, just taking the piss at this point since Jamie looks mortified to be having this conversation and he can’t help but poke at the lad.
“’s for me mummy’s birthday,” Jamie mumbles, not meeting his eyes as the blush gets brighter. “They were her favorite when I were growing up. Still are.”
“Was she a teen girl or some shit,” Roy scoffs, not necessarily meaning to judge the music taste of Jamie’s mum, but also unable to take him seriously, even if it is kind of sweet that he’s trying to do something nice for his mum’s birthday. Still, Jamie and sweet just don’t go together in Roy’s brain.
“Yes, what off it?” Jamie snaps, embarrassment fading for anger. Roy has never seen him angry like this, like he actually meant it. Jamie’s more for taunting cockily than actual anger.
Instantly he feels bad, Jamie being raised by a teenager explains a whole fucking lot about him, Roy thinks and he honestly truly didn’t mean to come off as insulting. Taking the piss of one of the lads or talking shit is one thing, insulting someone’s mother a whole other thing.
“Alright, didn’t mean anything by it,” he backs off, deciding to be nice. “What message do you want them to sign?”
Jamie eyes him suspiciously, which is probably his right, since Roy himself doesn’t even know why he’d help the prick with this either. However, he does want to help. Maybe that Lasso shit is rubbing off on him. Helping. Being a captain. That sort of shit.
There must be something on his face that makes Jamie believe him – or he’s just fucking stupid, which could very well also be the case – because he says: “Okay, you gonna write it down?”
“Cheeky twat,” Roy grumbles, “do you want them to write a fucking novel or some shit?”
“No, just don’t trust your old person brain to remember,” Jamie sticks his tongue out at him. Roy is about to take his help back when Jamie quietly adds: “I just want it to be perfect.”
And Roy hates that when Jamie is not being a massive prick to anything that moves for once, he is quite endearing. He reminds him a little of Phoebe right now and he has to banish that thought immediately, which he does by clearing his throat and gruffly going: “Fine, whatever, I’ll fucking write it down,” and fishing his phone out of his bag. “Spit it, Tartt.”
With a final suspicious look, Jamie dictates: “Dear Georgie, thank you for always being our superfan, happy 39th birthday. And then can you get all of them to sign it? Oi, are you even typing it all? Do you need help fucking spelling?”
Roy is pretty sure Jamie continues to talk, but he stopped hearing anything Jamie says after the word thirty-nine left his lips. Blood is rushing past his ears and he feels like his world is spinning. Needing to make sure he heard that right, he asks: “Your mum is tuning thirty-nine this year?”
Annoyed, Jamie says: “Yeah, I just said that didn’t I? She had me young, shut the fuck up about it.”
He realizes that Jamie thinks he’s judging her again and he can’t blame his defensiveness, because when he does the maths, fifteen is way too young to be a mom and he can’t imagine Jamie hasn’t heard it all before. All the judgment and vitriol people have for teen parents… for the children of said teen parents.
So, he quickly says: “No, no… uhm,” Fuck, he can’t believe this is a real sentence that is about to come out of his mouth, the shock still fresh in his mind, making it almost feel unreal. “I’m turning thirty-nine this year.”
“Oh,” Jamie blinks.
“Yeah,” Roy answers.
They just stare at each other for a moment, the rest of the locker room suddenly quiet around them.
It’s not that Roy is new to being confronted with being older than the lads around him. It started when he was twenty-nine and one of the new bench warmers at Chelsea mentioned being eleven and watching Roy debut, then it became more common and common to hear childhood ages being referenced in relation to big career milestones for him.
He stopped doing the maths on how old teammates were when he debuted when he hit thirty-two and it became depressing. Hell, he’s pretty sure Sam wasn’t even born yet when he debuted, a fact he tries not to think about.
However, this one is new. He’s never been old enough to be a teammates parent before. And that- that is very different.
Of course he knows that Jamie’s mum had him really young and he really shouldn’t compare, because it’s not like that. This is not a thing. He’s not that old yet. Still… there is something very visceral about looking at a teammate and knowing you are the same age as their mother. It makes him feel old and like a giant knob. He and Jamie have had a lot of friction during his loan here thus far, but now he just feels like he’s been bullying a fucking child.
“Fuuuuuuuuck.”
As he storms out of the locker room, he hears Jamie call out: “I didn’t even do nothing! Hey. Hey! Are you still going to help me? Fucking wanker,” but he ignores it.
Roy needs to be alone for a moment. Needs to fucking… process. Or punch something. Could go either fucking way at this point, sooner the latter than the former with him, but whatever. Fucking emotions making him feel all fucking fucked and weird like this.
Fucked and weird is the best he has right now, if he’s shit at dealing with emotions, he’s even shitter at figuring out what the fuck he’s even feeling. The only he knows that whatever he’s feeling is bad, but he doesn’t even know if the bad is directed at Jamie, himself or even the fucking universe. All he has is just that. Bad. Fucking great.
At this point, he’s just roaming the halls with spinning thoughts, glad that his reputation keeps everyone the fuck away from him. He knows he’s supposed to be in training right now and everyone else knows it too, but he doesn’t give a fuck, let them fine him.
He ends up stumbling into the carpark where Keeley is still there, talking on the phone as she leans against Jamie’s car, because he needs to driven around like a child…. “Fuck!”
“What’s wrong with you?” Keeley frowns, hanging up the phone. She’s probably the only person there unimpressed with his anger. She dated too many footballers in his orbit when he was still young and stupid… instead of old and stupid. Fuck.
“Your stupid fucking child of a boyfriend,” he curses. “Who is an immature little prick, who acts like a immature twat and I fucking hate him, but he’s just a fucking child and I’m a grown fucking man, who’s been fucking pushing him around, like an arsehole… Fuck!”
Keeley stares at him with wide eyes as he goes through the realization. “Whoa…” she breathes out, watching him stand there like a knob.
“Are you having a midlife crisis or some shit?” she asks with those wide eyes of hers, her voice disbelieving as she adds: “Over Jamie?”
Roy hate s that that was basically what is happening. Can’t even deny it. With his rant, the anger ha s faded somewhat and he feels tired again. Embarrassed. He nods.
“Wow, what- what happened?” Keeley asks, a mix between gossip-y curiosity and genuine concern that only she can pull off and make it sound trustworthy.
Sounding a bit strangled, he says: “I’m the same age as Jamie’s mum.”
At the revelation, Keeley’s eyes nearly fall out of her sockets, mouth agape. It makes him feel even more self conscious and he regrets telling her immediately. Shocked she goes: “Wait, how old are you then? I can’t imagine you being that-”
“That what?” he snaps, teeth gritted and fist clenched.
“Uhm, that old?” Keeley squeaks, having the decency to be apologetic about it. She quickly tries to cover up her blunder by saying: “I thought you were thirty-eight? That doesn’t sound right with being old enough to be Jamie’s dad.”
Fucking hell, she didn’t have to phrase it like that. However, she’s also right. “I am. So is his mum. She was teen parent, so I know it’s not like… a thing, but it’s also a fucking thing. Like what the fuck am I supposed to do with that? I- I- The same age as a teammate’s parent?”
“Yeah, no, that- that fucking sucks, babe,” Keeley winces in sympathy. Then she kind of ruins it by going: “I can see how that’s all confronting like, how many years you’ve been doing it, how much time is between you and the others. That’ll probably make you feel old.”
“I don’t feel old,” Roy growls defensively, before realizing he actually means it. Well, a little, he does feel fucking old, but that’s not new. What is new is feeling responsible for the fact he’s acting like a twat while being old. For being immature right back when he should know better. He feels embarrassed about his behavior. Guilty. “Fuuuuuuuck.”
“What? What’s happening right now?” Keeley asks, slightly panicked, because she’s Keeley and she’s probably invested in this now. Fucking, fuck.
Despairing and slightly incoherent, Roy exclaims: “I don’t fucking want to fucking adopt Jamie Fucking Tartt!”
Keeley’s eyebrows shoot to the top of her forehead and she chokes on a noise that Roy doesn’t have the brain capacity to decipher. Almost cautious, she asks: “Why… why do you think you need to adopt Jamie now?”
“Because he’s an immature little prick, who needs to grow up, but he is a little fucking child and I am a grown man, who is the same age as his mum. So I should fucking know better and be a fucking role model or some shit, because I’m Lasso’s fucking little girl. I need to set an example and be a good captain and shit, take the players under my fucking wing instead of being a sad old fuck,” Roy rants, leaving himself breathing heavily.
Throughout his rant Keeley just stares at him, continuing after he’s done, so they’re just looking at each other for a moment.
Slowly, she says: “So… it’s less a ‘fuck, I’m old crisis’ and more a ‘fuck, I need to be a responsible adult crisis’ that was brought on by the being as old as Jamie’s mum revelation? And it’s really that you’re only now realizing that you never grew up either and you’re nearly forty and you really should have done that earlier, so now you’re kind of floundering?”
“… Yeah,” Roy swallows, feeling hollow and uncomfortably seen by Keeley’s observation.
“Sorry,” Keeley winces.
Roy sighs, it’s not her fault that she’s right. He tries a lot with Phoebe, but that’s only with her and maybe he should have brought more of that into his captaincy earlier instead of doing this angry sad sack shit and he hates fucking Lasso for bringing it to his attention with that stupid fucking book, because now he’s going have to fucking try to be a better fucking person instead of wallowing until he’s irrelevant.
He snarls, because he doesn’t have many other expressions to pull from and truly doesn’t feel like doing this, even if he has to. “G-d fucking shit, I’m gonna have to be fucking nice to Tartt.”
Keeley chokes on a laugh, which is fucking rude and she giggles: “Oh my god, if you do that, Jamie will explode. I can’t wait for the end of this day.” She is still snorting to herself as she gets into the car, probably having to run to whatever gig she has, before coming back here to pick up Jamie… to whom Roy has to be nice to… which she will hear about… because Jamie is her boyfriend. Fuck.
With a heavy dread, he stands there in the parking lot, knowing what he has to do, but hating it anyway. In his mind, he can hear those two lines from the book ringing: ‘That it has to be me. It can’t be anyone else.’
Fucking Lasso, he seethes as he turns on his heel to stalk back into the Dogtrack. He has a Spice Girl to text and a training to attend.