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Ted clapped his hands together loudly. “All righty, this ain’t a regular Diamond Dogs meeting, here. Keeley asked us to do something nice for the WAGs at the end of the season, to show our appreciation. First point of action, obviously, is to start with a more inclusive acronym.”
Trent smiled softly. Ted was taking to the whole ‘midlife sexuality crisis’ ordeal quite well, not that Trent expected otherwise. Colin’s little coming out party a few months ago really did wonders for the low-simmering sexual tension between Trent and Ted, allowing them to finally (finally) stop kidding themselves. Ted was firmly divorced, Trent was no longer a reporter, there was nothing stopping them from acting on those aborted half-glances and too-long handshakes and not-strictly-platonic dinners and pints and…well. Trent was just glad there was no more ambiguity between them.
That being said, Trent couldn’t quite place exactly how he felt when confronted with the full force of Theodore ‘support everyone’s comfort no matter the cost’ Lasso’s intense enthusiasm for making the club the most gay-friendly football club in the entirety of London. He would have done it if it were just Colin who was out, Trent knew deep down, but just as much of him felt a mix of flattered and mortified by the concept of Ted upending the violently heterosexual world of premiere football just for him. Not that Trent hadn’t done similar with his implosion of his career with The Independent but, well. This time they were actually involved, to Trent’s low-simmering joy.
Regardless, finding a new name for the Wives and Girlfriends club was probably as mild as Ted could be, in the circumstances.
Roy Kent, however, frowned. “Any particular reason?”
“Well, we can’t very well go around calling it the Wives and Girlfriends and Colin’s Boyfriend club. We all know I can tend to over explain a bit, but that’s just a mouthful.”
“And pandering,” Coach Beard said.
Ted shrugged, nodded.
Roy was silent. While that wasn’t uncommon for him, especially when Trent was in the room, this silence was telling. Tense, strained, affected. The calm before the storm.
“Colin’s fucking what.”
It dawned on Trent at that moment that, for all of the club’s openness about their lives, no one had directly talked about Colin’s sexuality after he came out. The boys made soft-landing sideways jokes, sometimes, but nothing out of the range of regular locker room talk. Most of them were still finding their footing, even all this time later, drawing their own personal lines between teasing and harassing. Jokes at Colin’s expense stayed at a normal rate, as was common amongst team members, but jokes about his sexuality or proclivities towards any gender had all but stopped, aside from the occasional poke from McAdoo, but they were best mates.
So, Trent realised with a faraway sense of horror, that anyone not in the room when Colin came out might very well miss those signs, might not notice any difference at all. Anyone not in the room, like Roy, who went chasing after McAdoo after his little explosion at the fan. Roy, who wasn’t in the habit of asking after other people’s personal lives.
Roy, the only person in the whole of the club that didn’t know Colin Hughes was a flaming homosexual.
Ted seemed to come to a similar conclusion. “Oh shoot, you were out with Isaac when Colin confided that particular backstory with us.” A slow creeping panic took over his features. “Well shit y’all, did I just out Colin? I mean, since everyone else on the team knows I’m sure he’d be fine with you knowing. We, uh. Might wanna check in and make sure that’s the case, all subtle-like, ya know? Beard, you got me on that, right?”
Trent looked to Roy, trying (and failing, surely) to keep the deep amusement he felt off his face. “He said you and Keeley went on a double date with them last week.”
Roy growled. “Hughes said he was a fucking solicitor. I thought he thought it was funny, making me eat dinner with a fucking shark.”
Trent raised an eyebrow at Ted. Ted shrugged. Coach Beard rolled his eyes. What were you to say when one of your premier league coaches just now realised, second hand and months later, that one of the players was gay?
Roy ground his teeth so loud Trent could hear it, leaning against the opposite doorjamb from him. “So we’re supporting this?” That age-old sickly fear crept up Trent’s spine. “Colin dating a solicitor?”
Trent’s chest unwound a bit. Roy’s dislike of solicitors and journalists was legendary. It was fitting he’d have no problem with the gay bit - his fiancée was bisexual, for god’s sake - but more with Michael’s profession. The world Ted dragged Trent into was getting stranger and stranger every day. He felt like he’d stumbled into a Jim Henson rendition of what a football club could be. He looked askance at Coach Beard. They even had their own Sam Eagle, he thought.
And, of course, Ted couldn’t simply let sleeping dogs lie.
“Well I’m dating a journalist, so I guess I can’t be too harsh on him.”
Trent wasn’t watching his mouth, too preoccupied with the facial journey Roy was travelling on at that very moment and his own inner debate over which muppet would be cast in his role.
And so, while he watched Roy grapple with whatever mental gymnastics he was performing in his head, Trent let slip his automatic response to Ted’s insistence.
“Former journalist,” Trent corrected absently, a phrase he’d had to utter so often it didn’t even register in his higher thinking any longer.
"You're dating someone." Roy demanded simultaneously. Not a question - Trent didn't think he'd ever actually heard the man ask a question that wasn't sarcastic before.
Roy paused at Trent's words, returning to that same slow rage that seemed to steal all the air from the room.
Ted blushed, sheepish. Trent avoided Roy’s melting glare. Coach Beard frowned, thinking.
After a long (too long, in Trent’s humble opinion) silence, Roy finally said, simply, “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
Coach Beard snapped his fingers, like he just figured something out. “You were at the doctor’s when we had the Diamond Dogs meeting about it.”
Ted shook himself out of his stupor, nodding along with Coach Beard and uttering some nonsense agreement.
Roy turned tail and walked into his office where Trent had, unthinkingly, retreated.
Trent met his gaze with a bashful smile. He’d been told, sometimes, that he could be charming if he put his mind to it.
Roy Kent, of course, had a well-documented immunity to charm.
“Scram.”
Trent swallowed down the chuckle threatening to bubble up in his throat. The whole thing was so ridiculous, he couldn’t understand how he got here. Roy fucking Kent mad not because the head gaffer was dating a man, but because that man was a former journalist, and because he was the last to know.
The door to the shared office slammed behind him as Trent skittered over to Ted’s desk, as ordered, perching gracefully as he’d done so many times before. It was honestly a miracle that Roy had never noticed. He nearly caught them snogging once in the kit room - which, Trent still owed Will tickets to that drag show in exchange for ‘running interference,’ as Ted had said, on that one - and yet was still so shocked he had to take time to sit alone and process the revelation.
It was oddly touching, in a way.
After a long moment, Ted finally regained his senses. “Maybe we should do weekly news reports or something, like that guy on the pirate show, Black Sails.”
Trent frowned lightly. Ted had watched Black Sails? There were always more depths to uncover.
“John Silver,” Coach Beard agreed, sagely.
Ted let out an extremely put-upon gasp. “Owner of Long John Silver's premier seafood establishments?”
“Technically both were named after the character in Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novel Treasure Island,” Coach Beard shrugged.
Trent did know that Ted had read Treasure Island, and was particularly moved by the story of Ben Gunn. They’d discussed it a few weeks ago, when Ted had asked after Trent’s favourite book. It was A Single Man, for the record. Ted’s was, improbably, The Fountainhead.
Ted snapped his fingers, pointing to Coach Beard. “Like Muppet Treasure Island.’'
Coach Beard, well used to Ted’s antics, nodded.
Trent licked his lips and looked up to the ceiling, long suffering. “Remind me why I'm dating you again?”
Ted grinned beatific. “Well, you've said in the past it's because of my big heart and unending optimism, but I'd like to think it's because the mustache reminds you of Tom Selleck in Magnum PI. You know, in the Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned all the way to his bellybutton?”
Trent smiled, laughed, pressed a quick kiss to Ted's forehead. He was so unbelievably lucky he got to keep this strange man. “I’m going to camp out in Rebecca's office, then. Give us a ring when I'm allowed to access my laptop again.” He glanced balefully at his laptop, left on his desk, guarded by its very own Cerberus.
Ted nodded. “Sure can do, baby blue.”
Trent raised an eyebrow at his partner, staying silent.
Ted understood anyway. “Darn it you're right, I can do better.” He paused, petting at his mustache. “How about… No problemo, John Stamos.”
Trent hummed. It was more fun, most times, to play along. “In ER or Full House?”
“While Full House is tempting, what with the luscious hair and all, I was thinking more his character in Necessary Roughness. Boy did Michelle have a crush on that man, and though I didn’t say it then, I have to admit he was pretty crush-worthy.”
Roy, apparently still listening in, roared from the other side of the glass. “FUCKING SHOOT ME NOW.”
Ted clapped his hands on his thighs, standing up. “Yep, all right, Imma go defuse that bomb. Have fun with Rebecca.”
Trent parted with one last smile, soft like Ted had made him. “I’m sure I will, darling.”