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Sam was worried about Jamie. Well, maybe worried was a bit of a strong word. It wasn’t like there was anything particularly wrong with Jamie, he wasn’t quiet and drawn the way he got that one time that freaked everyone out, Sam was just… concerned for his friend. He couldn’t really place where the concern started, it was just lots of little thing, comments here and there, the occasional observation. Isaac is the one who really makes Sam notice it.
“Do you think it’s weird Jamie never goes home with anyone?” He asks, not really Sam but the table as a whole. They’re out at a bar, celebrating another win. Jamie had been and gone already, bright and happy, dancing from conversation to conversation, before following Roy back home the same way he usually did once Roy had barked at him that he was leaving and if Jamie wanted a ride he was too. They all know what prompted the question.
There’d been a woman, flitting around Jamie the whole night, flirting and laughing and just generally putting out any signal she possibly could to get Jamie’s attention. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence, Sam knew that Jamie was attractive, most people with eyes did, he was sought after whenever they went out by men and women alike. She was pretty, or in Isaac’s words, well fit. Sam had thought they’d been having a good time together, Jamie laughing and chatting with her easily for most of the night, until of course she had asked in a not very coy whisper if he wanted to go home with her, and Jamie’s face had fallen. It was strange, how the question seemed to shift Jamie’s entire mood. The easy slant of his shoulders tensing and the grip he had on his sprite tightening.
“Sorry love,” he’d replied, not quite tersely but with a noted, newfound stiltedness. “that’s not really what I’m looking for.”
the woman had just shrugged, easy smile never falling.
“no harm,” she’d said, taking another sip of her drink before pushing off the bar and scribbling her name and number on a napkin to slide over to Jamie “in case you change your mind.”
“I won’t.” Jamie said, though she was already gone.
Sam had thought it was strange at the time of course, Jamie wasn’t exactly a shy person, he wasn’t a particularly conservative one either, and he couldn’t see why Jamie would turn down someone he clearly enjoyed the company of. But Jamie did that all the time. He never went home with anyone, never went on dates, despite having been in all the Bantr campaigns just like the rest of the team he was the only one who didn’t even have it on his phone for appearances sake.
Sam never voiced his concerns before, he’d never seen a reason too. Jamie seemed happy enough even without any of that, but Isaac had an odd look on his face, and a worried furrow in his brow.
“Not particularly.” Jan Maas says “Jamie has never been interested in dating.”
“Sure he is, Jamie’s a proper slag.” Daniels ****says. Sam wrinkles his nose at the phrasing.
“That is not how I would put it.” He says “but Jamie isn’t…not interested in dating. He was very involved in his relationship with Keeley.”
“yeah, but that was like, three years ago now.” Bumbercatch chimes in, more people being drawn into the conversation. “when was the last time Jamie hooked up with anyone?”
“dating and hooking up are different.”
“Jamie still does not do either.” Jan Maas points out. “He is not interested.”
“how do you know he’s not interested?”
“Because he doesn’t do it.” Jan rolls his eyes, like this is a very obvious deduction “Jamie is not incapable of flirting, we have all seen him doing it. And it is not as if he isn’t being sought out. If Jamie wanted to be dating or sleeping with someone, he’d be doing it.”
“what about the tv show?”
“that doesn’t count.” Isaac says definitively, before continuing “and even if it did, it was still like two years ago.”
“So what, Jamie just…hasn’t done anything with anyone in three years?”
There’s a silence, following that, and Sam is sure everyone is doing the same thing as him, combing back through their memories for any instance of Jamie actually reciprocating someone flirting with him, or going home with someone other than Roy. Sam does not find such a memory, and by the looks on his teammates faces they don’t either.
“That cannot be right.” Richard says, clearly very confused by the collective conclusion they had come too. Several people murmur in agreement. Sam will admit, it seems like quite a long time for someone like Jamie to not have done anything, whatever that may be. He hadn’t realised it had been that long. Jan sighs heavily, like he’s being very put out by their stupidity.
“It is.” He says “Jamie has not been interested in anyone since Keeley, at least that we know of.”
“Maybe he is still in love with Keeley.” Dani adds, head tilted to the side as though he was remembering something imperative. “He did tell her he loved her at Ms Welton’s father’s funeral.”
“Yeah, but that was ages ago,” Isaac argues “he can’t still be hung up on her, can he?”
There another silence, contemplative and heavy. It wasn’t…surprising, for Jamie to still be hung up on Keeley. Keeley was wonderful, the whole team thought so, but Sam knew Jamie didn’t particularly like discussing his relationship with her. The few times Jamie had mentioned anything about it after his return to Richmond it had always been stilted, awkward and tinged with the barest hints of embarrassment. Not much of course, Jamie was nothing if not blissfully unashamed, even so it was obvious he didn’t like to linger on it at all, but especially not on its ending.
None of the team had ever actually known much about Jamie and Keeley, for as flashy as they liked to be in the locker room to make each other laugh, they both kept their private lives private. Sam had never thought they were particularly serious about each other, but he hadn’t known either of them very well, and Dani was right, Jamie had confessed to Keeley at the funeral.
“Jamie has been heartbroken.” Dani hums sadly, shaking his head. “we must help our friend!”
“Dani’s right, it’s not a bad idea,” Isaac says definitively “it ain’t right, to just leave Jamie moping around. He’s our mate.”
“I would not say he’s moping.” Jan says, brow furrowed “he seems quite happy as he is.”
Jan goes ignored of course, people chiming in with their ascents that it would not be right to leave Jamie pining for Keeley without at least trying to help. The idea of Jamie being lovesick is a strange one, not one Sam had considered in all of his worrying, but it made sense. Jamie cared very deeply about the people in his life, he cared very deeply about Keeley, from what little Jamie had shared of their relationship. And Jamie tended to hold onto to things for far longer than was good for him.
“We need a game plan lad,” Isaac announces to the table “how’re are we going to help Jamie?”
“You are not even going to ask him if he wants help?” Jan asks, looking between everybody with a raised eyebrow. Sam is one of many to shake their heads. Jamie will not accept help when it is offered plainly, they all know that. If he knows they’re trying to help him, he’ll close up. Jan sighs, resigned. “this is going to end terribly for you all.”
Here’s the thing; Isaac gets it. Keeley is mad fit, and she’s well nice, and Jamie dropped the fucking ball, getting dumped by her for being a twat. He’d get why Jamie would still be moping about that, three years down the line, especially when Jamie was so…Jamie about things. Isaac wouldn’t be surprised if the little idiot didn’t even realise, he was still hung up on Keeley. Step one was denial and all that.
Which meant if they wanted to get Jamie to move on and get back out there, they probably needed to get him to realise he couldn’t keep moping about Keeley forever in the first place. Which was easier said than done.
“what would you say you look for in a romantic partner?” Dani asks Jamie, sitting right beside him on Isaacs couch with a magazine open in his lap. Isaac ain’t too sure where he got it from, since it’s some kind of bubble-gum pink teen girl magazine, the front cover declaring strawberry lip-gloss the new rage and a road map to finding your soulmate could be found on page six.
Jamie snorts at the question, shaking his head fondly at Dani. He’s half slumped on Sam’s shoulder, watching Bumbercatch and Richard demolish each other at Wii golf with half interest while he entertains Dani and his magazine quiz.
“Not really looking for one of those in the first place muchacho,” he says. Isaac can feel the fact everyone else in the room is listening in, can see the little dip in Sam’s brow, and can only hope they don’t blow their fucking cover. Jamie needed to be eased into things sometimes, you couldn’t just come out and say shit because then he’d get defensive and snappy and go hide behind Roy’s legs for a while until he felt better.
“But if you had too,” Dani insists “it is for the quiz Jamie Tartt, do you not want to find your soulmate?”
“Hate to break it to you mate, but I’m going to be finding my soulmate on page six.” Jamie laughs, peering at Dani’s magazine curiously. “or anywhere for that matter, because soulmates ain’t real.”
“C’mon Jamie, humour him.” Colin says, laughing along with Jamie. Dani had already victimised Colin to his page six soulmate quiz, which had declared Colin’s soulmate would be someone level headed and sure of themselves to balance him out. “He won’t let it go until you do.”
“I don’t know,” Jamie shrugs with a sigh, settling further into Sam who shifts to wrap his arm around Jamie in a little half hug “I really don’t care.”
“how can you not care?” Zoreaux asks, incredulous “you’ve never thought about what kind of person you want to date before?”
“Not really?” Jamie says, sounding so flippant it almost throws Isaac off. “I’ve never wanted to date anyone. It always just kind of happened and then I was along for the ride.”
Daniels snorts, shaking his head as he throws back another handful of popcorn.
“That’s bullshit man,” he says, and then with all the tact of a bull in a fucking china shop because it’s like he wants Isaac to wring his neck, “you’re telling me you didn’t want to date Keeley, that it is just kind of happened?”
Jamie, almost imperceptibly, tenses up. Isaac only barely notices, because Sam shifts his hand from resting loosely at Jamie’s wrist to rubbing small circles over the bone with his thumb comfortingly. Jamie’s hands twist up in the fabric of his hoodie, wrapping it tightly in his fist before releasing it, then letting it go again, only the wrap it up again.
“Pretty much.” Jamie says, his voice all tight and weird like he’s lying “Was just there weren’t I? She wasn’t that interested in actually dating me either, I was just a good lay. It was fun, but it weren’t that serious.”
“But you cared about each other, didn’t you?” Dani asks, a little frown on his face. Jamie shrugs.
“Yeah, of course we did.” He said “but you don’t have date someone to care about them, I care about you lot and you don’t see me trying to mack on any of you do you?”
“So what?” Daniels snorts, sounding derisive and pitying, because he really wanted Isaac to wring his neck “you wouldn’t date Keeley again if you had the chance?”
“No.” Jamie says, so firmly it clearly shocks a couple people. He doesn’t even think about it first, the second Daniels finishes asking he’s got an answer. “I already told you, I don’t want to date anyone. I’ve got better things to do.”
Isaac thought that was bullshit. Jamie probably did too, and was just saying it to get them to leave the subject alone. It was touchy, these kinds of things, no one ever wanted to admit when they were having trouble dating. At least not in Isaacs experience. He wonders if Jamie was trying at all, or if he’d gotten so in his head about it he really had just given up on it.
That didn’t seem like a very Jamie thing to do, he was a lot of things and a stubborn arsehole was one of them, if he set his mind to something, he’d find a way to make it happen. It was weird, seeing someone as confident as Jamie insecure about something, Isaacs got to admit. It feels wrong. Against the natural order or some shit like that.
“Like what?” Daniels asks sarcastically “training with Roy?”
Jamie shrugs again, with a roll of his eyes “Yeah, actually and also, literally anything else.”
Daniels scoffs, shaking his head and reaching over to clap Jamie on his shoulder. Jamie doesn’t brush him off or nothing, but he doesn’t lean into it the same way he does with everybody else “Man, that’s just sad.”
Jamie wrinkles his nose, shaking his head.
“Maybe to you.” He says, eyeing the hand on his shoulder pointedly until Daniels removes it “but hey, if I was the one stuck riding a bench, I’d probably be more focused on my love life too, gotta have something to do with all that free time you’ve got.”
There’s a collective wince at Jamie’s words, Daniels face shifting into a scowl. It was an uncalled-for thing to say, and if the prickish, overly nice grin on his face is anything to go by, Jamie knew full well what he was doing.
“Okay,” Isaac cuts in, since it’s his captainly duty and shit to make sure his teammates don’t get into fist fights, “lets move the fuck on yeah? C’mere Dani, I’ll do the quiz with you if Jamie doesn’t want too.”
Several more attempts at getting through to Jamie were made after that night at Isaacs, but no matter what they tried, Jamie didn’t want a bar of it. First it was Dani, attempting to corral Jamie out with him and his girlfriends on some kind of group date, that Jamie just turned down cold.
“It will be fun amigo!” Dani grins, after a somewhat lengthy explanation of what exactly a group date to the botanical gardens would entail. It turned out it included more drinking and sex than one would expect. He’d been talking about it all week, especially to Jamie, trying to entice him “You might even meet someone special!”
“Not a chance muchacho,” Jamie scoffs, though not without humour as he claps Dani on the shoulder with a shake of his head, “sounds like something Richard would like more anyway, why don’t you ask him?”
He didn’t even given Dani a chance to try to convince before he hiked his bag up onto his shoulder and disappeared out the door.
Colin and Isaac try next, in what seemed like the most logical way to help. They designated themselves as Jamie’s wingmen on a night out celebrating a victory, figuring Jamie’d be high on the thrill on winning enough to get out of his own head a bit.
They turn out to be wrong though, when they send a girl they thought would be great his way named Libby, she was bubbly and funny and dressed in a clingy, sparkly blue dress with eyeshadow to match and she’d been making eyes at Jamie since they’d walked in, giggling to her friend that Richard was chatting up.
She asks about him first, tapping Colin on the shoulder and pointing over to the booth Jamie had made himself comfortable in, grinning widely as he sat nursing some electric blue drink that Isaac was pretty sure had enough sugar in it to cause a heart attack, asking if he’s a friend of theirs and if he’s single.
It seems like the perfect opportunity, but when they do point her in Jamie’s direction, they all get a front row seat to Jamie practically shooing her off. It’s almost painful to watch.
“Hey,” She greets sliding up next to him with a dazzling smile. If Isaac were Jamie, he’d have folded then and there, but Isaac was not Jamie and that had never been clearer when Jamie looked up from the drink, he’d been nursing midway through a conversation with Roy and blinked at her stupidly.
“uh…hi?”
“You’re friends told me to come talk to you,” she explained with a laugh, nodding her head back to where the rest of the team were milling around the bar or the dance floor “they said you might me looking for some company tonight.”
Roy rolled his eyes taking a long sip of his beer, grumpy scrooge that he was, and Jamie turned to give the team a foul look over Libby’s shoulder.
“Sorry, but you were lied too.” He tells her, polite as someone turning you down point blank can be “I’m not looking for anyone’s company.”
Libby at least doesn’t seem to mind the blunt rejection too much, her smile not even faltering as she waves her hand even with an embarrassed tinge of pink creeping up the back of her neck “that’s all good, figured there wasn’t any harm in asking. Have a nice night.”
“Yeah, you too,” Jamie nods, as Libby wandering back towards her friends and the team are left wandering back to the drawing board.
Richard even started a one-man campaign to get Jamie to at the very least hook up with someone for some meaningless rebound sex as some kind baby step towards a new relationship, offering all kinds of suggestions that included a sex club, singles nights at a bar, tinder flings, offering to share his own impressive list of casual flings that he thought might be interested in Jamie and interest him in turn.
But that effort to the cause only lasted as long as it took for Jamie to get fed up and make an absolute fool of Richard in their next scrimmage, running circles around him the whole time with his tongue sticking out and a proud grin shot towards the sideline where the coaches were gathered each time, he slipped past Richard with no effort. Then Richard was too busy nursing his pride and cursing Jamie to celibacy.
The team was being fucking weird, and Jamie didn’t know why. Ever since that night at Isaacs with Dani and his stupid magazine quiz they’d turned around and started acting like wankers.
He didn’t know if it was talking about Keeley, or Jamie outright saying he wasn’t fucking interested, but the lads all seemed to take it as a personal challenge to change his mind, and he was going to lose his fucking mind at them. It had been weeks, and none of them would just let it go. It felt like every other conversation they had was about fucking dating or love or romance, and he was about to start gagging whenever they brought it up just to get them to leave off it for five fucking minutes.
Dani had tried to set him up with some of his girlfriend’s mates for a double (triple? Jamie wasn’t sure the logistics of polyamorous group dates) date, spent a whole week talking about how nice and pretty and excited to meet him they were and made the saddest, kicked puppy look Jamie had ever seen before in his life when he’d told him he wasn’t interested.
Colin kept pestering him about going home with someone whenever the team went out, Isaac kept pushing girls his way at bars and, at what he’s pretty sure was Zoreuax’s suggestion, guys when none of the girls seemed to take. There was only so many times Jamie could politely turn someone down at a celebratory fucking bar crawl before it starts grating on his nerves.
Even Sam was doing it, much to Jamie’s chagrin.
“you should make a Bantr account.” Sam suggested one day, while he and Jamie were jogging beside each other on the treadmills “It might be fun. You’ve not dated much since you returned to Richmond.”
Jamie, because he’s got the patience of a fucking saint mind you, didn’t turn around and bite Sam’s head off for as much as he’d have liked too. Sam isn’t the first to suggest it. Richard had spent half an hour quizzing him about which dating apps he did and didn’t have trying to convince him to set an account up on every single one he gave a firm and resound No too, which had been all of them.
“I don’t want to make a fucking Bantr account.” Jamie grumbled, trying to focus on anything but this conversation. The wall decal with Reynolds face on it was starting to peel off, and the paint between the seam of the ceiling and the wall was cracking. Keeley had mentioned something about Ms Welton wanting to do some renovations to the club if they did well enough this season to be able to afford it. Jamie hoped they did, Richmond was one of the top teams in the league these days, but you’d never know it looking at their fucking gym.
“It does not have to be Bantr.” Sam tried again, earnest and so fucking annoying that Jamie wanted to turn around and point out that the last time Sam had gotten mixed up with a dating app he ended up sleeping with their fucking boss and then got his arse dumped at a funeral. Not exactly the fucking fairy tale he was trying to sell it as.
“No.” Jamie said instead of any of that “just leave it alone will you?”
“Don’t you want to meet someone?” Sam asked, concerned and condescending. Jamie tried not to growl. It was no wonder Roy was always such a grumpy fuck if this is what he had to put up with every day after breaking up with Keeley.
“Not fucking really.” Jamie snapped, shutting the treadmill off suddenly and deciding to try his luck at the weights instead. Maybe, if he put his headphones on, everyone would take the hint and leave him the fuck alone.
It’s not like they’d never ribbed him about dating before, he’d heard plenty about Lust Conquers All when he’d come back and they’d all been on good terms again, but they’d never been so annoyingly involved before. All the other times Jamie had fielded off requests for dates or nights together when they’d gone out as a team, they’d all just brushed it off when he said he wasn’t interested, no harm no foul, but now Jamie felt like they’d put him under a fucking microscope, wanting to know all the ins and outs of why he didn’t want to go home with a drunk stranger or for coffee with someone he didn’t want to befriend let alone fuck.
It was doing his head in and he couldn’t figure out for the fucking life of him why they were doing it.
“Because they’re nosy fucking morons.” Roy tells him, sitting across from him in the living room while Jamie hangs upside off the couch and bitches about them. It was complain to Roy or lose his shit directly at one of them during training, and Roy had resigned himself to his position of confidant for the good of the team.
“yeah, but they’ve always been nosy morons.” Jamie whines, pulling at the loose fibres on Roy’s carpet “this is different, they won’t leave it alone.”
Roy grunts, a sympathetic but ultimately unhelpful noise. Roy, unlike fucking everyone else on the team, got where Jamie was coming from when he said he wasn’t interested. Probably, Jamie suspected, because Roy was the same as him when it came to things like that.
Jamie had always felt kind of weird about dating. Not a bad kind of weird, he liked kissing and touching and sex well enough, but he didn’t get all of the other stuff. Dates and labels and shoving yourself into this picturesque ideal of what life and love is supposed to look like. He didn’t get what was so wrong with just making out with your friends, didn’t know why he had to be someone’s boyfriend to do that.
He did it anyway, because what else was there to do? Jamie was lonely, he always had been at least a little bit, and dating was an easy way to fix that. So that’s what he did, he played the part of boyfriend even though it felt like putting on a show for an invisible audience, and in return for his stunning performance he had someone to fall asleep next too and drag grocery shopping with him.
Now though, he didn’t need to put that show on. He had his pick of people he could harass into grocery shopping with him, namely Dani, Sam or Roy and if he wanted to crawl into bed with someone all he had to do was mention the word sleepover and he had half the team jumping at the fucking chance.
He didn’t want to date. Didn’t want to keep trying to shove a square in a diamond shaped hole like a toddler with one of those fucking sphere things that didn’t know the difference between a star and a circle just so that he could say he was doing life right. He was doing life plenty right, he could feel it in his bones and skin and shit.
He had everything he wanted, there was no gap in his life he was trying to fill, and if he did want sex like Richard seemed so terribly concerned about, it wasn’t like he couldn’t go out and pull. He was well fit, famous and funny. It wasn’t hard to find someone to spend a night with. He just didn’t really want too all that often. There wasn’t anything he could do with a stranger that he wasn’t perfectly capable of doing himself. He was even pretty sure if he just asked Keeley if she wanted to go a round for fun she’d say yes.
Jamie was perfectly fucking content, and yet the lads were all running around like chickens with their heads cut off acting like he was spiralling into some pit of despair just because he wasn’t wasting his, and some poor person on a dating apps, time with something he knew he didn’t want. He didn’t get it! It wasn’t like it concerned any of them what Jamie was and wasn’t doing anyway.
Jamie yanks on Roy’s carpet some more, frustration tingling his fingertips. He just wanted to hang out with his friends without one of them going on some fucking tangent about how good and helpful whatever dating service they were on was or trying to convince him that they’ve got a friend whose got a friend who’d love to get to know him. He just wanted to be left alone.
Roy reaches over, and pulls Jamie’s hand away from the carpet he was brutalising with a look, which Jamie guesses if fair considering it’s Roy’s carpet he’s abusing in the first place, but it doesn’t stop him from whinging about it. “Hey!”
“Stop destroying my fucking floor.” Roy says crossly “it’s not the one harassing you.”
“Can’t you make them stop? you’ve got coach powers.” Jamie asks hopefully “can’t you, I don’t know, make ‘em run laps every time they stick their nose in my business when I don’t want them too or something.”
“If I thought that would work, the lot of you would be running laps for the rest of your fucking lives.” Roy replies with a snort “They’ll get over whatever this is eventually, Richard will get a new girlfriend or fucking O’Brien will get dumped again and they’ll focus on that instead.”
Jamie just sighs. He hopes O’Brien gets dumped soon, because he is getting really sick of this shit.
“Nothing’s working.” Colin complains, as the team are sitting around Sam’s house this time, waiting for Jamie to arrive. Jan will admit, when this nonsense had first started, he found it amusing. It was always funny watching his friends make fools of themselves, but it had quickly begun to grow tiresome. Not just to Jan, who had to watch it happen, but also for Jamie who it was fairly obvious was grating under the team’s attention with each new mention of dates or apps or drinks.
“He is not interested.” Jan repeats, for the millionth time. He’s not sure why it is such a hard concept for their friends to grasp, it’s not as though a lack of romantic attraction is particularly mind boggling and it’s not as though Jamie was some kind of Casanova.
Jan had done research in the name of social interaction. Jamie’s only public, serious relationship in his life had been Keeley and all it took was talking to him once about that ordeal to learn that Jamie did not have the same interpretation of dating as most people did. It was not like Jamie was keeping his affinities, or lack thereof, to himself. He was rather vocal about his distaste towards dating and relationships. No one on the team seemed to realise that though. Whether it was wilful ignorance or sheer stupidity Jan was unsure.
“He can’t not be interested,” Daniels says. Jan did not like Daniels, he found him rude and distasteful, and not in the amusing way Jan himself often was. In the way that made him an arsehole. “no one wants to be alone, least of all people like Tartt, they thrive on attention.”
“Jamie gets plenty of attention already,” Jan points out “Between the fact he is a famous footballer with a large social media following due to being attractive, and his friendship with Roy, not to even mention his friendships with us, Jamie is very rarely lacking in attention.”
Daniels snorts “maybe it’s not Keeley he’s carrying a torch for, maybe it’s Roy.”
There’s a beat of silence that follows the snide remark, and for a moment Jan has hope that one of their friends will point out how ridiculous that would be. Jan’s hope is quickly dashed when Colin hums contemplatively. “I mean, he did say he wasn’t interested in Keeley.”
“He said he wasn’t interested in anyone.” Jan says. “You are all being ridiculous.”
“How’s it ridiculous? Jamie was like proper obsessed with Roy as a kid weren’t he?”
“Having a childhood hero is a very common experience,” Jan argues “and there is nothing about Roy and Jamie’s relationship that suggests it is any more than a friendship.”
“I mean they do argue a lot,” Isaac says “that’s like tension, ain’t it?”
“No.” Jan says “that is them arguing, which is not and should not be a basis for a romantic relationship.”
“Hey, no one said anything about them being in a relationship,” Daniels points out “but it’s not that unrealistic to say Jamie has a crush on Roy. I mean they’re around each other all the time, why else would he put up with all of Roy’s extra training?”
“Because Jamie is very dedicated to improving himself and always has been.” Jan says “If you met your childhood hero who happened to be a legend in the very same field you wanted to excel in, would you turn them down if they offered to train you personally? I certainly wouldn’t.”
“yeah, but that’s not all it is.” Daniels argues “they spend like, every day with each other.”
“We all spend every day with each other, because we are friends and part of a tight knit community.” Jan says. “Jamie may very well spend a lot of time with Roy, but certainly not any more time than he does with Dani or Sam, or Colin with Isaac. Are you going to start insisting Colins got a crush on Isaac because they spend time together?”
“That’s not what I’m saying!”
“It is essentially exactly what you’re saying.” Jan says “according to your logic, spending time with your co-worker doing work related activities is a new form of flirting, and spending time with your friends outside of work is also a new form of flirting. In which case all of us are flirting with each other right now, and I had no idea you felt such a way about me. I must say I’m flattered but uninterested.”
Daniels sputters, his face growing red as he stammers through what sounds like a denial mixed with a sullen offense at being rejected so bluntly before eventually his tongue unknots itself and he mutters “man, fuck you.” before settling back into the couch in defeat.
Unfortunately, that does not signal the end of it, because Jan’s friends are all very stubborn alongside being stupid.
“Maybe Jamie is simply insecure.” Richard suggests, which is even more ridiculous than their previous topic of conversation “maybe he does not think he would be a good partner, and is avoiding it on that account.”
“It’s as though you all enjoy being wrong.” Jan sighs “Jamie is not insecure about being a good partner because he does not want to be anyone’s partner in the first place. He made himself very clear.”
“yeah but no one wants to be alone,” Isaac reasons, and Jan resists the urge to cover his face with a pillow and scream very loud for a long time. Not only was that factually incorrect because Jan was fairly certain there were many, many people who would elect to spend their life alone, Jamie simply wasn’t alone. He had someone with him almost every day, whenever he wanted, if not someone from the team, then Roy or Keeley or one of his other friends from the various hobbies he’d picked up.
“Being indirect is not working,” Sam sighs, fiddling loosely with a loose thread on the sleeve of his shirt with a furrow in his brow “I think it would be best if we simply spoke to Jamie about our concerns.”
“I think that is an awful idea.” Jan replies bluntly “because your concerns are unwarranted and intrusive, and I don’t think Jamie will appreciate knowing that you have all been talking about him behind his back for weeks.”
“We’re not talking about him behind his back,” Colin argues “we’re discussing our friend that we’re worried about, there’s nothing nefarious about that.”
Jan sighs “if you say so, but when this goes to shit I will be claiming that I had absolutely nothing to do with it and actively advised you against it.”
When Jamie gets to Sam’s for team bonding, everything seems fine. He’d been avoiding the team recently, if he were being honest, turning down offers to go out and opting to celebrate wins on his own or over dinner with Roy instead, who never pushed people in Jamie’s path just kind of hoping they’d end up mashing faces together or spent half an hour trying to quiz him on preferences he didn’t have.
But he missed his friends, at least when they weren’t being nosy wankers, and team bonding was mandatory. Jamie couldn’t avoid it if he wanted too, unless he wanted to rack up a fine before the honourable judge McAdoo at the end of the season.
He’d considered it of course, but team bonding was always just the team. There wouldn’t be anyone around for them to offer Jamie’s number too or subtly nudge him towards, most of the time dating never even came up during team nights. Their conversations tended to be light, about movies or sight-seeing or vacation plans. Jamie had been hoping, at least for the night, that he wouldn’t have to think about how abundantly obvious it was that the team thought there was something wrong with him.
At first, things are fine. Good even, normal, no one mentions any friends of friends who they think Jamie might like, or tries to take Jamie’s phone and set him up with a Bantr profile against his will. They just sit around the tv, watching each other play games to varying degrees of success and throwing marshmallows at one another to distract the opposing team.
Then it comes out of fucking nowhere, one minute they’re all crowded around Sam’s flatscreen pushing and shoving each other trying to win just dance III, and the next Sam is looking at him all doe eyed and concerned saying, “we’re worried about you Jamie.”
“What?” he asks, the smile that had been on his face to the point his mouth hurt falling in an instant. He didn’t know what they had to be worried about, he might’ve been avoiding them a little bit, but not that much. And by all other accounts he was great. Great job, great friends, great hobbies, there wasn’t anything going on that they’d actually have to be worried about. “why?”
They all look between each other first, and Jamie feels his stomach drop. It’s a look he knows well, remembers getting it a lot in high school whenever he’d shrug off an invite to a movie with some girl he wasn’t interested in or as a kid firmly telling his mummy that he was never ever never going to get married because it was gross. Like he was poor, clueless moron oblivious to his own feelings, like they were the bearers of bad news having to tell him how he feels, and suddenly all the weirdness from the last few weeks clicks into place in his mind.
He braces for it, he does, but it still hurts when they say it. “We’re worried that you aren’t putting yourself out there because you are afraid of what might happen.”
You know those moments in movies when the record scratches and the screen freezes? It feels a bit like that. Like a deer in headlights, everyone looking at him with pity etched onto their faces while the spice girls played on the tv with a neon lady dancing around to the upbeat melody and Jamie still doesn’t understand why.
What about him deserved to be looked at like he was broken? What was he doing that was so wrong it warranted a surprise intervention with all of his friends looking at him like that? He wasn’t doing anything but living his life. He was happy, really, genuinely happy for probably the first time ever, and yet for some reason it wasn’t enough. Jamie couldn’t be content with his own life, not according to them anyway, not unless there was some mythical person to share it with who he was supposed love more than anyone else in the world above his friends and his family and his job and himself.
Because why wouldn’t you want to date? why wouldn’t you want to find your fucking soulmate on page six or in a club or on your fucking phone? How could he possibly be happy just being the person that he is, without someone else attached at the hip to- he doesn’t even fucking know really. You can’t be a whole person, no matter how much you built yourself up with you’re own fucking hands, unless some stranger you may or may not ever meet comes along to fit the final piece into place. You can’t be a whole person unless you carve out that part of yourself for a piece of someone else that you don’t even want.
He knows the looks that they’re giving each other, he’s gotten them his whole life, it’s pity and concern and disbelief that someone could be so moronic to not want what everyone tells them is the most important thing in the whole world. It’s the look of you’ll find someone one day honey, and how about I show you what you’re missing out on son and why can’t you just be normal and you’re such a fucking tease
Jamie had grown to expect looks like that from people. former flings he tried desperately to fit into a space that didn’t fit them, teachers and teammates and even fucking journalists who’d ask him about his love life, and if he thinks about it, he’s not even surprised that the team are looking at him the same way, but it still fucking stings.
He didn’t want to be looked at like he was some broken thing, a wooden puppet masquerading as a real boy and doing a poor job of it, not by his friends. He realises, that without even meaning too, he’d gotten his hopes up that they’d just understand. That they’d listen when Jamie told them that he was happy as he was, that he didn’t need fixing. That they didn’t need look at each over his head like he couldn’t fucking see them.
“I’m not putting myself out there because I don’t fucking want too.” Jamie snaps, when the silence stretches on too long and their pitying frowns turn to real concern. He wonders if they practiced what they were going to say, wrote it down on little cards like you’re supposed to do when trying to convince an addict to get help. The thought almost makes him laugh, in a deranged, angry sort of way.
“look bruv, I know it’s probably scary starting over again but you can’t stay hung up on Keeley forever.” Isaac says sympathetically “You’ve just got to rip the band aid off and give it another go.”
“I’m not hung up on Keeley!” Jamie argues, regretting having Roy drop him off all of a sudden when he realises there is no quick escape for him “We have already had this fucking conversation!”
“There is no shame in it amigo,” Dani chimes, smiling sadly at him and Jamie wonders if he looks like Roy does when he gets angry, with that fucking vein in his neck that pokes out, “Keeley is a wonderful woman.”
“I’m not ashamed of anything!” Jamie snaps, and he knows shouting probably isn’t going to help the situation but he doesn’t know what else to do when they aren’t fucking listening “because I’m not hung up on Keeley!”
Daniels, the wanker, snorts “I told you lot he’s probably into Roy.”
Jamie doesn’t even want to unpack that beyond the sharp revulsion he feels at the very thought of being into Roy. He loves Roy, Roy’s one of his favourite people in the world, but that’s just disgusting to think about.
“I’m not into Roy either! I’m not into fucking anybody!” He shouts “I’ve fucking told you this! I’ve asked you to leave it alone more than once!”
“We just want you to be happy,” Sam says, wide eyed and shocked by Jamie’s anger. Maybe, if Jamie weren’t already so annoyed, he’d feel a bit bad yelling at Sam, but he was fuming. It was the tingly kind of anger that made his hands shake and his lips feel a bit numb.
“I am fucking happy!” He snaps, glaring at the lot of them as their pitying takes a new shape into confusion. “The only reason I’m not is because you lot won’t get it through, you’re fucking skulls that I don’t want the same things that you do and you keep making it my problem!”
“We’re just trying to help.” Colin says, face screwed up petulantly “you don’t have to yell at us.”
“I don’t want you’re fucking help!” Jamie shouts, loud as he fucking can because it feels like they won’t listen any other way “I didn’t ask for your help! You don’t get to just take it upon yourself to fix me when there’s nothing wrong in the first place!”
There’s probably more he can say, more yelling to do to try and make them understand, but Jamie’s fucking tired, and he doesn’t want to yell just to be heard. He shouldn’t fucking have too. Instead, he snatches his phone and his bag up from the table and stalks out of Sam’s house onto the street, waiting for a ride be damned if it meant he had to stay in there with them for a second longer.
Jan follows Jamie when he leaves. He assumes Jamie will want to go home, and knows that he was dropped off by Roy and likely doesn’t actually have a ride planned after storming out of the house leaving a shell-shocked team behind. Jan doesn’t know why they were surprised. He did tell them that Jamie would not enjoy their intervention.
Jamie doesn’t get very far. He’s pacing the end of Sam’s driveway angrily, jabbing at his phone roughly clearly trying to order an Uber and having a hard time since his hands are shaking and he won’t stand still long enough to hold the phone steady, when Jan arrives a mere few second after he’d left.
Jamie looks up when he sees him, and glowers. An odd expression to see on Jamie’s face, who while not quite as optimistic as Dani or Sam, was still usually in relatively good spirits and very expressive about it. Jan often wondered how he managed to convey so much with just his eyebrows.
“I don’t want to fucking hear it Jan.” Jamie snaps, before Jan can get a word in edgewise. Likely because he believes that Jan was in on the intervention and mad at him for it, which would be completely understandable “whatever fucking statistic bullshit you’re about to spout at me about soulmates or whatever, I don’t fucking care.”
“Did you know that aromantic people are estimated to make up roughly 1% of the population?” Jan asks, because it isn’t a statistic about soulmates or whatever as Jamie put it, and he liked being petty. “It doesn’t seem like a very high number in percentages, but given the total population of the world that would mean that there are eighty million nine hundred sixty-three thousand five hundred and ten people who potentially identity as aromantic.”
Jamie blinks at him, mouth agape as he tries to compute what Jan had just said. It takes him a minute, his eyes vacant as Jan watches the gears in his head turn slowly and his lips move silently mouthing the number to himself before he suddenly snaps back too and says “you just made that up.”
“No, it’s a real statistic.” Jan replies, and Jamie wrinkles his nose at him, shaking his head with a derisive scoff.
“What’s that got to do with me?” he asks with a huff. His nose is red, and his eyes are glassy. Jamie is very prone to crying when he’s angry, Jan has known that for a long time. In fact he’s rather impressed that Jamie has not started crying already.
“I don’t think you need to be fixed.” Jan replies simply “I think you aren’t the only one who feels the way that you do, and I agree with you that the team were being dickheads about it. They were being invasive and presumptive.”
Jamie blinks at him again, taking a moment to decipher what Jan was saying before nodding once sharply. It was a habit he had picked up from Roy recently. “Right. Yeah, they were.”
They just stand there in silence for a moment, likely Jan assumes because neither of them are very good at conversations such as these and are equally as bad at segueing into new topics of conversation unprompted. Eventually though the silence grows awkward, and Jamie’s quiet sniffling grows a bit more frequent, so Jan breaks the silence to ask “Would you like a ride home?”
“You’re not going back inside?” Jamie asks, confused as he nods back to Sam’s house
“No,” Jan replies “I’m angry at them. I told them to leave you alone and they didn’t, and now you’re upset.”
“I’m not upset.” Jamie denies, despite the fact is very near to tears and had just screamed at all his closest friends loud enough his voice was now raspy and raw,
“You’re a bad liar.” Jan says, receiving a screwed-up face of bewilderment for Jamie in response, his very expressive eyebrows doing exactly that, “and even if you aren’t upset, I’m still angry with them.”
“…why?”
“I don’t like the way they were speaking about you.” Jan says “If they treat you like that, they will likely treat me the same way when I express the same sentiments.”
“Oh,” Jamie says a bit dumbly, his brow knitted together in thought before realisation dawns on him “Oh.”
“Yes,” Jan confirms with his own short nod before repeating, “would you like a ride home?”
This time, Jamie nods, wiping at his nose with his sleeve, which is disgusting.
“Sure, that’d be nice.” He says, a crooked, much more relaxed smile on his face as he cocks his head to the side to observe Jan conspiratorially “you wanna come in and have our own game night? We can play the sims, you like that game, right?”
That was true. Jan was a fan of the sims; it was one of his favourite games. He liked to be in control of things, and he found the menial, somewhat repetitive nature of the game to be enjoyable. Though how Jamie knew that he was unsure, but he doubted it was something he needed to be concerned about.
“I would like to do that.” Jan says, pointing a bit down the street where his car was parked. “ I will drive because I know you don’t like too and also I do not want you driving my car.”
Jamie is not talking to them. It becomes abundantly clear that Jamie is not talking to them from the very moment they arrive at the club. He’s there early, as he usually is, sitting in front of his cubby and happily chatting to Jan Maas, the wide grin on his face a pleasant divergence from the scowl that they had all last seen before he had stormed out of Sam’s home the night before.
It doesn’t last though. The moment that Sam approaches him to say good morning the smile drops, replaced with a neutral expression of displeasure. It’s not just Sam though, it’s everyone. Jamie does not utter a single word to anyone who is not Jan Maas or the coaches until training begins, and even then, he keeps it strictly professional.
If it weren’t already obvious that Jamie was ignoring them, it was by the time lunch rolled around and rather than sitting in the canteen with them all, he disappears into Roy’s office to eat lunch with him instead, which while not unheard of, it not a very common occurrence.
At first, Sam assumes Jamie simply needs some time. He had been upset, much like Jan had said he would be, and likely needed a moment to process, but then it happened again the next day. and then the next, and then the next until suddenly a week had gone by with Jamie refusing to talk to anybody.
Most frustrating was how professional Jamie was behaving about it all. He would still discuss plays and tactics with them perfectly civilly, he’d train with them and work with them even if it was with a notably much icier demeanour, but any attempts at talking to Jamie casually were brushed off with simple, one-word answers or even occasionally outright ignored.
Jan Maas, Sam would admit with a small amount of childish jealousy because Jamie was supposed to be his best friend, was the only one Jamie would talk to normally, but when anyone tried to ask him to talk to Jamie for them, he would simply say no, and that they had brought it on themselves.
By the end of the week, they were beginning to get a little desperate. They had not thought their attempts to help Jamie would drive him away completely, or upset him nearly as much as they had. Sam would admit in hindsight, they probably should have anticipated this though.
He had known that Jamie was happy as he was, all you had to do was look at him and it was plain as day that he was in a much better place than he had been even just a year before. Sam’s concerns had not even been at the forefront of his mind, they were just fleeting thoughts that came and went until the rest of the team had added to them.
And Jamie was for lack of better words a simple person most of the time. If you asked him what was wrong, or what he wanted, he’d usually just come out and say it. He didn’t dance around topics wilfully, and he had not danced around this one. He had been plain and straight forward with them, telling them that he wasn’t interested and didn’t want their help, and they had just ignored it. They had elected themselves his keeper, and kept trying to fix a problem that did not truly exist.
Sam didn’t even really know why they had done that to him, wilfully ignored everything Jamie had been saying on a matter that should really only concern him. Well, he supposed he did know why, it was just difficult to explain.
It had never occurred to Sam that someone wouldn’t want to have a partner. It felt like love was supposed to be everything, you grow up watching all the movies and reading all the books that declare love the most powerful force in the world, with things like true loves kiss and fairy tale weddings at the forefront.
Then you get a bit older, and you start to see it for real, and it isn’t fairy-tale anymore but it’s still everything. Friends swept up in first loves and high school romances, you have your own first kiss and your own first girlfriend and your own first time and it feels like everything. You get your heart broken for the first time and that feels like everything too. Then you do it all again, until one day, if you’re lucky, you find the right person. You grow up thinking that the goal is to find someone to complete you, that no matter what else you have in life if you have that person you will be whole.
and you know that everyone’s journey is different, no one story is exactly the same, but there’s still only one kind of story being told, love stories. Hallmark movies, romance books, your friends Instagram page littered with wedding photos, a happy ending with the love of your life punctuating almost every story you’re told.
and you are told, over and over again that everyone is looking for the same thing, that you’re all on the same page, no one wants to be alone and everyone wants love, so it doesn’t even occur to you that some people aren’t even reading the same book as you.
And then, you try to help them read a book they aren’t even holding, because you get so caught up in the pages that you’re on you don’t listen when they actually try to tell you that they’re reading a different book. And even if you do hear them, you don’t believe them when they tell you that they like the book that they’re reading just fine, because you think that everyone should be reading the same book. That is after all what you have been told your whole life, clearly, they have been misled somewhere.
And it ends with your friend refusing to speak to you because you refused to let them read their book in peace and now you feel like an arsehole and don’t know how to fix it. At least, that is certainly what Sam is feeling like come the end of another day wherein Jamie has not spoken to him once.
He might not know how to fix it, but he at the very least knows where to start, which is how he end up standing outside of Roys office, nervously pulling at his fingers as he knocks and waits for acknowledgment.
Roy looks up from his computer after just a moment, nodding at him with a simple “Sam.” in greeting before waiting for Sam to say whatever it is he came to say.
“hello coach.” Sam greets politely “I wanted to ask a favour of you.”
Roy’s eyebrow raises in curiosity, grunting at Sam to continue after a moment of consideration. Sam does not know how Roy will receive his request, no one on the team had dared ask for his intervention on their behalf when it came to Jamie before, most of them convinced that they would very swiftly be told to grow up and fuck off. Sam was half convinced of that himself, standing in front of Roy now, but he had to try.
“I was hoping you could tell Jamie something for me.” He says slowly, after a moment to steel himself. Roy does not tell him to fuck off, at least not yet, which Sam thinks is a good sign. Or at least he hopes it is. “I just hoping you could tell him that if he’s willing to speak to me, I want to apologise.”
Sam wasn’t sure how much Roy knew about Jamie’s reasons for ignoring the team, but there was a knowing sort of look in his eyes as he nods at Sam.
“I’ll tell him.” He replies “but if he doesn’t want to talk to you, I’m not fucking making him.”
Sam nods, relieved. It was a start.
“You’re a fucking traitor.” Jamie huffs, when Roy relays Sam’s message too him. Roy just rolls his eyes at his dramatics, shoving his feet off the couch where they were stretched out and sitting in the spot they had once been.
“Don’t be fucking dramatic.” Roy retorts “I’m just the fucking messenger.”
“I don’t want to talk to them.” Jamie says with a scowl “any of them, ever again.”
That was a lie, a blatant fucking lie, and Roy knew it since he was giving Jamie a look about it. He missed his friends, for as pissed off as he was about it, but missing them just made the whole fucking situation annoy him more. He wouldn’t even be missing them if they had just been fucking normal about it all.
“That’s bullshit and we both know it.” Roy tells him bluntly “It’s Sam. He said he wants to apologise. Give him the fucking chance too.”
“And if it’s all just bullshit and he still doesn’t fucking get it?”
“then keep ignoring him.” Roy says with a shrug “but it won’t hurt to hear him out.”
it might hurt, Jamie wants to argue. It might be another surprise intervention designed to tell him all the reasons he’s wrong for feeling the way he does disguised as an apology, it might be his friend rubbing salt in the fucking wound, but even with those thoughts swirling around in his head, he misses his fucking friend, and he’s still painfully fucking hopeful.
So, he texts Sam, and before he knows it he somehow ends up sitting across from him at his kitchen table staring him down over tea. Jamie doesn’t even really like tea, but when he’d let Sam in he’d wanted to stall a little bit so he’d offered to make some.
Jamie’s not really sure what you’re supposed to do, when you meet with someone for the specific purpose of being apologised too. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to say something or just wait for Sam to start.
In the end, Sam breaks the silence, after sipping at his tea awkwardly across from Jamie.
“I’m sorry.” He says, simple as that as he cradles the mug in his hands. Jamie isn’t sure what to say to that either so he just looks at Sam dumbly, blinking as his eyes flick between his friends face and the swirling brown liquid in his cup.
Sam doesn’t take it personally. He definitely looks apologetic, a rueful little frown on his face as he taps at the mug idly before he continues “we shouldn’t have acted like that, Jan was right, it was intrusive and we should have listened to you when you asked us to leave it alone.”
“yeah,” Jamie nods after a moment, “you should have.”
“I don’t have an excuse.” Sam admits “I was being… patronising. We all were. I was worried about you, and instead of just talking to you about it I tried to intervene with your life.”
“you didn’t need to be worried about me in the first place.” Jamie points out tersely, gripping his mug a bit tighter “I was literally fine. You just made some shit up in your head to be worried about and decided to make it my problem.”
“yes.” Sam agrees with a heavy sigh “I did.”
“Do you know how shit that felt?” Jamie asks, frowning at Sam “for you to all just decide that there’s something wrong with me that you needed to fix? That you all talked about me behind my back and decided that I’m too stupid to know what’s good for me?”
Sam’s eyes flash with guilt and he looks down at his mug. “I do not think you’re stupid.”
“You acted like I was.” Jamie points out “you all did. You acted like I was an idiot because I don’t want to live my life exactly how you lot think I should.”
“That wasn’t our intention.” Sam explains sadly “we thought we were doing the right thing.”
“what part of that seemed like you were doing the right thing?” Jamie asks “the part where you ignored me? Or the part where you all made it impossible for me to just talk to my friends for weeks without someone pissing me off on purpose?”
“I’m sorry Jamie, it was stupid of us.” Sam agrees with a sigh “I didn’t think about the fact that you might just want different things to the rest of us. I thought we knew best and we didn’t, I didn’t want to make you feel like that.”
“Yeah, well you did.” Jamie sighs. “You did, and unless you get why, you probably won’t stop making me feel like that because the whole fucking world seems to think I’ve got something wrong with me just because I’m being fucking happy the wrong way or some shit!”
“I don’t think there’s something wrong with you.” Sam says, taken aback.
“Yeah, but you do, don’t you? You all do or you’d have just fucking listened when I told you I wasn’t interested!” Jamie argues, looking at Sam imploringly “I need to you to listen to me Sam, I am not broken, I am not lonely, there ain’t a fucking thing wrong with me, and if you lot keep acting like there is just because I’m not on fucking Bantr, we’re going to have a lot more problems and it won’t matter how sorry you are about it if you don’t actually stop treating me like I’m doing life all wrong.”
Sam swallows, lips pursed as he stares at Jamie before he nods shortly “I understand.”
“Good.” Jamie nods, leaning back into his chair. There’s silence again after that, neither of them quite sure where to go from there.
“I’ve missed you.” Sam admits quietly after the silence begins to stretch on uncomfortably, “I’m sorry I made you feel like you could not be around me. I promise, I’m going to do better, the whole team will.”
Part of Jamie wants to be spiteful, to tell Sam that he didn’t care about the fact he hasn’t spoken to anyone on the team for a week at all, but the truth of it was that he’d missed his friends. Of course, he missed his friends, if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be sitting across from Sam, still painfully hopeful that maybe he was telling the truth, that he’d get his friends back and not just have to put up with every passive aggressive comment or attempt to corral him on a date. But spiteful or not, Jamie knows he’s a shit liar, and he doesn’t see any sense in not telling the truth.
“Yeah,” Jamie sighs “I’ve missed you too.”
He’s not sure what to make of it all, but it’s more than he’s ever gotten in the past, and Jamie, despite his reservations, believes that his friends care about him even if they had been going about it in the exact wrong way. Maybe now that they’ve had some sense shouted into them, they’ll start going about caring the right way. Sam certainly seems too. It’s not better exactly, everything isn’t magically fixed just because Sam’s making what could be a totally empty promise on behalf of the whole team, but it’s a step forward.