Work Text:
Jamie's first day at his first ever office job is rescued from the brink of catastrophe by his lifelong hero: himself, a true legend with the forethought to call his mum yesterday not only to ask her what to do if he runs into anyone he's hooked up with, but also to ask Simon for a second opinion just in case Mummy's suggestion of shagging all his other coworkers to even things out doesn't work. At least half of the people he works with are old and married, so when the situation does come up, he decides to go with Simon's advice.
"Oh, hi, so good to see you again!" he says warmly to a girl he last laid eyes on with her tits hanging out the neckline of her rumpled dress in an alley behind a nightclub three years ago.
Jamie's new boss, who's been taking him round introducing him to everyone, raises his eyebrows. "You've met Natalie?"
Natalie, thank god he doesn't have to ask. "We know each other socially," Jamie recites. He was a bit dubious about that line—how could he know anyone without being social?—but Simon explained that in office-speak it just means not from work. "Just a bit," he adds, because Simon also warned him not to go overboard pretending they're close.
Natalie relaxes slightly from her initial freeze at the sight of him. "Lovely to see you too!" she says. "Stop by after you've settled in, we'll catch up."
"Will do," Jamie says lightly before moving along to the next handshake.
Natalie is immensely grateful to him for handling it so smoothly—"I would have cocked that up for sure," she admits when the boss isn't around—and she turns out to be a very, very good person to have on side. She knows all the office gossip, and she gives him a whole rundown of where all the good office supplies are hidden and who to go to with different kinds of questions and who to avoid using the loo after (Dave) and who is a regulation-spouting party pooper who will shut down anything fun just for a power trip and wouldn't even allow mistletoe at the Christmas party last year because of "sexual harassment" just ridiculous oh and another thing she wears the most hideous cardigans in the entire history of knitwear just wait till you see this shit honestly (Annie from HR). By the end of his first week they've got a lively text thread going that's been a huge help to Jamie in navigating the office environment.
He breezes through a series of training courses with flying colours, then starts shadowing another sales rep on calls to see how it's done. He makes friends with everyone on his floor, and the bloke who delivers the mail as well. He doesn't think he really needs any office supplies, but he's squirrelled away three sizes of binder clips in his desk drawer just in case he ever has to travel back in time to the dark ages of printing shit on paper. He's absolutely killing it. The only thing he's not worked out yet is what the fuck the company actually sells, but surely they'll cover that before they start putting him on sales calls himself.
On Saturday morning, Jamie decides to celebrate the success of his debut as a business professional by having breakfast at the good cafe with the expensive pastries. He settles in at a table in the corner with his latte and his fancy twisty danish thing, and as his eyes drift across the room, it abruptly becomes the greatest day of his life.
Roy Kent. Right there, in the same room as him, casually sipping tea with that terrifying Richmond owner lady. Holy fucking shit.
Jamie jerks his gaze away from them, all too aware of Roy Kent's attitude towards fans pestering him in public. The terrifying owner lady probably doesn't love being harassed either. So he carefully keeps his eyes to himself, just basking in the glow of those glorious eyebrows. He decides against trying to sneak a picture, but he does take a moment to tweet about it.
At a cafe and Roy Kent of @AFCRichmond is here!! Wanna talk to him sooooo bad but he hates being bothered so leaving him alone. it's ok tho gonna be living off these good good roykent vibes for a MONTH
He sneaks one more glance, trying to be subtle. It looks like they haven't got any food, only tea, so they probably won't be staying long. He doggedly keeps his gaze averted after that, nibbling at his pastry as slowly as possible to stretch out the moment. Roy might not even be there anymore, might have finished his tea and left, but something in Jamie's spidey-senses says—
"You want an autograph? Or a photo or something?"
Jamie snaps his head up. Roy Kent is standing right in front of him. Speaking to him.
He panics. "Shit, was I staring? I was trying really hard not to stare, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you!"
"I know." Roy holds up his phone, displaying a screencap of Jamie's tweet in a text thread. "Someone from the PR team saw this and sent it to me because I've been ranting about how all my fans are invasive and rude, and she's been trying to tell me I wouldn't know about the respectful ones because they leave me alone." He shrugs. "She was right. Recognised you from the little picture, thought I'd come thank you for being decent. You want me to sign something or not?"
"Errrm." Shit, words, come on. "I'd love a selfie, if you're really all right with it. I've already got your autograph on me poster at home." He fumbles his phone, trying to get the camera app open.
"Yeah?" Roy crouches down to bring his head level with Jamie's for the photo, slinging an arm around his shoulder like they're mates. "Someone get that for you, or have we met before?"
"Me mam flirted it off you after a City match, I couldn't go because I had a youth tournament that weekend. But I told her not to hang around bothering you too long 'cause I know you don't like that." He finally stabilises his shaking finger enough to get the camera working and snaps the selfie. "Fucking hell, you're smiling," he says, startled at the image on his screen. "Don't think I've ever seen a picture of you smiling."
Roy stands up, removing his arm from Jamie's shoulders, although the ghost of its presence is going to linger in Jamie's sense memory forever. "That's because I don't smile under fucking duress. Half my fucking life is fending off dribbling twats trying to force me into pictures, why would I smile for them?"
"Oh. Sorry. I... I could delete it if you want?" Jamie can barely force his throat to form the words, but if Roy doesn't want him to have the picture, he can't keep it.
"I was smiling in that one, er-fucking-go I didn't feel forced." His forehead creases a tiny bit as he studies Jamie's face. "You said a youth tournament? How long have you been a fan of mine?"
"Since I were seven!" Jamie tells him proudly. "We were City through and through, but still, you were always me favourite."
"Fossilizing by the fucking second," Roy mutters under his breath, then he glances back at the Richmond owner. "Right, I've got to get back before the White Witch over there clobbers me with a lamppost."
Jamie's fairly sure that's not how the story went, but he's not about to waste his last precious seconds with Roy Kent debating it. "Thank you so much for taking the time, you've made my year. Like, my entire life, really. I'm framing that picture."
"Thanks for not being a dribbling twat. Restored a bit of my faith in humanity, if I'm honest." Roy jerks his head in a little nod of finality and heads back to his table. Jamie immediately opens the selfie again, just to make sure it saved, and when he looks up, Roy is gone.
*
He does get the picture printed and framed, like properly at a shop and all. Three copies: one for his flat, one for Mummy's house next time he visits, and one for the office. He's not added many personal touches to his desk yet, just his daytime skincare essentials and a stress ball in the shape of a football, but the picture really makes it feel like his.
Work is going brilliantly. He's been running sales calls himself, with a more experienced rep waiting just offscreen to step in if needed, but so far it hasn't been needed. Jamie still doesn't know what the product is, but he's absorbed a lot of phrasings that keep coming up in the calls he's been shadowing, and he's getting along just fine by remixing them with an extra touch of Jamie Tartt flair. Now he's graduating to solo calls with an end-of-day meeting to review clips from the recordings where his boss wants to give him feedback, and he's been assured that he's doing very well and soon it will shift to a weekly review instead, then just spot-checks. He's not sure why they'd need to plan spot-checks when his face is right here for them to look at anytime they like, but he takes good enough care of his pores that he's not worried about it.
The first hint that there's been a misunderstanding comes up in an end-of-day meeting with his boss and the senior sales rep he's been shadowing and learning from, both men. The meeting runs long, and as they're wrapping up the senior rep says something about them all getting in trouble with their wives for being late to dinner, then quickly adds, "Partners, I mean! Not just wives, sorry."
Jamie's not sure how to react to that—he does fuck men, but he hasn't said anything about it at work, and he doesn't have a partner of any gender. The guy is probably just hyperaware of that sort of thing after the workplace harassment seminar they all just had to take. Also, Jamie doesn't know anything about his boss's romantic situation, so maybe it was because he's with a man. So he lets the moment pass without saying anything.
He doesn't actually work out what's going on until Natalie comes by on a Monday to return the glitter mascara she borrowed over the weekend and coos, "Aww, that's such a sweet picture. You two look so in love."
Jamie looks at the photo on his desk again: Roy's arm slung over his shoulders, heads tipped close together, both of them smiling. Yeah, okay, he can see it. He tries to suppress a laugh. "Not much of a football fan, are you, Nats?"
She shakes her head. "Why?"
"Oh, no reason," Jamie says. He'll explain eventually, if she doesn't work it out for herself, but he can't resist the prospect of living just for a while in a lovely little dream world where he's about to go home to Roy Kent.
*
Two months later, Jamie is the top sales rep at the company, he's still got absolutely no idea what it is he's selling, and Roy Kent follows him on Twitter.
The Twitter thing takes Jamie on a real emotional rollercoaster ride. First of course he flips out with excitement, then he thinks it's probably a joke account or something, then he sees that it's verified and flips out again, then he crashes down to earth remembering how many celebrities (or celebrity accounts run by assistants or whoever) just follow everyone who mentions their name, and then he sees that Roy has only followed six accounts: the official AFC Richmond account, Nigella Lawson, Cher, Keeley Jones, a woman whose avi looks like she's probably related to Roy... and Jamie. In that order, meaning he followed Jamie first.
The account looks brand-new, with no tweets yet. Maybe Roy is doing the thing where he follows everyone who mentions him after all, and Jamie just happened to be the first one he saw. Jamie does post quite a lot of tweets about Roy, so if he did a search on his name it could easily have turned up one of those. Jamie checks back a few times throughout the afternoon, but no other follows show up.
Um did you follow me by mistake, he DMs Roy.
No, comes a reply two hours later.
Jamie sends him a screenshot of the six accounts, along with the "one of these things is not like the others" meme. There's no response for the rest of the evening, and Jamie falls asleep spiraling over what he did to piss Roy off, then wakes up to a message just saying Hah.
Okay, so Roy doesn't check his notifs very often. That makes sense. He's Roy Kent, he's a busy man. Jamie means to leave it there, not wanting to push his luck and get unfollowed, but then he gets another DM: PR team made me get on social media. They wanted me to use Tiktok but I tried it and it's fucking dogshit, nothing does what it looks like it should do and I hate doing videos. Then I remembered your post was from Twitter so I went with that instead.
So he didn't just follow Jamie, he made the account because of Jamie. Holy fuck.
There's three dots indicating Roy is typing, which makes Jamie late for work because he can't look away long enough to get ready. After way too long, the next message comes through, just saying Did you really frame that photo?
Well, there's no point trying to pretend he's got any chill whatsoever when it comes to Roy Kent. Three times. Home, work, mum's house. He follows that up with a quick snap of the frame in his bedroom, then hurries into the shower before he can get mesmerised by the three dots again.
Another message comes in as he's getting dressed: My sister wants me to send it to her. Told her I just fucking did and she said no not a picture of a print on the wall she wants the original file. Do you still have it?
Jamie laughs so hard he actually loses his balance. Does he still have it. He waits long enough that it won't be completely obvious it's the first image that pops up when he taps the attachment icon, then sends it and rushes out the door.
On the Tube, he gets a reply that just says Thanks and nothing more, so he reckons that's the end of it and switches his focus to work. There's a lunch seminar happening today called "So What Do You Do? Crafting Loglines and Elevator Pitches Across Targeted Audiences" and he's hoping it will explain to him what the hell it is he's selling.
After the seminar (which increases rather than decreases his confusion) he gets another DM from Roy: What do you do for work?
Jamie just sat through a forty-minute presentation about how to answer that question and he's genuinely got nothing. Do you know what a B2B content management system is?
No fucking clue
He sighs. Same. I've been trying to work it out for months. No one ever told me what I'm selling, and at this point I think it might be too late to ask
Nothing for the rest of the day, until right before bed Roy sends what looks like copy-pasted definitions of the terms "B2B" and "content management system." Jamie has already tried googling those, and the results didn't help much, just echoed the impenetrable sales talking points he's been working from.
Still don't get it. I've been top sales rep the last two weeks in a row though, does that make me stupid or smart
No response. He's getting used to that now, though, and falls asleep much more easily. In the morning, he's got several more messages.
I think it means you're good at bullshitting
I hate bullshitting
Probably because I'm fucking shit at it
Any idea where to get a decent fucking kebab in Manchester
Shit, that's right, Richmond are playing City today. Jamie usually skips matches between those two, because it hurts his heart to cheer against his team but he's not about to cheer against Roy Kent either. It's been a few years since he moved to London, so he shoots a text to the family groupchat asking for kebab recommendations and gets a truly spectacular treatise on the subject from Simon, plus an offer to meet up with Roy wherever he ends up going to guide him through the menu. Jamie pastes the whole thing into a DM to Roy along with Simon's number, adding He knows who you are because of all my pictures but he don't give a shit, if you want a kebab buddy he will be all kebabs no footy guaranteed
There's no reply to that. Jamie tries not to get stuck wondering if he's made it weird. Roy just isn't a real-time texter, and he's got the match today as well. He's always responded within about half a day, so Jamie tells himself if it gets to that point he can stress out then.
Not long before the match starts, the family chat pings with an image from Simon: a table absolutely loaded with kebabs from what looks to be at least five different places. The caption says Did my part for City by weighing down the opposition's star player
Jamie cracks up and video-calls Simon. "He's the head coach now, you dickhead. You don't listen to a word I say, do you?"
"We didn't talk about football," Simon predictably reports. "He was quite focused on the kebabs."
Mummy leans into view. "Are you going to tell us why Roy Kent is asking your opinion on lunch spots?" She's got that look where she's not quite smiling on her actual face but there's a big smile hiding inside.
Jamie shrugs. "Honestly I don't even know. After I met him at that cafe he followed me on Twitter and started DMing me, and then we kept talking. I guess we're like... friends now?" It blows his mind just to say it, but he's pretty sure it's true.
"We certainly are!" Simon crows. "We've got a video call planned for next week so I can show him how to make baklava."
"Really?" Jamie wishes he could just make plans with Roy Kent like that. Well, maybe he could; he's not tried. He files that away to think about later.
"How's work?" Mummy asks.
"It's good! I was top sales rep the last two weeks."
She already knows that because he texted both times, but she applauds anyway. "I'm so proud of you, love! Will you be able to visit for Christmas, do you think? I know sometimes the new bloke gets stuck with the worst schedule."
"Nah, whole place shuts down that week. Nobody wants to hear a sales pitch on Christmas. They're doing a party just before, though, I'm looking forward to that! There'll be an open bar and Natalie is trying to get them to let her put up mistletoe, should be a good time. But I'll be back for Christmas, yeah."
"Yesssss!" she cheers. "Can't wait to see you, baby!"
Jamie's alarm goes off, reminding him to put the match on. "Time to go watch Roy fall over in the dugout from kebab overload. Kisses, love you Mummy!"
He's been tweeting a lot less since Roy followed him, because griping about the Tube somehow holds less appeal when he's imagining it wasting Roy Kent's time, but now he throws himself into livetweeting the match. City win in the end, but Richmond put up a good fight.
Almost as soon as the press have left Roy alone, he gets a DM: I was really hoping we'd win this one so I could justify making the kebab thing a superstitious tradition
Imagine how bad it could have been without the kebabs though, Jamie responds.
Good point
Want to come to mine next week and watch me fuck up some baklava?
Jamie feels like his stomach is a rubber ball bouncing off the walls of his torso. Love to, he answers, and he falls asleep smiling.
*
Natalie perches on the edge of Jamie's desk, arms crossed, and says, "Annie is being so unreasonable about the mistletoe."
The mistletoe has been a hot topic of conversation around the office this week. Everyone has an opinion about whether mistletoe is a fun tradition that will liven up the party or a one-way ticket to a harassment suit, and Annie in HR has developed a severe personal vendetta against it. Jamie has been avidly following the developments, but today he has more important things going on.
"Sorry," he says. "Got to get out the door on time today, got plans."
She drops her sulk immediately. "Ooh, what are you and your husband up to tonight?"
Jamie still hasn't corrected her about that, and he's starting to feel like he might have let it go on too long. He doesn't even know where she got the "husband" part from, since he's always careful to wear rings on his left hand to avoid confusion. Well, at least he is actually seeing Roy, so it's basically the truth when he says, "Making baklava. Or trying, at any rate. Neither of us has done it before, but me stepdad is teaching us."
Natalie just about melts. "Awwww, that's so sweet! I can't wait to meet him at the party."
A couple gears hit a snag in Jamie's brain. "The party?"
"The Christmas party. You're bringing him, aren't you?"
Shit. Oh, shit, he definitely should have come clean earlier, and given that he hasn't, he very definitely should now. "I... I don't know if he'll be available."
She frowns. "C-suite won't like that. Three years ago Bev's husband skipped it and then her performance review had a bunch of shit about priorities and focus. They think it's a red flag about your stability as an employee if your partner isn't committed to supporting your career."
Shit, shit, shit. Jamie needs to own up to it, now, but he's already late getting out the door. He'll explain in the morning, he decides. "I've really got to head out. My turn to pick up the coffees tomorrow, yeah?"
"Don't forget soy for Dave. He's off dairy now, thank Christ."
"Right, thanks." Jamie sets the screen lock on his work computer and hurries out the door.
It takes forever to get to Roy's neighbourhood, and then half of another forever to find the place, since the houses are all massive. (Well, massive for London, anyway.) When he finally arrives, Roy is already deep into the baklava-making process, with Simon supervising from a tablet.
"Sorry I'm late," Jamie pants as he takes off his coat. "Got sidetracked by the mistletoe wars."
Roy and Simon, both fully up-to-date on the mistletoe saga, appear unfazed. "Wash your hands and come help me," Roy says, his hands flapping around underneath a thin sheet of dough, and Jamie dives right on in.
After they get the dish in the oven, Simon taps out. "I've got an early one, so it's bedtime for me, I'm afraid. I'm sure you can handle the syrup part on your own."
Jamie eyes him suspiciously. He knows Simon's normal schedule pretty well, and doesn't think he's got any particular reason to be up early in the morning. But he's not turning down alone time with Roy. "Good night then."
"Same time next week?" Simon says to Roy, who nods. "All right, bye then!"
Jamie definitely missed that plan happening. He hopes he's invited again as well.
Now they've got half an hour to kill before the next step of the baking project, and alone time with Roy is a lot more intimidating in practice than in theory. Jamie casts his mind around for something to talk about that isn't Dave's gastrointestinal distress or Annie's questionable taste in cardigans. Shit, he's got boring since he started this job.
"I liked your analysis of the match last weekend," Roy says, sitting down on one of the dining room chairs and lifting his feet to rest on the chair next to it. "Made a lot of sense to me. I showed some of it to the boys."
That takes a second to process. "My... tweets? You showed my match day livetweets to AFC Richmond?"
"Stupid fucking word," Roy grumbles. "I showed your short-form football analysis to AFC Richmond, yeah. Is that all right? It was public, I thought you wouldn't mind."
"No, of course I don't mind, just..." Jamie takes a chair across the table from Roy. "I can't quite work out how this all happened," he admits. "I tried to be respectful of you in a public space and it made you get a Twitter account just to talk to me? And then you start baking with me stepdad?"
Roy frowns. "You introduced me to your stepdad."
"I'm not saying there's a problem! I'm just curious." Jamie spreads his hands. "You don't do this a lot, do you? Make friends with fans? So why me?"
"I like you," Roy says, like he's still waiting for a difficult question.
Jamie gives up. "All right. There's no problem, seriously, I just really didn't expect it."
"I'm not what you thought I'd be." Roy sighs. "Never am."
"Only you are, though!" Jamie bursts out. "When I was little I thought I knew everything about you, and Mummy kept warning me that when you build someone up in your mind too much they can't help but disappoint you because no one can be someone else's perfect version of them, so I thought if I ever did meet you you'd probably be an arsehole, but you're exactly who I thought you were. Like, I knew you'd only smile when the press weren't around. I knew you'd be up for meeting a man you knew nothing about just because he wanted to talk kebabs instead of football. My coworkers keep asking questions about you like what's your favourite breakfast food and which Sex and the City girl are you and I always, always know the answers. I actually do know you that well, because you're always the same you, everywhere, all the time, and that's what I wasn't expecting."
Roy blinks at him. After a long pause, he says, "Why the fuck do your coworkers think you would know my favourite breakfast food?"
Oops. Jamie cringes. "Because... I put up that selfie of us and they all, er... assumed you were me husband?"
Roy snorts. Then he starts chuckling, and then he breaks out into heaving guffaws. When he finally catches his breath, he says, "Where'd we go on our honeymoon?" and collapses into laughter again.
Jamie grins a little, caught by the contagion of it. "They haven't asked that one, but I was thinking the south of Spain. You once said in an interview that you'd like to take a nice long holiday there."
Roy abruptly stops laughing. "When did I say that?"
"March/April 2009," Jamie says promptly. He's stared at that magazine cover plenty long enough to register the date printed on it. "Well, probably before then, I don't know how far in advance they do the interviews."
Roy looks a bit off-kilter. "Shit. I thought I'd never told anyone that." He shakes his head. "Guess you're right. I always am the same me everywhere all the time."
Jamie's not sure what to say to that. After a minute, he adds, "I've got to tell them we're not married, though. Found out today that spouses attending the office Christmas party is basically required, because the higher-ups want to know everyone's partners are supportive of their career or summat, so now they all think they're gonna get to meet you at the party."
His phone beeps to let them know it's time to start working on the syrup. Roy heads back into the kitchen, casually tossing over his shoulder, "Why wouldn't they meet me at the party?"
"Uh." Jamie follows him and hops up to sit on the worktop. "Because... you're not me husband?"
"I'd be a great husband," Roy protests, dumping sugar into a saucepan. "I'd support your career. And I always do the washing-up, and I put my dirty socks in the hamper, and I can fix a leaky tap, more or less. And I know a guy who can get me an emergency bouquet of apology flowers on twelve minutes' notice any time of the day or night, no questions asked. I'm fucking quality husband material."
Okay, now Jamie is back in What-The-Fuck Land. "Are you trying to sell me on marrying you?"
Roy stirs the syrup. "Never been to an office Christmas party," he says grumpily.
"Do you want to come to my office Christmas party?" Jamie asks, incredulous. "There's no way someone wouldn't recognise you and run to the press with it." Actually, now that he's thinking about it, he's shocked that hasn't happened just from the rumour. He never really thought any of this through.
"About fucking time," Roy mumbles.
"About fucking time... the press reported that you're married to a man?" Jamie is fully bewildered.
"I want to go to the party," Roy says loudly, and that is very much that.
*
"Mistletoe update," Natalie says, dumping a clipboard onto the breakroom table in front of Jamie. "Annie says anyone who wants to engage in mistletoe-related physical intimacy needs to proactively sign up for it in advance to make sure no one feels pressured in the moment. Can you believe that?"
Jamie reads through the little statement about being sober and of clear mind and consenting to an impressively detailed definition of kissing. "Wow."
"Yeah, wow is right." She throws him a pen. "Sign it, and hurry up, I've got a lot of people to get to."
Jamie allows himself a brief fantasy of kissing Roy under the mistletoe, then sighs. "Don't think he'll be up for it in front of everyone."
"Uuuuuuugh." Natalie snatches up the clipboard and stalks off.
Jamie knows he shouldn't ask, but he also knows there's no fucking way he isn't going to, so he doesn't bother fighting it. He opens his Twitter DMs and types, Annie from HR is making people consent in advance to mistletoe shenanigans
For once, Roy's response is instant. Well that's bullshit. Didn't Natalie explain the whole point of it is the spontaneous fun
Jamie types the words Should I sign us up? and hovers over the send button for about three minutes before finally pulling the trigger. He really, really hopes this isn't going to be a half-day response.
It's not. It comes in less than a minute: Anything to support my darling husband's career
Jamie takes several very deep breaths before heading out to track down Natalie and her clipboard.
*
Jamie is not new to flirting, all right. He's not oblivious. If Roy were any other person on the planet, Jamie would already be certain that he wanted to fuck. He would have been pretty sure of it when Roy joined Twitter just to talk to him, very sure when Roy flat-out said the words "I like you" to his face, and essentially one hundred percent sure when Roy started laying out some kind of legal defence case for how great a husband he would be. The man has not, objectively, been subtle.
It's just. If Jamie gets this wrong, it will genuinely fucking destroy him. Emotionally, for sure, but given that he's dealing with a Premier League legend known for addressing problems with his fists, possibly physically as well. Essentially one hundred percent sure is not good enough.
Mummy sighs from the laptop screen. "You know I'll always support you in whatever decisions you choose to make in your own life, but I really can't understand why you don't just offer him a blowjob and find out."
"Don't want to ruin it," Jamie says over his shoulder, sorting through his dress shirts. "If it's all just a big joke and he only wants to be friends, I don't want to fuck up the friendship. What do you think of this one?"
She wrinkles her nose at the cream shirt he's holding up. "Boring. What about the gold one I gave you?"
"It's got buttons that look like little tits," he reminds her.
"Have they got a rule against that?"
He tries to remember the wording of the dress code. "Well... not specifically..."
Simon pops into the frame. "Do not wear the gold one," he says firmly. "How about that one there, the red?"
"Burgundy," they both correct him in unison. Jamie pulls the hanger off the rod and holds it to his chest. "What do you think, Mummy?"
She tilts her head. "Unbuttoned halfway, with a statement necklace and a liquid eyeliner?"
"Ooh, yeah!" Jamie sees the vision immediately. Simon shakes his head but doesn't say anything, which means it's close enough to socially acceptable that Jamie can make up the difference with charisma. Perfect.
"While we've got you, any requests for Christmas biscuits?" Simon asks. "I thought I'd do that hazelnut shortbread again, and of course the gingerbread."
"The ones you can look through like a little peephole!" Jamie says eagerly, distracted from the closet. "And the ones that explode sugar all over everything when you bite in, those were dead tasty."
"Stained glass window biscuits... and Russian tea cakes," Simon mutters, tapping on his phone.
"What do you think about Roy?" Mummy asks him. "You two have been getting on like an oven on fire, has he said anything?"
"I would never betray a man's confidence," Simon says solemnly, then he grins at Jamie. "Though I don't need to betray any confidence to point out that someone who's willing to sign a written agreement to snog you in front of a room full of people is unlikely to nuke the friendship over the revelation that you fancy him."
"He didn't even get a chance to sign it, Annie caught Nats trying to talk someone into signing and she went ballistic and now the mistletoe is banned again." Jamie pulls off the shirt he's wearing and unclips the burgundy one from the hanger to try it on. "But if he does kiss me, I'll know for sure. Straight blokes kiss all tight and weird, I can always tell."
Mummy nods understandingly. "It's the same with straight girls. Like their lips are a wee animal freezing up at the sight of a big bad predator, but at the same time they can't stop giggling. Oh, just look at you, my sexy little baby! He won't be able to keep his dick to himself."
"You're right, no one could resist this." Jamie strikes a few poses in the mirror, sorting through his jewelry collection in his head. "Thanks, Mummy, you're the best."
*
He's almost certain, all right. The trappings of the date—the limo, the nice suit Roy is wearing, the festive corsage—don't take it to one hundred percent, because they've planned the whole thing tongue-in-cheek, so going overboard could just mean more of the joke. The darting glances, the knees knocking against each other on the way there, the hand slipping into his in a way that feels somehow both tentative and bold at the same time, all with the divider blocking them from the driver's view and no one able to see through the tinted windows... those take the odds up to ninety-nine point loads. But it could still be about committing to the bit, just between the two of them. He's almost sure, but he's not sure.
They walk into the party hand in hand, and nearly every single person there turns to stare at them.
"Is that Roy fucking Kent?" Natalie shrieks from the other end of the room.
Jamie glances at Roy. He was expecting someone to notice at some point, but he didn't think it would be Natalie. He waits for her to race across the room, expertly dodging furniture in gold stiletto heels at top speed, and when she's close enough to speak normally, he says, "Why are you surprised? You've seen the picture."
"I've seen a picture of a man smiling," Natalie yells in his face, as if she's still trying to project across the room. She has definitely wasted no time taking advantage of the open bar.
From behind her, other people are nodding. "I didn't think Roy Kent bent that way," says Bob the mailroom attendant, and when Annie's HR wrath begins to form a tornado centred on him, he hastily adds, "I mean the smile! I didn't think his face could bend like that!"''
"Doesn't look like him at all," says Doris from accounting. "He could go undercover in disguise just by smiling."
"It's like his bone structure completely reforms itself," agrees Nigel the intern.
"Hello," says Roy. "I'm Roy, pleasure to meet you all." He's not smiling, obviously, but Jamie is familiar enough with his various glowers to interpret this one as amused. "You're Natalie, are you? I have a very important question for you."
The chatter dies down. Everyone leans forward.
"What the fuck is going on with the mistletoe?"
The room explodes in chaos. Natalie and Annie both start talking over each other, quickly escalating into a screaming row. Everyone begins sorting themselves into factions: mistletoe proponents by the nametags with Natalie at their helm, mistletoe opponents locked into formation behind Annie by the snack table, and a small cluster of neutral parties huddled by the bar trying to get as drunk as possible before being inevitably forced to take a side.
"The decision has been taken," Annie declares. "There will be no mistletoe! The matter is not up for debate!"
"The matter is up your arse!" Natalie hollers, pulling a sprig of mistletoe out of her dress and clambering unsteadily onto a table in her gold stilettos to hang it from a light fixture.
Annie produces a regulatory-code-compliant foldable stepstool from absolutely nowhere and climbs it to remove the mistletoe. "I expect to see you in my office for a disciplinary hearing first thing Monday morning!" she snaps.
Natalie is already teetering atop a chair by the window, using duct tape to mummify another sprig of mistletoe onto the curtain rod. "I expect to see that cardigan arrested by the fashion police!" she screeches as she dashes off to scale the shelves behind the bar.
Annie whips out a box cutter to remove the duct-taped mistletoe, resheathes the blade before setting it down per company policy, and then rips off her beige cardigan, uncovering a spectacular low-cut red dress with a silver glitter gradient radiating out from the neckline. "I was going to do a big reveal on the dance floor after dessert!" she screams, and bursts into tears.
Distracted by gleaming cleavage, Natalie loses her grip and falls off the bar shelves, knocking down several bottles of gin but successfully leaving a sprig of mistletoe perched on the top shelf. Two of the bottles smash to pieces, and she pops up from behind the bar halfway through downing the third. The bartender tries to take it away from her and slips in the gin puddle, bringing both of them crashing down perilously close to the broken glass. The pro- and anti-mistletoe brigades are squaring up against each other in two lines like foot soldiers meeting in battle. The light fixture targeted for the initial mistletoe placement, loosened in the fray, comes crashing down onto the table in an explosion of glass and sparks.
Roy slips an arm around Jamie's waist and says, "Office Christmas parties are fucking excellent."
*
Forty minutes later, all the furniture has been pushed to the centre to form a barrier dividing the two halves of the room, leaving them all either standing or sitting on the floor. Everyone has declared an allegiance except Dave, who accidentally drank some non-soy eggnog and has been holed up in the bathroom for some time. The pro-mistletoe troops have conquered the snack table, but it was already mostly decimated by the enemy. Morale is low.
"How much mistletoe do you have in there?" Annie demands, wearily watching Natalie extract yet another sprig from her skin-tight dress. "Literally where are you keeping it?"
Natalie waggles her eyebrows. "Where do you think?"
"That's... that's harassment," Annie protests weakly.
"You asked where I was keeping it, I think you're the one harassing me."
Roy peers up at the wall above where he and Jamie are sitting on the floor. There's a snarled mess of duct tape there suspending the beige cardigan, several wine glasses, and what appears to be an entire tablecloth. "Did she hide any mistletoe in this heap of shit?" he asks Jamie.
Jamie reaches up to poke at it and discovers a limp bit of green inside one of the wine glasses. "If half a leaf counts, yup."
"It counts," Roy decides, and kisses him.
It's not a joke. It's not tongue-in-cheek, except in the most literal sense. Roy kisses him, and Jamie is one hundred percent sure. He smiles into it, and Roy smiles back as they break apart.
"See what I mean?" Nigel murmurs nearby. "It's like his cheekbones have migrated to a completely different spot on his face. Eerie, that is."
Jamie rolls his eyes and starts going in for another kiss. Roy doesn't lean back in, which doesn't make sense because Jamie is one hundred percent sure now, but Roy just directs his attention to the centre of the room. "That explains a lot," he comments.
Jamie turns to look. The final sprig of mistletoe has been reattached to the bare wires dangling from the broken light fixture, and on top of the furniture barrier underneath, Annie and Natalie have got their tongues stuck down each other's throats. As Jamie watches, the lopsided table they're lying on creaks and topples over, depositing them unceremoniously onto the sensible grey broadloom carpet without dislodging either tongue.
A wine glass comes loose from the duct tape and smashes on the floor between Roy and Jamie, narrowly missing both their heads.
"Can I come again next year?" Roy asks.
"'Course," Jamie says. "If I didn't bring me husband to the Christmas party, someone might start thinking I weren't a stable employee."
The mistletoe on the light fixture sways, makes contact with the protruding bare wires, and bursts into flames.
*
"You're sure it's all right for me to come along?" Roy demands yet again. "You don't normally meet the parents on the third day of a relationship."
"You've already met them," Jamie points out. "And didn't Simon invite you like a week ago, when we weren't even together yet? He said he asked about your favorite biscuits and you requested biscotti."
"I did request biscotti," Roy admits.
"Anyway, we're nearly there. Do you really want to turn around and drive another four hours back to London?"
"I'd rather drive another four hours than show up at someone else's family Christmas celebration without realising I was only invited to be polite. I don't even know if he asked your mum before—" He's interrupted by his phone ringing, and fishes it out while keeping one hand on the wheel. "Here, answer this for me."
Jamie stares at the screen. "It's... Keeley Jones? Like... the model?"
"Yeah, she's doing PR for Richmond. Go on, answer it."
Slightly stunned—and doing his best not to think about the poster with the footballs—Jamie manages to accept the call, and Keeley fucking Jones appears. When she sees Jamie, she shrieks and leans in close to the camera. "Jamie! Oh my god, I'm so pleased to finally meet you!"
Jamie glances at Roy, whose calm gaze is fixed on the road in front of him. "Uh... hi. Roy's told you about me?"
"Hasn't shut up about you in weeks! I was the one who sent him that screenshot of your tweet, you know, so I do take full credit for all of it."
"Cheers for that," Jamie says, beaming. "Great wingwoman work."
"I know, right?" She leans her chin on a tastefully beringed fist. "So what happened with Natalie and Annie after the party? Roy said he hasn't even asked you about it since, he's absolutely useless at gossip."
"He's been a bit busy," Jamie says, and grins again when she screams with laughter. "Natalie and Annie have been too, I think. I FaceTimed Nats yesterday and she was wearing one of Annie's cardigans, the one she called a war crime last month, and when I asked how it was going she pulled it down off her neck to show me the hickeys."
"I love it," Keeley enthuses. "Nothing better than a good dramatic love story."
"Tell him about the thing," Roy interjects. "The BTB whatever the fuck."
"Oh, right!" She straightens up, suddenly all business. "You like clothes, yeah?"
Jamie's got no clue what they're on about, but he'll talk fashion any day. "Yes!"
"I bet you've got a nice wardrobe, haven't you? How do you organise it? Hangers, racks, drawers?"
"Mmhmm, all of those. Elfa, I use."
"Oh, perfect. All right, so think of your Elfa system as a content management system, and your clothes are your content. When you add a new piece, you wouldn't want to have to build a whole new hanger or rack to put it on every time, right? That would be silly. Building racks isn't your thing, you just care about the clothes. So you buy an Elfa system, and then all you've got to do is choose which type of hanger or rack your new piece needs and slot it in."
"Right." Jamie nods.
"That's what a CMS is. It's pre-built hangers and racks to organise content—pictures, articles, videos, whatever information you want to share. Most people can't build a whole web page from scratch for every new article, and even if they can, they wouldn't want to take the time. So instead of building a whole new page for every new photo or article, you use a CMS to put each bit of content into whichever organisational tool is right for it within that system."
Jamie is mentally running through his sales copy, fitting it all into this. "That makes so much sense!"
She holds up a not-done-yet finger. "Now, there are different kinds of CMS, depending on what it's used for. Imagine you're a wholesaler selling clothes to retailers. The organisational system you'd need to present the product to a retail buyer is different to a personal wardrobe, right? You're working on a different scale, you have different priorities. That's what B2B is—businesses catering to the needs of other businesses, not to individual customers. So a B2B CMS is an organisational system businesses use to present content to other businesses."
Jamie's brain is kind of exploding. "Why didn't they ever just say that?"
"Well, you're a top performer, right?" Keeley shrugs. "They thought they didn't need to."
"I'm gonna be even better now." Jamie can't fucking wait to go back to work. Well, actually he's happy to wait, because right now he can almost smell the fresh-baked biscuits, but after the Christmas break he's levelling up his game. "We've almost arrived, so I've got to go, but if you want I can grab your number off Roy and keep you posted on the Nats and Annie drama."
She glows. "I knew I'd like you. Laters!"
Roy seems tense as they're parking and walking up to the house, but then Mummy bursts through the door to hug them both and usher them inside, and no one can stay tense around Mummy very long. It's not ten minutes before Roy is pelting Simon with questions about his recipes as they all sit together by the Christmas tree with biscuits and tea.
"Ooh, I've just remembered!" Jamie roots around in his bag and comes up with the framed picture from the day he and Roy met. "Where should we hang it, Mummy?"
"The family wall, of course." She gets up to rearrange the other pictures to make room. "And let's take another one, shall we? Couples always look better in pictures after they've shagged."
"I'm beginning to understand a few things about you," Roy says to Jamie, which is basically the same thing Jamie's last ex said when she met Mummy, though she said it in a much less polite way.
They take the picture, Roy's arm around Jamie's shoulder in the same position as the selfie, and then Roy immediately resumes talking biscuits with Simon as Mummy shows her phone to Jamie. "We'll have to get this one printed and framed too," she says.
Jamie glances at the framed selfie and then back at the screen. In both of them Roy looks relaxed and content, while Jamie radiates perky joy. He wouldn't mind plastering the whole house in pictures of him and Roy, but looking at these two next to one another, the second one feels almost redundant. Like maybe they found everything they needed that first day.
"You're telling me it starts out as a big loaf?" Roy is saying, elbows on his knees, peering intently at the cookbook lying open across Simon's lap. "So I could make that and then not slice it and just have one colossal biscotti?"
Simon ponders this. "Well, you could, but they're baked again after slicing, so it wouldn't be the same texture. And you couldn't dunk it, it wouldn't fit."
"Not if you use a mug like a fucking coward. Hang on, what if you slice it horizontally and do the second bake like that, with just two big flat biscuits? Then you'd get the texture, but it's still massive."
There's a brief pause, then Simon says, "Well, what are we waiting for?" and they both stand up and disappear into the kitchen. Jamie watches them go, feeling like he might strain a cheek muscle smiling.
"Oh, shit," Mummy says, scrolling Twitter. "Someone at that party snuck a picture of the two of you and they've sold it to the Sun. It's all over socials." She shows Jamie the picture, and he pulls up Twitter on his own phone. They've already found him—not difficult, given that Roy only follows six accounts and his avi is his face—and his mentions are slammed. Roy's phone, abandoned on the side table, starts dinging over and over with texts and then a call.
"Roy, someone's leaked a picture of us kissing," Jamie calls. "Your phone's going mad."
"Turn it off, I'm busy going down in culinary history," Roy calls back.
Jamie glances at Mummy, who shrugs and says, "Guess he really doesn't mind." She crosses her legs on the sofa and grabs the platter of biscuits off the table, taking one and offering him the rest. "So, how's the dick?"
Jamie turns off both his and Roy's phones, sticks them in his bag, and turns his attention to more important things.