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Roy comes in cursing and swearing, stomping, but by now it's just the same-old same-old, even to Sam who has been here the shortest time so far. It's only when their Captain finally makes his way fully into the locker room that Sam and the rest of the team realize what's different this morning.
It's pre-season still, rainy and bleak, overcast to the point of looking like dusk, and the whole team is sluggish because of it. Roy glares around the corner, one arm visibly holding something back. Sam expects him to start shouting, directly at them now instead of just generally, about how none of them have more than their coats and shoes off yet. Instead he nods sharply and comes the rest of the way in. And on his heels comes a drowsy-looking little girl. Everyone freezes, and leaves their state of undress exactly as it is.
"Stay," Roy growls at the girl, like you would at a puppy in obedience training. The girl isn't put out one bit by his tone, though. She smiles up at him and when he drops her hand and marches off toward the manager's office, she waves at his back.
"Oi, Lasso," Roy is already barking on his way. "My sister-" The office door slams behind him. Sam jumps, and a few others too, Colin and Jamie in his eyesight, Coach Beard on the other side of the window. The players who've been around longer - or maybe who are just a little bit tougher, Sam will admit he can be a little delicate off the pitch without shame, although that explanation obviously wouldn't cover Jamie who's so tough he's mean - and the little girl are clearly unbothered.
She rubs her eyes with one tiny curled up hand, her thin blonde pigtails swinging. Sam's heart melts like ice cream, briefly frozen by the dreary weather and now thawed into sweet syrup. He's never really been around kids that much, not without their parents there as well, but it doesn't seem right to just leave her standing there sleepy and alone while Roy - her uncle, maybe? He mentioned a sister - talks to Coach Lasso, and no one else is stepping up. Sam takes a step forward, opens his mouth and takes a breath, but before he can decide if he should try to shake her hand or if she wouldn't know what he was doing, the little girl blinks rapidly and makes a sudden beeline for Jamie. Jamie, who's so tough he's mean. Oh no.
"You're Jamie Tartt," the little girl says, her voice clear with easy confidence even in a room full of twenty-two strange grown men. Very not shy. Sam is frozen again, watching in helpless horror as Jamie peers down at the little girl, one of his sharp boxy eyebrows lifted.
But then, to Sam's shock - and by the tightly restrained sighs of relief all around him, everyone else's - the corner of Jamie's mouth lifts too. Soft and cheerful, and not mean at all, he says, "Ah, you caught me. And who're you?"
"Phoebe Kent," the little girl says. She sticks out her hand, her arm and fingers all straight and rigid. Jamie's smirk - no, half smile, not mean at all - smushes briefly before stretching out into a wide grin. He sits down on the bench so he can take Phoebe's hand and shake without having to bend.
"No way," he says, putting on a breathy star-struck voice that makes Sam's head spin to hear from him. "Kent? Like Roy Kent?" Phoebe scoffs and rolls her eyes, but she nods. "Wow! Did you teach him how to run that fast?" Phoebe laughs out loud at that, her pigtails swinging again.
"No, silly!" she says. "I wasn't even born yet when Uncle Roy was fast."
There's a sharp intake of breath all around, each of them holding back their oohs at the diss little Phoebe didn't mean to make. Sam folds his lips in between his teeth to keep himself together. The wide-eyed look of shocked glee on Jamie's face is comical in its own right, almost as hard not to laugh at.
"You're so right," he says - wheezes, really - his voice skewed high and his words all pushed together. But even he doesn't laugh. The low level of anxiety Sam had been feeling, watching for what seemed like the inevitable breaking point of Jamie's ability to be civil, dissipates all at once. It evaporates off of him like sweat, leaving him cool and a little tired. Suddenly Jamie, with his big happy smile, is someone Sam has never met. Someone who can be trusted to be patient and kind. It sets Sam's head to spinning again. He glances to the side at the others and finds Colin with his mouth hanging open, Isaac squinting with his head tilted, Thierry vaguely pointing, Moe scratching his head.
"You look fast, is all, yeah? So I just assumed…" Jamie is continuing to Phoebe. Sam looks back to the two of them just in time to see Phoebe give Jamie one of the most unimpressed doubtful looks Sam has ever seen. Not that Sam usually sees many, but he can only assume Jamie gets them a lot.
Jamie laughs, easy, not mean at all. He says, "Ah, yeah, you're right, I'm just trynna gas you up." He nudges playfully at Phoebe's elbow. When she laughs again, his grin goes so wide it looks like it must hurt his cheeks.
Phoebe seems to get a little bit shy then, tugging at one of her pigtails, shuffling one of her shoes. But her voice is still clear when she tells Jamie, "I like your earrings."
"Oh, thanks!" Jamie says. His voice is so bright, and his eyes too, like it's the greatest compliment he's ever received. "I like yours too." Sam hadn't even realized Phoebe was wearing earrings - actually he hadn't noticed either of them were, to be honest. He looks now, trying to catch up, trying to make this all seem real.
Phoebe's earrings are short, dangling clusters of little plastic hearts, some solid and some just an outline, in shades of bright pink and purple. Sam wouldn't be surprised to learn they were Barbie branded. Jamie's earrings are mismatched in shape, but the same dark metal. One dangles, longer than Phoebe's, with a charm - a feather? - at the end of a thin chain. The other is a simple hoop, barely wide enough to loop around his earlobe. The dangling one swings forward when he leans over to peer unsubtlely at the still closed manager's office door.
"How long do you think it would take him to notice if we swapped?" he asks Phoebe when he's sat back again. Phoebe's mouth drops open and her eyes go wide. She bounces on her toes, and then leans backward to look into the office too. Apparently satisfied that her uncle isn't looking, Phoebe giggles quietly and shuffles closer to Jamie, already carefully pulling one of her earrings off with both hands.
Jamie- giggles too.
Sam hears the small, cut-off sound of someone else's mind also being blown, but he can't turn to look who made it. His mouth is hanging open now too. He must be having a very, very strange dream. Any moment now, Sam will wake up in his bed, late for training. Roy probably isn't even an uncle. There's no other explanation.
They swap earrings. Jamie's grown-up jewelry somehow manages to look more surreal in Phoebe's ears than Phoebe's girlish ones do on Jamie. Those pink plastic hearts hardly look out of place on him at all. He wiggles his head back and forth to make them clink dully against each other. Sam's eyes are starting to feel dry from staring so long without blinking.
The adorable, surrealist tableau comes to an abrupt, startling end, as most things do when Roy Kent is the one to end them. The manager's office door yanks open, bouncing loudly against the shelf in the path of its swing, to Coach Lasso's half-hearted and fully-ignored protest.
"Phoebe!" Roy shouts, his voice the very same loud, low, and sharp growl it ever is.
Between one blink - possibly Sam's first blink since Jamie sat down - and the next, Jamie is on his feet with Phoebe standing on the bench behind him where he just was, crowded back into the hollow of his cubby.
"Ow!" she says, though even with as little experience as he has with kids Sam is sure it's more from being startled than that anything actually hurt her.
"What the fuck, Tartt!" Roy snarls, swelling up like a cobra. But he doesn't strike. It could be that Phoebe squirms easily out from behind Jamie and hops back down onto the floor at his side, or it could be that Jamie doesn't say a single word in response. He actually doesn't even move, except for the rise and fall of his chest with his breathing, too deep and too fast.
Phoebe takes the few steps from Jamie's side to her uncle's, though the two men's eyes stay locked. She tugs lightly on the hem of Roy's shirt and tells him in a loud toddler whisper, "I think you just scared him, Uncle Roy." She says this like it's a common occurrence, and to her this probably does seem like that. Like Roy's volume and gruffness just gave Jamie a little fright, made him jump.
But with a heavy, horrible pit in his stomach, Sam realizes it's not like that at all. Jamie is scared. Really scared. Not the kind of scared you get when a door slams. Not the kind of scared you get when you've broken a rule and you've just been caught and you know you're going to get a scolding and have your Xbox taken away. Jamie is the kind of scared that Sam has only ever seen in horror movies and news broadcasts the anchors tell parents to send their children out of the room for.
Roy seems to realize it too, his thick eyebrows creased together so close they look like one, his mouth set in a small, tight frown. He doesn't look away from Jamie when he places a gentle hand between Phoebe's shoulders. Jamie doesn't look away from him either.
"Yeah…" Roy says slowly, and quietly for once. He gives Phoebe a little nudge. "Give him a hug goodbye, taking you up to Ms. Welton's for the day."
The tension - the thick, confused dread of knowing there's something bad, but not knowing what it is - in the room goes right over Phoebe's head. Which, Sam comforts himself with thinking, at least means that whatever made Jamie scared like that has never happened to her.
"I wanna watch training," she whines.
"There's fucking windows," Roy grumbles at her, pushing her forward again more insistently. "Give Jamie a hug." Phoebe heaves a huge, bratty sigh, but she runs back over in the other direction. Jamie- drops, onto his knees so that Phoebe faceplants into his chest instead of his legs. She squeezes him, and he squeezes her. She lets go first. Skips back to Roy, slips her small hand into his. Jamie stays on the ground, staring straight ahead, his teeth clenched so hard Sam can see the muscles of his jaw moving from here.
"Right," Roy says, still quiet, gravelly. He takes a breath like he'll say more, but in the end he just shakes his head and leaves, tugging Phoebe along after him.
Sam breathes slowly, counting his pace in and out, staring just as blankly forward as Jamie. He presses one hand to his chest, softly but firmly telling his heart to stop racing. He feels cold, and shaky, and a little sick. His thoughts refuse to get near the bad thing he knows but doesn't know, flitting in and then flinching away like the knowledge is an open fire that hurts to even almost-touch.
When he feels like he can again, Sam takes a deep breath too, opens his mouth to speak not knowing what he'll say. But before he can, Jamie is gone, leaving behind only the muted clink of Phoebe's plastic earrings.