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"Big man Roy Kent!" Jamie tried, knowing the reaction would be anger.
"No," Roy growled.
"Come on, man. Why won't you coach me?"
"Because you don't deserve it."
"You're right. I don't deserve it." This was bizarre, Roy thought to himself. Interesting. Roy could have fun with a Jamie acting like this. Jamie felt like he was begging his Dad for shit, like he was thirteen and just realizing why his mum had left, fourteen and- Roy continuing to speak cut off that thought that Jamie's mind would have cut off anyway.
"And the way you play is dull and conformist."
"It's true. I do play in quite" Jamie was unsure how to turn conformist from an adjective to the one that described a verb "a dull and conformist-y way." Roy turned around. Got in Jamie’s face, again reminding Jamie of his dad. Sometimes Dad got like this. Jamie could take it, whatever Roy Kent wanted.
"And you're ugly. You're an ugly, ugly boy. With bad hair." Maybe Jamie couldn't. He remember far too often Dad insulting Jamie’s hair, grabbing him by it. Agree with him, Keeley had said. It really takes the wind out of his brat sails. Roy Kent was being a brat, that much Jamie agreed with. Jamie had started, so he couldn't give up now.
"And I'm ugly. I'm an ugly, ugly boy with hair that might be sightly-" Jamie had to say what Roy had said. "fine, with- with bad hair."
"Cheers, I enjoyed that!"
Now Jamie was fucking pissed. He had tried, tried so hard, all he had ever wanted was for Roy Kent to like him, and right now he wasn't even asking to be liked, just to be coached as a member of the team!
"You fucking arsehole!"
"Yeah. I know you are, but so are you." Roy was being exactly what he had once told Keeley he wasn't - a baby child who hated Jamie enough to let that hatred overshadow the better parts of who Roy wanted to be. Only Keeley wasn't here to force Roy to see reason.
"I'm trying to build bridges here."
"You couldn't fucking build Jeff Bridges." Roy shoved Jamie. Jamie had hit the point he always hit with angry men, with the sole exception thus far being Ted Lasso - that being the point of physical violence. Now Ted would intervene like the soft little man he was, Jamie thought. The voice in his head thinking that sounded like Dad, a fact Jamie hated about his thoughts sometimes.
"Hey, hey, hey! What's going on? What's wrong?"
"This man refuses to coach me."
"He refuses to stop being an arsehole."
"Roy, you're not gonna like this. But right now, Jamie here is being the mature one."
"It's true. I'm being super mature, you big, dumb, hairy, baby twat." Ted knew Jamie had just made what Ted had said now inaccurate in that that following sentence was far from mature, but Ted was used to being a coach to university students, whose maturity levels varied wildly, so the best way to cope with Jamie's inability to live up to Ted's most recent description was to pretend he still did, still was being mature.
"He just wants to learn from you." Jamie did currently want to learned from Roy, although he also pretty obviously looked up to the older man, which Ted had been able to see even just by watching the two play on the same team in the short time he had coached them prior to the gala.
"If you know how to make me better, I want to hear it." Roy gave in. He knew how to make Jamie better, he just didn't know how to explain it without telling Ted Lasso that the man had fucked Jamie Tartt up first, but both men had Roy angry enough to not give a shit about offending them anymore.