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When Nate Shelley calls him, late in the afternoon, Trent barely has the time to wonder how he’s gotten his number before he’s rushing to start recording and open his notebook to write down what the other’s saying. Sparing any unnecessary politeness, Shelley simply cuts straight to the point and immediately tells him about Ted’s panic attack.
It’s not unexpected, per se. Trent had known Ted had lied to him, that night at the pub, and had figured out it must’ve been something serious if it had gotten him to lie. Still, the idea of Ted and panic attacks- it takes him by surprise.
And yet, it makes sense, especially once he replays the footage from the match. He feels foolish for not having seen it before.
He immediately gets onto writing the article, conversation with Shelley still fresh in his mind, his brain on autopilot. He’d been compared to a shark before, and a shark after blood is exactly who he is whenever he comes across a scoop.
It’s almost evening when he finishes, so he stands from his desk, stretches his back and starts cooking dinner. As he eats, he proofreads it, and it’s good, he knows it, except. Except it’s wrong.
It’s cutthroat, it doesn’t hold back. He’s written about Lasso lying to him, about how this might affect his coaching, the team. It’s typical Trent Crimm, sharp to the point of cruelty. He’s done it hundreds of times, and yet this is different.
It hits him at once: it’s exactly what Shelley wanted. He’d called him, had told him everything in a matter of minutes. He’d expected Trent to write the article he had, in fact, written, as by his reputation. The question that must obviously be asked, then, is: why?
The answer comes as he listens to the recording of the conversation. Shelley sounds bitter, hurt. It’s quite clear to Trent, then, that his intention is to hurt Ted. He can’t figure out what the reason behind it is, exactly, but why else would he call such an infamous journalist to tell him something that was sure to hurt Ted’s reputation?
He hadn’t hesitated to write the article before because he knows it’s his job. Lasso is the coach, and when he’s on the field his every decision, his every move affects the team. Trent’s position is that of someone who informs the fans (and everyone else that might be interested) about everything that affects the team. If one were to draw a Venn diagram, the two circles would broadly overlap. He has to write the article, and yet, as he rereads it once more, he finds he doesn’t want to.
His daughter is with his ex-husband for the week, but if she were with him, she would most likely remind him that to her Ted Lasso is the man who had baked her cookies for her birthday despite barely knowing her.
The truth is, if this news had hit him at the beginning of Lasso’s journey as a coach, he would’ve been ecstatic. He’d spent the first weeks after that initial press conference trying to dig up dirt on the man, to find anything that would ruin him, and he’d found nothing. Then he’d spent that fateful day around him, hoping that a closer look would finally prove just how fake he was, and instead had seen his resolve crumble in front of how genuinely good Ted Lasso actually was.
In the months after that, he’d come to respect him. Then he’d brought his daughter biscuits and that had made Trent look at him with- with affection, even, outside the field.
Resistance had been futile in front of Ted’s charm.
So this, the article that’s open in front of him, doesn’t feel right. Ted doesn’t deserve to have his mental health published on the front page of the majority of London’s news outlets. Ted is too good for this, and Trent had always known it. Too good for a world that’s made of assholes, Trent included, and two years prior he would have wanted nothing more than to prove it by throwing him to the sharks. He also knows that he’s grown too soft on him, that at the end of the season he’s probably going to have to make some changes, but he hadn’t expected to be so reluctant in front of what is, journalistically speaking, a goldmine.
Except that if he doesn’t publish the story, Shelley won’t just let it go. He’ll go somewhere else, to someone worse. And there is worse, out there, because as relentless as Trent’s article is, it’s still just facts, and those are not the only things that would be included if the story landed on some other paper. Trent has been given the power to do damage control, to let the story come out his way, at least in the beginning.
At the beginning of Ted’s story, he’d been the antagonist, even if just for a little while. Shelley had seeked him out because that’s his supposed role in this whole thing.
He thinks of Ted complimenting his glasses as the first thing he’d ever said to him. He rewrites the article from the start.
.
Later, once he’s finished again, after pulling up statistics about men’s mental health in the UK and everything that might be of relevance to bring awareness to the topic on a general level, he still hesitates before sending it to his boss. Elizabeth was going to be ecstatic, he knows it, and he’s definitely still on time for the article to be published on the following day’s edition.
As he gathers his resolve and clicks send, he’s perfectly aware of how this will affect Ted. He’s angry at Nate Shelley for it, and he hates that he has been the one chosen to do this.
He likes Ted more than he should, and is alarmed at how much the thought of his disappointment in Trent hurts him. He will be disappointed, is the thing, because as good as Ted is there still are limits to what one can do to him without consequences, and he hates that his job has put him in this position.
He had been thinking about asking for a transfer from covering Richmond for the sake of his integrity, given how biased he was slowly becoming towards its coach, and yet as he regards the bright screen of his computer he finds that his integrity is something he wants to shatter more than preserve.
Ted Lasso didn’t deserve what he had just done to him; he also didn’t deserve to be betrayed by someone he thought he could trust. Trent contemplates his twenty-eight years of career in journalism; thinks about his colleague that just the month before had been arrested because of his unwillingness to give up his source. Journalistic integrity is what allows them all to do their job; it’s fundamental and untouchable.
And yet Trent is tired of it, if it means he has to help someone who is in the wrong.
(There are journalists other than him. If he hadn’t been available, Nate Shelley would’ve gone to someone else. He knows this, but it’s the thought that he had to do it, to hurt someone he likes way more than he should, that stings the most.)
He wants Ted to know he’s sorry. He also wants him to know that there’s someone close to him that he really, really should not trust, so he opens his phone and pulls up Ted’s number.
.
It doesn’t have to get out. Trent knows Ted’s not going to tell anyone. His career’s not on the line.
It’s the sting, however, the one he’d felt when he’d submitted the article, that makes up his mind.
He wants something else than being mean on paper. Ted had been right, that time: he loves writing, and he’s good at it. There’s something deeper he can do with it, so he makes a decision and goes to his boss’ office the next morning.
It’s a decision that throws his entire career in the trash. It feels big, and it is, and he wonders if it’s foolish that he’s doing this for one man except he’s doing it for himself, because he’s tired. And even if it was for Ted Lasso, then what would be wrong with that?
God, he’s far more gone than he’d thought.
It should be a difficult decision, except, in hindsight, it’s everything but.
.
Elizabeth is standing up next to her bookshelf when he enters her office. She’s still wearing her purse and her coat, and it’s so early in the morning that she’s probably just come in. He doesn’t give her the time to say hello, or anything of the sort. He wants this to be done with.
“I did something. Something serious.”
“Is this about the Lasso article?”
How could it not be, Trent thinks, bitterly, it’s the biggest story we’ve had in months.
“Yes, it is.”
She looks at him, a certain look in her eyes that makes Trent understand she’s figured something out. She’s his boss for a reason, after all. You don’t easily fool a journalist, let alone one of her level.
“If you think I won’t find out if you don’t tell me, you don’t have to.”
This is a way out, laid in front of him. There’s still time to back up, to accept her offer. She likes him, always has, even if she’s never been soft on him, and she knows he’s good. She’d be willing to close an eye on this if he walked out right then; but he’d made his decision the moment he’d texted Ted.
“I’m not objective when it comes to T- to Richmond anymore, and you know that. I was going to ask for a transfer at the end of the season anyway.”
“But you’re not about to ask me for a transfer now, are you?”
“No.”
“Trent.”
He takes off his glasses. There’s the slightest trembling in his hands. There’s no going back from this: Elizabeth respects him, but even she won’t be able to tolerate what he’s done. It goes against every journalistic code in existence.
“I told Lasso who my source was.”
“Trent.”
She doesn’t look shocked, exactly, but her expression is as close as one of shock as it can get. She sits down and says, “Fuck.”
“I won’t say I’m sorry.”
She laughs, except it’s not a laugh; more of a bitter sound that seems almost angry.
“No, you won’t. Fucking hell, Trent, why did you tell me? Lasso surely wasn’t going to.” She pauses. “I’ll have to fire you.”
“I know.”
“I won’t even ask why you told him, because I don’t want to know. Just, Trent- is he really worth throwing almost thirty years of journalistic integrity and of your career out of the window? Because I hope you realise that’s what you have done.”
She’s calm, the initial anger washing away. Still, her tone is dripping with disappointment. He knows the enormity of his decision, is perfectly aware of it. Still, between all the emotions he’s felt since speaking with Nate Shelley, between the worrying for his future and the guilt over the consequences of his article, he couldn’t find any regret for telling Ted.
“I do, thank you very much. And yes, he is. Worth it, I mean.”
She looks at him like he’s grown a second head.
“I’ve known you for fifteen years and I’ve never seen you willing to spare people’s feelings. You’ve always been ready to cut throats.”
“I’m not sparing his feelings, I wrote the article and that’s proof enough of that. If you knew the source you’d understand. Quite simply, he doesn’t deserve it.”
“Guilty. You’re feeling fucking guilty for an article that isn’t even half as cruel as how others would have written it.”
“I am, yes. I understand I had to do it, because it’s my job, and that’s exactly why I’m quitting.”
“You’re not quitting. You’re making me fire you.”
“Same thing.”
“It quite isn’t.” She sighs, stays silent for a few seconds, then seems to make a decision. “You’ve been the best we’ve had ever since you came here, despite all the times you’ve been sued by all the people whose feelings you haven’t spared. I want your reputation to stay this way, both for your sake and for that of the paper, so I won’t be telling people exactly what you’ve done.”
Trent had hoped for that, at least, even if he would’ve managed without. Still, he’s grateful.
“Thank you.”
“No, don’t thank me.” She pauses. “Very well, Trent Crimm. You’re fired.”
.
He explains it to his daughter on the phone at lunch, and she’s just happy to know that her daddy will have more time for her. His ex-husband overhears and laughs at him, fondly.
“I didn’t think I’d live to see the day you went so soft on someone. Honestly, I don’t believe you’ve ever been this soft on me, and we’ve been married.”
“Oh, do shut up, Will.” Still, he laughs.
“Seriously, though. You’ll be alright, yes?”
Trent thinks of all the books he’d put off writing through the years.
“I will. Don’t worry.”
.
He goes to see his dad for dinner that night, and tells him everything; the whole story, minus the name of Nate Shelley. He doesn’t expect him to be angry, just as much as he doesn’t think he’ll be pleased with his new status as unemployed.
Instead, all he says is, “Well, now you’re Trent Crimm, independent.”
Trent wants to hit him, fondly, but the terrible pun also reminds him immensely of something Ted would say and his face must show it, because his father notices immediately.
“You really like this fellow, then?”
“I haven’t really let myself think about it yet. I do know that shall I understand I like him as much as you suggest, I better get over it, because the man’s probably straight and I’m too old for that kind of thing.”
“Trent, do you really not remember that you thought Will was straight, too?”
“That was different.” He doesn’t say that if Ted was out, he’d have found out while trying to dig up information about him, back at the beginning.
His father scoffs. “If you say so,” he says.
.
Richmond gets promoted, because of course they do. Nobody’s immune to Ted Lasso’s charm, not even the universe.
Trent sheds a few tears, but he’ll be damned before he tells anyone.
.
Waiting for Ted to exit the clubhouse, Trent feels extremely foolish.
It’s something he has to do, obviously, to try and see if his relationship with Ted is somewhat mendable. He needs to rip the bandaid off, to understand if Ted hates him and will never speak to him again, so that he can make peace with it.
Instead Ted sees him, smiles at him, and tells him he was worried about him.
Trent is so relieved he can’t stop spilling the truth about having himself fired, and just hopes Ted won’t understand or at least won’t acknowledge that he’d been the main reason.
Then he makes the same exact pun his father had made, and he has to physically stop himself from kissing him in the parking lot.
It’s like his journalistic integrity had functioned as a dam to stop his feelings for this delightful man that’s standing in front of him from spilling all over the place, and now that that’s gone, there’s nothing between him and this idiotic crush.
He offers Ted a ride, because it’s the polite thing to do and because he won’t pretend to not want to spend more time with him. Ted declines, however, and Trent barely has the time to feel disappointed before he discovers that his idiotic crush has, in fact, made him an idiot, and that he’s locked his key inside his car.
“Shit.”
Ted, who hasn’t gotten very far yet, hears him and turns around.
“Somethin’ wrong?”
“I seem to have locked myself out of my car.”
“Uh boy, that ain’t good. There should be a locksmith near here somewhere. Want a walk?”
Of course that’s the joke he goes with.
“Seems I must,” Trent says as he catches up with him.
They walk in companionable silence for a while. Trent hasn’t taken a proper walk in quite a long time, and it’s nicer than he would like to admit. His companion might also be playing a part in it.
“So,” Ted says, breaking the silence, “when you said something deeper, does that mean you already have somethin’ in mind?”
“Perhaps. There are a few book ideas I haven’t been able to develop yet that I might work on.”
“Now that’s nice. Can’t wait to read them. You’re gonna have to find someone to publish them that makes sense with the pun, though, ‘cause otherwise that would be real upsetting.”
Trent can’t help but laugh.
“Well, perhaps I’ll self-publish them. That way, the independent version still works.”
“See, I always knew you were smart, Trent. That’s obviously the best course of action.”
Trent doesn’t blush, but it’s a close thing. Look at him: he'd made coaches cry during press conferences and now Ted Lasso pays him a compliment and his brain decides to shut down. He doesn’t really have an answer to that, though, so he changes the topic to a safer one.
“It will also be nice to spend more time with my daughter. Not that I didn’t, just, more’s always better.”
“Yeah, that’s definitely true. You have no idea how excited I am now that Henry’s moving here.”
“He is? That’s great news, Ted.” It really is; he’s seen him with the kid, and knows he loves him like crazy. He also knows how hard it would be for him if he’d been separated from his daughter for as long as Ted’s been away from Henry.
“It most certainly is. I’m going overseas next week to organise the transfer, then we’re good to go. Can’t wait, really! Hey, you know what we should do? We should make them meet! Henry and your kid, I mean. I bet they would love each other.”
Trent smiles at the thought. He pointedly doesn’t analyse how wistful it makes him feel.
“Can’t see why not.”
“Very well. It’s a play-date, then. Anyway, how’s she doing?”
“She’s fine, thank you. She’s spending the week at my ex-husband’s, who cooks way better than me, so she’s more than fine, even.”
Then Ted appears to make a double take.
“Ex-husband?”, he asks.
He sounds surprised. For a few seconds, everything is really, really dark. Trent had honestly never imagined that Ted could be a homophobe, but, apparently, he’d been wrong, becau-
Thankfully Ted seems to immediately understand his mistake, and he rushes to fix it.
“Nothing wrong with that, absolutely nothing wrong, no sir. It’s just, I didn’t know you were gay. Or bisexual,”
Trent feels so relieved that for a few moments he doesn’t register the fact that Ted hadn’t known.
“I’m gay. You- you really didn’t know?”
“Guess I hadn’t really thought about it. Didn’t have the slightest idea until now.”
“So you’ve never googled me?”
“Why, should I have? That ain’t something I like doing. If you want me to know somethin’ about yourself, just tell me.”
“You really are something else,” Trent says, smiling softly to himself. “Most people don’t hesitate when it comes to googling.”
“Why, what would I have found?”
“Oh, just that when people discovered I had a husband, a good ten years ago, it was quite a scandal. First openly gay journalist in a field that’s everything but welcoming to non heterosexual people and all that,”
Ted doesn’t answer immediately. As he waits for a reply, Trent notices they’re near the Crown & Anchor, which is close to the nearest locksmith that google had found for him. Before he can say so to Ted, however, the other finally speaks again.
“Well, guess things aren’t very different here than in Kansas, though yours was probably on a larger scale than a small town’s community. Still, you’d be surprised at how hateful a small group of people can get.”
Trent’s breath catches in his throat for a second. There’s something, there, an undertone, an implication that he wishes so much to be true that it almost scares him. He has to ask, so he does.
“Are you speaking from experience, Ted?”
Ted seems to hesitate. “It’s off the record, rig- shoot, sorry. Forgot there’s no record anymore.” He pauses. “Yes, I’m speaking from experience. I’m bisexual, have known since I was seventeen. Then I was found behind a building with my first boyfriend. My parents had no problem with it, but the news spread like a wildfire in a dry field and so I was shipped off to the furthest college they could afford. By the time I came back I was engaged to Michelle, so it never really came up anymore, except no one ever looked at me quite the same way.”
Trent doesn’t know what to say, his brain too busy imagining his dad saying the biggest told you so in the history of ever.
Anything at all with Ted hadn’t even seemed like a remote possibility up until a few hours before, what with work ethics and (apparently) incompatible sexualities, and instead now it seems so possible that he reels with the reality of it.
He’s trying to come up with some sort of answer to what feels not only like an enormous confession, but also like a deeply felt sense of trust, when Ted stops walking.
“I’m afraid this is my stop here. There should be a locksmith a bit further down the road, so you’re good to go.”
“Ted, I-“ He pauses, takes off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. This is real, it’s possible, he just has to ask, something that until a few hours before had been a job he’d been good at. “When are you leaving, exactly?”
“On friday. Why, Trent Crimm, eager to see me leave, darlin’?”
It’s the way his accent curls around the word darling that gives Trent the push he needs to make the next step.
“Quite the opposite, I’m afraid. Would you like to get some coffee before friday?”
Ted looks at him from up the step he’d climbed to get into his building, body halfway turned towards the door. There’s something in his eyes, a spark that lights them, and he’s so bright when he smiles that Trent is suddenly starstruck, unable to do anything but stand there and hope he’ll say yes. Ted’s too good for the position he fills and he’s too good for Trent, but maybe, if he says yes, maybe then it’ll be alright.
“I would love to, unless it’s a trap and you’re taking me somewhere that serves dirty leaf water, ‘cause I ain’t drinking that.”
“I swear there’ll be just coffee.” He doesn’t know what else to say that’s not going to make him look like a fool, so he just adds, “I’ll text you the details?”
“You do that.” Ted smiles at him and then turns to unlock the door and open it. Before Trent has the time to come to his senses, say his goodbye and leave, he turns to face him again, holding the door open.
“It’s a date, then?”
Trent simply smiles.
“It is.”
Ted says nothing, just keeps smiling as he disappears inside the door. Trent stands there looking at the closing door, feeling less like Trent Crimm, Independent and more like Trent Crimm, Lovestruck Idiot Who’s Fallen for The Only Man From Kansas in a 10 Km Radius by the second.
Perhaps what he feels for Ted isn’t exactly love; it’s just that he remembers how he’d smiled at him just now, his accent and his biscuits and his terrible puns and his general goodness, as different from everything that Trent had ever thought he could like as possible, and thinks he could easily see the feelings he has for Ted turn into something much bigger, now that he knows he can let them. He thinks of Ted and believes that loving him could be the easiest thing he’s done in a while.
He’s probably already halfway there, given that despite how much he protests it he has kind of sacrificed his whole career for him without even having been asked to.
No one’s safe from Ted Lasso’s charm. No one. Definitely not Trent Crimm, Lovesick Idiot.