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He’s bouncing off the walls. He definitely made at least two weird noises and waved his arms around like a Muppet. And he should probably care that he did this in front of Roy Kent, who will not forget it and will pointedly bring it up again at some point. But he doesn’t care, because he’s high on the perfection of years of small kindnesses, of subtle – and not-so-subtle – trust-building exercises, and goodness and sincerity and forgiveness and support, each on their own tiny, beautiful dots of light and colour in an otherwise grey world, all coming together in a masterpiece. A riot of colour. A Monet of football. Ted Lasso’s vision of what the world could, and should, be.
And Ted had stood there, watching the feelings explode out of Trent in an uncontrollable burst, looking delighted. At him. At Trent Crimm. As if Trent were the shiniest and brightest thing Ted had ever seen, as if he made him unconditionally happy. And he’d done that.
So no, he doesn’t care about the Muppet hands and the noises.
The book, which had been slowly taking shape as an underdog story about unconventional coaching and team-building, has become crystal clear in his mind. It is infinitely more complex and delicate now and the deftness he will need to pull it off is daunting, but the payoff. The payoff is getting to write the story of his career – a story in which he believes and is burstingly proud to be a witness to. And it will be about Ted. Ted, who Trent wants to know every part of, wants to worm his way into his brain and know him better than he’s ever known anyone.
For the book.
The journey home is a blur, his mind and body still buzzing. Back in his office, his brain pinwheeling with sentences and scenes and moments he needs to capture before they spiral out of his head forever, he’s caught between scribbling furiously in his notebook and propelling himself out of his chair to pace about the room. The energy from earlier hasn’t dissipated yet and he can’t contain it. As his explosion at Ted replays in his mind, his hands can’t help but grasp at the air, trying to capture and hold on to something. His fingers flex. They feel empty. And so he falls back into his desk chair to begin the cycle again.
***
As the grey light of morning washes across the room and his hands begin to cramp he sits back. The comedown is quite a thing. What had seemed like a moment of sheer, unadulterated joy at the beauty of football now looks suspiciously like ridiculousness and – he groans and scrubs at his face – like the cool, writerly facade he’d tried so hard to maintain has been demolished by his inner Muppet. Hands, noises, hair and all. He’d probably just have to never show his face around any of them again. He makes another inarticulate noise, maybe a wail this time. Had Ted even been delighted at all or had he been laughing at him? To think he’d almost grabbed him and kissed him in the mom—
Oh.
Any remaining doubt about whether he should be embarrassed evaporates.
That’s definitely embarrassing.
As is – he looks down at it – his notebook, full of what he now realises is an ode to Ted. An outpouring of such admiration and praise and (more noises) love that he can’t believe he’s only now seeing it. It’s written in every line. Even in the ones that aren’t about Ted. ‘For the book.’ Right.
The notebook stares back up at him from the desk and he swats it shut, then snaps the elastic over it to make sure it stays that way.
It’s still too early to start the day, really, but it’s too late to try and sleep. Not that he could now, as the terrible projector in his head rattles through every encounter with Ted Lasso and how obviously he’s been watching him. Ted’s face, the way it lights up when he’s happy to see someone – which is all the time. The way he stands when he’s watching his team, strong and confident and then bouncing with energy. When he gives a speech with such sincerity and conviction that Trent can’t take his eyes off him. And oh dear. There’s no way this has escaped notice. After last night’s humiliation he doesn’t stand a chance of surviving unscathed.
And Ted. Ted had been kind about it, had faced the onslaught with as much politeness as he showed to everyone. Had smiled just as he would at one of his boys mastering a new tactic on the first try.
So that’s that, then. He has realised something deeply embarrassing about himself and has acted deeply embarrassingly in front of several people and today he has to sit in a room with them and pretend not to be deeply embarrassed. And maybe there’ll be some jokes, and Ted will probably say something horrifically kind and supportive, and Trent will want to curl up into a ball and disassociate from the horror, but he will get through it.
And then he will finish the book as fast as possible and escape with as much dignity as he possibly can without humiliating himself further. The book will still be his best work, though, and it will still be beautiful. Because, personal tragedy aside, this is still an incredible, perfect story.
He should probably take out some of the adjectives though. And the metaphor about Monet.
***
He takes his time getting ready. This morning his usual carefully constructed writer’s facade – t-shirt, blazer, scarf, socks – feels like armour. The notebook and pen that are normally his shield and sword today feel like exposed soft bits, but from the outside he’s sure there’s no sign.
And so fully armed, he saunters into their shared offices with all the nonchalance he can muster and is the most normal he’s ever been when Ted looks up at him and positively beams.
‘Trent!’
’Ted.’ Very cool. Writerly. Normal. Exactly the same as every morning now.
But Ted’s face falls and Trent falters.
‘You look tired, is everything alright? Did something happen?’
‘Oh, ah, yes.’ Trent hesitates, caught between relief that he doesn’t seem to have revealed anything and fear that he might yet have revealed something at any other time. ‘Writing all night. The book, you know…’
He waves his notebook in explanation and then, at the sudden feeling that it might spray all his feelings across the room, quickly hides it behind his back.
Ted’s face perks up again. He’s beginning to look like he did after Trent went all Muppet at him, and he has a sinking feeling it really was delight after all. He’s not sure that this is better, because his brain is definitely going to try and read too much into it. It’s not a special smile just for Trent, Ted is just a very nice person with a very nice smile. Oh God.
Before Trent can do anything else and before Ted can say anything else, such as ‘can I read all the embarrassing words you wrote last night?’, he escapes to his desk and tries to look as busy and normal as he can.
Normal cannot survive the day, though. Trent’s head is a mess and he’s exhausted. All the chaos he’s normally so good at keeping under wraps is leaking out.
He tips all his pens on the floor. Twice. He bumps into the table of water bottles and knocks those on the floor too.
The coffee’s run out so he makes tea, staring unseeing at the wall as he flings a teabag into his mug, then drips the milk on its way in and spatters the teabag on the counter on its way out. He absently swipes at it with the palm of a hand which he dries on his trousers and instantly regrets it.
He burns his lip on the first sip, then forgets about the rest and lets it go cold.
He heads off to watch Roy and Jamie perform some kind of elaborate mating ritual on the pitch and realises he’s left the notebook wide open on his desk.
Cool is abandoned as he races back to his office.
***
He bursts into the room in a way that is not, he is horrified to realise, dissimilar to last night’s entrance and then freezes. Ted is standing by his desk, traitorous notebook open in his hands, reading intently. He looks up as the door ricochets off the wall.
‘Did you write this last night?’
Trent barely hears him through the ringing of his ears, the panicked urge to save what’s left of his dignity overwhelming everything else.
‘Ted, I’m sorry, you weren’t meant to read — It’s just. It’s a rough draft, ignore it. Very rough draft. I need to edit it. Cut most of it. Take out some of the metaphors and...’ He realises he’s rambling incoherently and his arms are in the air again. So much for dignity.
‘…adjectives,’ he trails off.
But Ted’s face…his face is doing something Trent’s not sure he’s seen before. A voice in the back of his addled mind provides ‘glowing like a Turner sunset’ before he stomps on it. And it hasn’t dimmed, even when confronted with Trent’s rambling.
‘No, it’s beautiful. Don’t change a thing. You know I loves me a metaphor. And these are,’ he pauses, and Trent feels the inevitable knowledge of what’s coming rise in tandem with Ted’s eyebrow, ‘right on the Monet.’
There it is.
‘Ted.’
‘Your words are so powerful, they really take me back to so many beautiful moments. It’s like Degas vu….I’m sorry, I’ll stop. But truly, Trent, you paint a picture of me that’s prettier than anything by Monet or Michelangelo. Heck, even Bob Ross would struggle.’
This manages to cut through Trent’s panic, but he’s still wrong-footed, mentally and physically, clinging to the door frame for balance.
‘You don’t hate it?’
‘Hate it? No way, José! It’s perfect. It’s…It’s Total Football. Everything in perfect balance, every word and thought supporting the next, building and weaving and…It’s Total Writing! The Trent Crimm Way. The way you talked about it last night, I thought it was just heat-of-the-moment enthusiasm.’ Trent winces at the reminder. ‘But this? This is… something .’
Ted shakes his head in amazement and closes the notebook almost reverently. He walks towards where Trent is still standing, frozen in the doorway, to press it deliberately back into his hands. ‘Thank you, Trent. For seeing me like this, for knowing me like this. I sure appreciate it. I appreciate you.’
Trent swallows. Ted hasn’t let go of the notebook. Up close, his eyes are a shade of brown that Trent definitely isn’t going to compose a metaphor about. He can’t look away.
‘Appreciate,’ he echoes.
‘Y’know, last night, when you ran after me, I thought for a second – and stop me if I’m going down the wrong pantsleg here, but what you wrote made me think maybe I’m not – I thought for a second that maybe you might have wanted to make like Sixpence None the Richer and…’
Trent makes another one of those noises that he doesn’t regret in the moment and might only regret a little bit tomorrow, and kisses Ted. It’s not elegant, because nothing he’s managed today has been elegant, and the notebook is still caught between them. But Ted isn’t moving back. Ted has released the notebook and is trying to hold Trent as close to him as he can and push him back against the door frame at the same time. And then Trent’s forgotten about the book and it’s on the floor, and his hands are finally holding onto Ted, fingers digging into his shirt and grasping his arms.
The need to know Ted, to know all of him, inside and out, comes surging back. Had never truly left. And maybe some of the adjectives can stay.