Crawford continued trying to stay distant from Lawrence, he avoided him and didn't answer his texts, but his feelings haunted him. He knew how wrong it was to lose touch with a friend in such a sudden way, besides, he missed his presence a lot. In the end, he realised that it was immature to ignore Lawrence, so he decided to prepare an honest apology for him. He thought that he could seize the moment to confess his sexuality, even if he still didn’t want to accept it. Maybe if he told someone he would finally feel free, and he had the feeling that his teammate —or perhaps his crush— wouldn’t judge him.

Lawrence, despite looking for possible reasons of why all this trouble happened, while being unsure of the solution, felt really guilty. ‘Perhaps I actually screwed it all.’ Was the sentence that kept running through his head. He finally decided to ask Crawford if he did something bad, that way, he would know what happened, and he would take a weight off his mind.

On a casual  day, after training, Lawrence and Crawford searched each other to apologise. They finally found themselves in the locker room, and both jogged to get closer.

“H-hi, um, I’m sorry!” Said Crawford and Lawrence at the same time. Those words in unison made them more nervous.

“Okay- um, let me go first.” Crawford felt better if he apologised before Lawrence said something. “I’m sorry that I have ignored you, it was really childish from me.”

“Don’t worry, I probably did something that upset you.”

“No, don’t think that, it was all my fault, it’s because…”

“Oh, so… are the rumours the thing that made you take distance, perhaps?

“…Wait, what rumours?”

Lawrence realized about what he just said, and felt like he ruined his apologies.

“Oh, I thought… the thing is that…” He proceeded to throw a bunch of information quickly. “So, last week I arranged to have a barbecue with Leo, Tim and David, and they started to ask me weird questions, like ‘do you like him?’ but romantically, so I thought ‘wow, how strange, why would they ask me that?’ And then I found out people were saying that you were gay and you had a crush on me, but I don’t think it is true.” He said. Then, he took a deep breath after almost choking due to throwing all those words without a pause.

Crawford stayed silent, he took a moment to process what Lawrence said.

“What?!”

“Uh…”

“Who said that?!”

“I just heard it from Tim, David, and I think Leo didn’t know, but he also joined the conversation… I’m sorry, I didn’t want to make you feel bad, but-”

“No no, don’t worry, it’s not your fault, just- give me a moment.”

Crawford was furious, he quickly got out of the locker room. At this point, he forgot about saying the truth to Lawrence. He started to search for Logan and Bernard  at the whole training center, and finally found them talking on the stands at the field

“Hey guys!” Crawford screamed.

“Oh, hello Victor, what’s the matter?” Said Logan, a little bit confused.

“Who the fuck spread what I said in the ice-cream parlour?!”

“What?”

“H-hey, calm down.” Said Bernard, nervously.

“No, I won’t calm down, who said it?!”

“Vic, I s-swear it wasn’t me.”

“Oh, so it was you!” Crawford aggressively pointed his finger at Bernard.

“…N-no?” Bernard was really scared.

“Aaargh, I knew it, you can’t keep secrets!”

“Okay, fine, it was m-me. In my defense, it was before that you told us to keep the secret!”

“Bernard, you screwed this…” Logan felt guilty despite not being to blame.

“Now the rumours reached Jack!”

“But you like him, did he reject you?” Bernard couldn’t help but add fuel to the fire.

“You’re a dick.” 

“Hey, this just snowballed out of control, don't be an idiot!” Screamed Bernard.

But Crawford already stormed off.

Crawford was incredibly sad, so he immediately got into his car and went back home. When he arrived, he felt a weight in his chest. He wanted to cry, but he just contained his sorrows. After all, he didn’t want to feel weak, as everyone started to think he was. He laid down on the couch to calm himself down, and he was about to put his phone on silent mode, but just at that moment, he received a message from Lawrence.

Jack: You okay?

Crawford took a moment to respond.

Vic: Nah

Jack: Hey, I really don’t care if you are gay.

Vic: Jack, whatever you heard about me, like if I’m gay or if I like you, I swear it’s not true.

Jack: Okay, don't worry. I hope you feel better.

Crawford didn’t respond to that last message.

For Lawrence, the fact that Crawford denied having feelings for him, made him somehow upset. He wasn’t sure of why, so he tried to ignore it all.