Fifteen #3
The first question came from a Brit in the front row. “So, how does it feel to have beaten the world number three on centre court at Wimbledon?”
Sometimes, they truly asked the stupidest questions. “Good?” was my first little snip, but I was not going to let them paint me as the bitchy gay player, so I forced out a laugh. “Honestly, I’m still in shock so you’ll have to bear with me.”
They asked about the match. They asked about my preparation coming in. They asked about what I felt had changed. And because someone always asked about my accident or my sexuality or both, someone asked whether it had just taken me this long to fully recover.
“No,” was my first, knee-jerk reaction. “I’ve been fully recovered for years and haven’t had anything above a niggling injury since, but .
. .” I trailed off. And staring out at the small sea of expectant faces and microphones and cameras, I thought of how Miles had leaned in his doorway and called my overthinking a trauma response.
“But . . . also yes,” I admitted, the words feeling overlarge for my chest. “I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it, but I think perhaps it’s been a longer journey than I thought, I just . . . needed someone to show me that.”
How hungrily they would have eaten up the story of Miles Callahan helping me break through the protective cage I’d built for myself.
How intensely they would have speculated and questioned, headlines generating themselves as everyone penned the perfect comeback tale.
It was a media storm I couldn’t put Miles through even had I wanted to share the story, but sitting there in the wake of the biggest win of my career, I realised I didn’t.
After all these years, having my success placed solely on his shoulders would have been a backhanded slap, all my hard work suddenly meaningless.
Whatever hand he’d had in my win today, I still needed the success to be mine.
Once I was free of the press, I headed back toward the player gym, desperately in need of a long massage and an enormous meal – a plan that was brought up short by the sight of Miles striding toward the practice courts with his bag slung over his shoulder.
Without his usual retinue, he looked oddly alone in the busy space, and I realised this was our first time seeing one another at a tournament as friends.
Almost I expected him to smirk or sneer, like it had all been a dream and this was the old Miles, but at sight of me his face split into an enormous grin.
“Matteo, hey, congratulations.” He offered his hand in the traditional greeting of our sport – a cross between a handshake and a high-five that ended with us bumping shoulders.
It was the bro-iest of greetings, yet it was also everything, because we’d never stopped one another in passing at a tournament before.
“I just arrived,” he added, adjusting the strap of his bag.
“I was going to come in earlier and watch your game here, but good thing I didn’t given how much I shouted at the TV. ”
“Bet that upset your roommate,” I laughed.
“Oh, that cat gave up on me days ago.” He tried to suppress a still broadening grin and failed. “Knew you could do it.”
“So you’ve said! Should I get you a badge? Just says ‘always right’?”
Miles leaned closer and, lowering his voice, said, “I think you can give me something far more interesting later, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, failing to quash my own grin. “I can definitely do that.”
“FUCK!” MILES CRIED, pressing a hand to the bedhead to steady himself as he came.
“Fuck!” Letting out a raw, guttural groan of appreciation, he dropped onto his elbows, giving me an excellent view down the curve of his back.
Such a sight, along with the sound of him loving this, had its usual effect, and I dug my fingers into his hips.
With a few more hard thrusts, I brought myself to the precipice I always both wanted to reach and didn’t in equal measure.
“Damn that was good,” he said when I was done. “You should win more often.”
“Feels different, does it?” I laughed, and after a final, softening thrust just because I could, I pulled out. “Winner’s dick.”
Miles dropped face first onto the bed, having to turn his head to say, “Not different, but you went hard. I thought you might be too tired, but goddamn.”
I smacked his arse. “Well, you said you play best after getting railed, so I’m just doing a public service.”
“Public service? I don’t think my opponents would agree with that.”
He could have pointed out that with the loss at Queen’s my dick had hardly proved useful yet in that regard, but doubting themselves aloud was something only people who weren’t Miles Callahan did.
Instead, he lay stretched out beneath me and, with a satisfied sigh, wiggled his arse. I leaned down and snapped my teeth like I might take a bite out of him. “Are you trying to make me want to go again?”
“Hmm, it was pretty hot,” he said, the words half muffled by his arms. “Although it hasn’t been ten minutes yet.”
It felt safe falling back into our easy patterns, this a friendship built on the mutual needs of sex and tennis and nothing more. Simple and straightforward. And because that’s how I needed it to stay, I climbed off the bed and headed to the bathroom without a word.
Having cleaned up, I returned only to lean against the door-frame. Looking at him lying there watching me was hardly easier, but it meant I couldn’t be tempted to give in to any of the things I wanted. Couldn’t be gathered into his arms and held like this meant something.
“Come watch me play tomorrow,” he said, propping his head up on one hand.
“I always watch you play, don’t worry, I won’t miss it.”
“No, I mean, sit in my box.”
“In your box? No!” I cried, half laughing. “That’s a terrible idea.”
“Why? It’s weird having it empty.”
“Better empty than having the press ask why I’m there of all people. You should ask Emily to sit in it.”
Miles rolled onto his back with a sigh. “Probably.”
“Or that model you had at the French.”
“How do you know who was in my box in Paris?” he asked, turning his head on the pillow.
“Because I watched the rest of your matches and the cameras liked her quite a lot.”
“I bet they’d like you too.”
“Oh, I’m sure they would.”
The feeling that perhaps he was asking because it was what he thought I wanted—proof he would never again treat me like a problem—couldn’t but occur to me.
In the grand plan that was Miles Callahan ensuring he had a safe supply of dick on tour, keeping me happy might be a high priority, but this idea was more likely to backfire.
Better to just buy me more victory flowers and leave it at that, because I really was that easy.
Whatever his reasoning, he didn’t push the point, just said, “Come here,” his voice soft and his gaze softer, the tilt of his head like the crook of a finger.
I wanted to go to him. Wanted to drop onto the bed beside him and lie there all night, our legs entwined. Wanted to kiss him and talk about everything and nothing and fall asleep in his arms. But that was the act of a lover—a boyfriend—not the easy fuck I was and needed to stay.
We had both wanted the same thing when we’d first hooked up, and while I couldn’t deny that what I wanted had slowly changed, I was smart enough to know it didn’t matter. Because even if he could be persuaded into something more, I hadn’t come out only to become someone else’s secret.
And so I couldn’t go to him, but neither could I break this off. While I was playing better than I had in years, nothing was allowed to change. Or at least that was the excuse I told myself.
I tilted my head toward the door. “I’d better go. If I lie down, I’m going to fall asleep. I did play today, remember.”
“Yeah, I remember.” He pulled himself up off the bed with a small groan and came across the floor. And having planted himself before me, bent a soft, quick kiss to my lips. “Goodnight then, Matteo.”
“Night.”
I escaped while I could, touching my lips as I reached the safety of the hallway. He had the sort of easy, generous affection that allowed him to kiss me like it was nothing and go on about his day, but to me even the small kisses were starting to feel like everything.