Milán
“Favorite childhood memory?” Jordan says.
I absently cup my hand, scoop up water, and pour it over his arm while I think.
It’s the middle of the night, and we’re sitting in the bathtub. Jordan’s back is against my chest, his head resting on my shoulder.
I pour more water over his arm and watch rivulets run down his golden-brown skin.
“I was eight. My mother came and got me out of school early for no reason at all, and she asked me where I wanted to go for lunch. I picked Dairy Queen, and I figured she wouldn’t go for it because we never went to fast food places.
My mother always had a deeply held distain for food that comes from a kitchen that doesn’t have at least two Michelin stars.
Or back then, I think we were watching the Zagat score because Michelin stars weren’t a thing. ”
He turns his head and kisses the side of my neck. “Snobs,” he says with a grin.
“You have no idea. But that one day, I asked for Dairy Queen. And we went. I had an Oreo Blizzard, and she had a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard, and we talked and switched our drinks, and she wasn’t in a hurry.
She listened to everything I had to say.
Really listened.” I slide my fingertips up his forearm. “What’s yours?”
We’ve been going back and forth like this for a while. All our walls are down, and I can’t get enough.
A part of me is starting to suspect I might never get enough.
I don’t know what to do with that.
He hums thoughtfully. “Camping trips to the beach. We took one every summer. We’d pack a few days’ worth of supplies in the back of the car and just randomly drive until we found a nice enough spot and settle in.”
“That sounds nice,” I say.
“Have you ever been camping or was it just expensive trips abroad for you?” He grins at me.
I shake my head. “Never been camping.”
“I’ll take you. If you want. Us and the boys?”
I smile back and kiss the side of his head. “Yeah?”
He nods against my neck. “It won’t be the Ritz, exactly.”
“But pretty close, right?”
“Oh, yeah. Minus some marble. But otherwise, the Ritz-Carlton and the great outdoors? Practically one and the same.”
“Good to know.” I blow out an exaggerated breath of fortification. “Then I might be able to make it out alive.”
“I believe in you.”
I laugh.
I can’t wait.
I don’t know what to do about that either.
“Does you Mother live in New York?” he asks.
“Italy.”
“She’s not visiting? To meet Rory?”
“Too many complicated feelings and memories. She moved a decade ago, and she hardly ever comes back to the states these days. Meeting yet another one of the illegitimate kids of her ex-husband isn’t a top priority.”
He nods.
“I can’t believe I have to go to work on Monday,” he says after a bit. “Can you write me a note?”
“I’ll tell them you’re chained to the bed, naked, and can’t make it.”
He nods thoughtfully. “Yeah, that should get me nice and fired.”
“Maybe. But think of all the free time we’d have to be naked together.”
“Tempting. Do you think they’ll still pay me after they fire me?”
“I don’t see why they wouldn’t.”
“Well, then fire off that email.”
I grin at him and kiss his shoulder. “What did you want to be when you were a kid?”
He glances at me with a raised brow. “What? You don’t think I had aspirations to be a kitchen salesman?”
“You could have, but you already implied a while ago that you didn’t.”
“Yeah, okay.” There’s a bit of silence before he speaks again. “I wanted to be a pizza delivery guy.”
I chuckle. “Really?”
“I liked pizza a lot, but when I was younger we rarely ever ordered it because Mom was all about homecooked meals. I figured as a pizza delivery guy you could obviously eat all the pizza you wanted.”
“Obviously. What happened to that dream, then?”
“Went into the same pile as my unrealized aspirations to become a race car driver, a basketball player, a scientist, and the pope.”
“The pope?” I barely hold back a laugh.
“I went to a Catholic school for a while, and I dared to dream big and not let the fact that I’m not really religious stop me.”
“Why Catholic school?”
“My mom. She wasn’t that strict with her religion, but her whole family was Catholic, and keeping her connection to that part of her life made her feel more connected with her family back in Argentina.”
I comb my fingers through his hair, and he closes his eyes and leans the back of his head on my shoulder.
“And what about now? What do you want to be now?” I ask.
It takes him a while to answer.
“I don’t know. I…” He leaves the thought unfinished until I gently tug at his hair.
He sighs. “There was a point when I figured maybe… counseling of some type? Especially geared toward teenagers who might’ve gotten themselves in way over their heads.” He shrugs. “Sort of figured that I’ve been there, you know?”
“You’d be fucking amazing,” I say. He really would be. I’m immediately excited for him. I want him to do it, and… I want to be there for the ride. I want to be there for him. His cheerleader. I’ll be his biggest champion. His loudest supporter.
My heart picks up speed.
Will I? Really?
Is this what I want?
I don’t know.
I…
Maybe?
I might.
I could.
Maybe I do want that.
It’s not a resounding yes.
But it’s not a resounding no either.
“But,” Jordan says pointedly, “then I remember I’m a high school dropout, and I’m not qualified to give advice to anybody.”
I welcome the distraction from my own spiraling thoughts.
“It’s not strictly about having qualifications, though. It’s also about having experience. You can go to school. Don’t argue, and don’t dismiss the idea right away either. Just think about it. That’s all you have to do for now.”
He’s very still for a little while, but then he slides his fingers between mine, lifts our linked hands, and kisses the back of mine.
My heart skips a beat.
He looks up and smiles at me. “What about you? Did you always want to play tennis?”
I resist making a face. “No.”
There’s no hope he’s going to drop it, and if I’m being honest with myself, I really don’t want him to. I want him to know me. All of me.
“My father started teaching me when I was four. He was at home because he was injured, so he was both bored and frustrated.”
“Doesn’t sound like an ideal combination for teaching something to a child,” Jordan says.
I laugh. “You wouldn’t think so. But then it turned out I was really fucking good.”
“And back then you enjoyed the game?” he says.
“It was okay. Mostly, it was a way to get Gerard’s attention. I got better and…” I shake my head. “For the first time, it felt like he was interested in me.”
He squeezes my hand instead of saying anything.
“But then he lost interest, because Gerard always did. And I tried for years to get back into his sphere of interest with not much luck. After that I got pissed off. Bitter, too. And I’m petty enough to have my revenge.
So from around the time I was about ten, I played tennis to be better than him.
And not just better as in, ‘oh I can enjoy the knowledge that I’m a better player.
’ No, my goal was to be publicly, loudly better than him, so that when somebody mentioned our family and tennis, they’d be talking about me. My wins. My records.”
He nods. “And?”
“I have more Grand Slam titles than him. I’ve spent more weeks as number one in ATP rankings.
I have more ATP Finals titles and more Wimbledon titles.
I have more Masters 1000 titles. I have the Olympic gold he never got.
I’ve won majors on all three surfaces, and I have more career match wins, a longer winning streak, and a better overall win percentage. ”
It doesn’t make me sound that great when put like that. I spent my career trying to one up my old man. Trying to erase his name from history. Never really loving the game like most other people did.
“Sounds…” He breathes out and looks up. “Lonely.”
I played out of pure spite, and after I was done… I’ve been telling myself that revenge feels good. That the petty satisfaction I got from it is real.
I’m not so sure anymore.
He slides his palm up my arm and holds tight.
Something in the way he quietly accepts the petty, ugly side of me makes me freeze. There’s a sudden feeling of lightness. The emptiness I’ve carried inside me for so long that I’ve stopped noticing it over the years is missing. And the absence of it is loud.
“I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do next,” he says.
No pressure. Just acceptance.
I kiss the side of his neck, and he laughs.
“Right.” He pushes himself up.
My eyes widen and my cock thickens immediately as I watch him, naked and wet, water cascading down his body.
“Milán?”
I snap my head up.
He grins. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Not a single word.”
He leans down and kisses me. “The water’s getting cold, I’m hungry, and we probably need to sleep for a few hours if we want to function at all in the morning.”
“But, hear me out, sleeping is overrated.”
He presses another kiss to my lips and smiles against my mouth.
“Counteroffer,” he murmurs. “We sleep for a bit, and whoever wakes up first gets to wake up the other person. Any way they want.”
“Look at that. You’ve convinced me.”
We dry off, grab a quick snack, and crawl into bed. He throws his arm over my chest and his thigh over mine and presses his body against me until we’re plastered together with not an inch of space anywhere between us.
My heart beats against his heart.
His breathing softens and evens out.
I listen to it in the dark. Feel the warmth of his body against mine.
And feel stupidly happy.