Chapter 39
I settled for a casual outfit—a button-down shirt, boring khakis, white sneakers.
Charlotte, on the other hand, chose an absolute knockout dress, and she’s already getting looks.
The camera is going to love her sitting in Diego’s box.
It’s gonna love me too, as everyone wonders what the fuck I’m doing there.
I can’t believe I agreed to this, but there’s no turning back now.
“How ya feeling?” Charlotte asks me, as I catch a stare from a fan at the other end of the train car. Thankfully, he doesn’t engage, just shoots me a smile and whispers to his friend. I get it. There’s a lot to whisper about. This is just a taste of what I’ll be up against in the stadium.
“Excited to be going to a match I don’t have to win,” I tell her. Turning to the window, I catch the white roof of Arthur Ashe appearing against the crystal-blue sky. I let out a breath. Here we go.
The train empties onto a boardwalk leading to the grounds, its old wooden planks clunk with the chorus of footsteps.
I haven’t entered this way the whole tournament—the cars drop us off at the side entrance.
We visited the US Open as a family once—I was seven or eight—and I tripped over one of these planks.
My knee was bleeding, and it hurt so badly, but I bounced back up and kept on walking, riding on the pure adrenaline of being here for the first time, ready to see my heroes.
I wonder what little me would think about my life right now.
Just past the ticket scanners at the entrance to the grounds, there’s a huge blue board with the entire draw for the men’s and women’s singles tournaments.
It’s old-school, updated manually with a ladder each day, and it lists the final scores.
I track my name, starting all the way in the bottom corner and tracing it up to my final match.
And there we are. Hardy and Cruz. Cruz and Hardy—our names in print for our first meeting. How many more matches will we have against each other in the history of our lives?
And then another sign catches my eye, to the left of the draw.
“Austin,” I say. “Holy shit, Austin.”
Charlotte turns to me, deeply concerned. “Auz, why are you repeating your name? Are we okay?”
I stop in the middle of the crowd, staring.
“My hitting partner, Other Austin—that’s him. He won the boys’ singles tournament. He won the thing.”
A chill runs up my arms, and I smile. An Austin made it out of here alive.
—
The court is empty when we arrive, but Arthur Ashe Stadium is already buzzing, ready for a spectacle. We take the stairs all the way down to Diego’s players’ box.
“Leave the first row for them,” I tell Charlotte.
“Don’t want to be front and center?”
“Would love to avoid any conflict. Not sure how this will go down—I never replied to Emiliano.”
“Bold,” she says. “So we may have drama on court and off?”
“You’re not used to that by now?”
She smirks as we take our seats in the second row. “Have you talked to Diego today?” she asks.
“He sent me the tickets yesterday, but we haven’t spoken today. I didn’t want to distract him. He’ll see me up here soon.”
Which is apparently almost now. Diego’s team files into their seats in front of us, and we awkwardly stand to greet them. I catch a split second of shock on Emiliano’s face when he sees me, but he recovers and extends his hand.
“Austin, look at you here,” he says with a pained smile. “Did you get my message?”
“You know, during this whole tournament I’ve been trying to get better about not using my phone,” I reply. “I must have missed it.”
“I see,” he says. “Well, I’m sure there are other seats you can find.”
Charlotte shoots me a look, ready to be tagged in, but I’ve been waiting for this moment.
“Well, considering Diego invited me, I think we’re fine here,” I tell him, casually glancing around.
“Unless you’d like to cause some sort of scene.
Not sure that would be a good look for you, though, throwing out the first openly gay male tennis player at the US Open.
The optics wouldn’t be great,” I say. “Charlotte, what do you think?”
“Bad. Very bad optics,” Charlotte says.
I’m right, and there’s nothing he can do about it. “Well, okay, then,” he says, steam coming from his ears. “Happy to see you’re feeling better.”
“And how’s everyone feeling over there?” I ask.
Emiliano pauses. “He’s never been better,” he says. And based on the self-assured grin on his face, I’m pretty sure Diego didn’t tell him about his panic attack. He trusted me, and only me. I’m glad I was there for him. I don’t know where else he would have turned.
“Ready for our first Grand Slam,” Emiliano adds before finally sitting the fuck down.
“Aren’t we all,” Charlotte replies.
I let out a long breath, trying to push that lovely exchange behind me, just as Diego’s family shows up to our row. I recognize them from TV—they’re sometimes at his matches—and my hand trembles as I meet them for the first time.
His mom is polite, somewhat warm, but there isn’t much to the greeting.
I shake hands with his dad next. “Two hundred and five feet,” I tell him. “Sixty-two meters.”
He tilts his head.
“Not sure if that includes the roof, but that’s what I found online,” I say, gesturing to the stadium.
“Oh!” he replies, chuckles. “Love it. Very nice.” He pats my arm, and our exchange ends there. I was hoping my anxious research on the way over would inspire a little more than that, but I’ll take what I can get.
Diego’s brother is behind them, a little younger than me, and wearing a long-sleeve polo. I extend my hand. “Hey, dude, I’m—”
“Austin,” he says, interrupting with a smirk. “I know.” Okay, not quite sure what to do with that. But then he adds, “Mamá, can you move down one? I wanna sit next to him. Porfa.”
He slides into the seat next to me and leans over. “It’s nice to finally meet you…Hardy Boy,” he whispers. Our attention turns to the court as the announcer booms over the mic, and I try to hide the giant smile spreading across my face.
For the first time during the tournament, Diego walks out before his opponent. He’s wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, fitted shorts, and socks that are hiked up and ready. He gives a wave to the stadium as we applaud, but his usual grin is missing. He’s not here to entertain. He’s here to win.
He isn’t the favorite of the match, though.
That role goes to Viktor Zolotarev, world number one, from Russia.
The fans and most of the players call him Viki, a sweet but deceiving nickname, because he can be devastating on court.
He’s a tall, relentless machine who doesn’t miss and who wears his opponents out with never-ending rallies.
And this playing style has earned him three Grand Slam trophies.
As Diego approaches his bench to drop his bag, he gives our rows a scan.
“?Vamos!” his brother shouts. Diego dips his head.
But then he spots me, and I swear to god, he breaks character.
His eyes light up. His mouth rises into the smallest smile—but it’s real, it’s bright, and it’s strong enough to travel all the way to my heart.
He’s happy to see me, and I’m happy I convinced myself to be here.
And just like that, he falls back into warrior mode. He has a face of stone through the coin toss, the warm-up, and Viki’s first serve.
Diego breaks Viki in the first game, and goes on to take the first set, winning it 6–4.
And he makes it look easy. With whipping forehands and powerful down-the-line backhands, he covers the court like lightning, and no matter where Viki puts the ball, Diego always makes it.
I have never in my life seen him more locked in. And the crowd is right there with him.
It’s hard for Charlotte to control herself during matches, and she’s been quick to jump up and cheer.
I’ve been more reluctant to vocalize anything—a camera is permanently on us, and the world has seen enough emotions from me—but there are spectacular points where I can’t help it.
What Diego is able to do on the court demands a reaction.
Viki slaps a shot, a tight angle, and the ball bounces right on the sideline, forcing Diego off the court, bolting for it. No one on earth could get there in time—no one but Diego Cruz. He smacks it back—not over the net, but through the tiny space between the net post and the umpire chair.
Holy shit, he makes it. And I’m on my fucking feet, my fist in the air.
There have been players who have reached his heights before, but they don’t come around often.
They come once in a generation, and it’s never been clearer that Diego is a gift to ours.
He’s an infinite highlight reel. In the stands, it’s incredible.
For a player competing against him, it’s brutal.
And for someone falling in love with him, it’s impossible not to fall harder.
I worried this would happen—a superpower of my anxiety is that I can see the future.
And as I watch him dash across the court in all his glory, I feel every forehand, every volley, every serve, coursing through my blood like we’re cosmically linked.
I’ll pay for this later, in therapy, but I can’t look away.
He closes the second set with a beautiful ace, and Charlotte and I quickly rush up the stairs. She wants another Honey Deuce, the official drink of the US Open, and I want a quick break for air.
“What’s wrong? He’s winning,” she says, reading my face.
I don’t know how to describe the thought that’s been eating at me during the whole match, but I try to give it a shot. Helen’s helped with that.
“He is, and maybe that’s it. He’s good, Char. He’s great. And I think he’s right,” I say, finally ready to admit it. “He’s smart enough to know who he needs and who he doesn’t. He doesn’t need me. I would be a distraction.”
“He needed you two nights ago. You saved him.”
“I didn’t save him. He wasn’t dying.”