Twelve #3
With a sigh, I ran a hand down my face, only to find him watching with a genuine little frown of concern.
“Fine,” I said. “If you must know, I was thinking about how when you come back next year it’ll be with your sister, not me.
Which is fine! It just . . . I don’t know . . . made me sad for a moment.”
It was a ridiculous admission, but it was out and he didn’t laugh.
He just looked at me in his steady way for a few thundering heartbeats, before his gaze dropped to my hand on the table.
“We can come back here together,” he said, sliding his own across the polished wood.
“We could make it an annual thing.” Soft as a breath, he brushed my knuckles with a fingertip. “I’d like that.”
I couldn’t look at him, only at his fingers trailing over my skin. “Yeah,” I said, the word oddly thick. “Me too.”
The waitress returned and he quickly retrieved his hand, taking up his menu again. “Good. Because there are definitely too many desserts for us to try in one night.”
We ordered drinks. We ordered far too much food.
And while we waited, we talked about tennis and the book Miles was reading, conversation with him always easy.
Then at some point, he began asking questions about my family.
So, as food filled our table until it was all but overflowing, I told him about my mum’s tennis obsession and my dad’s love of endangered animals he’d picked up as an immigrant kid trying to connect to his new country.
I told him about my twin brothers, Benji and Nico, and how I’d resented them suddenly appearing when I was twelve to put an end to my stint as an only child.
I even told him about my nonna and how her house was always full of friends and neighbours and sometimes total strangers.
Whenever I was sure I was getting boring, Miles would ask another question, and between the cocktails and the food and his seemingly genuine interest, it was a while before I realised how long I’d been talking about them.
“Why did you let me go on about my family forever?” I said after he’d ordered more drinks.
“Let you? I asked because I wanted to know, idiot.” On his corner of the table, his phone vibrated.
Miles glanced at it, declined the call, and turned it over.
“You had the misfortune of meeting some of mine,” he added, gesturing at it.
“And I realised I knew nothing about yours. Do your brothers play tennis?”
“Nico does,” I said. “Benji couldn’t care less. He wants to be a streamer. Nico watches my matches and tells me what he thinks, although the rest of the time he mostly sends memes. What about your family?” I very deliberately didn’t look at his phone. “Do you have any other brothers and sisters?”
Miles downed the last of his current drink. “No, just me and Tina. But my family really aren’t worth talking about. You know all there is to know about them.”
“I know nothing about them!” I cried, but knowing his parents weren’t a safe topic, I added, “What about your grandparents?”
“One set are ‘the immigrants are coming for our jobs’ conservatives, the other set belong to one of those megachurches that scams people out of money so the leader can have six private jets. I avoid them whenever possible. Tina is the only one worth talking about.”
That was excessively depressing but I sure as shit wasn’t going to say so. Instead, I asked, “Does she always travel with you?”
“Not always. She comes on the big swings, to the grand slams and some of the masters tournaments – Indian Wells, Rome, Monte Carlo. She wants me to move to Monte Carlo because its glamorous and she likes Europe, but the idea of stepping out my door and running into tennis players all the time sounds like a special kind of hell. I like my privacy.” He thanked the waitress as she set our new drinks down amid the gathered plates.
“Where do you live when you’re not in shitty London apartments? ”
“Oh, I also live in shitty Paris apartments. Terrible American motel rooms. Once in a place in Finland that was so small I didn’t fit the bed.
But if you mean where is home, I don’t really have one.
I live with my parents when I’m not touring because there’s no point in paying for my own place.
It’s very glamorous.” I took a sip of my fancy cocktail. “And you? Where’s home?”
“I have a place in San Diego – beach, tennis court, swimming pool. It’s very glamorous. You should come visit.”
“So I can get jealous?”
“No, so you can fuck me in my pool.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when hurried steps approached on a tide of muffled giggles. “Excuse me,” came a breathless voice. “Are you Miles Callahan?”
A pair of young women stopped beside our table, their wide eyes fixed on Miles with barely contained excitement. One was holding the other’s arm as though for moral support.
“Ah, yes, I am,” Miles said, gifting them one of his easy smiles. “Can I help you?”
“We were wondering if we could get your autograph, and maybe a photo?”
“Of course.”
Notebooks were thrust out, and while Miles found a page to sign and wrote them both a little message, every eye in the restaurant seemed to turn our way.
By the time they’d each snapped a selfie with him, a middle-aged man had added himself to the group and requested his own autograph, followed by a woman who told Miles that he was her son’s favourite player.
Once the lady had thanked him for a fifth time and finally walked away, Miles grimaced at me across the table. “Sorry.”
“No need,” I said. “I knew the dangers when I agreed to dinner. Though that was more people than I expected in so small a place.”
His shrug held a hint of apology despite my reassurance. “Happens more around major tournaments.”
“Well, hopefully it doesn’t happen at your house. Might be awkward while I’m fucking you in your pool.”
THE PLACE WAS almost empty by the time we left, the only remaining customers a couple with their heads together over the table and the two young women who had asked for Miles’s autograph, laughing and taking pictures of their cocktails.
The night had chilled, and as we stepped out into the street both Miles and I made disgusted sounds and pulled on our jackets. “Whatever they say, I’ll never believe Brits when they call this summer,” he said.
“That we can agree on. It’s spring at best.”
“You say that like we disagree on most things, but I don’t think we do.” He nodded along the footpath, empty but for a man leaning against a car smoking a few doors down. “Let’s walk for a bit before calling a cab. I need to shift some of this food around before it solidifies in my stomach.”
We started along the street, an amble all I could manage after three hours on court, a glorious fingering, and far too much food. “I am going to sleep very well tonight,” I said.
“Me too,” he agreed, though his eyes were bright, and he led the way along the street with singular purpose.
At the end of the road, the footpath branched into a short, brick-lined tunnel, one that passed through a building into a laneway beyond in a very old-European-city way.
There didn’t seem to be anything particularly interesting about it though, so when he crossed the street and led me into it, I asked, “Are we going somewhere in particular?”
“No, I just—” He reached across, pressing a splayed hand to the bricks to bar my way, “—really want to kiss you.”
Having thrown a glance back to be sure we were alone, he stepped in close.
For a fluttering heartbeat, I could only stare at the notch between his collarbones before he lifted my chin with a finger – a man cracking me open.
Our eyes met, his owning a look of awe and wonder and fear as though my own tangled emotions had been splashed across his face.
But we were both caught in this moment together and he bent his head to mine.
“I’ve been wanting to do this all night,” he whispered against my mouth as his eyelids fluttered softly closed.
It wasn’t a hard kiss, fast and full of need, but one that gently parted my lips, every moment a question, a promise, a hope.
His tongue found mine, softly questing, and as each tiny movement flayed me open, I gave myself over, wanting this, wanting him, wanting to live in this dream where the ground shifted unsteadily beneath my feet.
A small part of me warned that I had just drunk far too much, but the rest of me cried yes as I slid my hand over the smooth skin of his cheek, holding his face like that might keep him here forever.
And as he pressed me against the wall like he couldn’t bear even the smallest space between us, the thought running through my head was that I didn’t want to wait until next year to do this again.
Heels clicked on the pavement, footsteps drawing a murmur of conversation close. With a sharp breath, Miles tore himself away as the young women from the restaurant approached.
“Hey, don’t mind us,” one of them said with an appreciative grin. The other, a little unsteady on her heels, lifted her hands to make a heart at us. Arm in arm, they walked on by, giggling.
In their wake, the night lacked air. Miles shoved his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunching like he was trying to shrink out of sight. Only once they’d disappeared did he risk a glance my way. Clear his throat. “I’ll call us a cab.”
And I said, “yeah, sure,” because what else was there to say?