Twenty-One
WE HAD SLEPT. Eventually.
First, we’d fucked. But any hope that a killer orgasm might help him relax had been misplaced, Miles soon up and restless.
A very late dinner was ordered. A replay of his next opponent’s match was put on.
Then he was sitting astride me on the couch, grinding against me and begging to be fucked again, his eyes bright, his needs insatiable.
I’d given him what he wanted, only to fall asleep in the aftermath.
I woke to our legs tangled, to his arm draped over me and the warmth of his chest against my shoulder.
It was everything I yearned for, yet it felt wrong and strange, like I’d drunk too much and ended in the wrong bed.
The room was too warm, the sun too bright, and I’d slept later than usual – not late enough to be a problem, just enough to make everything feel off.
Having reached for my phone, I found it was just past nine, and the lack of messages from Tomas at least meant he wasn’t worried about me. Yet.
“Morning, you,” Miles said, his voice gravelly with sleep.
“Morning. Sorry if I woke you.”
He stretched, each long muscle in his arms tightening like a cord. “It’s probably a good thing you did, since now I don’t have anyone to wake me so I don’t miss my matches.”
“You never missed a match in London and not once did I make sure you were up on time,” I pointed out, frowning.
“Sheer luck on my part, I’m sure.”
“Hey.” I brushed a loose lock of hair back behind his ear, trying to read his face. “Are you okay?”
Miles pulled away, a scornful slant to his brows. “Yes? I’m a free man and you fucked me insensible last night, how could I not be?” He rolled away off the bed and eased to his feet with a sigh. “I’m going to order breakfast,” he said, striding across the room gloriously naked. “What do you want?”
“Whatever you’re having is fine,” I said, a knot of ill-ease growing in my stomach. It left my chest feeling tight, like my skin was three sizes too small. “Hey, do you mind if I take a quick shower?”
“Sure, go for it.”
I escaped to the bathroom, and by the time I emerged, scrubbed clean of all the sex and sweat, the mess we’d left the previous evening had been wholly swept away.
The food rubbish was gone, discarded clothes had been folded, the bed had been made and everything was neatly back in its place.
Even his e-reader sat perfectly square to the corner of the coffee table as though he’d used a ruler.
Fully dressed, Miles was running through stretches in the middle of the floor.
The tension felt like stretched cling film.
“Hey,” I said as I pulled on my clothes. “You all right?”
“A bit stiff, but I’ll work the kinks out on court.”
“And about last night? You know, the whole not having a team anymore thing.”
He shrugged and changed legs before dropping his forehead to his knee. “I’ll work that out too.”
A perfectly acceptable response, yet the air felt prickly with everything he wasn’t saying. “I’m sure you will, but you know you can talk to me, right?”
“Yeah, I know,” he replied, turning his head as he leaned into the stretch. “To organise my pre-match railings.”
“This isn’t just—”
But it was, I realised as I broke off, because I’d told him it had to be.
Miles didn’t look at me as he pulled to his feet. What use was my moral high ground when he needed someone to talk to? Someone who cared about him and would be there for him? Everything I wanted to be but hadn’t been allowing.
“I mean, aren’t we friends too?” I tried again.
“Of course we are,” he said. “And as a friend, you can relax. I’m fine.”
That always so easy smile of his didn’t reach his eyes, but I was out of leverage – this the amount of himself he would share with just a friend.
It wasn’t enough. I wanted more. Wanted to be the shoulder he could cry on.
Be the support he could rely on. Wanted it with such intensity that I could feel unplanned words pulling past my teeth.
“Miles . . .” He turned, brows raised, and my heart started pounding as I realised I couldn’t stop myself and didn’t want to. “I know this isn’t the best time, but we need to talk. Or I do, at least, I—”
Someone knocked.
In the silence that followed, Miles and I stared at each other – two hearts trapped in amber, unable to move forward, unable to move back.
I wasn’t even sure exactly what I’d been going to say, but as the knock came again, his gaze hastily shuttered.
“You’d better hold that thought,” he said with a soft laugh as he went to the door. “Tina or breakfast, do you think?”
I hoped for breakfast and braced for Tina, and wasn’t at all prepared for a middle-aged woman to stride in the moment he pulled open the door.
She had a long sweep of honey-blonde hair, half a dozen clicking bangles, and trailed expensive perfume, yet it was a pair of sporty flats that came to a halt in the middle of the dark carpet.
“Ma?” Miles followed her in, leaving the door to swing closed. “What are you doing here?”
“You fired your whole team yesterday, baby,” she said, turning to stroke his cheek.
“Did you really think I wasn’t going to come?
Now, you don’t need to worry about anything,” she went on, smoothing his shirt before looking him up and down.
“I’ve already talked your father down from his rage.
Leo was too old for you anyway. I’ve been saying so for months.
Of course, he was perfect when you were starting out and needed the steady hand, but now you need someone more dynamic.
Less drama next time though, darling. Thankfully, Tina is on it and you know how good she is at making your mistakes go away. ”
In the wake of those words, Mrs Callahan took in the room with a satisfied hum, and strode to the long windows. Outside, the morning had turned grey, yet for half a minute she stood admiring it in silence. Miles waited like he was too stunned for words.
When his mother turned back, her eyes fell on me. “That was your opportunity to tactfully remove yourself.”
“I wasn’t aware that was required,” I said, sticking with a bemused smile.
A flinty look sharpened her gaze. “Hmm.” She looked back to Miles. “Your father already has his eye on some great options. It will take time to rebuild the whole team, but we might have a coach by New York and—”
“Why don’t you let him choose his own coach?” I asked, as Miles’s silence rang far too loud.
Mrs Callahan spun an incredulous look my way. “And who are you? I came to talk to my son, not this week’s piece of ass.”
“Fucking hell,” Miles hissed under his breath.
“Don’t let your father catch you talking like that,” she warned him. “He’s only just forgiven your behaviour while you were in London and that took some work, let me tell you!”
Perhaps I should have kept my peace, but though I knew it wouldn’t help, I needed Miles to know that someone had his back. That I refused to be just this week’s piece of arse. “Do you mean when he shouted at Miles for being lazy?” I asked. “Or when he called him an embarrassment?”
She set her hands on her hips with an angry clack of bangles. “What is this? Who is he?”
“Just a friend, Ma,” Miles said, and true as it was, it burned. And was my own damn fault. With a rueful smile, he jerked his head toward the door. “You should probably go.”
I could hardly refuse. Not when he pulled it open for me.
“Who’d have thought you’d be saved by my mother,” he murmured as I paused on the threshold. And before I could answer, he bent to kiss me, heedless of the open door and his mother’s watching eyes, a kiss that was quick and light yet tender, like he sought to capture me in a moment.
Then he let the door go, leaving me with nothing to do but walk away, trying not to think about how he’d kissed me like he was drowning.
WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT you’d be saved by my mother.
The words haunted me through my match prep and all the way to the tournament, while Tomas and Macca talked tactics in the back of the car.
I ought to have been listening. Instead, all I wanted to do was run back in time and tell him I hadn’t wanted saving.
While I waited for the match before mine to finish, I found a quiet corner and called Katie.
“I love him,” I said as soon as she answered.
“No shit,” she laughed down the line. “Although, I’m glad you’re finally admitting it. Have you told him?”
“No. I—
“Mat!”
“I know!” I pulled tighter into my corner as a door opened at the end of the hallway, spilling voices from the player lounge. “I just . . . tell me, what would you think if you found out that an openly gay man was having a secret relationship?”
“You mean what do I think people would say about Matteo Russo, gay tennis icon—”
“Gross.”
“—being found out as Miles Callahan’s secret boyfriend?”
I looked up as a pair of tournament staff walked by, and waited before replying, “Yeah, something like that.”
She hummed thoughtfully. “That it was none of my business? Or that there was probably a good reason? I might even be disappointed in the sport for being like this, but if you’re wondering if I would think you a queer traitor, then no.”
“Not even to myself? I didn’t come out just to go back into the closet again.”
“Would you be? Everyone knows you’re gay and you wouldn’t be pretending otherwise.
I know you hate the whole ‘you don’t owe anyone your queerness’ thing because what about solidarity, but that’s his problem.
Yours is more ‘do I owe anyone the details of my relationships’, and the answer is surely no. ”