Twenty-One #2
I let her words sink in, let myself realise I’d already known her answer.
Realise, too, that my refusal to consider being his secret had more to do with anger than anything else.
“I’ve been so annoyed at him for not coming out,” I said, digging a finger and thumb into my brows.
“Because with two of us, I wouldn’t have become The Gay Player.
Wouldn’t have been alone. But while I’ve been mad, Miles has been dealing with all this and just not saying anything. ”
“All what?”
“He fired his whole terrible, bigoted team last night – you should have heard the things his trainer and Mannering said about him. And then his mother showed up this morning and god, Katie, they’re all awful.
His dad, too. Somehow, he’s become who he is despite them, like a tree growing in poisoned ground.
And then this morning, I tried to stand up to his mother and she called me this week’s piece of arse, and I couldn’t even tell her she was wrong!
” Frustrated tears pricked my eyes and I turned away toward the wall while all around me the distant buzz of the tournament was ever-present. “I’m an idiot.”
“No, Mat, you’re not,” she said. “How were you to know?”
“I could have started by not assuming. I could have fucking asked!” I’d told myself it had been none of my business. And why change that when righteous anger had felt so satisfying?
Katie sighed. “You have to tell him.”
“I have to tell him,” I repeated.
“Mat?” I turned to find Tomas coming along the hall, his lips set in a grim line. “You’re up in five.”
“Fuck, I have to go,” I said to Katie. “Um . . . thanks for listening to all that. Somehow, I have to stop worrying about this and go play tennis. Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need luck,” she said. “Just pretend the guy at the other end is Leo Mannering and humiliate the shit out of him.”
I HADN’T THOUGHT her suggestion would work, but the mere mention of Leo Mannering filled me with fresh fury and, with no other outlet, I took the anger out on the court.
I hit as many unforced errors as winners, but out of sheer determination to show that old fart how well fucking fairies could play, I somehow ground out a win.
In my player’s box, Tomas and Macca stood applauding and, after the previous evening, I couldn’t but realise they weren’t just in my box but on my side, in my corner, ready to dig in and fight for me – something Miles had never had.
Fuck. I needed to get off court and find him.
But first, I had to smile for the crowd and face the on-court interviewer.
“Matteo, congratulations,” she said, her voice echoing around the stands. “That win didn’t look easy. Tell us what was going through your mind when you lost that second set?”
That I had really wanted to finish in two so I could catch Miles after his match.
“Yeah, it was a fight all the way,” I said instead and waffled on a bit, eyeing the exit.
She retracted the microphone to ask her second question.
“You’ve had a huge rise over the last couple of months, going from a ranking of one-hundred and ninety before the French Open to sixty-two at the start of this week – how has that been for you and how does it feel to be playing here in Cincinnati for the first time? ”
Sixty-two.
I didn’t need Miles’s skill at mental arithmetic to know that was twenty-one places off my highest ranking – a number frozen in my mind like it had been captured by the shattering glass and breaking bones.
Like it had been bruised into my flesh. But I needed not to think about that.
Needed not to let it become an ill-omen.
Needed to focus on rambling out an answer that didn’t make me sound like a wanker.
Thankfully, three questions was usually the maximum, so I was almost free.
“You’ll be up against the young German wildcard, Alexander Pfeiffer, in the next round,” she said. “He amazed us all by coming through over Miles Callahan earlier today – have you seen him play before?”
I stared, a dozen emotions hitting me at once – shock that Miles had lost, concern that he wasn’t all right, annoyance at finding out like this, and a deep, terrible relief that we had avoided playing each other.
“Matteo?” she said, prompting me as the crowd waited.
“Sorry, that news was so surprising that my brain shut down there for a moment,” I said, earning a ripple of laughter from the stands.
“After running around on court for almost three hours, there isn’t much energy left for thinking, I’m afraid.
No, I haven’t seen him play, but he must be in excellent form to take out Miles, so I look forward to the challenge. ”
“And we look forward to enjoying it. Matteo Russo, ladies and gentlemen!”
In a daze, I waved to the crowd and escaped. Congratulations from Mum and Katie were waiting on my phone, but nothing from Miles. I hastily brought up his match score while I made my way to the locker room.
Round 2 – Centre Court – 1:22
USAMiles Callahan 344
GERAlexander Pfeiffer WC66
An hour and twenty-two minutes. That meant he’d been finished for at least two hours, stealing any hope I might run into him in the locker room.
Hey you ok? I messaged. After I’d gone through my cool-down, I added, Miles?
And when there was still nothing by the time I fled the press room, I asked, Where are you?
Still no answer came, so I went up to his room, only to find the door open and a cleaner running through a post check-out clean. I snatched out my phone.
Have you already left?
Miles?
Fuck, please message back
Hoping I might catch up with him, I returned to the foyer.
It was late afternoon and the place was abuzz with new arrivals waiting to check in, though they were all stuck in a line behind Mrs Callahan, who leaned on the desk smiling brightly upon a harried receptionist. There was no sign of Miles, so I made my way over before I could stop myself.
“Mrs Callahan?”
She turned, faint surprise becoming faint disdain as recognition dawned. “Ah, you. Actually, perhaps you can help me since this young lady will not. Come, walk with me.”
Before I could object, her fingers bit into my elbow hard enough to bruise and she guided me in the direction of the lounge, garnering a few curious glances.
“I’m looking for my son,” she said, letting go once we were a little way from the desk.
“I seem to have missed him after his match and neither the tournament nor the hotel can tell me where he is.”
“Oh, I think he checked out,” I said. “His room was being cleaned when I went up.”
Annoyance swept her face, hastily smothered with a brittle laugh that left her glare untouched.
“How silly of me, I must have misunderstood him,” she said, sounding for a moment like the ditzy mother on an American sitcom.
“Then I suppose I am no longer in need of your services after all.” She held out her hand. “Goodbye, Mr . . .?”
I took it. “Russo.”
“Ah, I should have guessed. The gay player.”
“You mean one of them,” I said.
A humourless smile hardened like glass on her thin lips. “Indeed. Good day, Mr Russo.”
Before she could turn and walk away, I said, “Wait, do you know where he’s gone?”
Her sharp brows rose and there was something all too like Miles in that faintly disbelieving look. “Why, I imagine he’s gone home, Mr Russo, but then if he’d wanted you to know that, he would have told you so.”
I’d been trying so hard not to dislike her, because despite everything, she was still Miles’s mother. But utterly failing, I said, “Yeah? And maybe he would have told you he was leaving if he’d wanted you to know, too.”
And before I could say more words I might regret, I spun away, pulling out my phone.
You don’t have to reply, but I’m going to keep messaging anyway
And you don’t need to tell me where you are and we don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, just tell me you’re ok
And then because I couldn’t text him how I felt but needed to say something, I added:
But Miles? This morning, I didn’t want to be saved
Back in my room, Macca was waiting with the massage table, because somehow life and tennis went on even when Miles wasn’t replying. We were halfway through our session when my phone finally buzzed, and I launched myself off the table to the tune of Macca’s cursing.
hey, i’m ok. just had to get out of there
we can still talk if you like
come visit when you’re done
The next message contained an address. Not a room number. Not a hired apartment. A street address in San Diego. Miles had invited me to his house.
“Come on,” Macca said, rolling his eyes. “Stop grinning like an idiot and get back on the damn table.”
I DIDN’T TRY to lose my next match just to see him, but without the usual drive to win, I’d lost anyway. And telling Tomas and Macca I would see them in New York, I was on a plane mere hours after stepping off the court.
With the time change to the West Coast, it wasn’t long past sunset when we landed, but it was dark when the taxi pulled up at the given address – dark enough that the details of the house were lost, leaving an impression of clean lines and modernity amid dense hedges of tropical greenery.
Lights lined a path to a formal front door, and as I walked toward it with my bag slung on one shoulder, I suddenly realised that Miles hadn’t actually invited me to stay.
Fighting the urge to sprint after the taxi, I pressed the bell, heart hammering so loud it drowned out the nearby wash of the ocean.
The door opened and there was Miles, his smile spreading.
“Why, hello there, stranger,” he said, leaning against the door-frame, everything about him disastrously, casually gorgeous.
Tight black singlet, blond hair falling softly about his face, and a pair of loose shorts clinging to his hips with the sort of elastic that would not withstand even a mild tug.
“Hey, um . . .”
His brows rose into those disbelieving arches. “Mat? Are you having a crisis?”