Chapter 2 #3
“At this point? I don’t think that’s gonna happen. We’ve been at this for so long. It’s not worth rocking the boat,” he says. “Maybe next year I’ll bring it up, but for now, I’m just going to ride out the rest of the season.”
Tess gives him a concerned look. She has a sesame seed stuck to her upper lip.
“He still knows his stuff,” he says. “He’s still one of the best, obviously. I just … I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” Tess says, arching an eyebrow.
Leo sighs. “He just doesn’t hear me anymore,” he says. “But he works so hard for me. He puts up with all the shit people say about him or ask me about him in interviews. I would feel silly pushing back, you know?”
“Oh, angel. I’ve never pretended to know exactly what it’s like between you two,” she says. “But I do know that you guys have an amazing bond. You always have. And I hope you can … honor that? By talking about how unhappy you are with his approach?”
“Yeah,” Leo says, letting out a long sigh. “Maybe. I guess I’m afraid of hurting him. I can’t imagine doing this without him.”
Tess nods and offers a sympathetic smile.
“Anyway, sorry,” Leo says, reapplying his smile. “I didn’t mean for our mixed doubles dinner to get so heavy. Back to talking about serve formations.”
“brEAKING NEWS: AMERICAN TENNIS STAR LEO CHAMBERS HAS DADDY ISSUES,” Tess yells.
“You’re the worst,” Leo says, throwing a piece of edamame at her.
“WHITE MAN THROWS EDAMAME AT ASIAN WOMAN AT US OPEN,” she yells, wheezing from laughter.
“I’m leaving,” Leo jokes, storming toward the door. “Oooh, hold up, is this your kit for the Open?” he asks, stopping in his tracks to pick up one of her match shirts.
“So cute, right?” Tess says. “Nike hooked your girl up this year.”
“These are sick,” he says, holding up a varsity-style tank top, kelly green with white trim.
“Speaking of sick, can you stay for a horror movie?” she says. “I decided I’m watching this absolutely disgusting French slasher tonight called High Tension.”
“As appealing as that sounds,” Leo says, head turning toward the door, “I should probably get back for my own nighttime ritual.”
“Ew,” Tess says.
“Not that,” Leo says, blushing a little.
“I mean, whatever helps relieve your stress, my dude,” Tess says. “You have your thing, and I have mine.”
“First of all that’s not my thing, and I don’t get why you always watch these gory-ass movies right before tournaments.”
“It’s controlled anxiety,” Tess explains, shrugging. “I read it somewhere. Horror movies give you a chance to focus your attention and release your stress through something unrelated to your own life. I don’t know, I find it helpful.”
“That’s … actually kind of brilliant,” Leo says.
“I know,” Tess says, looking pleased with herself. “You want to stay now, don’t you?”
“Still no!” he says, tossing his empty bowl in the trash.
“Your loss.”
“All right, freak, I’m gonna go so you can watch people get hacked up.”
“Yum,” she says, and gets up from the bed. She gives him a big hug, then puts her hands on both sides of his head. “If I don’t see you before your match—remember, it’s all up here. Dig deep.”
“Thanks,” he says, his smile starting to curl.
“God, Gabe is so hot, though,” she says, staring off into the distance.
“Okay, I’m leaving for real now,” he says, pulling his face away and turning for the door.
“He is!” she shouts, rolling her eyes. “Ugh, straight men. You’re all so fragile.”
Leo clears his throat. “Okay, bye, corpse bride! Good luck at your match!”
“Love you!” she says as the door clicks shut.
Waiting at the elevator bank, Leo is stuck on Tess’s words: “dig deep.” She’s right.
He needs to find it in himself to get over this Gabe hurdle, once and for all.
The other words he’s stuck on: “straight men.” Tess and Ollie and his parents may still see him this way—at least, he assumes they do, because he’s never told them otherwise—but he knows other people wonder about him.
He’s never dated anyone publicly (okay, or privately), and he’s seen the chatter online.
Ok but is he gay?!
My dream mannn I want him to come out ugh
CLOWN. he’s not going to beat Montoya
Gay tho???
He HAS to be queer
Paying $5,300 rn to 15 people who msg me “STRUGGLING” stay blessed y’all
DADDY
This is the only thing that does faze him about these types of posts: all the people who track the details of his love life (or lack thereof), speculate about his sexuality, push him to share his identity with them.
It’s been drilled into his brain that dating on tour is a distraction and that tennis players should keep their personal lives personal.
He’s shared this plenty of times in interviews—how it’s too difficult to maintain a relationship when he’s in a new city every couple weeks, how his focus is only on tennis—but it doesn’t stop the rumor mill from churning.
He can’t even imagine coming out as gay when—in this, the year of our Lord 2023—not one active male tennis player has ever done so.
Not one! Ever. The women’s tour has had gay icons like Billie Jean King to pave the way for others to come out, but the men’s tour?
None. Zero. Zilch. Blame it on the expectation of hypermasculinity in sports, plus the homophobic reindeer games in the locker room.
This bleak fact is the mortar that holds together each brick in the wall of privacy he’s built up since he realized he was gay in his early twenties.
Keep your personal life personal. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t get distracted.
So, yeah. What Leo Chambers does behind closed doors is nobody’s business but his own, thank you very much.
Behind closed doors, Leo Chambers is watching The Golden Girls in bed.
He’s back in his hotel room now and, yes, this is how he decompresses after a long day and, no, he has never told a soul.
His paternal grandmother, Eleanor, was the one who got him into The Golden Girls.
She lived with Leo’s family when he was growing up and, being a woman of a certain age living in Florida, the show was an obvious favorite of hers.
Every day, when he got home from tennis practice, he would take a shower as quickly as possible and then plop himself down on the big white couch next to her, moving in close, chilly from the air conditioning set to high.
Listening to his grandmother hum along to the theme song night after night, her gold bangles clanking along to the beat, it became a sort of lullaby, relaxing and comforting him after he’d spent most of the day pushing his growing body on the court.
Watching the campy antics of Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia was one of his only breaks from his nonstop tennis schedule.
He held onto those evenings with Eleanor and her giddy laughter until the day she died, when he was a sophomore in high school.
Sometimes he swears he smells her floral perfume when he’s watching an episode.
Does he hide this nighttime ritual out of embarrassment?
Maybe. But it’s also out of protection. There isn’t much he can have just for himself while he’s on tour.
As individual as tennis is, when he’s not playing a match, he’s nearly always with his team, his dad by his side every day, coaching him through life.
They share stats and meals and flights and advice.
But this show—these lovable ladies of Miami—it’s sacred.
It’s like an heirloom that Eleanor passed down to him, and he’s keeping it close to his chest.
That’s why Leo is in bed now, chilly from the air conditioning set to high, tucked under the white duvet, drinking a gin and tonic he made from the mini bar, and watching an episode of The Golden Girls.
Blanche, the self-proclaimed “slut” of the foursome, has just arrived at her latest date’s swanky condo.
“You certainly have a nice place here,” Blanche says.
“I took it because I spend so much time in Miami, and I do hate hotels,” he says.
“Oh, yeah, I know,” Blache says. “The way they charge you for the whole night when you’re only there for a few hours.”
Leo cracks up as if he hasn’t seen this scene seventeen times before—his laugh bouncing off the walls of the cavernous suite—and takes a sip of his G&T.
And then he takes another, and another, and another, and before he knows it, he’s finished his drink and another episode.
He’s a bit tipsy and, unlike Blanche, he’s staying at this hotel for more than a few hours.
And when Leo is tipsy and alone in his hotel room, wherever that room might be—Rome, Seoul, New York—he sometimes slips into his other nighttime routine.
Grindr.
“Hey, what’s up?” he sends, his message appearing in a yellow bubble.
“Hey, just in for the night, you?” the blue bubble reads.
“In the city for work,” Leo replies.
“Cool cool. I live in the West Village.”
Leo clicks on the profile pic to see it closer again. A fair-skinned, toned torso, just like his own pic.
“Do you watch any sports?” Leo asks. He taps his fingers nervously on the outside of the sweating glass, only a sip of gin left.
A few moments later, the torso responds: “Lol no.”
“Perfect,” Leo types, relieved this guy probably won’t recognize him, and takes the final sip. “Can you host?”
“Sure can,” the reply reads.
Leo hops out of bed and pulls off his loose boxers, revealing the stark tan lines on his thighs. He digs through one of his duffles for a pair of briefs he thinks his hookup will like.
Knock, knock, knock.
Leo jumps up, pulls his boxers back on, and looks through the peephole. It’s his dad. Of course.
“Hey, just came to say goodni—” His dad sniffs. “You smell like a distillery.”
“I had one gin and tonic, Dad, chill,” Leo says.
“I’m chill, I’m chill. I just want you to be ready for tomorrow.”
“I will be. I only have media stuff in the morning. We’re not practicing until the afternoon,” Leo says, then pauses. “And, you know, it’s going to be hot out tomorrow. If you need to skip practice, I totally understand. Brian and I will be fine.”
“Trying to get rid of me, huh?” Johnny jokes. “I’m not missing practice now! Your first match is in a couple days.”
“No, I know, I just …” Leo tries. “Okay. Never mind.”
“You need your rest,” Johnny says. “Get to bed soon.”
“Yes, Dad,” Leo says, shutting the door slowly. “Good night.”
Once he takes a shower and puts on something more presentable, he makes sure the coast is clear in the hallway and heads down to the car he’s just called.
“Leo?” the shirtless man at the door asks.
“Hey,” Leo says, noting that the man’s torso matches the one in the profile pic. The triangle tattoo above his left hip corroborates it.
“Cool, come on in. I’m Gabe,” he says.
Leo knocks his head back with a laugh. He’s still buzzed. “Of course you are.”
“Sorry?” the man says. His angular, clean-shaven face looks confused.
“No, nothing, I just, uh, knew a Gabe as a kid that I hated. One of those childhood associations, you know?”
“Ah, got it. I have those, too. Never met a Josh I liked.”
“Hmm, yeah, never met a Gabe I liked,” Leo says, smirking.
“Well,” the man says, smiling coyly, “hopefully I can change that for you.”
Other Gabe pulls Leo into a long kiss, then takes his hand and leads him down the hall into the living room.
“You have a nice place here,” Leo says, shutting his eyes as he realizes he sounds just like Blanche.
“Oh, thanks. Here, come sit,” Other Gabe says, gesturing toward the green velvet couch. “Do you want a drink or anything?”
“No, I’m good,” Leo says, and settles into the couch.
Other Gabe sits down next to him and, wasting no time, Leo climbs on top of his lap, picking up where they left off, tongues tangled.
For the rest of the night, he makes sure not to moan the name Gabe.