Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
He’s furry. He’s sleepy. And he does have chlamydia. But he’s in Leo’s arms, and that’s what matters. Okay, yes, he’s also a koala.
“It’s actually a major problem here in Australia,” the handler from the wildlife sanctuary says. “Koala chlamydia, that is.”
“Oh, for real?” Leo responds, now looking concernedly at the adorable bundle of fuzz clinging to his body.
“Yeah, a real epidemic for these little guys. But don’t worry, he can’t transmit it to you through cuddling,” the handler says with a wink.
Standing on Princes Bridge at the center of Melbourne, Leo, Ollie, Tess, and a handful of other popular players are holding koalas like nervous new parents as they pose for photos arranged by the men’s and women’s tours.
It’s the type of cute content the tours’ social media teams like to share ahead of the Australian Open, and the local wildlife sanctuary gets to promote their work and spread awareness about protecting these precious creatures.
Unfortunately, a not-so-precious creature has joined them, too.
“If Montoya was here, he would probably make two of the male koalas get married,” Leo overhears Sascha say to a fellow Russian player. “The fairy.”
Sascha hasn’t taken a moment off from his crusade against Gabe these past few weeks. Leo couldn’t help but click on this headline shortly after Gabe’s announcement:
VOLKOV TAKES AIM AT NEWLY OUT MONTOYA
“I’m glad you asked me this. I think this is a distraction,” Sascha said firmly, responding to a reporter who showed up at his practice, surely hoping he’d get a juicy quote if he asked the number one player about Gabe’s coming out.
“This does not have a place in tennis. He is throwing his choices in people’s faces.
This is inappropriate, especially for all the kids who are watching.
I don’t care what he does privately, but he does not need to bring it into our sport. ”
Leo certainly wasn’t surprised that Sascha made these comments—after all, he can remember past headlines about Sascha supporting an anti-gay measure in Russia—but he was still shaken. His heart still pounded hearing those words.
It’s pounding now, too, after Sascha’s latest jab. But before Leo has a chance to push him off the bridge into the river, the photographer shouts, “All right, time for some photos!”
Gabe may not be at this shoot today, but since he came out, he has been everywhere.
Photos of him—on websites including but not limited to ESPN, Attitude, Out, and the New York Times, all just in the last month—have followed Leo around every corner.
He hasn’t been able to escape them online, in stores, and especially on Serving Looks, which has reposted every last portrait and pull quote possible.
A snippet from Out: “ ‘My legacy in tennis isn’t going to be the number of Grand Slams I’ve won, because so far it’s none,’ Montoya says with that sultry smirk of his.
‘But I hope it can be something even greater now.’ ”
Gabe went on to say in that same interview that what ultimately pushed him to come out was a video Serving Looks reposted.
“They shared a TikTok from this young guy talking about how he’s the only out gay player on his high school team, and how alone it makes him feel, how the other guys don’t include him.
He said he feels like he’ll never really belong in tennis because there are no openly gay men playing professionally, either.
He loves this sport, but he doesn’t see himself in it.
How is he supposed to feel accepted if there’s no one for him to look up to?
I just thought, maybe that could be me.”
Ugh. Okay. Fine. That’s … nice.
Leo has actually learned a lot about Gabe from all these magazine articles, which, to be clear, he’s only skimmed in, like, airports.
First off, you know, GABE IS GAY. It’s something that had maybe, potentially, fleetingly crossed Leo’s mind before.
How could it not? Especially whenever he happened to see Gabe arching his back so expertly while stretching on all fours in the gym.
But it never actually seemed like a warranted suspicion—only an underlying hope or desire.
Besides, Leo’s queerness lives outside the court lines in which he spends most of his life.
If the two are separate—tennis and sexuality—why would he waste his time suspecting someone else?
Especially Gabe? Gay or not, he’s still Leo’s nemesis.
This doesn’t change anything between them. Does it?
Flipping through the seemingly endless articles, Leo has also learned about Gabe’s struggles with mental health.
He’s talked about the immense pressure tennis players feel in general playing an individual sport on a global scale and how hiding his queerness only exacerbated that pressure, leading him to bouts of depression.
For him, Gabe has told the press, it felt like he had finally come to a crossroads: retire early under the weight of it all, or continue his career as his authentic self, even if that meant losing some friends and fans along the way.
Ultimately, he said, he loves himself and tennis too much to quit that easily, so here he is, starting the new season as an openly gay man.
Well, isn’t that just peachy for him, Leo has often found himself thinking over the past several weeks, watching all this unfold from inside the proverbial closet, keeping his own mental health shoved in the very back, behind his old juniors gear.
It’s nearly impossible for him to admit, but he’s …
jealous of Gabe and his ability to just say fuck it and come out to everyone like this, consequences be damned.
In interviews, Gabe has said that he hopes this will encourage other players to feel more comfortable being themselves and even empower them to be open about their own identity, too.
But, honestly, Leo feels more frozen than ever.
He isn’t suddenly prepared to share that part of himself just because one player has come out.
He doesn’t even feel he owes that information to anyone, especially the fans who constantly poke and prod to uncover it.
Not to mention, his body tenses every time he sees the hate Gabe receives online.
When, against his better judgment, he scrolls to the comments of those magazine pieces and Instagram posts, he sees things like: Let’s hope this is the first and LAST time a man comes out on tour.
He can’t count the number of vomiting emoji he’s seen, each one a knife in his stomach.
Deep down, he’s grateful to Gabe for being the first, for forging this path. He just isn’t ready to follow yet.
Gabe will be making his grand return at the Australian Open, having skipped the first couple of warm-up tournaments as part of his plan to play a slimmed-down schedule this year while the media mayhem continues after his announcement.
Leo was relieved he didn’t have to cross paths with Gabe at those tournaments—and that could be the reason he made the quarterfinals at both—but now he’s anxious about their inevitable run-in at the Australian Open and, with all that online hate swirling around his brain, he’s even more anxious about how the fans will react to Gabe in person.
Not because he cares about Gabe in particular.
He just, you know, cares about all players being treated with respect, as an objective, empathetic, non-publicly queer person himself. Yeah.
It doesn’t help that Gabe is absolutely glowing in all those new magazine portraits, by the way. He’s shining. He’s beaming. He’s sparkling. He’s—
“He’s peeing on you,” Ollie whispers to Leo as they pose for another group shot and the koala in Leo’s arms leaks a warm yellow trail down the front of his gray Nike T-shirt.
“Oh my God,” Leo says, just loudly enough that the wildlife handler notices.
“Ah, so sorry about that, mate,” he says. “This little fella can be a real bugger. Let’s see if we can get you cleaned up for the rest of the shoot.”
“Oooh, or Leo could just go shirtless,” Tess says, shimmying her shoulders and sticking her tongue out at him. “Ow owww!”
With the other players giggling and Leo blushing as he sneers at Tess, the entire scene resembles a middle school class portrait.
“No, no, we won’t make you do that, Leo,” the photographer says. “Actually, I think we’ve got what we need. Thank you for your time, everybody. And thank you, koalas.”
Swapping a koala for a towel, Leo pours a little water on his shirt and pats the stain. “I don’t think he liked me,” he says to Ollie and Tess, who’ve just finished taking selfies with their little fellas before handing them back to the sanctuary staff.
“The photographer?” Ollie asks. “I really don’t think he minded that you didn’t want to take off your shirt.”
“No, the koala,” Leo says through a chuckle, gesturing at the stain.
“Oh. Well, still better than last year’s shoot,” Ollie says, scrolling through his selfies. “Remember? The kangaroo that tried to punch me?”
Leo and Tess both snort out a laugh.
“I think ‘punch’ might be a bit of an exaggeration,” Leo says, using heavy air quotes.
“Yeah, it, like, grazed your arm with its little paw,” Tess says. “You make it sound like you went up against that jacked kangaroo. You know, the famous one. What was his name?”
“Roger,” Leo says. “May he rest in peace.”
“Okay, whatever, I still liked the koalas better,” Ollie says, holding up a selfie of him and his bear both tilting their heads to the side.
“Awwwcute, Ol—wait, Roger died?!” Tess says, whipping back around to face Leo, her hair catching in her mouth.
“Like, several years ago,” Leo says.
“Damn, pour one out for Roger tonight,” Tess says, shaking her head.
Before they know it, they’ve made the short walk back to Melbourne Park, the sunny and meticulously maintained grounds of the Australian Open, which kicks off in just a few days.