Fic: all the roads we have to walk (2/2)
( Part One)
-
It was the height of the tourist season, and Palma airport was crowded with tourists: harassed parents herding small, shrieking children, couples arguing, groups of men and women. Roger once again missed the ease of the private jet. Half-a-dozen people had already asked for his autograph by the time he'd reclaimed his baggage, and he'd scribbled his signature on several more hastily produced scraps of paper and boarding card stubs by the time he emerged into arrivals and found Rafa waiting for him, standing at the edge of a crowd of waiting people and craning his neck to scan the incoming travellers. A grin spread wide and bright across his face as he spotted Roger at last, his delight obvious, and Roger ducked his head to hide an answering grin.
"Roger!" Rafa caught around him in a quick hug as he approached. "You are here!"
"Here I am," said Roger, feeling bright despite the long flight and the accumulated jetlag that was bound to hit any time now.
"Here, let me," Rafa said, taking one of Roger's bags and swinging it up over his shoulder easily, leading the way through the crowds. More people came up to them, asking for autographs and pictures, which Rafa granted, never seeming tired of the requests or irritated by the intrusion. If the fans were Spanish, he chatted to them briefly, always smiling.
At last, they made it outside into the heat of the day. The heat was different to that of Dubai, more humid, less coarse. Roger’s shirt had already begun sticking to his back with perspiration as Rafa led him through the car park. Roger didn't know much about cars, but he knew beauty, and Rafa's car - silver, elegant, all sleek lines - was beautiful. Roger had to laugh; this was not a subtle car.
"No Kia?" he teased.
"Kia is at home," Rafa said, smiling. "Kia is car for every day, no? This car is for special occasions."
Roger laughed. "I'm a special occasion?"
"Of course," said Rafa. "Here, give me -" He took Roger's bags, fitting them into the small luggage space behind the front seats of the car, barely.
Inside, the car was all the same understated, expensive elegance. Leather seats and wood-trimmed instruments. Rafa flicked a switch and the car began to gently and quietly circulate cool air, to the perfect temperature.
"Now you're just showing off," said Roger.
"Maybe a little," Rafa said, smiling.
Roger had never been in a car with Rafa before, and so didn't know what to expect from Rafa's driving. Maybe a little more speed than necessary, and big exuberant sweeps of the wheel. But Rafa was a careful driver, almost textbook-perfect, despite the fact that the roads were almost empty, particularly as they left the motorway and began to drive along smaller back roads and by-roads, winding their way through the countryside. Roger looked out of the window, watching the wide expanses of baked Mallorcan landscape. It was a beautiful country, one he wished he knew more of - he’d been to the island only twice before, and only one of those times with Rafa: that infamous Battle of the Surfaces.
Roger smiled to himself, remembering the short time they’d spent together for that match - not just the match itself, with its ridiculous patchwork court, but the time spent with Rafa. Rafa in his native habitat, this island that he loved so fiercely, showing it off with shy pride and obvious devotion. There had been fishing trips and dinners of Mallorcan seafood at beautiful restaurants, as though Rafa had been determined for Roger to love the island as much as Rafa himself.
Rafa's amused voice broke through his distraction. "Why are you smiling?"
"Hm?” Roger turned to find Rafa shooting quick glances at him, eyebrows quirked. Rafa always had talked nearly as much with those eyebrows as with words. “Oh. I was thinking about the last time I was in Mallorca with you. You remember?"
"The Battle of the Surfaces, no?" Rafa laughed, fondly. "That was a good time.”
“Yeah,” said Roger. “You know, I don’t think anybody’s done that since us.”
“Well,” said Rafa, half-shrugging as much as steering would allow, “there is nobody now who is like us.”
-
Rafa's house was secluded and beautiful, its white walls and terracotta roof vivid against the blue of the sky and the lush greenery surrounding the house, the colours even more startling after the ochre sweep of the dry Mallorcan countryside.
"Wow," said Roger, eloquently, as Rafa eased the car along the gravelled driveway.
Rafa glanced sideways at Roger as he brought the car to a stop. "You like?"
"Very much," said Roger. "This is beautiful, Rafa."
"Thank you," Rafa said, smiling warmly, as though the compliment to his house was a compliment to himself. “It is a finca,” he explained, as Roger stepped out of the cool climate-controlled car into the enveloping heat of the afternoon. “That is a traditional Mallorcan farmhouse. Updated, of course,” he added, with a wry smile over at Roger.
He insisted on carrying Roger's bags into the house himself, the perfect host. Inside, the house was cool and quiet, the entrance hall tiled in homely red and the walls airy white; high-ceilinged and spacious. It was, Roger thought, looking around, very Rafa, somehow.
"I show you around if you like. But first we take your bags to your bedroom," Rafa said, leading Roger upstairs, where the corridor was washed with light from the open doors along the hallway.
"This is your room," said Rafa, gesturing for Roger to follow him inside. "Is maybe a little small, but - is okay?"
"It's beautiful," Roger said, truthfully, looking around at the sun-washed walls. "Really, Rafa," he said, trailing fingertips over the quilted coverlet on the bed; it looked handmade. "This is beautiful."
"The view is good from here," Rafa said, still sounding apologetic. "I thought you would like to see the sea, no? Come look."
Roger went, and Rafa pushed open the window so that Roger could get a better view. Hot air rolled against his face as he approached, heavy with the scent of flowers from Rafa's garden, and the faint salt of the sea glittering in the sunlight not far off. Roger leaned out further to catch a glimpse of the grounds of Rafa's house; he caught a terraced area, and the turquoise rectangle of a swimming pool.
"No tennis courts?" he teased, turning back to Rafa with a smile.
Rafa laughed. "No tennis courts," he said. “You cannot play tennis alone, and who I gonna play with out here? We go into town one day, if you like. Play a match. Like old times."
"Like old times," Roger said. "A little slower, maybe."
"Speak for yourself," said Rafa, laughing. "Come, see the rest of the house."
-
"The beach is only five minutes away," said Rafa as they walked through the gardens after the grand tour of the house was done. Rafa’s private beach wasn’t visible from the gardens, only the glittering blue far out where the sea met the sky, but Rafa pointed the way down a shaded track which curved downwards out of view. “You must be tired now. Maybe later I take you to see, or tomorrow.”
Roger turned his face into the sun, relishing the heat of the afternoon. The heaviness of travel exhaustion was starting to ease into his body, but the tiredness only made him feel drowsy and loose-limbed, utterly relaxed.
"This is beautiful, Rafa," said Roger, sinking down onto a low wall of sun-warmed stone bordering a flowerbed heady with scented blossoms. "It's so peaceful."
"Peace," Rafa echoed, standing where his shadow blocked the sun from Roger’s eyes, so that he was haloed in gold. "Yes. I like the quiet, is so different to live at home, or on the tour. I have to learn to be on my own, for the first time, no?"
Roger nodded. "Was it hard?”
"Yes," said Rafa. "But nice, too, no? On the tour I am never alone. All my life, with the family, with the coaches, with the players. Now is just me."
“Just you," said Roger. “You don't get lonely?"
Rafa shrugged, turning a little to look out at the horizon. "Sometime, for sure. But my family are not far. And I have friends," he said, turning back with a smile. "I like to have friends at my house."
“You invite all your old rivals to come stay here?” Roger joked.
Rafa huffed a little breath of laughter. “My friends from Mallorca come here sometime. Some friends from the tour. Feli and Nando." Feli and Nando. There was something about the way Rafa said their names - as though they fit together, as though they ran together naturally.
It was just a feeling, but - "Rafa, are they -"
"Si, Roger," said Rafa, smiling at Roger's discomfort. "They are together."
"Oh," said Roger. He shuffled a little awkwardly on the wall, looking down at the stone patio tile under his feet. "Were they, you know, always -?"
"Mostly," said Rafa. "Sometimes yes, sometimes not. Was hard for them, you know, to be together, and on tour. They have always to hide."
"They could have -" Roger broke off. He knew how the publicity game worked. Sponsors, endorsements - sport was a cruel world. “That must have been tough for them.”
“For sure,” Rafa said. There was a strange, half-wistful tone to his voice that made Roger glance up curiously, but Rafa had turned to look out to sea, shading his eyes from the sun with one hand.
-
"You know, there is a tennis club in Porto Cristo," Rafa said, the next morning, when they were sat eating breakfast together in the shade of the back terrace, watching the sunlight creep across the stones as the sun climbed. It was already hot. "Been a long time, no?"
"Long time," Roger echoed. He took a sip of orange juice, stalling for time. He hadn't played tennis in months, and it had been so much longer still since he'd played Rafa. Their last competitive match had been nearly thirteen years ago.
Rafa smirked. "Think you can take me on?"
Roger chuckled. "You know, I didn't bring a racket."
"I have rackets,” Rafa pressed.
Roger wrinkled his nose. "Your rackets?”
“My rackets,” said Rafa, with a theatrical eye-roll. “I have a Wilson, too. I think maybe you give it to me long time ago, but when I know you are coming, I have it restrung for you.
“You really always get what you want, don’t you,” said Roger, leaning back in his chair with a smile. He’d slept incredibly well, the faint sound of the sea in the distance as soothing as a lullaby, and woken to the gold morning light feeling rested and bright, better than he had for a long time.
“Almost always,” Rafa said, flashing a bright, predatory grin.
-
Rafa had called ahead and the court they found themselves on was tucked away at the edge of the Porto Cristo tennis complex. Roger was grateful for that - the last thing he wanted was an audience. The court was blue American-style hardcourt.
"No competition if we play on clay," Rafa said, smirking, as they arranged their gear on a pair of chairs at the net, next to the empty umpire's stand.
"Hey," Roger protested, shoving at Rafa's shoulder. "I won the French. I beat you on clay plenty of times."
"Roger," Rafa said, "four times is not plenty. You never beat me at the French, no?"
"I could have."
"Oh, for sure," said Rafa, with gentle sarcasm.
"Hey," said Roger. "You know you're talking to the greatest tennis player ever, right?"
"For sure," Rafa said, as he led the way onto the tennis court. He shot a glance back over his shoulder, adding, "But not on clay."
"Okay," Rafa said when they were ready. "You pick heads or tails?"
"Heads," said Roger. Rafa flipped the coin and caught it, clapping it to the back of his hand before he peeked.
"Is tails," he said, grinning triumphantly. "I receive."
"Alright. Good luck."
"You too," said Rafa, as he turned away. "You gonna need it, no?"
Roger hadn't played tennis for months; it had just gotten away from him, the same way that a lot of other things had, too. As well as Rafa, he’d fallen out of touch with a lot of people from the tour, and it was hard to get amateurs to play with when you were Roger Federer - there weren't many people who wanted to take their chances against a guy with seventeen Grand Slam titles, even if he was past forty. But Rafa had never been afraid of him, Roger thought, glancing up from the baseline at the old familiar sight of Rafael Nadal crouched at the opposite end of the court. He still cut a fierce figure on the court, his focused intensity palpable even from this distance, as it always had been. Some things never changed, and Roger was more grateful for that than he’d realised.
Every game of tennis was different. Conditions of the court, the balls, the weather; the physical and mental state of the players. The tension of a racket string, the fit of a set of clothes or shoes. Those variables were part of what made tennis so beautiful, so infinitely and endlessly fascinating - tennis wasn't a game that could be played on paper, or pared down to one set of statistics against another. Head-to-head could never predict the outcome of a match because there wasn’t a professional tennis player in the world who didn’t walk out onto the court thinking that he could beat the person on the other side of the net. Rafa might have retained the old head-to-head advantage on Roger, but Roger had never walked out to face him thinking that he was going to lose. History made for a richer story, but that was after the fact. It was, he thought, something that the film hadn’t caught - could never have caught - because it was impossible to understand the way a match, or even a career, balanced on the delicate knife-edge of infinite possibilities unless you were the one performing the balancing act.
Even though no match of tennis could ever be replicated exactly, Roger couldn’t help but feel the echoes of old matches - shades of their early meetings in an energetic passing shot, a return shot too low into the net that recalled the terrible frustration of the times when it had felt as though he was never going to get through Rafa, as though he had nothing else to throw at him.
It was second-nature to keep tally of a tennis score, as easy as breathing: he took the first set 6-4, breaking in the third game when Rafa's serve went AWOL for a couple of points, double-faulting the game to Roger. The sun beat down fiercely, and sweat stung at his eyes - he swiped at it absently. Rafa managed to fight back in the second set to take it 7-5 at last, evening the score out. At the change of ends he took short sips of his water, and then replaced the bottles just-so, adjusting their position minutely.
Roger laughed. "You still do that?"
"Stop trying to distract me," said Rafa, making a face at Roger, and Roger laughed, feeling light and free, despite the ache in his arms and legs.
Rafa had always had that uncanny ability to turn up the dial of his own intensity - a focusing of his energies, a narrowing of his concentration. Roger had missed this, the ferocity of Rafa's full and unrelenting effort, the sense that the person on the other side of the net was not just trying their best to keep up with you, but to beat you, to make you lose: to win. Rafa broke at 2-1 in the last set, and managed to retain the break. At 5-4 and advantage to Rafa on serve, a passing shot just barely grazed the head of Roger's racket and caught the line just as he turned his head to watch it go by. In a professional match he might have resorted to Hawkeye, but he was happy to have lost. The exhilaration of effort, of not holding back - he felt alive.
"I guess you win," Roger said, smiling as he made his way to the net to meet Rafa, who was jogging up to meet him. His body ached with effort and he felt a sharp twinge in his lower back, and he was panting a little, but fuck, he'd missed this, this sparkle of adrenaline through his limbs and the elation piercing through the exhaustion. Rafa shook his hair out of his eyes, and they grinned at each other, sharing the moment. He reached out to clasp Roger’s hand in a strong grip, pulling Roger closer so that they could hug at the net, leaning into each other companionably. The back of Rafa's shirt was soaked through with sweat under Roger's arm, hair curling in damp strands at the nape of his neck. He tipped his head to rest his temple against Roger's, and they could have been anywhere, any time, any one of the matches they played during their careers.
"I missed this," Rafa said, low.
Roger shut his eyes, breathing in. "Me too."
"Was never the same, after you," Rafa said. "Never the same."
Roger tightened his arm around Rafa and Rafa turned in his grasp, fitting them together in a full hug, separated only by the net. It was strange and good and Roger buried his face in the crook of Rafa's neck, heat and salt-taste, and held on as though he were drowning.
-
"Is a beautiful night," said Rafa, staring up at the wide expanse of sky with its small scatter of stars, all but the brightest blocked out by the light of the fire.
"It is," said Roger, truthfully. They’d spent most of the day sprawled out on the beach, relaxing after the exertions of the match. When the sun had started to ease lower down into the sea, Rafa had gone back up to the house and brought down a picnic, and they’d watched the sun set, and in the half-dark Rafa had built a fire out of driftwood scraps.
The night was warm but not uncomfortably so, and the light from the small fire cast a glow across the sand and the brightness of the full moon was on the water, making the night all silver and gold. Further along the coast Porto Cristo was a cluster of lights, but the night was silent except for the crackle of the fire and the steady, rhythmic hush hush of the waves on the shore. The calm washed into Roger like the tide, easing into him until he was boneless with it, heavy-lidded and content and limp on the sand.
Rafa cleared his throat, suddenly. "You ever go skinny-dipping, Roger?"
Roger barked out a startled gasp of laughter. "What? No!"
Rafa rolled over onto his stomach, looking more like a teenager than a thirty-eight year old. He shook hair from his eyes with a quick movement. "Seriously? You never?"
"No!"
"But this is terrible!" Rafa lifted himself up so that he was kneeling on the sand, staring at Roger. "Well," he said, "is a beautiful night, no?"
"What? Rafa - no! No way!"
"Roger, you cannot go forever without doing this. Is like - well, you find out now. Come on." Rafa got to his feet, stripping off his t-shirt in one fluid motion. He tossed it onto the sand, then held out his hand to pull Roger up with him.
"No, Rafa," Roger said, shaking his head. "No. Seriously. I'm not doing this!"
"You are," Rafa said, stubbornly. He gestured with the outstretched hand and Roger rolled his eyes and grabbed it, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet.
"I'm not going skinny-dipping, Rafa," he said, but Rafa was already pulling him away from the comfort of the fireside and towards the water, Roger's hand caught in his strong, warm palm.
"I no gonna take no for an answer," Rafa said, and they were halfway to the sea by the time that Roger managed to worm his way out of Rafa's strong grip. "You gonna have fun, Roger!"
"I'm forty-three years old!" Roger shouted, laughing.
"No!" Rafa shouted back from the water's edge. "Here you are - nineteen!"
"That makes you fourteen! That makes this weird. Weirder!"
Rafa laughed out loud and swore in Spanish, kicking up a spray of seawater in a glittering arc as the tide lapped up to his ankles. "You are forty-three, then! You are forty-three, I am thirty-eight, the night is warm and the water is beautiful, and is just me and you, Roger. Nobody is watching us. Don't be afraid."
"I'm not afraid," Roger said, and then, louder, to be heard over the background noise of the waves, "I'm not afraid!"
"So come," Rafa called back. While Roger watched, he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and shoved them down, underwear and all, in one smooth, elegant movement. Roger fought the urge to look down and away. He'd seen Rafa naked a hundred times and more - there was no such thing as modesty in the locker room - but this was different, somehow. This wasn't the tour - this was Rafa's private beach, and Rafa's body glistening in the firelight and the moonlight.
Rafa tossed his clothes up the beach out of the way of the encroaching tide, and they landed on the sand in front of Roger like a gauntlet laid down.
"Come, Roger," Rafa said, grinning. Roger hesitated a moment more, and Rafa turned and started splashing boyishly into the water, laughing and gasping as he went, until he was waist high in the surf, the shape of his body outlined in silver. "The water is very nice," Rafa shouted back.
"Fine," Roger called. "Fine!" He stripped his t-shirt up over his head quickly, and shed the rest of his clothes before he could think better of it. Out in the sea, Rafa whooped and splashed noisily in victory.
The water that surged up to meet Roger as he neared the edge of the sea was warmer than Roger had expected, and he waded in further. He fought the urge to cover his penis with his hands - Rafa hadn't been shy, so obviously he didn't think it was a thing - but it felt like a thing, he couldn’t shake that - instead, he ducked down into the water as soon as it was deep enough.
Rafa had ducked down into the water, too, crouching far enough that the water brushed the ends of his hair. "It's good, no?"
"It's good," Roger admitted, and Rafa laughed, and splashed him, and Roger splashed back, and then it was on. The splash-fight that ensued was epic, great plumes of water arcing up through the air, salt stinging in Roger's eyes and choking in the back of his throat as Rafa caught him full in the face with a double-handful of water, and Roger retaliated by making his hands into scoops and flapping water back at Rafa, so that Rafa turned and dived, disappearing for long moments under the water into the darkness until he surfaced, further out, laughing and coughing at the same time.
"Truce," he called, as Roger swam further out to meet him. He was treading water - the sandy bottom of the sea was just out of reach of their toes. "There are little fish here," he said, as Roger approached. Sure enough, Roger felt the small darting whispers of movement against his legs as he began to tread water.
"Do they bite?" He wasn't afraid, but it was an unpleasant feeling.
"No. Kick at them, and they will stay away."
It was incredibly peaceful, Roger thought. The warm water seemed to hold him, made him buoyant, so that he had only to brush his arms through the water and kick out gently to keep afloat. He broke the surface of the water with his fingertips; he loved the sound. Even the feel of the water against his bare body was exhilarating - it was so different, without swimming trunks.
"Beautiful," he said, in a whisper; it seemed wrong to disturb the peace of the moment.
"Yes," said Rafa.
Their hands brushed together just beneath the surface of the water. Roger was aware, suddenly, of their bodies - naked, and in such close proximity. He murmured an apology. But their hands brushed together again a moment later, and the contact sent a strange and unexpected shiver through Roger's body. Their fingers brushed again, and this time, tangled. Roger looked at Rafa. Rafa’s face was serious, and - beautiful, in the moonlight.
"This is okay?" he said. He swiped his thumb over Roger's palm, and Roger swallowed.
"This is - this is okay," Roger said. It was mostly true: his stomach was in knots, half with anxiety and half with a strange excitement.
"I didn’t know -"
"Yeah, me neither," said Roger, ending on a half-laugh of panic and exhilaration.
Rafa drew closer, so that their gently kicking feet brushed together under the water, the brief contact thrilling. "I want to kiss you," he said. "Is okay?"
Roger caught his breath, watching Rafa's face in the moonlight. Rafa's eyes kept flicking down to his lips, and back again. Everywhere they touched was a point of blazing heat even in the warm water. "It's okay."
Rafa reached out with his free hand, brushing Roger's cheek with reverent fingertips before cupping the base of his skull as he drew them closer together, so that it wasn't just their feet that brushed together under the water any more: shins and knees bumping together, their legs tangling, and Roger was aware again of their nudity. His breath was coming in sharp, shallow pants. With their hands tangled and Rafa’s left hand cupping Roger’s cheek, only the increasingly erratic sweeps of Roger's right hand and their kicking legs were keeping them afloat. Roger could hardly concentrate on breathing, let alone keeping the two of them above water.
"Is okay," Rafa said, more statement this time than question, and he was close now, close enough that Roger could see the drops of seawater beaded to his lashes - Roger's stomach flipped - and then Rafa closed the gap between them, pressing his lips to Roger's, gently, so gently. Rafa tasted of salt water, but the kiss wasn’t unpleasant. It wasn't unpleasant at all - and Roger found himself kissing back, bringing his right hand up to trace the strong line of Rafa's jaw and - they sank underneath the surface, and instead of a kiss Roger got a mouthful of seawater. Panicked for a moment, he kicked back to the surface, spluttering. Rafa was coughing and laughing, shaking strands of wet hair out of his eyes like a dog. Their hands were still tangled together.
"I think this is the wrong place, no?" he said, laughing. "Come on," he added, releasing Roger's hand so that they could swim back to shore together.
On dry land again, they were strangely shy of each other. Roger didn't dare glance at Rafa's bare body as they emerged from the sea, but their fingers brushed together as he handed Rafa his discarded shorts in a way that wasn't exactly unintentional, and lingered too long to be innocent.
They cleared up quickly, Rafa extinguishing the fire with sand while Roger gathered up the blankets and the cooler of undrunk beer - he felt drunk enough on this - this night - the heady thrill of night swimming and the glow of lust uncurling in his belly. The walk back to the house passed almost in a blur of brief, almost unintentional touches - Rafa's fingers brushing against his, the occasional warm press of their bare arms, still damp from the ocean.
"Leave this stuff here," Rafa said, as he let them back into the dark, quiet house. His voice was soft, low, as though he was afraid of breaking the spell of the moment. Roger dutifully piled the sandy towels and blankets and dumped the cooler by the back door, careless with nerves.
"Come," said Rafa, reaching out to take Roger by the wrist, and Roger let himself be drawn through the house, up the stairs. As they passed the guest bedroom, he had a last lucid moment of indecision - he could say stop, here, he could say, I'm sorry - I can't. Rafa would let him go, and Roger could spend the night lying in his bed, wide awake, thinking what if? In the morning things might be awkward between them - or they would pretend this night had never happened - or they would exchange amused, embarrassed grins over breakfast and, in years to come, sometimes talk about that crazy night that they had almost-not-quite, knowing that the danger of the moment had passed. This was a one-time thing, Roger knew. There was no turning back, either now or later, whatever happened.
So Roger let Rafa draw him on, past the last-chance of the guest bedroom, on to his own room. He paused at the door. "You are sure?" he whispered, letting go of Roger's wrist to rest his fingertips at Roger's waist, tentative and gentle. No push or pull any more, just being there, letting the offer stand between them. "You still can say no. You are sure?"
Roger took a deep breath, swallowed. "I'm sure," he said, pressing Rafa's fingers where they rested. "I want this. I want you. I want you to - fuck me," he said, and felt himself flush hot across his cheekbones. Saying it out loud made it real.
In the dim light he saw Rafa's smile. "Okay," he said. "Come, then."
So Roger went.
-
When he woke, the sun was fully up, slanting golden across the foot of the bed, and for a second Roger didn't know where he was. He lay very still, remembering. The sound of the sea brought back with it all the memories of the night before - the beach, the fire and the moon and the dark sea. The taste of sea-salt and salt sweat and Rafa’s skin. The heat of their bodies together.
Roger shifted in bed. Rafa lay beside him, the smooth expanse of his back burnished by the morning light, the sound of his breathing layered with the rhythmic sound of the tide on the beach. His hair was across the pillow, stiff with salt now. Roger's skin felt grimy with dried salt and sweat, and his muscles ached - a good ache, though, thought Roger, with a smile.
He couldn't help himself. He reached out and trailed his fingertips across the irresistible expanse of bare skin, following the curve of Rafa’s spine downwards. Rafa made a snuffling, sleepy noise of protest. Roger grinned and did it again, feeling light-hearted and silly.
"Mmph," said Rafa, struggling slowly to come fully awake. "Roger?"
"Still here," said Roger. Rafa shifted, turning over so that he could face Roger. "Hi."
"Hi," said Rafa, blinking, as though he couldn't quite believe that Roger was really there, in his bed. "Hello," he said again, a slow smile spreading across his face as he realised that he wasn't dreaming, and his joy was so infectious that Roger leaned forward and kissed him, tasting the faint residue of salt there.
"Mm. Good morning," Rafa said as Roger pulled back, the emphasis making Roger laugh. He felt, for the first time in a long time, completely happy, completely at ease. He buried his face in the soft skin at Rafa's neck, tasting salt again as he pressed his lips to the place where the pulse pounded against Rafa's skin, living and vital.
-
“So this was your plan, then,” Roger said, sitting at the pool’s edge with his legs trailing in the water to mid-calf, watching Rafa lazily swim lengths. “You get me out here to your house in the middle of nowhere and then you seduce me.”
Rafa snorted. “You no need a lot of seducing, if I remember,” he called back from the far end of the pool. He dived underneath the water, kicking off powerfully from the poolside, his tanned body arrowing through the water. He wasn't wearing any swimming shorts. He surfaced near to Roger's legs, gasping as he broke the surface. His hair was sluiced back from his face, and the bare planes of his face seemed younger, impossibly beautiful, and Roger wanted him more than was reasonable - if reason came into it at all. The water was shallow, lapping at his chest, and he curled his hands around Roger's ankles, grinning.
“Don’t you dare,” Roger warned, feeling Rafa’s grip tighten, watching his grin spread wider. “Don’t you -“ but Rafa just laughed and pulled, and Roger was crashing down through the surface into the brilliant water, and Rafa was there, and his hands were on Roger, and it was overwhelming.
-
The days passed in a haze, dreamlike; lazy days when the sun was high and hot by the time they managed to extricate themselves from the bed and each other. Days of golden afternoons melting into dark, languid nights. Colours blurring into each other, the vivid jewel-blue of the sea and the golden sand, and stark white sheets pooling against bronze-tanned skin, outlined in silver in the dark of the night as Roger lay awake, watching Rafa’s chest rise and fall slowly, as steady and rhythmic as the faint sound of the tide carried on the breeze coming through the open window, thinking to himself, nothing, nothing could be this good.
-
They spent the night before Roger had to leave Mallorca crashed out on the beach, sprawled lazily together on the sand near the fire-pit, drinking beer and talking together. Rafa's shoulder pressed warm against Roger's.
"I don't want to leave," Roger said, meaning I don't want to leave you.
"So don't," said Rafa, leaning closer against Roger's body. "Stay."
"I can't." Roger picked idly with a fingernail at the label of his beer bottle. "I have to go back to New York, tomorrow. There’s the girls, and Mirka. I have to be there, to see them."
Rafa nodded faintly. "I know."
The fire crackled, the waves beat against the shore. Far out in the darkness, the tiny bright light of a passing boat inched across the horizon. Roger watched it go.
"What will happen," Rafa said, at last, "with you and me?"
Roger took a long drink from his bottle, stalling for time. He had been dreading this. "It's - complicated," he said. "It's - it's not just you and me I have to consider, you know?"
"I know," Rafa said.
"It's not that I don't want this," Roger said, touching Rafa's thigh, curling his fingertips underneath the thin beach shorts to the soft skin underneath. "But the girls. I don't want them to be uncomfortable."
"I know."
"I don't want to hurt you."
"I know," Rafa said, his tone saying plainly, but you are.
-
On the morning of Roger's flight, the atmosphere in the house was strange, quiet. There was no tension between them, but the coming goodbyes were almost palpable in the air between them - they were there in every lingering touch, in the press of their bodies as they made love in the shower in the morning, and as they brushed against each other accidentally a dozen or more times as Rafa helped Roger to pack, as they made breakfast together in the kitchen that might have held half-a-dozen cooks comfortably. Rafa's hand rested at the small of Roger's back as they walked through the house and out, to the car sitting in the driveway.
They drove to the airport in near-silence. Roger wouldn't have known how to say the things he wanted to, even if he had been able to fully form what those things were. The things he wanted seemed nebulous, half-formed, floating somewhere just out of his reach. Rafa kept his eyes ahead, as though he were concentrating his full attention on the road, although it was a Sunday and the roads were nearly empty. The silence seemed to take shape between them, becoming a physical presence, and by the time Rafa pulled into the parking area of the airport and slid the car smoothly into a space, the tension had become palpable, and Roger's stomach twisted as they both got out of the car.
"Don't come inside with me," said Roger, hefting his bags out of the Kia's sizeable luggage compartment. The words caught in his throat, although he’d been planning them since they’d left the house.
Rafa's dark glasses masked his expression, and Roger was grateful for that. He didn't want to see Rafa hurt, ever.
"Okay," Rafa said. "If you want."
"Yeah," said Roger, swinging a bag over his shoulder.
"You call, yes, when you are in New York?"
"Of course," Roger said. "Of course I will."
"Okay."
"I don't - I don't want this to be awkward, you know." Roger shifted uncomfortably. This was the part where, if they were normal people, they might kiss goodbye. He wanted to kiss Rafa - he wanted that badly - he just didn't know how good an idea that would be, now.
"Is not," said Rafa, shaking his head. "Just. Call me, when you get to New York, yes?"
"Of course." Roger didn't know how to say goodbye. "I should go now."
"Okay." Rafa stepped forward, and for a moment Roger was afraid that Rafa was about to kiss him, and his stomach knotted. But all Rafa did was to hold out his hand, for Roger to shake, and that was worse. After everything that had happened between them, shaking hands felt almost like a betrayal. Roger found himself gripping Rafa's hand too tight and too long, and Rafa put his free hand over Roger's, trapping their clasped hands together for a long moment. His expression was inscrutable behind the dark glasses. Roger guessed that was mostly the point.
"Bye, Roger," said Rafa, his voice tight and carefully controlled as he released Roger's hand and stepped firmly back.
Roger took a deep breath. "Okay. Bye."
-
The flight back was twelve hours long. He watched two mostly mediocre romantic comedies and a truly terrible action movie, but the explosions kept him awake, at least. He read the in-flight magazine cover to cover four times, lingering over the brief review of Strokes of Genius that called a masterpiece. There was a picture of Tom and Carlos in tennis whites at the net, and then, underneath that, the picture of Roger and Rafa that the actors were recreating. He stared at it for a long time.
In New York in the cab home, he pulled out his phone, switched it on. One new message, from Rafa: i miss you already. It should have been stupid and sappy and ridiculous, and it was, sort of, but it made Roger ache, nearly, with missing Rafa. Rafa, stretched out lazily across the sheets, all tanned skin and easy smile. Rafa on the beach; Rafa cooking dinner for them both in the kitchen of his house; Rafa on the tennis court shaking the sweat-damp strands of his hair away from his eyes, grinning brightly. Rafa at the hotel that night, with his bowtie unbuttoned and his shirtsleeves pushed up to the elbow, effortlessly sexy. Rafa slick with sweat and panting, shaking his hair as he jogged up to the net at their last match together on the tour, Roger's last Slam. Rafa, Rafa, Rafa. Roger pressed the heel of his hands against his eyes hard enough to see bright splashes of colour staining the darkness. He just needed to think. He just needed time.
-
“Daddy!” Myla’s face lit up as Roger walked into the breakfast room at Mirka’s house, and this, he thought, as she threw her arms around him, this was worth coming back for. This he could never give up. Charlene hovered a little way behind, affecting hip teenage apathy, but her hug felt sincere enough, and she softened enough to even smile as she rooted through the bag of presents he presented them both with a flourish and came up with a signed photograph of Carlos Castro.
“This is so cool,” she said, murmuring to her sister, “he’s so hot, isn’t he, oh my God.”
Not as good as the real thing, Roger thought, automatically appalled at himself.
“Oh, Roger, you shouldn’t have,” said Mirka, running her fingers gently over the beaded necklace he’d bought her one day in Porto Cristo. He still liked to buy her gifts, and the vivid blue of the glass beads had reminded him of the sea and the sky. “But it’s gorgeous, thank you.”
“So,” she said, pouring them both a cup of strong black coffee in the kitchen while the girls exclaimed over their presents in the breakfast room. “You had a good time, then, in Mallorca?”
“I really did,” said Roger, leaning back against the marble countertop while Mirka bustled around the kitchen. It was a strangely domestic scene - one that might almost have come straight from their marriage. “It was - relaxing,” he said, picking a word that was both truthful and ambiguous. He’d called her twice while he was there, always alone in the little guest bedroom, even when it had become only a place to store his clothes, as if he’d thought that Rafa and Mirka and the girls had to be kept apart.
“You sounded happy, when you called,” Mirka said. She paused, and glanced at him. “You know, I don’t think I’d heard you that happy for the longest time.”
Roger shifted, glancing down at his coffee-mug, the one that the girls had bought him, that said ‘#1 Dad’ on the side in bright red lettering. He missed Rafa.
Mirka reached out and put her hand on Roger’s wrist, gently. He looked at her soft familiar hand for a moment, then met her fond, half-worried gaze. “You know we love you, right?” she said. “We just want you to be happy, Roger.”
Roger swallowed, forcing away a sudden tightness in his throat. “I’m happy,” he said.
-
Though New York was living and hectic - the city that Roger and Mirka had fallen in love with - he was unaccountably, achingly lonely in it. His apartment, which had seemed so much like a calm oasis in the centre of New York's bustle and noise, was silent except when the girls were visiting, and had the same too-clean, too-tidy look of a show-home that had driven him out of the Dubai apartment to Mallorca in the first place. He found himself drifting awkwardly from room to room, stranded on deserts of pale, empty carpet. He felt as though he were a stranger in his own home. He wrote long, meandering emails to Rafa. Some of them, he even sent.
So he was grateful, at last, to come back from wandering the city streets one day to find the red light blinking on his answering machine. For a moment before he pressed play, he allowed himself to think, Rafa.
"Roger!" It wasn't Rafa at all, but Andy Roddick. The pleasure at hearing Andy's voice almost outweighed the brief, irrational disappointment he'd felt at the first sound of the familiar voice. "Hey, loved that new movie, even though it didn't have enough me in it, whatever, their loss. Anyway, listen, Brooks and I are in town for a couple of days, how'd you like to catch up over dinner? Been a long time, man. Call me when you get this."
The restaurant they arranged to meet at was not really so much of a restaurant as a steak-house, decked out like a 50's diner with booth seats in bright red car-seat leather and waitresses who wore showy yellow-blonde wigs and red lipstick and circle skirts with poodles at the hem. Roger regretted his dinner jacket. A waitress led him to the booth where Andy and Brooklyn were already tucked in together.
"Hey, Roger!" Andy got up as Roger approached. He caught around Roger in a quick, one-armed hug, slapping Roger's back manfully. "How's it going, man?"
"Not too bad," said Roger, smiling. It was good to see Andy again. "Brooklyn, it's great to see you."
"Hi, Roger," said Brooklyn. She kissed his cheek, smiling. "You look great!”
The meal was good, and as Andy and Brooklyn chattered brightly, trading jokes and banter, Roger remembered what a great couple they were.
Brooklyn got up and went to the bathroom somewhere around the dessert course, and Andy leant closer to Roger over the table, confidential.
“So,” he said. “You and Rafa have a good time, on your visit?”
Roger looked up. “How did you -?”
“I know things,” Andy said, cryptically. "And, okay, listen. Maybe this is none of my business, man, but I'm going to say it anyway. You don't have anything to fucking prove any more, yeah? You're forty-three years old, you're the best player ever. You've got a shitload of money. But you're fucking miserable, man."
"I'm not -" Roger started, but Andy cut him off with, "Look, I'm not your shrink or anything, but I've got eyes in my head. And you and Rafa, that’s like, the greatest love of both of your lives. Roger, that movie was the gayest thing since Brokeback Mountain, and it didn’t even come close to real life. So fucking - just do it, man. Be happy. It's okay. You can have your mid-life crisis and your oh-shit-I'm-gay crisis together, and it'll save you a lot of time."
"Just be happy," he said again. "You deserve it."
“Hey,” said Brooklyn, sliding back into the booth. “What’d I miss?”
"I was just saying that Roger and Rafa Nadal should get married and live happily ever after," said Andy. Roger opened his mouth to protest, but Andy's brazenness had shocked the air out of him.
"Oh," said Brooklyn, unfazed. "That'd be awesome, wouldn't it? You guys are so well suited. Hey, babe, are you going to finish those fries?"
Andy slung his arm around Brooklyn as she slid closer to him, and Roger thought what a great couple they made, still. The sports star and the model - it hadn’t augured well for a lasting marriage. Not like his own marriage: he and Mirka had been together for eight years before they were even married, and then there were the children. A week had separated his and Mirka's and Andy and Brooklyn's weddings. Now more than eight years separated their marriages.
Even recently that might have upset him, but Roger was surprised to find, now, that he was fine. He envied Andy and Brooklyn the steady ease of their relationship, but thinking of himself and Mirka made him feel - nostalgia. He loved Mirka, he always would, as the mother of their children and as a very dear friend, and as an incredible woman. But their marriage was over - it had been over for a long time. Roger found himself thinking about the premiere party, the actress, you should take this off, he remembered her saying, as he smoothed the pad of his index finger over the cool metal of the wedding ring he hadn't yet taken off. Closure. Move on.
Andy and Brooklyn dropped him off at his building, entreating promises to meet up again soon and offering invitations for him to come and stay at their place down in Texas sometime. Roger promised that he would.
The apartment was dark and quiet, and empty. Roger, letting himself in and wandering into the living space without even turning on the lights, found that he hated it. He hated it! There was a kind of release to the realisation, a new sense of freedom. He hated this apartment. He hated the skewed sense of proportion, that this cramped and absurdly expensive set of rooms was considered spacious in this city. He hated the self-conscious minimalism of the decor. He hated the whole place.
It was as if a dam had broken somewhere inside him. He hated this apartment. He wanted to go somewhere else, he wanted to - go to Mallorca. He wanted to go to Rafa. He was in love with Rafa, fuck, yes, he really was, and instead of being in Mallorca with Rafa he was standing here in this stupid apartment he didn’t even like. What the hell was he doing, anyway?
Fuck this, he thought, and went to pack a bag, fishing his cellphone out of his pocket as he went, already scrolling through for the number of the airline before he even had his closet door open.
-
He could have called Rafa to come and pick him up from the airport, but he was freaking out just a little, and the easiest way to deal with that was to split the journey down into small, manageable parts. Step one: leave his apartment in New York. Step two: fly to Mallorca. So far, so easy. Jumping from that to step three: confess love to Rafa seemed enormous. So, step four: drive to Rafa's house. Further subdivided into its component parts (get luggage, rent car, minimise freakout), it was manageable.
He was even on the road before he realised that he didn't have directions to Rafa's house. There was a sat nav built into the car that Roger had rented from the airport rental service, but that was useless when he didn't know Rafa's address, and anyway, when he poked experimentally at him it began to babble instructions in Spanish, a language with which Roger, despite everything, had only the most passing of acquaintances (he would have to remedy that, he thought, if this was going to work, and he wanted it to, God, he did).
Goddamn it.
He eased the car over to the side of the road, and sat there for a long moment, mired in his own stupidity. What the hell was he going to do? Wave down a passing car and somehow make them understand, excuse me, please, could you give me directions to Rafael Nadal's house? If they didn't recognise him, he was going to look crazy. If they did recognise him, well, that was even worse. Fresh out of better ideas, he fished around in his hand luggage for his cellphone: he would have to call Rafa, and ask for directions.
"Roger," Rafa cried, on picking up the phone at last, his delight at hearing Roger's voice making Roger's heart seize. "How are you?"
Roger scraped his hair back from his forehead. It was damp with sweat at the roots. "I'm lost," he said.
There was a pause down the line. "In New York?"
"No," said Roger, steeling himself to go on. "No, not in New York. I'm - Rafa, I'm in Mallorca."
"You are - where? What?"
"I'm in Mallorca," Roger said. "And I'm - lost."
"You are in Mallorca?" Rafa repeated, as though he was trying to convince himself that he'd heard wrong, that there must be another way of interpreting Roger's words.
"Yeah. Listen, this is a long story and I'll tell you all about it when I see you, but I'm parked on the side of the motorway in a rental car because I was trying to get to your house and I kind of forgot that I don't know where your house is."
"Okay," said Rafa. "This is very strange. But. So, do you know where you are at all?"
Roger glanced briefly up and down the stretch of empty road, but there were no signs, nothing. "No. Well, I'm about fifteen minutes outside the airport, if that makes any difference."
There was a brief pause. "You drive for fifteen minutes before you realise you no know where I live?"
Roger suppressed the urge to hit his head against the steering wheel. "It's been a long day," he said, instead. "I've had - some things on my mind."
"Okay, said Rafa. Roger once again admired Rafa's ability to take things in his stride. So the man you were in love with for ten years and recently shared a week of pretty mind-blowing sex who then freaked out and ditched you to fly halfway across the world suddenly calls you up and tells you he's stranded somewhere on a stretch of Mallorcan motorway? Okay, as though it were no problem at all. "Okay," Rafa said again. "So, you are not going to be able to follow directions, no?"
"I have no idea," said Roger, truthfully. "I'm tired and I'm hot and I'm freaking out a little bit. Maybe a lot"
"Okay," Rafa said. "Be calm. Is no problem. I gonna come and get you, okay?"
"Are you sure? What about the rental car?"
"Roger," said Rafa, slowly. "One problem at a time, please?"
-
Rafa wasn't driving the flashy silver car this time, but Roger's stomach still knotted as the little blue car eased gently onto the service lane behind the rental car. It had to be Rafa. Roger’s phone buzzed on the dashboard, and he grabbed for it.
"Hello?"
"You are green Ford, right?" came Rafa's voice.
"Hi, blue Kia," Roger said. He leaned around the driver's seat and gave Rafa a wave. Rafa waved back, saying hi into Roger's ear at the same time, which was slightly weird.
"Hi," Rafa said again. "I should have known there could not be two people who could manage to get lost in Mallorca on the same day."
"Hey," said Roger. "This is weird."
"I will hang up and come see you now," said Rafa. "Bye."
"Bye," said Roger, stupidly, and flipped the phone shut, tossing it back into his hand luggage. His heart was beating double-time already as he glanced up at the rear-view mirror and saw Rafa get out of his own car and start walking towards Roger's. He was wearing beach shorts and a t-shirt and his hair was damp, as if he'd been at the beach when Roger had called, and even in the medium of the tiny mirror he looked impossibly good.
The passenger door opened and Rafa slid into the car. "Hi," he said, taking off his sunglasses and tossing them carelessly onto the dashboard.
"Hi," said Roger. He was, for some reason, still gripping the steering wheel, as though anchoring himself in place. As though that would steady his racing nerves.
Rafa looked at Roger, his expression soft and serious at the same time. "Roger," he said. "Why are you here? In Mallorca, I mean."
"I -" The words were stuck in Roger's throat. I'm here because I want you. I'm here because I love you. I need you. Please say you still want me. "I came here for you," he said at last, which wasn't right, wasn't even close to what he was trying to say.
"I thought a lot," he tried again, "while I was in New York. I thought about you a lot and I thought about - about us, and what I really want. And I think what I want is - you. Rafa."
"Roger," Rafa said, softly.
"No, listen. I didn't know what I wanted, when I was here before. And everything was so fast and so confusing, you know. I hadn't ever even been with a man before you. It was a lot to deal with, you know?"
"I didn't mean to -"
"I know, I know. I'm not blaming you for anything, it was me being stupid and - maybe still caught up with the divorce and Mirka and - everything like that. But I'm telling you that I've thought about this and you're what I want, Rafa. Just - you."
"Roger," said Rafa. "Stop."
They sat together in silence for a long moment, while Roger tried to parse the expression on Rafa's face. Rafa stared at him, seeming to take him all in, from the tips of his fingers still gripping the goddamn steering wheel to his expression, as though trying to read sincerity in his features. And then back down to his hands - because he’d taken the wedding ring off, only a thin strip of untanned skin showing where it had been.
"I think I’m in love with you, Rafa," Roger said, at last.
"Roger," said Rafa, low and nearly breathless, through a half-smile, and Roger knew, he knew, right then, that things were going to be okay.
"I'm not old," said Roger, "but I'm not young either. I'm not looking for a - for a summer fling, or anything like that. And it’s going to be complicated," he warned. “I’m not - I don’t come as just me, any more.”
Rafa shook his head. "You worry too much," he said, catching Roger’s hand as it dropped from the steering wheel at last to slip his fingers through Roger's to lace them together, palm to palm, and then he brought their joined hands up to his mouth, pressing his lips against the back of Roger's hand, and Roger really was far too old for that fluttering sensation in his stomach, the silly schoolboy rush of sheer joy.
"Look," Rafa said, showing Roger their joined hands, suspended surreally over the gearstick of the stupid rental car. "We fit just right, no? Everything else, that comes next."
"Rafa," Roger said, after a moment. "I think I'm going to kiss you."
"Oh?" said Rafa.
Roger felt the smile creep slowly across his features, bright and wide, as fierce as the enormous, ridiculous brightness in his chest, threatening to split him wide open with joy. "Yeah."
"Well," said Rafa, smiling. "Well, I guess that would be okay."
-
It was the height of the tourist season, and Palma airport was crowded with tourists: harassed parents herding small, shrieking children, couples arguing, groups of men and women. Roger once again missed the ease of the private jet. Half-a-dozen people had already asked for his autograph by the time he'd reclaimed his baggage, and he'd scribbled his signature on several more hastily produced scraps of paper and boarding card stubs by the time he emerged into arrivals and found Rafa waiting for him, standing at the edge of a crowd of waiting people and craning his neck to scan the incoming travellers. A grin spread wide and bright across his face as he spotted Roger at last, his delight obvious, and Roger ducked his head to hide an answering grin.
"Roger!" Rafa caught around him in a quick hug as he approached. "You are here!"
"Here I am," said Roger, feeling bright despite the long flight and the accumulated jetlag that was bound to hit any time now.
"Here, let me," Rafa said, taking one of Roger's bags and swinging it up over his shoulder easily, leading the way through the crowds. More people came up to them, asking for autographs and pictures, which Rafa granted, never seeming tired of the requests or irritated by the intrusion. If the fans were Spanish, he chatted to them briefly, always smiling.
At last, they made it outside into the heat of the day. The heat was different to that of Dubai, more humid, less coarse. Roger’s shirt had already begun sticking to his back with perspiration as Rafa led him through the car park. Roger didn't know much about cars, but he knew beauty, and Rafa's car - silver, elegant, all sleek lines - was beautiful. Roger had to laugh; this was not a subtle car.
"No Kia?" he teased.
"Kia is at home," Rafa said, smiling. "Kia is car for every day, no? This car is for special occasions."
Roger laughed. "I'm a special occasion?"
"Of course," said Rafa. "Here, give me -" He took Roger's bags, fitting them into the small luggage space behind the front seats of the car, barely.
Inside, the car was all the same understated, expensive elegance. Leather seats and wood-trimmed instruments. Rafa flicked a switch and the car began to gently and quietly circulate cool air, to the perfect temperature.
"Now you're just showing off," said Roger.
"Maybe a little," Rafa said, smiling.
Roger had never been in a car with Rafa before, and so didn't know what to expect from Rafa's driving. Maybe a little more speed than necessary, and big exuberant sweeps of the wheel. But Rafa was a careful driver, almost textbook-perfect, despite the fact that the roads were almost empty, particularly as they left the motorway and began to drive along smaller back roads and by-roads, winding their way through the countryside. Roger looked out of the window, watching the wide expanses of baked Mallorcan landscape. It was a beautiful country, one he wished he knew more of - he’d been to the island only twice before, and only one of those times with Rafa: that infamous Battle of the Surfaces.
Roger smiled to himself, remembering the short time they’d spent together for that match - not just the match itself, with its ridiculous patchwork court, but the time spent with Rafa. Rafa in his native habitat, this island that he loved so fiercely, showing it off with shy pride and obvious devotion. There had been fishing trips and dinners of Mallorcan seafood at beautiful restaurants, as though Rafa had been determined for Roger to love the island as much as Rafa himself.
Rafa's amused voice broke through his distraction. "Why are you smiling?"
"Hm?” Roger turned to find Rafa shooting quick glances at him, eyebrows quirked. Rafa always had talked nearly as much with those eyebrows as with words. “Oh. I was thinking about the last time I was in Mallorca with you. You remember?"
"The Battle of the Surfaces, no?" Rafa laughed, fondly. "That was a good time.”
“Yeah,” said Roger. “You know, I don’t think anybody’s done that since us.”
“Well,” said Rafa, half-shrugging as much as steering would allow, “there is nobody now who is like us.”
-
Rafa's house was secluded and beautiful, its white walls and terracotta roof vivid against the blue of the sky and the lush greenery surrounding the house, the colours even more startling after the ochre sweep of the dry Mallorcan countryside.
"Wow," said Roger, eloquently, as Rafa eased the car along the gravelled driveway.
Rafa glanced sideways at Roger as he brought the car to a stop. "You like?"
"Very much," said Roger. "This is beautiful, Rafa."
"Thank you," Rafa said, smiling warmly, as though the compliment to his house was a compliment to himself. “It is a finca,” he explained, as Roger stepped out of the cool climate-controlled car into the enveloping heat of the afternoon. “That is a traditional Mallorcan farmhouse. Updated, of course,” he added, with a wry smile over at Roger.
He insisted on carrying Roger's bags into the house himself, the perfect host. Inside, the house was cool and quiet, the entrance hall tiled in homely red and the walls airy white; high-ceilinged and spacious. It was, Roger thought, looking around, very Rafa, somehow.
"I show you around if you like. But first we take your bags to your bedroom," Rafa said, leading Roger upstairs, where the corridor was washed with light from the open doors along the hallway.
"This is your room," said Rafa, gesturing for Roger to follow him inside. "Is maybe a little small, but - is okay?"
"It's beautiful," Roger said, truthfully, looking around at the sun-washed walls. "Really, Rafa," he said, trailing fingertips over the quilted coverlet on the bed; it looked handmade. "This is beautiful."
"The view is good from here," Rafa said, still sounding apologetic. "I thought you would like to see the sea, no? Come look."
Roger went, and Rafa pushed open the window so that Roger could get a better view. Hot air rolled against his face as he approached, heavy with the scent of flowers from Rafa's garden, and the faint salt of the sea glittering in the sunlight not far off. Roger leaned out further to catch a glimpse of the grounds of Rafa's house; he caught a terraced area, and the turquoise rectangle of a swimming pool.
"No tennis courts?" he teased, turning back to Rafa with a smile.
Rafa laughed. "No tennis courts," he said. “You cannot play tennis alone, and who I gonna play with out here? We go into town one day, if you like. Play a match. Like old times."
"Like old times," Roger said. "A little slower, maybe."
"Speak for yourself," said Rafa, laughing. "Come, see the rest of the house."
-
"The beach is only five minutes away," said Rafa as they walked through the gardens after the grand tour of the house was done. Rafa’s private beach wasn’t visible from the gardens, only the glittering blue far out where the sea met the sky, but Rafa pointed the way down a shaded track which curved downwards out of view. “You must be tired now. Maybe later I take you to see, or tomorrow.”
Roger turned his face into the sun, relishing the heat of the afternoon. The heaviness of travel exhaustion was starting to ease into his body, but the tiredness only made him feel drowsy and loose-limbed, utterly relaxed.
"This is beautiful, Rafa," said Roger, sinking down onto a low wall of sun-warmed stone bordering a flowerbed heady with scented blossoms. "It's so peaceful."
"Peace," Rafa echoed, standing where his shadow blocked the sun from Roger’s eyes, so that he was haloed in gold. "Yes. I like the quiet, is so different to live at home, or on the tour. I have to learn to be on my own, for the first time, no?"
Roger nodded. "Was it hard?”
"Yes," said Rafa. "But nice, too, no? On the tour I am never alone. All my life, with the family, with the coaches, with the players. Now is just me."
“Just you," said Roger. “You don't get lonely?"
Rafa shrugged, turning a little to look out at the horizon. "Sometime, for sure. But my family are not far. And I have friends," he said, turning back with a smile. "I like to have friends at my house."
“You invite all your old rivals to come stay here?” Roger joked.
Rafa huffed a little breath of laughter. “My friends from Mallorca come here sometime. Some friends from the tour. Feli and Nando." Feli and Nando. There was something about the way Rafa said their names - as though they fit together, as though they ran together naturally.
It was just a feeling, but - "Rafa, are they -"
"Si, Roger," said Rafa, smiling at Roger's discomfort. "They are together."
"Oh," said Roger. He shuffled a little awkwardly on the wall, looking down at the stone patio tile under his feet. "Were they, you know, always -?"
"Mostly," said Rafa. "Sometimes yes, sometimes not. Was hard for them, you know, to be together, and on tour. They have always to hide."
"They could have -" Roger broke off. He knew how the publicity game worked. Sponsors, endorsements - sport was a cruel world. “That must have been tough for them.”
“For sure,” Rafa said. There was a strange, half-wistful tone to his voice that made Roger glance up curiously, but Rafa had turned to look out to sea, shading his eyes from the sun with one hand.
-
"You know, there is a tennis club in Porto Cristo," Rafa said, the next morning, when they were sat eating breakfast together in the shade of the back terrace, watching the sunlight creep across the stones as the sun climbed. It was already hot. "Been a long time, no?"
"Long time," Roger echoed. He took a sip of orange juice, stalling for time. He hadn't played tennis in months, and it had been so much longer still since he'd played Rafa. Their last competitive match had been nearly thirteen years ago.
Rafa smirked. "Think you can take me on?"
Roger chuckled. "You know, I didn't bring a racket."
"I have rackets,” Rafa pressed.
Roger wrinkled his nose. "Your rackets?”
“My rackets,” said Rafa, with a theatrical eye-roll. “I have a Wilson, too. I think maybe you give it to me long time ago, but when I know you are coming, I have it restrung for you.
“You really always get what you want, don’t you,” said Roger, leaning back in his chair with a smile. He’d slept incredibly well, the faint sound of the sea in the distance as soothing as a lullaby, and woken to the gold morning light feeling rested and bright, better than he had for a long time.
“Almost always,” Rafa said, flashing a bright, predatory grin.
-
Rafa had called ahead and the court they found themselves on was tucked away at the edge of the Porto Cristo tennis complex. Roger was grateful for that - the last thing he wanted was an audience. The court was blue American-style hardcourt.
"No competition if we play on clay," Rafa said, smirking, as they arranged their gear on a pair of chairs at the net, next to the empty umpire's stand.
"Hey," Roger protested, shoving at Rafa's shoulder. "I won the French. I beat you on clay plenty of times."
"Roger," Rafa said, "four times is not plenty. You never beat me at the French, no?"
"I could have."
"Oh, for sure," said Rafa, with gentle sarcasm.
"Hey," said Roger. "You know you're talking to the greatest tennis player ever, right?"
"For sure," Rafa said, as he led the way onto the tennis court. He shot a glance back over his shoulder, adding, "But not on clay."
"Okay," Rafa said when they were ready. "You pick heads or tails?"
"Heads," said Roger. Rafa flipped the coin and caught it, clapping it to the back of his hand before he peeked.
"Is tails," he said, grinning triumphantly. "I receive."
"Alright. Good luck."
"You too," said Rafa, as he turned away. "You gonna need it, no?"
Roger hadn't played tennis for months; it had just gotten away from him, the same way that a lot of other things had, too. As well as Rafa, he’d fallen out of touch with a lot of people from the tour, and it was hard to get amateurs to play with when you were Roger Federer - there weren't many people who wanted to take their chances against a guy with seventeen Grand Slam titles, even if he was past forty. But Rafa had never been afraid of him, Roger thought, glancing up from the baseline at the old familiar sight of Rafael Nadal crouched at the opposite end of the court. He still cut a fierce figure on the court, his focused intensity palpable even from this distance, as it always had been. Some things never changed, and Roger was more grateful for that than he’d realised.
Every game of tennis was different. Conditions of the court, the balls, the weather; the physical and mental state of the players. The tension of a racket string, the fit of a set of clothes or shoes. Those variables were part of what made tennis so beautiful, so infinitely and endlessly fascinating - tennis wasn't a game that could be played on paper, or pared down to one set of statistics against another. Head-to-head could never predict the outcome of a match because there wasn’t a professional tennis player in the world who didn’t walk out onto the court thinking that he could beat the person on the other side of the net. Rafa might have retained the old head-to-head advantage on Roger, but Roger had never walked out to face him thinking that he was going to lose. History made for a richer story, but that was after the fact. It was, he thought, something that the film hadn’t caught - could never have caught - because it was impossible to understand the way a match, or even a career, balanced on the delicate knife-edge of infinite possibilities unless you were the one performing the balancing act.
Even though no match of tennis could ever be replicated exactly, Roger couldn’t help but feel the echoes of old matches - shades of their early meetings in an energetic passing shot, a return shot too low into the net that recalled the terrible frustration of the times when it had felt as though he was never going to get through Rafa, as though he had nothing else to throw at him.
It was second-nature to keep tally of a tennis score, as easy as breathing: he took the first set 6-4, breaking in the third game when Rafa's serve went AWOL for a couple of points, double-faulting the game to Roger. The sun beat down fiercely, and sweat stung at his eyes - he swiped at it absently. Rafa managed to fight back in the second set to take it 7-5 at last, evening the score out. At the change of ends he took short sips of his water, and then replaced the bottles just-so, adjusting their position minutely.
Roger laughed. "You still do that?"
"Stop trying to distract me," said Rafa, making a face at Roger, and Roger laughed, feeling light and free, despite the ache in his arms and legs.
Rafa had always had that uncanny ability to turn up the dial of his own intensity - a focusing of his energies, a narrowing of his concentration. Roger had missed this, the ferocity of Rafa's full and unrelenting effort, the sense that the person on the other side of the net was not just trying their best to keep up with you, but to beat you, to make you lose: to win. Rafa broke at 2-1 in the last set, and managed to retain the break. At 5-4 and advantage to Rafa on serve, a passing shot just barely grazed the head of Roger's racket and caught the line just as he turned his head to watch it go by. In a professional match he might have resorted to Hawkeye, but he was happy to have lost. The exhilaration of effort, of not holding back - he felt alive.
"I guess you win," Roger said, smiling as he made his way to the net to meet Rafa, who was jogging up to meet him. His body ached with effort and he felt a sharp twinge in his lower back, and he was panting a little, but fuck, he'd missed this, this sparkle of adrenaline through his limbs and the elation piercing through the exhaustion. Rafa shook his hair out of his eyes, and they grinned at each other, sharing the moment. He reached out to clasp Roger’s hand in a strong grip, pulling Roger closer so that they could hug at the net, leaning into each other companionably. The back of Rafa's shirt was soaked through with sweat under Roger's arm, hair curling in damp strands at the nape of his neck. He tipped his head to rest his temple against Roger's, and they could have been anywhere, any time, any one of the matches they played during their careers.
"I missed this," Rafa said, low.
Roger shut his eyes, breathing in. "Me too."
"Was never the same, after you," Rafa said. "Never the same."
Roger tightened his arm around Rafa and Rafa turned in his grasp, fitting them together in a full hug, separated only by the net. It was strange and good and Roger buried his face in the crook of Rafa's neck, heat and salt-taste, and held on as though he were drowning.
-
"Is a beautiful night," said Rafa, staring up at the wide expanse of sky with its small scatter of stars, all but the brightest blocked out by the light of the fire.
"It is," said Roger, truthfully. They’d spent most of the day sprawled out on the beach, relaxing after the exertions of the match. When the sun had started to ease lower down into the sea, Rafa had gone back up to the house and brought down a picnic, and they’d watched the sun set, and in the half-dark Rafa had built a fire out of driftwood scraps.
The night was warm but not uncomfortably so, and the light from the small fire cast a glow across the sand and the brightness of the full moon was on the water, making the night all silver and gold. Further along the coast Porto Cristo was a cluster of lights, but the night was silent except for the crackle of the fire and the steady, rhythmic hush hush of the waves on the shore. The calm washed into Roger like the tide, easing into him until he was boneless with it, heavy-lidded and content and limp on the sand.
Rafa cleared his throat, suddenly. "You ever go skinny-dipping, Roger?"
Roger barked out a startled gasp of laughter. "What? No!"
Rafa rolled over onto his stomach, looking more like a teenager than a thirty-eight year old. He shook hair from his eyes with a quick movement. "Seriously? You never?"
"No!"
"But this is terrible!" Rafa lifted himself up so that he was kneeling on the sand, staring at Roger. "Well," he said, "is a beautiful night, no?"
"What? Rafa - no! No way!"
"Roger, you cannot go forever without doing this. Is like - well, you find out now. Come on." Rafa got to his feet, stripping off his t-shirt in one fluid motion. He tossed it onto the sand, then held out his hand to pull Roger up with him.
"No, Rafa," Roger said, shaking his head. "No. Seriously. I'm not doing this!"
"You are," Rafa said, stubbornly. He gestured with the outstretched hand and Roger rolled his eyes and grabbed it, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet.
"I'm not going skinny-dipping, Rafa," he said, but Rafa was already pulling him away from the comfort of the fireside and towards the water, Roger's hand caught in his strong, warm palm.
"I no gonna take no for an answer," Rafa said, and they were halfway to the sea by the time that Roger managed to worm his way out of Rafa's strong grip. "You gonna have fun, Roger!"
"I'm forty-three years old!" Roger shouted, laughing.
"No!" Rafa shouted back from the water's edge. "Here you are - nineteen!"
"That makes you fourteen! That makes this weird. Weirder!"
Rafa laughed out loud and swore in Spanish, kicking up a spray of seawater in a glittering arc as the tide lapped up to his ankles. "You are forty-three, then! You are forty-three, I am thirty-eight, the night is warm and the water is beautiful, and is just me and you, Roger. Nobody is watching us. Don't be afraid."
"I'm not afraid," Roger said, and then, louder, to be heard over the background noise of the waves, "I'm not afraid!"
"So come," Rafa called back. While Roger watched, he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and shoved them down, underwear and all, in one smooth, elegant movement. Roger fought the urge to look down and away. He'd seen Rafa naked a hundred times and more - there was no such thing as modesty in the locker room - but this was different, somehow. This wasn't the tour - this was Rafa's private beach, and Rafa's body glistening in the firelight and the moonlight.
Rafa tossed his clothes up the beach out of the way of the encroaching tide, and they landed on the sand in front of Roger like a gauntlet laid down.
"Come, Roger," Rafa said, grinning. Roger hesitated a moment more, and Rafa turned and started splashing boyishly into the water, laughing and gasping as he went, until he was waist high in the surf, the shape of his body outlined in silver. "The water is very nice," Rafa shouted back.
"Fine," Roger called. "Fine!" He stripped his t-shirt up over his head quickly, and shed the rest of his clothes before he could think better of it. Out in the sea, Rafa whooped and splashed noisily in victory.
The water that surged up to meet Roger as he neared the edge of the sea was warmer than Roger had expected, and he waded in further. He fought the urge to cover his penis with his hands - Rafa hadn't been shy, so obviously he didn't think it was a thing - but it felt like a thing, he couldn’t shake that - instead, he ducked down into the water as soon as it was deep enough.
Rafa had ducked down into the water, too, crouching far enough that the water brushed the ends of his hair. "It's good, no?"
"It's good," Roger admitted, and Rafa laughed, and splashed him, and Roger splashed back, and then it was on. The splash-fight that ensued was epic, great plumes of water arcing up through the air, salt stinging in Roger's eyes and choking in the back of his throat as Rafa caught him full in the face with a double-handful of water, and Roger retaliated by making his hands into scoops and flapping water back at Rafa, so that Rafa turned and dived, disappearing for long moments under the water into the darkness until he surfaced, further out, laughing and coughing at the same time.
"Truce," he called, as Roger swam further out to meet him. He was treading water - the sandy bottom of the sea was just out of reach of their toes. "There are little fish here," he said, as Roger approached. Sure enough, Roger felt the small darting whispers of movement against his legs as he began to tread water.
"Do they bite?" He wasn't afraid, but it was an unpleasant feeling.
"No. Kick at them, and they will stay away."
It was incredibly peaceful, Roger thought. The warm water seemed to hold him, made him buoyant, so that he had only to brush his arms through the water and kick out gently to keep afloat. He broke the surface of the water with his fingertips; he loved the sound. Even the feel of the water against his bare body was exhilarating - it was so different, without swimming trunks.
"Beautiful," he said, in a whisper; it seemed wrong to disturb the peace of the moment.
"Yes," said Rafa.
Their hands brushed together just beneath the surface of the water. Roger was aware, suddenly, of their bodies - naked, and in such close proximity. He murmured an apology. But their hands brushed together again a moment later, and the contact sent a strange and unexpected shiver through Roger's body. Their fingers brushed again, and this time, tangled. Roger looked at Rafa. Rafa’s face was serious, and - beautiful, in the moonlight.
"This is okay?" he said. He swiped his thumb over Roger's palm, and Roger swallowed.
"This is - this is okay," Roger said. It was mostly true: his stomach was in knots, half with anxiety and half with a strange excitement.
"I didn’t know -"
"Yeah, me neither," said Roger, ending on a half-laugh of panic and exhilaration.
Rafa drew closer, so that their gently kicking feet brushed together under the water, the brief contact thrilling. "I want to kiss you," he said. "Is okay?"
Roger caught his breath, watching Rafa's face in the moonlight. Rafa's eyes kept flicking down to his lips, and back again. Everywhere they touched was a point of blazing heat even in the warm water. "It's okay."
Rafa reached out with his free hand, brushing Roger's cheek with reverent fingertips before cupping the base of his skull as he drew them closer together, so that it wasn't just their feet that brushed together under the water any more: shins and knees bumping together, their legs tangling, and Roger was aware again of their nudity. His breath was coming in sharp, shallow pants. With their hands tangled and Rafa’s left hand cupping Roger’s cheek, only the increasingly erratic sweeps of Roger's right hand and their kicking legs were keeping them afloat. Roger could hardly concentrate on breathing, let alone keeping the two of them above water.
"Is okay," Rafa said, more statement this time than question, and he was close now, close enough that Roger could see the drops of seawater beaded to his lashes - Roger's stomach flipped - and then Rafa closed the gap between them, pressing his lips to Roger's, gently, so gently. Rafa tasted of salt water, but the kiss wasn’t unpleasant. It wasn't unpleasant at all - and Roger found himself kissing back, bringing his right hand up to trace the strong line of Rafa's jaw and - they sank underneath the surface, and instead of a kiss Roger got a mouthful of seawater. Panicked for a moment, he kicked back to the surface, spluttering. Rafa was coughing and laughing, shaking strands of wet hair out of his eyes like a dog. Their hands were still tangled together.
"I think this is the wrong place, no?" he said, laughing. "Come on," he added, releasing Roger's hand so that they could swim back to shore together.
On dry land again, they were strangely shy of each other. Roger didn't dare glance at Rafa's bare body as they emerged from the sea, but their fingers brushed together as he handed Rafa his discarded shorts in a way that wasn't exactly unintentional, and lingered too long to be innocent.
They cleared up quickly, Rafa extinguishing the fire with sand while Roger gathered up the blankets and the cooler of undrunk beer - he felt drunk enough on this - this night - the heady thrill of night swimming and the glow of lust uncurling in his belly. The walk back to the house passed almost in a blur of brief, almost unintentional touches - Rafa's fingers brushing against his, the occasional warm press of their bare arms, still damp from the ocean.
"Leave this stuff here," Rafa said, as he let them back into the dark, quiet house. His voice was soft, low, as though he was afraid of breaking the spell of the moment. Roger dutifully piled the sandy towels and blankets and dumped the cooler by the back door, careless with nerves.
"Come," said Rafa, reaching out to take Roger by the wrist, and Roger let himself be drawn through the house, up the stairs. As they passed the guest bedroom, he had a last lucid moment of indecision - he could say stop, here, he could say, I'm sorry - I can't. Rafa would let him go, and Roger could spend the night lying in his bed, wide awake, thinking what if? In the morning things might be awkward between them - or they would pretend this night had never happened - or they would exchange amused, embarrassed grins over breakfast and, in years to come, sometimes talk about that crazy night that they had almost-not-quite, knowing that the danger of the moment had passed. This was a one-time thing, Roger knew. There was no turning back, either now or later, whatever happened.
So Roger let Rafa draw him on, past the last-chance of the guest bedroom, on to his own room. He paused at the door. "You are sure?" he whispered, letting go of Roger's wrist to rest his fingertips at Roger's waist, tentative and gentle. No push or pull any more, just being there, letting the offer stand between them. "You still can say no. You are sure?"
Roger took a deep breath, swallowed. "I'm sure," he said, pressing Rafa's fingers where they rested. "I want this. I want you. I want you to - fuck me," he said, and felt himself flush hot across his cheekbones. Saying it out loud made it real.
In the dim light he saw Rafa's smile. "Okay," he said. "Come, then."
So Roger went.
-
When he woke, the sun was fully up, slanting golden across the foot of the bed, and for a second Roger didn't know where he was. He lay very still, remembering. The sound of the sea brought back with it all the memories of the night before - the beach, the fire and the moon and the dark sea. The taste of sea-salt and salt sweat and Rafa’s skin. The heat of their bodies together.
Roger shifted in bed. Rafa lay beside him, the smooth expanse of his back burnished by the morning light, the sound of his breathing layered with the rhythmic sound of the tide on the beach. His hair was across the pillow, stiff with salt now. Roger's skin felt grimy with dried salt and sweat, and his muscles ached - a good ache, though, thought Roger, with a smile.
He couldn't help himself. He reached out and trailed his fingertips across the irresistible expanse of bare skin, following the curve of Rafa’s spine downwards. Rafa made a snuffling, sleepy noise of protest. Roger grinned and did it again, feeling light-hearted and silly.
"Mmph," said Rafa, struggling slowly to come fully awake. "Roger?"
"Still here," said Roger. Rafa shifted, turning over so that he could face Roger. "Hi."
"Hi," said Rafa, blinking, as though he couldn't quite believe that Roger was really there, in his bed. "Hello," he said again, a slow smile spreading across his face as he realised that he wasn't dreaming, and his joy was so infectious that Roger leaned forward and kissed him, tasting the faint residue of salt there.
"Mm. Good morning," Rafa said as Roger pulled back, the emphasis making Roger laugh. He felt, for the first time in a long time, completely happy, completely at ease. He buried his face in the soft skin at Rafa's neck, tasting salt again as he pressed his lips to the place where the pulse pounded against Rafa's skin, living and vital.
-
“So this was your plan, then,” Roger said, sitting at the pool’s edge with his legs trailing in the water to mid-calf, watching Rafa lazily swim lengths. “You get me out here to your house in the middle of nowhere and then you seduce me.”
Rafa snorted. “You no need a lot of seducing, if I remember,” he called back from the far end of the pool. He dived underneath the water, kicking off powerfully from the poolside, his tanned body arrowing through the water. He wasn't wearing any swimming shorts. He surfaced near to Roger's legs, gasping as he broke the surface. His hair was sluiced back from his face, and the bare planes of his face seemed younger, impossibly beautiful, and Roger wanted him more than was reasonable - if reason came into it at all. The water was shallow, lapping at his chest, and he curled his hands around Roger's ankles, grinning.
“Don’t you dare,” Roger warned, feeling Rafa’s grip tighten, watching his grin spread wider. “Don’t you -“ but Rafa just laughed and pulled, and Roger was crashing down through the surface into the brilliant water, and Rafa was there, and his hands were on Roger, and it was overwhelming.
-
The days passed in a haze, dreamlike; lazy days when the sun was high and hot by the time they managed to extricate themselves from the bed and each other. Days of golden afternoons melting into dark, languid nights. Colours blurring into each other, the vivid jewel-blue of the sea and the golden sand, and stark white sheets pooling against bronze-tanned skin, outlined in silver in the dark of the night as Roger lay awake, watching Rafa’s chest rise and fall slowly, as steady and rhythmic as the faint sound of the tide carried on the breeze coming through the open window, thinking to himself, nothing, nothing could be this good.
-
They spent the night before Roger had to leave Mallorca crashed out on the beach, sprawled lazily together on the sand near the fire-pit, drinking beer and talking together. Rafa's shoulder pressed warm against Roger's.
"I don't want to leave," Roger said, meaning I don't want to leave you.
"So don't," said Rafa, leaning closer against Roger's body. "Stay."
"I can't." Roger picked idly with a fingernail at the label of his beer bottle. "I have to go back to New York, tomorrow. There’s the girls, and Mirka. I have to be there, to see them."
Rafa nodded faintly. "I know."
The fire crackled, the waves beat against the shore. Far out in the darkness, the tiny bright light of a passing boat inched across the horizon. Roger watched it go.
"What will happen," Rafa said, at last, "with you and me?"
Roger took a long drink from his bottle, stalling for time. He had been dreading this. "It's - complicated," he said. "It's - it's not just you and me I have to consider, you know?"
"I know," Rafa said.
"It's not that I don't want this," Roger said, touching Rafa's thigh, curling his fingertips underneath the thin beach shorts to the soft skin underneath. "But the girls. I don't want them to be uncomfortable."
"I know."
"I don't want to hurt you."
"I know," Rafa said, his tone saying plainly, but you are.
-
On the morning of Roger's flight, the atmosphere in the house was strange, quiet. There was no tension between them, but the coming goodbyes were almost palpable in the air between them - they were there in every lingering touch, in the press of their bodies as they made love in the shower in the morning, and as they brushed against each other accidentally a dozen or more times as Rafa helped Roger to pack, as they made breakfast together in the kitchen that might have held half-a-dozen cooks comfortably. Rafa's hand rested at the small of Roger's back as they walked through the house and out, to the car sitting in the driveway.
They drove to the airport in near-silence. Roger wouldn't have known how to say the things he wanted to, even if he had been able to fully form what those things were. The things he wanted seemed nebulous, half-formed, floating somewhere just out of his reach. Rafa kept his eyes ahead, as though he were concentrating his full attention on the road, although it was a Sunday and the roads were nearly empty. The silence seemed to take shape between them, becoming a physical presence, and by the time Rafa pulled into the parking area of the airport and slid the car smoothly into a space, the tension had become palpable, and Roger's stomach twisted as they both got out of the car.
"Don't come inside with me," said Roger, hefting his bags out of the Kia's sizeable luggage compartment. The words caught in his throat, although he’d been planning them since they’d left the house.
Rafa's dark glasses masked his expression, and Roger was grateful for that. He didn't want to see Rafa hurt, ever.
"Okay," Rafa said. "If you want."
"Yeah," said Roger, swinging a bag over his shoulder.
"You call, yes, when you are in New York?"
"Of course," Roger said. "Of course I will."
"Okay."
"I don't - I don't want this to be awkward, you know." Roger shifted uncomfortably. This was the part where, if they were normal people, they might kiss goodbye. He wanted to kiss Rafa - he wanted that badly - he just didn't know how good an idea that would be, now.
"Is not," said Rafa, shaking his head. "Just. Call me, when you get to New York, yes?"
"Of course." Roger didn't know how to say goodbye. "I should go now."
"Okay." Rafa stepped forward, and for a moment Roger was afraid that Rafa was about to kiss him, and his stomach knotted. But all Rafa did was to hold out his hand, for Roger to shake, and that was worse. After everything that had happened between them, shaking hands felt almost like a betrayal. Roger found himself gripping Rafa's hand too tight and too long, and Rafa put his free hand over Roger's, trapping their clasped hands together for a long moment. His expression was inscrutable behind the dark glasses. Roger guessed that was mostly the point.
"Bye, Roger," said Rafa, his voice tight and carefully controlled as he released Roger's hand and stepped firmly back.
Roger took a deep breath. "Okay. Bye."
-
The flight back was twelve hours long. He watched two mostly mediocre romantic comedies and a truly terrible action movie, but the explosions kept him awake, at least. He read the in-flight magazine cover to cover four times, lingering over the brief review of Strokes of Genius that called a masterpiece. There was a picture of Tom and Carlos in tennis whites at the net, and then, underneath that, the picture of Roger and Rafa that the actors were recreating. He stared at it for a long time.
In New York in the cab home, he pulled out his phone, switched it on. One new message, from Rafa: i miss you already. It should have been stupid and sappy and ridiculous, and it was, sort of, but it made Roger ache, nearly, with missing Rafa. Rafa, stretched out lazily across the sheets, all tanned skin and easy smile. Rafa on the beach; Rafa cooking dinner for them both in the kitchen of his house; Rafa on the tennis court shaking the sweat-damp strands of his hair away from his eyes, grinning brightly. Rafa at the hotel that night, with his bowtie unbuttoned and his shirtsleeves pushed up to the elbow, effortlessly sexy. Rafa slick with sweat and panting, shaking his hair as he jogged up to the net at their last match together on the tour, Roger's last Slam. Rafa, Rafa, Rafa. Roger pressed the heel of his hands against his eyes hard enough to see bright splashes of colour staining the darkness. He just needed to think. He just needed time.
-
“Daddy!” Myla’s face lit up as Roger walked into the breakfast room at Mirka’s house, and this, he thought, as she threw her arms around him, this was worth coming back for. This he could never give up. Charlene hovered a little way behind, affecting hip teenage apathy, but her hug felt sincere enough, and she softened enough to even smile as she rooted through the bag of presents he presented them both with a flourish and came up with a signed photograph of Carlos Castro.
“This is so cool,” she said, murmuring to her sister, “he’s so hot, isn’t he, oh my God.”
Not as good as the real thing, Roger thought, automatically appalled at himself.
“Oh, Roger, you shouldn’t have,” said Mirka, running her fingers gently over the beaded necklace he’d bought her one day in Porto Cristo. He still liked to buy her gifts, and the vivid blue of the glass beads had reminded him of the sea and the sky. “But it’s gorgeous, thank you.”
“So,” she said, pouring them both a cup of strong black coffee in the kitchen while the girls exclaimed over their presents in the breakfast room. “You had a good time, then, in Mallorca?”
“I really did,” said Roger, leaning back against the marble countertop while Mirka bustled around the kitchen. It was a strangely domestic scene - one that might almost have come straight from their marriage. “It was - relaxing,” he said, picking a word that was both truthful and ambiguous. He’d called her twice while he was there, always alone in the little guest bedroom, even when it had become only a place to store his clothes, as if he’d thought that Rafa and Mirka and the girls had to be kept apart.
“You sounded happy, when you called,” Mirka said. She paused, and glanced at him. “You know, I don’t think I’d heard you that happy for the longest time.”
Roger shifted, glancing down at his coffee-mug, the one that the girls had bought him, that said ‘#1 Dad’ on the side in bright red lettering. He missed Rafa.
Mirka reached out and put her hand on Roger’s wrist, gently. He looked at her soft familiar hand for a moment, then met her fond, half-worried gaze. “You know we love you, right?” she said. “We just want you to be happy, Roger.”
Roger swallowed, forcing away a sudden tightness in his throat. “I’m happy,” he said.
-
Though New York was living and hectic - the city that Roger and Mirka had fallen in love with - he was unaccountably, achingly lonely in it. His apartment, which had seemed so much like a calm oasis in the centre of New York's bustle and noise, was silent except when the girls were visiting, and had the same too-clean, too-tidy look of a show-home that had driven him out of the Dubai apartment to Mallorca in the first place. He found himself drifting awkwardly from room to room, stranded on deserts of pale, empty carpet. He felt as though he were a stranger in his own home. He wrote long, meandering emails to Rafa. Some of them, he even sent.
So he was grateful, at last, to come back from wandering the city streets one day to find the red light blinking on his answering machine. For a moment before he pressed play, he allowed himself to think, Rafa.
"Roger!" It wasn't Rafa at all, but Andy Roddick. The pleasure at hearing Andy's voice almost outweighed the brief, irrational disappointment he'd felt at the first sound of the familiar voice. "Hey, loved that new movie, even though it didn't have enough me in it, whatever, their loss. Anyway, listen, Brooks and I are in town for a couple of days, how'd you like to catch up over dinner? Been a long time, man. Call me when you get this."
The restaurant they arranged to meet at was not really so much of a restaurant as a steak-house, decked out like a 50's diner with booth seats in bright red car-seat leather and waitresses who wore showy yellow-blonde wigs and red lipstick and circle skirts with poodles at the hem. Roger regretted his dinner jacket. A waitress led him to the booth where Andy and Brooklyn were already tucked in together.
"Hey, Roger!" Andy got up as Roger approached. He caught around Roger in a quick, one-armed hug, slapping Roger's back manfully. "How's it going, man?"
"Not too bad," said Roger, smiling. It was good to see Andy again. "Brooklyn, it's great to see you."
"Hi, Roger," said Brooklyn. She kissed his cheek, smiling. "You look great!”
The meal was good, and as Andy and Brooklyn chattered brightly, trading jokes and banter, Roger remembered what a great couple they were.
Brooklyn got up and went to the bathroom somewhere around the dessert course, and Andy leant closer to Roger over the table, confidential.
“So,” he said. “You and Rafa have a good time, on your visit?”
Roger looked up. “How did you -?”
“I know things,” Andy said, cryptically. "And, okay, listen. Maybe this is none of my business, man, but I'm going to say it anyway. You don't have anything to fucking prove any more, yeah? You're forty-three years old, you're the best player ever. You've got a shitload of money. But you're fucking miserable, man."
"I'm not -" Roger started, but Andy cut him off with, "Look, I'm not your shrink or anything, but I've got eyes in my head. And you and Rafa, that’s like, the greatest love of both of your lives. Roger, that movie was the gayest thing since Brokeback Mountain, and it didn’t even come close to real life. So fucking - just do it, man. Be happy. It's okay. You can have your mid-life crisis and your oh-shit-I'm-gay crisis together, and it'll save you a lot of time."
"Just be happy," he said again. "You deserve it."
“Hey,” said Brooklyn, sliding back into the booth. “What’d I miss?”
"I was just saying that Roger and Rafa Nadal should get married and live happily ever after," said Andy. Roger opened his mouth to protest, but Andy's brazenness had shocked the air out of him.
"Oh," said Brooklyn, unfazed. "That'd be awesome, wouldn't it? You guys are so well suited. Hey, babe, are you going to finish those fries?"
Andy slung his arm around Brooklyn as she slid closer to him, and Roger thought what a great couple they made, still. The sports star and the model - it hadn’t augured well for a lasting marriage. Not like his own marriage: he and Mirka had been together for eight years before they were even married, and then there were the children. A week had separated his and Mirka's and Andy and Brooklyn's weddings. Now more than eight years separated their marriages.
Even recently that might have upset him, but Roger was surprised to find, now, that he was fine. He envied Andy and Brooklyn the steady ease of their relationship, but thinking of himself and Mirka made him feel - nostalgia. He loved Mirka, he always would, as the mother of their children and as a very dear friend, and as an incredible woman. But their marriage was over - it had been over for a long time. Roger found himself thinking about the premiere party, the actress, you should take this off, he remembered her saying, as he smoothed the pad of his index finger over the cool metal of the wedding ring he hadn't yet taken off. Closure. Move on.
Andy and Brooklyn dropped him off at his building, entreating promises to meet up again soon and offering invitations for him to come and stay at their place down in Texas sometime. Roger promised that he would.
The apartment was dark and quiet, and empty. Roger, letting himself in and wandering into the living space without even turning on the lights, found that he hated it. He hated it! There was a kind of release to the realisation, a new sense of freedom. He hated this apartment. He hated the skewed sense of proportion, that this cramped and absurdly expensive set of rooms was considered spacious in this city. He hated the self-conscious minimalism of the decor. He hated the whole place.
It was as if a dam had broken somewhere inside him. He hated this apartment. He wanted to go somewhere else, he wanted to - go to Mallorca. He wanted to go to Rafa. He was in love with Rafa, fuck, yes, he really was, and instead of being in Mallorca with Rafa he was standing here in this stupid apartment he didn’t even like. What the hell was he doing, anyway?
Fuck this, he thought, and went to pack a bag, fishing his cellphone out of his pocket as he went, already scrolling through for the number of the airline before he even had his closet door open.
-
He could have called Rafa to come and pick him up from the airport, but he was freaking out just a little, and the easiest way to deal with that was to split the journey down into small, manageable parts. Step one: leave his apartment in New York. Step two: fly to Mallorca. So far, so easy. Jumping from that to step three: confess love to Rafa seemed enormous. So, step four: drive to Rafa's house. Further subdivided into its component parts (get luggage, rent car, minimise freakout), it was manageable.
He was even on the road before he realised that he didn't have directions to Rafa's house. There was a sat nav built into the car that Roger had rented from the airport rental service, but that was useless when he didn't know Rafa's address, and anyway, when he poked experimentally at him it began to babble instructions in Spanish, a language with which Roger, despite everything, had only the most passing of acquaintances (he would have to remedy that, he thought, if this was going to work, and he wanted it to, God, he did).
Goddamn it.
He eased the car over to the side of the road, and sat there for a long moment, mired in his own stupidity. What the hell was he going to do? Wave down a passing car and somehow make them understand, excuse me, please, could you give me directions to Rafael Nadal's house? If they didn't recognise him, he was going to look crazy. If they did recognise him, well, that was even worse. Fresh out of better ideas, he fished around in his hand luggage for his cellphone: he would have to call Rafa, and ask for directions.
"Roger," Rafa cried, on picking up the phone at last, his delight at hearing Roger's voice making Roger's heart seize. "How are you?"
Roger scraped his hair back from his forehead. It was damp with sweat at the roots. "I'm lost," he said.
There was a pause down the line. "In New York?"
"No," said Roger, steeling himself to go on. "No, not in New York. I'm - Rafa, I'm in Mallorca."
"You are - where? What?"
"I'm in Mallorca," Roger said. "And I'm - lost."
"You are in Mallorca?" Rafa repeated, as though he was trying to convince himself that he'd heard wrong, that there must be another way of interpreting Roger's words.
"Yeah. Listen, this is a long story and I'll tell you all about it when I see you, but I'm parked on the side of the motorway in a rental car because I was trying to get to your house and I kind of forgot that I don't know where your house is."
"Okay," said Rafa. "This is very strange. But. So, do you know where you are at all?"
Roger glanced briefly up and down the stretch of empty road, but there were no signs, nothing. "No. Well, I'm about fifteen minutes outside the airport, if that makes any difference."
There was a brief pause. "You drive for fifteen minutes before you realise you no know where I live?"
Roger suppressed the urge to hit his head against the steering wheel. "It's been a long day," he said, instead. "I've had - some things on my mind."
"Okay, said Rafa. Roger once again admired Rafa's ability to take things in his stride. So the man you were in love with for ten years and recently shared a week of pretty mind-blowing sex who then freaked out and ditched you to fly halfway across the world suddenly calls you up and tells you he's stranded somewhere on a stretch of Mallorcan motorway? Okay, as though it were no problem at all. "Okay," Rafa said again. "So, you are not going to be able to follow directions, no?"
"I have no idea," said Roger, truthfully. "I'm tired and I'm hot and I'm freaking out a little bit. Maybe a lot"
"Okay," Rafa said. "Be calm. Is no problem. I gonna come and get you, okay?"
"Are you sure? What about the rental car?"
"Roger," said Rafa, slowly. "One problem at a time, please?"
-
Rafa wasn't driving the flashy silver car this time, but Roger's stomach still knotted as the little blue car eased gently onto the service lane behind the rental car. It had to be Rafa. Roger’s phone buzzed on the dashboard, and he grabbed for it.
"Hello?"
"You are green Ford, right?" came Rafa's voice.
"Hi, blue Kia," Roger said. He leaned around the driver's seat and gave Rafa a wave. Rafa waved back, saying hi into Roger's ear at the same time, which was slightly weird.
"Hi," Rafa said again. "I should have known there could not be two people who could manage to get lost in Mallorca on the same day."
"Hey," said Roger. "This is weird."
"I will hang up and come see you now," said Rafa. "Bye."
"Bye," said Roger, stupidly, and flipped the phone shut, tossing it back into his hand luggage. His heart was beating double-time already as he glanced up at the rear-view mirror and saw Rafa get out of his own car and start walking towards Roger's. He was wearing beach shorts and a t-shirt and his hair was damp, as if he'd been at the beach when Roger had called, and even in the medium of the tiny mirror he looked impossibly good.
The passenger door opened and Rafa slid into the car. "Hi," he said, taking off his sunglasses and tossing them carelessly onto the dashboard.
"Hi," said Roger. He was, for some reason, still gripping the steering wheel, as though anchoring himself in place. As though that would steady his racing nerves.
Rafa looked at Roger, his expression soft and serious at the same time. "Roger," he said. "Why are you here? In Mallorca, I mean."
"I -" The words were stuck in Roger's throat. I'm here because I want you. I'm here because I love you. I need you. Please say you still want me. "I came here for you," he said at last, which wasn't right, wasn't even close to what he was trying to say.
"I thought a lot," he tried again, "while I was in New York. I thought about you a lot and I thought about - about us, and what I really want. And I think what I want is - you. Rafa."
"Roger," Rafa said, softly.
"No, listen. I didn't know what I wanted, when I was here before. And everything was so fast and so confusing, you know. I hadn't ever even been with a man before you. It was a lot to deal with, you know?"
"I didn't mean to -"
"I know, I know. I'm not blaming you for anything, it was me being stupid and - maybe still caught up with the divorce and Mirka and - everything like that. But I'm telling you that I've thought about this and you're what I want, Rafa. Just - you."
"Roger," said Rafa. "Stop."
They sat together in silence for a long moment, while Roger tried to parse the expression on Rafa's face. Rafa stared at him, seeming to take him all in, from the tips of his fingers still gripping the goddamn steering wheel to his expression, as though trying to read sincerity in his features. And then back down to his hands - because he’d taken the wedding ring off, only a thin strip of untanned skin showing where it had been.
"I think I’m in love with you, Rafa," Roger said, at last.
"Roger," said Rafa, low and nearly breathless, through a half-smile, and Roger knew, he knew, right then, that things were going to be okay.
"I'm not old," said Roger, "but I'm not young either. I'm not looking for a - for a summer fling, or anything like that. And it’s going to be complicated," he warned. “I’m not - I don’t come as just me, any more.”
Rafa shook his head. "You worry too much," he said, catching Roger’s hand as it dropped from the steering wheel at last to slip his fingers through Roger's to lace them together, palm to palm, and then he brought their joined hands up to his mouth, pressing his lips against the back of Roger's hand, and Roger really was far too old for that fluttering sensation in his stomach, the silly schoolboy rush of sheer joy.
"Look," Rafa said, showing Roger their joined hands, suspended surreally over the gearstick of the stupid rental car. "We fit just right, no? Everything else, that comes next."
"Rafa," Roger said, after a moment. "I think I'm going to kiss you."
"Oh?" said Rafa.
Roger felt the smile creep slowly across his features, bright and wide, as fierce as the enormous, ridiculous brightness in his chest, threatening to split him wide open with joy. "Yeah."
"Well," said Rafa, smiling. "Well, I guess that would be okay."