Fic: if you were a wink, i'd be a nod
Title: if you were a wink, i'd be a nod
Pairing: Rafael Nadal/Novak Djokovic
Rating: R
Wordcount: ~4700
Summary: It's legal in Canada! Novak convinces Rafa to play doubles with him at the 2014 Rogers Cup in Toronto. Established relationship. Enormously fluffy.
It's a bright, hot, clear day, the calm sea rocking the boat as gently as a hand to a cradle and the only reminder that there is nothing perfect under the sun is that the fish are in no mood to bite, but then again it's no hardship for Rafa to let the fishing rods drag loosely through the water while he lies basking on the deck. He drifts, half-asleep, listening to the lap of the sea against the boat's hull laid over the soft murmur of his father and uncles talking, and the muffled sound of La Bamba.
Wait.
"Rafael, answer the phone," Toni calls over, and Rafa grumbles in protest and fumbles the phone out of his pocket. He knows who it is before he answers, because there is only one person who is a big enough asshole to keep reprogramming Rafa's phone to play La Bamba as his own personal ring tone.
"Hola, Nole," he sighs into the phone, without opening his eyes. The sun turns the inside of his eyelids warm red.
"Hey," Novak says. "So, we are playing doubles in Toronto this year, yes?"
"Because this always go so well for us, hm?" Rafa says. "First round, second round."
"So I'll make it interesting for you," Novak says. "If we lose, fine, you win and we don't play doubles together no more."
"Okay," Rafa says, slowly, because he knows Novak too well, which means the catch is coming. "And if we win?"
"If we win," Novak says, and Rafa can hear the smile in his voice, can almost see it as though Novak is here and not countries away, "if we win, you marry me."
Rafa opens his eyes; above him the sky is cloudless and endless and completely devoid of any clue as to an appropriate response.
"What," he says, eloquently. "Is this happening? Or I am asleep?"
"It's legal in Canada," Novak says, sing-song, like it's the most tempting thing he can think of.
"Is legal in Spain also," Rafa says. "Just because it legal is no good reason for do it."
"Legal plus no residency requirement plus winning a bet is three good reasons," Novak says. "Also, you know, I love you. So four."
"This is the worst proposal," Rafa tells him. "You know this? The worst."
"Yeah," Novak says, sounding smug. "I'm filling out tournament entry forms right now."
"And I am hanging up on you," Rafa says, and then he does. As an afterthought, he switches the phone to silent before he tucks it back into his pocket. He looks over at Toni, who is giving him a Look.
"You don't want to know," Rafa tells him.
"No," Toni agrees, turning back to his fishing. "I don't."
-
He arrives in Toronto before Novak. Technically they still live separately, in two hotel rooms, but this is more to do with the physical impossibility of acommodating two professional tennis players plus associated kit plus entourages than keeping up appearances; as far as the press think, Novak is single, and there is a small tabloid industry devoted to exposing Rafa and Shakira's secret relationship (sometimes she calls him, laughing so hard she can hardly speak, and reads out articles from the Colombian papers, which are almost worse than the Spanish papers, but never worse than the English ones). They figure if nobody has figured anything out at this point, it's probably not going to happen. He leaves a keycard with reception for Novak.
He's surfing Facebook when he hears the click of the door lock yielding to the keycard, and the door swings open with a dramatic flourish that's all Novak, who looks straight from the plane in his jeans and a wrinkled hoodie, tired and lovely with his stubble and the broad grin that Rafa returns, helplessly, as soon as he sees him.
"Hi, honey," Novak says, swooping in to peck a kiss to Rafa's cheek like a cheesy TV husband, squeezing Rafa's shoulder while he does it: playful and sincere mixed together like everything Novak does. He smells like recycled air, his cologne a faded undertone. Rafa breathes him in. "Mm. Miss me?"
"No," Rafa says, playing along. The touch he presses to the hand resting on his shoulder is the real answer. Rafa speaks Novak better than he does English.
"Is this any way to treat your fiance? What are you looking at?"
"The draw," Rafa says, pulling up the PDF. "We gonna go out first round."
"You have no faith," Novak says, his cheek scratchy against Rafa's where he leans closer in. "Is that the Bryans we could get in the semis?"
"If we go so far," Rafa says. "You need to shave."
Novak makes a noncommital noise. "I have two hours before this Head publicity thing with Andy. I could go shave. Or you could come show me how much you didn't miss me."
"I think I gonna check my emails first," Rafa says, but it's part of the game, part of the fun, making Novak play mock-exasperated enough to lean over and firmly shut the laptop's lid before he drags Rafa up and away towards the bedroom, and by the time Rafa hits the bed he's laughing and so is Novak, and if he never tells Novak that he's missed this, it's partly because he doesn't know if there are words for how much.
-
Djokovic/Nadal def. Stakhovsky/Youzhny 6-2, 6-4
Q: Rafa, you said after your first round defeat here last year that you and Novak probably wouldn't play doubles together here again. What changed your mind?
RN: We make a bet. Yeah, we make the bet. If we go out before the final, he gonna stop making me play doubles with him.
Q: What happens if you win the tournament?
ND: If we win, he's going to marry me.
[laughter]
-
"They don't believe me," Novak says, later, when they're back in Rafa's room. He's standing in the middle of the living area, adrift in the sea of dark carpet, looking plaintive while Rafa changes out of his training clothes so they can go to dinner. "I can't believe they don't believe me."
"I don't believe you," Rafa calls over his shoulder, from the bedroom.
"This is so unjust," Novak sighs. "Marian, you believe me, yes?"
Marian's answer is in Serbian, but his tone speaks the universal language of this is nothing to do with me.
"I'm like the kid in the story, with the wolf," Novak is saying, when Rafa emerges from the bedroom, and he does, in fact, look a little hurt. "Except it's the part at the end where he's telling the truth. And then the wolf eats him. It's in the Bible."
"I am pretty sure is no in the Bible," Rafa says, while he retrieves his shoes from where they are hidden, inexplicably, under the desk.
"Aesop," Benito supplies from the sofa, where he and Marian are watching the rest of the day's tennis highlights on the flat-screen in stoic solidarity, exchanging occasional long-suffering kids-today looks.
"Does it matter where the story is?" Novak makes an expansive gesture. "Did you hear the part about the being eaten by wolves because nobody believe him? This is the important part!"
-
Djokovic/Nadal def. Melzer/Petzschner, 6-4, 6-4
"Second round, baby," Novak says, dragging Rafa by the hand through his hotel suite towards the bed. "I should talk to your parents."
"Don't call me baby," Rafa says, and, "Why?"
"Because I'm a nice boy, I'm a gentleman, you have to ask permission," Novak says, pausing at the foot of the bed to drag Rafa closer by the beltloops of his jeans, like he's on a mission to disprove his own claims.
"I am not a girl," Rafa says, matching tone to look and trying his best to ignore the movement of Novak's clever fingers unbuckling his belt, hovering teasingly over his flies. "And you are not involving my parents with your crazy."
"Your parents love me," Novak says, with a self-satisfied grin. He lets himself fall backwards, sprawling over the bed. "They think I'm a nice boy."
"They no know you like I do," Rafa says, and lets Novak drag him down like proving a point. He lets Novak pin him down, kiss him, hands slipping up his shirt to skin across his stomach, and he loves this about Novak, loves that he's never been afraid to show Rafa how much he's wanted.
It would be easy now to let the thread of the conversation drift, with better things to occupy mind and mouth than rallying back and forth, but he supposes he's been around Novak too long.
"Anyway," Rafa says, when he catches his breath. "You never gonna get past Toni."
Novak laughs, warm breath against Rafa's jaw. "You think I have a deathwish? I go to Toni first of all. He say if I get you to the doubles final and win I can adopt you for all he care."
"Ugh," Rafa says, and flips them so that Novak is pinned under him. "What about your parents?"
"My parents like you," Novak says. This is mostly a lie, but Rafa lets it slide. Novak's parents dislike Rafa less than they used to, which means that they have stopped wondering aloud, mournfully and always in English, always in earshot, whatever happened to the lovely Jelena (when the answer is, and always will be: Rafa).
"My parents like you," Novak repeats. He winds an arm around Rafa's waist; Rafa smiles at the warm press of their bodies. "Anyway. I like you."
Rafa laughs. "Good."
"Stay here tonight," Novak says. His arm tightens around Rafa's waist. "Please?"
"You have singles in the morning," Rafa says. It's a mostly-unspoken rule of theirs.
"So just don't wear me out," Novak says, with a sly grin and a nip to Rafa's jaw, half-bite, half-kiss. "I know that won't be hard for you, right, because - " and someone really needs to teach Novak when to shut his mouth, and though Rafa's never had much success in this endeavour up to now, he's never been a quitter.
-
Monfils def. Djokovic, 7-5, 1-6, 6-4
Q: Is it possible that you were distracted with your wedding plans?
ND: Definitely, definitely this is the reason. Terrible. I am there, serve for stay in the first set, suddenly I think maybe pink for table settings, no? And then he get the break.
[laughter]
-
The tv is showing an AC Roma replay that Novak isn't watching when Rafa lets himself into the room after practice. He knows Novak isn't watching it because Novak is sprawled on the couch with an arm slung tragically over his eyes like the light hurts him, even though the evening is drawing in, and the light through the window is pale and blue-toned.
"It should be legal to kill journalists," Novak says, without looking up or moving his arm.
Rafa tosses his keycard and phone onto the desk next to Novak's, and dumps his kit on the floor. "Even the ones who say nice things?"
"The ones who say nice things are only waiting for the chance to say bad things," Novak complains. He's wearing a Sergio Tacchini polo shirt with Nike shorts and socks; absently, Rafa hopes that he changed into that when he came back, and hasn't been wandering around breaking his contract in public. Rafa goes and stands over him. Novak lets his arm flop down, hand trailing on the carpet, and looks up at him pitifully, like the consumptive heroine of an old movie.
"I have a headache," he says, and then, softer, like he's sharing a secret, "It's a year since I get to a final."
"Was a tough draw," Rafa says, but the shape of it is wrong in his mouth, and Novak wrinkles his nose like he hates having excuses made for him as much as Rafa hates making them.
"Nole," Rafa says, because if there are words in any language that make losing easier, Rafa's never learned them. He sighs. "Go lie down. I take a shower, then we go get dinner."
Novak makes a complaining noise, but he shoves up anyway, a slow and laborious movement, like his muscles ache. When he's standing, he leans heavily against Rafa for a moment, slumped at rest with his forehead pressed against Rafa's shoulder, and Rafa skates a hand lightly up the line of his spine, curves his palm to the bowed nape of Novak's neck.
"Will you still love me when I suck at tennis?" Novak says, wearily, into the fabric of Rafa's sweaty practice t-shirt.
"No," Rafa says. He presses a kiss against Novak's temple. "I gonna trade you for younger. Dimitrov, maybe."
"You are a bad man," Novak says, but when he draws back the corner of his mouth twitches upwards in an abortive smile, and that's something.
-
When Rafa gets out of the shower the phone is ringing, but it's not until he answers to a stream of Serbian that he realises he's picked up Novak's phone, again; when they're together he does it ten times a day because Benito has some sort of secret deal with the Blackberry people and keeps scoring them the same phone, except that all Blackberry's look exactly the same.
"Sorry, sorry," he says, when the person on the other end of the line seems finally to have exhausted his reserves of breath. "This is Rafa."
"Oh." A pause. "Rafa?"
Rafa frowns at the familiar voice. "Djordje?"
"Oh, hi," says Djordje. "Sorry, I thought I was calling Nole."
"This is his phone," Rafa says. "I pick it up by mistake. He is sleeping. You want I should call him?"
"No, no, is okay, is only." Djordje sighs. "He is okay?"
"He's okay, just tired, a little disappointed," Rafa says. "How's the shoulder?"
"It's fine," Djordje says, and gives a brief account of what the doctor and the physio have had him doing for the last six weeks, and how they think he'll be back in time for the US Open, at least, but he talks like he's skirting around something, and eventually he just says, "So, am I supposed to talk to you, you know, about marrying my brother?"
Rafa bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. "I think this is something for an older brother, no?"
"Good, so Marko can do it," Djordje says, exhaling with something like relief. "Because I really hope you win. I mean, you and Nole."
"Yeah?" Rafa grins, oddly touched. Sometimes it's pretty easy to see why Djordje's everybody's favourite.
"Yeah," Djordje says. "Marko does too, so don't listen to him if he does the brother thing. And don't listen to my mother or father, you know how they are. Haters gonna hate, you know?"
"You are too much with the American players," Rafa tells him.
"Hey, if we're all related maybe Marko will stop trying to hit on Maribel like he does," Djordje says, and Rafa thinks that this is about the best argument he's heard in its favour so far. "It's tragic to see, no?"
-
Dolgopolov def. Nadal 6-4, 6-4
Q: Do you think playing doubles and singles here, maybe you're perhaps more tired than usual?
RN: No, no. I play singles and doubles in many tournament, is not a problem for me. I am not going to sit here, you know, and say, yesterday I play doubles, today I am too tired for singles. Was a close match, you know, couple of points either way to decide. Today he was better than me. This is the tennis.
-
His phone buzzes halfway through the press conference, and he checks it quickly while a journalist asks the same question he's been asked a million times already.
i'll still love you even though you suck at tennis
Rafa smiles.
-
Nadal/Djokovic def. Murray/Murray, 6-4, 6-2
"So which one of you's going to be the bride?" Jamie asks, grinning slyly in the locker room afterwards.
"Stop being a prick," Andy shouts, from the shower block. He emerges towelling his hair, another towel draped low around his pale hips. At twenty-six, Rafa thinks, he is unlikely now to ever develop the ability to tan. "Clearly, it's going to be Novak."
"Yeah, fuck you," Novak says, shrugging into a clean t-shirt. "Fuck the both of you."
"White's your colour," Andy says. "No offence, Rafa."
Rafa shrugs. "Is true," he tells Novak, "you look better in white than me."
"From you, I think I will take that as a compliment," Novak concedes. He points at Andy. "From you, I will take it as an invitation to kick your ass."
"I'm shaking in my boots," Andy says, utterly deadpan. Rafa grins down at the bench; he doesn't know whether Andy's always had that bone-dry sense of humour, if it took Rafa getting used to Andy's accent to realise it or if Andy just breathes easier since his first Slam.
"By the way, neither of you are invited," Novak says, casting pointed looks at Andy and Jamie in turn, and punctuating the thought by slamming his locker shut.
"Well, I'm gutted, me," says Jamie. "I'd got a brand new hat ready and everything."
"Seriously, though," Andy says, in a tone of voice that makes Rafa look up. He looks between Rafa and Novak. "You're seriously going to get married?"
Rafa looks to Novak for his cue, but Novak is already watching him, steady and oddly serious, like he's as interested in Rafa's answer as Andy is. The pause stretches out, just a fraction too long. In the end he shrugs and smiles, says, "Talk to me about this on Sunday, no?"
-
The thing is, when Rafa thinks about marriage, he thinks about his parents'.
-
Novak is only ever half-joking when he says they should get adjoining hotel rooms to save on the time they inevitably spend tracking their shit down between one room or the other, and it's at times like these that Rafa can understand why. This time it's Novak's glasses, and they're tearing through Novak's room for the second time, despite Rafa being sure that the last time Novak had his glasses on was in the bedroom of Rafa's suite because, well, Rafa really likes Novak's glasses. But Novak is equally convinced that the last time he wore them was to check his emails here in his own room, and so here they are, Novak rooting through the living area and Rafa the bedroom because last time they checked it was the other way around.
"I found that shirt you lost," Novak calls. "The one with the button missing. It was underneath the sofa cushion."
Rafa doesn't even want to know how it got there. "You find the button?"
"No. Did you find my glasses?"
"No." Rafa shuts one drawer irritably and kneels down to open the one below it. Sometimes he doesn't understand why Novak bothers to unpack at all; the drawers are a mess of socks and shirts and underwear, as though all he does is to tip out the contents of his suitcase directly into them. He plunges a hand gingerly into the tangled mass, swearing in Spanish under his breath.
"There's a packet of Babolat grips here, too," Novak calls. "What the fuck. All your kit is in your room."
"This is ridiculous," Rafa says. "You should wear your glasses on a chain, like an old woman, no? Maybe you would lose them less often."
"Thank you for that," says Novak, with a snappish edge to his voice betraying his fraying patience. "If I had my glasses, that would be a very helpful suggestion."
Rafa rolls his eyes, and his fingers brush against the curved corner of something solid and leather-bound. For a second he enjoys the anticipation of marching out and presenting Novak with his glasses, but when he extricates the object from the mess it's high and curved, and the wrong shape for glasses: a jewellery box, but too small for a necklace, or a bracelet. He frowns at it, turning it in his palm. About the right size for cufflinks. But Novak has one pair of cufflinks that he keeps with his toiletries, and sure, it's possible that he has another pair that Rafa has never seen, but why keep them shoved at the back of a sock drawer? A familiar but oddly misplaced little spike of adrenaline kicks his heartbeat up a notch, twists in his belly. He thinks he know what he'll find before he flips the box open.
The rings catch the light, simple and terrifying, two plain gold bands snug and luxurious against their crushed velvet cushioning. The metal of one and then the other is warm and silky against his fingerip when Rafa brushes the lightest of touches over the doubled curve. He thinks, bizarrely, which one is for me, and then he thinks about how long Novak must have had these - since Cincinnati, where Rafa didn't play, or since his holiday in Monte Carlo, or since Serbia, where Novak was when Rafa was on the boat in Mallorca and answered his ridiculous call? Since before then, maybe. Novak carrying this secret around with him, tucking it away in dark corners, waiting for what?
"Did you find anything?" Novak asks, sudden and startling. The reflexive snap of the lid seems incredibly loud, incredibly obvious, and Rafa glances over his shoulder, but the coast is clear.
"Nothing," Rafa says, shoving the box back where it was and slamming the drawer shut after it. His voice sounds thin and breathless. He tries again. "Nothing here."
"For God's sake," Novak snaps. Rafa hears a thud as something, possibly the very expensive sofa, takes the brunt of Novak's frustration. "This is ridiculous."
Rafa hears the hotel room door swing open and shut, and Marian's voice saying, "You are ridiculous."
He shoves himself up over the faint protest of his knees and makes it to the bedroom door in time to see Marian brandishing Novak's glasses at him.
"You left them in the hotel restaurant," Marian says. "Probably because you are an idiot."
"Oh," Novak says, taking the glasses. "Haha. Sorry?"
"No worries," Rafa says, but he's thinking of the box, the rings, the twist in his stomach, the way his heart is still thudding in his chest.
-
Semifinals day dawns grey and grim, and they're down 2-6 and a game when the light drizzle turns into fat droplets of chilly rain and they're ushered, damp and irritable, off-court and back into the locker room. Rafa hates rain delays, hates hanging around while the coiled energy leeches out of his muscles. Novak makes fun of him for the way he keeps moving around the cramped space and the Bryans just roll their eyes while they share the earbuds of an iPod and talk incomprehensibly about beats and rhymes.
"You know," Novak says, quiet, when Rafa's sitting next to him. "If you wanted to get out of it, you just had to say."
He's smiling, and it's a casual remark that Rafa knows he doesn't mean - as if Novak would ever be stupid enough to accuse Rafa of throwing a match - but there's something about it that pricks at Rafa, deflating. The kernel of truth sticks in Rafa's throat, the idea that after these years Novak is still uncertain, and Rafa understands now why Novak hid the rings away and why did this the way he did, as a joke, and it occurs to him that for all the easy affection between them it's possible that he's never told Novak just exactly how stupidly, blindingly in love with him he is.
"Restart in five," the match official calls, and Rafa nods, breathes deep, adjusts the fit of his bandanna.
He's ready.
-
Djokovic/Nadal def. Bryan/Bryan 2-6, 6-4, 10-8
"Fuck, Rafa," Novak says in the locker room, "fuck," and other things in Serbian that are probably also swear words, but Rafa's never been able to get the Serbs on the tour to translate for him.
"Calm, no," Rafa says, hooking an arm around Novak's neck to ground him. Under his touch, Novak is shaking a little.
"Calm," Rafa says, again, smiling against Novak's temple.
"Rafa," Novak says, looking up and winding an arm around Rafa's neck in return so that they're locked together a breath apart, Novak's eyes searching Rafa's face, serious and not playing, and he says, "Listen, I was serious, I am serious, I mean, it was a joke but it was serious also," and "I love you like I can't breathe," and, "I was stupid, I forgot, I forget for," talking so fast that his English fractures. But Rafa speaks Novak better than he speaks English. He tips their foreheads together.
"This is the worst proposal," he says. "This is worse even than the one before."
"Yeah," Novak breathes, on a shuddery, half-laughing exhale.
"Lucky I love you, no," Rafa says.
"Yeah," Novak says, smiling but not laughing. "Yeah, I know."
As kisses go, it's not the best - careless and a litle desperate, breath hitching into it, and interrupted by the whoops and cheers of the Bryan brothers emerging damp and boisterous from the showers.
"Oh man," Bob says, theatrically dabbing at his eyes. "That's beautiful, you guys. Hey, can we vlog the wedding?"
"We could play the reception, too," says Mike. "We'd do that shit for free."
Rafa hides his face against the curve of Novak's throat and laughs helplessly, until Novak has to hold him up.
-
Q: It seemed in the first set that you weren't communicating very well, and then after the rain delay you seemed to find your rhythm again. How important do you think that break in play was to the outcome of the match?
RN: I think was important. Give us time to think about what is working, what is not working, you know?
Q: So the wedding is still on?
RN: [laughs] The wedding is on.
[laughter]
Q: Are we invited?
RN: Are they invited?
ND: Depends, you know. Depends on how nice they write about us after the final.
-
Later, Novak kisses the ridge of Rafa's hip and says, "Let's do this forever."
He means the thing that he's doing with his hand and that he's about to do with his mouth, and Rafa can get behind doing that forever, but he also means all the rest of it, the things that come before and after: losing and winning and fighting and fucking; mixing Sergio Tacchini polo shirts with Nike shorts and picking up the wrong phone because all Blackberrys look the god damn same; lives and families knitted together into something sprawling and messy and better than the sum of its parts.
Rafa smiles and brushes his fingers over Novak's short spikes of hair, his throat, the warm beat of his pulse.
"Sure," he says. "Why not?"
And later still, sweat cooling on his skin and warmed by the loved weight of Novak sprawled half over him the way he always does, he bites an affectionate half-moon against the salt skin of Novak's shoulder and murmurs, "What if we lose in the final tomorrow?"
Novak shrugs, sleepily, and curls impossibly closer. His smile is slow and lazy where it curls against Rafa's neck. "I hear it's legal in Spain."
-
Djokovic/Nadal def. Fyrstenberg/Matkowski 4-6, 7-6 (7-5),
"Well, Novak, Rafa, congratulations on your first Rogers' Cup doubles title," the on-court interviewer says, with a bright, broad, toothpaste-ad grin. "How do you think you're going to celebrate?"
"Well," Rafa says, looking at Novak. "I guess we gonna get married, no?"
Pairing: Rafael Nadal/Novak Djokovic
Rating: R
Wordcount: ~4700
Summary: It's legal in Canada! Novak convinces Rafa to play doubles with him at the 2014 Rogers Cup in Toronto. Established relationship. Enormously fluffy.
It's a bright, hot, clear day, the calm sea rocking the boat as gently as a hand to a cradle and the only reminder that there is nothing perfect under the sun is that the fish are in no mood to bite, but then again it's no hardship for Rafa to let the fishing rods drag loosely through the water while he lies basking on the deck. He drifts, half-asleep, listening to the lap of the sea against the boat's hull laid over the soft murmur of his father and uncles talking, and the muffled sound of La Bamba.
Wait.
"Rafael, answer the phone," Toni calls over, and Rafa grumbles in protest and fumbles the phone out of his pocket. He knows who it is before he answers, because there is only one person who is a big enough asshole to keep reprogramming Rafa's phone to play La Bamba as his own personal ring tone.
"Hola, Nole," he sighs into the phone, without opening his eyes. The sun turns the inside of his eyelids warm red.
"Hey," Novak says. "So, we are playing doubles in Toronto this year, yes?"
"Because this always go so well for us, hm?" Rafa says. "First round, second round."
"So I'll make it interesting for you," Novak says. "If we lose, fine, you win and we don't play doubles together no more."
"Okay," Rafa says, slowly, because he knows Novak too well, which means the catch is coming. "And if we win?"
"If we win," Novak says, and Rafa can hear the smile in his voice, can almost see it as though Novak is here and not countries away, "if we win, you marry me."
Rafa opens his eyes; above him the sky is cloudless and endless and completely devoid of any clue as to an appropriate response.
"What," he says, eloquently. "Is this happening? Or I am asleep?"
"It's legal in Canada," Novak says, sing-song, like it's the most tempting thing he can think of.
"Is legal in Spain also," Rafa says. "Just because it legal is no good reason for do it."
"Legal plus no residency requirement plus winning a bet is three good reasons," Novak says. "Also, you know, I love you. So four."
"This is the worst proposal," Rafa tells him. "You know this? The worst."
"Yeah," Novak says, sounding smug. "I'm filling out tournament entry forms right now."
"And I am hanging up on you," Rafa says, and then he does. As an afterthought, he switches the phone to silent before he tucks it back into his pocket. He looks over at Toni, who is giving him a Look.
"You don't want to know," Rafa tells him.
"No," Toni agrees, turning back to his fishing. "I don't."
-
He arrives in Toronto before Novak. Technically they still live separately, in two hotel rooms, but this is more to do with the physical impossibility of acommodating two professional tennis players plus associated kit plus entourages than keeping up appearances; as far as the press think, Novak is single, and there is a small tabloid industry devoted to exposing Rafa and Shakira's secret relationship (sometimes she calls him, laughing so hard she can hardly speak, and reads out articles from the Colombian papers, which are almost worse than the Spanish papers, but never worse than the English ones). They figure if nobody has figured anything out at this point, it's probably not going to happen. He leaves a keycard with reception for Novak.
He's surfing Facebook when he hears the click of the door lock yielding to the keycard, and the door swings open with a dramatic flourish that's all Novak, who looks straight from the plane in his jeans and a wrinkled hoodie, tired and lovely with his stubble and the broad grin that Rafa returns, helplessly, as soon as he sees him.
"Hi, honey," Novak says, swooping in to peck a kiss to Rafa's cheek like a cheesy TV husband, squeezing Rafa's shoulder while he does it: playful and sincere mixed together like everything Novak does. He smells like recycled air, his cologne a faded undertone. Rafa breathes him in. "Mm. Miss me?"
"No," Rafa says, playing along. The touch he presses to the hand resting on his shoulder is the real answer. Rafa speaks Novak better than he does English.
"Is this any way to treat your fiance? What are you looking at?"
"The draw," Rafa says, pulling up the PDF. "We gonna go out first round."
"You have no faith," Novak says, his cheek scratchy against Rafa's where he leans closer in. "Is that the Bryans we could get in the semis?"
"If we go so far," Rafa says. "You need to shave."
Novak makes a noncommital noise. "I have two hours before this Head publicity thing with Andy. I could go shave. Or you could come show me how much you didn't miss me."
"I think I gonna check my emails first," Rafa says, but it's part of the game, part of the fun, making Novak play mock-exasperated enough to lean over and firmly shut the laptop's lid before he drags Rafa up and away towards the bedroom, and by the time Rafa hits the bed he's laughing and so is Novak, and if he never tells Novak that he's missed this, it's partly because he doesn't know if there are words for how much.
-
Djokovic/Nadal def. Stakhovsky/Youzhny 6-2, 6-4
Q: Rafa, you said after your first round defeat here last year that you and Novak probably wouldn't play doubles together here again. What changed your mind?
RN: We make a bet. Yeah, we make the bet. If we go out before the final, he gonna stop making me play doubles with him.
Q: What happens if you win the tournament?
ND: If we win, he's going to marry me.
[laughter]
-
"They don't believe me," Novak says, later, when they're back in Rafa's room. He's standing in the middle of the living area, adrift in the sea of dark carpet, looking plaintive while Rafa changes out of his training clothes so they can go to dinner. "I can't believe they don't believe me."
"I don't believe you," Rafa calls over his shoulder, from the bedroom.
"This is so unjust," Novak sighs. "Marian, you believe me, yes?"
Marian's answer is in Serbian, but his tone speaks the universal language of this is nothing to do with me.
"I'm like the kid in the story, with the wolf," Novak is saying, when Rafa emerges from the bedroom, and he does, in fact, look a little hurt. "Except it's the part at the end where he's telling the truth. And then the wolf eats him. It's in the Bible."
"I am pretty sure is no in the Bible," Rafa says, while he retrieves his shoes from where they are hidden, inexplicably, under the desk.
"Aesop," Benito supplies from the sofa, where he and Marian are watching the rest of the day's tennis highlights on the flat-screen in stoic solidarity, exchanging occasional long-suffering kids-today looks.
"Does it matter where the story is?" Novak makes an expansive gesture. "Did you hear the part about the being eaten by wolves because nobody believe him? This is the important part!"
-
Djokovic/Nadal def. Melzer/Petzschner, 6-4, 6-4
"Second round, baby," Novak says, dragging Rafa by the hand through his hotel suite towards the bed. "I should talk to your parents."
"Don't call me baby," Rafa says, and, "Why?"
"Because I'm a nice boy, I'm a gentleman, you have to ask permission," Novak says, pausing at the foot of the bed to drag Rafa closer by the beltloops of his jeans, like he's on a mission to disprove his own claims.
"I am not a girl," Rafa says, matching tone to look and trying his best to ignore the movement of Novak's clever fingers unbuckling his belt, hovering teasingly over his flies. "And you are not involving my parents with your crazy."
"Your parents love me," Novak says, with a self-satisfied grin. He lets himself fall backwards, sprawling over the bed. "They think I'm a nice boy."
"They no know you like I do," Rafa says, and lets Novak drag him down like proving a point. He lets Novak pin him down, kiss him, hands slipping up his shirt to skin across his stomach, and he loves this about Novak, loves that he's never been afraid to show Rafa how much he's wanted.
It would be easy now to let the thread of the conversation drift, with better things to occupy mind and mouth than rallying back and forth, but he supposes he's been around Novak too long.
"Anyway," Rafa says, when he catches his breath. "You never gonna get past Toni."
Novak laughs, warm breath against Rafa's jaw. "You think I have a deathwish? I go to Toni first of all. He say if I get you to the doubles final and win I can adopt you for all he care."
"Ugh," Rafa says, and flips them so that Novak is pinned under him. "What about your parents?"
"My parents like you," Novak says. This is mostly a lie, but Rafa lets it slide. Novak's parents dislike Rafa less than they used to, which means that they have stopped wondering aloud, mournfully and always in English, always in earshot, whatever happened to the lovely Jelena (when the answer is, and always will be: Rafa).
"My parents like you," Novak repeats. He winds an arm around Rafa's waist; Rafa smiles at the warm press of their bodies. "Anyway. I like you."
Rafa laughs. "Good."
"Stay here tonight," Novak says. His arm tightens around Rafa's waist. "Please?"
"You have singles in the morning," Rafa says. It's a mostly-unspoken rule of theirs.
"So just don't wear me out," Novak says, with a sly grin and a nip to Rafa's jaw, half-bite, half-kiss. "I know that won't be hard for you, right, because - " and someone really needs to teach Novak when to shut his mouth, and though Rafa's never had much success in this endeavour up to now, he's never been a quitter.
-
Monfils def. Djokovic, 7-5, 1-6, 6-4
Q: Is it possible that you were distracted with your wedding plans?
ND: Definitely, definitely this is the reason. Terrible. I am there, serve for stay in the first set, suddenly I think maybe pink for table settings, no? And then he get the break.
[laughter]
-
The tv is showing an AC Roma replay that Novak isn't watching when Rafa lets himself into the room after practice. He knows Novak isn't watching it because Novak is sprawled on the couch with an arm slung tragically over his eyes like the light hurts him, even though the evening is drawing in, and the light through the window is pale and blue-toned.
"It should be legal to kill journalists," Novak says, without looking up or moving his arm.
Rafa tosses his keycard and phone onto the desk next to Novak's, and dumps his kit on the floor. "Even the ones who say nice things?"
"The ones who say nice things are only waiting for the chance to say bad things," Novak complains. He's wearing a Sergio Tacchini polo shirt with Nike shorts and socks; absently, Rafa hopes that he changed into that when he came back, and hasn't been wandering around breaking his contract in public. Rafa goes and stands over him. Novak lets his arm flop down, hand trailing on the carpet, and looks up at him pitifully, like the consumptive heroine of an old movie.
"I have a headache," he says, and then, softer, like he's sharing a secret, "It's a year since I get to a final."
"Was a tough draw," Rafa says, but the shape of it is wrong in his mouth, and Novak wrinkles his nose like he hates having excuses made for him as much as Rafa hates making them.
"Nole," Rafa says, because if there are words in any language that make losing easier, Rafa's never learned them. He sighs. "Go lie down. I take a shower, then we go get dinner."
Novak makes a complaining noise, but he shoves up anyway, a slow and laborious movement, like his muscles ache. When he's standing, he leans heavily against Rafa for a moment, slumped at rest with his forehead pressed against Rafa's shoulder, and Rafa skates a hand lightly up the line of his spine, curves his palm to the bowed nape of Novak's neck.
"Will you still love me when I suck at tennis?" Novak says, wearily, into the fabric of Rafa's sweaty practice t-shirt.
"No," Rafa says. He presses a kiss against Novak's temple. "I gonna trade you for younger. Dimitrov, maybe."
"You are a bad man," Novak says, but when he draws back the corner of his mouth twitches upwards in an abortive smile, and that's something.
-
When Rafa gets out of the shower the phone is ringing, but it's not until he answers to a stream of Serbian that he realises he's picked up Novak's phone, again; when they're together he does it ten times a day because Benito has some sort of secret deal with the Blackberry people and keeps scoring them the same phone, except that all Blackberry's look exactly the same.
"Sorry, sorry," he says, when the person on the other end of the line seems finally to have exhausted his reserves of breath. "This is Rafa."
"Oh." A pause. "Rafa?"
Rafa frowns at the familiar voice. "Djordje?"
"Oh, hi," says Djordje. "Sorry, I thought I was calling Nole."
"This is his phone," Rafa says. "I pick it up by mistake. He is sleeping. You want I should call him?"
"No, no, is okay, is only." Djordje sighs. "He is okay?"
"He's okay, just tired, a little disappointed," Rafa says. "How's the shoulder?"
"It's fine," Djordje says, and gives a brief account of what the doctor and the physio have had him doing for the last six weeks, and how they think he'll be back in time for the US Open, at least, but he talks like he's skirting around something, and eventually he just says, "So, am I supposed to talk to you, you know, about marrying my brother?"
Rafa bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. "I think this is something for an older brother, no?"
"Good, so Marko can do it," Djordje says, exhaling with something like relief. "Because I really hope you win. I mean, you and Nole."
"Yeah?" Rafa grins, oddly touched. Sometimes it's pretty easy to see why Djordje's everybody's favourite.
"Yeah," Djordje says. "Marko does too, so don't listen to him if he does the brother thing. And don't listen to my mother or father, you know how they are. Haters gonna hate, you know?"
"You are too much with the American players," Rafa tells him.
"Hey, if we're all related maybe Marko will stop trying to hit on Maribel like he does," Djordje says, and Rafa thinks that this is about the best argument he's heard in its favour so far. "It's tragic to see, no?"
-
Dolgopolov def. Nadal 6-4, 6-4
Q: Do you think playing doubles and singles here, maybe you're perhaps more tired than usual?
RN: No, no. I play singles and doubles in many tournament, is not a problem for me. I am not going to sit here, you know, and say, yesterday I play doubles, today I am too tired for singles. Was a close match, you know, couple of points either way to decide. Today he was better than me. This is the tennis.
-
His phone buzzes halfway through the press conference, and he checks it quickly while a journalist asks the same question he's been asked a million times already.
i'll still love you even though you suck at tennis
Rafa smiles.
-
Nadal/Djokovic def. Murray/Murray, 6-4, 6-2
"So which one of you's going to be the bride?" Jamie asks, grinning slyly in the locker room afterwards.
"Stop being a prick," Andy shouts, from the shower block. He emerges towelling his hair, another towel draped low around his pale hips. At twenty-six, Rafa thinks, he is unlikely now to ever develop the ability to tan. "Clearly, it's going to be Novak."
"Yeah, fuck you," Novak says, shrugging into a clean t-shirt. "Fuck the both of you."
"White's your colour," Andy says. "No offence, Rafa."
Rafa shrugs. "Is true," he tells Novak, "you look better in white than me."
"From you, I think I will take that as a compliment," Novak concedes. He points at Andy. "From you, I will take it as an invitation to kick your ass."
"I'm shaking in my boots," Andy says, utterly deadpan. Rafa grins down at the bench; he doesn't know whether Andy's always had that bone-dry sense of humour, if it took Rafa getting used to Andy's accent to realise it or if Andy just breathes easier since his first Slam.
"By the way, neither of you are invited," Novak says, casting pointed looks at Andy and Jamie in turn, and punctuating the thought by slamming his locker shut.
"Well, I'm gutted, me," says Jamie. "I'd got a brand new hat ready and everything."
"Seriously, though," Andy says, in a tone of voice that makes Rafa look up. He looks between Rafa and Novak. "You're seriously going to get married?"
Rafa looks to Novak for his cue, but Novak is already watching him, steady and oddly serious, like he's as interested in Rafa's answer as Andy is. The pause stretches out, just a fraction too long. In the end he shrugs and smiles, says, "Talk to me about this on Sunday, no?"
-
The thing is, when Rafa thinks about marriage, he thinks about his parents'.
-
Novak is only ever half-joking when he says they should get adjoining hotel rooms to save on the time they inevitably spend tracking their shit down between one room or the other, and it's at times like these that Rafa can understand why. This time it's Novak's glasses, and they're tearing through Novak's room for the second time, despite Rafa being sure that the last time Novak had his glasses on was in the bedroom of Rafa's suite because, well, Rafa really likes Novak's glasses. But Novak is equally convinced that the last time he wore them was to check his emails here in his own room, and so here they are, Novak rooting through the living area and Rafa the bedroom because last time they checked it was the other way around.
"I found that shirt you lost," Novak calls. "The one with the button missing. It was underneath the sofa cushion."
Rafa doesn't even want to know how it got there. "You find the button?"
"No. Did you find my glasses?"
"No." Rafa shuts one drawer irritably and kneels down to open the one below it. Sometimes he doesn't understand why Novak bothers to unpack at all; the drawers are a mess of socks and shirts and underwear, as though all he does is to tip out the contents of his suitcase directly into them. He plunges a hand gingerly into the tangled mass, swearing in Spanish under his breath.
"There's a packet of Babolat grips here, too," Novak calls. "What the fuck. All your kit is in your room."
"This is ridiculous," Rafa says. "You should wear your glasses on a chain, like an old woman, no? Maybe you would lose them less often."
"Thank you for that," says Novak, with a snappish edge to his voice betraying his fraying patience. "If I had my glasses, that would be a very helpful suggestion."
Rafa rolls his eyes, and his fingers brush against the curved corner of something solid and leather-bound. For a second he enjoys the anticipation of marching out and presenting Novak with his glasses, but when he extricates the object from the mess it's high and curved, and the wrong shape for glasses: a jewellery box, but too small for a necklace, or a bracelet. He frowns at it, turning it in his palm. About the right size for cufflinks. But Novak has one pair of cufflinks that he keeps with his toiletries, and sure, it's possible that he has another pair that Rafa has never seen, but why keep them shoved at the back of a sock drawer? A familiar but oddly misplaced little spike of adrenaline kicks his heartbeat up a notch, twists in his belly. He thinks he know what he'll find before he flips the box open.
The rings catch the light, simple and terrifying, two plain gold bands snug and luxurious against their crushed velvet cushioning. The metal of one and then the other is warm and silky against his fingerip when Rafa brushes the lightest of touches over the doubled curve. He thinks, bizarrely, which one is for me, and then he thinks about how long Novak must have had these - since Cincinnati, where Rafa didn't play, or since his holiday in Monte Carlo, or since Serbia, where Novak was when Rafa was on the boat in Mallorca and answered his ridiculous call? Since before then, maybe. Novak carrying this secret around with him, tucking it away in dark corners, waiting for what?
"Did you find anything?" Novak asks, sudden and startling. The reflexive snap of the lid seems incredibly loud, incredibly obvious, and Rafa glances over his shoulder, but the coast is clear.
"Nothing," Rafa says, shoving the box back where it was and slamming the drawer shut after it. His voice sounds thin and breathless. He tries again. "Nothing here."
"For God's sake," Novak snaps. Rafa hears a thud as something, possibly the very expensive sofa, takes the brunt of Novak's frustration. "This is ridiculous."
Rafa hears the hotel room door swing open and shut, and Marian's voice saying, "You are ridiculous."
He shoves himself up over the faint protest of his knees and makes it to the bedroom door in time to see Marian brandishing Novak's glasses at him.
"You left them in the hotel restaurant," Marian says. "Probably because you are an idiot."
"Oh," Novak says, taking the glasses. "Haha. Sorry?"
"No worries," Rafa says, but he's thinking of the box, the rings, the twist in his stomach, the way his heart is still thudding in his chest.
-
Semifinals day dawns grey and grim, and they're down 2-6 and a game when the light drizzle turns into fat droplets of chilly rain and they're ushered, damp and irritable, off-court and back into the locker room. Rafa hates rain delays, hates hanging around while the coiled energy leeches out of his muscles. Novak makes fun of him for the way he keeps moving around the cramped space and the Bryans just roll their eyes while they share the earbuds of an iPod and talk incomprehensibly about beats and rhymes.
"You know," Novak says, quiet, when Rafa's sitting next to him. "If you wanted to get out of it, you just had to say."
He's smiling, and it's a casual remark that Rafa knows he doesn't mean - as if Novak would ever be stupid enough to accuse Rafa of throwing a match - but there's something about it that pricks at Rafa, deflating. The kernel of truth sticks in Rafa's throat, the idea that after these years Novak is still uncertain, and Rafa understands now why Novak hid the rings away and why did this the way he did, as a joke, and it occurs to him that for all the easy affection between them it's possible that he's never told Novak just exactly how stupidly, blindingly in love with him he is.
"Restart in five," the match official calls, and Rafa nods, breathes deep, adjusts the fit of his bandanna.
He's ready.
-
Djokovic/Nadal def. Bryan/Bryan 2-6, 6-4, 10-8
"Fuck, Rafa," Novak says in the locker room, "fuck," and other things in Serbian that are probably also swear words, but Rafa's never been able to get the Serbs on the tour to translate for him.
"Calm, no," Rafa says, hooking an arm around Novak's neck to ground him. Under his touch, Novak is shaking a little.
"Calm," Rafa says, again, smiling against Novak's temple.
"Rafa," Novak says, looking up and winding an arm around Rafa's neck in return so that they're locked together a breath apart, Novak's eyes searching Rafa's face, serious and not playing, and he says, "Listen, I was serious, I am serious, I mean, it was a joke but it was serious also," and "I love you like I can't breathe," and, "I was stupid, I forgot, I forget for," talking so fast that his English fractures. But Rafa speaks Novak better than he speaks English. He tips their foreheads together.
"This is the worst proposal," he says. "This is worse even than the one before."
"Yeah," Novak breathes, on a shuddery, half-laughing exhale.
"Lucky I love you, no," Rafa says.
"Yeah," Novak says, smiling but not laughing. "Yeah, I know."
As kisses go, it's not the best - careless and a litle desperate, breath hitching into it, and interrupted by the whoops and cheers of the Bryan brothers emerging damp and boisterous from the showers.
"Oh man," Bob says, theatrically dabbing at his eyes. "That's beautiful, you guys. Hey, can we vlog the wedding?"
"We could play the reception, too," says Mike. "We'd do that shit for free."
Rafa hides his face against the curve of Novak's throat and laughs helplessly, until Novak has to hold him up.
-
Q: It seemed in the first set that you weren't communicating very well, and then after the rain delay you seemed to find your rhythm again. How important do you think that break in play was to the outcome of the match?
RN: I think was important. Give us time to think about what is working, what is not working, you know?
Q: So the wedding is still on?
RN: [laughs] The wedding is on.
[laughter]
Q: Are we invited?
RN: Are they invited?
ND: Depends, you know. Depends on how nice they write about us after the final.
-
Later, Novak kisses the ridge of Rafa's hip and says, "Let's do this forever."
He means the thing that he's doing with his hand and that he's about to do with his mouth, and Rafa can get behind doing that forever, but he also means all the rest of it, the things that come before and after: losing and winning and fighting and fucking; mixing Sergio Tacchini polo shirts with Nike shorts and picking up the wrong phone because all Blackberrys look the god damn same; lives and families knitted together into something sprawling and messy and better than the sum of its parts.
Rafa smiles and brushes his fingers over Novak's short spikes of hair, his throat, the warm beat of his pulse.
"Sure," he says. "Why not?"
And later still, sweat cooling on his skin and warmed by the loved weight of Novak sprawled half over him the way he always does, he bites an affectionate half-moon against the salt skin of Novak's shoulder and murmurs, "What if we lose in the final tomorrow?"
Novak shrugs, sleepily, and curls impossibly closer. His smile is slow and lazy where it curls against Rafa's neck. "I hear it's legal in Spain."
-
Djokovic/Nadal def. Fyrstenberg/Matkowski 4-6, 7-6 (7-5),
"Well, Novak, Rafa, congratulations on your first Rogers' Cup doubles title," the on-court interviewer says, with a bright, broad, toothpaste-ad grin. "How do you think you're going to celebrate?"
"Well," Rafa says, looking at Novak. "I guess we gonna get married, no?"