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It could be a muggy day in Miami some time in 2004. There could be sweat on their skin and wetness in their hair, and clinging to the air around them. Roger burning from the inside out at this kid who played him, who beat him, this upstart kid with his heavy dark brow and a mop of wild black hair and a fierce smile of victory. The flicker in his eyes when they meet at the net after, an awakening of sorts, as though he'd been a different person playing and only now had started to be himself. A fluttering through Roger's stomach that he's not altogether surprised by.
It could happen later that night, in a hotel room that isn't up to Roger Federer's meticulous standards but that Rafa Nadal's amazed by. A nervous Spanish boy waiting outside a door with a bright smile and a mysteriously-acquired six pack of beers. Limes too, sliced with capable brown hands, sharp silver knife scoring lines on the cover of an old tennis magazine used as an impromptu board. Rafa pushes the lime-sections deep into the necks of the beer bottles, gnaws on them when he's done with his drink. When they kiss later Roger'll taste the bitterness of them on his mouth, the sweetness. The next morning it's cold, clinical; Rafa collects his clothes and leaves, eyes down on the ground as Roger looks carefully at anywhere except him.
Next year at the French Open he'll note the bright green of Rafa's shirt, feel himself flush slightly, his cheeks burning as he remembers the green of the lime rinds crushed between Rafa's strong fingers. He'll serve as unfalteringly as ever, remember the tang of Rafa's skin as they carefully don't make eye contact. Awkwardness for years ahead as Rafa, el toro de Mallorca, rages and fumes on court, smashes down racquets and argues furiously without any regard for the sportsmanship that Roger holds so close to his heart.
Years later, when memories of that one night in Miami are little more than a dirty sweaty glitch in Roger Federer's otherwise flawless record, Rafa Nadal will be interviewed; he'll be asked yet another question about Roger Federer, his opposite in every way, his rival and his enemy. His lip will curl and he'll snarl out a response, any dismissive curt response, his lack of respect clear to all who witness him. And Roger watching it later with a slight pang, embarrassed still and a little annoyed because of that hollow at the base of Rafa Nadal's throat, his full lips, his long lashes, because he's sure that things could have gone differently if only he'd, if only they'd – if only something.
*
Or it could be in England, the grey sky drawn tight above them and the clouds bulging. A boy practising on the courts who Roger only just knows but already respects, serving and serving, his body taut as a violin string. A brief look up and down at his form, Roger cautions himself, and carefully does not look at the full curve of Rafa's ass beneath his overly long shorts or the light in his eyes that means, hey, you know what, I'm someone to be taken seriously. Someone to respect. Roger knows that already. He doesn't need to be distracted.
Later that day there's dinner and they're seated together to talk and whisper, all broken English and occasional words of French. Their chairs getting closer and closer together until people are actively looking at them, but Roger can't bring himself to care even, with that face close to his, the simple fact of Rafa's face there. The luminous skin, the youth, the hard cheekbones unexpectedly softened with bright smiles cutting deep-sliced laughter lines across his skin.
When dinner's over – Roger hasn't eaten much and the small amount of white wine he's drunk has gone to his head – they take the elevator together. Rafa asks what floor Roger's on, presses the button accordingly. When it starts to move, Rafa leans into him and it's the most natural thing in the world, lips meeting and the kiss deepening and by the time the doors slide open on Roger's penthouse suite Rafa's flat out against him, their hips grinding rhythmically. They fall together onto Roger's bed, and Rafa drags at Roger's shirt hard enough that buttons fly off and rattle onto the wooden floor. Rafa meets Roger's eyes and laughs, and kisses him again hard, mouth searing and searching. Outside, the British summer is doing its usual thing, and it's starting to rain.
Next time they meet it's in Toronto. When Rafa's eyes meet Roger's, they share a wry smile. They both shrug a little. Never again in reality; only in dreams.
*
They could have a friendship throughout the years. Phonecalls and text messages, Rafa's English improving and building along with his confidence. By the time Roger's thirty-three Rafa has no problem with gently teasing him, doesn't get that fragile hurt expression any more if Roger teases him back. Uncultured Spanish scum, Roger says gently, and Rafa retorts laughingly, you have manicures, Roger, and that one usually wins.
Wimbledon. Roger's last one. A bittersweet victory over Rafa, the last time he gets to hug him at the net, pressing their foreheads briefly together as Rafa murmurs words of congratulation. There are tears in his eyes. Roger knows they have nothing to do with losing a match, that probably Rafa would have chosen for the match to go that way, but knew that Roger Federer's last ever Grand Slam needed to end with real competition. So they fought it out, dragged it into five sets, Rafa requiring massage on that ever problematic knee halfway through the second but recovering apparently seamlessly.
Later in the changing room when Roger enters, Rafa's already showered, hair dripping water onto the collar of a clean turquoise t-shirt. He looks up quickly when he hears Roger's footsteps, and grins, his smile wide and sad.
"Congratulations, campeón," he says.
"Thanks," Roger grins. He feels good. Satisfied. "How's your knee doing?"
Rafa shrugs. "The usual."
Roger nods. "Ah." He isn't quite sure what else to say, and so he gazes at Rafa for a prompt. But Rafa's eyes just widen a little, his mouth losing a little of its tension. "I," Rafa says, but is interrupted by Roger's phone ringing.
"It's Mirka," Roger explains, and turns away to answer it. She's excited, full of congratulations and love, but Roger's so acutely aware of Rafa's eyes on him that he can barely concentrate. He manages to hear a request that he go outside to sign some stuff, and so when he hangs up he shrugs at Rafa. "I've got to go," he says helplessly, but can't shake the feeling that this is something he should not be leaving, with that intense look in Rafa's eyes.
Rafa gives a smile, a faint smile, a sweet smile. He shrugs a little. "Go," he says, "I'll wait for when you come back."
They both know that there will be no return to this conversation, this atmosphere. No waiting, even. It's just a sort of missed opportunity, moving past each other like two planets destined to cross each other's paths but never collide. Roger thinks he might be okay with that, maybe. Two ships passing in the night, something like that. Still, as he goes outside and pastes on a smile, he can't shake the feeling that this has been the end of something more than tennis.
*
It could be something protracted. Starting at Wimbledon maybe, or the US Open, or somewhere entirely different and much less important. The Battle of the Surfaces maybe, Rafa all bursting pride at introducing Roger to his country, Roger with guidebook Spanish phrases prepared for when he steps off the plane. Meeting Rafa's family, his friends. The inevitability of it all, standing in Rafa's room and looking around, the messy surfaces and the cluttered floor a million miles away from anything that Roger's remotely comfortable with. Rafa hovering by the door, his still presence a little like home.
Roger turning. Meeting his eyes, surprised by what he finds there. Lips parting a little, something like a tremble. A rush and they're together, clumsy and desperate and almost loving, Rafa's body tense against Roger's. They smile after that kiss, bask in it for a moment before Rafa draws Roger towards his bed. They'll map each other's bodies with their hands, mouths, fall asleep together and wake up bathed in bright Mallorcan sunlight. Rafa will growl at that, pad across the room and drag the curtains shut, pushing the day away. Then he'll lower himself back into bed with Roger, curl into him, arm looped over his chest, face pressed into Roger's neck, all easy affection and warm smooth skin. Roger will feel the prickling of Rafa's eyelashes against his neck as he closes his eyes again and drifts back into sleep, and he'll think hazily, so this is how it's going to go.
They'll meet whenever they can, during tournaments, time their holidays so they can have a couple of days together at the beginning or end. Roger will dream of Rafa when he's not there, dream of pushing inside him, Rafa muttering obscenities beneath him, fingers knotting in bedsheets and head thrown back. He'll wake up covered in a sheen of sweat, more aroused than he knows what to do with, and wish that Rafa was there. They'll become the don't ask, don't tell secret of the tour, most other players frowning and nodding and accepting, their rivalry just as fierce and good-natured as ever before.
Eventually after years of sneaking around and hiding from the paparazzi they'll be caught in the back of a taxi holding hands, Rafa's head on Roger's shoulder, his eyes closed, and Roger pressing a protective kiss into Rafa's messy hair. They'll look at each other and laugh when they see the pictures. Shrug, give some cursory interviews, hold hands again on a few TV shows.
Eighteen months after that, Rafa will leave an open newspaper on their kitchen table. An article about the five-year anniversary of the passing of the bill in Spain to give gay couples the same marriage rights as straight couples will be on top, outlined with a messy red-penned circle.
"Is this an invitation?" Roger will shout up the stairs.
Rafa's voice is muffled from behind the closed door of their bedroom where he's making a Christmas card list. He shouts, "Do you want it to be?"
Roger thinks for a moment. He thinks of matching neckties and setting examples for tolerance throughout the world and wearing a ring that Rafa has chosen for him, and waking up next to Rafa every morning for the rest of his life. Then he shouts, "Yeah. Let's do it."
*
There could be tragedy. A young life cut short, little more than a headline in a newspaper, a promising young sixteen-year-old tennis player dead in a car crash or drowned in the ocean that he loved or victim of a stupid drunken night ended by a dare to climb from one balcony to the next.
A headline of a newspaper skimmed over by Roger Federer, still young himself, ambitious and restless. A moment of regret, of grief for this dead Spanish boy he never knew, never got to play, and then the sadness placed aside. His ascendance to the top of the tennis elite, his reign there, hovering and moving and itching always. No great rivalry, nothing to keep him there fighting and caring and raging.
"You don't seem happy," newspapers will say to him in the future. "What else could you want?"
And he'll smile, lips twisting, never knowing quite what he lost to that car wreck or to the sea or to laughing dares on a cool night once upon a time in Mallorca. "More," he'll say, fire in his eyes. "More. There's – something missing. I always wanted more."
*
It could begin perfectly, with almost chaste kisses in a locker room in France and a year later a press conference announcing them to the world. The media will scrutinise their every move, gossip magazines printing photos of Rafael Nadal leaving Roger Federer's house one morning in Dubai like it's something they're trying to hide, something to be ashamed of.
The eyes of the world on them: Rafa gets more sullen and Roger more cold. Accusations are flung around, passive aggression used to full force. Rafa's tan begins to fade and Roger smiles less. They hide their faces from the inquisitive media, they don't stand together in public. Rafa's catlike tendency to drape himself over Roger, to press his side into his, vanishes abruptly. Roger begins to feel the cold.
It ends with an argument in a cramped hotel room in Germany, Rafa stuttering and searching for enough English to express himself, finally exploding with a wild volley of Spanish. Roger tries to remain impassive, can't help but make snide comments. Rafa leaves before he's cooled down, something which hasn't happened before. When Roger gets back to their house in Basel, Rafa's stuff is gone. Oh, he thinks, and feels empty and relieved. They don't announce the split but the press figures it out for themselves. Sometimes they see each other on the tour and nod. Once Rafa smiles at him, and for reasons unknown to himself Roger holds that memory in his heart, keeps it for warmth and strength when everything seems more futile than he ever really wants to think about.
Over time it gets easier, to be with Rafa and to not stretch out a hand to place on the small of his back, to greet him with a nod and not a kiss. Sometimes it aches, though. Sometimes Roger thinks it'll never be okay again, when he thinks about what he once had. And two years later, when he's lying alone, still on his side of the bed and staring at the ceiling, he thinks restlessly, this is never going to work.
So he texts Rafa. He tells him, Come back to me.
Ten hours later Rafa shows up with a hastily packed suitcase and a scowl on his face. He says, "Roger, things will change," and Roger says honestly, "I know. They have to."
Rafa's scowl dissipates a little. He nods. They decide that he'll stay for a few days to talk things through, to try to work past their problems.
In a move predicted by almost everyone who knows them best, he ends up staying forever.
*
It could end on a wedding day. It could be either a Mallorcan boy-turned-man marrying his childhood sweetheart in a village church surrounded by orangeblossoms and loving familial faces, birds fluting outside and the sky a blazing blue, or it could be the greatest tennis player of all time and his faithful beautiful manager surrounded by crystal ice and snow in Switzerland's most glorious mountains.
It could be Roger's eyes following Rafa down the aisle as he leaves the church new-married, his arm tight around the waist of his pretty young curly-haired wife and his smile full and bright, delighted and proud. A sort of emptiness in Roger's stomach, a look what you could have had that's inexplicable and confusing and horrible; he thinks of the look in Rafa's eyes and of his bouncing walk and the passion he throws into everything, and he thinks of Rafa's new wife and knows that she is lucky.
Or a moment at Roger's reception, amid the thank yous and the speeches and the drinking; a moment where eyes meet and breath is short, oxygen suddenly no longer much of a priority. Hasty exits, the hallway outside. Pristine wallpaper and thick lush carpeting, slow footsteps together in unison down a hallway until they reach somewhere where the paint's peeling and the floor's covered with sticky tiles. Then Roger's hands flex on Rafa's collar, his blue silk groomsman's tie is peeled off and dropped carelessly onto the floor. Mouth on mouth, hot breath and settling back into an old routine with desperation and tenderness. Roger's brand new wedding ring glitters gold in the cold neon light, and Rafa catches sight of it.
"Roger," he says, low, and Roger stops. Presses his forehead against Rafa's, tries to regulate his breathing. He looks into dark eyes that he used to know, used to love, and says, "This has to end," and, sad and honest and true, Rafa agrees.
*
It could happen years later when they're both old – older anyway, Roger with flecks of grey at his temples and Rafa with stiff knees and a much more even tan now that he doesn't have to wear tape around his knees and a sweatband across his forehead. The two tennis stars of days gone by advising young players in sunny courts somewhere in Madrid. Rafa supports everything tennis-related in his country naturally, and Roger, well—
Curious. Wistful for thick Spanish accents and wild dark hair and skin that tastes like salt and sweat and spices. Eyes meeting for the first time in years, Rafa's widening a little in surprise. Roger raises a hand cautiously in greeting. Rafa stares for a moment like he's in a trance. Then he smiles, bright and beautiful.
Roger's forty-two. He's too old for this, these butterflies in his stomach and sudden acute memories of far-off days in locker rooms with Rafa's thigh between his legs and his panting breaths hot on Roger's lips. This should not be happening, this heady attraction and this sheer insanity. It didn't work out before. Couldn't work out, with their careers and Roger's girlfriend and their sponsorship deals and their schedules and everything that had conspired against them. Roger's older and wiser now, with a failed marriage behind him and a beautiful eight-year-old daughter who has nut brown hair and sparkling mischievous eyes. She's called Gabriella; Mirka asked Roger what names he liked and as ever his thoughts deviated towards the archangels.
(Deviated towards Rafael. Whatever.)
Roger isn't sure what exactly happened to Rafa. He lived with some guy for a while, Roger thinks. It didn't work out, he hopes – and anyway he's pretty sure there was no official coming out, just vague mentions of a male name in interviews and the occasional paparazzi picture of Rafa with a guy – tall, slender, with steady eyes and a sweet sensitive mouth. Roger hated him when he saw the photo, hated him with a burning sickness that surprised him. He'd thought he was over Rafa. He's thought that a lot of times. Seeing him now, he's not sure that he'll ever be over him.
"Hi," Roger says slowly, to his old friend. He holds out his hand, wonders if Rafa's handshake will have changed.
Rafa does not take Roger's hand. Instead he pushes it away, pulls Roger towards him in a hug. Always the more tactile one, and Roger allows himself to relax into Rafa, to take him in. "I've missed you," Rafa murmurs into Roger's ear.
"I've missed you too." Roger pulls away from him and for a moment he just looks. He sees the laughing boy whose body he once learned like the back of his hand, sees the man full of dignity and honesty who he doesn't know nearly as well. Who he'd like to get to know. He says, "Would you like to," and isn't sure how to finish that sentence.
Rafa's eyes are on him. Thoughtful and speculative, and Roger thinks he can detect a little hope somewhere in Rafa's expression. "Yes," Rafa says, and reaches out, hand curling around Roger's forearm. "We should talk. Catch up, no?"
"Yeah. We've missed a lot," Roger says. He thinks of showing Rafa the pictures of his daughter that he keeps safe in his wallet, he imagines introducing them. Rafa's humour, his gentleness, his steadiness. He thinks, She could use someone like you in her life, and then thinks with a strength that he isn't really surprised by, So could I.
It could happen. As he looks into Rafa's dark eyes, sweet and full of life, he's pretty sure that they have every possibility in the world.