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It was moments like these when Roger had to step back and take stock of himself, make sure he was really standing, the knees that trembled beneath him were really his, the fingers shaking at his lips, the tears slipping hot and slick into the corners of his mouth and the lines of his face as he waffled between laughing and sobbing… lay claim to all of it. Because the surrealism that sometimes enveloped his life could be, at times, completely overwhelming. And the screaming of the audience, thousands upon thousands of people packed into the O2, and the blue and red flashing around him in the dark, bleeding into each other pink and purple, the faces of his team, the faces of his partners, his opponents, his family, beaming wetly in his direction, Ellie Goulding singing that song — they would laugh later, stretched out on the boat under the sun and cloudless sky, in the middle of the turquoise water… all of them, together — and then the two of them, alone, in the sitting room in the dark with the salt from the water wafting in on the warm Balearic air — that song, about fire and ice and rain and sun and shared stories and hurting and highs and falling….
Well, that was certainly something he’d never have believed was possible when he was just starting out, scrambling for ball after ball, watching his idols rally back and forth over the net through young eyes, his body still not quite under his control, clumsy with pure youth, limbs lanky and awkward, unaware of the power and grace which they would so soon provide him, his sandy hair curling boyishly around his temples. He remembered the feel of his heart, so new to the world even then, pounding in his chest, reaching out for the destiny he’d find on these surfaces. So similar to this moment, in fact, that he couldn’t help but reassure them all:
“I’m so happy. I’m not sad, okay?”
He couldn’t help dissolving further into tears at the feel of their little arms — not so little anymore, he was constantly reminding himself, and being reminded, with Charlene and Myla’s matching put-upon sighs, twin rebellious, indignant half-smiles — wrapped around him, their wet cheeks pressed to his.
Don’t cry, my sweethearts, his heart beat out to them. But if you must, cry tears of joy. He himself, he’d never been so happy.
Behind him stood his life, everything his life had been, a legacy, they called it. A history. Pieces of the records he’d shattered left scattered in his wake, some of them broken further by his friends, his competitors, but he’d made his mark. Even this night, whacking that ball through the gap of the strings attached to the net post, they’d be talking about that for years, he knew it, and the boy in him, the one with the long hair and something to prove, puffed out his chest and peacocked about in the back of his head. But this Roger simply giggled and waved it off. Looking at that life behind him, he was satisfied. Despite losing everything that made the name Roger Federer — “my last singles, my last doubles, my last team event, my voice, my job” — he was ready to move on.
Because there, before him, waited the rest. Everything that made the man.
Everything he’d discovered along the way, everything that filled in the gaps, the sand in his can of tennis balls. Everything he never knew he needed… until it found him.
Mirka, so soft and beautiful, so unendingly supportive, so understanding, so strong, his rock… gave him the world. She brought it to him all wrapped up in the warmth of her kind, knowing heart, the sweet smell of the blush on her cheek and the brush of her fingers through his hair, the way they twined with his own. She gave him four healthy, happy babies, perfect in every way (except, Roger thought sometimes with a wry smile to whoever was with him at the time, the fact that when Lenny picked up a racquet, when he showed a glimmer of interest in his father’s footsteps, his very right-handed boy had a very curious inclination to pick that racquet up with his left), and she gave him time. Time with this idyllic family they’d created together, time to travel, time to play, time to mourn, time to heal, time to think and be indecisive. Time to be decisive.
His team, too, had given him time. Had been the facilitators of it, in fact. If Mirka had been his cosigner, they were his bank. They brought him back to his world and held him up, kept him strong, kept him fit, in every aspect. When his knee was threatening it all, they formed the front lines of that convoluted war. When he wanted to smash racquets and swear and yell and cry and give up and let his body win out, they demanded more. They knew he had more to give, and they helped him find it again. The nights standing with Severin, talking in low voices, discussing the coming year, whether this was it, whether one more match was worth it. The encouragement in his words. The faith he had in him to know when enough was enough. Severin and Mirka, around the table at home, it was only with them that he would’ve been able to find the peace, the strength, to welcome it with open, tired arms when that moment came. And that’s exactly how it happened.
And he’d gone into the girls’ room, with Leo in his arms, Lenny in Mirka’s, Severin in the background, a constant, grounding presence, Uncle Sev, and sat down on the bed, and told them that Daddy was going to be home a lot more from then on.
They hadn’t cried then. Neither had Mirka or Severin, come to that, but he’d let out a few tears. Lenny and Leo were too young, they didn’t quite understand then. But the girls, they were brave, just like their mother. They were brave for him. He would always be grateful to them for it. They cried now, overwhelmed, he thought, as he was, by the strangeness and the poignancy of it all, but so did everyone else. One wet, happy, sad, loving mess. His little family.
His parents, on the other hand, cried when he told them, cried a lot. He couldn’t blame them, this was their legacy, too. Every ounce of success he could claim, birthed by them and their efforts and their support. Shepherding him to practices and matches, buying his equipment, getting him up on time and making sure he ate and completed his school work, dealing with his hormonal, teenaged rampages and his ego, something he was not looking forward to in the kids, and hoping against hope they would take after their mother and her calm countenance. They cried at dinner the night he gave them the news, cried when they arrived in London, cried when he walked out onto the court for his last match, cried when he hugged them after that last losing point. They cried on Roger, they cried on Mirka, they cried on Jim Courier, they cried on the kids, they cried on — him.
And, oh, yes. There was him.
Roger gazed out at him over the shoulders of Team Europe, his mouth screwed tight and his nose and eyes bright pink so as to be almost red from his own smothered weeping — weeping, he was weeping, weeping for Roger — and felt….
Well….
What could Roger say about what he felt for him.
There were two people in the world who knew what it was like to be one half of a history-defining rivalry, one unlikely to be seen ever again, or so they were saying.
One of those people was himself. Roger Federer. Swiss maestro. (The long-haired boy threw back his shoulders and smirked.)
The other, the only other, was sitting curled over himself on the team bench, his arm thrown over the back, his head briefly resting in the crook of his elbow. He was gathering himself. He never liked to show much emotion off the court. That was private. But there he was, despite all that, weeping in front of thousands. Soon to be the entire world. Forever. Instagram and Twitter would make sure of it.
After less than a second, he looked up.
His eyes met Roger’s.
The corner of his lip trembled and his face crumpled once more.
Roger remembered the feel of his thigh, his hand. His little secret thank you.
Thank you for everything, he’d tried to say. To keep it private, as he so preferred, but Roger had been overcome and needed an anchor, and as always, there he’d been. Right next to him, at his side. His equal, forever. One half of their whole.
Roger smiled at him, a small thing, a reassuring look.
I’m so happy. I’m not sad, okay?
*
It had been a long, long, long, long day.
Roger waited in the locker rooms, long after it had cleared out, long after the boys had given him last hugs, last friendly pats on the back, last half-assed pranks and jokes (thanks, Andy). Stefanos wobbled out with one hand over his swollen eyes, the other gripping a signed Wilson racquet he swore to sleep with for the rest of his life. Casper had shrugged and offered Roger a last congratulations and patted Stefanos on the back before following him out with an awkward “Come on, man, it’ll be all right,” at Stefanos’s resulting squeaky sob.
Roger had laughed, a slight pang of bittersweet envy in his gut as he thought about all the successes and failures they still had ahead of them. The comradery of the stress of the tour. A different kind of family.
But then, as he sat there, reminiscing about his younger days, the sense memory of sitting in locker rooms just like this one all over the world, taping up his grip, lacing up his shoes, tying his bandana around his skull, crying bitterly and laughing in triumph… the door opened.
“Rog?”
He started and wiped at his eyes. He’d been on the verge of tears again, but he was being nice to himself about it. He knew it would happen plenty in the days to come. And he’d wanted to be alone, just for a moment, to let it all wash over him. So it was really to be expected.
“Hey,” he said, rising somewhat slowly, still gentle with the knee.
Rafa carefully closed the door behind him. It shut with a barely audible snick of the latch falling into place. His eyes were just as swollen as Stefanos’s had been, but his nose was pinker. He always had a tinge of red to his skin when the emotion he couldn’t keep at bay made itself known.
He stood there in front of the door, not quite slouching, his hands in his pockets, the zip on his blue Laver Cup jacket half done up. His thinning hair was combed in a side part, made somewhat neat for the pressers. His face was carefully composed when he spoke next, offering one of those casual-serious eyebrow flicks that delighted Roger so.
“I say I gonna wait for you, but I don’t mind this so much.”
Roger giggled as he crossed the locker room to face him head on. “What, me waiting for you instead?”
“I think you always wait for me.”
“Pretty full of yourself, aren’t you?”
“Full what of me?”
Roger snickered at Rafa’s deadpan confusion. Sometimes he wasn’t so sure Rafa didn’t know exactly what people were saying to him, and just wanted them to hear what they were saying for themselves. Maybe give them time to rethink it.
“I mean, maybe I wasn’t waiting for you.”
Rafa snorted. “What you is waiting for, then? Stefanos is done crying, no, you no have to —” he gestured for a moment, miming patting Stefanos’s back like Casper had done while he searched for the correct English wording “— comfort him no more.”
Roger giggled again. He was feeling peculiarly light and floaty.
“Poor kid,” Rafa continued. “What he gonna do without you on tour, I dunno.”
“Ah.” Roger scoffed and waved him down with another laugh. “They’re talented kids. They’ll be fine.”
But Rafa had a way of drawing your eyes back to him, like magnets, their intensity blazing and dark above those high cheekbones. And he wasn’t laughing.
“What I gonna do without you?”
Roger bit his lip. His stomach was doing Olympic-grade backflips.
“You could always retire from singles. We could play doubles like they want.”
The intensity broke with another raise of his eyebrow, a doubtful exhale out of the corner of his mouth. “I dunno, I cannot take to lose so much, you know? We are not so good.”
“Ah, we just need to practice,” said Roger, stepping closer. “You said it yourself, on court. We haven’t been playing doubles, we’re too slow.”
“With the knee and the abdominal? This is as fast as we gonna get, I think.”
“I’ve never heard you so negative, Rafa,” he teased. “Where’s that famous mental game?”
He stopped just in his space, so they were standing toe-to-toe. He was still somewhat smiling, nibbling on the corner of his lip while Rafa practically glowered up at him from under long, dark lashes. Roger often wondered about those lashes. It was unfair how pretty they were. Roger’s were light and thin and uneven.
“Just being realistic. I don’t want I gonna feel like this again later, you retire twice. No puedo hacerlo otra vez.”
His voice cracked.
“Raf….”
“You are happy?” he blurted out.
Roger’s lip curled up. It started out slow, and then became a full grin, his eyes crinkling. “Yes. I am happy. I wanted to tell you out there how happy I am, but….” He shrugged. His shoulders felt remarkably weightless. “Everyone is watching. I don’t want to push you.”
“No me importa. I don’t care. Not anymore. What any of this means without you, I don’t think nothing.” His English always got messy in tandem with his thoughts. “If you are happy, I gonna be happy no matter what. I mean what I say. I will be there with you, however it is possible I can. If I cannot be with you here on the tour, I gonna be with you outside.”
The backflips were now front flips and twists and somersaults, his stomach was performing an entire improv routine beneath his ribcage, and his heart was cheering it on.
Roger lifted his hand, fitted it around Rafa’s jaw. His thumb rubbed the hollow of his cheek, came back to trace the shell of his ear. It was strange — and oh so thrillingly familiar — to be doing this here, in the open, where anyone could catch them. But not caring whether they did, standing there, breathing Rafa’s air while he glared unblinkingly back into Roger’s eyes, forcing his seriousness into every inch of his body and the air surrounding it, was… new. It was that forward thing.
“Are you sure?”
They’d talked about it. They were going to wait. For Rafa’s Laver Cup. Or Wimbledon. Or French, most likely. It would be easier that way. For the sponsors, for the tour and the other guys, for the fans. The families and teams had long been prepared, just waiting for them to give the word. And Roger had never wanted to push. They’d found a routine that worked for them under the circumstances, and they’d known they wouldn’t have much longer to wait. Comparatively speaking, it would be a blink of an eye. But now it was only Rafa’s career to worry about, and it was his choice.
“I am sure,” said Rafa firmly. “I no want to be hiding no more. I don't want to wait for you no more. In the press, I say I wait for you, I know I never want to say it like that no more, like —”
Another pause, like his throat closed up. But Roger knew what he meant.
He’d had to throw it off, make it friendly, make it inconsequential. When it was anything but. Nothing Rafa had ever said to him would be inconsequential. And pretending otherwise did get exhausting.
“I want to be able to kiss you goodbye,” he ploughed on roughly.
Roger’s smile was blinding now. “Well, now you’ll never have to.”
And he pulled him in and fitted his lips over Rafa’s.
His hand, fingers still taped and coarse against Roger’s own, came up to hold his hand in place, while the other wound around Roger’s waist and yanked him forward so they were pressed against each other.
He could feel Rafa smiling through the kiss, and he couldn’t help doing the same, until they weren’t really kissing anymore, just standing with their foreheads and noses against each other’s, grinning like twin cats that caught the canary.
“I never gonna say goodbye to you again, Rogelio,” Rafa said, breathless. “Is a bad situation for you, I no gonna let you go never away from me. You gonna be so tired of my shit English.”
Roger laughed. “It’s getting better! We’ll teach you German, anyway.”
Another puff of disbelieving air from the side of his mouth, and a patronizing smile-eyebrow pair. Like he was reprimanding a kitten. “I think I gonna teach you Spanish before you teach me German, is easier. You are better with the languages.”
“You’re just lazy,” Roger accused.
Rafa shrugged. “Spanish is better.”
“You just want me to yell vamos in your box,” Roger protested in amusement, resulting in Rafa biting at his lip and cementing the arm around his back.
“I love it when you say vamos any time,” he growled. “But I think yes, it sound better from my box.”
“I’ll bring the kids and Mirka and Mery and the baby,” said Roger, feeling like his head was on fire, he was so happy. Like he’d become a hot air balloon and was simply going to float away. “We’ll all cheer for you.”
“Y Roberto y Lynette,” Rafa said sternly.
“You think they’d miss it? They like you more than they like me.”
“They know good tennis,” Rafa snickered.
“The best tennis,” Roger agreed, and kissed him again.
*
They spent the night out with the team and the team’s teams, drinking far too much, dancing more than too much, in a dark London bar where the floors were so crowded with fans that they didn’t have to worry about making fools of themselves, they had so little room to move.
There would be publicity to handle, official statements to be made, conferences to arrange, so Roger and Rafa agreed, for one last time — despite Rafa’s grumbling — to keep their secret a secret. Just until the next morning, where everyone would have calmed down some, but still be so inundated with good feeling that the announcement would hopefully go down easier. They also wanted to give their families due and proper notice.
Roger sent Rafa an SMS when they went their separate ways at the end of the night, and when he was climbing into the shower in the hotel suite he was sharing with Mirka and the kids.
“Tell him to drink a glass of water before he goes to bed,” Mirka said dryly from the couch, not looking up from her copy of Vogue as Roger slipped into the bathroom, texting and giggling as he went. “He’ll already be dehydrated from all the crying, and if he smells anything like you do, the hangover tomorrow will be worse.”
“Will do,” he assured her with a goofy smile.
“…Roger?”
The soft tone of her voice made him pause. His thumbs froze and he disregarded the ellipses flickering at the bottom of the chat for the moment.
Still she didn’t look up. She casually turned the page, but there was a slight pinch to her eyes.
“You’re doing it tomorrow, aren’t you.”
He stared at her. His best friend. His partner. She knew everything. How did she know everything?
“Because I know you,” she said, softer still, finally looking up.
And for a moment, the guilt he’d felt since allowing Rafa into his life, allowing himself to feel those things, all came rushing back.
The pallor that had come over her face when he sat her down at the kitchen table all those years ago. The way she’d pressed her fingers to her lips, still pink from the lipstick she’d been wearing earlier in the day. The tremor in her shoulders.
“I’m so sorry, my love, my everything, my Mirka,” he’d gushed. He’d reached out to take hold of her hand and she’d jerked it away, not cruelly, but as if touching him would cause her physical pain. It had killed him, and he’d continued murmuring declarations of love as she shook. She hadn’t cried, she just trembled. Silently. For a long time.
He’d cried.
Then she made some tea.
“Mirka. Mirka, what can I do?” he’d begged. “What can I do?”
She’d held out her hand for silence, and he’d continued to cry as she sat back down at the table with her mug in hand, issuing silver steam that smelled of herby sweet chamomile.
Then she said,
“I suppose I’ve been waiting for this.”
And he’d dissolved into sobs.
Sobs for her, and sobs for the children, and for Mery, and for Rafa, and for him. How blind he could be when he was young, living on top of the world, the life every man would ever want, except that he’d been wanting something else since it beat the crap out of him and Yves in Indian Wells, and he’d never known. He’d never known, he could’ve saved her all this pain and suffering.
“Would you have wanted to?” she’d said, in the same soft tone, pinched look she donned now, and looked around toward the girls’ rooms, still babies at the time, just beginning to sleep through the night. “It wasn’t all pain and suffering, was it?”
“No,” he’d choked, “no, none of it was, not for me. I love the girls — Charlene, Myla —” he was overcome again, and eventually she’d reached out and took his hand. Hers had stilled.
“Come on, Roger, that’s enough.” She was understanding, but firm.
“I’m so sorry,” he gulped. “I — I —” He drew a steadying breath, clutching her hand, hating himself for being so weak sometimes “— I love the girls more than myself, more than life —”
“I know you do,” she said.
“And I love you so much —”
“I know —”
“I never wanted to — to hurt you this way —”
“I know, Roger,” she’d said. “I know.”
He’d finally peeled open his eyes, nearly swollen shut, and met her gaze.
“But you love him more. You always have. I just….” She let go a shaky smile. “We’ve both been pretending for a long time.”
And they’d continued to pretend.
It was easier because they did truly love each other, rely on each other, him more than her more often than not. And they fought sometimes, and the tour was good for that. It gave them time to cool down, to remember the friendship that formed such a strong base beneath it all. And they’d both decided that they wanted more children, that even though their situation was different, they were no less of a family for it, and Leo and Lenny came blazing into their lives in twin bursts of joy. Rafa came to visit once they’d come home from the hospital, and the girls had curled up on his lap while he and Mirka held the boys, asking Uncle Rafa to tell stories about besting Roger because they liked to humble him, even then. And Mirka had laughed through it all, exhausted though she was, nursing and caring for a second — two — set of twins.
When she began nodding off in the chair, Roger took Lenny from her, arranged the boys on their blankets on the floor, and sent her off to bed with the girls. Once they’d all been tucked in together in their California King, Roger had rejoined Rafa in the sprawling living room.
He had crawled onto the carpet with the boys and was looking down on them on all fours, his chin propped up on his hands, which in turn were propped on his elbows on the shag.
“Bonitos, Rogelio,” he’d breathed, barely above a whisper so he didn’t disturb them.
“Thanks,” he’d grinned, standing above him to stare down at the babies, too.
“Mirka did a good job.”
“She always does.”
One of them — Lenny, Roger figured by the bracelet on his tiny wrist, he’d had trouble when they were babies — kicked his little feet fretfully. Rafa immediately twitched the blankets about him, covering any bare skin until he fell still, sufficiently covered and warm. He was looking up at them with those deep blue eyes all babies had, curious at this new world he’d been welcomed into, and transfixed by Rafa’s still-long hair. He reached up, clumsy, clumsy, with his baby hands, clenching and unclenching his teeny fingers, until they found a few strands to cling to.
“Lenny likes you,” Roger whispered, grinning.
“Creo que le gusta más el pelo,” said Rafa, sounding displeased, but the tone completely opposite of the warmth in his eyes.
He turned his head to Leo, as much as he could with Lenny pulling at his hair, and adjusted his blankets, too, until both babies were covered to his satisfaction, and then simply let his hands, nearly as big as them both, rest over their tummies.
Leo seemed to drift off, but Lenny remained at least awake enough for the moment. He’d released his hair then, and instead, wrapped all his fingers around one of Rafa’s.
Roger looked down, concerned when Rafa’s shoulders stopped moving.
“Raf?”
There was a slight, shuddering sound, and then, choked, like he was holding something back, he said,
“¿Sí?”
Roger smiled, shook his head, and folded himself down at Rafa’s side. He’d placed a kiss on his cheek.
“Nothing.”
And the love and warmth and sense of rightness that had flooded through him in that moment had been enough to convince him that he was doing the right thing by everyone. If Mirka had wanted any different, she would’ve said so. She wasn’t the type to martyr herself. This was their family, and Rafa was an inevitable part of it. The pain would simply serve as a reminder of the love that still existed between them, and he would be grateful for it.
So before he turned into the bathroom, as she looked at him over Vogue, he said,
“Yeah. Tomorrow. In the morning. We’ve already talked to Tony and Benito so they can pull the statements together, start scheduling conferences.”
She nodded. He felt guilty for not telling her first, but he knew she would understand the business of it.
Then, suddenly, she went back to her magazine, as if they’d been discussing what to have for dinner.
“I think you should just post a joint picture of the two of you kissing,” she said matter-of-factly. “Really lean on the Fedal fandom to do the hard work for you.”
Roger burst into nervous laughter. “Benito would have a stroke.”
“Benito would laugh,” she corrected, flipping the page. “Don’t blame your nerves on him, or I’ll tell Rafa you’re using him as your scapegoat.”
“Rafa wouldn’t know what a scapegoat meant.”
She cocked her head thoughtfully. “Hm. Fair point.”
But he texted Rafa her suggestion anyway before jumping into the shower.
When he got out, before even drying off, he opened the new message notification and read:
She is crazy and I lover her and I love you Rogelio.
*
“I was very drunk,” said Rafa, his voice slightly tinny over the phone. “You gonna make fun of my text accent, too? Is rude.”
Roger laughed. His nerves were catching up with him.
He’d woken up that morning to Tony confirming a ten o’clock presser, just before Rafa was to fly out to Mery and the baby, coming any day now. Roger’s stomach fluttered even more anxiously at the thought of all the stress Rafa was under, worrying over Mery and the baby in the hospital. But the doctors had said they were both healthy and stable now, they were just being extra cautious, and Rafa, already a worry wart, and now multiplied by a thousand with a baby on the way, was perfectly fine with that. Mery had put up a bit of a fight, but he’d beat her down. With Roger and Mirka and Maymo and Toni and Marc and Ana and Sebastián and Maribel’s assistance, of course.
But they wanted to get this out of the way. So Rafa could enjoy his time with the baby, and Mery, and Roger, without having this hanging over his shoulders, the when and how and why. And they were on the phone discussing it on the way to meet each other for breakfast beforehand.
Or, really, just talking. Talking was enough to alleviate their nerves, just the sound of Rafa’s voice put Roger at ease.
“Accents and typos are different, Rafa, I hate to tell you.”
“So you say.”
Roger snorted as the car pulled up to a little café down from the complex.
“Are you here?”
“Yes, inside. I got you breakfast already.”
“Oh yeah?” said Roger, swinging the door open and standing out. “What’d you get me?”
“Waffles with blueberries and orange juice and coffee. And the vinegar. Just for you.”
Another burst of laughter as he pushed through the doors of the café.
“My match morning breakfast. How thoughtful of you.”
“I thought you need to be ready for anything.”
“Good idea. Where are you?”
“The back.”
“I’m coming. Before I get there, I’m going to guess what you ordered.”
“Mm. Please. You no get it right, I not go to the presser with you.”
“Ooh, pressure, pressure.”
“Pressure? No, press.”
A bark of laughter this time. “I meant I need to get it right, then.”
“Ah. Yes. Okay. Go ahead.”
Roger wound through the little tables, ignoring the stunned looks from many of their occupants.
“Orange juice.”
“Mmhm.”
“Yogurt, maybe with some banana and granola.”
“Sí.”
“No cheese.”
Rafa made a noise of dislike, like an angry cat, and Roger chuckled. He could see him now, with his bull hat pulled low over his eyes and his phone to his ear, slouched in a chair at the farthest table from the entrance. There was a croissant on the plate next to his bowl of yogurt. Roger smothered a smile.
“And a croissant with chocolate.”
Rafa looked up, spotted Roger, and hung up the phone, wagging his finger disapprovingly.
“You lose, Roger,” he said as Roger pulled up a chair. “You lose everything this week.”
“I knew you’d have chocolate,” Roger said, indignant.
“Yes but you say before you get here. You get here and then you say chocolate croissant. Sorry, Rog. You lose.” He looked very serious.
“Are you gonna make me do this on my own?” Roger laughed, taking up a fork and knife and digging into the waffles immediately.
Rafa shrugged. “I gonna think about it. What you gonna give me if I go? Make up for the bet?”
Roger considered him with playful thoughtfulness. “How about one of my waffles?”
“That’s not good enough.”
“Agh, Rafa, the negotiator.”
“I tell you what.” Rafa leaned forward and pushed up the brim of his cap a bit. His eyes were still slightly swollen and red from all the crying the day before, but he was beaming. Happiness was rolling off him like the sunshine that had painted his skin bronze. He screwed his face up to something resembling stoic. “You kiss me now and I go with you.” Then he faltered. “I’m nervous, Rogelio. About the baby.”
Immediately, instinctively, Roger dropped the knife in his hand and reached out to grip Rafa’s bicep reassuringly. “They’re stable. They’ve got great care, and you’ll be with them soon.”
Rafa nodded, a muscle in his jaw working.
“You trust me?” Roger asked firmly.
“I trust you,” said Rafa, without hesitation.
“Good.” Roger nodded curtly and turned back to his plate. Keep going, like normal. That was best. “Then we’ll make this quick and we’ll get you home to them.”
He swallowed a mouthful, speeding up his pace and gulping down some orange juice to usher the bread down his throat. “You want some of this?”
Rafa pulled a face, glancing at the blueberries.
“If that boy is as picky as you, you’re going to have trouble,” Roger said with a teasing smile.
“Will be easier, no? Everyone will eat the same.” And then he wagged his finger again, this time for real, his eyes bugging. “We don’t know if boy or girl, you no — no —”
“Jinx?”
“Jinx!” Rafa cried. “No jinx it!”
“Girls are wonderful,” said Roger, thinking fondly of the two that bid him good morning and good luck as he’d left the suite not an hour ago.
“Sí, but you are better, better father, can do boy or girl, can do four, two at once, I only have the one, I don’t even know what clothes to buy a girl.”
Roger snorted into what was left of his waffles. “You’ll learn or they’ll tell you, believe me. But don’t worry, Mirka and the girls think it’s a boy.”
Rafa pushed his bottom lip out and shook his head. “Just for this you owe me two kisses.”
“Fine.” He gulped some more orange juice, would’ve done coffee but Rafa doesn’t like the bitter taste, and, without further ado, turned his own RF cap backward, leaned across the table, and captured his lips up with his own, determinedly deafening himself to any reaction that may have risen from any nearby tables. There with Rafa, about to finally start their lives together, nothing could reach him anyway.
He pulled away only for a moment, only to murmur softly, gazing up into Rafa’s eyes under the bill of his hat and thinking of that moment so long ago, where Mirka and the girls slept on while they lay out in the living room with the boys,
“You’re going to be a wonderful father, Rafa. Don’t worry.”
Then he slipped his phone out from his pocket, swiped open the camera, leaned in and kissed him breathless, closing his eyes as the camera flashed.
They kissed for a few seconds more before he pulled away, leaving Rafa slightly dazed as he tucked his phone back into his pocket and pushed away from the table. He tossed the vinegar shot back, mouth zinging, threw enough money to cover the bill and the bill of every table in the restaurant onto the table, and held his hand out for Rafa to take.
“What are you waiting for, then? Let’s go.”
Rafa’s smile was incandescent.
*
Roger, you moron.
He laughed at Tony’s text, but he screenshot Benito’s and sent it to Mirka with a quick How are you always right?!?!?!
Rafa was still grinning from ear to ear, and their hands were loosely interlocked as they waited outside the presser. Roger put his phone away for good and fixed his attention on Rafa.
He looked young. He always did, when his nerves were creeping up on him. Less so anymore, with his hair short and thinning, and the baby fat gone from his cheeks, and the lines from the sun and laughs around his mouth, and stress lines at his eyes, but still. So young.
Roger reached out and smoothed the crease between his eyebrows with his fingertip, not caring anymore. Not with that picture ricocheting around social media like a ping-pong ball.
He remembered what it was like to care, all that time ago.
After he’d invited Rafa into his box in Indian Wells, and he’d eagerly, more than eagerly, attended. After Miami, blowing Roger out of the water. After that first French Open and the following Wimbledon. After Hamburg and the shirt, and his blushing and tucking his hair behind his ear, and another French, and another Wimbledon. Watching this force of nature whip up the wind and orange clay like a hurricane, beat him down, beat him down, build him up, build him up. The competition driving him, onward, onward. Unable to resist the call of the Spaniard, the roar of “¡Vamos!” penetrating deep into his bones, the flash of triumph and determination in dark eyes like a tiger on the prowl, hunkered down for the attack. Sweat glistening on his bronzed skin, the stretch of his mouth in his victory cry, the fist pump like a punch to the gut every time it ripped through the air settled heavy and tense on the court. Making him run faster, hit harder, more precisely. Robbing him of sleep. Making him smile. Filling out his world. Everything he’d been missing, just as he was thinking… maybe this was the wrong choice, maybe it wasn’t worth it… destiny shouldn’t be so… easy… came charging into the ring in a pair of pirate pantaloons and no sleeves. And he’d been complete.
And then Wimbledon came. Wimbledon 2008.
And Roger had fallen. Fallen.
Fallen.
He should’ve been heart-broken at the loss. He was heart-broken. He pressed his head up against Rafa’s temple at the net, broken, beaten, a shell of a man, and the pain and the exhaustion and the disappointment all rolled up into him, and yet…. He could smell Rafa’s sweat and the salt and the grass on his skin. This boy-become-man, with the ferocity of mother nature rushing through his veins, soft somehow, and he’d melted back into Roger, for a brief moment, all there at the net, and Roger felt safe. And right. And Rafa touched his chest and his heart about leapt from beneath the bone in an effort to reach his hand, so strong was the surge of want that blasted through him, one like he’d never known. He wanted to curl up in Rafa’s arms, and let him soothe away the misery he’d brought down upon him like a gift.
Rafa was the only one. He was the only one who could understand that pain, he knew. Even then, Roger knew that they were one and the same. Polar opposites on the court, but not really. Complementary halves. So Rafa would know the hurt, would understand it intimately. They were irrevocably linked. And Roger wanted so badly to explore how far that link went.
He’d tamped down on it then and there on Centre Court, unsure of what had just happened, what he was feeling, half convinced the loss had driven his sanity from him. He pushed through the ceremony and the press conferences, barely present for most of it, thinking only of the sight of the man collapsed on the grass on the other side of the net, the way his bellow vibrated through his own chest, those eyes, the hand on his torso, the smile. Pushed it all down.
And then Rafa had walked into the locker room.
Roger had been packing up his things, he’d told Mirka and the others to go on without him, he’d wanted the time alone to grieve. Every loss, he grieved. Wimbledon meant more grieving. This particular match, where he’d pushed so hard and felt so much, meant that he spent some time with his RF cardigan pressed to his face, willing the tears to slink back inside and failing, his shoulders shaking.
His bag had been lying there on the bench next to him, open, and he distinctly recalled hearing the zip do itself up.
Confused, he’d jerked his head up to see what magic this was, and found a familiar hand moving the closed bag to the floor. An equally familiar pair of thick, powerful legs were lowering the trunk of Rafael Nadal down onto the bench next to him.
“Roger?” he’d said timidly. His accent had been much thicker then.
The submission, the deference despite this herculean win, had gone straight to Roger’s core like a tongue of fire.
“Hey, Rafa. Sorry.” He’d sniffed and laughed and stared down at the cardigan in his hands, somewhat sheepish. “Not very cool of me. Sitting here, crying like a girl. I’ll go in a second.”
Rafa had frowned, considering him for a long time. Roger had begun to squirm.
“Is there snot on my face or something?”
“You play a good match. Toni say better than me a lot of times. Say I lose my focus. The mind not so good with the rain.”
“…so there’s no snot on my face?”
“What is snot?” He said the word like it should be said.
Roger hadn’t known how to explain it. So he blew his nose on a nearby tissue and held it out, giggling wetly. “Snot.”
Rafa had tutted and shook his head, completely unfazed by what should’ve been an incredibly disgusting moment. “No snot. The face is perfect.”
Roger had laughed again, tossing the tissue into the waste and trying to ignore the flood of heat in his gut, but wondering wildly what was happening to him. Had he really gone nuts?
“Thanks. Yours, too.”
Yes. He had.
“Gracias.”
“De nada.” Roger butchered the phrase. “What are you doing here?”
“I forget my phone.” He’d tapped the brick in his pocket. “Put in locker. I no use it often, SMS Feli and Nando sometimes. Mis padres. Toni. But all of them with me.” He pulled a face. “Not Feli and Nando.”
Roger had been pleased with that.
“But my family all here with me. I no need my phone, so I forget it. All the time, Toni yell at me for forget my phone.”
“I can imagine.”
They sat in the silence for a while, just being next to each other, the enormity of what had passed between them hours ago flowing like the low hum of electricity between their bodies, ever connected, linked, by the devastation and the victories they would share and steal from one another. There had been a heat rolling off Rafa’s skin, penetrating through the white cotton of his tee to saturate Roger’s side, and he’d been sweating, prickly sweat behind his knees and under his arms that made him shift uncomfortably and tug at his collar and flash Rafa a rather sheepish smile.
He had felt so strange, like he couldn’t get ahold of anything inside or out, like he was spiraling. One second he felt like giggling and throwing his head back and grabbing Rafa and hugging him and jumping up and down. The next, he wanted to scream. He wanted to smash things and rip the TVs off the locker room walls and throw them at the guy sitting next to him, and he wanted to cry and fall to his knees and let Rafa pick him up, Rafa, the only one who would know what he was feeling right at that very moment, the one making his pulse race by just sitting so close, why was that happening, why — why —
“Rogelio?” came his soft voice, and Roger jolted — he’d forgotten just how close.
To his horror, the sweet diminutive made tears prick the corners of his eyes. He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand and smiled again, push it down — down, damn it —
“Mm?” He’d looked back at Rafa over his shoulder, and then gently knocked their knees together. “What’s up?”
His eyes were dark and glimmering, like a fire had been lit in their depths. It was that intensity Roger recognized from across the net, when Rafa was coming in for the kill. He’d never seen it so up close and personal before, and it made the hairs on his arms stand at attention.
“You still the greatest,” Rafa said, conviction like steel in his tone. “You still number one, always. It not matter what anyone else say, the rankings, the trophies —”
Roger had flashed back to his presser: “…I don’t think he really needed a match like this today to really prove himself, but uh… for some only trophies count…”
“— the press… you no listen to them. You listen to me. To me, Rogelio, you always be number one.”
And then everything had changed. Roger had changed it.
Because everything he’d been feeling since he’d put that last forehand into the net suddenly exploded out at his words, like a sabered champagne bottle, spraying foam in every direction — an absolute mess —
And he’d leaned back and very swiftly, very smoothly, brushed his mouth against Rafa’s.
It hadn’t even lasted a second. He could taste then the salt from Rafa’s sweat and the soap from his shower on his own lips, could feel the shadow of their warmth lingering like dying candlelight, the hot puff of air when he’d gasped, just a slight intake of breath, rushing out against his face. He could’ve played it off as a mistake.
But he hadn’t pulled away, he couldn’t bring himself to. It was like he’d turned to stone, leaning awkwardly back on his ass and in Rafa’s space, the back of his right shoulder pressing into Rafa’s chest, his neck straining to accommodate the deep twist of his head to reach Rafa’s mouth, his hand — when had that happened — his hand on Rafa’s knee….
And then Rafa had surged forward, and Roger was swept up in a cacophony of arms and hands and lips and teeth, and he was pulling and pushing at fabric and skin, alarm bells ringing like police sirens in his head.
What was he doing, what was Rafa doing, what if they got caught — the press, the media, their families, their girlfriends, their coaches, their teams….
It all had simply… melted away.
And from that point on, Rafa had been his, and he’d been Rafa’s.
They were young, and in relationships, and in the public eye, and Roger had done his very best to fight it. To reason himself out of it. To be a grownup.
But then he would catch Rafa’s eye across the player’s lounge, and he would flick him that eyebrow, and his body would ache like it hadn’t since he was a teenager. It was just too easy to give in to. It had been almost embarrassing, and Rafa hadn’t made it any easier on him, grinning impishly while Roger clenched his jaw and worried his lip until they could get somewhere safe and alone and he could take his revenge. They had been messy, and careless, and touched each other too easily, laughed and talked with too much familiarity, and luckily the media ate it up as friendly rivalry. Built them their very own cover story. And it had been right. Felt right in the way nothing else ever had, besides the grip of a racquet in his hand.
And then the news of the twins came.
And with them, the realization that their behavior couldn’t continue, not the way it had been, not if he wanted to keep his life and family whole. He married Mirka. She was beautiful, and the wedding was beautiful, and he was so happy, and he’d packed the memory and the smell and the taste and the sound and the sight and the feel of Rafa into a box, taped it up, and shoved it into the very back of his mental closet, and he loved her with all that he could.
But as always, she was right. Before she even knew what she was right about. The love he felt when the girls were born was new, untouchable, even by Rafa. Something else he’d never experienced, never known he’d needed until it was right there with him. But the love he felt for Mirka… was shadowed. By wide smiles and orange clay and guttural, animal snarls, and big hands, and sun-kissed skin, and dark, molten eyes. They haunted his dreams, woke him up tossing and turning next to Mirka, made smiling at her those days so much harder, made him feel like resenting her, which he’d never wanted to do. None of this had been her fault, absolutely zero. He just wasn’t able to give her what she deserved — which was everything, and more. He’d already given it to someone else.
That had become clear as soon as the girls had come, and his next instinct was to run to Rafa.
He had.
He’d rushed out into the hospital waiting room, still scrubbed up and sweating, heart pounding, hair stuck on all ends from how many times he’d run his fingers through it, and plastered his phone to the side of his face.
“Roger?” Rafa’s voice was sharp and alert. He’d thought Roger was calling with bad news. “The girls they are okay, yes?”
“Yes! Yes,” Roger had gasped, dragging his hand once more through his hair. He couldn’t control the grin splitting his face in half. “They’re okay — they’re perfect —”
“And Mirka also? She is okay?”
“Yes, yes, everyone is fine,” he breathed.
It was followed by an uncertain silence. Roger simply struggled for air, he’d felt like he was going to pass out, he was so elated. Two perfect, pink baby girls, one right after the other.
“…Rog?”
“I’m… I’m here….”
“Everything is okay, yes?”
“It’s — everything is perfect. They’re perfect,” he gushed, accidentally slipping in and out of German as he did. “You should see them, oh my God, they, they look just like her, hopefully —” he spluttered out a laugh “— hopefully they get her looks.”
“Your looks not so bad,” said Rafa dryly, a hint of something painful hidden behind it.
Roger let out another high-pitched giggle.
“Raf, I tell you, they’re perfect. I can’t wait for you to meet them.”
“I no can wait neither. Felicidades, Rogelio.”
Another strange pause.
“…Raf?”
“Sí.”
He’d sounded strangled.
Roger had dropped his free arm to his side. He had been so overwhelmed with the birth of the girls, he hadn’t cared who heard him, or what he was doing. He just had wanted to keep feeling that happy.
“I love you, Rafa. I love you. I want you in their lives. I want you in my life. I wish you were here.”
This pause was longer. But his happiness had been so bright and powerful that even Rafa’s less-than-ecstatic response couldn’t bring him down. He’d giggled again. He had a bad habit of doing that at poor moments. “Rafa?”
There was a snuffling sound, and then,
“Roger, you no know what you are saying. We talk about this later, when….”
“When what?” laughed Roger. “When I’m not so happy? I know what I want, Rafa. I miss you. I want you. And I want them. This whole time I’ve wanted you by my side. I want to make this work.”
They had met a few weeks later in Montreal, after the girls were home and things had settled down.
They met in Roger’s suite, late after a practice day, after dinner, sneaking away from their teams.
“This is Charlene, and this is Myla,” he’d said, showing Rafa a pair of grainy photos on his phone.
“Rogelio, they are beautiful. Beautiful girls,” said Rafa, smiling softly at the little round faces blinking up at him. “You are right. They look like Mirka, you are having the good luck.”
“See? I told you,” Roger had laughed.
“Not such with the….” He gestured vaguely, his brow knitted, searching his mental dictionary.
“The what?” Roger laughed again. He hadn’t been able to stop laughing since the girls were born.
“The… with the head. Big. The forehead.”
Roger had gasped in faux offense, and tackled Rafa over the edge of the sofa, both of them snorting and giggling as they wrestled on the floor, throwing easy jabs and play-fighting until they collapsed, out of breath, Rafa the clear victor.
“No fair, you’re bigger than me,” Roger had complained, flat on his back.
“We are the same height.”
“Yeah, but your arms are twice the size of mine.”
Rafa had wagged his finger at him. “Well, this how you learn, no? You pick on someone your own size, Rogelio. Or else this happen.”
Roger had reached up and ran his hands through Rafa’s hair. It had been cut slightly shorter, and had already begun to thin some, but still retained that light curl Roger liked.
Rafa had sighed, and pushed his head into Roger’s hand like a purring house cat getting its ears scratched, and then opened his eyes to gaze down his nose at him. They were both still panting from their wrestling match, a fact Roger had noted with no small sense of pride.
“What, baby?” he’d said, teasing.
A smile flickered across Rafa’s face. “What we doing, Roger?” He had nudged his hand again with his cheek, like he couldn’t help himself. “We cannot do this, we cannot have this. Not when you….”
“I what?”
“You have a family,” Rafa said, frowning for the first time, doing that vague gesture again, his mouth twisting. “You have the girls and Mirka. There is no space for me in this.”
It had been like Rafa’d kicked him in the gut. He’d actually lurched an inch off the floor.
“Rafa, there is always room for you —”
“I not looking for the… the feeling bad, I am being realist.”
Of the two of them, Rafa had always been the grounded one. Roger flopped back down.
“What you gonna say to the team, to the fans, the press — ‘I gonna leave my wife and new babies for Rafa Nadal, no more questions please’? How that gonna work, Rog? What I gonna tell Mery?”
Roger had tugged gently on a few locks, feeling as if he were going to sink right through the floor to the earth and unwilling to let that happen. “What if I say we’re all going to get married together, one big happy family.”
Rafa had snorted. “I dunno that I gonna be able to share you with two girls plus the kids. Too many people, not enough time.”
He’d twisted those locks around his fingers. Lifted the other hand to fidget with Rafa’s lapels.
“Who’s dressing you now?” he’d mused. Rafa was starting to look more like a man, less like the pirate boy.
“Me,” said Rafa indignantly. Then his lip popped out. “And Feli.”
“That makes sense.” A whip of jealousy lashed through him. He’d imagined coming into Rafa’s room, smelling the clean, hot water and soap from his morning shower, or the after-practice shower, seeing the flush of blood come to the surface of his skin, the broad expanse of his back stretching into the closet. Imagining how those rippling muscles would feel under his lips. Giggling into his neck as they sorted through the shirts hung there, slipping a satiny button-down over his arms. The scowl as Rafa picked at the hem and complained about it being too tight, too loose, too fancy, preferring his cotton tees and workout kits.
Lazy, languid kisses in the morning. Practices together in the day time, matches at night. Breakfasts and lunches and dinners together. Plane rides sleeping in the seats with their heads on each other’s shoulders. Those dark eyes crinkled up in happiness when they looked at him.
Nope. No.
It was then and there, with those images playing before his eyes, that Roger had made up his mind. He couldn’t miss anymore. He couldn’t live with himself if he let Rafa slip through his fingers, not out here, not in the real world.
“Kiss me,” he’d said suddenly.
Rafa’s brow furrowed. “What you doing?”
“I’m keeping you.”
The furrow had deepened. Roger let out a frustrated sigh, pinned beneath Rafa so he couldn’t just lunge up and plant one on him like he so wanted to.
“Rafa, I meant what I said. I want you in my life. I don’t want to hurt Mirka anymore, I don’t want to lie to her anymore. She’s my best friend. She’s my everything.” He’d paused, registering the pain in Rafa’s face and feeling it tug at his own heartstrings. “But I need you.” He giggled. “You complete me.”
Rafa had let go of a large exhale and his eyebrow piqued. “Rogelio, is pathetic.” He tutted and shook his head, and it was Roger’s turn to frown, suddenly nervous. “Like Maribel’s telenovelas.”
Then a large grin cracked his face in half.
Roger had pinched him beneath his leg as he burst into relieved laughter. “Kiss me, you fucking bastard.”
Rafa’s eyebrows shot up and he let loose a string of Spanish swears as they fell to grappling once more, and then to breathless kissing behind the sofa.
They had agreed that night to tell Mirka and Mery.
They told their teams and families a few weeks later.
It was hard. Mery didn’t take it as well as Mirka had, but she was still young, and very much in love. She’d also never been on tour, never really understood that bond. But Rafa, like Roger, had chosen his partners well, and she came around. She and Mirka even went out to dinners sometimes on their own, more toward the beginning, when they were looking for support from someone who would understand.
Their families and teams, thankfully, kept their secret like it was their own. Maribel had beamed, but Sebastián glared, though he said nothing. And he was easy compared to Toni.
Toni had locked himself and Roger in a room together with a sharp command to Rafa in Mallorquín, too fast for Roger to catch, but Rafa had clucked his tongue, shook his head, and nonetheless obeyed, stepping out and shutting the door behind him.
When Toni spoke, it was in French. He was fluent, and undoubtedly wanted no misunderstandings when he said his piece.
He’d folded his arms across his chest, but before he could say anything besides a very long, pointed, “So,” Roger blurted out, also in French,
“I’m not going to hurt him, Toni. I promise. When the time is right, I’ll make sure he’s taken care of.”
Toni snorted, and spoke in a low, growling French to rival Roger’s own:
“I know you will. That’s not even a question. I see the way you look at him, I’ve known since Indian Wells. You two are not subtle. I don’t care. Rafael is happy with you and I want him to be happy, and tennis will not last forever, but you will. Rafael is a good boy.” He paused, and suddenly Roger was looking into Rafa’s eyes. Except they were older, surrounded by many more wrinkles, brows shot through with grey. “But when it comes to the court, this does not exist, do you understand me?”
Roger had flexed and clenched and unclenched his hands, trying not to nervous laugh. “I would never expect him to — to throw a match for me, Toni —”
Another snort. Very Rafa-like. “Rafa would never throw a match. He knows better. And I think you know better, too. But if I think for one second that you are taking it easy on him, if I see any hint of you pulling back, any whisper that you aren’t trying your hardest to win your matches, I will make sure you are taken off the tour. I can’t do anything about who he spends his time with, but I will not have Rafa skating through matches and taking titles he does not deserve. Is that clear?”
Roger bit his lip and nodded.
Maymo didn’t have to say anything. He’d never exactly been verbose when Roger had spoken with him before, but the warning look he’d shot him had been enough.
Tony and Severin had never cared. Nor did Ivan. They all knew that Roger did what Roger wanted, and they just had to deal with it. If they loved him, they loved who he loved. That was the rule. And they all followed it well. But Severin had been a good hand to have, someone to lean on when Mirka was gone, when he and Rafa had to be separated, for publicity’s sake. He kept him driven, focused on the tennis when all else was empty and he was missing his soon-to-be ex-wife and his girls and later his boys and always his partner. That’s what it all was for, after all.
The tennis.
And now, his time had passed.
The tennis was over for him. The knee had finally won out, as they knew it would eventually. But it went on his terms, as all things inevitably did, and when he cried, it was indeed out of happiness.
Finally, finally, standing there one last time, with the kids at the hotel safe and happy with Mirka, and his fingers laced between Rafa’s, as he smiled at him, as the doors to the press conference swung open and Tony and Benito guided them inside, as the immediate popping and flashing and the barrage of questions commenced, as they calmly explained what was going to happen, as they fielded the obligatory, professionally bigoted needling, with Rafa’s leg pressed up against his, that dark fire blazing in his eyes, the sharp tongue in his own mouth, as they left the presser together with Benito and Tony’s mutual approval, as Roger headed back to the hotel and his family, with Rafa’s good luck kiss still tingling on his lips, with the rest of the Laver Cup and the birth of a beautiful baby boy on the horizon….
Finally, Roger thought, he could rest.