Archive of Our Own

Part I

[Roger & Nole]

I fell by the wayside

Like everyone else

I hate you I hate you I hate you

But I was just kidding myself

"I knew you were here," says a voice behind him. Roger doesn’t even need to take a look at the face to know who the voice belongs to – that's why he takes his time, taking a sip from his glass of wine, before turning around.

"I guess I'm not very good at hiding," he says.

Novak slowly approaches, one hand buried in the pocket of his tuxedo, the other holding a half-full glass of wine. His silhouette stands out against the lighted glass French-window opening on the terrace where Roger is.  As he moves away from it, gliding towards the moonlight that shines on the terrace, his features emerge from the shadows, his whole figure comes into focus.

He joins Roger, who’s resting his back against the parapet of the large balcony overlooking the silent sea in the Spanish night. Manacor is quiet in the dark; the only audible voices come from the party that is taking place inside the large terraced villa, along with the clinking of glasses and the occasional music crescendos.

"Be honest, you don't even try to hide" Novak says. He lays his glass on the marble parapet in front of himself and then crosses his arms over it, while letting his gaze wander to the horizon. "If there's one guy who knows how to be behind the scenes, it's certainly not you, Roger."

"Am I wrong or are you covertly calling me an exhibitionist?"

Novak turns to look at him. There is that peculiar smile on Roger’s face that he almost only wears when he is with him. Novak can’t be sure, however, because Roger is standing next to one of the huge potted palm trees that dot the perimeter of the terrace and the fringed shadow of the foliage falls right on his face, obscuring it to a great extent, so that he can only see half of Roger’s face. On that half, by the way, the corner where his lips meet bends upwards – in the grimace that the humanity universally attributes to smiling since prehistoric times.

Novak wonders if Roger did it on purpose, putting himself where he is, so to add the protection of the shadow to that of the well-tested mask he has been wearing for years. Then, he tries to reassure himself, lying to himself, telling himself that he's sure Roger is joking – obviously, of course he is, what else could that grimace mean...

The thing is: you can never be too sure with Roger when it comes to his emotions, especially if you’re Novak Djokovic.

That's why Novak decides to push himself a little further and, raising his hands in front of himself as if in apology, says mockingly: "You're wrong. I would never dare offend King Roger."  At the same time, he slightly bends forward in the obsequious parody of a bow.

Once again, and against his better judgment, he couldn't keep himself from provoking the Swiss, but to no avail. Roger looks at him in silence, tilting his head to the side, apparently unaffected by the provocation.

“Ahh, forget about it.” Novak tries to laugh it off. He shakes his head, crosses his arms over his chest and turns his gaze back to a safer spot: the sea. He stares at it, his fingers sinking into the smooth fabric of the tuxedo, squeezing his biceps just below the shoulder line, as if trying to hold himself together. 

"Anyway... Why are you standing here all alone instead of being inside enjoying the party?" he asks, this time seriously. He feels Roger's eyes fixed on him. "People will soon start to wonder where you are, won’t they?"

Roger takes a while to answer, and Novak, even if he can't read Roger’s mind – God only knows how hard he's tried, over the years; how desperately he's wanted to do it, but always failing – he can almost see the wheels turning in Roger's head as he thinks.

"I needed a moment of solitude to collect my thoughts," Roger says at the end, and adds no more.

Out of the corner of his eye, Novak peeks at the unmistakable profile of the Swiss. The one that still stands out on the walls of the corridors in the All England Club, together with his record streak of titles that Novak came close to equal, througout his carrier – his 7 against Roger’s 8 victorious finals – but never managed to, to his huge disappointment.

Roger holds the stem of the glass between his slender fingers and makes it twirl from time to time, watching the swirl draw a delicate pearly rim against the surface. Novak sneaks a glance at him: he has always thought that Roger has wonderful pianist's fingers – and staring at Roger's fingers automatically makes him think of Rafa's fingers: more calloused, less elegant, but in their own way delicate when they squeezed and honest when they let go...

"Do you think Rafa is happy, Roger?" Novak suddenly asks, following his cloudy thoughts. As he speaks, a part of him wonders why he’s doing this, why he’s feeling the urge to bug Roger that much – but another part, a much bigger and fiery one, although knowing he won't be able to get any satisfaction out of this man, can't resist the call. After all, Roger Federer has always been his greatest challenge – especially off a tennis court.

"Of course he is" Roger retorts with a shrug. "How could he not be? He wanted this party, remember?"

Novak looks at him raising one corner of his mouth. "That’s not what I meant."

"I know what you meant," Roger says, this time just a little more abruptly than usual, and Novak feels a tingling down his spine, and he doesn't know if it's annoyance or satisfaction at having succeeded to elicit an ever so tiny reaction from the Master of Self-control. "Well, what do you expect me to say? No one is really happy when the day of their retirement arrives. And Rafa was the least happy of all, I think. He has always been a great athlete, an all-round sportsman. Even though it's been two years, he misses and will forever miss holding that racket. Maybe even more than you or I did when our time came... But I believe he got over most of it and now he’s enjoying life as it is."

"I’ve heard some people say that it's a bit like a mourning... Retirement, I mean" Novak murmurs, and nods to his hands crossed on the balustrade. "It's funny to celebrate a bereavement, if you think about it. It must be something we learned from the Americans, by the way. In Europe death still commands respect, don’t you think so?"

Still out of the corner of his eye, Novak sees Roger shudder imperceptibly at his words in his impeccable tailor-made tuxedo. He could blame it on the gust of air suddenly rising from the Mediterranean, but in his heart he is not mistaken: for a moment he felt cold inside, too – and it wasn’t a pleasant feeling – just as Federer did; and yet, when Roger speaks, it’s with his usual imperturbability.

"Honestly, I think you’re taking it too far, Novak.  I wouldn't compare retirement to death" Roger says. "There are so many other good things in life besides sport that makes it totally worth living.  In fact, I'm sure Rafa feels nostalgic, but not regretful."

"Yes, well, but… tell me: what else could it be for a professional athlete to walk out of the Show?” Novak insists. This fake gloomy version of him doesn’t seem willing to give up easily. “The result of a slow decline that begins years and years earlier. A downward spiral descenting into nowhere. You start by feeling like your body is no longer responding as it used to, then at a certain point it becomes inevitable to stop doing what you breathe for, and you end up being forgotten little by little by everyone... And the higher you climb, the more you hurt yourself when you fall down. Don't you think it would be better for someone to die before it occurs?"

Roger listens to him, frowning; his eyes seem to get darker and darker, or at least that’s Novak’s impression.

"Only someone who’s seriously troubled would think such a thing," Roger finally says, shaking his head. "That's definitely not the case for Rafa. That wasn't the case for me, neither."

"Wasn’t it?" Novak grimaces skeptically. "That’s weird, because I remember very well your face when you said goodbye at the Laver Cup. And your words to the cameras, too. But all I knew the next day was that… poof! you had just disappeared from the world of tennis pretending to devote yourself to any other thing, like someone who suddenly feels the need to make sense of his days. Fancy that."

"What, are you putting me on trial?" Roger snaps, and for a few moments his face takes on a very unfriendly look. "Stop beating around the bush, Novak. What do you want me to admit, exactly?"

Novak’s attitude changes in the blink of an eye. He looks at Roger with his all too big eyes, and his feigned astonishment is so perfect that it might be easily mistaken for genuine.

"Hey, cool down, Roger” he says mildly. “You must have misunderstood. It was just for chatting, that's all. I'm sorry if I chose the wrong topic."

The choice of topic was not causal, of course – actually, he’s gloating on the inside. 1-0 for me, Maestro, he thinks. Or maybe he should say 15-0, in loving memory of the old days. Scoring a point against Roger – even if only metaphorically – is still something that fills the bottom of Novak’s stomach with obscene heat.

For a moment, Roger seems to be on the verge of adding something caustic, but then he has second thoughts. He bows his head, staring down at the wine, then lifts abruptly his cup, taking a long sip.

Novak can’t help looking at him intently, fascinated in spite of himself. He rests his temple on his fist, like a pensive child and say:

"You know what, Roger? I'll let you in on a secret.  As for me, I was dying to retire. I’d had enough. I was dead tired."

"Tired of winning? I don’t think you were." It's strange to hear some blatant irony in Roger's tone; he never exposes himself that much, so as to always keep the others guessing about his true intentions.  Rafa is one of the very few who knows how to read between the lines, while Novak is light years away from that.

"Well, I'd say that since first you, then Rafa, hung up your rackets and left the way open for me, I could take some satisfaction," Novak grins. "The successes of the last few years of my carrier have amply repaid me for the early days of my entry into the professional circuit, when it all boiled down to a fight to the death between you and Rafa, trying to win every single ATP title, and there was not much room left for any of us mere mortals."

Roger looks at him without saying a word. This time Novak can tell for sure what he is thinking: if you expect me to congratulate you on the results of your career closure… forget it. That’s not gonna happen, dude.

To Novak, Roger is inscrutable 99 times out of 100 – but there's always that one time, when Roger wants to send a clear message, that he knows exactly how to do it, how to make himself readable. It's something that drives Novak crazy – it shows that Roger, if he just wanted to, could do it a lot more often, could be as friendly and open with him as Novak would like him to be, could find a a way of communicating. Except Roger doesn't want to. His attitude cannot be misunderstood; it says: I could be your friend, but I won’t.

Therefore, every time Roger rubs his nose in it, Novak just goes nuts.

"Yes, I know what you're thinking, Roger," he anticipates him. "It's Rafa's party and it's not nice to steal the show from him with the panegyric of my tennis achievements. All right. Got it."

He leans against the balustrade and turns halfway to face Roger, lifting his cup with a grin.

"To Rafa, then. To a splendid career that came to a dignified end. Let’s celebrate the anniversary."

Roger narrows his eyes and look at Novak suspiciously, but this time he lets it go.

"To Rafa," he simply repeats, bumping his glass against Novak's, and elegantly swallows a sip.

Novak drinks too, and turns back to the horizon to hide a grimace. In the silence that follows, Nole's heart doesn't stop beating fast. He feels his blood full of alcohol throb in his head, in his temples, and he knows he can't control his body, he can't control his words, or at least he doesn't feel like even trying to do it anymore, just as Roger won’t make any effort, won’t take a single step, towards him.

"You know, Roger," he begins, "there's one thing that has always made me wonder. About you." Pause. Roger stands by his side, so motionless that he almost seems he’s not breathing. They can hear people keeping on singing and dancing to the rhythm of music coming from inside the villa that Rafa rent, but here on the terrace, where the two of them are alone, it seems to be in another place, in another time. "Whenever I won a title, whether it was a Grand Slam or a lower category tournament... When many people applauded me, and gave me parties... When I was crowned – pardon the term – the best tennis player in history, or at least the most successful of all time…" An invisible barrier seems to stretch between Novak and Roger, even though they are so close, getting deeper and deeper with every word the Serb says. "Whenever it happened, you have never spoken words of appreciation to me. Never a praise or encouragement. Never sent your congratulations. Not even a fucking hypocritical message on social media. Never. I've always wondered why you didn’t, Roger."

Roger’s still staring straight ahead at the silhouettes of the guests moving beyond the light curtains on the windows. Hands in his pockets, his back straight, he doesn't look perturbed at all by the turn that conversation is taking, as if he was expecting it.

"Well... you see, Novak," Roger starts, and once more Novak finds himself to be fiercely envious of his unquestionable aplomb, despite something telling him that Roger is making a much greater effort to keep his composure than it looks on the outside. "Let's face it: you never really needed any encouragement, from anyone. Far from it. You've always been far too self-assured, if I remember correctly." Something corrosive paints Roger's tone, digging a hole like molten magma in the bottom of Novak's chest. And it's not pleasant – this time it hurts. "As for the praises, I didn't think you felt the need to get some. Not from me, anyway. Not when half the tennis world and beyond were lavishing compliments on your results. And finally..." Roger pauses briefly and sniffles, keeping a plain tone. "Let me refresh your memory, please. I've sent you a congratulatory message more than once after a win, I'm pretty sure of that. Maybe you trashed it without even reading it, eager as you were to prove others how much you are worth. It can happen, I don't blame you."

"Oh, you sent a message," Novak repeats, nodding to himself. "Sure you did." He looks away, a corner of his lips barely shaking. "Rafa’s tried to be sincere, at least. You, on the other hand... I wasn't even worth the effort, on your part. As always."

Roger doesn't look shaken this time either. "Think what you want about me, Novak." He shrugs. "Nothing I can say or do will change your mind, I suppose."

"Doesn't it seem a little strange to you," Novak insists, and he can't stop his voice from rising a little, "that the man who is regarded as the most memorable player in tennis history, a professional of exceptional level and also moral stature, doesn't spend a single word on his rival’s successes? Even more so since, when Rafa retired, that same guy was on all the media repeating to exhaustion how good Rafa was and what a triumph his fifteenth Roland Garros was, the truly unparalleled record of records, blah blah blah…?!"

"You know, I was just wondering when it would come to this," Roger says in a harsh tone, breathing in the air. "That's it, isn't it, Novak? It's because of Rafa. It's your pathological jealousy, again. That's what you've been wanting to throw up on me ever since you saw me out here. Or, probably, since you know I'd come."

"And how could you not come?" Novak blurts out, finally letting go of any pretense. "You wouldn't have missed Rafa's party for anything in the world. Not you, no, Roger. Not after all that has been between the two of you."

Roger peers at him, a mix of confidence and alertness emanating from his straight-shouldered figure wrapped in the black tuxedo. He’s like a predator who stumbles across a contender whom he knows he can beat, someone whom he has already wounded and torn in the past. Nole himself knows that Roger has already tasted his blood - metaphorically: he knows what it tastes like and he can do it again. That’s why Roger can never be scared of him.

"The relationship between me and Rafa," Roger says softly, "is unlike any other. It’s just ridiculous of you to make any kind of comparison, Novak."

The really ridiculous thing here, if only Roger would bother to consider more deeply, is that Novak seems jealous of him, more than of Rafa –  of the attention that Roger usually pays to Rafa, and to him only. It’s funny because it has always been quite the opposite, in truth: Novak watching like an eagle every gesture or word passing between Rafa and Roger and hastily looking away, defeated, every time Rafa let Roger wrap him in his warm embrace. Or, even worse, when he was the first to go looking for it.

"All right, I really need to tell you at this point," Novak says suddenly, bringing Roger back to reality. "There's one thing you should know, Roger."

Roger looks at him. "What is this, the night of confessions?"

Novak holds his gaze imperturbably. "I’m warning you, you won't like what I'm about to say."

"That's why you're so eager to tell me, I suppose." Roger shakes his head softly, with a sarcastic laugh. "Ah, Novak. You'll never change, will you?"

Novak knows that if Roger really doesn't want to listen to his words, he might as well slip through the door and leave him there on the balcony, because no one is holding him back. Novak isn’t keeping him in chains for sure. He just doesn't take his eyes off him because he wants to drink every single emotion on Roger's face, the moment he hears the words coming out of Novak’s mouth.

The Swiss is right about this: Novak is longing to tell him. Now that he has the opportunity to temporarily get the upper hand, he's not willing to give up the advantage anytime soon. It's so unusual for him to be able to look down on King Roger that, even after all these years, he still hasn't gotten used to the feeling of power that the situation gives him.

"We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want," Novak says, bluffing. "If you think I'm going deliberately to hurt you, forget about it. There are already too many people who think I'm a-"

"Get it over with, Novak, please," Roger snorts. "I know you. We both know that you won't rest until you've spit out everything it takes. I can see it on your face. We are not children anymore. So go ahead, say it, and let's put a pin in it. Whatever it is."

Novak would like to protest – to say that no, Roger doesn't know him at all, he never wanted to know him in fact, and that he is likely to have to put lots of pins in it after he tells him this thing, so that he can really bury it.

"Okay," he nods, instead. "As you wish, Roger."  

He shifts his weight, this time leaning with his hip against the balustrade, one hand in his pocket, the other around the wine that is warming against his palm. Roger is still standing with his face towards the lighted room; he hasn't changed his position since Novak came to annoy him. When Novak talks, his voice is almost a whisper.

"Not long ago, it must have been a few weeks back," he begins, "I asked Rafa whether we could meet. I was curious to know how he was doing, we had lost touch for a while and I really wanted to talk to him. You know, after his fifteenth Roland Garros there wasn't much left to say between us, and I hadn't seen him since."

Novak pauses. Roger is listening to him in silence. From time to time he brings the glass to his mouth and takes a sip, then lowers it again, following with his eyes the silhouettes of the guests who are dancing behind the curtains.

"Well," Novak's monotone voice continues, "he invites me to join him in Manacor. I don't think he has moved much from his island since he retired, except for some trips for his Academy around the world. I think he likes to stay close to his family whenever he can." Novak is aware that what he’s saying is no news to Roger; it’s actually the kind of thing that Roger knows even better than he does, because almost no one knows Rafa as much as Roger does. Nevertheless, Novak goes on blabbering – because this time he's sure Rafa has told Roger everything except the one thing that really matters.

"I meet him at a bar on the beach. You can’t imagine how long it took me to find it. I think the address was wrong, for starters. You know how Rafa is, he doesn't think he should explain things that are obvious to him..."

"Yes, I know what Rafa is like," Roger says, with a hint of impatience this time. "Go on."

"In short, I manage to get there in the end. I catch up with him, we chat, we have a beer. We talk a lot, strangely." Novak's tone is that of someone who is reliving a dream. "We talk about tennis, of course. About my family. About the first time we met. And about you, Roger, maybe we've talked about you too."

Roger smiles wryly. "What an honor."

The moment Roger lets his guard down, Novak sinks the blow.

"Then we went to his place. And I stayed the night."

Silence falls. The echo of Novak’s last words spreads around them, lingering in the air, hanging as heavy as autumn rain above their heads.

Roger seems turned to stone. "What?"

It could be any sound that comes out of his mouth, honestly; something that Novak just interprets as a "what." It might as well be a groan of horror and disbelief matching the look on his face.

"I asked him to spend the night together," Novak explains slowly; he’s running on a train towards the abyss and nobody can stop it. "I had to struggle a bit to persuade him," he adds.

Roger’s finally facing him. Now that the moonlight is shining on his face, Novak can see it clearly. And what he sees is enough for him to suddenly be certain that he has made a terrible mistake, as well as it’s too late to fix it.

Roger looks distraught – there's no other way to describe it. The King is in pieces.

"Have you been waiting for Rafa's party to tell me this?" he whispers. It's so unusual to see Roger Federer in this state that Novak falls silent. The only other time he remembers seeing Roger have such an emotional breakdown, in fact, was at AO in 2009, when Rafa had beaten him.

"I just wanted you to know," Novakjustifies himself. He takes nervously a step back, as if trying to get away from the aura of suffering that seems to have fallen on Roger like a cloak.

Roger has been hardly looking at him all evening, but now he's the one who won't take his eyes off Novak. As if Novak were the messenger of a nightmare and as if he, Roger, could induce him to disappear just with his gaze, to return to the darkness from which he came – and, in this way, forget everything.

In a flash of honesty, Novak wonders if that's the deepest reason why he did what he did: so that Roger Federer, finally, saw him.

"You must hate me very much," Roger whispers, shaking his head in utter disbelief. "I didn't think you’d stoop so low."

"I just told you the truth," Novak protests, cut to the quick. "I thought you should know." He curiously feels like when, as a child, his father caught him misbehaving and he tried to defend himself by making excuses, each more flimsy than the other. Roger makes him feel like that: a dishonest child. "You should thank me for that."

"You should thank me for not throwing you off this balcony right now," Roger growls. He’s pressing his jaws together so hard that his breath can hardly come out of his teeth. "You bastard." He says it in his mother tongue, and Novak almost wishes he could not speak German (among all the other languages he speaks), so that he wouldn’t understand at least– even if the hatred that is written on Roger’s features cannot be misunderstood in any way.

When Roger takes a step towards him, Novak knows he's about to punch him, and he also knows he had it coming. Fight or flight is our automatic response to danger. Well, his stiff body made the decision for him – he can't run away, so he stays.

Roger's eyes are dark, bottomless pits. He squeezes the glass so tightly between his fingers that it explodes, flooding them both with blood-red splashes of wine, as a shower of glittering splinters pours onto the floor. Completely oblivious to this – and to the pain of a wounded hand – Roger takes yet another step and his other fist clenches tightly around the lapel of Novak's jacket. Novak's Adam's apple goes up and down against the collar of his shirt, his skin covered with a veil of hot sweat under his clothes. 

That’s when Mirka – like the deus ex machina of the ancient Greek tragedies – steps out on the balcony. She is dressed in bottle green and her earrings send golden flashes as, after quickly scanning the terrace, she turns her head towards them, framing them with a single fluid flowing gesture.

"Hey, guys, you're here," she says, and her soft voice is hoarse and a little hesitant. "Roger, I've been looking for you."

Novak keeps still in Roger's grasp. As Mirka approaches, step by step, her heels rumbling on the floor, he mechanically raises one hand to wipe a drop of wine that has splashed in his eye. Only then Roger lets abruptly go of him, as if he’s just woken up from a dream.

"Hey, what happened?" Mirka asks, stopping in front of Roger, careful not to step on the dark pool of wine that widens between him and Novak, studded with shards of glass. "Anyone’s hurt?"

Mirka can't know what she's just gotten into, of course, but she’s an attentive and perceptive woman; her antennae are already vibrating in unison with the electricity that permeates the air around Roger and Nole. A controlled expression of alarm stiffens the corners of her mouth.

Since Roger doesn't answer, she gently takes his hand that’s still holding what's left of the broken glass on its stem – a gutted flower, dripping blood-red wine – and carefully pulls it out of Roger’s half-contracted fingers. Roger's expression has gone completely blank, now – his eyes resemble the closed window of an old house with no one left inside.

At the same time, the invisible spell that’s holding Novak in place dissolves, reminding him to breathe. So he fills his lungs with fresh air; the blood flows back tingling throughout his body that’s shivering in the crisp evening breeze. Along with the blood, the irresistible desire to get away from there pervades him immediately.

He knows it's a cowardly thing – throwing the stone into the pond and then running away - but he really thinks he should take Mirka's coming as some kind of fate.

"I'm out of wine, too," he says a little stupidly, waving his empty glass. "Time to refill, would you excuse me please?"

He has to clear his throat; it suddenly feels as dry as the desert. He smiles briefly at Mirka while he walks past her aiming to the French-window opened on the terrace. Two pairs of eyes follow him inside: Mirka's are clear and perplexed, while Roger’s hunt him down until he is safe inside the room.

Yet, Novak knows that the bomb has been dropped. From now on, he will never be safe again anywhere near Roger Federer.

When you hurt under the surface

Like troubled water running cold

Well time can heal but this won’t

*

Part II

[Roger & Rafa]

So before you go

Was there something I could’ve said

To make your heart beat better

If only I’d have known

You had a storm to weather

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" Mirka stares at him from under her elegantly arched eyebrows. She’s trying to disguise her concern behind the usual semblance of practical efficiency, as she hands the card with the number to the cloakroom attendant and picks up the overcoat and the scarf she left at the wardrobe when they came to the party. 

Roger, standing by her side, shakes his head vigorously. "I'm sure. You don’t have to worry for me, honey. Go home, I won't stay long."

"What about your hand?"

Roger briefly pulls his right hand out of the pocket in which he’s hiding it. The palm shows a long but fortunately superficial wound in the middle, where the shards of the glass have bitten the skin. "It's a good thing it doesn't have to grip a racket anymore, otherwise it would be a big problem," he tries to joke. His eyes sparkle again; the moment of black-out he has experienced out there on the terrace with Novak seems to have passed and by now he’s almost regained all is proverbial calm and composure. If Mirka didn't know him so well, even she might be fooled.

"You should get medicated, at least," she tries, eyeing the cut.

"I will; I'm going to get some gauze somewhere," Roger reassures her. "Don't worry, it's all under control."

Mirka doesn’t believe at all that everything is under control as Roger says, but in the end she has to give in. It's obvious that something happened there on the balcony between her husband and Djokovic, but for some reason Roger is keeping it to himself. Insisting now would be useless.

From the wide open doors of the entrance where they are standing, they see a taxi slowly pulling up to the curb. It briefly honks, only once, then stops with the headlights on at the foot of the entrance staircase.  

"That must be yours," Roger says.

Mirka glares back at him, still doubtful. "You're not going to be late, are you, Roger?"

"No, I promise. Half an hour at most. I'll see you at home," he says in a soothing voice. Roger’s arm wraps around Mirka’s waist as he escorts her over the steps to the cab and opens the door, nodding to the driver who brushes his cap with his fingers in response. "Good night, honey. See you later."

He catches a final flash of Mirka's indecipherable expression as he sticks his head inside the taxi and quickly brushes his lips against hers. Luckily, she does not insist. She's certainly understood a lot more than she lets on, but at the same time she knows there's nothing she can do to change Roger's mind when he acts like this.

Roger stands for a few seconds watching the taxi drive away, one hand raised in greeting. Suddenly, he shudders; the moon is high and full over his head, and the temperature seems to have dropped quite a bit as it ran its course across the sky. It must be past two a.m; the party is over and almost all the guests have left by now.

On his way back to the hall, Roger runs into the very last group of people who are saying goodbye. He stops on two feet when he sees Rafa in their midst, shaking hands and handing out words of thanks. Roger watches him smile from afar and gesticulate in his own peculiar way. Suddenly, as if sensing his gaze on himself, Rafa lifts his eyes and meet Roger's from across the hall. Rafa raises an eyebrow with significance and Roger can’t help but smile. It comes naturally, like always. But this time he also feels a squeeze in the pit of his stomach, then his heart starts frantically beating soon after.

Roger looks away, wandering around the furniture scattered in the hallway. He waits patiently for Rafa to take leave from his last guests. Although he promised Mirka that he will "sort this out" as soon as possible so that he can return quickly to their hotel room where she’s waiting for him, he doesn’t really feel any urgency to rush things, since he will be talking to Rafa any minute. Besides, things have already come to a head without his intervention, by the looks of it, if Novak tells the truth…

Mirka didn't ask him questions about what happened out there between him and Nole – Roger imagines that the shattered glass and his punch too close to the Serb's throat must have spoken for him. Nor did she ask Roger why he insisted on staying at the end of the evening without her, providing the vague reason of "exchanging a few words with the host."

She wasn't happy about that for sure, as she’s not happy every time Roger stays in the company of Rafa for no strictly necessary reason. Even though Rafa has long since ceased to be a threat by his own choice, this is a wound that will never stop bleeding in Mirka's heart – no matter how many years go by.

When the last people are finally gone and Rafa walks over to him, tired but visibly relieved, Roger wonders how to broach the subject with him. He has never felt less ready than he does now. It's even worse than the first time he learned he was going to be the father of not one, but two children at the same time. Now, just like then, he doesn't know what to do.

His mind is numb but his body feels more than alive, all throbbing blood and hasty breathing. Fight or Flight, again.  

Well, he's not running away. So the question is: is he ready to fight Rafa? Is that what he wants?

"Hey," Rafa says, stopping just a step away from Roger. "Are you leaving yet?"

He has that kind of plea in his eyes that, even if Roger were really leaving, he would immediately retrace his steps so as not to displease his friend.

"I think I've got time for a nightcap," Roger grins, and Rafa smiles back and nods. He shows Roger the way to a room next to the entrance, where there is the bar counter and, behind the counter, a guy who seems quite sleepy but, when he sees them, he neverthless gets up, showing himself ready and available to satisfy their requests.

"What are you drinking?" Rafa asks, settling down on one of the high stools in front of the counter and resting his arms on the wooden shelf. Roger notices that Rafa has pulled up the sleeves of his shirt and is no longer wearing the bow tie that he saw on him earlier in the evening. Not even the shadow of his jacket. He looks much more relaxed that way, like every time he can show himself for who he truly is. Unlike Roger, Rafa has never been fond of jet-set and gala parties; however, he had to learn to deal with those when he became a tennis Superstar. Still, Roger understands why, as soon as he can, Rafa shuns all that, sailing on his boat to some nook and cranny of his beautiful island where the water matches the color of the jade crossed by a moonbeam.

Roger mechanically reaches up and loosens the knot of his own tie.  He feels he can breathe easier now, and there is hardly anyone in sight to reproach him for any lapse in style.

"A gin and tonic," he says, realizing that Rafa is still waiting for his answer. "Please."

Rafa looks at Roger quizzically while he slides a finger under the collar of his own shirt, pulling the tissue away from the skin as if he were suffocating. 

“Yeah, it’s quite hot in here” he says, nodding symphatetically at Roger’s gesture. “Two GTs, Oscar, please” he adds, addressing the bartender with his index and middle fingers raised in the air.

The man behind the counter nods and turns his back on them, getting immediately down to business.

"Are you alone? What about Mirka?" asks Rafa, turning back to Roger. "Did she go home?"

Roger nods. "She was tired. She told me to say hello, anyway."

It's not as easy for him to lie blatantly to Rafa as he does to anyone else, and Rafa always has a certain sixth sense for Roger's lies. He frowns imperceptibly, but doesn't say anything, just like Mirka did before. He glances at Oscar, who is pouring the second cocktail and stirring it vigorously; when it’s ready, he pushes the two glasses towards them, wipes his fingers in a rag and throws it over his shoulder, just the way bartenders do in the movies. 

Rafa hands one of the two glasses to Roger and takes the other for himself. "Cheers to you, Roger," he says. "Thanks for coming, as always."

"You’re so welcome," Roger says. "You know that I won't miss the anniversary of your retirement as long as you’re going to celebrate it. I will always be happy to come to Mallorca at this time of the year. So... cheers to you, Rafa."

Rafa smiles and swallows a big gulp. "I don't know anyone who retired and still celebrates the date as if something to be remembered. Like a birthday. You think it’s weird?"

Roger thinks of Novak's words about retirement being a sort of death in the eyes of the world. He's glad he wasn't mistaken about Rafa: to the Spaniard, in fact, just as Roger had suspected, it's just the opposite - a kind of celebration of a new life - despite the fact that he misses tennis. Of course he misses it; Roger can read it in Rafa’s eyes that flicker under his eyelashes in the very rare moments when he loosens his control and allows the past memories to get the better of the present.

Yet, he sees Rafa as a man who lives inquestionably in the present –not in the past, nor in the future. Someone who is for the “here and now”, a man of action who’s not meant for brooding or for regretting things. There is no room in his heart for what could have been and never was. Roger wonders, for a split second, if Rafa has never had any regrets about him either – or about them, when they were them, in their day.

"It is truly a kind of birthday in a certain sense, and as such it should be celebrated," Roger says slowly, returning to reality with a shrug. "The beginning of a new life, we could say. A totally different life from the one you were used to before, made up only of trophies and performance anxiety."

"Well, I never had performance anxiety as long as I was playing," Rafa laughes. "That came later, when Rafael was born."

Roger knows too well about the inferiority complex that overwhelmed Rafa in the early days of his fatherhood and his fears of not being a good dad, because they are the same Roger himself had to deal with, in his time.

He leans over to Rafa and grabs his forearm. "Hey, don't panic. You're doing great. Little Rafael is growing up well," he reassures him. "In truth, he's not even that small anymore."

Rafa glances at him sideways, and Roger catches a glimpse of gratitude in his brown irises.

"I trust someone who's been there four times," Rafa smiles. He puts his hand on Roger's, still wrapped around his arm, and taps on it.  "When I feel optimistic, I tell myself that I can't be too bad. I'm really putting my all into being a good dad. My son es la luz de mis ojos. Mine and Mery's, of course."

Roger's fingers twitch involuntarily at the name of Rafa’s wife, and Rafa's gaze is automatically drawn downwards.  Before Roger can pull it away, Rafa notices the cut in his palm and his tanned forehead wrinkles with worry. 

"Hey, what happened with that?" he asks.

"Nothing, it's just a cut…" Roger tries to play it down, but Rafa has already grabbed his wrist, forcing him to turn his palm up and leaning over to take a closer look at it.

First his eyes, then the tips of his fingers, brush against the reddened edges of the wound that has just stopped bleeding.

Roger suppresses a shiver.

Rafa notices. "Does it hurt?" he inquires, and immediately his gaze darkens with concern. "I’m sorry. Take this."

Roger shrugs but accepts without protest the handkerchief that Rafa hands him, even though he is no longer bleeding.

He doesn't tell Rafa the truth: that still, sometimes – more often than it should, actually – he feels that thing when Rafa touches him, even though it's been years since they stopped touching each other, at least in that way. That thing doesn’t even remotely resembles pain; yet, from time to time it does become pain. Just like now. Looking down at the cut in his hand, Novak’s words echoing in his mind, Roger relives the whole scene. He feels again the rage that made him tighten his grip around the glass until it crushed; it was Novak's throat that he wanted to squeeze, instead –stifle those damn words in it before they came out and ruined everything.

Roger doesn't want to remember, though that's why he's here now with Rafa at a bar counter at three in the morning: to talk about the thing he's trying to get out of his mind. He just wishes he could stay here with Rafa a little longer, enjoying his company in peace, away from everyone, and stop worrying just for once.

But he can't really stop thinking about what he knows.

"You should check it," Rafa is saying, while Roger’s still deep in thoughts. “Some bits of glass may be still stuck inside. You could get an infection and-”

"Rafa, please. I already have a wife who cares about me and that's enough."

Rafa cuts off abruptly. He looks up and stares at Roger. Roger flares up, realizing that it came out all wrong.

And here they go: this is one of the few times when Rafa's gaze seems to enclose all the weight of Roger's past choices. It's all there, what was and what could have been, in the depths of his pupils.  It lasts no more than a bunch of seconds, then Rafa blinks away and poof! It's all gone, and Roger is free again – alone again with his own responsibilities.

He wonders how he's going to find the courage to ask Rafa the question that's pressing behind his lips.

As if reading his mind, it’s Rafa who, unknowingly, breaks the ice.

"I think I saw you talking to Nole on the balcony, earlier," he says, changing the subject with the rapidity of a long-established habit. "I was passing by the French-window on the terrace when I saw you. You two seemed very… concentrated."

Roger has already finished his cocktail, but he's not sure if it’s wise to ask for another one, as things stand.

"I wanted to join you, but someone called me in," Rafa continues, absentmindedly turning his glass. "What were you talking about?"

A veil of sweat beads the palms of Roger's hands. He clenches his fists for a moment and then unclenches them slowly, trying to calm down. He still feels hot and dizzy, and a little breathless too. He takes off his tie and undo the first button of his shirt, desperately trying to get some air.

One of Rafa’s eyebrows slowly arches upward along with his growing perplexity. He’s clearly baffled by Roger’s unusual attitude. Before he can ask what’s wrong with him, Roger confesses: "We were talking about you, actually."

Rafa's astonishment mingles with confusion. "Oh," he says. "And what were you saying about me?"

Roger takes his time. He stares at his empty glass. Jesus, how much more alcohol would he need to get stoned? Despite already having one too many over the evening, he’s still thinking too straight to be able to face this conversation with Rafa. Roger is not ready to experience that excruciating pain opening a hole in his chest again, the one caused by the Serb’s words. It was such a brutal and unexpected blow that not even Roger Federer could protect himself from it. He's somewhat buried the pain so far, after the initial moments of rambling disorientation and anger; he did it for Mirka, for himself, for everyone else who was around – but he knows that, if he talks to Rafa now, the dam will break down and the pain will overflow again, flooding him with despair.

Yet, a part of him is screaming for the truth. He hopes Novak’s lie was just a pathetic attempt at revenge in a war that has been going on for too many years not to be fed up with it. Except that Novak will never be sick of it until he wins, and the most total victory he could achieve over Roger is taking Rafa. Nole knows that this is worth far more to Roger than any dozen Grand Slams in his entire life.

Roger doesn't believe the Serb, though; he never believed him and now less than ever. This time, especially, he doesn't want to believe him. He needs Rafa to tell him what really happened between the two of them. He needs the truth, but he's terrified of it at the same time. He just doesn't know how he'll take it from Rafa’s mouth if he were to confirm what his heart refuses to accept.

"Hey, Roger, are you all right?" Rafa rouses him from his thoughts once more. The silence between them has lasted longer than usual and now Rafa looks particularly worried and restless as he looks at Roger. "You're too quiet. You seem so far away."

"Can I have another one of those?" Roger asks, raising his empty glass and waving it in front of the bartender, who simply nods in reply.

“What are you doing?” Rafa is staring at him in bewilderment.

“Trying to get drunk, I suppose” Roger mumbles.

"Why? What did Nole tell you?" Rafa asks again, this time more firmly, so that Roger understands that he can't beat around the bush any longer.

"He told me a strange story," he mutters, looking down at his own hands resting on the table. "You know when he gets on a roll and starts running his mouth and nobody can stop him..."

Rafa's gaze is unwavering. Even though he keeps still and quiet, Roger knows that the level of concern is raising inside of him; he can almost feel Rafa’s distress dripping out of his skin and radiating into the air around him. As for himself, Roger feels so nauseated that he could throw up any soon. He never felt this bad before, not even when he was still playing.

"What he told you has… anything to do with that… wound?" Rafa asks cautiously. He’s clearly putting two and two together. On the other hand, it seems like Roger can't line up more than a few sentences, so it's up to Rafa to squeeze the words out of him.

Roger absentmindedly looks at his palm. The bartender puts the second cocktail in front of him and takes away the empty glass after asking Rafa if he fancies another one too. Rafa shakes his head in response.

"That was an accident," Roger says. That’s what he’s been repeating to Mirka and to himself all night long. "Accidents happen in life, don't they?"

He lifts his head and points his gaze into Rafa's. Something vibrates tacitly in his question, something that Rafa senses but can't quite decipher, that’s why he becomes even more tense. Roger sees Rafa’s shoulders stiffen under his shirt, his back twitch imperceptibly, as if he’s sniffing out an impending danger. Rafa bows his head a little and rubs his forehead between his thumb and forefinger, smoothing out the fine wrinkles on the skin.

"Okay, Roger," he sighs finally, straightening up. "I don't understand you. You're trying to tell me something, but I can't get it. Can you be explicit, please, and tell me what's wrong?"

Roger is far from being surprised. This is Rafa, taking everything head-on and stuff – facing every unforeseen event, every pitfall, in the same way as he does when he plays his opponents, game after game. As he used to do – Roger stands corrected mentally. Yeah, Rafa doesn’t play anymore but for Roger, for some reason, it is as if Rafa never left that clay court. There is one picture of Rafa that Roger will always treasure in his mind: it’s that of a late spring night – now turned early morning – under the Paris sky lit up by the flashes of photographers, as he lifted up the Musketeers' Cup -  one of the many he won – and smiled.

"Why did Novak come to see you in Manacor?" Roger asks, struggling with that memory.

Rafa looks at him warily, then slowly shrugs his shoulders, a grimace on his lips. "He asked me to meet, he wanted to talk."

Exactly the same thing the Serbian told Roger. But Roger feels there's more; there's something Rafa is omitting to tell him and it vibrates like a questioning expectation at the end of the sentence.

"Did he just want to talk?"

Rafa stares straight into his eyes now. Roger used to read him like a book, once – but now he’s scared he can’t trust the man anymore.

"Roger…" Rafa begins, speaking as softly as possible, and Roger's heart instantly somersaults into his chest, because the tone of his voice is enough to give him away.  

Roger can’t stand it. He doesn't want to hear what he thinks is coming. "And did you really believe him, Rafa? Were you so naïve?" he bursts out.

The sound of his heart, hammering furiously against his ribs, is deafening, like the roar of a thunderstorm that echoes in his ears.

Rafa doesn’t seem surprised at Roger’s reaction. He slowly lowers his eyes and starts scratching the wooden counter with a fingernail. Roger follows his gaze. Every detail of Rafa's hands is well etched in his mind; Roger knows that if he turned his palms upwards, he would still see on his left the calluses of a lifetime spent handling rackets. Those will never go away, probably.

The only detail he’s still not used to is the wedding ring sparkling on Rafa’s finger. It always hits a spot inside of him, probably because he was used to seeing Rafa play with his bare fingers, excluding the plasters occasionally wrapped around his phalanges, standing out white on golden brown skin. Roger’s mind sometimes still struggles to accept that time has moved on and he let Rafa slip through his fingers, slowly becoming a husband and father.

"We hadn't seen each other in years," Rafa says in a low voice. It's not like he's apologizing, not yet. "I didn't expect anything from that meeting."

"But you knew he had a soft spot for you," Roger says, lowering his voice as well. It's superfluous, anyway: the only other person still around is Oscar the bartender, who is dozing on a stool in a corner. Roger vaguely wonders where Rafa's family are: earlier in the evening he came across Maribel, Rafa’s blonde sister, with her partner in tow, and she greeted him with two kisses on the cheeks; then Toni approached him, shook Roger’s hand and lavished compliments, as usual, on a blushing Mirka. Now Roger wonders where Maria Francisca is. Probably putting little Rafael to bed, like any good mother. He should feel guilty for keeping Rafa there with him, but he doesn't.

"Yes, I knew," Rafa admits, and sighs. "But I thought it was a thing of the past. Jesus, Roger, it's been years!"

"Well, some things stay the same over the years, apparently," Roger says. "Like this, right?"

He brushes his fingertips against the inside of Rafa’s wrist. He feels Rafa's artery pulsing slow and steady under his thinner skin. Roger’s touch is as light as butterfly’s wings, intentional but apparently effortless, just like his sliced backhand was – flawless consistency without shedding a single drop of sweat. Feeling Rafa unmistakably shiver under the touch, Roger is filled with a painful satisfaction, realizing that Rafa also still feels the same way he does, every now and then.

Rafa’s fingers twitch across the table, as if he wants to pull his hand away from Roger’s but something prevents him from doing so.

"Yes, but this is you and me, Roger," he whispers. "Not me and Nole. It's not the same."

"Well, maybe it is the same for him," Roger says. He's the first to pull his hand away. "Maybe he's still obsessed with you, you don't know."

"You, more than me, seem to be his obsession, actually."

"Yeah, but you're the one he asked to get laid."

Rafa flinches at the word, and holds his breath. Roger’s head is spinning around if he moves too fast, but hopefully he's stable enough not to fall off his stool. He doesn't really need that to make a fool of himself; the conversation is more than enough.

"Did he or didn't he?" Roger insists. Now it's Rafa who doesn't answer and Roger’s the one who attacks, who goes down to the net, pressing, forcing Rafa to retreat to the baseline to defend himself.

Rafa glances at him. "He did. But you seem to already know. If so, why you asking?"

Roger looks away, tapping his fingers around the glass. A heat wave is rising to his head; he feels his cheeks burning. For a moment his vision blurs, and he has to blink to bring it back into focus.

"That’s all I’ve known so far. What I want to know now," he says, whispering into his glass, "is what you answered, Rafa... God, this conversation is awkard.... I feel like an idiot," he adds, and takes his head in his hands.

Roger slides his fingers through his hair, which is much shorter than in the past, but still tends to curl slightly, especially on the nape of his neck and above his ears. He’s afraid to look at Rafa, so he stays with his hands buried in his locks, head bent downwards.

"What did he tell you?" he hears Rafa ask, his voice coming as if from a great distance.

"That he had to struggle a bit to persuade you," Roger says, repeating Novak's words almost exactly.

Roger sees Rafa nod softly out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah. It's true. He was being very insistent," he confirms. And with those words he could have just ripped the heart out of Roger's chest with his bare hands, leaving a pulsating void that screams to be filled somehow.

Roger is again so overwhelmed by the flood of emotions, as before, that he gasps, out of breath. He summons every single drop of the self-control that a twenty years-spanning carrier on a tennis court has taught him in order not to collapse. He strives to hold the pieces together, but it's like keeping his balance on a wire as thin as a hair that is dangerously swinging hundreds of meters high, suspended on the abysmal emptiness of his own disappointment and derangement.

"Well" is all he can utter. "Well," he repeats, trying to swallow but his mouth is completely dry. His voice is so husky it hardly sounds like his anymore. "I guess I don't need to know anything else, at this point."

He slides his hands along the wooden counter, grabs the edge and pushes it away as he stands up from the stool.

"Hey, where are you going?" Rafa is completely blown away. He leans over to Roger, grabs his shoulder, pinning him in place. "Where the hell are you going, Roger?" he repeats, staring at him with wide eyes.

Roger musters all his self-control, again, not to explode.

"To bed," he says flatly. "It's getting late."

"I-I thought you wanted an… explanation," Rafa stammers, peering into his face. "I thought you wanted to know how the story went..."

“Oh, no, spare me the details, please” Roger cries out; actually, he would like to cry on the inside. He shakes his head slowly – it's just pride that keeps him standing. If he listened to the silent yell erupting from the depths of his own being, he would be throwing himself at Rafa's feet, clinging to his knees and screaming why.

"Listen, Rafa" his mouth says instead. "You are a free man.  Or, to be more accurate, you are a married man. I mean... it's really none of my business who you sleep with or don't sleep with, right? It’s Maria Francisca’s concern, not mine, I suppose."

Rafa blushes; despite that, his hand still holds firmly Roger's shoulder, hesitating to let it go.

"Well, that’s weird because I thought you really wanted to talk about it. Why did you insist if you don't care?"

Roger closes his eyes for a moment, feeling overwhelmed. He’s on the verge of bursting into hysterical laughter: how – how can Rafa think he doesn't care? He cares so much that it’s almost killing him.

He reluctantly opens his eyes. "As I said before, it's none of my business, but..." He pauses, taking a deep breath through his nose. "But... Jesus, Rafa. Why Novak?... Why – Novak – Djokovic...? Why him, for God’s sake?"

Looking at Roger’s face, Rafa suddenly realizes what is bothering him so much. As understanding makes its way inside him, he takes his time to choose the right words to say. Rafa always knows more than he shows, and generally weighs his words very carefully so that no one gets hurt. His speech seems slow and awkward, and people think that’s because he’s not speaking his mother tongue – actually, there is a deep consideration behind, that remains unknown to most. It's not the language – it's taking responsibility for the consequences of what he might say. The exact opposite of what Novak usually does.

"I may be wrong, but I believe it's your bruised ego speaking right now, Roger," Rafa says calmly. "Besides, you’re being unfair to Novak. Just think about it. Siempre lo has despreciado. You don’t like him, you focus only on his negatives and that prevents you from appreciating his positives. Why not Novak, you should ask yourself. He has nothing less than many other people you and I know do."

Rafa's apology of Novak Djokovic comes so unexpected that it hits Roger like a hammer. For a moment the shock is so strong that it washes away all the pain and jealousy. For long seconds Roger can't even think of a possible answer. He stares at Rafa in horror, and Rafa gazes back at him with a calm – vaguely admonishing, vaguely worried – look.

"This must be a joke," Roger murmurs. “You can’t be serious, Rafa. This… you… I…” He’s stuttering. This was the last thing he was expecting to get when he sat in front of that counter. He feels betrayed twice. He has to try several times before he can get together something more than just a few disjointed pronouns."Not only you're admitting that... you and him… I mean… but also you're defending Novak Djokovic!" he finally explodes. "You're singing his praises! I didn't know he had become the champion of your heart..."

"Actually, he's not," Rafa says quietly, seriously. "He never was. You know that better than anyone else."

"I thought I knew," Roger says through gritted teeth. "Just as I thought I knew you. But after this... I’m not so sure who you really are, Rafael."

Rafa looks hurt. “I was just trying to help you see things with some objectivity. It didn’t go the way you think, Roger. Believe me.”

Roger stands up, shaking Rafa's hand off. He staggers a bit, but his reflexes are still good enough for him to maintain his composure. He fumbles in the inside pocket of his jacket in search of his wallet, ignoring Rafa's gaze still fixed on him.

"What are you doing?" Rafa murmurs, while Roger finally manages to find the wallet and opens it with trembling fingers, looking for a bill inside. "Leave it, alcohol is on the house."

"Be that as it may," Roger stubbornly insists. "I don't want to owe you anything."

That’s when Rafa, exasperated, jumps to his feet and grabs Roger's fist – the one that’s holding the bill – pressing it against Roger’s chest. "Keep your money. I insist," he says through gritted teeth, barely moving his lips. The twitching muscles in his jaws let Roger know that he's serious, and he's trying to stop him from making a scene.

If Roger were just a little more drunk, or if he were a few years younger, he wouldn’t give a fuck. On the contrary, he would enjoy embarrassing Rafa even more in a situation in which, alas, he got himself into, as far as he can judge.

A little voice inside him says that Rafa is not to blame; Roger really can't take it out on him for what happened. But that voice is so weak and insignificant compared to the absurd immensity of his suffering that it swallows it up entirely.

They stand facing each other for a few moments, so close that their breaths mix –Rafa’s fingers wrapped tightly around Roger's fist, holding it against the starched fabric of the shirt on his chest. Roger wonders if Rafa can feel his heart beating underneath. He hopes not. It’s hard to tell, though: nothing shows through Rafa’s unfazed look. Ironically, with all all his passion and explosive energy boiling inside, Rafa has always been better at dealing with emotions than Roger has.

Something inside Roger slowly softens, or rather shrivels. His shoulders relax, his head bends down, and his fist loosens as well. He has quietly given up the fight. Rafa notices it, but for some reason he doesn't seem to want to break the contact with him; holding Roger’s hand is the only way he has to try and reach him through the wall of demented anger that Roger has erected around himself during their conversation.

Rafa wishes he could explain through his mere touch. But in the end, albeit reluctantly, he has to let go. In the eyes of the world he and Roger are two straight grown men; unspoken rules say that Rafa can't bask in a contact like that for no reason - not there, not at that moment, not in public, not with Roger. But when he pulls back from him, he looks no less miserable than Roger.

Roger opens his wallet wordlessly and lets the crumpled bill slip back into it. Meanwhile, Rafa has shifted his gaze to the tips of his shoes and, hands in the pockets, rubs them nervously on the polished marble floor, not knowing what to say. Neither of them seems willing to resume their conversation; its aftertaste is something bitter that, like a poor wine, needs to decant for a while before trying it again.

"I better get going. It's late," Roger whispers, almost timidly now.

"I'll call you a taxi."

"No, don't bother. I can do it myself."

Rafa's expression is helpless. Roger feels more nauseous than ever now. No longer angry or hurt - just very, very sad. He feels the need to lie down in a bed, pull the covers over himself and sleep for a hundred years.

"Mirka will be waiting for me," he adds, quite unnecessarily.

Rafa looks at him; the corner of his mouth is trembling. "I remember that was the thing you used to say most often, ten years ago."

That also was a completely unnecessary thing to say. Digging up the past… yeah, they’re both doing their share.

Roger wonders if Rafa finally gave in to Novak to make up for Roger’s previous rejection, back when he choose Mirka as his life-long partner, making a wife of his childhood sweetheart. Roger always wanted him very much – he still wants him, though he can’t allow himself to be selfish again – but it wasn't enough, for Rafa, to be the second choice. And Roger couldn't blame him.

Was Novak more convincing than him, more persuasive? Roger keeps wondering how the Serb has managed to overcome Rafa's defenses and get the best of his moral principles; he’s wrapping his mind around that thought because it is much better to focus on that than on other even worse images. One above all, that of Novak's body wrapped around Rafa's, taking over him with his hands and his mouth. Roger doesn't want to think about the fact that Rafa might have kissed him – would he feel better knowing he didn't? Probably not.

But how did Novak manage to get into the bed of a family man who, years ago, when he was free as air, denied Roger, refusing to be the alternative to the established couple formed by him and Mirka?... Yet Rafa is still Rafa, and so is his inability to compromise: he has not changed, he is still the same outspoken person hard to buy with any flattery. That’s why Roger must know how Novak did it. He will have no peace until then.

"Just tell me one last thing, Rafa, please," Roger says, as they’re waiting for his taxi at the top of the staircase just outside the villa. His overcoat is folded over his arm, his tie is knotted impeccably around his neck again. The cloakroom guy must have suspected something anyway, because he spotted Roger’s bloodshot eyes and immediately looked away without asking any questions.

Rafa is a step behind Roger, standing with his hands in his pockets, and keeps him company without Roger having asked. Roger has his back to Rafa on purpose, because it's easier than having to look him in the face. But when he asks his question, he turns around because he wants to read the answer in Rafa’s eyes, not just hear it from his lips. 

Rafa catches his eye immediately. "What," he says in a colorless voice, as if all his life has been sucked out of him.  

Roger feels a fleeting tightness in his chest that could resemble guilt, before sinking back into the ocean of dullness that pervades him and makes him insensitive to any emotion.

"How did Novak convince you?" Roger asks. "How did he make you forget your responsibilities to your family?"

Rafa takes the hit without blinking an eye, but a chill fills the air around him, coming from his figure. His apparent absence of reaction is even more intimidating.

"Are you going to talk about responsibility to the family, Roger? You, of all people? Really?"

Roger blushes furiously. He bites his lip violently to prevent himself from replying. Come to think of it, there is not much to reply. Rafa has every right to rubs Roger’s face in his past inconsistency – even present, maybe, if only he would give him the chance. Hence, Roger is the last person who can afford to point fingers. But that doesn't prevent him from feeling cheated anyway, and deceived, and somehow betrayed.

In the meantime, the taxi has arrived.

Roger lingers for a moment, holding the door open, and glances over his shoulder at Rafa, whose expression is as hollow as that of a marionette, drained of any emotion. For a second Roger is about to apologize to him, but then wounded pride takes over.

"You hurt me tonight," Roger says softly, one foot already in the cab, giving Rafa another brief sideways glance, as if just looking at him more closely could get him hurt again. “I thought you were on my side. I thought I knew you.”

"I thought so too," Rafa says cryptically.

Roger waits a few more seconds for him to say something else, but Rafa remains silent.

"Good night, Rafael," Roger says at last, and that's the worst way of saying goodbye.

He gets into the taxi and leans against the door, looking out of the window, away from where Rafa is standing, motionless as a statue, while the first drops of rain lash the glass.

So before you go

Was there something I could’ve said

To make it all stop hurting

It kills me how your mind

Can make you feel so worthless

*

Part III

[Rafa & Nole]

Was never the right time, whenever you called

Went little, by little, by little until there was nothing at all

Our every moment, I start to replay

But all I can think about is seeing that look on your face

“You said you would read me the story of the wizard and the talking dragon, yesterday" little Rafael murmurs, hunched over his bowl of cornflakes, the corners of his mouth trembling. “You didn’t come.”

He looks up at his father and Rafa notices, with some consternation, how much the kid takes after him–- in gestures, in expressions – then, the guilt falls on him like a downpour, taking his breath away. 

"Oh, Rafito, come here," he says, taking the boy into his arms. "You're right, honey. There was an important party yesterday, it was a very special occasion, and there were several friends I hadn't seen in a long time. I am very sorry I didn’t have the time to read you the story, but I promise we'll finish the last chapter tonight and you'll know if the dragon gets defeated, okay? Are you listening? It’s a promise. "

Rafael doesn't look up from his cornflakes, which he hasn't touched the whole time. He watches as they slowly soak in the sea of white milk. "I'm old enough to read on my own now," he mumbles.

Before Rafa can retort, Mery enters the room. "Come on, honey, it's time to get dressed," she says, addressing the child. "Aren't you hungry?" she adds, glancing at the untouched breakfast and, immediately after, at Rafa, as if she instantly knew it's his fault.

Rafael shakes his head, but something seems to distract him from his dark mood because he lifts his head and points his hopeful eyes on his mother's face. "Can I wear Messi's shirt today, Mom?"

"Sure, honey, but it needs to be washed from time to time", says Mery. “You can’t be wearing the same thing over and over again.” Little Rafael doesn't seem to hear her: that is enough to turn on a light of joy on his face; he jumps off Rafa's lap, heedless of his warnings, and darts away, impatient to go and put it on.

“I'll get some more autographed jerseys for him. Leo won’t mind” Rafa says, once he and Mery are alone. Then he looks up. “Was he very upset last night?" he asks hesitantly.

She takes the intact bowl off the table and empties it into the dustbin.

"He waited for you until midnight, then he collapsed," she says, giving her back to him. "I wanted to read him a piece of the story, but he wouldn’t let me."

Rafa doesn't say anything for a while. "I'm sorry," he finally murmurs. "I had to say goodbye to..."

"... to Roger, I suppose," Mery finishes; her tone sounds harmless. "How is he, by the way? I didn't get to speak to him much yesterday, but he still looks in a great shape, as far as I've seen."

"He's fine," says Rafa, and pauses. There’s so much to say but suddenly a beep on his iPhone informs him of an incoming message.

As Mery rinses Rafael's cup under the tap, Rafa pulls the phone out of his pocket and peers at the screen, with a strange apprehension gripping his chest - maybe it's him...

It’s Novak, instead. I think I've messed up, he types. Thankfully, he didn't add any crying emoticons; Rafa wouldn't stand it. But that's enough to make him frown.

"Are you okay?" asks Mery, who hasn't missed his sudden change of expression.

"Yeah, it's all right," Rafa repeats mechanically. He puts his phone back in his pocket and looks up at her. "I was thinking… I’ll clear my schedule for today and take Rafito to play some ball. Would you like to join us?"

Mery peers at him. She looks at this man she has known since they were children and with whom she has spent more than half of her life. "No, thank you," she declines. "Maybe you’d better spend some time alone with him. It will do good to both of you. Besides, watching you play football is a bore."

Rafa laughs. Mery's shoulders relax a little. "You won't keep him away from tennis for long, Rafa, you know," she tells him, as Rafa pushes his chair back and gets up from the table. "Football is just a pastime for him. He wants to be like you."

"I know," Rafa says, suppressing a sigh. "But I'm going to do my best to make sure it doesn't happen." To make sure he doesn’t end up like me, he means, but doesn’t say it openly. "I'll pop in to the gym and see you in a couple of hours. Do you need anything?"

Mery shakes her head. Her eyes tell a different story, but she's become so good at hiding her needs that Rafa is easily fooled. When he leans over the table to kiss her lips, she lets him do it. As Rafa leaves the room, Mery's gaze follows him silently. She stays there, like an ancient statue in front of the sea, left behind by the passing time.

When Rafa's out of her sight, the phone beeps in his pocket again. His shoulders stiffen imperceptibly, and the ephemeral feeling of joy is immediately swept away. He wouldn't want to, but he can’t help it. He picks it up and looks at the screen.

Can we talk? Novak again. Please, he types a second later.

Rafa would like to retort that there is no need to talk about anything at all, and that he already knows how bad Novak messed up, that he broke the rules, that talking won't help him wash away his remorse - if there's any sincere remorse in him.

Apparently, Novak does not know that Roger talked to Rafa, after their fight.

A dumbass and a bunch of belated feelings of guilt, that's what Novak Djokovic is.

Neverthless, Rafa didn’t regret standing up for Novak in front of Roger: he is one of the few who firmly believes that Novak is not a bad person in himself, even if more often than not he happens to be proved wrong. Rafa can’t get mad at Novak even though Novak didn’t keep his word, being his usual ass self. Or, at least, he's not so much angry with him as disappointed in Roger’s absolute mistrust.

But that's something Rafa's not ready to come to terms with just yet.

Later, on the football pitch, as he watches Rafito chase the ball, pretending to dribble an opponent on the wing and letting out wild screams of encouragement to imaginary teammates, Rafa resolves to do what he can no longer put off. He picks up his phone reluctantly, scrolls through the messages and, when he gets to the last one, presses his thumb on the sender's number. He brings the phone to his ear, listening to the echoing rings of the outgoing call.

"Nice volley!... Hey, that was good!" he yells at his son, as he watches him shoot at goal. A left-footed shot by Rafael again, although it is not his dominant foot. Rafa knows that he does it to imitate him, and he still doesn't know how to deal with this.  Actually, it puts him in quite a crisis.

Novak answers on the fifth ring.

"Rafa. Thank you for calling back" is the first thing he says, relief in his voice. “I’d given up hope…”

Rafa suppresses an irritated sigh. "I know what happened between you and Roger," he says, bluntly. "I spoke to him yesterday."

Novak remains in stunned silence.

"What the hell where you thinking?" Rafa explodes, shaking his head. "We had a deal. Why did you do such a stupid thing?"

"I’m sorry I broke my promise, but Roger brought that on himself. He was annoying me," Novak says, as if that were enough to explain everything. "You know how he is. He looks at you with that air of superiority that makes you want to beat the shit out of-"

"Tell me, Novak, did you do it to hurt him or to hurt me?" Rafa cuts him off. He lifts his head, letting the sun rain down on his face, and closes his eyes trying to breathe in a sense of peace along with the warm Mallorcan air, just refreshed by the night drizzle. However, it seems impossible to achieve any peace, at least for the moment.

"Him," Novak says without hesitation, and he sounds sincere. "He was going to punch me, anyway."

"Oh, yes? And you didn't deserve it, did you?"

"I just wanted to put him to the test. See his reaction..."

"And was it as you expected? Or were you just disappointed, Novak?" Rafa says, and this time his voice, usually gentle, is as sharp as a double-bladed knife. “That’s the stupidest reason I’ve ever heard, by the way.”

"Let's just say I couldn’t imagine he would overreact like that," Novak says. "What about you? Did you expect such a reaction? Are you glad that Roger still considers you as his property, somehow?"

"You’re wrong. He does not consider me as his property", Rafa retorts wearily, as if repeating a story that’s been told and retold.  

He hears Novak chuckling into the phone."I wish I could look you in the face right now, man, and see you lie to yourself."

"The thing is," Rafa interrupts again, "you told him a lie. You're a damn liar, Novak."

Novak doesn't respond immediately. Rafa knows him so well that he can perfectly picture in his mind the expression on Novak’s face: it’s the one he gets every time he is caught red-handed and struggles to find a justification. He's like that old classmate from primary school who was endlessly getting busted by the teacher copying his homework but always had a ready-made excuse to avoid a punishment.

If Rafa were just a little less himself, he would hate him – but Rafa's never hated anyone, not really. He just can't do that.

"Technically," Novak says sternly, but not repentantly at all, "it was an omission, not a lie."

"You told him you asked me to sleep with you!"

"Affirmative."

"But you didn't tell him all the truth."

"You could have done it yourself, when he asked. Because… he did ask you, didn't he?"

"He didn't give me the time. He was..."

"... devastated. I know."

"You can't treat people like that, Novak," Rafa says, his voice vibrating with bitterness. "You can't hurt them on purpose for no reason."

"But I bet he believed it right away," Novak says, ignoring Rafa's words. "I bet he didn’t doubt for a moment that you had given in."

Rafa falls silent. Novak hears him swallow on the other end of the line.

"Dad, pass the ball! Pass it to me!" Rafael shouts, when a carelessly kick sends the ball within Rafa’s reach. He’s still watching his son playing from the baseline as he paces back and forth, the phone pressed against his ear. Rafa reaches out to stop the ball with his left foot and shots it back to Rafael with his right. But this time the kick is too much powerful and sends the ball straight into the net. "Gooooaal!" Little Rafael is screaming at the top of his lungs. He lifts his Messi's shirt over his head and twirls in circles with his arms wide open, like a crazy airplane. "Great shot, Dad!"

"Rafa, are you still there?" Novak asks.

Rafa swallows again. "Yes, he believed it right away," he says. He raises two fingers in a sign of victory when his son runs past him to collect the ball.  

Novak bursts into an incredulous giggle. "Sure he did. I don't know whether to feel flattered or..." He pauses. He knows Rafa is thinking the same. "... Or shocked at how little Roger seems to know you, Rafa. His lack of trust is insulting."

There he goes again, putting his finger in the wound. Novak Djokovic is not only a hard court specialist, he has also a sixth sense for finding where it hurts the most.

"Yeah, he should know me," Rafa murmurs. He looks down at the last drops of rain shining on the artificial turf, almost completely dried by the golden sun by now. "And yet..."

"And yet, he is the usual egocentric who shapes the world in his own image and likeness and who believes that his yardstick is the only eligible one," Novak says. "I've always wondered what you and him had in common, Rafa. Why you chose him."

"Please, Novak, don't start again with that" Rafa snorts wearily. “If someone had told me it would end like this, I would have thought twice bef-"

"Maybe you should try and talk to him," Novak interrupts. "Or… I can give it a shot if you want, but I can’t promise you anything. After yesterday, the most likely thing I’ll get out of Roger for the next twenty years is a black eye."

"No, no, forget about it," Rafa says, rolling his eyes. "You've already caused enough trouble, Novak. Thank you."

"I may be a jerk," Novak says, cross again, "but he is no less than I am."

"Oh my God..."

"Listen, he doesn't trust you. And yet he should be one of those who knows you best!" Novak blurts out. "How could he believe that you ended up in bed with me? Not that I didn't try, Rafa, but Christ, you really..."

"Novak."

"Okay. Okay. I'm just saying that..." Novak takes a deep breath from his nose. "Fuck, Rafa, you should have said yes to me. At least you'd have something to really make up for, by now. Not just gratuitous and baseless accusations coming from a blowhard who-"

Rafa hungs up abruptly. He slips his phone into his pocket with shaking hands. He feels tears he didn’t realize he was holding back burning at the back of his throat.

"Daddy..." Rafael approaches him, holding the ball under his arm. He wipes his face with the front of his shirt and looks up at Rafa with his sweaty hair standing on end on the top of his head. "Daddy, when are you going to take me to play tennis?"

Rafa gasps as if someone has suddenly snatched the ground from under his feet. Things just went from bad to worse for him. He struggles to regain composure, but the gaze he lowers on his son is of pure terror.

"Tennis?" he says, as if he's never heard the word before. "I thought you enjoyed playing football..."

"Yes, I enjoy it," Rafael says, dangling his head as he rubs the sole of his shoe on the ground to clean it. "But I also like rackets. Can we try sometime, Dad? Just try, please."

Rafa feels horrified. Mery was right: he knew this moment would come and should have prepared himself better for it, but he's been distracted by other things – things bearing Roger Federer's face and voice, for example. When Rafael was born, he had promised himself that nothing would ever distract him from his son.  But, somehow, it happened anyway.

"Yes," Rafa hears himself say in a strangled voice. "Yes we can, of course. You'll have plenty of time to try tennis. Why not."

While Rafael smiles contently and takes him by the hand, Rafa wonders why he is so afraid to see his son on a tennis court. Is it because he would remind him too much of himself? Because he would fear to see him fail? Or to see him win - win more than he did, perhaps? What is it that fills his stomach with acid at the mere thought of seeing his boy hold a racket aiming at a ball? Would it be the same with football, or anything else?

On the other hand, he knows he can't protect his son from everything in life. Thinking about it, he nearly can't protect himself. Years are gone by and he's still attached to a man he once gave everything for; now that it’s supposed to be his turn, that man doesn't even give him the benefit of the doubt.

Was Roger the cause of his illness? Or was it tennis?

And why, in his mind, are Roger and tennis still on the same page, inextricably linked, so that he can’t tell where one begins and the other ends?

He really hopes that this is just a phase Rafito's going through, that it will pass and he will settle for football, and will not want to love anything else. He hopes - with all his heart - that there won't be another Roger waiting ahead of his son.

That’s all it would take to relieve him.

*

Part IV

[What Roger will never know

or:

what had really happened in Manacor, a few weeks before]

"So, you're going to spend the night with me? What's your answer?"

Rafa has no answer. Novak bursts out laughing - a bitter laugh, bordering on hysteria. Rafa waits patiently for his hilarity to run out.

"Don't tell me," Novak says. "You still love him, don't you?... Oh, shit."

The Serb shakes his head in disbelief. He looks up at the horizon, at the thin line where sea and sky meet without really touching each other and a sudden melancholy seizes him.

"I guess there’s no point in insisting", he says after a few minutes of silence. "Still, you should know I have nothing to lose. I've already wasted too many years on this story. It drove me crazy."

"I'm afraid there's no way to fix it," Rafa says thoughtfully. "Not a way that fits everyone, at least."

"Christ, Rafa, you owe me that at least," Novak suddenly blurts out. "I've been drooling over you for years, and you've never had eyes for anyone but Roger. Don't I deserve a little kindness from you? Besides, I've never treated you like he did."

"Kindness. You call it that now?" Rafa says, pursing his lips into a grimace. "You don't know anything about how Roger treated me, Nole, or how I treated him."

"Well, not directly. But your eyes used to speak for you when you were coming to hit the practice court in the morning and he pretended not to see you."

Rafa squirms at the brutality of those words, but he’s not intimidated. "Reminding me of Roger's faults won't make me fall into your arms, Nole," he retorts. "Sorry about that."

"Maybe I don’t want to make you fall in my arms…”

"So when you say you want to spend the night with me” Rafa smirks sarcastically, arching an eyebrow, “you mean playing chess or videogames and stuff like that, right?"

"I just mean what I mean: spending – time – together” Novak repeats slowly, unfazed. “You and me. It doesn't necessarily have to be sex, you know."

Rafa looks almost offended now. "Are you making fun of me, Novak? You really think I'm so naïve?"

"No, I just think you're still in love with Roger Federer. That’s it." Novak spells out the name by trailing all the r's, one by one. "You confirmed me that just now." He sighs, as if a huge weight were pressing down on his chest.

"I have a wife and a son," Rafa mutters, almost to himself. "Roger is no longer the center of my life."

"Even more so, there's nothing wrong with spending some time with a friend," Novak says suggestively. "Whom would that hurt? Or is the mere thought of what Roger would think that's paralyzing you, Rafa?"

Novak has a way of pushing people’s buttons. Rafa, despite himself, has to give him credit for that. It makes him think that, if the Devil had human features, he could easily resemble a Serbian tennis player of his acquaintance.

"Don't talk bullshit, please" Rafa protests. "I am a grown man, I’m free to think and act as I please. Roger has nothing to do with this."

Novak's gaze is almost compassionate. He's risking to piss Rafa off in order to get what he wants. He isn’t just the reckless guy – he’s got a strategy.

“It would make no sense to spend the night together," Rafa is saying in the meantime. "We are already spending time together, as you can see." He waves carelessly at the empty glasses of beer, at the deserted beach in front of them. The guy at the bar is hastily putting everything back in order: it’s almost nine o'clock in the evening now… closing time. "I don't want anything more from you, Novak. Besides, it would be difficult to justify your presence with my family."

"You could say that a friend came over," Novak says promptly, as if he had prepared the answer in advance. "I bet you've done that with Roger several times before. Why wouldn’t it work with me?"

"Because everybody knows that you and I are not-"

Rafa breaks off, biting his lip. Novak raises an eyebrow mockingly.

"... not friends?" he finishes, chuckling. "While I guess that you and Roger, uhm, you two are friends, right?"

“Ok, I’ve had enough with this” Rafa snorts, exasperated, grabbing the armrests of his wicker chair. "I don’t want to listen to bullshit anymore. I’m going away, before this is no longer a pleasant memory."

"Oh, it could be a much more pleasant memory if only you wanted to…"

Rafa gets up while Novak is still talking. Novak, with one of those feline snaps that made much of his fortune on the court, lunges at him and grabs Rafa by his arm. Rafa lowers his gaze, Novak raises his. The muscles in Rafa's forearm stretch like a bundle of steel under Novak's fingers, in a silent warning.

"Okay. Do you want the truth?” Novak whispers, his eyes wider than ever. “Here’s the truth. I just want to see you sleep, Rafa. Nothing more. No sex, if you don't want to. I swear on my children."

Rafa stares at him, stunned as well as angry now.

"Tú estás loco. This is the most absurd request ever... This is..." He stops, fumbling for the right adjective.

Novak quickly comes to his rescue. "…creepy? Yeah, I guess it is. But why would you deny me something as innocent as this?"

"Because there’s always a reason when you ask for something," Rafa retorts. "And it’s usually not an innocent one."

"You don't trust me."

Rafa scrutinizes him. "No, I don’t."

"Can you try, at least?"

Rafa doesn't say anything. They stare at each other for what seems like hours. Meanwhile, Novak lets go of Rafa's arm and immediately misses the warmth of his skin. He leans back in the chair, crosses his arms over his chest and waits for Rafa to make up his mind.

"I don't know what you're up to, Nole," he begins, his hands on his hips, "but I warn you: if this may involve my family somehow, I swear I’ll-"

"I won’t do anything" Novak reassures him. "You have my word. I’m still a man of honor, what you think?”

Rafa's skeptical gaze speaks for itself.

Yet – half an hour later, and against all common sense – Rafa is parking the car on the private driveway in front of his house in Manacor and making the way for Novak. They climb the steps of a wide stone staircase leading to a large porch scattered with wicker chairs, a swing and a hammock, onto which the entrance door opens.

Rafa catches a glimpse of himself reflected in the glass door and, next to him, Novak. The Serb looks cool and collected, while Rafa is a bit nervous. However, no one looking at them would suspect that this is anything other than a friendly meeting between two old colleagues.

When Mery goes to open the door and sees Novak, she lets out an exclamation of surprise. Rafa's parents and sister, who are sitting in the dining room, peek out from the door between it and the hall to see who’s there.  

"Novak! We didn't expect you” Rafa’s mother cries out.

“We didn't even know you were here in Maiorca," Sebastian says, walking to Rafa and Novak and shaking Novak’s hand. “When did you get here?”  

They are all so surprised because Novak’s not the only one who didn't tell anyone about this meeting; Rafa didn’t either – and each of them must have had their own good reasons for not doing so.

“Too bad Uncle Toni just left. He would have loved to see you” Maribel adds, addressing to Novak.

“Okay, but now move in, please. We're starving” Rafa jokes, after everyone has greeted the host. Actually he just heard Novak’s stomach gurgling with hunger.

Dinner that night is one of the most baffling experiences in Rafa's life. Absurdity reaches its peaks when Novak takes Rafael on his knees, clasps his hands around a joystick and starts playing FIFA with him. Rafa is so stupefied that he stares at them speachless, without listening to a word of the conversation that revolves around him, bouncing from one family member to another, always involving Novak somehow.  

Rafa can’t tell what it’s upsetting him the most: whether to watch his son, who’s looking completely at ease, lean against the chest of one of his worst rivals and laugh and joke with him while Novak lets him secretly win the game, or to have imagined - for a moment - how different everything would be if there was Roger here, instead of Novak. But Roger is miles away right now – he's always been miles away from Rafa, caught up in the whirlwind of his brilliant life, too busy to turn around and look at what he was leaving behind.

Rafa thinks that, perhaps, he himself is not so different from Novak, after all: both are still living a little of unfulfilled hopes, unexpressed possibilities. A part of them stayed in the past, where it has taken root. Right now Rafa feels far from being a man of the present; Roger was completely wrong about this. Rafa and Nole aren't all that different, to some extent. And discovering suddenly that he has something in common with Novak Djokovic is not good for Rafa: it makes him feel unsecure – as if all of a sudden he doesn't know who he is anymore.

That feeling of uncertainty swirls in his heart throughout the evening. He watches his mother hand Novak a shot of Porto at the end of the dinner; Mery gently takes Rafael, who’s exhausted after eleven games in a row, off Novak’s knees and takes him away with a smile; his father asks him a few questions about the national tennis schools in Serbia... Novak answers everything, smiles at everyone; he looks so comfortable that, if Rafa didn't know him, he'd be instantly seduced by his charme. He feels like the goofy protagonist of a cheap domestic film that certainly does not shine for originality, the prancing horse bound to a pole on a carousel that he doesn't know how to stop.

When Maribel offers Novak – it's past midnight now, and they're still playing French cards, between one yawn and the other – to stay over for the night, and she turns to look at Rafa for confimation, Rafa doesn't know what to say. He feels trapped. He can't think of a polite way to say no, he doesn't have time to make up any excuse. He's never been good at lying, anyway.

Novak looks at him from behind Maribel's head. He knows Rafa is helpless, and will do nothing to rescue him because this is exactly what he wants. That’s why he smirks as he lays down four aces on the table top in front of himself, snatching an incredulous murmur from the others, and calls it a night.

"Of course, Nole, the guest room on the first floor is vacant," Rafa says, while Novak takes his satisfacton. "I'll lead the way. Any time."

Novak bids farewell to the Nadal family – they live in the house adjacent to Rafa's – in a profusion of smiles and handshakes, and a few last jokes between greetings. Roger's name was mentioned not even once in Nadal's house that night, and Rafa suspects it's an all-time record, for as long as he can remember.

Under the pretext of checking if everything is ready for the guest, he apologizes and goes to the bathroom. Mery, foresightedly, has already brought out a couple of towels and an extra bathrobe for Novak. Rafa stares at them as his ears absentmindedly register the thud of the door closing behind Maribel and Rafa’s parents, their footsteps moving on the driveway outside, along with the hushed chatter before they extinguish in the distance.

"Good night, Nole," he hears Mery say, behind the door. "If you need anything, let us know. I hope you get a good night's sleep."

Something tells Rafa that he'll be the one who won't sleep at all that night. 

He puts his wrists under the cold water of the tap and looks at himself for a long time in the bathroom mirror before deciding that he is too grown for hiding anymore and that it is time to leave that comfortable shelter and face the enemy.

The guest room intended for Nole, the one on the first floor, is the largest in the house. It has a private bathroom, a huge king-size bed and a large window overlooking the pool and the tennis courts; from it one can see a glimpse of the sea in the distance. There is an armchair, a sofa and a television; even a mini bar that is currently half-empty. It has almost nothing to envy to a hotel suite.

"Damn, you treat your guests really well. Congratulations," Novak says, glancing around as he enters.

Rafa quickly walks him through the main things he might need during the night, showing him where to look for them. "The bed should be comfortable enough. There’s a memory foam mattress and, if you need, extra pillows and covers are in the closet. You'll want to draw the curtains, it dawns a little after five o’ clock in the morning around here, so, unless you want to be woken up that early…"

The Serb has remained silent throughout Rafa’s professional explanation, apparently listening at him very carefully.

Done his host duties, Rafa waves goodbye at Novak and heads resolutely for the door.

"We could find out together," Nole says suddenly, making Rafa stop on his feet. "If the bed is as comfortable as you say, I mean."

Rafa stares at the door without turning around, but his back tenses. "You promised," he reminds Novak, in a warning tone.

"Yes. I wouldn't do anything you don't want to, chico. That was my promise."

Rafa turns around, frowning at the unusual nickname. Novak is sitting on the edge of the bed now, propping himself on both arms behind his back, and is looking at him with his head tilted to one side, knees apart, and feet firmly planted on the carpet at the foot of the bed.

"I've made my choice," Rafa says slowly, glancing at him and then looking away. "And I’m pretty sure of that."

"Can you just stop for a moment?" Novak suddenly pleads. He shifts his weight to one arm and tap his free hand on the mattress next to him. "Come here, Rafa. Please."

Rafa has grown up so polite and well-mannered that he has to force himself to refuse such a nice request. Novak seems kind and well-intentioned, but Rafa doesn’t buy it. Something glistens at the bottom of Novak’s green irises.  A snake doesn’t cease to be a snake even in its best disguise.

"Stop it," Rafa says, forcing himself into a laugh. "I'm not that drunk."

"No, that's me," Novak agrees, with a grin. "Just like our first time... But now I don't need an excuse to lust after you. At least I have the courage to admit it publicly."

Rafa isn’t sure who Novak is referring to, if to himself or to Roger. It’s pointless, by the way. Whatever Novak says, they have become a sort of triad: from mutually exclusive to reciprocally necessary, as if each one of them legitimizes the existence of the other. Life has a sense of humor, sometimes. 

"C’mon," Novak says, spreading his arms in front of himself. "What are you afraid of? I made you a promise. I'm not going to jump on you, Rafa, hey."

Rafa feels heavy-headed. It's been a long day. How he wishes it were already over, that he could go to sleep and wake up when it’s already tomorrow…

"I can't," he protests weakly. "There's Mery in the other room and-"

"Your wife put little Rafael to sleep an hour ago and stayed with him," Novak says, and he says it with such confidence that Rafa wonders how the hell he knows. "She'll probably be sleeping peacefully by now, too, since I didn't hear her come back into your bedroom."

Rafa is speechless. He knows that Novak is right: there are now more and more frequent times when Mery, under the pretext of singing a lullaby to their child, stays to sleep with him, deserting the marital bed. In addition, she has the excuse that Rafa likes to wake up very early in the morning for his daily workouts and, if they shared the room, he would distrupt her sleep. Rafa at first thought that was quite a price to pay, but then he just let it go.

"Come on," Novak urges him, reading the hesitation on Rafa's face. He holds out his hand to the Spaniard.

Rafa stares at his upward-facing palm waving under his nose. He feels like an external force is pushing him to take two steps forward and, reluctantly, entrust his hand to Novak’s. It's not the first time they touch each other, and yet, he reflects, this is profoundly different from exchanging a handshake with Novak Djokovic at the net at the end of a match.

Now, in the way Novak's fingers wrap, one by one, around the back of his hand, Rafa reads a very specific will, an intentionality that takes his breath away. He feels on Novak's palm the same calluses he has on his own.  

Novak slowly pulls him towards the bed, shifting away a little to make room so that Rafa can sit down or, rather, let himself fall deadweight next to him. He doesn't let go of his hand, his right holding Rafa's left. Their thighs are brushing against each other, and so their shoulders and arms. And there, between them, are those absurdly intertwined hands, taking on a grotesque and surreal meaning that Rafa, tired as he is, refuses to analyze.

Novak looks at him. Rafa looks at the ground. When Novak's thumb draws a half circle at the base of his wrist, Rafa gasps. His stomach tightens.

He is about to say something, but he is only getting anxious. He feels like he’s no more able to find a place in the space for his suddenly heavy body.

"Rafa..." Novak whispers. "Calm down."

Only then does Rafa realize that he is shaking. Or rather, his left knee is jerking up and down, just like it occurred to him before a match, when the vibrating energy flowing in him was too much to hold.

"Relax," Novak repeats. "There's no reason to be nervous."

"I shouldn't be here," Rafa says softly. He shakes his head. "I don't even know why I'm here, but I know I shouldn't."

"You know why you're here," Novak retorts. "Part of you wants this. Stop denying it to you."

Novak turns three-quarters towards Rafa, bringing his head closer to his, and puts his other hand on Rafa’s shoulder. His palm presses against it, pushing him gently but firmly backwards. Rafa lets him; before he knows it, he finds his back pressed against the soft mattress. His eyes are now looking at the exposed wooden beams of the ceiling, and the large crystal chandelier with cream-colored inlays that hangs from it. It feels like being on a boat, drifting aimlessly towards the ocean. His feet on the floor are the last thing that’s keeping him anchorated to reality.

“Hey, this bed is really comfy” he murmurs.

His head is spinning, yet Rafa hasn't had that much to drink. He purposely avoided drinking so much tonight. It must be the sudden change in position that makes him dizzy, affecting the balance receptors in his inner ear – old notions dating back to that time when Rafa had labyrinthitis.

He hears Novak lying down softly by his side, barely making the bed springs squeak. The situation must look very absurd from the outside: they are lying close, brushing against each other through their clothes, Novak still clutching Rafa’s hand as if it were a pledge. Rafa is ready to swear that he has never found himself in such a surreal and awkward situation before, not even with Roger. With Roger, indeed, in their day, he knew exactly what to expect, what he wanted, how to get it.

He should know what to expect from Novak too, and yet... And yet, if Novak really wanted what Rafa thinks he wants from him, he would have taken it by now. Right?

Instead, Novak is breathing quietly by his side. Rafa barely turns to peek at him out of the corner of his eye: Novak has his eyes closed, and he's clearly someone who practices a lot of yoga, because the kind of breathing he's having – through his nose, inhaling and exhaling in four times – can't be natural.

As if feeling Rafa's gaze on him, Novak opens his eyes and turns to look at the Spaniard.

Rafa flinches, caught in the act.

"What?" says Novak.

"I thought you had fallen asleep," Rafa justifies himself.   

It's strange, he reflects, to look at Novak Djokovic from that perspective: horizontally, so close, above a bed. He’s pretty sure he’s never seen him like this.

"You're the one who’s going to fall asleep soon," Novak retorts, his usual grin vaguely reminiscent of a wolf.

As he’s saying this, actually, Rafa feels his eyes burn more than ever from exhaustion; he has to suppress a yawn.

"I'm dead tired," he admits. "And yet, I didn't do anything today. Except... talk to you."

"My fault. Sorry if my brilliant conversation exhausted you," Novak teases him. Rafa is really too tired to strike back.

He closes his eyes, even though the worried voice inside him is not yet completely subsided. You’d better stay awake, it tells him. Just a minute, he protests, what’s the big deal…

He vaguely feels Novak leave briefly his side, his weight shifting on the mattress. Rafa absentmindedly realizes that he is taking off his own shoes and he is almost grateful to the Serb because now he can fit all the way more comfortably on the bed.

Rafa struggles a bit to stay awake – he’s even about to whisper a “thanks” – but exhaustation preavails: he nods off in a flash.  

It feels like he closed his eyes only for a minute when he comes to his senses. A kind of jolt shakes him whole and he opens his eyes wide in the soft light that floods the room through the windows. That’s when he realizes that the long-awaited morning has blissfully arrived.

For long moments, he can't remember where he is. The body next to his own is not Mery's familiar one; even the smell is not that of his wife's anti-aging cream nor the conditioner for curly hair she uses. But it's a smell that's just as familiar to him, because it takes him back to tennis courts, and locker rooms, and aftershave and sunscreen, and talcum powder on his hands, ointment for bruises, disinfectant for blisters that crack the skin… All that and more wakes him up definitively and it's like being catapulted back in time to the old life, his heart in his throat and no ground under his feet.

It is ecstasy and horror at the same time. Horror of emtpiness. Horror of the all-too-familiar unknown.

Rafa turns his head on the pillow and meets Novak's wide-open eyes fixed on him. He's turned on his side, propped on one elbow, leaning his head on his fist and looking at him thoughtfully.

Who knows how long he's been awake, staring at Rafa without moving a muscle, without saying a word. Novak doesn't have a hair out of place, as if he hasn't changed position all night. Yet his face looks relaxed, barely furrowed by just a few very fine wrinkles: of the three of them, it is to Novak Djokovic that the time has proved to be more indulgent, in spite of everything.

"Good morning," Novak says, grinning. "I was just wondering when Sleeping Beauty would wake up."

"Don't you have anything better to do than watch me sleep?"Rafa grumbles, and hastily closes his eyes again, not only out of embarrassment, but also because his brain needs extra time to process the new, incredible situation that he’s facing and that he doesn't quite know how to figure out.

He. Djokovic. In the same bed.

No, wait...

When he realizes, Rafa jerks his head up and glances down at his own body. To his great relief, he sill has all his clothes on, and so does Novak, next to him – who, of course, does not fail to notice Rafa’s move and immediately frowns.

"Did you think I was going to rape you in your sleep?" he says, in an offended tone. And this time he's not pretending. "Who did you take me for?"

"I wasn't thinking that," Rafa defends himself, closing his eyes again and dropping the back of his head on the sheets. "I was just afraid..."

"Of what?" Novak presses. His eyes follow Rafa’s movements as he stretches his entire body, from the tips of his fingers to the tips of his toes, on the bed, feeling much more rested than he had hoped for the night before.

"Well," Rafa says, opening his eyes and blinking at the ceiling. "I was afraid that, during the night, I could... you know… accidentally... undress myself..."

Novak looks at him sarcastically. "Accidentally undress yourself," he repeats. "You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?"

Rafa doesn't bother to find any better justification. He looks up at the ceiling so as not to look at Novak, summoning up the courage to ask him the mandatory question.

"So..." he begins, "so...  nothing happened, right?"

When no answer comes from Novak, Rafa turns to look at him. "Between us, I mean..."

Novak is looking at Rafa like he's an idiot, narrowing his eyes imperceptibly. His thin lips are curved into the shape of an everlasting wry smile that seems to have become an inextricable part of his person.

"What was supposed to happen?" he asks. "That I would jump on you or you would jump on me half asleep making me renege on my own promises?" Novak laughs, seeing Rafa blush. "I hoped so, yes I did. But you've done nothing but sleep hard, Rafa. All bloody night. I can assure to you, it was absolute agony."

"And you... you..."

"Me? I didn't do anything. Again, how could I? I lied here watching you sleep. And hearing you snore. I only nudged you from time to time when you were invading my space. That's it."

Rafa looks at him frowning, biting his lip. "So nothing really happened? You really watched me sleep all the time and... Oh, Holy Christ, this is really embarrassing!" he blurts out, fully realizing the situation, and raises both hands, pressing his palms over his eyes, as if to erase the image from his mind.

"Oh yes, I guess it is," sighs Novak, fairly amused by Rafa’s embarrassment. "It's much more intimate than fucking, they say."

Rafa drops his hands to his sides.

"There must be something wrong with you, Nole," he says. "I don't know why you insisted so much, but if that's really what you wanted, if you really have-"

"…been waiting 20 years just to see you sleep, Rafael?" Novak finishes. He looks at Rafa thoughtfully and shrugs. "Yes, that's probably what I wanted. I'm crazy, say it."

Rafa is about to say something – probably that Novak is crazy, without any doubt - when the alarm clock on his iWatch starts ringing. A furious beep beep. Rafa lifts his wrist in front of his face and presses the off button. Only then does he realize that it's late.

"I have to go," he says, and all the muscles in his body contract when he straightens up, sitting on the mattress, and crawls toward the edge of the bed. As he bends over, looking for his shoes on the carpet, he feels Novak's eyes fixed on his back and a distressing thought suddenly rushes over him, making him shiver. He straightens up, one shoe in his hand, the other already tucked to his foot, and slowly turns to the Serbian. Novak hasn’t changed his position; he looks like a revisited edition of the Venus of Urbino, but fully clothed, and his green eyes are darker than ever. He resembles a big, sly cat teasing him in the shadow.

"Give me your word," Rafa says, the syllables crowding in haste on top of each other.

Novak raises an eyebrow inquiringly.

"Give me your word about two things, Nole," Rafa continues. "First, that nothing happened between us tonight. All I remember is falling asleep, nothing more… And when I mean nothing, I mean nothing at all."

Novak looks more and more amused by Rafa's agitation. To see him so doubtful must be heaven for him.

"Take it easy, mate," he says, trailing his voice. "You've got all your clothes still on, and I've got mine. You can check your underwear if you don't believe me."

Rafa’s face turns purple. Novak knows that Rafa would never give him the satisfaction, but he wouldn't swear that it won't be the first thing he does away from his sight.

"And second," Rafa continues, pretending nothing has happened, "that you'll never tell anyone."

"What am I supposed to say?" Novak says. "That I watched you sleep through the night without lifting a finger? Who should I tell? Everybody, gay and straight, would pull my leg if they knew."

"Just… don’t tell anyone, okay?" Rafa insists, stubbornly.

"I'm not going to tell anyone, least of all him," Novak says, reading Rafa’s mind. “Can you chill out now?”

Rafa still looks suspicious. Looking at Novak, he already knows that this is not a promise he can expect Novak to keep - not someone like him. But it's too late to turn back now; he must take this leap of faith and hope the Serb will behave.

He puts on his other shoe with a sigh and pulls himself to his feet. "Would you like some coffee? Tea?” he offers. “Unfortunately I don't have those vegetarian drinks that you're used to..."

"I'll make do, for once," Novak says nonchalantly.

"You’d better," Rafa snorts, rolling his eyes, but a smile escapes him. "You find everything for the shower in the bathroom next door. Mery and Rafael won't be awake for an hour. Before that, we can go for a jog, if you like… If you're not too tired."

"Sounds great," Novak approves. He finally rolls onto his back, a smug grimace on his face, and stretches himself.

Rafa is almost at the door when the Serbian's voice calls him back.

"Rafa."

"Hmm?" He turns to look at him.

Novak is lying on his back, his hands crossed over his abdomen, rising and falling to the regular rhythm of his breathing. He looks at the ceiling. The morning light streams down on his face now, brightening it as if it was a chalk mask and making his eyelashes almost phosphorescent in the reflection. Novak has to squint his eyes, so as not to be dazzled, and glances at Rafa.

"Don't you think..." he starts slowly, "don't you think that it might have been nice?... That it might have been like this?"

Rafa looks at him puzzled. Novak gives him another sideways look before explaining himself.

"Waking up every morning. Like this. Go training together. Be together. Wouldn't that have been nice?"

The meaning of those words gradually sinks into Rafa like a knife. It fills him with a strange, indescribable emotion: a sort of timeless sadness, for no apparent reason. There's Novak lying on his bedspread, and then, in the blink of an eye, there’s Roger in his place. Rafa vividly remembers the golden reflections in Roger’s brown hair when the sun shimmered through it. That memory is likely to come from yet another morning in yet another hotel room after spending yet another night together…

The reality is that Novak is not Roger. Rafa doesn’t tell him; he doesn’t like hurting people's feelings, and sometimes he chooses to say half-truths so as not to have to.

"I wouldn't have my son, in that case" he simply says. "And you wouldn’t have yours. I think it’s as good as it is, no?"

He knows it’s a lie, but he has no choice. He turns and walks away.

Novak listens to the echo of Rafa’s footsteps when he crosses the hallway, peeking into little Rafael's bedroom and then heading downstairs to the kitchen, whistling.

Novak is by no means stupid. He can figure out what popped into Rafa's mind for a moment – different from what came out of his mouth eventually.

He knows he's not Roger, and that's it.

But if he can't have Rafa like Roger can, well, it’s time to start making a plan.

He could start by breaking a promise; he has done it plenty of times before.

Isn’t love all a matter of trust, after all?

Would we be better off by now

If I'd let my walls come down?

Maybe, I guess we'll never know

You know, you know

End