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Cris was pretty sure the room Ricky pulled him into was the same disused dressing room they'd hooked up in at at least one of these things in the past. He would have mentioned the coincidence of it, but he was too busy kissing Ricky like his life depended on it, and trying to get his hands under his shirt and onto skin without messing up the lines of his suit too much, trying to keep in mind not to dig his fingers into his soft, thick hair, because Ricky had gel in it and he'd fuck it up beyond quick repair. They both still had to walk back out of here, after all. He let Ricky back him up against the wall and thought, We should do this more often, like thinking could make it possible, and then he just let himself get lost in Ricky, in the warm steady weight of him against him, the smell of his cologne, the dizzying perfection of his mouth against his.
It was all going great until someone opened the door, said, "Oh, my God, I am so sorry," and shut it again. Ricky rested his nose against Cris's cheekbone, his hands bracketing Cris's hips, and Cris thought, more heavy with disappointment than feeling anything at all that he would have thought he would have about being discovered, Well, that's that. And then the door opened again, and this time Carli freaking Lloyd said, "I'm really sorry, but do you know where the ladies' room is?"
"Yeah, sure," Ricky said without moving one inch, not even lifting his head, which was...odd. He should have been halfway across the room by now. Hell, he should have been halfway across the room after the first interruption. Cris should have shoved him there, if he'd had any willpower at all. "Down there," he pointed with the hand that wasn't still on Cris's hip, "left, and then—the second right?"
"Second right, yeah," Cris confirmed when he realized he was being asked, looking very carefully not at all at Carli Lloyd. Or at Ricky, for that matter. It seemed, on the whole, safest.
"Okay, thanks, I was never here."
"Congratulations," Cris called after her as she finally, finally closed the damn door. "I thought I locked that," he muttered, reluctantly disentangling himself from Ricky to go and actually do that.
"It doesn't matter."
"It doesn't matter?" Cris echoed, disbelieving.
"I'm divorced, you're single, I gave Leo Messi a Ballon d'Or and you still want to make out with me, what's the worst that can happen?" Ricky settled his hands back on Cris's hips, something impossibly sappy in the back of Cris's head supplying, where they belonged, and turned him to face him. "The women's Ballon d'Or winner tells all her friends and a reporter she saw us making out. We make a lot of headlines. No one gets hurt. So what? I don't care any more. But I do have a hotel room if you'd rather."
Cris would rather. God, would he rather. But: "I have to go get back on a plane in like an hour. And I was pretty sure it was going to be him anyway."
"Oh, well then," Ricky said, and kissed him again, quite sensibly not wasting another moment.
His mouth still tasted like everything Cris had ever wanted, but Cris had to break away, however reluctantly, to check, "You really don't care?"
Ricky kissed his jaw, his neck, and repeated, "I don't." He hesitated; it was clear in the tension of his body, the way he huffed out a short, warm little breath against Cris's neck like he'd started to say something and then stopped, and then his shoulders slumped like he'd lost a fight, or else given in, and he said, "I love you, so. I don't care. I mean, obviously I care, but—I'm saying this all wrong."
Cris stared straight ahead at the door for a long moment, processing. They'd never used those words before. This could never have been that, not then. Cris had not dared to hope it would be now. "I," he said awkwardly. "Me, too."
He could feel Ricky's smile against the skin of his jaw. "I know," Ricky said, and kissed him once more. Cris wanted...he wanted to get his hands on Ricky's skin, to feel how the planes of him had changed since he'd last seen him. He wanted to get on his knees for him, show him just how much he'd missed him. He wanted a lot of things. He couldn't even put into words the scope of what he wanted, beyond Ricky. There was just not enough time. There was never enough time for them, but this...this was good.
Eventually, he made himself pull away. "I have to go."
"I know," Ricky said, as reluctant as he'd been, and just as accepting of the fact. He leaned up against the wall and watched Cris put himself back together with dark, luminous eyes, not daring to try to help lest they get started all over again. When he spoke, it was to say, "You know Servando Carrasco?"
Cris paused to consider the name for a moment before admitting, "No?" It came out like a question, because, despite factual correctness, he was about ninety percent certain it was somehow the wrong answer here.
"He plays on my team." Ouch. Cris made a mental note to memorize Orlando City's roster posthaste. Maybe on the plane. "He's married to Alex Morgan."
Cris felt a wash of unwarranted relief. "Her, I've heard of."
It came out proud, and Ricky rolled his eyes fondly at him. "She was playing up in Seattle. Or Portland. One of those. Somewhere in the northwest. I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't pay that much attention." Cris had just admitted to never having heard of one of Ricky's teammates, so. He couldn't judge. "Both teams that have been doing really well so far, anyway. And then Orlando's getting a women's team now, and what does she do? She puts in for a transfer first thing."
"I thought they did trades over there."
"You know what I mean. And you know what I thought when Serva came into practice all excited about it, that they were going to get to live in the same house now? I thought," Ricky said, as bitter and tired as Cris had ever heard him, "'Well, I'm just not as good as her.'"
Cris froze in the middle of retying his bow tie, unsure how to even begin. "Well," he finally said, awkward and uncertain, "they were going to stop paying you pretty soon, so..."
Ricky shook his head. "Not just that. I think if I'd been able to stay in Brazil somehow I might have been able to maybe save my marriage. Maybe. Probably not, but. She wanted to be in Brazil. But I'd already committed to Orlando, so..." Ricky shrugged. "I'm just not that good. One of these days I'm gonna retire," he continued thoughtfully, gazing into the middle distance somewhere over Cris's shoulder, like he couldn't quite look him in the eye for this, even though none of it was anything Cris hadn't already known, on some level, without it being spelled out, "and when that day comes, Carol's gonna still be in Brazil, which means my kids are gonna be in Brazil. Which means that's where I'm gonna be." Unless, Cris thinks, he's willing to make the custody business a lot uglier than Cris could ever imagine him making it. "But I'll have a lot more free time to travel. If you think you can live with that."
"Ricky," he said in a rush, "Ricky. When it comes to you, I'll take whatever I can get." So Ricky was never going to be the person who could possibly sacrifice his career for his personal life. That was okay. Cris knew he couldn't be that person, either. They'd make this work, however they could. If it was just a few days and stolen hours here and there for the rest of their lives, Cris would take it, if that was what he had to do. It wouldn't be enough, but nothing would ever be enough. There was a raw wanting hunger at the core of Cristiano that was never quite satisfied, and that was just a fact. But he would take what he could get, and every scrap of Ricky's time was sweet.
"I have plans in LA," Ricky admitted, "because—well. I didn't want to assume." He sounded like he realized that had been more than slightly foolish of him, so Cris didn't point it out. "But I have a few days before that."
Cris knew an opening when he saw one. "Come to Madrid," he said. "Junior would like to see you."
Ricky smiled, full of light and promise, and Cris thought only, Yes. No one had come to bang down the door, and neither of their phones had gone crazy,so he thought maybe, just maybe, they were in the clear on Carli Lloyd, which meant they were in the clear on paparazzi camping out in front of his house for now. Ricky wasn't supposed to be in Madrid at all, and so, for a day or two, however long he could spare he could hoard him like a dragon all to himself, not share him with Pepe or Marcelo or anyone else who would usually have a claim on his time when he set foot in the city. He darted in and kissed Cris quickly, careful not to touch any part of the tuxedo he'd just finished putting to rights. "I'll text you," he promised, "and I'll see you there."
Cris had to take another moment, hand on the doorknob, to wipe the smile off his face, to look more like someone who'd just lost something and hated losing than someone who'd just won something and loved winning, before he stepped out of the room and went back to face the crowds. Soon, he promised himself. Not yet, and not for long, but soon.