Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

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Indian Wells had a way of making everything look gentler than it was.

In the afternoon, the desert light arrived clean and gold, washing over the palm trees, the pale walkways, the smooth practice courts, the stadium seats waiting like open hands. Mountains sat in the distance with their purple backs turned to the world, as if they had already seen every kind of defeat and every kind of triumph and had decided not to interfere with either. The air smelled faintly of sunscreen, dry grass, warm concrete, and something sweet from the concession stands drifting in and out when the doors opened.

From the outside, it was beautiful. From the inside, it could feel merciless.

Jannik Sinner sat on the bench in the locker room with his hands clasped loosely between his knees, his red hair still damp from the shower he had taken earlier than necessary. His racquets were beside him, lined up with obsessive care. Shoes tied. The shirt was folded once and refolded. Wristbands ready. The water bottle is full. Everything was where it should be.

Except his mind.

His match was close now. Not close enough to stand, not far enough to forget. He was in that strange stretch of time before walking on court when the body wanted movement but the mind demanded silence. Usually, he liked this period. He knew how to enter it. He knew how to narrow the world until there was only the court, the ball, the sound of his own breathing, the small choices that made up a match.

But today the world would not narrow.

A television was mounted high in one corner of the locker room, angled down toward the players who came and went under it without looking for too long. Everyone said they did not watch other matches before their own. Everyone watched a little. It was impossible not to. A scoreline, a replay, a crowd reaction. Tennis had its own gravity.

Carlos had been on the screen.

Carlos, who moved like sunlight when he was free. Carlos, whose joy could make even the hardest point look like a game invented by children in a street. Carlos, who had been fifteen when Jannik first met him properly, though even then he seemed already to contain the future in his legs, in his shoulders, in the wild confidence of his eyes. Jannik had been seventeen, quieter, taller in a way that looked unfinished, all angles and awkward strength, carrying his own future more privately.

Alicante, 2019.

He could still remember the heat there, the smell of clay rising after water hit it, the Spanish voices around the court, the sound of Carlos’s shoes sliding, fighting, recovering, sliding again. A Challenger event. Not the grand stages they would later share. Not stadiums with their names written across promos and headlines. Just two boys with racquets, sweat on their necks, and coaches watching from the side with that peculiar expression coaches got when they saw something that could become dangerous.

They had played each other as if they already knew. Not personally. Not yet. But through the ball.

Jannik had felt it even then. Some opponents spoke a language you had to translate. Others made you think in fragments. With Carlos, the conversation had been immediate, frantic, bright. Carlos asked questions with his forehand. Jannik answered with depth. Carlos changed direction with the fearlessness of someone who had not yet learned why fear existed. Jannik absorbed, redirected, stepped in. It had not felt like facing a stranger.

Afterward, Carlos had smiled at him with his whole face, even though he was tired and disappointed and still burning from the match. Jannik remembered the handshake, the quick words, the first awkward laugh. He remembered thinking, He is younger than me, but not small. There was nothing small about him. Not his energy, not his hunger, not the space he took up inside a point.

Their coaches had noticed before they did.

“You two,” one of them had said once, with a shake of the head and a smile, “you have something strange.”

Special bond, they kept calling it.

At first, Jannik had not understood what that meant. A bond was for family, maybe for people who had known each other since childhood, who had secrets and shared streets and the same school memories. He and Carlos had tournaments, practice courts, hotel corridors, meals eaten too late, messages sent across time zones, jokes that made no sense to anyone else because they had been born between points. They had a rivalry, yes. But rivalry was too simple a word. Too hard-edged. It did not explain the way they could try to break each other on court and still understand the ache afterward. It did not explain why a part of Jannik sharpened when Carlos was near, or why victory against him sometimes felt less like possession and more like survival.

It did not explain why, when Carlos lost today, Jannik’s own chest felt heavy. He had tried not to watch. He had told himself: focus.

He had looked down at his hands, at the pale marks where the racquet grip had pressed into his skin over the years. He had rolled his shoulders, adjusted the cap he would not wear yet, breathed in four counts and out six. He had told himself all the things he knew were true.

Carlos was strong. Carlos had lost before. Carlos would lose again, as everyone did. Carlos did not need Jannik to feel anything for him.

Jannik had his own match. His own opponent. His own work. His own pressure. There was nothing useful in absorbing someone else’s sadness before walking onto a court that would ask everything from him.

But the body did not always obey usefulness.

The final point had come with a silence around it, or at least Jannik remembered it that way. On the television, the crowd rose in waves. Carlos walked to the net. His face did not collapse. Carlos was too proud for that. Too trained. Too watched. He shook hands. He lifted his hand briefly toward the stands. He packed his bag with the movements of someone trying not to feel where the cameras could see it.

Then the broadcast cut away. The screen showed analysis, numbers, commentary, with faces too bright for the moment. Jannik stopped watching. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and stared at the floor. He could hear the locker room living around him. A zipper rasping open. A trainer is laughing softly with a player in the next aisle. The slap of sandals on tile. A shower turning off. Someone speaking Italian on the phone in a low voice. A door opening and closing.

The ordinary sounds after someone’s dream had just been dented.

He told himself he felt bad because he was human. That was allowed. You could care and still compete. You could have sympathy without letting it enter the wrist. You could hold someone in your heart and still go out to win. It was a balance he had learned slowly, painfully, under the bright lights of courts where people turned feelings into statistics.

Still, when the locker room door opened again, Jannik knew before he looked up. Something changed in the air. Not dramatically. No music stopped. No one gasped. But Jannik felt it the way he felt a slight change in ball speed before it reached him. A presence, familiar and wrong. Carlos walked in like a ghost.

Not pale exactly. His skin still held the sun, the flush of effort. Sweat darkened the hair around his temples. His white shirt clung to the chest and back, marked with the work of the match. His bag hung from one shoulder, heavier than it should have looked. But his eyes seemed far away, as if some part of him had stayed out on the court, kneeling in the dust of what might have been.

He did not look at anyone at first.

He moved past two lockers, past a chair, past the mirror. His steps were quiet. Too quiet for Carlos. Usually, Carlos entered rooms as if apologizing for bringing a storm with him and also not apologizing at all. Even tired, he carried sound. He greeted people. He threw a joke over his shoulder. He made the space warmer by existing in it.

Now he seemed made of something that would vanish if touched. Jannik’s fingers tightened together.

Carlos reached his locker and let the bag slide down. It hit the floor with a dull sound. He stood there for a moment without opening it. Just stood, head bent, one hand on the locker door, the other hanging at his side.

Jannik looked away quickly, giving him privacy, then hated himself for it. Privacy was respected. Privacy was also sometimes cowardice, wearing good manners.

He waited.

Carlos opened the locker. Slowly. He took out a towel. Dropped it. Picked it up. Pressed it to his face. Not wiping sweat so much as hiding.

There were many things Jannik could do on a tennis court that looked impossible to others. He could read a ball early, change direction from a difficult position, remain calm when a match became a cliff-edge. He could lose a point and not let it become two. He could watch an opponent celebrate and turn the hurt into discipline.

But comforting someone he loved in a room full of men pretending not to see one another’s pain: that was different.

He stood.

His knees felt strange, as if he were the one who had been running for three hours. He picked up one of his water bottles, then set it down. Pointless. He walked toward Carlos, not too fast, not too slow. The floor was cool under his shoes. Carlos did not turn until Jannik was close enough that his shadow crossed the open locker.

“Carlitos,” Jannik said softly.

Carlos lowered the towel.

For a second, there he was: the boy from Alicante, fifteen years old and burning bright under the Spanish sun. Then the man returned, the champion, the rival, the face known by millions, and behind that, something younger and more tired than both.

“Hey,” Carlos said.

His voice had almost no sound in it.

Jannik stopped beside him. Not directly in front. Never trapping him. Just there, shoulder angled toward him, close enough that Carlos would not have to reach far if he wanted to lean, far enough that he would not feel watched.

“Tough one,” Jannik said.

The words were nothing. Terrible, even. Empty as a ball canister after practice. But his voice carried what the words could not. Carlos let out a laugh that was not a laugh.

“Tough one,” he repeated.

His accent rounded the words, made them softer, sadder.

“Yeah. Very tough.”

Jannik nodded. They were quiet.

The locker room continued around them, but Jannik felt as if a thin glass wall had lowered, enclosing them in a private space made of shared history. Beyond it, other lives went on. Inside it, Carlos stared at the floor and tried to breathe normally.

“I had it,” Carlos said after a while.

Jannik looked at him.

Carlos’s jaw worked once. “Not the match, maybe. But I had chances. I had...” He pressed the towel between his hands. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I had.”

“You had chances,” Jannik said. “Yes.”

Carlos looked at him sharply, and for a heartbeat, Jannik wondered if honesty had been the wrong choice. But Carlos did not want comfort made of lies. They had never given each other that. Not since Alicante. Not since boys.

“You saw?” Carlos asked.

“Some.”

Carlos looked away. “Then you saw enough.”

Jannik leaned back against the locker beside him. The metal was cool through his shirt.

“I saw you fight.”

Carlos shook his head immediately.

“No, no. Everybody says that. Fight, fight, fight. I always fight. What does it mean if I lose like this? It means nothing.”

“It means you did not stop.”

“It means I was not good enough.”

Jannik did not answer right away.

There was no use arguing with that sentence when it first came out. He knew because he had said it to himself too many times. After losses, the mind became brutal. It simplified everything. It erased context, effort, courage, weather, rhythm, the opponent’s excellence, the thousand tiny shifts that made a match. It took all the complexity and crushed it into one small stone: not good enough. Then it placed the stone in your chest and asked you to breathe around it.

Carlos slammed the locker door with the heel of his hand, not hard enough to draw attention, but hard enough to make the metal complain.

“I hate this,” he whispered.

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

Jannik almost smiled, not because it was funny, but because it was so Carlos: hurt enough to strike, honest enough to regret it before the words even finished. Carlos looked at him then, and his face changed.

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean-”

“It’s okay.”

“No. You know. Of course, you know.”

Jannik shrugged one shoulder. “A little.”

Carlos’s mouth trembled, just once, so quickly anyone else might have missed it. Jannik saw.

He remembered another locker room years ago, smaller, less polished, smelling of clay and sweat and old benches. Carlos, at fifteen, was frustrated after practice, tossing his wristband into his bag with too much force. Jannik, at seventeen, was pretending not to care about a blister that had opened under his toe. They had barely known each other, yet Carlos had looked at him as if they were already in the middle of a conversation.

“You never get angry?” Carlos had demanded in Spanish-accented English.

Jannik had looked at him, surprised.

“I get angry.”

“You don’t show.”

“Sometimes better not.”

Carlos had considered it like it was an exotic philosophy from a distant mountain. 

“I show everything.”

“Yes,” Jannik had said.

Carlos had grinned. “It is better.”

“Maybe.”

“No, maybe. Better.”

Jannik had not known then that he would spend years learning to read all the things Carlos showed and all the things he did not. The fist pumps, the shouts, the smile, the racket drops, the eyes lifted to his box, the way his shoulders squared before he tried something outrageous. And beneath those things, the pressure. The fear of disappointing people who loved him. The addiction to the impossible shot. The loneliness of being told you were born for greatness before you had finished growing.

Now Carlos stood in front of him with the towel twisted tight in his hands, and everything he did not show was louder than everything he did.

“You know what is stupid?” Carlos said.

“What?”

“I’m thinking of you.”

Jannik blinked.

Carlos laughed again, bitter and soft.

“I lose, and I’m thinking, Jannik is here. He will play now. He will be calm. He will do the things right. He will not make this mess.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is.”

“No.” Jannik’s voice was quiet but firm. “It is not.”

Carlos looked at him, eyes bright with anger or tears or both.

“You think I don’t know you? I know you. You go on court and you suffer, yes, but you are...how do I say?” He searched for the word, impatient. “Clean. You are clean. Your mind is clean.”

Jannik almost laughed at that, but the sound would have hurt Carlos, so he swallowed it.

“My mind is not clean,” he said. “It is just quiet from outside.”

Carlos stared at him. Jannik looked down at his own hands. The knuckles were slightly red from earlier practice.

“Inside, it is not so simple.”

Something in Carlos softened. Not healed. Softened.

“You were watching,” Carlos said.

“Yes.”

“And you felt bad.”

Jannik hesitated.

That was the question under all of it. Not whether Jannik had watched. Not whether Carlos had fought. But whether their bond still existed in defeat, in the ugly parts, in the moments where rivalry became a mirror you did not want to look into.

Jannik could lie. He could protect himself. He could say, I was focused on my match. He could say, I only saw a few points. He could say what athletes said when microphones hovered near their mouths.

Instead, he said, “Yes.”

Carlos closed his eyes. Jannik continued carefully.

“I tried not to. Because I have to play. But yes. I felt bad.”

Carlos exhaled through his nose, slow and shaky.

“I don’t want you to feel bad.”

“I know.”

“You have your match.”

“I know.”

“You have to win.”

“I know.”

Carlos opened his eyes again. “Then don’t carry this.”

Jannik looked at him for a long moment.

So often, people misunderstood what friendship between rivals required. They imagined it was softness, politeness, smiling photos after matches, nice words in press conferences. They did not see the discipline in it. The constant choosing. To care without weakening. To admire without surrendering. To compete without poisoning what was good. To want everything for yourself and still not want the other person broken.

Jannik had learned that with Carlos more than with anyone.

There were matches where Carlos’s brilliance had hurt him, not emotionally in the simple way, but physically, spiritually. The way Carlos could turn defense into attack with one swing could make the court feel too small and too large at once. There were days Jannik had watched him celebrate and felt a sting sharp enough to be almost hatred, except it was not hatred. It was recognition. It was the terrible beauty of being pushed to the edge by someone who made the edge visible.

And there were days Carlos had looked across the net at him with the same expression: joy and fury, respect and refusal. Their friendship had not grown despite that. It had grown because of it.

“I won’t carry it on court,” Jannik said.

Carlos opened his mouth, but Jannik lifted a hand slightly.

“I will carry you. Different thing.”

Carlos stared at him. Jannik felt heat rise in his face. He was not good with sentences like that. Too open. Too soft. They made him feel as if he had stepped into the court without shoes. But Carlos did not laugh.

He looked down, and this time when his mouth trembled, he did not hide it quickly enough.

“Jannik,” he whispered.

“It’s okay.”

“No.” Carlos pressed the towel to his eyes again. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For being like this before your match.”

Jannik shook his head. “You are allowed.”

Carlos’s shoulders rose and fell. Once. Twice. He was fighting tears as if they were break points. Jannik knew that fight too. The strange shame of emotion in public spaces. The instinct to lock it down, swallow it, turn your back until the face became acceptable again. But grief had its own serve. Sometimes it hit the line.

Jannik reached out and placed a hand on Carlos’s shoulder. It was meant to be brief. A touch of support. Something simple. Carlos leaned into it. Not fully. Not dramatically. Just enough. The movement went through Jannik like a sound.

For all Carlos’s physical power, the legs, the explosiveness, the famous speed, his shoulder under Jannik’s hand felt human. Warm. Damp with sweat. Tense from holding too much inside. Jannik tightened his grip slightly, thumb pressing once through the fabric.

They stood like that in the locker room beneath the hum of lights and the muted commentary from the television.

“Do you remember Alicante?” Carlos asked suddenly.

Jannik smiled faintly. “Yes.”

“You looked so serious.”

“I was serious.”

“You were seventeen.”

“I was serious at seventeen.”

Carlos let out a real laugh then, small but alive.

“You were like an old man already.”

“And you were fifteen and hitting drop shots on bad moments.”

“They were good moments.”

“They were terrible moments.”

“They worked sometimes.”

“Sometimes.”

Carlos lowered the towel. His eyes were red now, but clearer.

“I remember after that match my coach told me, ‘This one, you will see him many times.’ I said, ‘Yes, because he will beat me next time.’”

Jannik’s smile grew. “Of course.”

“And he said, ‘No. Not only that. You will need him.’”

Jannik looked at him. Carlos shrugged, embarrassed by his own memory.

“I thought it was stupid. Like coach things. They always speak like they know the future.”

“They try.”

“They fail a lot.”

“Yes.”

“But maybe he was right.” Carlos swallowed. “Maybe I did need you.”

Jannik did not know what to do with that.

His hand was still on Carlos’s shoulder. He felt the words settle there between them, heavier than the bag on the floor, heavier than the lost match. Need was not a word athletes liked. Need sounded dangerous. Dependency. Weakness. Something opponents could exploit.

But this was not that.

This was the need of two mountains standing across a valley, each making the other visible. The need of the horizon. The need for measure. The need for someone who understood the exact shape of the dream because he carried one made of the same difficult material.

Jannik looked toward the locker room door, then back at Carlos.

“You don’t need me to win matches,” he said.

Carlos gave him a look. “Obviously.”

“You need me for other things.”

Carlos tilted his head. “Like what?”

Jannik thought about it.

Like remembering that greatness did not protect you from pain. Like remembering that someone could know the worst parts of your ambition and not turn away. Like having another person in the world who understood that being chosen by tennis as a child was both a blessing and a burden. Like being seen beyond scorelines. Like having someone who would not clap politely when you were lying to yourself.

But he could not say all of that.

So he said, “For not being alone.”

Carlos looked at him for a long time. Then he nodded.

The gesture was small, but something in it broke Jannik’s heart a little. Carlos, who was surrounded by people, loved by crowds, lifted by his team, adored in Spain and everywhere else, still understood immediately. Not being alone was different from being surrounded. A stadium could shout your name and still leave you isolated with the ball in your hand, the score in your face, the knowledge that only you could swing.

Carlos wiped his face with the towel and took a long breath.

“You have to go soon,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Who do you play?”

Jannik looked at him, amused despite everything. “You know who.”

“I know.” Carlos sniffed, then smiled faintly. “I wanted to see if you know.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

Carlos straightened a little. He opened his locker again, more firmly this time, and shoved the towel inside.

“You have your plan?”

“Yes.”

“You will stay aggressive?”

“Yes.”

“You will not think too much?”

Jannik gave him a dry look. Carlos’s smile became more familiar.

“Okay. Maybe you will think. But not too much.”

“I’ll try.”

“And if you have the short ball, you go. Don’t wait.”

“Yes, coach.”

Carlos’s eyes warmed at that.

It was absurd, really. Carlos had just lost, and here he was, unable to stop himself from stepping toward tennis again, toward the match that had not yet happened, toward Jannik’s chances as if they were partly his own. This was his nature. Pain did not erase generosity from him. It only passed over it like a shadow over grass.

Jannik felt the heaviness in his chest change shape. Not disappear. It would not. But change.

Carlos’s loss was still there. The sadness was still there. Yet underneath it was something sturdier, something that had survived many scorelines already. They had been boys once. They had played in Alicante when no one knew the full story yet. Since then, they had become names, symbols, rivals, champions, answers to questions journalists loved to ask. But beneath all that, they were still two people trying to carry the same impossible life without letting it harden them completely.

The locker room door opened.

Darren Cahill came in first, moving with the calm urgency of someone who knew exactly how much time remained and did not need to check a clock to feel it. Simone Vagnozzi followed, phone in hand, eyes scanning once before finding Jannik. Both men stopped briefly when they saw Carlos standing beside them.

Not surprised. Not really. Their coaches had always seen it first. Darren’s face softened by a fraction.

“Carlos,” he said gently. “Tough one, mate.”

Carlos nodded. “Thanks, Darren.”

Simone gave Carlos a small, sympathetic smile.

“You fought hard.”

Carlos accepted it with another nod, though the words still landed painfully. Then Simone turned to Jannik.

“Jannik,” he said. “It’s time.”

There it was. The sentence that cuts one world away from another.

Jannik felt it enter him. Time. Not soon, not later, not when emotions were neat and folded. Now. Tennis did not wait for your heart to become convenient. It called you while you were still holding someone else’s sadness in your palm. Darren stepped closer, voice quiet.

“We need to start moving.”

Jannik nodded. “Okay.”

But he did not move immediately. Carlos saw the hesitation and shook his head.

“Go.”

“I will.”

“Now.”

Jannik smiled faintly. “You are bossy after losing.”

Carlos’s eyes flashed. “Always.”

For a moment, they were almost themselves. Almost.

Jannik picked up his racquet bag from the bench. The familiar weight settled over his shoulder. He checked the pocket, though he knew everything was inside. Grips. Strings. Extra shirt. The small items that made a player feel prepared, as if preparation could keep chaos out.

Darren and Simone waited near the door, giving him the few seconds they understood he needed. Jannik turned back to Carlos. There were many possible things to say. Rest. Forget it. You’ll be back. It’s only one match. All true. All useless.

Carlos looked at him, and his face was open now in a way Jannik knew would vanish before he reached press, before cameras, before the outside world demanded composure. Here, in this brief shelter, Carlos allowed himself to be wounded.

Jannik stepped closer and pulled him into a hug.

It surprised them both.

They had hugged before, of course: after matches, at events, in celebrations, the quick athletic embrace of men used to impact and motion. This was different. Slower. Quieter. Carlos stiffened for half a second, then folded into him, one hand gripping the back of Jannik’s shirt.

Jannik held him firmly.

He could smell sweat, detergent, the faint, clay-like scent that sometimes seemed to cling to Carlos no matter the surface. He felt Carlos’s breath catch once against his shoulder. He closed his eyes.

For a moment, he let himself be seventeen again. Alicante. Heat. Dust. A boy across the net with fire in his feet. Then fifteen became twenty-two, seventeen became twenty-four, and the world had grown around them like a stadium filling with noise. Carlos whispered something in Spanish. Jannik did not catch all of it, but he understood enough.

Thank you.

Jannik pulled back. Carlos wiped quickly at his cheek, annoyed with himself.

“Win, okay?”

Jannik looked at him. There was no envy in Carlos’s voice. No bitterness. No shadow from his own loss reaches toward Jannik’s chance. Just command. Hope. A hand pushing him toward the light.

“I’ll try,” Jannik said.

Carlos frowned. “No. Win.”

Darren, from the doorway, murmured, “No pressure.”

Carlos almost smiled. Jannik nodded once.

“Okay.”

He turned before the moment could become too heavy to leave. The walk from the locker room to the court felt longer than usual.

Darren walked slightly behind him on one side, Simone on the other. Their presence was familiar, grounding. Darren said something about the first service game, about making the opponent hit from uncomfortable positions early. Simone added a reminder about return position, about trusting the backhand down the line when the chance came. Their voices reached Jannik through layers.

He heard them. He absorbed the words. But part of him was still standing by Carlos’s locker, hand on his shoulder.

They passed through corridors where tournament staff moved with radios clipped to their belts. A ball kid glanced up at him with wide eyes. Someone wished him luck. Somewhere beyond the walls, the crowd rose and fell, a living animal made of anticipation. The nearer he came to the court, the more the tournament changed texture. The private air of the locker room gave way to performance, to cameras, to the machinery of spectacle.

Jannik adjusted the strap of his bag.

He had always been good at compartments. That was one of the secrets people mistook for coldness. He could place emotions somewhere safe and step away from them for two hours. He could tell his body: now we play. He could make the mind obey the score.

But today, he did not want to lock Carlos away entirely. He thought of what he had said. I will carry you. Different thing. It sounded foolish now. Dramatic. Not his style. Yet he had meant it.

There were ways to carry someone that did not weaken you. His parents were with him when he played, not as a distraction, but as a root. The mountains of home were with him, not as weight, but as silence. The younger version of himself was with him, the boy who had skied down slopes before choosing tennis, the boy who had left home early, the boy who had learned that homesickness had a taste. All of them came onto the court with him in some invisible way.

Why not Carlos too? Not Carlos’s sadness as a burden. Carlos’s fire as a reminder. His refusal. His joy. His ability to fall apart for a moment and still tell Jannik to win.

They reached the last waiting area before the entrance. The sound of the stadium was clearer now. Jannik could feel it in the floor, not loud yet, but present. A pulse under concrete. A tournament official checked something on a headset and nodded toward him. Almost time. Darren stepped in front of Jannik briefly, meeting his eyes.

“You good?” he asked.

Jannik considered the question.

Good was not the word. He felt sad. Focused. Tender in a place he did not usually touch before matches. He felt the strange ache of leaving a friend in pain to go do the very thing that could bring him joy. He felt ready and not ready, human and professional, divided and whole.

“Yes,” he said.

Darren studied him for half a second longer, then nodded. He knew. Maybe not everything, but enough. Coaches did not only read forehands and footwork. The best ones read the weather behind a player’s eyes.

Simone squeezed Jannik’s arm. “Trust yourself.”

Jannik nodded. The official signaled. He stepped forward. The stadium opened in front of him in a blaze of light.

For one second, the brightness erased everything. The crowd became sound without faces. The court stretched out clean and hard beneath the California sun, blue and green and waiting. Shadows cut sharp lines along the surface. The chair umpire was already in place. Cameras turned. His opponent stood near the bench, adjusting strings, preparing his own private storm.

Jannik walked to his chair.

The applause rolled over him, warm and distant. He lifted a hand. Set down his bag. Took out his racquet. The rituals began, and with them came the narrowing. Grip in the palm. Strings checked. Bottle placed. Towel positioned. Shirt tugged at the shoulder. One breath. Another.

Across the net, the opponent moved. Behind him, somewhere far away and not far at all, Carlos was in the locker room gathering the pieces of himself. Jannik sat for a moment before the warm-up and looked at the court.

People often spoke of tennis as lonely. One player on each side, no substitutions, no teammate to hide behind, no clock to save you until the final point is earned. They were right, mostly. Tennis was lonely. Brutally so.

But not completely. Not if, somewhere in the same tournament grounds, someone understood exactly what it cost to walk out there. Not if a boy you met in Alicante years ago had grown into the rival who made you better and the friend who made the losses less empty. Not if you carried the people you loved in ways no scoreboard could measure.

Jannik stood. The racquet felt good in his hand. When the first ball of the warm-up came toward him, he watched it carefully, stepped in, and struck it clean. The sound cracked through the afternoon. Simple. Pure. A beginning. He hit another. Then another. His body remembered. His mind quieted.

But just before the match began, just before he walked to the baseline for the first point, Jannik looked once toward the tunnel where he had entered. He could not see Carlos. Of course he could not. But for a moment, he imagined him there anyway, arms crossed, eyes still red, chin lifted stubbornly, demanding that Jannik do what he had been born and built and broken and remade to do.

Win. Jannik turned back to the court. He bounced the ball once. Twice. The desert held its breath. And he went.

──── ୨୧ ────

Jannik won because, for a little while, he managed to become only himself.

Not the friend who had left Carlos in the locker room with red eyes and a towel twisted in his hands. Not the boy from Alicante who still remembered another boy’s fearless drop shots. Not the person who had felt sadness sitting under his ribs before stepping into the desert light.

For one hour and twenty-something minutes, he became the shape of his work.

The court at Indian Wells had held the evening in a kind of golden suspension. The sun was low but not gone, stretching shadows across the blue surface, turning the white lines bright and sharp. The air had cooled just enough to make breathing feel cleaner. Around him, the crowd moved between murmurs and applause, between the soft collective intake before a serve and the sudden roar after a winner.

Denis Shapovalov had come with his left-handed danger, with that wild electricity in his shoulders, with the kind of game that could make the ball seem untamed. Jannik respected that danger. He had always respected it. Denis could catch fire in a way that made plans look foolish.

So Jannik gave him no room to burn.

From the first game, he placed the ball deep into the corners and made the court feel longer than it was. He took time away. He absorbed pace and returned it cleaner, colder, more disciplined. His backhand was a closed door. His forehand was not loud, but heavy, the kind of shot that did not announce itself until the other player was already late. When he moved forward, he did not rush. When he stayed back, he did not retreat.

He held the match carefully, like something fragile that could still cut him. 6-3. Then 6-2.

The score looked simple when it appeared on the screen. It always did. Numbers had no memory. They did not show the pressure in the first set when Denis had stepped in and struck three returns like flashes of lightning. They did not show the small adjustment Jannik made with his toss when the breeze shifted. They did not show the long rally at four-two, thirty-all, when Jannik had felt his legs burn and still stayed low enough to redirect a final backhand down the line.

Numbers did not show the moment after the match point either. The serve went wide. Denis reached, stretched, sent the return long. The crowd rose.

Jannik turned toward his box, fist closing once, face composed but eyes alive. Darren was standing, clapping with both hands. Simone’s mouth had opened in a shout Jannik could not hear over the applause. The scoreboard confirmed what his body already knew.

Semifinal. He was in the semifinal.

He let that knowledge touch him, briefly. He allowed the warmth of it. Not a celebration exactly, not yet, but recognition. Another step. Another match was handled the right way. Another proof that the work was there even on a day when his heart had been crowded. At the net, Denis gave him a tired smile.

“Too good today,” Denis said.

“Thanks,” Jannik answered. “Tough conditions.”

Denis laughed softly, shaking his head as if conditions had not been the problem. “Good luck, man.”

“Thanks. You too.”

Then the handshake with the umpire. The wave to the crowd. The writing on the camera lens was quick and neat. The interview in court, where he said the things players said, because the real things were too private for microphones. Yes, happy with the level. Yes, Denis is a dangerous player. Yes, I tried to stay focused. Yes, the atmosphere was amazing.

He smiled in the right places. He made the crowd laugh once, though he did not quite know how. People always seemed more amused by him than he expected. Maybe because he never tried very hard to be charming, and charm sometimes arrived more easily when left alone.

But even while he spoke, even while applause moved through the stadium, part of him was already walking back through the tunnel. Back toward the locker room. Back toward Carlos. He did not let himself hurry.

Hurrying after a win looked strange. Hurrying toward someone else’s sadness looked like a stranger. So he moved with the calm rhythm of post-match routine. Towels. Bag. A nod to a tournament official. A few signed balls passed into reaching hands. The cameras followed for a while, then loosened their attention. There were always other stories to chase.

Inside the hallway, the noise dropped behind him like a curtain.

The world became fluorescent light, white walls, polished floors, the smell of sweat and rubber and detergent. A staff member congratulated him. Someone from the media asked for five minutes later. Darren clapped a hand on his back. Simone said something in Italian about how well he had served on the big points.

Jannik nodded, answering enough to show he had heard. He had heard. He had played well. He knew that. He could feel it in the clean tiredness of his muscles, in the absence of panic, in the way his body still carried the match as a sequence of correct choices.

But under the satisfaction, something else waited. Not to worry exactly. A pull. The locker room door opened with its soft mechanical sigh. Jannik stepped inside. And Carlos was there.

He was sitting on the bench near Jannik’s locker, elbows on knees, phone loose in one hand, hair still damp from a shower. He had changed into a dark hoodie and shorts, the hood bunched behind his neck. His face looked calmer than before, though the loss had not vanished from it. Defeat never disappeared so quickly. It simply learned how to sit still.

When he saw Jannik, Carlos stood immediately. For half a second, neither of them spoke. Then Carlos lifted both arms as if presenting himself to an invisible crowd.

“Señor Semifinal,” he announced.

Jannik stopped in the doorway and stared at him. Carlos’s grin widened. It was not quite his brightest grin, but it had returned enough to light the edges of him.

“Come on. Very serious face for a man who just won six-three, six-two.”

Jannik let the door close behind him.

“You watched?”

“Of course I watched.”

“I thought maybe you would sleep.”

Carlos scoffed.

“Sleep? While you are playing? No. I had to make sure you listened to my coaching.”

“Your coaching?”

“Yes.” Carlos pointed at him. “Short ball, you go. I told you.”

Jannik walked toward his bench, fighting the smile already rising.

“I was doing this before you told me.”

“No, no. Today was because of me.”

Darren entered behind Jannik just in time to hear it.

“Ah, is that right?”

Carlos nodded solemnly. “Yes. You’re welcome.”

Darren looked at Jannik. “We might be out of jobs, Simone.”

Simone came in laughing, still carrying a water bottle.

“Carlos can do tactics, fitness, mental coach, everything.”

“Everything,” Carlos agreed. “But very expensive.”

Jannik dropped his bag on the bench. “You lost today. Maybe a discount.”

Carlos pressed a hand dramatically to his chest.

“This is cruel. I wait for you like a good friend and you attack me.”

“You started.”

“I congratulate you.”

“You called me Señor Semifinal.”

“That is respect.”

“That is not respect.”

“It is Spanish respect.”

Jannik shook his head, but he was smiling now, really smiling. The muscles in his face felt strange after the controlled expressions of the court. He sat and began untying his shoes, lowering his head so Carlos would not see too much of the relief moving through him.

Carlos was here. Still wounded, yes. Still carrying the loss. But here. Joking. Breathing. Not vanished into that ghostly silence. It loosened something in Jannik.

Darren and Simone spoke with him for a few minutes, as they always did. Not a full analysis, that would come later, but enough. First serve percentage. Good depth on the return. One or two rushed forehands early in the second set. Recovery tomorrow. Treatment tonight. Press first, then food.

Jannik listened, answered, nodded.

Carlos sat nearby, pretending not to listen, though occasionally his eyebrows moved when he agreed with something. Once, when Simone mentioned the backhand down the line, Carlos made a quiet sound of approval. Jannik looked at him.

Carlos lifted his hands. “What? It was good.”

“It was normal.”

“It was not normal. Don’t be boring.”

“I’m not boring.”

Carlos gave Darren a look. Darren wisely looked at the floor. Simone coughed into his hand, badly hiding a laugh. Jannik removed one shoe and set it down carefully.

“Everyone is against me today.”

“No,” Carlos said. “Denis was against you. It didn’t go well for him.”

That made Darren laugh out loud. For a moment, the locker room filled with warmth.

It was not a huge thing. No grand healing. No dramatic turning point. Just laughter after a hard day. But sometimes laughter was the first sign that the body had decided to remain alive in spite of disappointment.

After Darren and Simone left to organize the next pieces of the evening, Jannik and Carlos remained in their small corner of the locker room. Other players came and went, voices rising and fading. Someone opened a protein bar nearby. A shower ran. A physio pushed a rolling table past them. The tournament moved on, indifferent and intimate at the same time.

Jannik peeled off his wristbands. Carlos watched him with an expression too focused for something so ordinary.

“What?” Jannik asked.

Carlos shrugged. “Nothing.”

“You are looking.”

“I am thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

Carlos rolled his eyes. “I am thinking you were good today.”

“You said.”

“No. I mean...” Carlos leaned back against the locker, stretching one leg in front of him. “You were very calm.”

Jannik placed the wristbands into a laundry bag. 

“I felt calm.”

“Before the match too?”

Jannik paused. Carlos saw it. The joking expression softened.

“Sorry.”

“No,” Jannik said. “It’s okay.”

He reached for a clean towel and wiped his face, though he was not sweating much now. He needed something to do with his hands.

“Before it was more difficult.”

Carlos looked down at his phone. The screen was dark.

“Because of me.”

“Not only.”

“But a little.”

Jannik did not answer.

Carlos sighed. “I told you not to carry it.”

“I didn’t. Not on court.”

Carlos looked at him carefully. “And now?”

Jannik folded the towel once. Then again.

“Now you are making jokes, so it is better.”

Carlos smiled faintly, but his eyes stayed serious. “I can make jokes and still be sad.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

Carlos nodded.

“Good. Because people forget. They see me smiling, and they think everything is okay. They see me laughing, and they think I don’t feel things so deep.” His fingers moved around the edge of his phone case. “Sometimes I laugh because if I don’t, I will say something stupid or break something.”

Jannik looked at him. Carlos said it lightly, but the truth inside it was not light at all.

“I know,” Jannik repeated, quieter this time.

Carlos gave him a small, grateful look.

There it was again, the thing between them that did not need many words. The understanding that came from years of courts and losses and impossible expectations. Carlos did not have to explain what it meant to be misunderstood by the version of yourself people loved most. Jannik did not have to explain what it meant to be mistaken for emotionless because he kept his storms private.

They knew. Carlos looked at the floor, then back up.

“But you won,” he said, deliberately brightening his voice. “So tonight we celebrate.”

“I have press.”

“After press.”

“Recovery.”

“After recovery.”

“Dinner.”

“Dinner is a celebration.”

“I need sleep.”

Carlos groaned. “You are twenty-four, not eighty.”

“I like sleep.”

“You like being boring.”

“I like winning.”

Carlos pointed at him again. “Okay, this is fair.”

Jannik laughed softly. The laugh had barely faded when Carlos’s phone lit up. It was a small thing. A vibration against the bench. A rectangle of light in Carlos’s hand. A notification sliding across the screen.

Jannik did not mean to look.

But he was facing him, and the room was full of little reflections. The glow caught Carlos’s face first. Then his eyes moved down. Then something happened that made Jannik’s attention sharpen before he understood why.

Carlos blushed.

Not a little warmth from post-match exhaustion. Not the flushed skin of someone recently showered. A real blush. Sudden and almost boyish, rising along his cheekbones and touching the tips of his ears.

Jannik stilled. Carlos saw him seeing. Immediately, Carlos turned the phone over against his thigh. Too fast. Much too fast. Jannik lifted one eyebrow.

Carlos looked away. “What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You made a face.”

“I did not.”

“You did. Your Italian face.”

“My what?”

“Your face when you know something and pretend you don’t know.”

Jannik leaned back, crossing his arms. “I have this face?”

“Yes. Very annoying.”

“I think maybe you are nervous.”

Carlos laughed, but the blush deepened. “No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Silence. Carlos lasted three seconds.

“Stop looking at me.”

“I’m not looking.”

“You are.”

“I’m looking at my bag.”

“Your bag is not on my face.”

Jannik lowered his gaze very slowly to his own bag, then back to Carlos.

“Interesting.”

Carlos threw a towel at him. Jannik caught it against his chest, smiling now.

“So.”

“No.”

“I did not ask.”

“You were going to.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know your face.”

“My Italian face?”

“Yes.”

Jannik set the towel aside. “Maybe it was an important message.”

“It was nothing.”

“Nothing makes you red?”

“I am not red.”

“You are very red.”

Carlos touched his cheek with the back of his hand, then immediately realized the mistake. Jannik’s smile widened.

“Maybe sunburn,” Carlos said.

“You were inside.”

“From the match.”

“You showered.”

“Hot shower.”

“Only on your ears?”

Carlos stared at him. “You are very irritating after you win.”

“I have energy.”

“You should be tired.”

“I am in the semifinals. I am happy.”

“Then be happy quietly.”

Jannik laughed again, but there was already something changing under the joke. He could feel it before he could name it.

The locker room had been soft with shared things: his win, Carlos’s loss, their humor, their old history sitting between them comfortably for once. But the glow of the phone had opened a door Jannik had not noticed before. Something from outside had entered. Someone from outside.

Carlos looked at his phone again, trying to be casual and failing. The blush returned in a gentler wave. Jannik watched him from under his lashes.

There were many kinds of Carlos's smiles. Jannik had learned them the way he learned serves. There was the open-mouthed laugh after an impossible point. The tight smile in press when he was disappointed. The sideways grin when he knew he was about to attempt something reckless. The soft smile he gave children leaning over railings with giant tennis balls.

This one was different. Private. That was the word. The smile was private. It was not for the crowd, not for his team, not for Jannik. It belonged to whoever had appeared on that screen. The thought arrived quietly, and with it came a strange, small drop inside Jannik’s chest. He looked down at his hands.

His fingers were still marked with white lines from the tape and grip. His nails were clean, cut short. The hands of someone who had just won a tennis match. The hands of someone who should have been feeling only satisfaction, or relief, or the steady hunger for the next round.

Instead, something cold moved beneath the warmth of victory. Not jealousy, he told himself. That would be stupid.

Carlos had a life. Of course, he had a life. He had family, friends, messages, laughter, people who wanted to be near him because he was Carlos. It was normal. It was good. After a loss, maybe he needed something outside tennis. Something light. Something that made his eyes shine for reasons that had nothing to do with forehands or trophies.

Jannik should be glad. He was glad. Probably. Carlos cleared his throat. Jannik looked up.

Carlos was trying very hard to appear normal, which meant he looked extremely guilty. Jannik decided, because it was easier than sitting with the cold thing in his chest, to tease him more.

“Girlfriend?” he asked.

Carlos nearly dropped the phone.

“No!”

The answer came too fast and too loud. A player across the room glanced over. Carlos lowered his voice immediately, glaring at Jannik.

“No,” he repeated.

Jannik’s eyebrow rose again.

Carlos shook his head. “Not girlfriend.”

“But girl.”

Carlos opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at the phone. Looked at Jannik. Jannik waited. Carlos muttered something in Spanish under his breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Was it Spanish respect?”

“Shut up.”

Jannik smiled, but his stomach felt oddly hollow. Carlos rubbed the back of his neck.

“It is just...someone.”

“Someone.”

“Yes.”

“Very mysterious.”

“She is...a girl.”

“I understood this part.”

Carlos gave him a look. “An influencer.”

The word landed between them with strange brightness, like something from a different universe. Influencer. Jannik imagined lighted restaurants, phones held up for photos, perfect hair, perfect angles, music over short videos, a life that looked effortless because effort had been hidden. He knew this world existed around tennis. It orbited the tour constantly. Cameras, brands, messages, attention wearing perfume.

Carlos seemed embarrassed by the word as soon as he said it.

“She is nice,” he added quickly.

“I didn’t say she isn’t.”

“You made a face again.”

“I did not.”

“You did. This one was not Italian. This one was judgment.”

“I am not judging.”

“You are.”

Jannik leaned down to untie his other shoe, partly so Carlos would not see his face.

“I just didn’t know you were talking with someone.”

Carlos was quiet. The sentence had come out more serious than Jannik intended. He felt it immediately. The air shifted. Jannik focused on the knot in his laces. It was already loose. He pretended it was not.

Carlos’s voice softened. “It’s only a few days.”

Jannik nodded.

“She messaged me after...” Carlos stopped, maybe realizing how much he was explaining. “I don’t know. We started chatting.”

“Okay.”

“It is not serious.”

“I didn’t say.”

“No, but...” Carlos laughed under his breath. “You look like my brother when he thinks I am doing something stupid.”

Jannik looked up. “Are you?”

“Maybe.”

That made them both smile, but Carlos’s faded quickly. His phone buzzed again. He turned it over. This time, Jannik did not see the message, only the way Carlos’s eyes moved across it. Fast, then slower. His mouth parted slightly. The blush returned, warmer than before.

Jannik felt the cold thing again. He hated it.

It was unreasonable. Ugly, even. It did not fit anywhere inside the person he wanted to be. He had just stood on court under the Indian Wells sky and controlled a match from beginning to end. He had heard thousands of people applaud him. His coaches were pleased. His body was healthy. A semifinal awaited.

And now a stranger’s message on Carlos’s phone had reached into him and touched some hidden bruise he had not known was there. He turned away and pulled off his second shoe. Carlos was still reading.

The locker room noise seemed to grow muffled around Jannik. He could hear his own breathing. He placed the shoe beside the first one with more care than necessary. He reached for his slides. Slipped them on.

“Good message?” he asked, keeping his voice light.

Carlos looked up, startled, as if he had forgotten Jannik was there. That hurt more than it should have.

“Yes. No. I mean...” Carlos laughed softly, shyly. “She is in California.”

Jannik’s hand paused on the edge of his bag.

“Here?”

“Not here here. Los Angeles, I think. But she came for the tournament today.”

“Ah.”

“She said she saw the match.”

“Your match?”

Carlos winced. “Yes.”

Jannik tried to smile. “Brave of her to text after.”

Carlos threw him a wounded look.

“You are supposed to be comforting me.”

“I did that before. Now I am honest.”

“She said I played with heart.”

“That is better than a fight?”

Carlos considered it. “A little.”

Jannik nodded. “Good.”

Carlos looked back at the phone, then away from it, then back again.

Jannik knew that look. The edge of wanting. The nervousness before choosing something. It was almost funny to see Carlos, who could hit a forehand winner on break point in front of twenty thousand people, become uncertain because of a message from a girl.

Almost funny. Almost sweet. Almost unbearable.

“What does she want?” Jannik asked.

Carlos bit the inside of his cheek. “She asked if I wanted to meet.”

The words were simple. Jannik felt them as if the room had tilted slightly. Meet. Of course.

A normal thing. People met. People had dinner, coffee, drinks, walks, whatever people did in California after tennis matches and Instagram messages. Carlos was young. He was famous. He was charming without even trying. There would always be people who wanted to meet him. There had probably been many before this one, and there would be many after.

Jannik knew that. Knowing did not make the small sadness less strange.

“Tonight?” he asked.

Carlos nodded. “Maybe.”

“You have press?”

“Done already.”

“Treatment?”

“Later. Or tomorrow.”

Jannik gave him a look.

Carlos lifted his hands. “Okay, yes, I will do treatment. Don’t tell my coach.”

“I don’t need to. He already knows everything.”

Carlos smiled. “True.”

Then he looked at the phone again. The silence stretched.

Jannik could feel Carlos wanting him to say something. Perhaps to tease. Perhaps to advise. Perhaps to rescue him from the decision. Carlos often seemed impulsive from the outside, but Jannik knew there were moments when he circled choices with surprising doubt, especially choices that exposed something tender. On court, instinct carried him. Off court, he sometimes became young in a way that made Jannik remember the fifteen-year-old from Alicante.

“You want to go?” Jannik asked.

Carlos did not answer immediately. His thumb moved over the edge of the phone.

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you know.”

Carlos looked up. “No, I don’t.”

“You smiled.”

“That means nothing.”

“You blushed.”

“Maybe I am embarrassed.”

“Because you want to go.”

Carlos sighed. “Maybe.”

Jannik nodded as if the answer were simple.

Inside him, the cold thing spread thinly, becoming something more like an ache than a shock. He wanted to understand it, but not here. Not in front of Carlos. Not while Carlos was looking at him with trust.

This was the important part. Carlos trusted him.

Trusted him enough to show the message, or almost show it. Trusted him enough to blush, to be teased, to admit something that made him vulnerable in a different way than losing. The least Jannik could do was not make his own confusion into another weight for Carlos to carry.

So he smiled. It took effort, but not so much that it looked false.

“You should go,” he said.

Carlos blinked. “What?”

“You should meet her.”

Carlos stared at him. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“I lost.”

“You are allowed to have dinner after losing.”

“It is not dinner. I don’t know what it is.”

“You are allowed to have whatever it is.”

Carlos laughed, nervous. “That sounds dangerous.”

“Then don’t do dangerous things.”

“Very helpful.”

“I am not your father.”

“No, you are worse. You are calm when you judge me.”

“I’m not judging.”

Carlos looked at him, searching. “You think I should go?”

Jannik’s throat felt dry. He reached for his water bottle and took a slow drink. The water was lukewarm from sitting too long, but it gave him time.

“Yes,” he said again. “You had a bad day. Maybe it is good to think about something else.”

Carlos looked down. The phone screen dimmed, then went dark in his hand.

“What if it is stupid?” he asked quietly.

“Then it is stupid.”

“What if she only wants...you know.”

Jannik did know. He knew too well. The attention around players like them was rarely simple. People wanted access, proximity, proof. A photo, a story, a private moment turned public. A connection they could hold up to the light. Fame made every kindness questionable.

“Then you leave,” Jannik said.

Carlos nodded slowly.

“What if I am boring?” Carlos asked.

Jannik stared at him.

Carlos looked defensive. “What?”

“You?”

“Yes.”

“Boring?”

Carlos shrugged. “Not on court. Outside, maybe.”

Jannik almost laughed, but Carlos’s expression was too sincere. Outside, maybe. The phrase entered him softly.

How strange, Jannik thought, that Carlos could be loved by crowds for being vivid and still fear that, alone with someone, he might not be enough. How strange that Jannik could be praised for being calm and still feel chaos. How strange that everyone looked at champions and imagined them whole.

“You are not boring,” Jannik said.

Carlos’s mouth curved. “You say this as if it hurts.”

“It is difficult for me to compliment you.”

“Because I am your rival?”

“Because you become impossible after.”

Carlos grinned. “Say again.”

“No.”

“Say, Carlos, you are not boring.”

“I just said.”

“With emotion.”

Jannik threw the towel back at him.

Carlos caught it, laughing, and the sound made something in Jannik ache harder because it was beautiful, because it was Carlos returning to himself, because Jannik had helped bring him there and now someone else’s message was pulling him farther.

He told himself that was good.

People were not possessions. Not friends, not rivals, not anyone. You did not keep someone safe by keeping them near. You did not love someone well by quietly wishing their world would shrink around you.

Love. The word startled him. He had not meant to think it. It had risen without permission, like a ball clipping the tape and dropping dead on the other side.

Jannik looked down quickly and began rearranging items in his bag. Shirt. Wristbands. Empty bottle. A racquet he did not need to move. His fingers worked with unnecessary precision.

Love did not have to mean one thing, he told himself. People loved friends. They loved rivals in complicated ways. They loved the ones who made them better, the ones who stood near them in the strange weather of a life few understood. It did not need to be dramatic. It did not need to be named.

Still, the word had touched the sadness and changed its color. Carlos did not notice. He was looking at his phone again, thumb hovering over the screen.

“What should I say?” he asked.

Jannik closed his bag halfway.

“To her?”

“No, to the umpire.”

Jannik gave him a tired look.

Carlos smiled. “Yes, to her.”

“What do you want to say?”

“I don’t know.”

“You want to go?”

Carlos hesitated. “Yes. Maybe. I think yes.”

“Then say yes.”

Carlos looked horrified. “Just yes?”

“Why not?”

“Because that is too...” He searched for the word. “Dry.”

Jannik stared. “Dry?”

“Yes. Like you.”

“I am not dry.”

“You text like an accountant.”

“I text normally.”

“You text okay with a period.”

“That is a normal answer.”

“That is scary.”

Jannik considered this. “Maybe say okay without the period.”

Carlos burst out laughing. It came suddenly, loudly, so much like the old Carlos that two people nearby turned around. Carlos pressed a hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking. Jannik could not help smiling.

“There,” Carlos said, wiping at his eye. “Romantic advice from Jannik Sinner. Okay, without the period.”

“It works.”

“It does not work.”

“You haven’t tried.”

“No girl wants okay.”

“You asked what to say. I answer.”

“You are terrible.”

“Then don’t ask me.”

Carlos looked at the phone again, still smiling. “Maybe I say, ‘Yes, I would like that.’”

“Good.”

“Too formal?”

“For you? Maybe.”

“What would you say?”

“Okay.”

Carlos groaned. “You need help.”

“I won today.”

“In tennis. Not messages.”

Jannik leaned back against the locker, letting his head touch the cool metal.

“Maybe tennis is easier.”

Carlos’s smile softened. “For you, yes.”

“No. Not easier.” Jannik glanced at him. “Just clearer.”

Carlos absorbed that.

“Yes,” he said after a moment. “Clearer.”

They fell quiet.

The phone rested between Carlos’s hands as if it had become heavier. The girl’s message waited inside it, glowing invisibly. Jannik imagined her somewhere outside the tournament grounds, maybe in a hotel room in Los Angeles or Palm Springs, maybe dressed already, maybe surrounded by friends telling her what to write. He wondered what she looked like, then immediately wished he had not. He pictured long hair, perfect makeup, a smile made for cameras. He pictured someone light enough to pull Carlos out of sadness, someone who knew how to flirt without sounding like she was trying, someone who would not carry years of rivalry into every glance.

Someone easy. That was unfair. He knew it was unfair.

She might be kind. She might be nervous too. She might have watched Carlos lose and genuinely wanted to comfort him. She might know nothing about tennis beyond the beauty of him moving across a court. She might be exactly what he needed tonight: a person who did not see the missed chances, who did not know the old match in Alicante, who did not understand the full weight of the dream and therefore could not accidentally press on the bruises.

Jannik swallowed. Carlos looked at him again.

“You really think I should go?”

There was something small in his voice. Something seeking permission, though he would never call it that. Jannik could have said many things.

He could have said, Stay. We can eat together after my press. We can talk. We can joke until the loss is less sharp. We can sit in silence because we know how. You do not need a stranger tonight.

He could have said, Be careful. People want things from you. You are sad and they can see it.

He could have said, I don’t know why, but the idea of you going makes the room feel colder.

He said none of it. Instead, he looked at Carlos and gave him the best kindness he could manage.

“Yes,” Jannik said. “I think you should go.”

Carlos studied him, maybe hearing something underneath, maybe not. For one dangerous second, Jannik thought Carlos might ask a question he could not answer. But Carlos only nodded.

“Okay,” he said softly.

Jannik felt the word before he saw it typed. Carlos lowered his head over the phone. His thumbs hovered. He deleted something. Typed again. Paused. Looked at Jannik.

“Don’t look.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I am looking at the floor.”

“Stay looking at the floor.”

Jannik obediently looked at the floor.

The tile was pale gray, faintly speckled, polished enough to reflect the overhead lights in soft, broken streaks. Near Carlos’s shoe, there was a single drop of water from someone’s shower. It trembled when someone walked past, holding itself together through tiny vibrations.

Jannik stared at it. His own heart felt like that drop. Ridiculous. He had won six-three, six-two. He was in the semifinals. He had played clean, strong tennis. He had given Carlos comfort when Carlos needed it. He had done everything right. So why did doing the right thing feel like placing something precious carefully into someone else’s hands?

Carlos typed. A second passed. Another. Then Carlos exhaled.

“I sent.”

Jannik looked up.

Carlos’s face was still pink, but his expression had changed. Nervousness, excitement, doubt, sadness from the match still lingering at the edges. All of it mixed in him, bright and human and impossible to separate.

“What did you say?” Jannik asked, though he already knew from Carlos’s face that it could not have been anything elaborate.

Carlos turned the phone so Jannik could see. There, beneath her message, in the little clean bubble of a decision, was one word: 'ok'.

No capital letter. No period. Jannik stared at it. Then he laughed.

He could not help it. The sadness was still there, quiet and blue, but the laugh broke through anyway. It came from the absurdity, from the tenderness, from the fact that Carlos had spent five minutes panicking only to send the most Jannik message possible.

Carlos laughed too, embarrassed and delighted.

“You see?” Jannik said. “It works.”

Carlos shook his head, smiling down at the screen.

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No,” Carlos said, still smiling. “I don’t.”

The phone buzzed again almost immediately. Carlos’s eyes widened. Jannik looked away before he could see too much. This time, he gave him privacy.

Outside, Indian Wells continued beneath the California night. The lights came on around the grounds. Fans drifted toward exits and restaurants and parking lots, carrying programs, signed balls, opinions about matches already becoming stories. The mountains darkened into silhouettes. The desert released the heat it had held all day.

Inside the locker room, Carlos read a message from a girl who wanted to meet him. Jannik sat beside his open bag, newly victorious, newly hollowed, smiling because Carlos was smiling. He told himself it was enough. For tonight, it had to be.

──── ୨୧ ────

At three in the morning, victory felt different. Earlier, it had been bright.

Victory had been lights over Indian Wells, applause rising like heat from the court, Denis Shapovalov’s hand at the net, Darren’s proud nod, Simone’s quick smile, cameras, questions, the scoreboard still burning in Jannik’s mind with the clean satisfaction of numbers.

6-3, 6-2.

Semifinal. A good match. A professional match. A match he could look back on without needing to forgive himself for anything. But by three in the morning, victory had become quiet.

It had followed him back to the hotel, past the lobby flowers and the low desert music playing from invisible speakers, past the night staff who congratulated him in polite whispers as if loud joy might wake the building. It had sat with him through food he barely tasted, through stretching, through messages from his team, through a shower so hot it turned his skin red. It had lain beside him in bed like an object he had won but did not know where to place.

The room was dark except for the soft line of light leaking beneath the curtains. Outside, California slept in shades of blue and black. Palm trees moved occasionally against the window, stirred by a wind too gentle to be heard. The air conditioner breathed in the corner with mechanical patience. Somewhere down the hallway, a door had closed around midnight. Since then, nothing.

Jannik was tired.

His legs had the deep, honest heaviness that came after a good performance. His right shoulder ached familiarly, not alarming, just present. His hands smelled faintly of soap and grip tape, no matter how many times he washed them. He had tried to sleep. He had done everything correctly. Phone away. Lights off. Breathing slowly. Mind emptied.

But sleep would not take him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Carlos’s phone lighting up in the locker room. 'ok'. Such a small word. Such a stupid word.

He turned onto his side and stared at the dark shape of the chair near the window, where his hoodie lay folded over the back. He told himself again that he was happy for Carlos. He had told himself so many times that the sentence had lost meaning and become rhythm.

Happy for Carlos. Good for Carlos. Carlos needed something good after losing. Carlos deserved an easy night. Carlos deserved someone looking at him without seeing rankings, forehands, pressure, history.

A knock.

Jannik opened his eyes fully. For a second, he thought he had imagined it. The room was still. The air conditioner breathed. His phone lay face down on the bedside table, dark and silent. Then it came again. Soft but urgent. Three quick knocks.

Jannik sat up. His first thought was not logical. Not Darren, not hotel staff, not emergency. His first thought was of Carlos. He knew it before he reached the door.

He got out of bed and crossed the room barefoot, moving through the dark with the quiet precision of someone used to hotel rooms in every country. He did not turn on the light. He looked through the peephole.

Carlos stood in the hallway. Of course.

He wore the same hoodie from earlier, though now it was unzipped over a white T-shirt. His hair was a mess, curls flattened on one side and wild on the other, as if the night had dragged its hands through it. His face was too awake for three in the morning. His eyes were bright, almost feverish. He had one hand braced against the doorframe and the other wrapped around his phone.

Jannik closed his eyes briefly. Then he opened the door. Carlos looked at him and smiled like trouble arriving late.

“Are you sleeping?”

Jannik stared at him. Carlos’s smile widened, guilty and hopeful at the same time.

“Okay. Stupid question.”

“It’s three.”

“I know.”

“In the morning.”

“I know.”

“You are knocking at my door at three in the morning.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Carlos opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked over his shoulder down the empty hallway as if checking whether the story had followed him back. Then he looked at Jannik again, and suddenly the smile changed. It became something softer.

“I needed to tell someone.”

Jannik’s irritation, which had been easy and useful for exactly five seconds, slipped away. He stepped back. Carlos entered quickly, carrying with him the cold smell of night air, faint cologne, and something else Jannik did not want to identify. A sweetness. Perfume, maybe. Not strong. Just enough.

It reached Jannik before Carlos did. He closed the door. For a moment, they stood in darkness. Then Jannik switched on the small lamp near the bed. The room warmed into amber shadows. Carlos blinked at the light and rubbed both hands over his face. Jannik looked at him properly.

He seemed alive in too many directions. Tired but restless. Happy but worried. Embarrassed, thrilled, uncertain, full of a story too large for his body. Jannik had seen him after winning titles, after losing heartbreakers, after impossible practices, after press conferences that had annoyed him. This was different.

This was Carlos after being wanted by someone outside their world. Jannik turned away first.

“You want water?”

“Yes.”

Jannik took a bottle from the small table and handed it to him. Carlos opened it, drank half in one go, then sat on the edge of Jannik’s bed as if the room belonged to both of them. Jannik looked at the bed. Carlos looked at him.

“What?”

“You sit on my bed with outside clothes.”

Carlos looked down at himself. “Outside clothes?”

“Yes.”

“I am clean.”

“You were outside.”

“I did not roll in the road.”

“You were on a date.”

Carlos froze.

Jannik crossed his arms. “So.”

The blush came back immediately. Even in the soft lamp light, Jannik saw it. The warmth climbing Carlos’s neck, touching his cheeks, changing his face from champion to boy in one merciless second. Carlos covered his face with one hand.

“Oh, my God.”

Jannik’s stomach tightened. Not because Carlos looked embarrassed. Because he looked happy. Not simply amused, not merely distracted from his loss. Happy in that secret, glowing way again. Like the night had given him something he was still holding inside his chest.

Jannik leaned against the wall near the door. “I assume it went okay.”

Carlos lowered his hand and looked at him.

“Jannik.”

Just his name. But the way Carlos said it made the room tilt. Jannik tried to prepare himself.

“It went more than okay?” he asked.

Carlos laughed softly, almost disbelieving.

“It was amazing.”

The word entered the room and expanded there. Amazing. Jannik nodded once. Very calm. Very normal.

“Good,” he said.

Carlos looked relieved by the word, as if some part of him had been waiting for permission to let the night become real.

“She is...” He shook his head, searching. “She is really beautiful.”

Jannik nodded again.

“Like, of course, I saw pictures. Instagram, you know. Everybody looks...” Carlos waved vaguely, meaning filtered, polished, unreal. “But in person, she is more beautiful. Not only is this a perfect thing. She laughs with her whole face. She has this little...” He touched near his own cheek. “Small dimple here. Only one side. When she thinks something is funny but does not want to laugh too much, it appears.”

Jannik looked at the carpet. The hotel carpet had a desert pattern in muted colors: sand, gray, dull blue. He had not noticed it before. Now he studied it as if it held tactical information. Carlos kept talking.

“She was waiting outside this restaurant, but then she said she didn’t want to sit down yet, so we walked. We just walked. For a long time. I don’t even know where. There were lights everywhere, and it was quiet, and she kept asking me things, but not like press. Not stupid questions. Just...things.”

“What things?”

“My favorite food. My brothers. If I like California. If I believe in signs.”

Jannik looked up despite himself. “Signs?”

Carlos nodded seriously. “Like universe signs.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I believe in hard work.”

Jannik stared at him.

Carlos grinned. “I know. Very romantic.”

“That is terrible.”

“She laughed.”

“She was polite.”

“No, she laughed for real.” Carlos’s grin softened. “The dimple came.”

Jannik hated the dimple. He had never met this girl and already he hated one small part of her face with completely unreasonable intensity. Then he hated himself for it.

“What is her name?” he asked, though he already knew from the user prompt, but in the story, Jannik doesn't.

“Monica,” Carlos said.

The name was easy in his mouth. Too easy.

“Monica,” Jannik repeated.

Carlos nodded, smiling down at the bottle in his hands.

“She is from Mexico, but she lives in Los Angeles now. She does fashion things, travel, some videos. I don’t understand exactly. She has a lot of followers.”

“Influencer.”

“Yes.”

“You still sound embarrassed when you say it.”

Carlos made a face. “Because I don’t know what it means as a job.”

“It means she influences.”

Carlos threw the bottle cap at him.

Jannik caught it. “Careful. I have a match soon.”

“You have one day.”

“My reflexes need rest.”

Carlos laughed, then leaned back on his hands, looking up at the ceiling. His hoodie fell open. The lamp caught the line of his throat, the tired flush still lingering in his skin. He looked young again. Young in a way that made Jannik feel older than he was.

“She was easy to talk to,” Carlos said. “At first I was nervous, you know?”

“You?”

“Yes, me.”

“The man who hits drop shots on break points?”

“That is different.”

“Apparently.”

“On court, I know what I am doing.”

Jannik almost said, Do you? but stopped. Carlos was being honest. He deserved something better than jokes every second.

So Jannik said, “And with her?”

Carlos shrugged. “At first, no. I didn’t know if she wanted Carlos the tennis player or...” He tapped his chest lightly. “This Carlos.”

Jannik’s expression softened.

“And then?”

“Then we walked. She complained that her shoes were bad for walking, but she refused to stop because she said sitting would make her feel like an interview. So we walked more slowly. She told me about moving to LA and how lonely it was at first. Everybody wants something there. How can you be surrounded by people and still eat dinner alone?”

Jannik looked at him. Carlos was looking at the ceiling, unaware of the sentence he had just placed between them. Surrounded by people and still alone.

Of course, that would touch Carlos. Of course, he would hear himself in it. Maybe Monica knew more than Jannik wanted to give her credit for. Maybe the girl with the one dimple and bad shoes had met him somewhere true without knowing the map.

“That sounds nice,” Jannik said.

Carlos looked at him. “It was.”

The quiet after that was delicate.

Jannik shifted his weight against the wall. He wished suddenly that he had put on a hoodie or something more than the soft T-shirt and shorts he slept in. He felt underdressed, exposed, though Carlos had seen him in less in locker rooms a hundred times. This was not about clothing. It was about the hour. The room. The intimacy of someone else’s night being brought to his bed at three in the morning.

Carlos looked at him with sudden mischief.

“And then...”

Jannik immediately pointed at him. “No.”

Carlos’s grin became wicked. “What?”

“No.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know your face.”

“My Spanish face?”

“Your stupid face.”

Carlos laughed. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You went to the date. You walked. She had bad shoes. Then something happened that made you come here at three in the morning looking like...” Jannik searched for the word and regretted it because Carlos was waiting delightedly. “Like this.”

“Like what?”

“Annoying.”

Carlos leaned forward, elbows on knees. “We kissed.”

Jannik closed his eyes. He did not mean to. It just happened. A quick shutting of the room, the lamp, Carlos’s face. When he opened them, Carlos was watching him carefully. Not teasing now. Not fully.

Jannik forced an exaggerated grimace. “Disgusting.”

Carlos laughed, relieved. “You are such a child.”

“I don’t need details.”

“It was a very good kiss.”

Jannik put a hand over his stomach. “I am becoming sick.”

“No, listen-”

“No.”

“She kissed me first.”

“Worse.”

“How is that worse?”

“Because now you will be impossible.”

Carlos beamed. “Maybe.”

Jannik turned toward the bathroom. “I’m going to vomit.”

“No, wait.” Carlos stood, laughing. “You have to listen. You are my friend.”

“Friends protect each other from trauma.”

“This is not trauma. This is romance.”

“This is nausea.”

Carlos grabbed one of the pillows from the bed and threw it at him. Jannik dodged it easily, which made Carlos point at him.

“See? Reflexes are fine.”

“Because I am avoiding emotional damage.”

Carlos laughed so hard he had to sit down again. Jannik picked up the pillow and held it against his chest like armor. For a moment, the ache loosened.

This was familiar. This was easy. Carlos is telling too much, Jannik is pretending to suffer, both of them hiding deeper things under comedy because comedy was safer and had better footwork. Jannik could survive this if it stayed like this. If Carlos kept smiling ridiculously, if the story remained a story, if Monica stayed outside the room as a name, a dimple and bad shoes.

But Carlos had not finished. Of course, he had not. The laughter faded gradually. Carlos looked down at his hands, twisting the bottle cap between his fingers.

“Then we went back to her hotel,” he said.

Jannik’s grip tightened on the pillow. He made his face blank. A useful face. A match face.

“Ah,” he said.

Carlos glanced up. “You said no details?”

“I said no details.”

“Okay.” Carlos nodded. “No details.”

One second. Two.

“But- ”

“Carlos.”

“I’m not saying details. I’m only saying...” He struggled, then smiled helplessly, almost shy. “It was good.”

Jannik looked at him.

Carlos’s smile trembled at the edges, not with humor this time, but with the vulnerability of confessing pleasure. Not performance. Not bragging. There was none of that. He was not trying to impress Jannik. He was trying to place the night somewhere safe.

And because Jannik was safe, Carlos had brought it to him. That made the jealousy hurt worse. Because it came wrapped in trust.

Carlos looked away. “Really good.”

Jannik swallowed.

The room seemed suddenly too warm. The sweetness of Monica’s perfume, faint on Carlos’s clothes or skin or imagination, drifted again through the air. Jannik wanted to open a window, but hotel windows never opened properly. Everything in hotels was controlled. Temperature. Light. Curtains. Privacy.

Not feelings. Those came through every locked door.

“I am happy for you,” Jannik said.

His voice sounded normal enough. Carlos looked back at him.

“You are?”

“Yes.”

The lie was not complete. That was the problem. He was happy. Somewhere in him, genuinely, he was glad Carlos had not spent the night alone with his loss. Glad someone had touched him kindly. Glad he had laughed and walked under California lights and forgotten the score for a while. Glad he had been wanted as a man, not measured as an athlete.

But the happiness stood beside something darker.

Jannik could not tell if he was jealous of Monica for being with Carlos or jealous of Carlos for being able to go to someone like Monica so easily, for walking into a night of beauty and desire while Jannik lay awake with emotions he did not know how to hold.

Maybe both.

Maybe jealousy was not as precise as people pretended. Maybe it was not a single arrow pointing clearly at what you wanted. Maybe it was fog. It covered everything. It made shapes unfamiliar. It made friends look like strangers and strangers look like thieves.

Carlos leaned back again, eyes distant with memory.

“I didn’t expect it,” he said. “After today, I thought maybe I would feel bad all night. Like the match would be there between us. But she didn’t care.”

Jannik frowned slightly. “She didn’t care?”

“Not in a bad way.” Carlos sat up quickly. “I mean, she cared that I was upset. She was sweet. But she didn’t know enough to make it big. She didn’t say, ‘At four-three you should have done this,’ or ‘your forehand was bad,’ or ‘how will this affect the ranking?’ She just said, ‘I’m sorry you had a hard day.’”

Jannik stared at the pillow in his hands. I’m sorry you had a hard day. So simple. So dangerously simple. Carlos continued, voice quiet now.

“It was nice. To be with someone who didn’t look at me like I lost something important.”

Jannik felt that sentence enter deeper than the others. He understood. He wished he did not.

In their world, even comfort had an analysis attached. A loss was never only pain. It was data. Errors. Patterns. Missed chances. Press responsibility. Ranking consequences. Fitness questions. Tactical adjustments. Everyone who loved you tried to help by taking the wound apart.

Sometimes, a stranger saying you had a hard day might feel like mercy. Jannik lowered the pillow.

“That makes sense,” he said.

Carlos nodded, grateful. Then his face changed. The glow dimmed. Jannik noticed immediately.

“What?”

Carlos sighed and rubbed his forehead. “There is one problem.”

Jannik’s chest tightened for a reason he did not like.

“What problem?”

Carlos looked at him, then down at the carpet. “She is perfect.”

“That is a problem?”

“Yes.”

“Usually, people want perfect.”

“She is perfect in the wrong way.”

Jannik waited.

Carlos struggled for words. He often did when emotion moved faster than language. His English was excellent, but feelings sometimes arrived in Spanish, in gesture, in the whole body. His hands opened and closed as if he could catch the right sentence from the air.

“She is beautiful,” he said. “Funny. Smart, I think. She knows how to make people feel important when she talks to them. She is not fake, not like I thought maybe. She was kind. She didn’t push me to take photos. She didn’t post anything. She didn’t even take her phone out much. And when we were together, she was...” He stopped, cheeks coloring again. “She was perfect for me.”

Jannik made a small strangled sound and lifted a hand. “Please don’t continue this part.”

Carlos gave him a tired smile. “Okay.”

“Thank you.”

“But then, after, we talked.”

Jannik sat slowly in the chair near the window. He still held the pillow, though now it rested loosely in his lap. Carlos looked at his hands.

“She asked me how long I would stay in California. I told her it depends on the tournament. She asked if I like traveling all the time. I said yes and no. Then I started talking about tennis, about the season, about how everything moves so fast, and she listened, but...” He paused. “She didn’t really understand.”

Jannik said nothing.

“She doesn’t know tennis. Not really. She knows my name. She knows some players. She knows Wimbledon is white clothes and Roland Garros is clay because I told her.” Carlos smiled faintly, but it hurt. “She asked if Indian Wells is a Grand Slam.”

Jannik could not help it. “No.”

Carlos pointed at him. “I know. I said no.”

“Did you say it nicely?”

“Yes.” Carlos gave him a wounded look. “I’m not a monster.”

“Sometimes when people don’t know tennis, you make a face.”

“I did not make a face.”

“You have a Spanish judgment face.”

Carlos narrowed his eyes. “You invented this now.”

“Yes.”

Carlos almost smiled, then sighed.

“It’s not just tennis. She’s not into sports. Any sports. She said she hates gyms. She said running is what people do when they are being chased. She said athletes are too intense.”

Jannik’s mouth twitched.

Carlos looked offended. “Why are you smiling?”

“Because she is maybe correct.”

“No.”

“You are intense.”

“You are more intense.”

“Maybe.”

“She doesn’t understand why I train on vacation.”

“Most people don’t.”

“But you do.”

The sentence came too quickly. Then silence. Carlos looked at him, and Jannik looked back.

There, at three in the morning, after Monica’s walk and Monica’s kiss and Monica’s hotel room and Monica’s perfect wrongness, the room changed again. Something old entered. Something from Alicante, from locker rooms, from practice courts, from years of watching each other suffer willingly for a sport that asked for everything and gave back just enough to keep them devoted.

But you do. Jannik set the pillow aside.

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

Carlos’s shoulders dropped, as if that answer had touched the real problem.

“That is the thing,” Carlos said. “With her, everything was easy until it reached the part of my life that is not easy. And that part is...” He spread his hands. “Almost all of it.”

Jannik nodded slowly. Carlos stood and began pacing.

He did this when he had too many feelings. The hotel room was not big enough for him, but he paced anyway, three steps toward the window, turn, three steps back. Barely controlled energy. The same restlessness that made him chase impossible balls now trapped between a minibar and a bed.

“I don’t need someone to know every statistic,” Carlos said. “I don’t need her to understand tactics or rankings or what it means to play best of five or why clay feels different under the feet. It is okay. I can explain. I like explaining when someone wants to know.”

Jannik watched him.

“But she didn’t really want to know. Not because she is bad. She was not rude. She just...” Carlos touched his chest, frustrated. “It didn’t reach her.”

“The tennis?”

“The tennis. The sport. The thing. The thing that is me, but also not me, but also me. You know?”

Jannik knew too well.

How could anyone separate them from tennis cleanly? People loved to say, You are more than your results, more than your job, more than what you do. It was true, of course. It was important. But tennis had entered their bodies before they were fully grown. It had shaped their calendars, their friendships, their pain thresholds, their sense of worth, their understanding of time. It had given them language before they had words for many adult things.

Tennis was not everything. But it was everywhere. It was in the way Jannik noticed balance when someone walked. It was in Carlos’s restless feet even in hotel rooms.

It was in their shoulders, their hands, their sleep, their meals, their missing holidays, their childhoods shortened and stretched by airports. It was the fact that Carlos came to Jannik’s room at three in the morning, not to brag, but because after touching someone outside tennis, he needed someone inside it to explain why something felt absent.

“She can learn,” Jannik said carefully.

Carlos stopped pacing. “Maybe.”

“If she likes you, maybe she will want to understand.”

“Yes.”

“But maybe not tonight.”

Carlos gave him a look. “You are being reasonable.”

“I try.”

“It’s annoying.”

“I know.”

Carlos sat again, this time in the chair opposite Jannik, near the small round table with the untouched hotel notepad. He leaned forward, elbows on knees.

“She asked me what I would do if I didn’t play tennis,” he said.

Jannik tilted his head. “Normal question.”

“Yes. But I didn’t know what to say.”

“Golf?”

Carlos made a face. “I said maybe golf. She laughed.”

“Good.”

“No, not good. Then she asked seriously. Like, no sport. No competition. What would make you happy?”

Jannik looked at him. Carlos’s face had gone quiet.

“And?” Jannik asked.

Carlos shook his head. “I didn’t know.”

The confession sat heavily. Jannik leaned back.

He understood that too, though he wished he did not. There were questions outsiders asked because they seemed romantic or curious, not knowing they touched the edge of an abyss. What would you be without the thing that built you? What would make you happy if the dream disappeared? Who are you when no one is measuring the speed of your serve?

Most people collected answers through ordinary years. Athletes often had one answer for too long.

Carlos rubbed his hands together. “I said, family. Friends. Maybe the sea. She said, ‘That’s sweet.’ But I felt stupid. Like I should have more.”

“You don’t need more.”

“No?”

“No.”

Jannik spoke quietly, but with certainty. “Family, friends, sea. It’s good.”

Carlos studied him. “What would you say?”

Jannik looked toward the curtain. A thin line of city light glowed at the edge.

“Skiing, maybe,” he said.

Carlos smiled. “Of course.”

“Food.”

“Also, of course.”

“Home.”

Carlos’s smile faded into something warmer. “Yes.”

“And maybe...” Jannik paused. He did not know why the next word felt dangerous. “Peace.”

Carlos watched him carefully.

“Peace,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

Jannik looked down at his hands. “Maybe if there were no tennis, I would want quiet.”

Carlos nodded slowly. “I think I would want noise.”

Jannik almost smiled. “I know.”

“Not bad noise. People. Music. Family. Friends are talking too loudly. Kids running. Someone cooking. Someone laughing.”

“That sounds like you.”

“And your quiet sounds like you.”

They looked at each other across the small hotel room. For a moment, Monica receded.

Not disappeared, but receded. She became one part of a larger question. The girl outside tennis who had given Carlos an easy night and then accidentally revealed what easy could not hold. She was not the enemy. Jannik knew that now, or tried to. She had not stolen anything. She had simply arrived, beautiful and kind, and held up a mirror neither of them had asked for.

Carlos looked away first.

“I feel bad,” he said.

“For what?”

“Because she did nothing wrong. She was great. Really. And maybe I am making a problem in my head because I lost and I’m tired.”

“Maybe.”

Carlos looked annoyed. “You can say no.”

“I can. But maybe you are tired.”

Carlos sighed. “Yes.”

“And maybe you are also right.”

Carlos leaned his head back against the chair. “That is worse.”

“Yes.”

The room settled into quiet.

Outside, a car passed somewhere far below, its sound faint and brief. The air conditioner clicked, then resumed its steady breath. Jannik could feel exhaustion waiting at the edges of him, but he was awake now in a deeper way than before. Not match awake. Not adrenaline. Something more fragile.

Carlos turned his phone over in his hands.

“Do you think it matters?” he asked.

“What?”

“That she doesn’t understand sports.”

Jannik took a breath. He wanted to answer well. Not because Monica mattered to him, but because Carlos did. Because Carlos was looking at him with trust again, and the wrong answer could close something.

“I think,” Jannik said slowly, “it matters if she doesn’t want to understand what matters to you.”

Carlos listened without moving.

“She doesn’t have to love tennis. Maybe better if she doesn’t. Sometimes we need people who see other things. But if sport is a big part of your life, she has to respect this. Not only the nice parts. Also, the boring parts. Training. Tiredness. Losing. Traveling. Not being free always.”

Carlos nodded.

“And you have to respect her life too. Even if you don’t understand influencer things.”

Carlos grimaced. “Influencing.”

“Yes. Very difficult sport.”

Carlos laughed softly.

Jannik continued. “Maybe one night is not enough to know.”

“No.”

“But one night can show something.”

Carlos looked at him. “What did tonight show?”

Jannik hesitated. That you can be with someone perfect and still end up at my door. The thought arrived with such clarity that he had to look away. He did not say it.

Instead, he said, “That you liked her.”

Carlos waited.

“And that something was missing.”

Carlos’s face changed. He looked younger again, but not in a bright way. In the lost way.

“Yes,” he whispered. “Something was missing.”

The words hurt Jannik more than Carlos’s happiness had.

Because this was the part he could not celebrate. Carlos had gone out looking for light after a dark day. He had found it. But not warm enough. Not deep enough. Not the thing beneath the thing. And now he was sitting in Jannik’s room at three in the morning, still searching.

Jannik did not know whether he wanted to give it to him or run from the fact that maybe he already did.

Carlos rubbed his face again. “I’m stupid.”

“No.”

“I had a beautiful night with a beautiful girl and now I’m complaining because she doesn’t know tennis.”

“You are not complaining.”

“What am I doing?”

“Trying to understand.”

Carlos looked at him, and the gratitude in his eyes was too much. Jannik stood abruptly.

“I need water,” he said.

“You already have water.”

“I need more.”

He went to the small table, picked up a bottle, opened it, drank. His back was to Carlos. That helped. He could breathe better without Carlos looking at him. The water was cold enough to hurt his teeth.

Behind him, Carlos said softly, “Did I wake you?”

“No.”

“You were awake?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Jannik kept facing the table.

“Sometimes after matches I don’t sleep.”

“Because of adrenaline?”

“Yes.”

A pause.

“And because of me?”

Jannik closed the bottle slowly. Carlos’s voice was not teasing. Jannik turned.

Carlos sat very still, watching him. The lamp caught his face from one side, leaving the other in shadow. At three in the morning, people looked more honest because they were too tired to arrange themselves properly.

Jannik considered lying. Then he considered telling the truth. He chose something in between.

“A little,” he said.

Carlos’s expression softened with guilt. “Jannik.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, I came here and talked about all this-”

“You needed to tell someone.”

“Yes, but you had a match. You won. You should be happy.”

“I am happy.”

Carlos gave him a look. Jannik hated how well Carlos could see him sometimes.

“I am happy,” he repeated. “And tired. And maybe too awake. It is normal.”

Carlos stood slowly. “Maybe I should go.”

The words struck Jannik too quickly.

“No.”

Carlos stopped. Jannik realized how fast he had said it.

He lowered his voice. “I mean...you don’t have to.”

Carlos looked at him for a long second. Something flickered there. Not understanding exactly. Not yet. But awareness, maybe. The sense that the room held more than the words in it. Jannik sat back down in the chair because standing felt too revealing. Carlos remained near the bed.

“I don’t want to make you sad,” Carlos said.

Jannik’s throat tightened.

“You don’t.”

“I think maybe I do.”

Jannik shook his head. “Not like this.”

“What does that mean?”

It was too direct. Carlos was too direct when tired. He had the courage of exhaustion. He walked straight toward the things Jannik spent years arranging furniture in front of. Jannik looked at the floor again.

“It means I don’t know,” he said.

Carlos was quiet. That, more than anything, was the truth.

Jannik did not know what the sadness was. He did not know if it was jealousy, loneliness, protectiveness, fear of being replaced, fear of wanting something unnamed, or fear of Carlos wanting something easy that Jannik could never be. He did not know if he envied Monica for being desired or Carlos for being able to desire without turning it into a philosophical crisis at three in the morning.

He only knew that his chest hurt. Carlos sat on the edge of the bed again, closer this time.

“Are you jealous?” he asked.

Jannik looked up sharply. Carlos’s eyes widened, and he immediately lifted both hands.

“I mean, sorry. I didn’t mean, maybe a stupid word. Not jealous, jealous. I mean, because I went out and you had to stay with recovery and press and all this.”

Jannik breathed again. Of course. Carlos meant ordinary jealousy. Freedom jealousy. Life jealousy. The kind that made sense.

“Yes,” Jannik said.

Carlos blinked. “Yes?”

“A little.”

“Oh.”

Jannik leaned back, choosing each word carefully.

“You lost, but then you had this night outside tennis. Walking. Laughing. Monica. I won, and I came back here and could not sleep.”

Carlos’s face filled with sympathy so quickly that Jannik had to look away.

“That sounds bad,” Carlos said.

“It is not bad. It is just true.”

“I didn’t think.”

“You don’t have to.”

“No, but...” Carlos looked down at his phone. “I came here like an idiot to talk about her.”

“You came here because something felt wrong.”

Carlos nodded slowly.

“And maybe because something felt right,” Jannik added, though it cost him.

Carlos looked at him.

“Yes,” he said. “Both.”

“Then it is okay.”

“How are you always doing this?”

“What?”

“Making space for everything.”

Jannik almost laughed. “I don’t.”

“You do.”

“No. I just look calm.”

Carlos smiled sadly. “Your mind is not clean.”

Jannik remembered the locker room before the match, Carlos saying the opposite. My mind is not clean. It is just quiet from outside.

“No,” Jannik said. “Not clean.”

Carlos leaned forward, forearms on thighs. “Mine is a disaster.”

“I know.”

“Hey.”

Jannik smiled faintly. “You said.”

Carlos accepted this with a small nod. For a while, they did not speak.

The silence was no longer empty. It had texture now. Monica’s name hung in it, but so did the match, the semifinal, the loss, the old Alicante court, the coaches who had always said they had a special bond. Jannik wondered if those coaches had known this too. Not this exact night, not Monica, not hotel lamps at three in the morning. But the danger of being understood so deeply by someone whose life ran beside yours, sometimes against yours, never fully separate.

Maybe special bonds were not always comfortable. Maybe sometimes they were rooms you entered without knowing how you would leave. Carlos yawned suddenly, huge and helpless, covering his mouth too late.

Jannik raised an eyebrow. “Now you are tired.”

Carlos nodded, eyes watering. “Very.”

“You should sleep.”

“Yes.”

Carlos did not move. Jannik did not tell him again.

After a moment, Carlos said, “Can I tell you one more thing?”

“No sex details.”

Carlos laughed. “No. Not that.”

“Okay.”

Carlos looked at him, all humor fading.

“When I was with her, I forgot the match. For a while. And I needed that.” He swallowed. “But when I started feeling confused, I wanted to talk to you. Not my team. Not my family. You.”

Jannik’s chest tightened.

Carlos continued, almost shy. “Because you understand the tennis part. But also...you understand me when I don’t explain well.”

Jannik could not answer.

The words entered too deeply. They found the place where the jealousy had been hurting and pressed there, not cruelly, but with warmth. It did not fix anything. Maybe it made things more complicated. But it also told him that whatever Monica had been tonight, beautiful, kind, desired, she had not erased him from Carlos’s inner map.

Carlos still came here. At three in the morning. Knocking softly. Holding a story too large for one person.

“I’m glad you came,” Jannik said.

His voice was barely above a whisper. Carlos looked relieved in a way that made him seem almost fragile.

“Even though I woke you?”

“I was awake.”

“Even though I gave details?”

“You gave too many.”

Carlos smiled. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No. I’m not.”

Jannik rolled his eyes, but softly. Carlos stood at last, slower now, the night catching up to him. He picked up his phone, checked it once, then put it in his pocket without answering whatever waited there.

“Monica?” Jannik asked before he could stop himself.

Carlos nodded. “She asked if I got back okay.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yes.”

“Answer.”

“I will.”

Carlos walked to the door, then paused with his hand on the handle. His back was to Jannik when he spoke.

“Do you think I should see her again?”

Jannik closed his eyes briefly. There it was. The question. Not tactical. Not simple. Not one Jannik could answer without feeling the blade on both sides. He opened his eyes. Carlos turned. The hotel room was quiet enough that Jannik could hear the air conditioner pause between breaths.

“Yes,” Jannik said.

Carlos’s face flickered.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Jannik forced himself to hold his gaze. “One night is not enough. Maybe she can understand more. Maybe you can understand her. Maybe it becomes something. Maybe not. But you liked her.”

Carlos nodded.

“And you need to know if the missing thing is real,” Jannik said.

Carlos absorbed that slowly.

“Yes,” he whispered. “I need to know.”

Jannik smiled, though it felt thin. “Then see her again.”

Carlos looked at him with something unreadable in his eyes.

“You are a good friend,” he said.

The words should have warmed him. They did. They also hurt.

“Go sleep,” Jannik said.

Carlos opened the door. The hallway light spilled in, pale and cool. He stepped halfway out, then turned back.

“Jannik?”

“Yes?”

“Congratulations again. For the match.”

Jannik’s face softened. “Thank you.”

“You were really good.”

“You already said.”

“I know. I wanted to say again.”

Jannik nodded once. Carlos smiled, tired now, the glow dimmed into something gentler.

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

The door closed. The room became quiet again. Jannik stood in the silence Carlos left behind.

For a while, he did not move. He could still smell the night air. Still see Carlos’s blush, his restless pacing, the way his face had looked when he said something was missing. On the bed, the pillow Carlos had thrown lay crooked near the foot. On the table, the water bottle cap was still missing because Jannik had caught it and set it somewhere without noticing.

Small evidence. Proof that Carlos had been there. Jannik turned off the lamp and returned to bed, but the dark was different now. Less empty. More crowded. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling.

In the next room, or down the hall, or wherever Carlos was, maybe he was texting Monica now. Maybe he was telling her yes, he got back okay. Maybe he was smiling at the screen with that private smile. Maybe he would see her again. Maybe she would learn the difference between Indian Wells and a Grand Slam. Maybe she would come to understand why Carlos trained on vacation, why losing could follow him into his sleep, why sport was not a hobby but a language.

Maybe she would be good for him. Jannik tried to want that simply. He did not manage. Instead, he let the truth exist without solving it. He was happy for Carlos. He was jealous. He was lonely. He was in the semifinals. He wanted Carlos to have something beautiful. He wanted, in some hidden part of himself, not to be left outside that beauty.

All of it was true. All of it breathed in the room with him. At last, near four in the morning, sleep began to approach. Not gently, not completely, but enough. Jannik turned onto his side, facing the chair where Carlos had sat, and closed his eyes.

Before sleep took him, one thought came clear and soft through the dark. Carlos had said something was missing. Jannik did not know yet whether he was afraid that Carlos would find it elsewhere. Or afraid that Carlos already knew where it was.

──── ୨୧ ────

Morning came too gently for the kind of night Jannik had lived.

It arrived in layers: first the pale gray behind the curtains, then the thin gold at their edges, then the low hum of the hotel becoming awake around him. Somewhere outside, tires moved over asphalt with a soft, wet sound even though the desert was dry. A door closed down the hallway. A cleaning cart rattled faintly, then stopped. The air conditioner clicked off, leaving behind a silence that felt larger than the room.

Jannik opened his eyes before his alarm. For a few seconds, he did not know why he felt so heavy. Then memory returned. Carlos was at his door at three in the morning.

Carlos’s hair was messy from the night, his cheeks still holding the warmth of someone else’s attention. Carlos was sitting on the edge of Jannik’s bed as if he belonged there. Monica’s name in his mouth. The walk, the lights, the kiss, the hotel, the laughter Jannik had forced from himself until it became real for a moment. Then the problem. The missing thing. The part Monica did not understand because tennis was not just something Carlos did, but something that had grown roots around his bones.

Something was missing. Jannik stared at the ceiling. The sentence had followed him into sleep and waited for him there.

He had slept, eventually. Not enough, but enough to make morning feel possible. His body felt as if someone had filled it with sand. Not pain. Not injury. Just the slow resistance of fatigue. His legs were heavy from the match, his mind heavier from everything after.

Today was supposed to be easy.

A free day, or as close to free as a free day could be during a tournament. No match. No walk-on time waiting like a blade. No scoreboard that would decide whether the week continued or ended. Just routine. Breakfast. Meeting. Training. Recovery. Food. Sleep.

Tennis people called that a free day because tennis people had no imagination. Jannik rolled onto his side and looked at the chair where Carlos had sat.

It was empty now. Of course it was. The pillow had been returned to the bed sometime before Jannik slept, though he did not remember doing it. The water bottle on the table was half-empty. The cap lay near the lamp. Small evidence remained, the kind that made an ordinary hotel room feel suddenly like a place where something important had happened.

He picked up his phone. No message from Carlos.

There were other messages. His team's group chat. A reminder about breakfast. A recovery note. A few congratulations from friends and family. He answered the important ones with brief words, thumbs moving slowly.

Thanks.

Grazie.

See you later.

Then he opened the chat with Carlos and looked at the last thing between them.

Carlos had sent a message at 4:07.

slept?

Jannik had not answered because by then he had finally fallen asleep. He stared at the word now. Then typed:

A little.

He waited.

Nothing.

Carlos was probably asleep. Or with his team. Or texting Monica. Or all three in some confusing Carlos way. Jannik put the phone down before he could become the sort of person who stared at typing bubbles that were not there. He got out of bed.

The floor was cold under his feet. He moved through the morning slowly, letting routine take him by the hand. Brush teeth. Wash face. Look in the mirror. Decide he looked tired. Decide it did not matter. Pull on training clothes. Hoodie. Shoes. Cap. Pack the bag, though most things were already packed. Check racquets even though his stringer had done everything properly. Check again.

The ritual steadied him. By the time he left the room, he felt more like himself. Not completely. But enough.

The hallway smelled of coffee and hotel carpet. He walked to the elevator with his bag over one shoulder, nodding to a staff member who recognized him and whispered congratulations as if victory were something fragile that might break if spoken aloud. In the elevator mirror, Jannik saw his own face: calm, pale from sleep, hair still slightly untamed despite his attempt to control it.

He looked normal. That was useful.

In the lobby, Indian Wells morning waited beyond the glass doors: bright, dry, full of palm shadows and people already wearing sunglasses. The tournament car was waiting. Darren was already inside, typing on his phone. Simone stood beside the car with two coffees, one of which he handed to Jannik without ceremony.

“Morning,” Simone said.

“Morning.”

Darren looked up as Jannik slid into the car. “Sleep?”

“A little.”

Darren studied him for one second too long. “Enough?”

“For today.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is the answer.”

Darren gave a small laugh. “Fair.”

Simone got in after him, and the car pulled away from the hotel. The road to the tournament grounds was lined with desert plants, low buildings, and mountains sitting in the distance under a sky so clear it felt almost artificial. California mornings had that unfair quality: everything looked healthy, expensive, and forgiven.

Jannik held the coffee between his hands and let the warmth enter his fingers.

The conversation stayed light at first. Darren spoke about the schedule. Simone mentioned court time. They had a short tactical review planned, then a hitting session later to prepare for Learner Tien. A lefty? No, Learner was not left-handed. Different rhythm, different ball, younger energy, fearless in the way young players could be because they had not yet been taught all the reasons something might be impossible.

Jannik listened.

He liked mornings like this, usually. The day after a good win had a clean structure. You could fix small things without panic. You could build toward the next opponent without the sharpness of match day. You could enjoy the tournament without touching the dangerous edge of it.

Today, the structure was still there. Only underneath it, something kept shifting.

Darren closed his phone and looked at him. “You seemed good yesterday after the match.”

“I was good.”

“You handled Denis well.”

“Yes.”

“Stayed clear.”

Jannik nodded.

Simone glanced at him from the front seat. “Today, we keep it simple. Not too long on court. Good intensity. Specific patterns.”

“Okay.”

Darren’s voice softened slightly. “And off court?”

Jannik looked out the window.

There it was. Not a direct question. Darren was too experienced for direct questions when a player might close. But he had known Jannik long enough to see when something was moving below the surface. Coaches watched everything. Not just toss height and footwork, but the timing of silence, the shape of eyes in the morning, the difference between tired body and tired heart.

“I’m okay,” Jannik said.

Darren nodded once, accepting the answer for now. “Good.”

Jannik wondered if he believed him.

Breakfast was in a quiet area set aside from the main rush, though no place at Indian Wells was ever completely private. Players moved through with plates, hats low, accreditation badges swinging. Coaches leaned over coffee cups. Agents spoke into phones. Someone laughed too loudly near the fruit. The air smelled of eggs, toasted bread, espresso, sunscreen, and the faint chemical chill of air conditioning fighting against desert warmth.

Flavio Cobolli was already there when they arrived.

He sat with one leg stretched under the table, hair still damp, grin already awake. He was eating with the appetite of someone who had trained early or planned to later. When he saw Jannik, he lifted both hands.

“Ah, the semifinalist!”

Jannik sat across from him. “Too loud.”

“It is breakfast. Not church.”

“For you, same thing.”

Flavio laughed and reached across the table to tap Jannik’s arm.

“Bravo, Jannik. Really. Yesterday was clean.”

“Thanks.”

Darren and Simone settled with their plates. The conversation began easily, moving through tennis and travel and some ridiculous story Flavio told about losing his room key three times in one day. Jannik ate eggs, toast, fruit. He drank another coffee because his body needed help pretending it had slept.

For a while, everything felt almost normal. Almost. Then Flavio leaned back with his cup, eyes gleaming in the dangerous way of someone about to say something for his own entertainment.

“So,” he said, “how is your boyfriend Carlos?”

Jannik’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth. Darren looked down at his plate. Simone suddenly became deeply interested in his coffee. Flavio grinned.

It was a joke. Obviously. The kind of joke people made around close friends, around rivals who were too often seen together, around any bond the tennis world noticed and wanted to tease into something simpler. Jannik had heard variations of it before. Not always boyfriend. Sometimes best friend, sometimes husband, sometimes your Spanish shadow. He usually rolled his eyes and let it pass.

But this morning, the word did not pass. Boyfriend. It struck the table and stayed there. Jannik lowered his fork.

“He is okay,” he said.

Flavio’s grin softened into curiosity. “He looked destroyed yesterday.”

“He was. But he went out after.”

“Out?”

Jannik took a sip of coffee. “On a date.”

The table went quiet. Not dramatically. No one gasped. No one dropped anything. But the conversation stopped with such suddenness that Jannik felt it against his skin. Flavio’s smile faltered. Darren looked up from his plate. Simone’s hand paused around his cup.

For one second, all three of them seemed to become aware at the same time that the joke they had made had landed somewhere real, even if no one knew exactly how real or in what direction. The word boyfriend still hovered over the table, now awkward, exposed, too bright for breakfast.

Jannik hated the silence immediately. He hated that he had caused it. He hated more that part of him wanted to know what they had seen.

“What?” he asked, too calmly.

Flavio blinked. “Nothing.”

“You all became quiet.”

“No,” Flavio said quickly. “I just...I didn’t know Carlos was dating someone.”

“It was one date.”

Darren cleared his throat. “Good for him, I suppose.”

Simone nodded. “After a loss, maybe good to change the head.”

“Yes,” Jannik said.

His voice sounded fine. The silence became worse.

Flavio looked between them, then tried to recover his humor. “Was she nice?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t go.”

“Ah, pity. Could have been a double date.”

Darren shot him a look. Flavio shut his mouth. Jannik looked at his plate. The eggs had cooled. A small piece of toast sat broken near the edge, crumbs scattered like tiny wreckage.

“She is called Monica,” he said, because apparently his mouth had decided to keep speaking even though the room did not need more information. “Influencer. Lives in Los Angeles. She doesn’t know tennis.”

Nobody answered. Jannik looked up. Darren was watching him now with a quiet expression that made Jannik feel far too visible.

“What?” Jannik repeated, softer this time.

Darren shook his head. “Nothing, mate.”

Simone reached for the jam. “Eat. We have a meeting after.”

The conversation restarted, but carefully. Too carefully. Flavio told another story, less funny than the first. Darren asked about practice courts. Simone complained about the coffee being better at the hotel. Everyone behaved normally in the way people behave when normal has become work.

Jannik ate because he had to. Inside, embarrassment slowly heated into something sharper.

He had done nothing wrong. He had said only facts. Carlos went on a date. Monica. Influencer. Los Angeles. She didn’t know tennis. But somehow, in the quiet after Flavio’s joke, the facts had turned into a confession. Not of love. Not of jealousy. Nothing so clear. Just a confession that Carlos’s night had mattered enough for Jannik to know details, and that those details had followed him into breakfast.

He could feel Darren noticing. That was the worst part. Not judging. Darren did not judge. But noticing. A player could survive many things, but being noticed in the wrong place was dangerous.

After breakfast, they moved to a small room for the tactical meeting.

The tournament provided spaces like this everywhere: clean, functional rooms with screens, whiteboards, chairs that looked comfortable until you sat in them for more than ten minutes. On the table were bottles of water, bananas, towels, and a laptop connected to match clips. The blinds were partly closed, turning the bright morning into soft stripes of light across the wall.

This was familiar ground. Good. Tactics had edges. Tactics behaved.

Darren started with the Shapovalov match. They reviewed selected points, not too many, enough to confirm what had worked. Jannik watched himself move on screen, an oddly distant experience. On video, everything seemed both slower and less emotional. There was his serve out wide, his split step, the deep return, Denis stretching, the ball landing short, Jannik stepping in. Winner. Applause without sound.

“Good patience here,” Darren said. “You didn’t force the first strike. Waited for the right height.”

Jannik nodded.

Simone paused another clip. “Here, after the second serve, you can come a bit more inside. Against Learner, we want to pressure early. He likes rhythm. Don’t give rhythm too easily.”

They moved to clips of Learner Tien. Jannik watched carefully.

Tien was young, compact, sharp with timing. He took the ball early, redirected well, moved with that springy confidence of someone who had grown up on hard courts and did not mind being rushed. He could absorb pace. He could change direction without needing much backswing. He had a calm face that did not reveal much, which Jannik respected. Young did not mean simple.

Darren pointed at the screen.

“He’ll try to take your time. You’ll need good height and depth. Don’t let him stand on the baseline comfortably.”

“Serve patterns?” Jannik asked.

Simone leaned forward. “Body serve can work. Especially early. Then wide to open. But mix. He reads well.”

They discussed return position, first-ball patterns, when to change pace, when to test the legs, how to avoid letting the match become a clean hitting contest from comfortable positions. Jannik asked questions. He took notes in his head. The morning settled.

For almost an hour, Carlos did not enter his mind. Or rather, he stayed outside the room, like someone waiting politely in the hallway. Jannik appreciated the mercy. Then, as Darren replayed a clip for the third time, Jannik’s phone vibrated on the table. He looked down.

Carlos.

Awake now. Sorry if I was annoying

Jannik stared at the message. Darren stopped talking. Jannik felt both coaches look at him. He turned the phone face down.

“Sorry,” he said.

Darren waited half a second, then resumed. “As I was saying...”

But the room had changed again. Not for Darren or Simone, perhaps. For Jannik. Carlos was awake. Carlos was sorry. Carlos was somewhere else in the same desert morning, carrying the night too.

Jannik’s fingers itched to answer. He did not. The meeting continued, and he forced himself back to Learner’s footwork, Learner’s backhand, Learner’s tendency to hold position close to the line. He returned to the work because the work deserved him. Because the semifinal deserved him. Because he had not built his career by letting one message take his mind away.

Still, when the meeting ended, his first movement was toward the phone. He typed:

You were annoying, but it’s normal.

A second later:

Sleep?

Carlos replied almost immediately.

A little. you?

Same.

Then Carlos:

Practice later?

Jannik glanced at the schedule in the group chat.

12:30.

Carlos sent:

Maybe I come watch

Jannik held the phone for a moment. Something moved in his chest, quick and warm, before he could stop it.

He typed:

If you want.

Carlos:

I want

Jannik put the phone in his pocket and told himself he was not smiling. He was probably smiling. Simone noticed. He said nothing. That was worse. The training session began under a sun that had turned serious.

By midday, Indian Wells was bright enough to make every color hard-edged. The practice court shimmered. Heat rose from the surface in faint waves. The mountains looked flatter now, bleached by distance. Fans gathered along the fence line with hats and phones, whispering names, waiting for glimpses. The rhythm of balls striking strings echoed from nearby courts, overlapping in constant percussion.

Jannik liked practice days when his body responded. Today, after the first few minutes, it did.

The tiredness loosened. His legs warmed. His shoulders opened. The ball came off his racquet with clean weight. Darren watched from one side with arms crossed. Simone fed patterns and gave small corrections. The sparring partner sent balls early and flat to mimic Learner’s timing. Jannik adjusted his spacing, exaggerated height, stepped in when the ball sat even slightly short.

Work became work. Beautiful, simple work.

“Again,” Simone called.

Jannik moved left, set, drove the backhand crosscourt deep.

“Again.”

Forehand inside-out, heavy.

“Again.”

Backhand down the line.

“Good,” Darren said. “That’s the shape.”

The ball machine of the mind started turning properly. Jannik could feel decisions becoming automatic. Not careless. Automatic in the trained sense. Recognition before thought. Split step before the command. Recovery before admiration. This was where he lived best: inside repetition that was never exactly repetition because every ball asked a slightly different question.

For a while, he forgot the awkward breakfast. Forgot Monica. Forgot the 3 a.m. knock. Then the crowd at the fence shifted. Not loudly. Just a ripple. Jannik was at the baseline waiting for the next feed when he felt it. He looked up.

Carlos had arrived.

He stood just outside the court entrance, accreditation around his neck, cap low, sunglasses hiding his eyes. His hair curled out from beneath the cap. He wore a sleeveless training shirt and shorts, but he did not look like he had come to train. He looked too relaxed, too amused by simply existing. A bottle of water dangled from one hand. His coach was not with him.

Jannik missed the next ball. It came at medium pace to his forehand, easy, and he sent it into the net. Simone turned slowly. Darren did not move, but Jannik knew he had seen everything. From the fence, Carlos lifted one hand in a small wave. Jannik stared back. Carlos grinned.

Darren called, deadpan, “Good focus.”

The fans along the fence laughed softly, sensing something without knowing what. Jannik turned away, expression neutral.

“Ball was bad.”

Simone looked at the ball lying near the net. “Ball was perfect.”

“Wind.”

“There is no wind.”

“Small wind.”

Darren shook his head. “Very small. Spanish-shaped, maybe.”

Carlos laughed from the gate. Jannik felt heat climb his neck and hated every person on the court.

“Again,” he said.

Simone fed another ball. This time, Jannik hit it hard enough that it landed deep and jumped aggressively off the court.

Carlos made an approving sound. “Better.”

Jannik did not look at him. “Are you coaching again?”

“I am supporting.”

“Support quietly.”

“That is not my style.”

“No surprise.”

Carlos came inside the practice court and sat on the bench near Darren, stretching his legs out with the casual entitlement of someone who knew he would be welcomed even when mocked. Darren greeted him warmly. Simone gave him a nod. The sparring partner looked briefly starstruck and then tried not to.

Practice continued. At first, Jannik was too aware of Carlos.

It irritated him. Carlos was not doing anything. He sat there drinking water, occasionally leaning back on his hands, occasionally watching with serious eyes. But Jannik felt his attention like sunlight on his skin. Every time he struck the ball cleanly, some hidden part of him wondered if Carlos had noticed. Every mistake seemed louder. Every adjustment seemed more meaningful. He told himself this was ridiculous. Carlos had seen him play hundreds of times. Carlos had beaten him, lost to him, practiced near him, analyzed him, joked about him, understood him.

Still, today was different. Because Carlos had come after Monica. Because Carlos had said something was missing. Because Jannik had told him to see her again. Because nobody at breakfast knew what to do when Flavio said boyfriend and Jannik said date.

The ball came. Jannik moved. Hit. Recovered. Again. Again. Slowly, the embarrassment burned off.

Tennis saved him, as it often did. Once the intensity rose, there was no room for self-consciousness. Simone moved him through patterns: wide serve plus forehand inside-in, deep return plus change direction, backhand crosscourt until the short ball, then forward. Darren asked for specific targets. Jannik found them. Sweat ran down his temple. His shirt clung to his back. His breathing deepened.

Carlos stopped joking. Jannik noticed that too.

When the work became serious, Carlos became serious with it. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, sunglasses now hanging from his shirt. His eyes followed the ball with sharp attention. Not as a friend watching casually. As a player. As someone who knew exactly what each pattern meant, what tomorrow might demand, where the danger lived.

That steadied Jannik more than it should have. Carlos might have spent the night with someone who did not know Indian Wells from a Grand Slam, but here, now, he knew everything.

He knew why the body serve mattered. He knew why Darren wanted depth before angle. He knew why Jannik repeated the same backhand pattern twelve times even after hitting it well on the fifth. He knew why sport was not a part of life that could be explained quickly over a late-night walk. He knew because it was in him too.

After a long rally drill, Simone called for a break. Jannik walked to the bench, breathing hard, sweat dripping from his chin. He took a towel and pressed it over his face. When he lowered it, Carlos was holding out a water bottle. Jannik looked at him.

Carlos shook the bottle once. “Hydration. Very advanced coaching.”

Jannik took it. “Thanks.”

Carlos leaned closer, lowering his voice so only Jannik could hear. “You look tired.”

“I am fine.”

“You slept badly.”

“So did you.”

“I didn’t win a match yesterday.”

“You lost one.”

Carlos made a face. “Thank you for the reminder.”

“You came to my practice. I am honest.”

Carlos smiled, but there was something careful in his eyes. “Are we okay?”

The question was so soft that Jannik almost did not hear it over the sound of balls from nearby courts. He looked at Carlos.

Sweat slid down the side of his own face. His heart was still beating hard from the drill. Around them, Darren and Simone were discussing the next segment. Fans pressed near the fence. A child called Carlos’s name, then Jannik’s. The world was public.

But the question was private. Are we okay? Jannik thought of the morning. The silence at breakfast. The phone messages. The strange ache of seeing Carlos blush. The jealousy he still had not sorted into any acceptable shape. Then he thought of Carlos arriving here, not Monica, not anyone else. Carlos sat through practice under the sun because he wanted to. Carlos is asking the question with real worry.

“Yes,” Jannik said.

Carlos searched his face.

“You sure?”

“No.”

Carlos blinked.

Jannik allowed the smallest smile. “But yes.”

Carlos laughed softly, relieved. “That makes no sense.”

“It makes sense to me.”

“Your mind is a disaster too.”

“I told you.”

Carlos’s smile warmed. The break ended.

The final segment was sharper. Points starting with serve. Short competitive games. Specific scenarios: down break point, thirty-all, second serve under pressure. Jannik liked these drills because they placed emotion around technique. It was not enough to hit the right shot. You had to hit it when the score made the hand tighter.

Carlos stayed quiet, but his presence seemed to become part of the court’s atmosphere. At one point, Jannik saved a simulated break point with a wide serve and a forehand into the open court. Carlos clapped once, sharp and approving.

“Vamos.”

It was automatic. Jannik looked over before he could stop himself. Carlos looked embarrassed, then shrugged. Darren smiled without turning around. Jannik stepped back to the baseline and bounced the ball. The word had entered him like warmth.

Vamos.

Not Italian. Not his word. Carlos’s word. But somehow, in that moment, it belonged to both of them. Practice ended after ninety minutes.

Not too long. Enough. Jannik finished with a few serves, then a final clean backhand winner that made Simone raise both hands as if to say leave it there. He shook hands with the sparring partner, thanked him, then began packing his things slowly while his body came down from the effort.

Fans called for signatures. He signed a few balls, a hat, a program. Carlos did too, because of course, the crowd had doubled since he arrived. For a few minutes, they stood near each other along the fence, handing back markers, smiling for quick photos, exchanging small words with children who looked at them as if they were not quite real.

Jannik saw Carlos with the fans and felt the familiar tenderness of it. Carlos gave so much away. Even tired, even hurting, even confused, he gave people warmth. A grin. A joke. A moment of full attention. It was natural to him, but that did not mean it cost nothing.

When they finally escaped toward the players’ area, Jannik was sweaty, hungry, and calmer than he had been all morning. Carlos walked beside him, swinging his bottle by the neck.

“So,” Carlos said.

Jannik glanced at him. “So?”

“I have an idea.”

“That is dangerous.”

“Good idea.”

“More dangerous.”

Carlos ignored him. “Ice cream.”

Jannik looked at him. Carlos looked back, completely serious.

“I just trained.”

“Yes.”

“I need recovery.”

“Ice cream is recovery.”

“No.”

“Emotion recovery.”

“That is not in the nutrition plan.”

Carlos waved this away. “Nutrition plans are suggestions.”

“They are plans.”

“For boring people.”

“I am boring people.”

“Yes, but today you come.”

Jannik shook his head, though he was already losing. “I have a shower. Treatment.”

“After.”

“I have food.”

“Ice cream is food.”

“Carlos.”

“Jannik.”

They stopped near the hallway leading toward the locker rooms. Darren and Simone were a few steps behind, talking with a tournament staff member. Carlos leaned closer, lowering his voice as if proposing something illegal.

“Come on. You have a free day. You played well. You practiced well. You need to do one normal thing.”

“Ice cream with you is normal?”

“For us? Yes.”

Jannik looked at him.

Carlos’s eyes were bright, but not like the night before. This was different. Less feverish. More grounded. He was asking lightly, but the request held something more. Maybe an apology. Maybe an invitation. Maybe both.

Jannik thought of Monica.

He wondered if Carlos would see her later. He wondered if the ice cream was before her, after her, instead of her, unrelated to her. He hated that he wondered. He hated that his happiness was already making calculations around someone who was not present.

Carlos tilted his head. “You are thinking too much.”

“Yes.”

“Stop.”

“Not easy.”

“I know. But try.”

Jannik glanced back at Darren, who was now looking at them with the expression of a man who knew he was about to be asked whether ice cream could fit into a high-performance schedule. Darren sighed before Jannik said anything.

“What?” Jannik asked.

Darren raised both hands. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Can I go get ice cream?”

Carlos immediately said, “He can.”

Darren looked at Carlos. “Are you his coach now?”

“Yes.”

Simone joined them, catching only the end. “What is happening?”

“Carlos wants ice cream,” Jannik said.

Simone looked at Carlos. “Of course he does.”

“With Jannik,” Carlos added.

Simone looked at Jannik, then at Darren, then at Carlos. Something passed over his face. Amusement first. Then the same careful quiet from breakfast, though softer now. Not awkward exactly. More like recognition, he did not want to disturb.

Darren checked his watch. “Treatment first. Food plan adjusted. Nothing crazy. And not too long.”

Carlos saluted. “Yes, boss.”

Darren pointed at him. “I’m not your boss.”

“For today, yes.”

Jannik looked at Simone. “Is it okay?”

Simone shrugged. “One ice cream doesn’t destroy a semifinal. Maybe two does.”

Carlos whispered, “We get two.”

“No,” Jannik said.

“Yes.”

“No.”

Darren started walking away. “I don’t want to know.”

They went after Jannik showered at the site, after treatment, after he had eaten enough proper food that Simone could pretend to approve. The afternoon had softened by then. The worst heat had passed. Indian Wells slipped toward evening, the desert turning gold again as if apologizing for the harshness of noon.

They left the tournament grounds quietly, or as quietly as two of the most recognizable tennis players in the world could leave anywhere. A tournament car took them to a small place Carlos had apparently found through someone who knew someone who insisted it had the best ice cream nearby. Jannik did not ask who. Carlos’s life seemed full of these mysterious someones.

The place was not glamorous. That helped.

It sat in a small shopping area with low buildings, a few palm trees, and a parking lot glowing under the late sun. Inside, the air was cool and smelled of sugar, waffle cones, coffee, and fruit syrup. A bell above the door rang when they entered. The girl behind the counter looked up, froze, then tried very hard to behave normally.

Carlos smiled at her with full Carlos brightness.

“Hi.”

She nearly dropped the scoop. Jannik looked at the menu to avoid laughing.

The flavors were written on a chalkboard in looping letters. Pistachio. Vanilla bean. Salted caramel. Strawberry. Dark chocolate. Mango. Lemon sorbet. Something with cookies. Something with lavender that Jannik immediately distrusted.

Carlos stood beside him, studying the menu as if making a life decision.

“What do you get?” he asked.

“Pistachio.”

“You didn’t even look.”

“I know.”

“You always get pistachio?”

“Not always.”

“Almost always.”

“It is good.”

Carlos shook his head. “You need adventure.”

“You are getting what?”

Carlos stared at the menu. “Maybe mango. Or chocolate. Or both. Or strawberry because it looks good.”

“And I need adventure?”

“Yes.”

The girl behind the counter asked if they wanted samples. Carlos said yes to almost everything. Jannik apologized with his eyes. Carlos tasted mango, chocolate, strawberry, cookies, and something blue that neither of them could identify. He made exaggerated thinking faces after each one until the girl laughed and relaxed enough to tell him which were her favorites.

Jannik ordered pistachio in a cup.

Carlos looked betrayed. “Cup?”

“Yes.”

“No cone?”

“Cup is safer.”

“Safer from what? Joy?”

“From mess.”

Carlos turned to the girl. “You see? This is my friend. Very sad.”

The girl smiled. “Cone for you?”

“Obviously,” Carlos said.

He ordered mango and chocolate together, which Jannik found offensive.

They took their ice cream outside to a small table under a palm tree. The sun was lower now, and the shadows had stretched long across the pavement. Cars moved slowly through the lot. Somewhere nearby, music played from a restaurant patio. For once, no one came up to them immediately. A few people looked, whispered, recognized, but kept their distance.

Carlos took a bite of his ice cream and closed his eyes dramatically.

“Yes,” he said. “This is recovery.”

Jannik tasted his pistachio. It was good. Better than expected.

Carlos pointed his cone at him. “Admit.”

“It’s good.”

“Not the ice cream. The idea.”

Jannik leaned back in his chair. “The idea is okay.”

“Okay, without period?”

Jannik smiled despite himself. “Ok.”

Carlos laughed. And there it was again: ease.

Not simple ease. Never completely simple. But something close. The kind they had built over the years, through repetition and competition and the strange intimacy of being constantly compared. It was in the way Carlos stole a spoonful of Jannik’s pistachio and immediately made a face because he preferred his chaotic mango-chocolate combination. It was in the way Jannik told him his taste was childish. It was in the way Carlos asked about practice and then actually listened, offering small observations that were too accurate to dismiss.

“Tien takes time away,” Carlos said, licking melting ice cream from the side of his cone. “But if you make him hit higher, he cannot step in so much.”

Jannik nodded. “Yes. We talked about this.”

“And body serve.”

“Yes.”

“He is young but not scared.”

“No.”

Carlos smiled faintly. “Good. Scared players are boring.”

“You like everyone fearless until they hit winners against you.”

“I still like. I just hate in the moment.”

“That is honest.”

“I am always honest.”

Jannik gave him a look.

Carlos lifted one shoulder. “Mostly.”

The word opened a small door.

Jannik looked at him over the rim of his cup. “Did you answer Monica?”

Carlos’s hand paused. Not long. But long enough.

“Yes.”

Jannik nodded.

Carlos looked at his cone. “She wants to see me again.”

The evening continued around them. A car door closed. Someone laughed near the restaurant. The sky turned peach at the edges. Jannik kept his face calm.

“And?”

“I said maybe.”

“Maybe?”

Carlos nodded.

“That is worse than ok.”

Carlos smiled weakly. “I know.”

Jannik took another bite of pistachio because it gave him something to do. The cold sweetness hit his tongue, then the roof of his mouth.

“Why, maybe?”

Carlos leaned back, looking toward the mountains beyond the low buildings.

“Because I wanted ice cream.”

Jannik almost laughed, but Carlos was not joking entirely.

“With me?”

Carlos looked at him. “Yes.”

The answer was immediate. Too immediate. Jannik’s chest tightened. Carlos looked away first, suddenly very interested in the melting edge of his cone.

“Also, I was tired.”

“Carlos.”

“What?”

“You can see her and still eat ice cream.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” Carlos sighed. “I just didn’t know what I wanted.”

“And now?”

Carlos looked back at him.

His eyes were darker in the fading light. Without the brightness of the court or the locker room, his face seemed quieter, more open. There was still sadness there from the loss, and confusion from Monica, and something else Jannik could not name because naming it might change everything.

“Now I’m eating ice cream,” Carlos said.

Jannik smiled softly. “Very philosophical.”

“Yes. I am deep.”

“You are sticky.”

Carlos looked at his hand, where melted mango had run toward his wrist.

“Also true.”

Jannik handed him a napkin. Their fingers brushed. A nothing touch. A normal touch. A touch that happened by accident and meant nothing unless someone was foolish enough to give it meaning.

Jannik looked away. Carlos wiped his hand slowly. For a few minutes, they ate in silence.

It was not uncomfortable. That was the dangerous part. The silence with Carlos could be filled with jokes, but it did not need to be. They could sit with cars and palm shadows and melting ice cream, and the quiet would hold. Jannik wondered whether Monica had gotten silent with Carlos. Whether she had known what to do with it. Whether she had filled it quickly with questions because space made her nervous.

He felt unkind again. He stopped. Carlos had said she was kind. He had said she was beautiful and funny and smart. She deserved to remain those things in Jannik’s mind, not become a villain because he could not understand his own heart.

Carlos broke the silence.

“Flavio texted me.”

Jannik froze internally.

“Did he?”

Carlos grinned. “He asked if I was alive.”

“Nice.”

“And he said I should stop distracting his semifinalist boyfriend.”

Jannik closed his eyes.

Carlos burst out laughing. “Your face!”

“I will kill him.”

“No, no. It was funny.”

“It is not funny.”

“It is a little funny.”

“No.”

Carlos leaned over the table, delighted. “Why are you so red?”

“I am not red.”

“You are.”

“Sun.”

“The sun is going down.”

“Still sun.”

Carlos laughed harder. Jannik hated Flavio. Deeply. Permanently. For at least ten minutes.

But under the embarrassment, something else moved: the memory of breakfast, the table going silent, everyone suddenly too careful. Carlos did not know that part. To him, it was just teasing. Just a joke. The world was still safe enough to laugh.

Maybe Jannik envied that too. Carlos’s laughter faded when he saw Jannik’s expression.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, what?”

Jannik stirred the last of his ice cream with the spoon. It had softened into a pale green pool.

“He made the same joke at breakfast.”

“Flavio?”

“Yes.”

Carlos smiled. “And?”

“And I said you went on a date.”

Carlos’s smile faded slightly. “Oh.”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“Everyone became strange.”

Carlos sat back. The palm leaves above them shifted faintly. Evening wind at last.

“Strange how?” Carlos asked.

Jannik shrugged. “Quiet.”

Carlos looked at him carefully. “Because of the joke?”

“Maybe.”

“Because you said date?”

“Maybe.”

“Because of you?”

Jannik did not answer. Carlos’s face changed with understanding, not full but enough to make Jannik’s stomach twist.

“Jannik,” he said softly.

“It was nothing.”

“You say this when it is something.”

“I say this when I don’t want to talk.”

“That too.”

Jannik looked at him. “Then don’t make me.”

Carlos closed his mouth. The obedience was immediate, and somehow that hurt too. He did not push. He did not demand. He simply nodded and looked down at his cone, the last bite softening between his fingers.

“I’m sorry,” Carlos said after a moment.

“You didn’t do anything.”

“No. But maybe...I don’t know.” Carlos shook his head. “Maybe I make things confusing.”

Jannik let out a breath. “Things were confusing before you.”

Carlos smiled faintly. “That sounds like something from a movie.”

“It is true.”

“For you?”

Jannik looked at him. The question hung between them. For you?

The parking lot lights flickered on, one by one. The sky behind Carlos had turned lavender. His face was half-shadowed now, the boyish softness of him made deeper by the evening. Jannik could still see a tiny smear of chocolate near the corner of his mouth.

It would be easy to reach across and wipe it away. The thought came so naturally that Jannik gripped his spoon tighter.

“For everyone,” he said.

Carlos studied him, then nodded slowly. “Okay.”

But he did not look convinced. They threw away their cups and napkins. Carlos finally noticed the chocolate on his face when he saw his reflection in the shop window and blamed Jannik for not telling him sooner.

“You looked happy,” Jannik said.

“With chocolate on my face?”

“Yes.”

“That is not friendship.”

“It is humility.”

“You are cruel today.”

“Only today?”

Carlos smiled. “No. Many days.”

They walked for a little while around the shopping area before the car returned. Not far, not enough to turn it into anything meaningful, but enough that the evening settled around them. Carlos walked with his hands in his pockets, his shoulder occasionally brushing Jannik’s when the sidewalk narrowed. Jannik tried not to notice every time.

They spoke about small things. Bad hotel pillows. How American coffee could be too large. How Flavio would absolutely lose a race against both of them and still claim injury. How Learner Tien had the face of someone who would not be intimidated by the moment. How Carlos should still do his treatment properly. How Jannik should maybe try another flavor next time.

Next time. The phrase passed unspoken but present.

When the car arrived, they sat in the back together, both quieter now. The sky had darkened fully by the time they reached the hotel. Lights glowed in the lobby. People moved in and out dressed for dinner, for the evening, for lives that did not depend on the bounce of a ball.

Carlos checked his phone as they stepped out. Jannik saw the screen light his face. Monica. He knew before Carlos said anything.

Carlos looked at him, almost apologetic. “She asked if I want to meet later.”

Jannik nodded.

“Are you going?” he asked.

Carlos hesitated. The hotel doors opened automatically in front of them, spilling cool air over their skin.

“I don’t know,” Carlos said.

Jannik looked at him. This time, the answer did not hurt in the same way. Or perhaps he was too tired to feel the sharp edge of it.

“You should decide what you want,” Jannik said.

Carlos smiled ruefully. “You make it sound easy.”

“It is not.”

“No.”

They entered the lobby. For a moment, they stood near the elevators, surrounded by marble floor, soft lighting, and strangers who glanced twice before pretending not to. The day had stretched long behind them: breakfast, awkwardness, tactics, training, ice cream, evening. Tomorrow waited. Semifinal pressure waited. Monica waited somewhere in the city or at the end of a message. Their own confusion waited too, patient and unsolved.

Carlos pressed the elevator button. The doors opened. They stepped inside. Carlos’s floor came before Jannik’s. When the elevator stopped, Carlos did not immediately get out. He turned, one hand holding the door.

“Thank you for today,” he said.

“For ice cream?”

“For all.” Carlos shrugged. “For letting me come to practice. For not being angry about last night. For...” He searched, then smiled softly. “For being you.”

Jannik’s heart moved in a painful, quiet way. He nodded because words felt dangerous. Carlos stepped out.

“Rest,” he said.

“You too.”

“And answer if I text.”

Jannik gave him a look. “Depends on the text.”

Carlos grinned. “Okay. No details.”

“Please.”

The doors closed on Carlos’s smile. Jannik rode the rest of the way alone.

In his room, the quiet returned differently than it had that morning. Not empty. Not peaceful. Charged. He put down his bag, removed his shoes, and stood for a moment in the middle of the room without turning on all the lights.

His phone buzzed. Carlos.

I think I will see her. Just for a bit.

Jannik stared at the message.

Then typed:

Ok

He paused. Sent it.

A few seconds later, Carlos replied:

Without a period. romantic.

Jannik smiled despite himself. Then another message came.

You should go out too. Do not stay in the room thinking.

Jannik’s smile faded. He looked around the room: the bed, the chair, the curtains, the water bottle from the night before. The hotel room seemed suddenly too small for all the thinking he had done in it. Before he could answer, another message appeared.

Some players are going for late dinner/drinks. Flavio said come. You should.

Jannik imagined Flavio’s grin, Darren’s raised eyebrow, Simone pretending not to know everything. He imagined noise, food, people talking too much. He imagined himself sitting there, trying not to check his phone, trying not to wonder where Carlos was, whether Monica understood him better tonight, whether the missing thing would become less missing with time.

Then he imagined staying in the room. That was worse.

He typed:

Maybe.

Carlos replied immediately:

Not maybe. Go.

Jannik looked at the screen for a long time. Then he wrote to Flavio.

Where?

The answer came with frightening speed, full of exclamation points and mockery. Jannik sighed, but he was already moving. He showered.

The hot water struck his shoulders and ran down his back, loosening the practice sweat, the desert dust, the strange residue of the day. He stood under it longer than necessary, palms against the tile, head bowed. Water filled his ears until the world became muffled and distant. For a few minutes, he did not have to answer messages, did not have to understand himself, did not have to be generous or jealous or calm.

He could just breathe. When he stepped out, the mirror was fogged. He wiped a circle clear with his hand and looked at himself.

Red hair darkened by water. Eyes tired but awake. Skin flushed from the heat. A small mark on his neck from the towel. The face of a man in a semifinal. The face of a boy who had once played in Alicante. The face of someone who had told his best friend to go on dates while something inside him quietly folded and unfolded like paper.

He brushed his teeth. Dried his hair.

Choose clothes slowly: a clean shirt, dark pants, light jacket. Casual, but not careless. He told himself he was dressing for dinner with friends. That was true. He told himself he was not thinking about whether Carlos would see Monica again tonight. That was not true. He told himself both things could exist.

His phone buzzed once more while he was fastening his watch. Carlos.

Have fun tonight, Sinner

Jannik looked at the message.

Then, after a moment, he typed:

You too, Alcaraz.

He set the phone down before another message could arrive.

Outside the window, California night spread itself over the desert, deep and warm and full of lights. Somewhere in it, Carlos was getting ready to meet Monica. Somewhere else, Flavio was probably already preparing a joke. Tomorrow, Learner Tien waited with a racquet and a plan. The tournament waited. The future waited.

Jannik stood in the center of his hotel room, freshly showered, dressed, still damp at the edges, ready to go out and pretend for a few hours that he was only a young man in California on a free night. He picked up his jacket. Then he opened the door.

──── ୨୧ ────

The restaurant was too bright for secrets.

That was Jannik’s first thought when he stepped inside behind Flavio, who had somehow taken charge of the evening as if he had been elected mayor of every bad decision in California. Light spilled from hanging lamps over polished wood tables, over glasses already shining with condensation, over plates being carried high through the room by servers who moved with practiced speed. Music pulsed low beneath the conversations. Somewhere near the bar, someone laughed with their whole body. The smell of grilled fish, garlic, citrus, and warm bread drifted through the air.

Jannik stopped just inside the doorway for half a second.

It was not that he disliked restaurants. He did not. But he liked them best when they were quiet, when food came without performance, when he could sit with people he trusted and let the day end without becoming another event. This place was busier than he expected. Not wild, not impossible, but alive in the way California nights were alive: beautiful people, loud shirts, a few familiar tournament faces, phones on tables, flashes of white teeth, every surface reflecting something.

“You look like you’re entering a press conference,” Flavio said beside him.

Jannik looked at him. “Maybe worse.”

“Worse? This is dinner.”

“I am not eating.”

Flavio groaned. “You’re still saying this?”

“I had ice cream.”

“One ice cream, Jannik.”

“That was already the exception.”

Flavio turned dramatically toward the others.

“You hear? The man wins six-three, six-two, reaches the semifinal, gets one ice cream, and now he thinks he has committed a crime.”

Ben Shelton laughed from behind them, easy and loud, his whole presence relaxed in the way only some people managed after a long day of training and attention.

“Man, if ice cream is a crime, lock me up.”

Casper Ruud, walking beside Jasmine Paolini, smiled with his calm Norwegian amusement.

“Depends on the flavor.”

“Pistachio,” Flavio said before Jannik could answer. “Of course. The most Jannik flavor possible.”

Jannik frowned. “Pistachio is normal.”

“It’s respectable,” Jasmine said, coming to his defense with a warm smile.

“Thank you,” Jannik said.

Then Jasmine added, “A little serious, but respectable.”

Ben laughed again. Casper hid his smile behind his hand. Flavio pointed at Jasmine as if she had just given expert testimony in court.

“You see? Even Jasmine knows.”

Jannik sighed, but the sigh was not heavy. Not yet.

They followed the host toward a table near the back, slightly away from the main flow of the room but not hidden. It was the kind of table tournament organizers probably liked for players: visible enough to make people feel lucky if they noticed, private enough to avoid disaster. Ben claimed the seat with the best view of the room. Flavio sat opposite him, already talking. Casper took the chair beside Jasmine. Jannik sat at the end, where he could see the exit and not feel trapped.

It was a habit. Maybe more than habit.

The server came with menus and water. Everyone began discussing food immediately, except Jannik, who opened the menu only to avoid being accused of not participating. The words blurred together: pasta, steak, salmon, risotto, salad, desserts he would pretend not to see. His stomach was not hungry. The ice cream sat there still, cold memory turned stubbornness. Also, his body knew the semifinal was close. Tomorrow had started already inside him, as match days always did before the calendar admitted it.

“You really won’t eat?” Jasmine asked softly beside him.

“I’ll have water.”

She gave him a look.

“And maybe tea.”

“Tea at dinner?” Ben said, overhearing. “Brother, no.”

“I like tea.”

“At this restaurant? At night? Come on.”

Casper leaned back, smiling.

“Let him have his tea. That’s probably why he wins.”

Flavio snapped his fingers. “Secret of the red machine. Tea and sadness.”

“I’m not sad,” Jannik said automatically.

The table went quiet for half a beat. Only half.

Then Ben, mercifully or accidentally, burst out laughing. “Tea and sadness are crazy.”

The conversation moved on. Jannik breathed. The night began carefully, then loosened.

It happened because Flavio made it impossible for a table to stay serious for long. He told a story about accidentally walking into the wrong treatment room earlier that week and finding a coach asleep with compression boots on. Ben countered with an airport story involving a lost bag, a broken speaker, and a man who insisted he had once beaten Pete Sampras in a charity event despite being maybe thirty years old. Casper, who seemed mild until he delivered one dry sentence capable of ending a room, observed that tennis players were “the only people who complain about travel while voluntarily chasing points across five continents.” Jasmine laughed so hard at that she covered her face with both hands.

Jannik found himself smiling. Then laughing. Not loudly, never like Ben, never like Flavio, but enough.

He laughed when Flavio tried to imitate Darren’s Australian accent and failed so badly that Ben had to put his head on the table. He laughed when Jasmine told them about an Italian aunt who still called before matches to advise her to “hit the ball where the other girl is not,” as if she had unlocked tennis strategy from the gods. He laughed when Casper, with perfect seriousness, said that if all coaching were reduced to Italian aunt advice, the sport would improve.

“You laugh!” Flavio said, pointing at Jannik. “Look! He is alive.”

“I laugh sometimes.”

“Rare. We must take a picture.”

“No picture.”

“For history.”

“No.”

Jasmine lifted her glass. “To Jannik, laughing sometimes.”

Ben raised his. “To tea and sadness.”

Casper added, “To pistachio.”

Flavio lifted both hands. “To Carlos’s boyfriend.”

The words landed again.

This time, the table did not go silent immediately because Ben laughed first, not knowing the texture of the earlier silence, not knowing the way breakfast had tightened around the same joke. Casper smiled, perhaps politely. Jasmine’s eyes flicked to Jannik, quick and observant. Flavio’s grin faltered by one millimeter when he realized he had stepped close to the thing again.

Jannik took a sip of water. Cold. Clean. Easy. He placed the glass down carefully.

“Very original,” he said.

Flavio studied him, then relaxed when he saw the small curve at the corner of Jannik’s mouth.

“Grazie,” Flavio said. “I work hard.”

“Not on jokes.”

Everyone laughed, and the moment passed. Or seemed to.

Jannik leaned back slightly and let the conversation swirl around him. He did not eat. He kept his promise to himself in that one small way, ordering sparkling water and, eventually, mint tea that made Ben shake his head as if witnessing a tragedy. The others ordered properly: plates arrived fragrant and bright, with steam rising and silverware clinking and Flavio stealing something from Ben’s plate before Ben could defend himself.

It was good. Not the food. Jannik did not taste it. The room. The people. The distraction.

For a while, he managed to be the only person among others. Not Carlos’s late-night confessional. Not Monica’s invisible opponent. Not the boy at breakfast who had made everyone strange by knowing too much. Just Jannik at a dinner table, listening to Jasmine and Casper argue gently about whether players from colder countries were morally stronger, while Ben insisted Americans were mentally built differently because they survived college football tailgates.

“You didn’t even go to one,” Casper said.

“I’ve been near one.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“It counts emotionally.”

Jasmine laughed. “Everything counts emotionally for Ben.”

Ben lifted his glass. “Finally, someone understands me.”

Jannik smiled into his tea. Then he looked up. And the room stopped.

Not actually. The restaurant continued in all directions. Forks moved. Music played. Glasses touched. Someone near the bar shouted a greeting. A server passed with a tray of desserts glowing like small moons.

But for Jannik, everything stopped. Because near the entrance, just inside the amber light of the restaurant, stood someone he would recognize anywhere.

Carlos.

For one impossible second, Jannik thought the name wrong, as if the mind had pulled an image from worry and placed it into the room. But no. It was him. Carlos in a cream-colored shirt open at the throat, dark trousers, hair carefully careless, cheeks touched by evening warmth. He was smiling at something someone had said. Someone beside him.

Monica.

Jannik had imagined her many times in the short, stupid span since learning her name. Each version had been unfair: too polished, too empty, too easy, too bright. A person built by jealousy, not reality.

Reality was worse. Monica was beautiful in a way that made the restaurant seem to adjust around her.

Not delicate. Not small. Not the filtered perfection Jannik had expected to resent. She had presence. A calm, vivid kind. Red hair fell over her shoulders in loose waves, not the orange-red of Jannik’s hair, but deeper, darker, almost copper under the lights. Her skin was warm-toned, her mouth full and expressive, and her eyes were brown. She was tall. Slightly taller than Carlos, even without heels. Jannik noticed that immediately and hated that he noticed. She stood easily at his side, not leaning into him, not clinging, but close enough that their bodies shared space.

Carlos turned his head toward her. She smiled. The dimple appeared. Jannik felt his stomach drop so fast he almost reached for the edge of the table. There it was. The dimple.

The one Carlos had described at three in the morning as if it were a secret treasure from a country only he had visited. It existed. It was real. It appeared on one side of Monica’s face when she looked at Carlos and tried not to laugh too much.

Jannik’s mouth filled with saliva. A warning. He swallowed hard. The restaurant tilted slightly. No, he thought. Not here. Not now.

He had played matches in the heat. He had held nerve through tiebreaks. He had walked into stadiums while crowds roared his name and expected his body to obey. He could sit at a dinner table and watch Carlos arrive with Monica. He could do this. There was no reason to feel like his insides had turned against him.

No reason. No reason. Flavio, beside him, stopped talking mid-sentence.

Jannik did not look at him, but he felt it: Flavio noticing first the direction of his gaze, then the change in his body. The sudden stillness. The hand is closing too tightly around the glass. The color leaving his face.

Under the table, Jannik pressed his foot flat against the floor. Ground. Breathe.

Carlos had not seen them yet. He was speaking to the host, one hand resting lightly near Monica’s back without quite touching her. Polite, respectful, familiar enough to hurt. Monica looked around the room with interest. Her gaze passed over the tables, the lights, the bar.

Then Ben saw them. Because Ben saw everything loudly.

“Yo! Carlos!”

Jannik’s heart slammed once. Carlos turned. His face changed when he saw the table. Surprise first. Real surprise. His eyebrows lifted, then his mouth opened slightly, then he smiled, but the smile arrived late. Monica followed his gaze. Ben lifted a hand high, grinning.

“Come here, man!”

Jannik wanted to disappear.

He wanted to become the condensation on his glass, the shadow under the table, the quiet line between tiles. He wanted Carlos to wave and leave. He wanted Monica to hate them immediately. He wanted everyone to laugh and invite them. He did not want to care.

Carlos said something to Monica. She nodded. They came over. Flavio’s hand settled on Jannik’s shoulder. Warm. Firm. Hidden from most of the table by the angle of their bodies. Jannik did not move.

Flavio did not squeeze dramatically. He did not look at him with pity. He simply placed his hand there as if anchoring him to the chair. For that, Jannik loved him for about three seconds. Carlos reached the table with Monica beside him.

“Hey,” he said, smiling, but his eyes moved to Jannik almost immediately. “I didn’t know you were here.”

The words came fast. Too fast.

“It’s just a coincidence,” Carlos added.

Nobody had accused him of anything. That made it worse. Ben stood halfway to greet him.

“Coincidence? Bro, this is fate. We got the whole tennis Avengers here.”

Casper smiled politely. “Hi, Carlos.”

Jasmine gave Monica a warm look. “Ciao.”

Carlos gestured, clearing his throat.

“This is Monica.”

Monica smiled at the table, and the dimple appeared again, shorter this time.

“Hi. It’s so nice to meet you.”

Her voice was lower than Jannik expected. Warm, slightly husky, with an accent that moved softly through English. She did not sound fake. She did not sound impressed in a performative way. She sounded a little nervous, and that hurt too, because nervousness made her human.

Ben immediately shifted into host mode.

“Monica, welcome. Sit, sit. Carlos never introduces us to anybody, so this is big news.”

Carlos rolled his eyes. “Not true.”

“It is very true,” Casper said mildly.

Jasmine smiled. “We can make space.”

And just like that, the table expanded.

Chairs were pulled. Plates shifted. The server appeared, then disappeared for more glasses. Monica sat between Carlos and Ben, across from Jannik but slightly diagonal, close enough that he could see the brown of her eyes clearly when she looked up. Carlos sat beside her, not beside Jannik.

Of course. It made sense. It was normal. It felt like being moved out of his own life by one chair. Flavio’s hand left Jannik’s shoulder only when Carlos sat down. Jannik missed it immediately.

“So,” Ben said, leaning toward Monica with cheerful intensity, “you're a tennis fan, or did Carlos trick you into this whole circus?”

Monica laughed, embarrassed but comfortable enough. “I’m learning.”

“Good answer,” Casper said.

“She asked if Indian Wells is a Grand Slam,” Carlos said, smiling at her with teasing affection.

Monica covered her face with one hand. “Carlos!”

Ben clutched his chest.

“That’s actually beautiful. Innocence. Purity. We lost that years ago.”

Casper nodded. “Most honest question anyone has asked this week.”

Jasmine leaned forward kindly.

“Don’t worry. Tennis makes no sense even when you know it.”

Monica lowered her hand, smiling with relief. “Thank you. That makes me feel better.”

“It is true,” Jasmine continued. “Different tournaments, different points, different draws, different surfaces. We even need someone to explain sometimes.”

“Casper needs help, especially,” Ben said.

Casper looked at him. “I understand tournaments.”

“Do you?”

“I understand more than you understand clay.”

“Ouch.”

Monica laughed again. The table warmed around her. Of course it did.

Ben made room for people the way some players made room on the court with a serve. Big, easy, generous. Casper offered calm, dry humor that made Monica relax without feeling interrogated. Jasmine watched her with the kind of feminine intelligence Jannik often envied: open, kind, but seeing everything. Flavio recovered his energy and asked Monica if she knew what she had gotten herself into by meeting Carlos.

“Nothing good,” Flavio said. “He will make you run sprints for fun.”

Carlos laughed. “I do not.”

“You do,” Jannik said before he could stop himself.

The table turned toward him. It was the first thing he had said since they arrived. Carlos looked at him. For a second, the restaurant noise faded again.

Something passed between them. Not enough. Too much. Carlos’s smile softened, but it did not reach the private place it usually did. Not with Monica there. Not across this table. Not with everyone watching.

“I do only sometimes,” Carlos said.

Jannik nodded. That was all. The conversation moved on. Carlos barely spoke to him after that.

Not cruelly. That was almost worse. There was no obvious neglect, no intentional coldness. Carlos answered Ben, laughed with Casper, explained to Monica why clay courts were slower, corrected Flavio’s exaggerated version of a training story, asked Jasmine about her next schedule. Now and then, his gaze flicked toward Jannik, quick and uncertain, but he did not stay there.

Jannik understood.

Monica was beside him. New. Beautiful. Nervous. Carlos wanted to make her feel included. He wanted to show her his world without overwhelming her. He wanted everyone to like her. He wanted the evening to go well. That was kind. Carlos was being kind.

Jannik felt sick.

The tea in front of him had gone cold. His water glass was half full. He had not touched anything else. The smells of food around him thickened, garlic and butter and wine and warm bread turning suddenly heavy. Flavio’s plate looked too bright. Ben’s laughter seemed too loud. Monica’s perfume reached him in faint waves whenever she moved, clean and floral with something spicy underneath.

Carlos leaned toward her to explain something on the menu. Their shoulders nearly touched. Jannik looked away too quickly. His stomach clenched. He pressed a hand to it under the table. No. Not here.

Jasmine was telling Monica about traveling from tournament to tournament, about how every city became a blur unless you had one small ritual to remember it by. Monica listened with real attention. She asked what Jasmine’s ritual was.

“Coffee,” Jasmine said. “Always coffee. I judge a city by the coffee.”

“Very Italian,” Casper said.

“Correct Italian,” Jasmine said.

Monica looked at Jannik then. “And you?”

He froze.

“What?”

“Do you have a ritual? To remember places?”

Her eyes were very brown. Not cruel. Not triumphant. Just curious. Jannik felt everyone’s attention lightly shift toward him.

He could have said food. He could have said walks. He could have said practice courts, because sometimes he remembered cities by how the ball sounded there. He could have said nothing. He could have made a joke.

Instead, his mind went blank. Carlos looked at him. Jannik saw concern appear in his face before he could hide it. That was what broke something. Concern from Carlos, across a table, past Monica’s red hair and brown eyes and tall, easy beauty. Concern that had to travel through too many things to reach him.

“I don’t know,” Jannik said.

His voice was thin. Flavio shifted beside him. Jasmine’s expression changed. Jannik stood. Too fast. His chair scraped lightly against the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Bathroom.”

He did not wait for an answer. He walked away.

Not hurried. He refused to hurry. Hurrying would make people look. He moved with the controlled pace of someone choosing to leave, not someone fleeing. Past the tables, past a server with a tray, past the bar where glasses hung upside down catching light. The bathroom was down a short hallway near the back.

The moment he turned the corner and left the restaurant’s main room behind, control snapped. His mouth filled again. His stomach heaved. He pushed open the bathroom door, found the nearest stall, barely closed it behind him before his body folded over and rejected the night. There was almost nothing to throw up.

Water. Tea. Acid. The ghost of pistachio ice cream. The humiliation of being undone by nothing. His hands gripped the sides of the toilet. His eyes watered. His throat burned. His body shook once, twice, with the violence of something deeper than nausea. When it passed, he stayed bent forward, breathing hard.

The bathroom was too clean. Too bright. White sinks. Large mirror. Stone counter. A faint smell of soap and lemon cleaner. Somewhere above, soft music played from hidden speakers, absurdly calm. Jannik flushed. He sat back on his heels inside the stall and closed his eyes. What is wrong with me? The question was not gentle. It had teeth.

He had not eaten. He was tired. He had trained. He had slept badly. This could be physical. It was physical. Of course, it was physical. Athletes’ bodies were precise machines, but machines failed when denied sleep and food. Nausea could be explained. Dizziness could be explained. The throwing up could be explained.

The jealousy could not. Or it could, but not in a way he wanted to look at. A soft knock came on the bathroom door. Not the stall. The main door.

“Jannik?”

Jasmine. He shut his eyes harder. Of course, she had followed.

Of all of them, of course, Jasmine had followed. Not Flavio, who might panic and joke in the wrong order. Not Ben, who would mean well and be too large for a moment this small. Not Casper, whose kindness was quiet but distant. Jasmine. Italian. Sharp-eyed. Warm without being careless.

“Jannik,” she said again, softer. “Sono io.”

It’s me. He swallowed. His throat hurt.

“I’m okay,” he said.

His voice came out rough. The bathroom door opened carefully. Footsteps entered. Then silence.

“Non sembri okay,” Jasmine said.

You don’t sound okay. Jannik let his forehead rest against his wrist.

“Give me one minute.”

“Take two.”

Despite everything, a small breath almost became a laugh.

He heard Jasmine move to the sink. Water ran. A paper towel was pulled from the dispenser. She did not crowd him. She did not ask through the stall door if he had vomited, did not make him say it immediately.

After a moment, Jannik stood slowly. His legs felt weak in a way he hated. He opened the stall door.

Jasmine was waiting near the sinks with a damp paper towel in one hand and a dry one in the other. Her face held concern without panic. That helped. Panic from someone else could make your own shame louder.

She handed him the damp towel.

“Grazie,” he said.

He wiped his mouth, then his face. The coolness steadied him slightly. He avoided the mirror at first, then looked despite himself. He looked awful. Pale. Eyes red from vomiting. His hair had fallen slightly over his forehead. Mouth tight. Not like a semifinalist. Not like anything clean or controlled. Jasmine leaned against the counter beside him.

“Food poisoning?” she asked.

He gave her a look.

“Okay,” she said. “Not food poisoning.”

“I didn’t eat.”

“I noticed.”

He turned on the tap and rinsed his mouth, cupping water in his hand. The water tasted metallic against his burned throat. He spat, rinsed again, then shut it off. For a while, neither spoke. The bathroom door remained closed. The restaurant noise was muffled beyond it, a distant hum of people living lives that did not require hiding beside sinks.

Jasmine looked at him in the mirror.

“Vuoi dirmi cosa sta succedendo?” she asked.

Do you want to tell me what’s going on? Jannik gripped the edge of the sink.

“No.”

“Va bene.”

Okay. That was too easy. He looked at her.

She shrugged gently. “You don’t have to tell me. But I’m not stupid.”

“No one said you are.”

“Good. Then we start there.”

He looked down.

Jasmine’s voice softened. “Is it the match tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Feeling sick from training?”

“Maybe.”

“Jannik.”

He closed his eyes.

There was something about hearing his name in Italian, from someone who knew the shape of the language beneath his guarded English, that made it harder to hide. Italian reached places he often kept locked. It had home inside it, even when spoken far from home. It carried mother voices, family tables, mountain roads, old afternoons. It made lies feel heavier.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“In Italian,” Jasmine said gently. “Non devi fare fatica anche con la lingua.”

You don’t have to struggle with the language too. His mouth trembled before he could stop it. He turned away from the mirror.

“Mi sento stupido,” he said.

I feel stupid.

Jasmine’s face softened immediately. “Perché?”

Why? He let out a breath that shook slightly.

“Perché non ho motivo di stare male.”

Because I have no reason to feel bad.

“Usually when people say that, they have many reasons.”

He almost smiled. “You sound like a psychologist.”

“No. I sound like an Italian woman who has watched men pretend not to have feelings for too many years.”

That actually made him laugh once, small and broken. Jasmine smiled, but only briefly. Then she waited. Jannik pressed the damp towel between his hands. It was already warming from his skin.

“Carlos came with Monica,” he said finally.

Jasmine nodded as if he had said the sky was blue.

“Yes.”

“She is nice.”

“Yes.”

“Beautiful.”

“Very.”

He winced.

“Sorry,” Jasmine said, but not like she regretted honesty.

“No. It’s true.”

“It is.”

Jannik looked at the closed bathroom door. “Everyone liked her.”

“I think everyone wanted to make her comfortable.”

“Same thing.”

“Not always.”

He absorbed that.

The words mattered. Maybe not everyone liked Monica instantly. Maybe they had been kind because kindness was decent. Maybe Ben and Casper had opened the table not because Monica belonged there already, but because she was new and nervous and Carlos had brought her. Still.

“She fits,” he said.

Jasmine tilted her head. “Does she?”

Jannik turned to her.

“She is perfect,” he said, hating how much the word sounded like Carlos's last night. “She is tall and beautiful and easy. She is not from tennis, so she makes him forget the bad parts. She looks at him like...” He stopped.

“Like what?”

Like she is allowed to want him. The thought arrived clear and painful. Jannik shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

Jasmine was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “And you felt sick seeing them.”

Jannik looked away. It was not a question.

“Maybe because I didn’t eat.”

“Maybe.”

“And trained.”

“Yes.”

“And slept badly.”

“Also.”

He glanced at her, grateful for the offered excuses.

Then Jasmine added softly, “And maybe because it hurt.”

Jannik’s jaw tightened. There it was. Simple. Cruel. Kind. He leaned both hands on the sink again and bowed his head.

“I don’t know why,” he whispered.

Jasmine did not answer quickly. That was another kindness.

People were too eager to name feelings for others. They liked labels because labels made emotion less frightening. Jealous. In love. Lonely. Possessive. Afraid. But sometimes naming too soon was like picking up a broken glass with bare hands. You might hold it, yes, but you would bleed more than necessary.

Jasmine stepped closer, not touching him yet.

“Non devi saperlo subito,” she said.

You don’t have to know immediately. Jannik swallowed.

“I should be happy,” he said. “For him.”

“Maybe you are.”

“I am.”

“And maybe you are also not.”

He looked at her helplessly.

She shrugged. “We are not simple.”

He let out a breath.

“I told him to see her again.”

“Did he ask?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you say yes?”

“Because he liked her.”

Jasmine watched him.

“And because if I said no...” Jannik stopped, searching. “It would be selfish.”

“Maybe.”

“It would.”

“Maybe,” she repeated. “But wanting someone to stay does not always make you selfish. It makes you human. What you do with it is where selfishness starts.”

Jannik stood very still. The sentence entered him slowly. Wanting someone to stay does not always make you selfish.

He had never allowed the thought in that shape. Want had always seemed dangerous. Want asked for too much. Want could become pressure, expectation, or need. It could make you unfair. So he had trained himself to want cleanly: win the point, improve the serve, recover well, be disciplined, be kind. Those wants had rules. They belonged to tennis or ethics. They could be managed.

But wanting Carlos to stay at the table, looking at him instead of Monica? Wanting Carlos to laugh with him the way he laughed alone in hotel rooms and locker rooms? Wanting to be the person Carlos came to, not only when something was missing, but when something was beautiful too? That kind of want had no rules. It terrified him.

“I don’t even know if it is about him,” Jannik said. “Or her. Or me.”

Jasmine nodded slowly. “Maybe all.”

He looked at her, tired. “That is not helpful.”

“It is true.”

“Truth is overrated.”

“Sometimes.”

They stood side by side at the sinks, their reflections pale under the bathroom light. Jannik rinsed his mouth again. Jasmine opened her small purse and handed him a mint. He accepted it.

“Grazie.”

“Prego.”

The mint burned his tongue at first, then cooled his throat.

Jasmine leaned one hip against the counter. “Can I say something?”

“You are already saying many things.”

She smiled faintly. “More, then.”

He nodded.

“You and Carlos...” She paused, choosing carefully. “There is something.”

Jannik closed his eyes.

“I’m not saying what,” she added quickly. “I don’t know what. Maybe you don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe it is a friendship with too much history. Maybe rivalry. Maybe loneliness. Maybe love. Maybe all these things are mixed so much that nobody can separate them.”

The word love did not strike him like it had the night before. This time it sank. Heavy and quiet.

Jasmine continued, voice gentle. “But when he came in with her, you looked like someone had taken your place.”

Jannik opened his eyes. The bathroom seemed to narrow around that sentence. Taken your place. He gripped the sink again.

“I don’t have a place,” he said.

Jasmine’s expression softened.

“Everyone has a place,” she said. “The problem is when nobody says what it is.”

His throat tightened for a different reason now, less physical but harder to swallow.

“He barely talked to me,” Jannik said.

It sounded childish as soon as it left him. He hated it. Jasmine did not smile.

“No,” she said. “He didn’t.”

“He was with her. It’s normal.”

“Yes.”

“I know.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not angry.”

“Maybe you are a little.”

Jannik looked at her.

She lifted both hands gently. “Not angry like blame. Angry like hurt has nowhere to go.”

He breathed out slowly. That was exactly it.

The hurt had nowhere to go. It could not go to Carlos because Carlos had done nothing wrong. It could not go to Monica because she had done nothing wrong. It could not go to Flavio or Ben or Casper or Jasmine because they had only laughed and welcomed and behaved like good people. It could not go into tomorrow’s match because that would poison something sacred. It could not go into the food because he had not eaten. It could not go to sleep because sleep had already failed.

So it had gone into his body. His body, always faithful, had thrown it up. Jasmine touched his arm lightly.

“Ehi,” she said.

He looked at her.

“You don’t have to go back to the table.”

“I should.”

“Why?”

“It’s rude.”

“You just vomited.”

He grimaced. “Don’t say it.”

“You just vomited,” she repeated, more firmly, “and you look like a ghost. You are not going back to sit with them and pretend.”

“Jasmine-”

“No. I’m taking you back to the hotel.”

He stared at her. She had the expression of someone much smaller than him who would absolutely win this argument.

“I can go alone.”

“No.”

“I’m fine.”

“No.”

“You are very bossy.”

“Yes. And you are very pale.”

He looked at the mirror again. She was right. He looked empty. The thought of returning to the table made his stomach tighten again. Carlos is beside Monica. Monica smiling. Ben included her. Casper is making dry jokes. Flavio was watching Jannik with worried eyes. Carlos looks sad if Jannik left, or worse, not looking sad enough.

No. He could not do it. Not tonight.

“Okay,” he said.

Jasmine nodded once, satisfied.

“I’ll tell them,” she said.

Jannik tensed. “Tell them what?”

“That you felt sick. Because you did.”

“Nothing else.”

She gave him a look. “I know.”

“I mean-”

“I know, Jannik.”

He stopped. Her voice had become very soft.

“I won’t say the Carlos part.”

The Carlos part. There it was, given a name but not an explanation. He nodded, unable to speak. Jasmine squeezed his arm once and moved toward the door.

“Stay here one minute. Breathe. Then come out. I’ll handle it.”

Before he could protest, she slipped out. The bathroom door closed behind her. Jannik was alone again.

He leaned against the counter and listened to the muffled restaurant beyond the wall. He imagined Jasmine reaching the table. Her face was calm. Her Italian kindness sharpened into practicality. He imagined Flavio looking up first, then Ben, then Carlos. He imagined Carlos asking where he was. He imagined Monica turning, concerned.

He closed his eyes. He did not want Carlos to be concerned.

He wanted Carlos laughing with him in a hotel room at three in the morning. He wanted Carlos to ask if they were okay under the practice-court sun. He wanted Carlos sitting across from him with ice cream melting down his hand. He wanted Carlos to be happy. He wanted Carlos not to be happy in a way that excluded him.

He wanted too many things. The bathroom door opened again. Jasmine returned.

“Come,” she said.

He pushed away from the counter.

“How bad?”

“I said you felt sick. Too little sleep, training, maybe stomach. I said I’m taking you back.”

“And?”

“Everyone understands.”

He studied her. “Carlos?”

Something flickered in Jasmine’s face.

“He looked worried.”

Only worried? The question was poisonous. Jannik hated it immediately.

He nodded. “Okay.”

They left the bathroom together. The hallway back to the dining room felt longer than before. Jannik could hear the table before he saw it: Ben’s voice lower now, Flavio quieter, Monica saying something soft. Then they turned the corner.

Everyone looked up. It was unbearable, but brief.

Flavio stood halfway. “Jannik?”

“I’m okay,” Jannik said.

The lie was automatic. Flavio did not believe it. Casper’s face held calm concern. Ben looked genuinely worried; his big energy pulled inward. Monica’s brown eyes softened with sympathy. Carlos stood. Not halfway. Fully.

His chair scraped back, and he looked at Jannik with an expression that almost made Jannik turn around and go back to the bathroom. The sadness was there immediately. Not dramatic. Not confused. Deep, sudden worry, mixed with something like guilt.

“Jannik,” Carlos said.

Jannik forced a small smile. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Grazie,” Jannik said dryly.

No one laughed. Carlos took one step toward him, then stopped, as if remembering where he was, who was watching, who sat beside him. Monica looked between them, not understanding, but not stupid. Jasmine moved slightly closer to Jannik’s side.

“I’m taking him back,” she said to the table. “He needs rest. Tomorrow is important.”

“Yes,” Casper said immediately. “Of course.”

Ben nodded. “Feel better, man.”

Flavio grabbed Jannik’s jacket from the back of his chair and brought it to him. As he handed it over, he leaned close enough to speak quietly.

“Ti scrivo dopo,” he murmured.

I’ll text you later. Jannik nodded once.

“Don’t be alone too much,” Flavio added, even softer.

That almost broke him.

He took the jacket. “Thanks.”

Carlos was still standing. His hands hung at his sides, uncertain. Jannik had seen him face break points with more confidence than this.

“I can come,” Carlos said suddenly.

The table went still. Monica looked at him. Jannik looked at him too. For one dangerous second, everything in him reached toward yes.

Yes. Come. Leave with me. Choose me without anyone naming what that means.

But then he saw Monica’s face. Not angry. Not offended. Just startled, trying to understand the shape of a world she had entered without a map. He saw Ben looking down at his glass. Casper is politely looking elsewhere. Flavio’s jaw tight. Jasmine waiting.

And he saw Carlos, poor Carlos, generous Carlos, confused Carlos, ready to split himself open because someone he loved was hurting and someone he liked was sitting behind him.

No. Jannik could not do that to him. Not here. Not like this. He shook his head.

“No,” he said gently. “Stay.”

Carlos’s face fell, just a little.

“It’s okay,” Jannik added.

Carlos did not look convinced. Jannik hated that. Hated the sadness in his eyes. Hated that he had caused it by leaving and would have caused more by letting him come. Hated that every possible choice hurt someone.

Monica touched Carlos’s arm lightly. He did not look down at her hand. He was still looking at Jannik. That made it both better and worse.

Jasmine stepped in, saving him. “I’ll make sure he gets back.”

Carlos nodded slowly.

“Text me,” he said to Jannik.

Jannik swallowed. “Later.”

“Promise?”

The word was too soft. Too much like three in the morning. Jannik nodded.

“Promise.”

Then Jasmine guided him away. He did not look back immediately.

He made it through the restaurant with his head slightly down, jacket over one arm, Jasmine beside him like a guard. The bright room blurred at the edges. The music sounded too cheerful. Near the entrance, the host smiled politely, unaware of the small tragedy passing in front of him, disguised as a tired athlete leaving early.

Outside, the night air hit Jannik’s face. Cooler than inside. Real. He breathed it in and almost bent double again, not from nausea this time, but from the force of holding himself together. Jasmine’s hand settled between his shoulder blades.

“Piano,” she said.

Slowly. He nodded.

They stood near the curb while Jasmine ordered a car. The street glowed with restaurant signs and passing headlights. Palm trees rose black against the sky. Somewhere far away, the desert mountains had disappeared into darkness. California at night looked soft from a distance, but up close, everything had edges.

Jannik sat on a low wall and put his head in his hands. Jasmine stood beside him, not speaking. That was good. Words had done enough.

After a minute, his phone buzzed. He already knew. Carlos.

Please tell me when you arrive

A second message appeared before Jannik could answer.

Are you angry with me?

Jannik stared at the screen. The words blurred slightly.

He typed:

No.

Then:

I’m just sick.

He looked at the message. Deleted the period. Sent it. Carlos replied almost immediately.

I’m sorry

Jannik closed his eyes.

Sorry for what?

For arriving with her? For barely speaking? For being beautiful beside someone beautiful? For making me want things I have no right to want? For looking sad when I leave? For being Carlos? He did not answer.

The car arrived. Jasmine opened the door and waited until he got in before sliding beside him. The driver confirmed the hotel, then pulled away from the restaurant.

Through the window, the city moved in fragments: light, shadow, palm, glass, street, faces on sidewalks, a couple crossing hand in hand, a neon sign reflected in the car window over Jannik’s own pale face.

His phone buzzed again. Carlos.

Jannik?

Jasmine saw him look at it.

“You don’t have to answer now,” she said quietly.

“He’ll worry.”

“He is already worried.”

Jannik looked at her.

She held his gaze. “And you are sick. Let him worry for ten minutes.”

He let the phone rest screen-down on his thigh. The car drove on. For a while, only the road spoke.

Then Jasmine said, “You did the right thing.”

Jannik laughed once, without humor. “Which part?”

“Leaving.”

“I made it worse.”

“Maybe for tonight. Better than breaking at the table.”

He looked out the window.

“Carlos looked sad,” he said.

“Yes.”

The honesty hurt, but he had asked for it without asking.

“I told him to stay.”

“I saw.”

“Was that right?”

Jasmine was quiet long enough that he turned toward her.

“I don’t know,” she said.

That answer, strangely, comforted him more than certainty would have.

“Nobody knows these things while they are happening,” she added. “We pretend later that we knew. We didn’t.”

Jannik leaned his head back against the seat.

“I don’t want to hurt him.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to hurt her.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want...” He stopped.

Jasmine waited.

“I don’t want to be this person,” he said.

“What person?”

“Jealous. Weak. Dramatic.”

She made a soft sound of protest. “Madonna, Jannik.”

He looked at her.

“You vomited quietly in a bathroom and were still worried about everyone else. This is not dramatic. This is almost annoyingly controlled.”

Despite himself, he almost smiled.

“And jealousy is not weakness,” Jasmine continued. “It is information. Uncomfortable information. But still information.”

“What does it tell?”

“That you care where you thought you were only calm.”

The words slid into the silence and stayed there. Jannik looked down at his hands. Care. Another word, safer than love, but not by much. His phone buzzed again. He did not turn it over.

Jasmine glanced at it, then out the window. “Do you want advice?”

“No.”

“I’ll give some advice.”

“Of course.”

She smiled faintly. “Tonight, sleep. Tomorrow, play. Do not decide your whole heart before a semifinal.”

He breathed out slowly. That was the most practical and merciful thing anyone had said all day. Sleep. Play. Do not decide your whole heart.

The hotel appeared ahead, lit warmly against the dark. The car pulled under the entrance canopy. Jasmine thanked the driver, then got out with Jannik. In the lobby, a few people looked up, recognized them, then looked away politely. The marble floor reflected the ceiling lights like water.

Jannik felt emptied, embarrassed, grateful, exhausted. In the elevator, Jasmine pressed his floor.

“You don’t have to come up,” he said.

“I’m making sure you reach your room.”

“I’m not a child.”

“No. You are a pale semifinalist who throws up in restaurants.”

He closed his eyes. “You will never let this go.”

“Maybe in ten years.”

The elevator rose. When it opened on his floor, the hallway was quiet, carpet swallowing their steps. At his door, Jannik took out his key card and paused.

“Thank you,” he said.

Jasmine’s face softened.

“Prego.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

He looked down the hallway, then back at her. “Please don’t-”

“I won’t say anything.”

“To anyone.”

“To anyone,” she promised. “Only that you felt sick. Which is true.”

He nodded. She hesitated, then stepped forward and hugged him. It surprised him.

Not because Jasmine was not affectionate. She was. But because he had been holding himself so rigidly that the simple human contact almost undid him. He stood still for half a second, then hugged her back carefully.

She patted his back once.

“Dormi,” she said.

Sleep.

“I’ll try.”

“And answer Carlos when you can. Not because he deserves it more than you deserve rest, but because silence will make both of you crazy.”

Jannik let out a tired breath. “Okay.”

She stepped away.

“Buonanotte, Jannik.”

“Buonanotte.”

He opened his door and went inside. The room was dark and waiting. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it.

For a few seconds, he did not turn on the light. He stood in the dark, listening to his own breathing, feeling the night move through him in waves: laughter at the table, Monica’s brown eyes, Carlos saying coincidence too quickly, Flavio’s hand on his shoulder, the bathroom tiles, Jasmine’s voice in Italian, Carlos standing with sadness in his face as Jannik left anyway.

His phone buzzed again. He took it out. Four messages from Carlos.

Please answer when you can

I didn’t know you were there

I should have talked to you more

I’m sorry

Jannik slid down slowly until he was sitting on the floor with his back against the door. The carpet was soft under his hands. He stared at the messages until the screen dimmed. Then he typed:

I arrived.

He watched the words sit there.

Added:

I’m not angry.

Pause.

Then, because Jasmine had told him not to decide his whole heart tonight, because tomorrow mattered, because Carlos was probably still standing somewhere in that restaurant with sadness in his eyes and Monica beside him, because kindness was the only thing Jannik trusted himself to do even when it hurt, he added:

Have a good night. We'll talk tomorrow.

He sent it before he could delete anything. The reply came quickly.

ok

Then:

Promise we'll talk?

Jannik closed his eyes.

The word promise had followed them from the restaurant, from the elevator, from all the places where things could not be said plainly. He typed:

Promise.

This time, he left the period. The phone went quiet. Jannik remained on the floor for a long time.

Outside the window, California night pressed gently against the glass. Somewhere below, cars arrived and left. Somewhere across the city, Carlos sat with Monica, maybe trying to smile, maybe explaining Jannik’s sudden sickness, maybe looking at his phone too often. Maybe Monica touched his hand and asked if everything was okay. Maybe Carlos did not know how to answer.

Jannik hoped he was kind to her. He hoped she was kind to him. He hoped tomorrow would be easier. He knew it probably would not be.

After a while, he got up, washed his face, brushed his teeth again to remove the last bitterness from his mouth. He changed into sleep clothes and sat on the edge of the bed. The room seemed too quiet, but not peaceful. The kind of quiet that came after a door had closed on something unfinished.

He lay down.

His body was exhausted now, truly exhausted. His stomach still hurt. His throat burned faintly. His eyes felt dry and heavy. Tomorrow’s match waited beyond the night, demanding clarity he did not yet have.

He turned onto his side, facing the empty chair. The same chair Carlos had sat in at three in the morning. This time, Carlos did not come. Jannik closed his eyes. Behind them, he saw Monica’s brown eyes. Then Carlos’s sad ones.

Then Jasmine looked in the mirror, saying jealousy was information. He did not want the information. But it was there.

And somewhere beneath the nausea, beneath the shame, beneath the careful messages and the promise to talk tomorrow, Jannik felt the truth shift again inside him—not becoming clearer, not yet, but becoming impossible to ignore.

He had left the restaurant to avoid breaking. But something had broken anyway.

──── ୨୧ ────

Match day began with Carlos on the screen. Not physically. Not in the room. Not yet. Just his name, appearing in the dark before morning had fully entered. Carlos calling. Jannik lay still in bed and watched the phone vibrate against the bedside table.

The room was blue with early light. Curtains half-closed. Air conditioner whispering. His tennis bag sat by the chair like a silent animal waiting to be taken to battle. His body felt better than it had the night before, though not whole. His stomach had settled into a dull, cautious emptiness. His throat still burned faintly from throwing up. His sleep had been shallow, broken by flashes of restaurant light, Monica’s brown eyes, Jasmine’s voice in the bathroom, Carlos standing with that wounded look as Jannik left.

The phone stopped. Silence. Then a message.

Are you awake?

Jannik stared at it. Another message followed.

Can we talk before your match?

He turned the phone face down. The movement was small. Almost gentle. But inside him, it felt like locking a door. He did not have space for Carlos today. That was what he told himself.

Today had to be simple. Breakfast. Warm-up. treatment. Tactical clarity. Match. Learner Tien across the net, young and sharp and dangerous because he had nothing to lose. Indian Wells semifinal. A place in the final waiting on the other side of work. Jannik could not spend the day unraveling his own heart while pretending to prepare for a left corner serve pattern. He could not look at Carlos and try to understand jealousy, friendship, longing, guilt, Monica, the dinner, the apology, the promise.

Jannik got out of bed.

He left the phone on the table and went into the bathroom. He brushed his teeth while it rang, staring at his reflection. His eyes looked clearer than he felt. That annoyed him. The body sometimes betrayed pain by hiding it too well. He rinsed his mouth, washed his face with cold water, then held the edge of the sink and breathed.

One day. He only needed one day. He could avoid Carlos for one day.

He had spent years reading him across courts, across locker rooms, across practice grounds, across press rooms and player lounges. Avoiding him should have been impossible. But Jannik was good at impossible things when they were tied to survival.

When he returned to the room, the phone showed three missed calls. Two more messages.

Jannik, please

I just want to know you’re okay

Jannik’s thumb hovered. He wanted to type, I’m okay. He wanted to type, I can’t do this today. He wanted to type, Every time you ask if I’m okay, something in me becomes less okay. Instead, he opened the team chat, confirmed breakfast time, and put the phone in his bag, where he could not see it. He dressed slowly.

White shirt. Shorts. Socks. Shoes. Hoodie. Watch. Cap. The usual armor. Each item placed him closer to the person who could win a match. A person made of focus and timing. A person who knew how to turn worry into footwork. A person who did not throw up in the restaurant bathrooms because a friend arrived with a beautiful woman.

By the time he left the room, the hallway was bright. Carlos was not there. Good. The word felt cruel. Also true. Breakfast was quieter than usual.

Darren and Simone were already seated when Jannik arrived, their plates half-finished, their coffee cups close at hand. They looked up together, and Jannik saw the moment they registered his face. Coaches did that. Parents too, probably. People who loved you professionally learned to notice small changes: the slight hollowness under the eyes, the way the shoulders sat, whether the hand reached for coffee with normal ease or because it needed something to hold.

Darren said, “Morning.”

“Morning.”

Simone looked at him longer. “How’s the stomach?”

Jannik sat. “Fine.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Darren leaned back slightly. “Jasmine texted us last night. Said you got sick.”

“She shouldn’t have worried you.”

“She did the right thing,” Simone said.

“I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that,” Darren said. “Usually means you’re not.”

Jannik reached for water.

The restaurant breakfast room smelled of toast, eggs, fruit, coffee. It was quieter than the dinner place, softer in the morning light, but still too public. Two players sat at a table near the window. A coach walked by with a plate of oatmeal. Someone laughed near the buffet.

Jannik did not want to talk here. He also did not want to talk at all.

“Did you sleep?” Darren asked.

“Enough.”

“That’s another non-answer.”

Jannik looked down at the table. His phone buzzed inside his bag. He did not touch it. Darren noticed. Simone noticed. Of course they did. Before either could say anything, Ben Shelton appeared with a plate stacked like he was feeding two people.

“Yo,” Ben said, sliding into the empty chair without asking. “How’s the patient?”

Jannik blinked. “Patient?”

“You looked like death last night, man.”

“Good morning to you too.”

Ben grinned, but there was concern under it. “For real though. You okay? Jasmine said you got sick. We were worried.”

Darren and Simone exchanged a look.

Jannik felt heat rise under his skin, not embarrassment exactly, but the beginning of being cornered. Their worry pressed on him from three sides. Darren with steady eyes. Simone with practical concern. Ben with open, generous directness. He knew they meant well. That almost made it worse.

“I’m okay,” Jannik said again.

Ben looked at Darren. “He doesn’t look okay.”

“Thank you,” Jannik said.

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

The phone buzzed again. This time, all three of them heard it. Jannik closed his eyes for one second. Then he stood.

“Come,” he said.

Ben looked confused. “Where?”

“Private room.”

Darren immediately pushed back his chair. Simone followed. Ben gathered his plate as if unwilling to abandon breakfast even for an emotional crisis, then seemed to realize that was inappropriate and left it behind with visible regret.

They found a small side room off the dining area, used sometimes for player meetings or sponsor calls. It had a round table, six chairs, a plant in the corner, and a window looking onto a blank beige wall. Jannik closed the door behind them.

The silence inside was immediate. No plates. No coffee machine. No other players. Only the four of them.

Darren stood near the table with arms crossed. Simone leaned against the wall. Ben remained by the door, suddenly less loud, aware that he had been invited into something more serious than “stomach issue.” Jannik put his bag on the chair. His phone buzzed again inside it. He ignored it.

“Okay,” Darren said quietly. “Talk to us.”

Jannik looked at the floor.

“I got sick last night because...” He stopped.

There was no good way to begin. Because Carlos came with Monica. Because I wanted to disappear. Because I think I’m jealous and I don’t know of whom. Because the person I understand best is becoming someone I cannot reach across a dinner table. Because I have a semifinal today and I am wasting energy being twenty-four and stupid. He exhaled.

“It wasn’t food.”

No one interrupted.

“I didn’t eat. I had ice cream earlier, then nothing. I slept badly. I trained. So yes, maybe physically I was not good. But...” He lifted one hand helplessly. “It was not only that.”

Ben’s expression changed first. Softer. Understanding before details.

Simone’s voice was careful. “Carlos?”

Jannik looked at him sharply. Darren sighed very softly.

Ben glanced between them. “Oh.”

The room seemed to shrink. Jannik sat down because standing became too much.

“He came with Monica,” he said.

Darren nodded. “The girl from the date.”

Jannik looked up. “You knew?”

“You told us at breakfast yesterday.”

“Right.”

His own life was becoming a sequence of conversations he regretted immediately.

“She was there,” Jannik continued. “Beautiful. Nice. Everyone was nice to her. Ben, you were nice.”

Ben opened his mouth, then closed it. “Was I not supposed to be?”

“No. You were supposed to be. That’s the problem.”

Ben frowned. “I’m lost.”

“So am I,” Jannik said.

That made Darren’s face soften.

Jannik looked at his hands. “Carlos barely talked to me. Not because he was cruel. He was with her. It was normal. But I felt...” His fingers curled. “I felt like I couldn’t breathe.”

Simone was very still. Darren pulled out a chair and sat across from him.

“And today he’s trying to reach you.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re avoiding him.”

“Yes.”

Ben let out a low whistle, then immediately looked apologetic.

“Sorry.”

Jannik almost smiled. “It’s okay.”

Darren leaned forward, forearms on knees.

“Jannik, I’m not going to ask you to define this right now. Not on match day.”

Relief moved through him so suddenly that he had to look away.

“But I need to ask one thing,” Darren continued. “Can you play?”

Jannik looked back at him. There it was. The clean question. Can you play? Not can you understand your heart. Not can you fix Carlos. Not can you stop feeling sick when Monica smiles. Not can you become the kind of person who wants less. Can you play? His body responded before his mind.

“Yes.”

Darren held his gaze. “Truth.”

“Yes,” Jannik repeated. “I can play.”

Simone stepped closer. “Stomach?”

“Empty. Better. I will eat what you tell me. I will drink. I will warm up. I am okay physically.”

“And mentally?” Darren asked.

Jannik’s eyes sharpened.

There was a strange calm rising now, not peaceful, not healthy maybe, but powerful. The kind of focus that came when emotion stopped being fog and became fuel. Carlos could wait. Monica could wait. The entire burning mess inside him could wait.

Learner Tien could not. Learner Tien was today. The match was today. The final was one win away. Jannik straightened.

“I’m ready to destroy Tien,” he said.

The sentence landed hard.

Ben’s eyebrows shot up. Then he grinned slowly. “There he is.”

Simone tried not to smile and failed. Darren studied Jannik for a long second, then nodded.

“Good. But destroy him with patterns, not anger.”

“Of course.”

“Use the legs.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t rush because you want to end points emotionally.”

Jannik almost laughed. “Emotionally?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know.”

Simone pointed at him. “Depth. Height. Body serve. Take his time before he takes yours.”

“Yes.”

Ben opened the door slightly, then paused. “For what it’s worth, man?”

Jannik looked at him.

Ben’s voice was gentler. “Whatever this is, it can wait a few hours. The court is yours today.”

Jannik nodded.

“Thanks.”

Ben gave him a small salute. “Also, I’m eating your breakfast if you don’t come back soon.”

That finally made Jannik laugh. Not much. Enough. The morning moved. He answered none of Carlos’s messages. By the time he reached the site, there were more.

I’m at breakfast. Can we talk?

Jannik

I know you have a match, but please don’t disappear

Carlos calling. Missed call.

Okay. Good luck today. I’ll be watching.

That last one almost undid him. He stood outside the locker room, phone in hand, reading it twice. Good luck today. I’ll be watching. Carlos always watched. Even when hurt. Even when confused. Even when left behind at tables. Even when Jannik closed doors. Carlos watched.

Jannik turned the phone off. Not silent. Off. Then he went to prepare. The day narrowed.

Warm-up court. Stretching. Footwork. The sound of balls. Darren’s voice. Simone’s correction. Sweat is building under the morning sun. Treatment table. Tape. Breath. Small meal. Water. Electrolytes. Shirt change. Locker room quiet. Shoes tied.

Carlos did not exist. That was not true. Carlos existed like a bruise under clothing. But the match pulled Jannik forward, and he let it. When he walked onto the court, Indian Wells roared.

The semifinal light was sharper than the quarterfinal light. It always felt that way, though maybe it was the mind adding brightness to consequence. The stadium was full enough that applause moved in layers. People called his name. The mountains watched from beyond the structure, indifferent and eternal.

Learner Tien stood across the net, calm-faced, compact, eyes focused. Young, but not intimidated. Jannik respected that immediately. Good. Respect made him sharper. The warm-up was clean. The toss felt good. The legs responded. The stomach remained quiet. His hand around the racquet grip felt dry and certain. Before the first point, Jannik looked toward the far side of the stadium.

He did not search for Carlos. He did not. But some part of him knew Carlos was there. Watching. Jannik turned away. The match began. The first game told him everything.

Learner took the ball early, as expected. He tried to redirect pace, tried to step inside the baseline and make Jannik feel rushed. On the third point, he caught a backhand clean and sent it sharp crosscourt. The crowd murmured.

Jannik did not react. He adjusted. Higher over the net. Deeper. He pushed Learner back half a step, then another. He served body on thirty-all and watched the return jam. Forehand into the open court. Hold. Then pressure.

On Learner’s first service game, Jannik stepped into the return and made him play. Not spectacular. Not emotional. Every ball heavy, every recovery balanced, every choice precise. At fifteen-thirty, he used a deep crosscourt backhand to open the court, then changed down the line so cleanly the sound seemed to crack.

Break point. Learner served well. Jannik blocked it back deep. Rally. Eight shots. Ten. Learner tried to take the backhand early. Jannik absorbed, lifted, waited. The short ball came. He went forward. Forehand winner. Break. The crowd rose. Jannik turned without expression and walked to his chair. Inside, something unclenched. Not happiness.Direction.

He had somewhere to put everything now. Point by point, he took the match apart.

He did not rage. He did not rush. He did not play as if trying to punish Learner for feelings Learner had nothing to do with. That would have been disrespectful. Instead, he played with ruthless clarity. He made the court long. He made time expensive. He served into the body until Learner leaned, then went wide. He used the forehand not as an explosion but as a weight. He took the backhand early enough to deny angles. When Learner found moments of brilliance—and he did, because he was too good not to—Jannik answered with calm pressure that made brilliance feel temporary.

6-1.

The first set passed like a door closing.

During the changeover, he drank, towel over his face, breath steady. The chair umpire announced the score. The crowd buzzed. Darren clapped once from the box. Simone leaned forward, eyes intense, as if to remind him that domination was not completion. Jannik knew.

Second set. Learner fought harder. Of course he did.

At one-all, he pushed Jannik to deuce with two fearless returns and a sudden drop shot that made the crowd gasp. Jannik sprinted, reached it, but sent the reply long. Learner lifted his fist. The stadium warmed to him.

Jannik looked at the strings of his racquet. Fine. Good. Let him rise. Then break him properly.

He held serve with two first serves and a backhand down the line that landed so close to the line the crowd hesitated before cheering. In the next game, he changed pace earlier. A looping forehand. A slice return. A sudden attack on the second serve. Learner’s rhythm cracked.

Break. 3-1.

From there, the match became inevitable in the way only matches become inevitable after someone has done all the invisible work to make them so. The score ran away because Jannik did not. He stayed inside every point. He did not think of Carlos. He did not think of Monica. He did not think of the bathroom floor, or Jasmine’s hand on his arm, or the promise he was breaking by not talking.

He thought of the ball. Only the ball. At match point, Learner served to the backhand. Jannik returned deep. The rally began, short and sharp. Learner tried to step in on the third shot. Jannik read it early, moved right, and sent a forehand inside-out with a clean, merciless angle. Winner.

6-1, 6-2.

Final. The stadium rose around him. For one second, the noise entered his body and stayed there. He lifted both arms.

Not high, not theatrical. But enough. The crowd gave him warmth, and he let himself receive it. Darren stood with both fists raised. Simone was smiling openly now. Ben, somewhere in the stands or watching from inside, would probably say something loud later. Jasmine would text. Flavio would make a joke. Carlos—

No. Not yet. He shook Learner’s hand. The younger player’s eyes were disappointed but steady.

“Too good,” Learner said.

“Great tournament,” Jannik told him, and meant it. “Keep going.”

Then the chair umpire. The camera lens. The interview.

“Yes, I’m very happy with today.”

“Yes, Learner is a very talented player; he takes time away, so I had to be very focused.”

“Yes, final here means a lot.”

“Yes, recovery now.”

The words came easily because they were tennis words. Tennis words had safe edges.

In the press conference room, under bright lights and microphones, he answered more tennis questions. They asked about his aggression, his return position, his preparation after the Shapovalov win, whether he felt he had sent a message with such a dominant semifinal. He gave measured answers.

“I don’t think about sending messages. I try to play the right way.”

“Every match is different.”

“The final will be difficult.”

“I’m happy with how I managed the important moments.”

Nobody asked about Carlos. Nobody asked why he had turned off his phone. Nobody asked why victory felt less like joy and more like a stay of execution. After the press came the ice bath. Cold took everything.

That was why he liked it and hated it. The first shock stole thought. His body plunged into white pain, breath catching, muscles screaming, skin tightening. For a few seconds, there was no final, no Carlos, no Monica, no unanswered messages. Only cold. Only survival.

Darren stood nearby, arms crossed. “You played well.”

Jannik breathed through his teeth. “Yes.”

“Very well.”

“Yes.”

Simone checked something on his phone. “You ate enough after?”

“Yes.”

“You will eat more.”

“I know.”

Darren waited until Jannik’s breathing steadied. “Still avoiding?”

Jannik did not ask who.

“Yes.”

Darren nodded slowly. “Okay for now. Not forever.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Jannik looked at him through the cold. “No.”

Darren almost smiled. “That’s more honest.”

Later, in the tactical meeting, they reviewed the final opponent, though part of Jannik’s mind kept slipping away now that the match was done. Winning had removed the wall he had built. Carlos returned to the edges. Phone off in his bag. Messages waiting. Maybe anger now. Maybe hurt. Maybe silence.

Jannik listened to the strategy, asked enough questions, nodded at the right times. But his avoidance had become a living thing. By afternoon, it was chasing him. Jasmine found him in the hotel lobby.

Or maybe he found her. He was not sure. She was sitting in a low armchair near the window with sunglasses pushed into her hair, scrolling on her phone, a coffee on the table beside her. When she saw him, she lifted one eyebrow.

“Finalista,” she said.

He sat across from her. “Please don’t.”

“Okay. No celebration. Very tragic, making a final.”

“I mean, don’t make it big.”

She studied him. “How do you feel?”

“Good.”

“Jannik.”

He leaned back. “Tired. Better. The match was good.”

“Match was scary good.”

He allowed a small smile. “Thank you.”

“And Carlos?”

The smile disappeared.

Jasmine sighed. “So, still not good.”

“I turned off my phone.”

“All day?”

“Yes.”

She stared at him. “Mamma mia.”

“I had a match.”

“You had a match for one hour and something. There are many other hours in a day.”

“I know.”

“This is childish.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Jasmine.”

She softened, but only a little. “I’m not saying it to hurt you. I’m saying because you know too. Avoiding him forever is not a plan.”

“I don’t need forever. I need today.”

“You said that yesterday.”

“No, yesterday I needed the night.”

“And tomorrow?”

He looked away.

She leaned back, folding her arms. “You are very good at tennis. Very bad at feelings.”

“Thank you.”

“Prego.”

Despite himself, he huffed a laugh.

They spent the next hour doing nothing meaningful, which was exactly what he needed. Jasmine told him stories. He listened. They got coffee he did not really drink. They walked through quiet hotel corridors and down to the terrace where players sometimes sat to avoid being alone without being too visible. She asked about the match, but only enough. He asked about her schedule. She answered. They spoke Italian when English became tiring.

For a while, it worked.

Then Carlos appeared.

Not dramatically. No music changed. No spotlight. He simply stepped out of the elevator into the wide lobby corridor, wearing a dark T-shirt and shorts, phone in his hand, hair slightly damp as if from a shower. He looked around once.

And saw Jannik. Everything inside Jannik seized. Carlos’s face changed so fast it hurt to witness. Relief first. Then worry. Then a determined softness as he started walking toward them. Jannik stood.

Jasmine looked up. “What?”

“Help.”

She followed his gaze and saw Carlos.

Her mouth tightened. “No.”

“Please.”

“Jannik.”

“Please.”

Carlos was closer now, weaving around a luggage cart, eyes fixed on him.

Jasmine stood slowly. “This is absurd.”

“I know.”

“You are in the final of Indian Wells and you want me to help you run away from a conversation.”

“Yes.”

“You understand how stupid this is?”

“Yes.”

Carlos lifted a hand slightly. “Jannik-”

Jannik looked at Jasmine. She cursed under her breath in Italian. Then she grabbed his wrist.

“Vieni,” she said.

And ran. For half a second, Jannik was too surprised to move. Then his body caught up, and he ran with her. Behind them, Carlos stopped.

“What...Jannik!”

Jasmine pulled him through a side corridor, past a startled hotel employee carrying towels, around a corner, toward the elevators. She jabbed the button repeatedly.

“This is the stupidest thing I have ever done,” she hissed.

“You are helping.”

“I know. That is why I’m angry.”

Footsteps sounded behind them. Carlos. The elevator opened. Jasmine shoved Jannik inside and followed. She hit a floor button at random, then another, then the close-door button with the urgency of someone defusing a bomb. Carlos turned the corner just as the doors began to close.

For one second, their eyes met. Carlos looked hurt. Not confused now. Hurt. The doors shut. Jannik leaned back against the elevator wall, breathing hard.

Jasmine turned on him immediately. “Sei un idiota.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“A huge idiot.”

“Yes.”

“He looked like you punched him.”

“I know.”

“Then why are we running?”

Jannik closed his eyes. “Because if I talk to him, I don’t know what I’ll say.”

The elevator hummed upward. Jasmine’s anger faded into something more tired.

“Maybe that’s the point.”

“I can’t.”

“Not today?”

“Not yet.”

The elevator opened onto a quiet floor. Jasmine stepped out first, still holding his wrist.

“Where are we?”

Jannik looked around. The hallway was wider here, with glass doors at the end and a sign indicating the pool. Jasmine followed his gaze.

“No.”

Jannik almost smiled. “You said I need to stop thinking.”

“I did not prescribe trespassing into hotel pools.”

“It’s our hotel.”

“That is not the issue.”

But she was already walking. The pool deck was empty.

Late afternoon light lay across the water in long trembling bands. The pool itself was rectangular, still except for the small ripples made by the filtration system. Beyond the glass walls, the desert sky had softened toward evening again, pale blue shifting gold near the horizon. Lounge chairs sat in neat rows. White towels were stacked under a wooden shelf. Plants stood glossy and green in large pots, pretending the desert did not exist.

Jannik stopped near the edge. The silence here was different from the hotel room silence. Open. Watery. Less accusing. Jasmine released his wrist.

“We are not swimming,” she said.

Jannik took off his shoes.

“Jannik.”

He removed his socks.

“You have a final.”

“I know.”

“You cannot get sick.”

“The water is heated.”

“You don’t know that.”

He touched it with his foot. Warm. He looked at her.

She closed her eyes. “Madonna.”

Then, because Jasmine Paolini apparently had limits but no interest in obeying them, she took off her shoes too.

They undressed down to their underwear with the awkward efficiency of athletes who had changed in locker rooms their whole lives and yet were suddenly aware this was ridiculous. Jannik left his clothes folded on a chair. Jasmine did the same, muttering that if anyone came in, she would blame him completely.

Then Jannik stepped into the pool.

Warm water closed around his calves, then thighs, then waist. He lowered himself fully, and for the first time all day, his body unclenched without force. Not ice bath shock. Not match adrenaline. Just warmth holding him.

Jasmine entered with a gasp. “Okay. It is nice.”

“I told you.”

“You told me nothing.”

They stood in the shallow end, water moving softly around them. Then Jasmine splashed him. A small splash. Almost polite. Jannik stared at her.

She lifted her chin. “What?”

He splashed back. Not polite.

She laughed, and the sound bounced off the glass walls. For a few minutes, they became children in the most adult, exhausted way: two Italian tennis players hiding from emotional disaster in a hotel pool in their underwear after one of them made the Indian Wells final.

It was absurd. It helped. They floated near the edge after, arms resting on the pool lip, looking out at the fading sky.

“Do you feel better?” Jasmine asked.

“A little.”

“Good.”

“I’m still an idiot.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“I am consistent.”

He smiled faintly. The water moved around them, warm and patient.

“Carlos will be angry,” he said.

“Maybe.”

“He is right.”

“Yes.”

“You are not supposed to agree.”

“You need truth, not comfort only.”

He sighed.

After a while, Jasmine said, “He looked sad because he cares.”

Jannik closed his eyes.

“I know.”

“And you ran because you care.”

“Yes.”

“This would be easier if one of you didn’t.”

He opened his eyes. The sky outside had deepened.

“Yes,” he said. “It would.”

They stayed until the light began to leave.

Then they dried off with hotel towels, dressed in slightly damp discomfort, and returned to the elevator like two people escaping the scene of a very minor crime. Jannik turned his phone back on only when he reached Flavio’s room later that evening.

The messages arrived all at once. Carlos calling.

Why did you run

Please don’t do this

I just want to talk

I’m sorry if I did something

Jannik answer

Jannik’s stomach tightened. He locked the screen. Flavio’s room smelled like Italian food and too much cologne.

He had somehow arranged a small feast: pasta in takeout containers, bread, tomatoes, mozzarella, olive oil, fruit, little desserts Jannik refused to look at. Jasmine sat cross-legged on the floor with a plate. Flavio moved around like a host, waiter, comedian, and older brother all at once.

“You eat,” Flavio said to Jannik, pointing a fork at him.

“I will.”

“Not air. Food.”

“Yes.”

Jasmine looked at him. “He means it.”

“I know.”

He ate.

Slowly, carefully, but he ate. Pasta. Bread. Water. Something warm was returning to his body. Flavio told stories to fill the room. Jasmine added details, especially about their pool escape, though she left out Carlos and described it as “post-match recovery madness.” Flavio laughed so hard he almost spilled sauce on the bed.

“You two ran to a pool? In underwear?”

“Not run to the pool,” Jasmine corrected. “Ran away, then pool.”

“From what?”

Jannik pointed at him. “No.”

Flavio looked between them, then understood enough to stop. His face softened for half a second.

Then he said, “Okay. From responsibility.”

Jasmine raised her glass. “Exactly.”

They laughed.

This room was safe in a different way. Messy, warm, Italian. No restaurant lights. No Monica. No cameras. No need to pretend everything was normal because everyone inside knew it was not and had decided to feed him anyway.

Then came the knock. Three sounds. Not loud. Jannik knew before Flavio opened the door. His whole body froze. Jasmine looked at him. Flavio looked too. The knock came again. Carlos’s voice, muffled through the door.

“Jannik?”

Jannik’s face drained. He shook his head. Flavio stood.

“Flavio,” Jannik whispered.

Please. He did not say the word aloud, but it was there. Please don’t let him in. Please save me from the conversation I keep making worse by avoiding. Please be cruel for me because I cannot.

Flavio’s joking face disappeared. He went to the door and opened it only halfway, keeping his body in the gap. Carlos stood outside. Jannik could see only part of him from where he sat on the floor: one shoulder, one hand, the side of his face. Enough.

“Hey,” Carlos said, voice low. “Is Jannik here?”

Flavio hesitated. Jannik stopped breathing. Jasmine’s hand touched his arm lightly.

Flavio said, “He’s resting.”

A pause.

“I know he’s there,” Carlos said.

The words were not angry. That made them worse.

Flavio lowered his voice. “Carlos, not tonight.”

“I just need five minutes.”

“Not tonight.”

“I need to know why he’s avoiding me.”

Jannik closed his eyes. Carlos continued, voice breaking slightly around the edges.

“Did I do something? Just tell me if I did something.”

Flavio looked back once. Jannik shook his head harder, almost pleading. Flavio turned back.

“He had a hard night. Big match. Final now. Let him breathe.”

“I’m trying,” Carlos said. “But he ran from me.”

Jasmine’s fingers tightened on Jannik’s arm.

Flavio’s voice softened. “I know.”

“Then let me talk to him.”

“No.”

Silence. Heavy.

Then Carlos said, quieter, “Is he okay?”

Flavio looked back again, but this time not asking permission. Just checking the truth. Jannik could not move.

“He will be,” Flavio said.

Carlos breathed out. The sound came through the door faintly, but Jannik felt it.

“Tell him...” Carlos stopped.

No one moved.

“Tell him I’m sorry,” Carlos said.

Flavio’s shoulders fell slightly. “Carlos-”

“Just tell him.”

Another pause.

“And tell him I’m not angry.”

Jannik pressed his hand over his mouth. Too late. His eyes burned. Flavio nodded, though Carlos probably could not see much through the half-open door.

“I’ll tell him.”

“Good luck in the final,” Carlos added, voice almost a whisper.

Then his footsteps moved away. Flavio closed the door. The room did not recover immediately. The pasta smell remained. Jasmine’s plate sat untouched in her lap. Flavio kept his hand on the door for a moment, head bowed. Jannik sat on the floor and stared at nothing.

He had gotten what he wanted. Carlos had gone away. So why did it feel like losing a point he had chosen not to play? Flavio turned slowly.

“He said he’s sorry,” he said.

“I heard.”

“He said he’s not angry.”

“I heard.”

Flavio came closer and sat on the floor opposite him. For once, he did not joke.

“Jannik,” he said quietly, “you can’t keep doing this.”

“I know.”

“No. You say you know, but you are still doing it.”

Jasmine looked down. Jannik swallowed hard.

“I needed tonight,” he said.

Flavio nodded. “Okay. You got tonight.”

The words landed like a boundary. Not cruel. Not even harsh. Just true. Tonight. Not forever. Jannik wiped at his face quickly, angry at the tears before they fully formed.

“I have a final in one day.”

“Yes,” Flavio said. “So sleep. Win. Then stop running.”

Jannik looked toward the closed door. Carlos was gone. But the space he left behind filled the room. Jasmine picked up her fork again, though she did not eat.

“Tomorrow is rest and then tennis,” she said softly. “After that, life will still be there.”

Jannik gave a tired, broken laugh.

“That sounds terrible.”

“Yes,” she said. “But also good.”

Flavio pushed the container of pasta closer to him.

“Eat more,” he said.

Jannik looked at it, then at his friends. Jasmine, who had followed him into a bathroom and pulled him into a pool. Flavio, who had sent Carlos away because Jannik silently begged him to. The people holding the edges of him while he failed to hold himself. He picked up his fork.

Outside the door, the hallway was empty now. Somewhere in the hotel, Carlos was walking away with an apology that Jannik did not know how to accept yet. Somewhere beyond the night, the final waited. Jannik ate because his body needed strength.

He listened because the room was safe. He did not answer Carlos because he still could not. And beneath all of it, beneath shame and gratitude and dread, beneath the sharp knowledge that he had hurt someone he never wanted to hurt, one truth settled inside him with the weight of something unavoidable.

He could win. He could lift a trophy. He could do everything right on a tennis court. But sooner or later, he would have to turn around. He would have to stop running. And Carlos would either still be there or he would not.

──── ୨୧ ────