Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── 

The morning after, Madrid still clung to Jannik like a second skin.

Not the heat. That had been left behind somewhere above the clouds, somewhere between the ochre roofs of Spain and the white, jagged edges of the Dolomites. Not the noise, either, though sometimes it returned in flashes: the crowd rising after match point, the crack of his racket through the ball, the booming voice of the announcer saying his name as if it belonged to the stadium more than to him.

Jannik Sinner. Madrid Open champion, 2026. Winner over Alexander Zverev, 6-1, 6-2.

The numbers looked almost unreal in his head, too clean, too simple for the amount of work hidden beneath them. Two sets. One hour and something. A trophy lifted under the Spanish sun. Interviews. Photos. More interviews. A dinner he barely tasted. Messages flooded his phone until he had turned it face down, not because he did not appreciate them, but because gratitude itself could become tiring when your body had not yet understood that it was allowed to stop.

Now the plane dipped through a layer of pale cloud, and Italy opened below him. Not Rome. Not yet.

Home.

San Candido waited in the valley like a secret kept between mountains. The world there did not care very much about rankings or draw sheets or how cleanly he had hit his backhand down the line at 3-1 in the second set. The mountains cared about snowmelt and wind. The roads cared about early cyclists and old women walking dogs. The baker cared about whether the bread came out correctly.

And his parents cared whether he had eaten. That was, perhaps, the greatest luxury of all.

Jannik leaned his head against the airplane window, watching the landscape sharpen. His phone was in airplane mode. For once, nobody could reach him. Three days. Exactly three free days before Rome pulled him back into the machine: practice courts, cameras, expectations, the slow tightening of a home tournament around his shoulders.

Three days. He closed his eyes and whispered the words to himself, half in disbelief.

“Tre giorni.”

Three days to sleep. To breathe. To be a son and a brother before becoming Jannik Sinner again.

By the time he reached San Candido, the morning had turned bright and clean. The air had that particular Alpine freshness that always surprised him after traveling, as though every breath had edges. Madrid had smelled of clay, sweat, sunscreen, and late-spring dust. San Candido smelled of pine, wet stone, coffee, and home.

His taxi turned onto the familiar road, and before the car had fully stopped, the front door opened.

Siglinde stood there with one hand pressed to her chest, smiling before she even stepped outside. Johann appeared behind her, broader, quieter, wiping his hands on a towel even though Jannik knew he had probably washed them three times already.

His mother came down the steps first.

“Jannik.”

It was not the way reporters said his name. Not like an announcement. Not like a headline. Just Jannik.

He barely had time to put down his bag before she wrapped her arms around him. She held him tightly and for a moment, he was taller than her and younger than himself at the same time, all the years collapsing into the simple fact of being welcomed.

“Mamma,” he said softly, closing his eyes.

“You are too thin.”

He laughed against her shoulder. “I won a tournament yesterday.”

“And did they feed you after?”

“Yes.”

“Properly?”

He hesitated. Siglinde pulled back and looked at him.

Jannik smiled. “Not like papà.”

“That is the correct answer,” Johann said from the doorway.

His father came down the steps and hugged him with both arms, firm and warm. Johann did not speak much when emotion could be handled with a gesture. He patted Jannik’s back twice, then held him by the shoulders and looked at his face, as if checking whether victory had left any bruises.

“You look tired,” he said.

“I am a little tired.”

“A little,” Siglinde repeated, unconvinced.

“I slept on the plane.”

“That does not count,” Johann said.

From inside the house came another voice.

“Does winning Madrid also make you forget how doors work, or are we all staying outside for the ceremony?”

Jannik turned and saw Mark leaning against the hallway wall, arms crossed, hair messy, expression amused. For a second, Jannik only looked at him. Then he grinned.

“Ciao, Mark.”

“Ciao, champion.” Mark pushed himself away from the wall and came outside. “Do I bow? Is that required now?”

“Yes,” Jannik said. “But only if you do it properly.”

Mark bowed so dramatically that Siglinde clicked her tongue.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m trying to respect greatness.”

“You can respect greatness by taking his bag,” Johann said.

Mark straightened, took the suitcase handle, and gave Jannik a look.

“See? This is why I never win Madrid. Too many responsibilities at home.”

Jannik laughed, and the sound surprised him by how easy it was. Not polite, not measured for a microphone, not squeezed between obligations. Just laughter.

Inside, the house was exactly as he needed it to be. The same wooden furniture. The same photographs. The same smell from the kitchen, rich and warm. Coffee, butter, toasted bread, eggs, something sweet, something with apples. His shoulders loosened before he had taken off his jacket.

Johann had prepared breakfast as if Jannik had returned from war.

The table was full: fresh bread with a crackling crust, butter curled on a small dish, speck sliced thin, cheese from a local producer, scrambled eggs with herbs, yogurt, berries, honey, warm apple strudel and coffee strong enough to wake a mountain.

Jannik stopped in the doorway.

“Papà.”

Johann shrugged. “You said you would arrive in the morning.”

“I said breakfast would be nice.”

“This is breakfast.”

Mark leaned close to Jannik. “He started yesterday.”

“I did not,” Johann said.

Siglinde gave her husband a look. “He started yesterday.”

Johann ignored this and pulled out a chair. “Sit.”

Jannik sat.

For the first few minutes, nobody asked about tennis. That was another gift. They passed food around the table. Siglinde poured coffee. Johann asked whether the flight had been smooth. Mark complained that the neighbor’s dog had learned to bark at six in the morning. Jannik ate slowly at first, then with growing appetite, as if each bite reminded his body that it was not required to be efficient.

“This is too good,” he said, cutting into the eggs.

Johann’s face remained neutral, but his eyes warmed. “Then eat more.”

“I am eating.”

“You are talking.”

Mark pointed his fork at him.

“You should know better. Around here, talking is only allowed after the second plate.”

Jannik reached for another piece of bread.

“Okay, okay.”

Only when his plate was half full again did Siglinde touch the edge of the Madrid trophy subject.

“We watched everything,” she said.

Jannik lowered his eyes, smiling slightly. “Everything?”

“Everything. Even the ceremony.”

Mark groaned. “Including the part where you gave the speech and tried to sound relaxed.”

“I was relaxed.”

“No, you were doing your press-conference face.”

Jannik frowned. “My what?”

Mark leaned back and imitated him badly, lowering his voice.

“‘Yeah, for sure, it was a very tough match, no? I tried to stay focused point by point.’”

Siglinde laughed despite herself. Jannik threw a napkin at him.

“I do not sound like that.”

“You absolutely sound like that,” Mark said. “Especially when you are trying not to smile.”

Johann sliced more bread. “You played well.”

That quieted the table a little. Coming from his father, the words were simple, but they carried weight. Johann was not someone who decorated sentences. If he said a thing, he meant it plainly.

Jannik looked at him. “Thank you.”

“You looked calm,” Johann added. “Even when he pushed in the first games.”

“I felt good,” Jannik said. “The ball was coming clean. I saw things early.”

“And your serve?” Mark asked, because brothers did not allow too much seriousness to last.

“My serve was okay.”

“Okay,” Mark repeated. “He wins Madrid 6-1, 6-2 and says the serve was okay.”

“It can be better.”

“It can always be better with you.”

Jannik smiled but did not deny it. Siglinde watched him over her coffee cup.

“And you? Not the tennis. You.”

The question landed differently. It did not ask for statistics. It did not ask for recovery reports or tactical satisfaction. It went straight through the noise. Jannik sat back. Outside, sunlight moved across the windowsill. The mountains were visible beyond the glass, still holding traces of white near the peaks.

“I’m happy,” he said.

Siglinde waited.

“And tired,” he added.

Johann waited too.

Jannik rubbed his thumb over the handle of his coffee cup.

“It was a lot. Madrid was good, but every day there is something. Practice, match, recovery, physio, press. You finish one thing and already someone is telling you the next schedule. Then you win, and it is beautiful, but also...” He searched for the word. “Loud.”

“Even when it is over,” Johann said.

“Especially when it is over.”

Mark’s teasing expression softened. “So Rome is already in your head?”

“A little.”

“A little,” Mark said, but this time gently.

Jannik exhaled. “Rome is different.”

Of course, it was different.

Rome meant Italy. Italy meant love, and love meant pressure. It meant people shouting his name from the practice courts. It meant children wearing orange wigs, grown men asking for photographs while he was walking to lunch, reporters describing every match like a national event. It meant pride. It meant expectation. It meant the Foro Italico with its statues and heat and history, where every step felt like it belonged not only to him.

“I want to do well there,” Jannik said. “But I also want to arrive with some space in my head.”

“Then take the space,” Siglinde said.

He smiled. “That is why I am here.”

“Good,” Johann said. “Then after breakfast, you rest.”

Mark snorted.

“He won’t rest. He’ll check his phone, think about returns and then pretend he is resting.”

“I can rest.”

Mark looked at him. Jannik looked back. Siglinde stood and began clearing plates.

“Mark, take him outside before he starts answering messages.”

“I have been assigned a mission,” Mark said. “Come on. Walk.”

“I just arrived.”

“Exactly. Before the tennis people realize where you are.”

Jannik glanced at his mother.

“Do I have a choice?”

“No,” she said, taking his plate. “But wear a jacket.”

It was astonishing, Jannik thought twenty minutes later, how quickly a person could move from stadium lights to a mountain path.

He and Mark walked side by side along a trail that curved away from the village and toward the trees. The air was cool but not cold. The kind of cool that touched the skin awake. Birds moved invisibly among the branches. Somewhere in the distance, cowbells sounded faintly, patient and irregular.

Jannik wore a dark jacket and a cap pulled low. Not because he expected paparazzi in San Candido, but because habit followed him everywhere. Mark wore an old fleece and walked with his hands in his pockets, looking like he had no intention of matching an athlete’s pace.

“Slow down,” Mark said after five minutes.

“I am walking normally.”

“For you. Some of us did not just spend two weeks running around Madrid.”

Jannik shortened his stride. “Sorry.”

They walked in silence for a while. It was a good silence, built from years rather than awkwardness. With Mark, he did not need to perform. He did not need to explain why he sometimes disappeared into himself. Mark had known him before all the rankings, before the interviews in three languages, before the orange hair became a symbol. He had known him when Jannik was just a kid who wanted to hit another ball, then another, then another.

The path rose gently. The village fell behind them. Wooden houses stood with flower boxes under the windows. Beyond them, the mountains lifted into the sky, clear and severe and beautiful in a way that made human noise seem temporary.

“So,” Mark said at last, “Madrid.”

Jannik looked over. “You watched.”

“I watched. I also listened to three different commentators explain your forehand like it was a religious event.”

Jannik laughed. “Was it?”

“At 4-1 in the first set, maybe.”

“It felt good.”

“You looked like you were in control from the beginning.”

“Not from the beginning. In the first two games, I needed to understand his serve. The conditions were different than practice. The ball was jumping, but not as much as I expected. Once I found the rhythm, I could pressure him.”

Mark nodded as if receiving highly classified information.

“So you did the thing where you look calm and make the other person suffer quietly.”

“That is not my tactic.”

“That is exactly your tactic.”

“No. My tactic is to play my game.”

“And make the other person suffer quietly.”

Jannik shook his head, smiling. Mark kicked a small stone off the path.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“The match?”

“The win.”

Jannik did not answer immediately. That was the problem with simple questions. They often required the most honest answers.

“Yes,” he said. “On court, yes. After match point, yes. But then it goes fast. Trophy, photos, interviews, team, messages. You feel happy, but also you feel like the moment is not yours alone.”

Mark glanced at him. “Is that bad?”

“No. It is part of it. People support me. I know that. I am lucky.” He paused. “But sometimes I miss when happiness was just happiness. Not something to share immediately with everyone.”

Mark was quiet for several steps.

Then he said, “You know you can turn off the phone.”

“I did. On the plane.”

“Heroic.”

“For almost two hours.”

“Unbelievable discipline.”

Jannik laughed again, but the laughter faded into a breath.

“I’m serious. These three days, I need them.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to think too much about Rome.”

“You already are.”

“Yes.”

“Then talk about it.”

Jannik looked toward the mountains. The peaks were bright against the sky. He could feel his legs, the pleasant heaviness after tournament weeks. Not injury. Not pain. Just accumulated effort.

“Rome is difficult because everyone wants something,” he said. “They want me to win, of course. They want emotion. They want me to say the right thing. They want time. Autographs. Pictures. Even when people are kind, it can feel like...like I am being pulled in many directions.”

“And what do you want?”

“To play well.”

“That is the tennis answer.”

Jannik smiled faintly. “To feel free on court.”

“That sounds closer.”

“And to enjoy it. I want to enjoy playing in Italy. Sometimes I am so focused on managing everything that I forget it is special.”

Mark nodded. “Physically?”

“I’m okay.”

“Jannik.”

“I am.”

“The full answer.”

He sighed. “The hip is fine. The legs are tired but normal. Shoulder good. Back okay. I need sleep, some treatment, light movement. Nothing serious.”

“And mentally?”

Jannik made a face. “You sound like the team.”

“I am cheaper.”

“You are more annoying.”

“Also true. Mentally?”

They reached a bend in the trail where the trees opened. Below them, San Candido lay in the valley, small and orderly, roofs shining under the sun. The church tower rose like a marker from another life. Jannik stopped for a moment.

“Mentally I am...” He inhaled slowly. “Full.”

Mark leaned on the wooden fence beside the path.

“Full?”

“Yes. Not empty. Not bad. Just full. Too many points, too many conversations, too many plans. Even good things take space.”

“That makes sense.”

Jannik looked surprised. “No joke?”

“I’m saving them.”

“For what?”

“For when you become dramatic.”

“I am not dramatic.”

Mark gave him a long look.

Jannik rolled his eyes. “Okay. Maybe sometimes.”

They continued walking.

The trail narrowed between pines. The ground was soft with needles. Jannik let his attention drift to small things: the clean snap of twigs underfoot, the smell of resin, the way sunlight fell in broken gold patches. It had been months since he had walked without a purpose measured by performance. Usually, movement meant preparation. Strength. Recovery. Activation. Today, walking was just walking.

After a while, Mark said, “Do you ever wish nobody knew you?”

Jannik considered this. “Sometimes.”

“Really?”

“Not in a serious way. I love what I do. I know everything comes together. But sometimes I think it would be nice to sit somewhere without people watching how I sit.”

Mark smiled. “You sit very professionally.”

“Shut up.”

“I saw a photo once. You were eating pasta and looked like you were preparing for a tiebreak.”

“That was not my fault. The pasta was hot.”

“Very tactical chewing.”

Jannik shoved him lightly with his shoulder.

Mark stumbled half a step with exaggerated offense. “Careful. You need me alive. I am your mental coach today.”

“You are terrible at it.”

“I got you to laugh four times already.”

“That is true.”

“So my methods are working.”

The path began to slope downward, looping toward home. A breeze moved through the trees. Jannik felt some inner knot loosen, not completely, but enough that breathing became easier. There was something about speaking with someone who did not need him to be impressive. Mark did not care if his explanations were polished. He did not ask questions for headlines. He did not treat fatigue like weakness or victory like proof that fatigue should disappear.

“Do you remember,” Mark said, “when you were little and you lost that junior match in Bolzano?”

Jannik groaned. “Why?”

“You refused to speak for the whole drive home.”

“I remember.”

“You stared out the window like your life was finished.”

“I was nine.”

“And papà asked if you wanted pizza and you said, ‘Pizza cannot help me now.’”

Jannik burst out laughing. “I did not say that.”

“You absolutely said that.”

“I said maybe something like that.”

“You were very tragic.”

“I hated losing.”

“You still hate losing.”

“Yes, but now I hide it better.”

Mark looked at him sideways. “Do you?”

Jannik smiled. “Sometimes.”

They emerged from the trees onto a wider path. The sun was higher now, warming the road. A cyclist passed and nodded without slowing. For a few minutes, they walked in comfortable quiet again.

Then Jannik’s phone buzzed. He had almost forgotten it existed. The sound felt strangely loud in the open air.

Mark looked at his pocket. “The tennis people found you.”

Jannik took out his phone. Notifications covered the screen. He ignored most of them, but one message sat near the top.

Carlos.

He stopped walking. Mark took two more steps before noticing.

“What?”

Jannik did not answer. He opened the message.

Carlos: Are you in Rome yet?

A simple question. Nothing unusual. Players asked each other these things all the time. Travel schedules. Practice plans. Dinner maybe. Training. Logistics. Normal. Absolutely normal. So why did he feel suddenly warmer?

Mark turned back, watching him. “Who is it?”

“No one.”

Mark’s eyebrows rose. “No one made you stop walking?”

Jannik typed, deleted, typed again.

Jannik: Not yet. I’m in San Candido for a few days.

He stared at the message before sending it, then pressed the button. Carlos replied almost immediately.

Carlos: Of course you are. Mountains after Madrid. Very Jannik.

Jannik smiled before he could stop himself. Mark saw it.

“Oh,” Mark said.

Jannik looked up. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Carlos: I arrive in Rome tomorrow. Thought maybe you were already there.

Jannik: I'll come later. Three days free.

Carlos: Three days? Luxury.

Jannik: Exactly.

A pause. Then:

Carlos: Then maybe I can arrive earlier in San Candido and you can be a tourist guide for me.

Jannik froze. The words rearranged themselves in his mind, though they remained exactly as they were.

Maybe I can arrive earlier in San Candido. You can be a tourist guide for me.

For a second, the mountains, the path, the air, even Mark beside him seemed to go slightly out of focus.

Mark leaned closer. “Interesting.”

Jannik angled the phone away. “Do not read.”

“I didn’t need to read. Your face read it for me.”

“My face is normal.”

“Your face is doing something historic.”

Jannik frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means whoever texted you just made Madrid champion Jannik Sinner forget how breathing works.”

“I am breathing.”

“Barely.”

Jannik looked down at the message again.

Carlos: I have never been there properly. Only seen photos. You always make it sound peaceful.

The typing bubble appeared, disappeared, appeared again.

Carlos: Unless you want to hide from everyone. Then I understand.

Jannik’s thumb hovered over the screen. What was he supposed to say?

Yes, come. No, don’t come. I want to hide from everyone, but apparently not you.

That last thought appeared so clearly that he almost dropped the phone. Mark made a small sound.

Jannik glared at him. “What?”

“You are smiling again.”

“I am not.”

“You are. It is small, but unfortunately, I am your brother, so I can see it.”

Jannik turned away, looking toward the village as if the roofs might provide an answer. Carlos in San Candido.

Carlos walking these paths, probably talking too loudly at first because silence made him restless. Carlos asking questions about every building, every mountain name, every local dish. Carlos laughing with his whole face. Carlos at their kitchen table, charming Siglinde within five minutes and complimenting Johann’s cooking so sincerely that Johann would pretend not to be pleased.

The image came too easily. That was the problem. He typed:

Jannik: You want to come here?

He regretted it immediately. Too obvious. Too surprised. Carlos replied:

Carlos: Why not? I can be a tourist. You can show me mountains instead of backhand drills.

Jannik stared.

Mark shifted beside him. “So?”

“So what?”

“So are you inviting him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who is it?”

Jannik hesitated. Mark’s grin widened.

“Ah.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to. It’s Carlos.”

Jannik looked at him too quickly. Mark pointed at him.

“Confirmed.”

“How did you-”

“Please. You only make that confused golden retriever face for about three people and one of them is mamma when she asks whether you packed enough socks.”

Jannik slipped the phone into his jacket pocket, then immediately took it out again when it buzzed.

Carlos: I promise not to make you practice.

Another message:

Carlos: Maybe only one mini tennis match with snowballs if there is snow.

Jannik laughed under his breath.

Mark put a hand over his heart. “Wow.”

“Stop.”

“I’ve seen less emotion from you after winning tournaments.”

“That is not true.”

“It is a little true.”

Jannik reread the messages. His mind, usually so clear under pressure, had become unhelpfully crowded. If this were a match, he would know the percentages. Crosscourt here. Serve wide there. Take time away. Move forward. But this was not a match, and Carlos was not standing across the net.

Carlos was asking to come to his home. Not the official version of him. Not Rome, not the locker room, not the tour. Home.

“I came here to rest,” Jannik said, though he was not sure whether he was speaking to Mark or himself.

“And would Carlos prevent that?”

Jannik opened his mouth, closed it, then looked down the road.

Mark laughed. “That is not a no.”

“It would be different.”

“Different can be good.”

“I have only three days.”

“Exactly.”

Jannik turned to him. “What does that mean?”

“It means you are acting like he asked to move into your room and reorganize your life. He asked if he could come early and see the mountains.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know enough.”

Jannik narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, you know enough?”

Mark leaned against the fence again, clearly enjoying himself.

“I know that when he messages you, you look like someone opened a window.”

“That is poetic and stupid.”

“Both can be true.”

Jannik looked at his phone again. Carlos had not sent anything more. The conversation waited, alive and unfinished.

“I don’t want to be rude,” Jannik said.

“To Carlos?”

“Yes.”

“Then don’t be.”

“I also don’t want him to think-”

He stopped. Mark waited, eyes bright with mischief.

Jannik looked away. “Nothing.”

“No, no. Continue. You don’t want him to think what?”

“Nothing.”

“That you want him to come?”

Jannik said nothing. Mark’s grin softened into something more perceptive.

“Maybe you do.”

Jannik’s first instinct was to deny it. Quickly. Automatically. Like returning a hard serve. But the denial did not come, and the absence of it seemed to ring louder than words. He looked toward the peaks.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Mark stepped closer, his voice gentler now.

“Jannik.”

“What?”

“You don’t need to solve your whole life on a walking path.”

“I am not solving my whole life.”

“You look like you are analyzing a fifth-set tiebreak.”

“It is just a message.”

“Exactly.”

Jannik exhaled and ran a hand through his hair under the cap.

“I have Rome.”

“Then tell him that.”

“Yes.”

“But that is not what you want to write.”

Jannik glanced at him.

Mark shrugged. “I am very wise today.”

“You are very annoying today.”

“Wisdom is often annoying.”

The phone felt warm in Jannik’s hand. He opened the conversation again.

Jannik: I’m not sure. I came here to switch off before Rome.

He watched the words. Honest. Safe. A little distant. Before he sent them, Mark leaned over and made a sound of disgust.

“What?”

“That sounds like your press-conference face wrote it.”

“It is clear.”

“It is boring.”

“I’m not trying to entertain him.”

“No, apparently you are trying to make him feel like he emailed your manager.”

Jannik frowned at the screen. “What would you write?”

“I would write the truth.”

“That is the truth.”

“Part of it.”

Jannik hated that Mark could do this. Be ridiculous for twenty minutes and then suddenly place one finger exactly on the bruise.

“What is the other part?” Jannik asked, too quietly.

Mark looked at him, and for once he did not joke.

“That you came here to switch off, yes. But you also smiled when he asked.”

Jannik swallowed. There it was: simple, unbearable, probably obvious to everyone except him.

“I smile with friends,” he said.

“Of course.”

“He is my friend.”

“I know.”

Mark’s tone was too careful. It made Jannik more nervous than teasing.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Say it.”

Mark lifted both hands. “I’m not saying anything.”

“You are saying many things with your face.”

“Good. Now you know how it feels.”

Jannik almost laughed, but it caught somewhere in his chest. The truth was that Carlos had always been easy and difficult at the same time.

Easy, because he brought warmth into rooms. Because conversations with him rarely needed structure. Because on court, they could be rivals with fire in their lungs and afterward Carlos would grin at him in the corridor like the battle belonged to another world. Difficult, because sometimes Carlos looked at him too directly. Because sometimes their jokes carried a strange second meaning that Jannik only understood hours later. Because sometimes, when Carlos touched his shoulder after a match or leaned close to say something nobody else could hear, Jannik felt his concentration scatter in a way no opponent had managed from the baseline.

He had called it friendship. It was friendship. But lately the word had begun to feel like a shirt that still fit but pulled at the seams. The phone buzzed again, though he had not answered yet.

Carlos: You don’t have to say yes. I know family time is important. Just thought I’d ask.

A second later:

Carlos: Also, I am a very good tourist. I ask many intelligent questions.

Jannik smiled again. Mark saw it again.

“Hopeless,” Mark said.

“I’m not hopeless.”

“You are absolutely hopeless. But in a quiet, disciplined way.”

Jannik ignored him and typed slowly.

Jannik: I came here to switch off before Rome.

He paused, then added:

Jannik: But maybe showing you the mountains is also switching off.

His thumb hovered. That was too much. Was it too much? Mark looked over his shoulder.

“Better.”

“It sounds-”

“Human?”

“Dangerous.”

Mark laughed. “Inviting someone to see mountains is not dangerous.”

“For you.”

“For anyone. Send it.”

Jannik hesitated one more second, then sent the message before he could overthink himself into deleting it. The response came fast.

Carlos: Really?

Jannik’s heart did something ridiculous.

Carlos: Can I come tomorrow morning? Only if it’s okay with your family.

Jannik looked at Mark. Mark bowed again, less dramatically this time.

“Tell him the tourist office opens at ten.”

Jannik pushed him away with one hand. He typed:

Jannik: I’ll ask them. But yes, I think tomorrow is okay.

Carlos: Perfect. I bring Spanish energy to the mountains.

Jannik: Please bring quiet Spanish energy.

Carlos: I don’t know this version.

Jannik laughed. Mark watched him for a moment, then began walking again toward home.

“Come on, tourist guide. We need to warn mamma and papà.”

Jannik followed, still looking at the screen.

Carlos: And congratulations again, by the way. Madrid was crazy. You played unbelievably.

Jannik’s smile softened.

Jannik: Thank you. Means a lot.

Carlos: I mean it.

A pause.

Carlos: See you tomorrow, Jannik.

He stared at the last line longer than necessary. See you tomorrow, Jannik. Not in Rome. Not in a stadium. Not across a net. Here. He put the phone away.

Mark was several steps ahead now, hands in pockets, whistling badly.

Jannik caught up. “Do not make this a thing.”

Mark looked offended. “Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“I would never.”

“You already are.”

“I am simply observing my younger brother’s emotional development.”

“I am not emotionally developing.”

“That is exactly what someone emotionally developing would say.”

Jannik shook his head. “You are impossible.”

“And yet you need me.”

“For what?”

“To explain to you that when someone asks to spend one of your three free days with you, and your first reaction is panic followed by smiling at your phone like an idiot, maybe something is happening.”

Jannik’s ears warmed. “You don’t know that.”

“I know you.”

“That is different.”

“Yes,” Mark said. “That is why I know.”

They walked the last stretch toward the house. The roof came into view first, then the windows, then the faint movement of Siglinde inside the kitchen. Smoke curled from a chimney nearby. The village was quiet in the late morning light.

Jannik felt strange. Not unhappy. Not anxious exactly. More like he had stepped onto unfamiliar clay and had not yet understood the bounce.

“I don’t want things to become complicated,” he said.

Mark slowed. “Things are always complicated.”

“That is not helpful.”

“It is true. Tennis is complicated. Family is complicated. Wanting anything is complicated.” He glanced at him. “But not everything complicated is bad.”

Jannik absorbed that in silence. At the gate, Mark stopped and turned to face him.

“One question,” he said.

Jannik sighed. “What?”

“When you imagined him here just now, before you answered, did it feel like losing rest or gaining something?”

Jannik looked past him, toward the mountains, then toward the house, then down at the gravel beneath his shoes.

He thought of Carlos laughing too loudly on the path. Carlos trying Johann’s breakfast and asking for seconds. Carlos looking up at the Dolomites with that open wonder he never bothered to hide. Carlos, beside him somewhere quiet, not as a rival, not as a headline, but as himself.

“It felt...” Jannik began.

Mark waited.

Jannik’s voice lowered. “It felt nice.”

Mark’s expression changed, not into triumph, but into something almost tender.

“Well,” he said, “there you go.”

Jannik looked at him sharply. “Do not say anything to mamma.”

“I won’t.”

“Or papà.”

“I won’t.”

“Or Carlos.”

Mark grinned. “Ah, so there is something to say?”

Jannik groaned and pushed open the gate. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No,” Jannik admitted, walking toward the door. “But I might if you embarrass me tomorrow.”

Mark followed him, laughing. “Tomorrow? I would never wait that long.”

Inside, Siglinde looked up from the kitchen as they entered.

“You were gone a while,” she said.

“We walked,” Jannik said.

Mark removed his shoes. “And we had a major development.”

Jannik turned. “Mark.”

Siglinde’s eyes moved between them immediately. “What development?”

“Nothing,” Jannik said quickly.

Mark smiled like a man holding fireworks behind his back.

“We may have a guest tomorrow.”

Johann appeared from the pantry. “A guest?”

Jannik shot Mark a warning look, then faced his parents. Suddenly, he felt twelve years old.

“Carlos might come,” he said. “For one day. Maybe. He arrives in Rome tomorrow, but he asked if he could come here first. To see San Candido. The mountains.”

“Carlos Alcaraz?” Siglinde asked.

Jannik nodded. Johann considered this in silence.

Mark whispered, “Spanish energy.”

Jannik elbowed him.

Siglinde smiled. “Of course he can come.”

“Only if it’s not a problem,” Jannik said. “I know I came here to be with family.”

“Jannik,” his mother said, with the patience of someone who had known him since before he could pronounce worry. “If you want your friend here, he is welcome.”

Friend. The word settled into the kitchen. Mark coughed. Jannik did not look at him.

Johann crossed his arms. “Does he eat well?”

Jannik blinked. “What?”

“Carlos. Does he eat well?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Good,” Johann said. “Then I cook.”

Mark leaned close to Jannik and murmured, “Careful. Papà is already trying to win him over.”

“Stop,” Jannik muttered.

Siglinde wiped her hands on a towel. “He can stay for lunch?”

“I don’t know his plan yet.”

“Ask him.”

Jannik pulled out his phone, then paused when all three of them looked at him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Siglinde said, smiling.

Johann’s expression remained neutral, but there was something amused around his eyes.

Mark said, “Press-conference face, go.”

Jannik left the kitchen and walked into the hallway for privacy, which he absolutely did not receive, because Mark followed him and leaned against the wall.

“Go away.”

“No.”

Jannik typed:

Jannik: My family says it is okay. Papà asks if you eat well.

Carlos replied within seconds.

Carlos: I eat very well. Tell your father I am ready.

Jannik smiled.

Carlos: Also, thank you. Really. I know these days are important for you.

Jannik’s fingers slowed.

Jannik: It’s okay. I want you to see it.

He sent it before Mark could comment. But Mark did not tease this time. He only looked at him for a moment, then nodded once, as if approving something Jannik had not yet fully admitted.

From the kitchen, Johann called, “What does he not eat?”

Jannik called back, “I don’t know.”

Carlos sent another message.

Carlos: Anything I should bring?

Jannik glanced at Mark, who mouthed dramatically, “Your heart.”

Jannik nearly choked. He typed with great dignity:

Jannik: Warm clothes. And quiet energy.

Carlos: I told you I don’t have that.

Jannik: Then just warm clothes.

Carlos: Deal.

Jannik put the phone away and leaned back against the wall. The house hummed around him: his mother moving dishes, his father opening cabinets, Mark failing to hide his laughter. Outside, the mountains stood unchanged, patient witnesses to all human confusion.

Three days, Jannik thought. He had come home to empty his mind. Instead, something new had entered it. Not loudly. Not like Madrid. Not like Rome waiting with all its demands.

This was quieter. A message on a walking path. A smile his brother noticed. An invitation sent before fear could edit it. Maybe rest was not only silence. Maybe sometimes rest was known. Mark bumped his shoulder against Jannik’s.

“You okay?”

Jannik looked toward the kitchen, where Siglinde was already asking Johann whether they had enough coffee, and Johann was pretending not to plan an entire menu for Carlos Alcaraz. Then he looked at his brother.

“I think so.”

Mark smiled. “Physically or mentally?”

Jannik rolled his eyes, but this time he answered honestly.

“Both,” he said. “For now, both.”

Outside, San Candido shone under the clean mountain sun, and for the first time since Madrid, Jannik felt the next three days open before him not as a pause between tournaments, but as something alive. Something uncertain. Something he did not need to defeat.

Not yet. Tomorrow, Carlos would come. Today, Jannik was home.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── 

By evening, San Candido had folded itself into blue.

The bright, clean day had softened at the edges, the mountains turning from silver to violet as the sun slipped behind them. A coolness moved down into the valley, gentle but sure, creeping beneath doors and through the gaps in old wooden shutters. The village grew quieter with every passing minute. Cars became rare. Voices outside thinned into murmurs. Somewhere, a dog barked twice and then decided against further effort.

Inside the Sinner house, the warmth remained.

Dinner had been simple, or at least Johann had called it simple, which meant there had been soup, bread, roasted vegetables, some leftover speck, cheese and a cake Siglinde claimed she had only “put together quickly.” Jannik had eaten more than he expected to. The walk with Mark had given him an appetite, but it was not only that. Food at home entered him differently. It did not feel like fuel or recovery or something calculated around training blocks.

It felt like being looked after.

Now the kitchen was mostly clean. Siglinde had gone upstairs after insisting that Jannik not help with the last dishes. Mark had disappeared somewhere with his phone, probably to message friends or watch something stupid enough to require no concentration. Johann was moving quietly around the stove, preparing tea with the kind of attention he gave to everything involving heat.

Jannik sat at the kitchen table with his phone in front of him. He had ignored it for most of the afternoon. That had felt like a victory. Not Madrid-level victory, maybe, but still a victory.

Now he could no longer avoid the small glowing object waiting beside his hand. Carlos had sent him his travel information. A morning flight. Then a car. Arrival around late morning, if everything goes smoothly.

Carlos: I hope your mountains are ready for me.

Jannik had replied:

Jannik: They have survived worse.

Carlos: Impossible.

After that, he had laughed alone in the hallway like an idiot, which Mark had unfortunately heard. Since then, the reality of it had been growing in him. Carlos was coming. Not to Rome. Not to a tournament site. Not to some neutral restaurant where players and teams crossed paths.

Here. To San Candido. To his home.

Jannik unlocked his phone, opened the chat with Simone and stared at the empty text box.

It was not that he needed permission. He was not a child asking whether a friend could sleep over. He was twenty-four years old, a professional athlete, Madrid champion, world famous in places that made him uncomfortable to think about. Still, Simone and Darren were not just coaches who organized practice times. They were part of the structure of his life. They thought about his body, his schedule, his mind, sometimes before he did.

And Carlos was not exactly a normal friend arriving for coffee. Especially not now. Jannik typed:

Jannik: Hi. Small update. Carlos might come here tomorrow for the day before I go to Rome.

He stared at it. Too casual. He added:

Jannik: He is not playing Rome because of the wrist, I know. He asked if he could see San Candido. I said okay.

Now it sounded defensive. He deleted the second sentence and rewrote it.

Jannik: He asked if he could see the mountains before Rome. I said my family is okay with it.

Still strange. He sent it before he could make it worse. For a moment, nothing happened. He set the phone down. Picked it up again. Put it down.

Johann glanced over from the stove. “Everything all right?”

“Yes.”

“You look like you are waiting for a line call.”

Jannik smiled faintly. “Just messaging Simone.”

“About tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Johann poured hot water into a teapot. Steam rose in a pale cloud.

“And?”

“And nothing. I just told him.”

Johann nodded, not pushing. That was one of his father’s best qualities. He did not force doors open. He simply stood nearby until they opened on their own. Jannik’s phone buzzed.

Simone: Carlos?

Jannik stared. Then another message arrived.

Simone: Carlos Alcaraz?

Jannik sighed and typed:

Jannik: Yes.

The next buzz came almost instantly.

Simone: Call me.

Before Jannik could answer, another message appeared, this one from Darren in the group chat Simone had apparently already created.

Darren: Evening, mate. Simone says Carlos is visiting you tomorrow?

Jannik looked at the ceiling.

“Great,” he muttered.

Johann turned. “Problem?”

“No. They are being coaches.”

His phone rang. Video call. Simone.

A second later, Darren’s face appeared beside Simone’s, which meant Simone had not merely called but had assembled something like an emergency committee. Jannik considered not answering for half a second, then accepted.

Simone’s face filled the screen first. He was somewhere indoors, probably a hotel room or apartment, hair slightly messy, expression suspicious in a way that was not angry but highly alert. Darren appeared in a smaller window, wearing glasses, relaxed but watchful.

“Ciao,” Jannik said.

“Ciao,” Simone replied. “Explain.”

Jannik leaned back in his chair. “Good evening to you too.”

Darren smiled. “Congratulations again on Madrid before we interrogate you.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, bravo, very good,” Simone said, waving one hand. “Now explain.”

Jannik glanced toward his father, who had quietly taken his tea and moved toward the terrace door. The small kindness of privacy. Johann stepped outside, leaving Jannik alone in the kitchen with the video call and his own growing discomfort.

“There is not much to explain,” Jannik said. “Carlos messaged me today. Asked if I was in Rome. I said no, I am home for three days. He said he arrives in Italy tomorrow and asked if he could come earlier to see San Candido.”

Simone narrowed his eyes. “Earlier from where?”

“I don’t know. Spain, I think.”

“You think?”

“He sent travel details. Madrid to Italy. Then here.”

Darren leaned closer to his camera. “Jannik, isn’t he meant to be resting the wrist?”

“Yes.”

“And he’s not playing Rome.”

“Yes.”

“And he’s out of Roland Garros too, right?”

Jannik looked down at the table. “That is what he told people.”

Simone’s voice sharpened slightly, though not unkindly.

“So why is he coming to Italy?”

“That is what you asked already.”

“And you didn’t answer.”

“Because I don’t know.”

Simone stared at him. Darren’s eyebrows lifted. Jannik felt irritation rise, not because they were wrong to ask, but because he had no answer that sounded normal.

“He said he wanted to be a tourist.”

Simone repeated slowly, “A tourist.”

“Yes.”

“In San Candido.”

“Yes.”

“With you.”

Jannik frowned. “Why are you saying it like that?”

“Because it is not Rome. It is not Milan. It is not Florence. It is your home.”

Darren folded his arms, but his tone remained calm.

“Mate, we’re not saying it’s bad. We’re just trying to understand what’s happening. He’s injured. He should be managing travel, recovery, treatment. If he’s not playing the clay season, there’s no professional reason to be in Italy right now.”

Jannik looked away. Outside the window, the terrace reflected faintly in the glass. He could see the shadow of his father seated there, cup in hand, facing the mountains.

“He is allowed to travel,” Jannik said.

“Of course,” Darren said.

“And his team knows, I think.”

“You think,” Simone repeated.

Jannik exhaled. “I didn’t ask him for medical approval.”

“No one says you should ask for medical approval. But we need to know if this affects you.”

“It does not affect me.”

Simone tilted his head. “You are sure?”

“Yes.”

“Because you look affected.”

Jannik said nothing.

Darren’s expression softened slightly. “How are you feeling, Jannik?”

“About what?”

“About him coming.”

The kitchen seemed suddenly too quiet.

Jannik looked at the table, at the grain of the wood, at a small mark near his thumb that had been there for years. When he was younger, he had scratched it accidentally with a fork and thought his mother would be angry. She had only laughed and said a house was supposed to collect proof that people lived in it.

“I feel fine,” he said.

Simone made a sound. “That is your first answer when the real answer is complicated.”

Jannik looked up. “You both are impossible.”

“We are paid to be impossible,” Darren said.

“Not for this.”

“Actually, a little for this,” Simone said. “You have three free days. The point is to recover mentally and physically before Rome. If tomorrow becomes too much, then it matters.”

“It won’t.”

“Carlos is not exactly a quiet person.”

Despite himself, Jannik smiled.

Simone pointed at the screen. “See?”

“What?”

“That face.”

Jannik’s smile vanished. “What face?”

Darren chuckled softly. “You did light up a bit there, mate.”

“I did not light up.”

“You did,” Simone said. “Like someone opened curtains.”

Jannik stared at him, stunned by the echo of Mark’s words from earlier.

“Why is everyone saying poetic things today?”

“Who is everyone?” Darren asked.

“Nothing.”

Simone’s eyes became sharper. “Mark said something?”

“Mark says many things. Most of them useless.”

“But not this.”

Jannik rubbed his forehead. “Can we talk about tennis?”

“No,” Simone and Darren said at the same time.

That made Jannik laugh, though he tried to hide it by leaning away from the screen.

Darren smiled. “Listen. We know Carlos. We like Carlos. He’s a good guy. This isn’t about that.”

“I know.”

“And you’ve had a huge week,” Darren continued. “Winning Madrid like that takes energy, even when the score is clean. Sometimes after a big win, your emotions don’t land immediately. They look for somewhere to go.”

Jannik looked at him carefully. “What does that mean?”

“It means be aware of yourself.”

“That sounds like therapist language.”

“It is coach language with better lighting.”

Simone leaned closer. “What did he write exactly?”

Jannik hesitated.

“Jannik,” Simone said.

“He asked if I was in Rome yet. I said no. He said maybe he could arrive earlier and I could be a tourist guide.”

Simone blinked. Darren pressed his lips together, clearly trying not to smile.

“What?” Jannik demanded.

“Nothing,” Darren said.

Simone was less disciplined. “Tourist guide.”

“Yes. Why is that funny?”

“It is not funny.”

“You are smiling.”

“I smile because life is interesting.”

Jannik groaned. “This was a mistake.”

“No, no,” Simone said quickly. “Okay. Serious. What do you want from tomorrow?”

The question was so direct that Jannik had no prepared defense.

“What do I want?”

“Yes. Not what Carlos wants. Not what we think. You. What do you want?”

“I want...” He stopped.

He wanted Carlos to come. There it was. Not tactical. Not rationalized. Not wrapped in neutral language. He wanted Carlos to come. That did not mean he understood why. It did not mean he had decided anything. It did not mean Mark was right, or Simone, or Darren, or anyone reading too much into a smile. But the want existed.

He looked back at the screen. “I want to have a normal day.”

Darren’s expression became warmer. “With him?”

Jannik’s voice was quiet. “Yes.”

Simone sat back. For a few seconds, neither coach spoke. That was almost worse than an interrogation.

Finally, Simone said, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes. Okay. Then have a normal day.”

Jannik blinked. “That is all?”

“No,” Simone said. “There are rules.”

“Of course.”

“Number one: no tennis.”

Jannik gave him a look. “He has a wrist injury. I know.”

“No tennis.”

“I said I know.”

“No mini tennis, no joking around, no ‘just ten minutes,’ no snowball tennis, no reaction games, no forehand demonstration with a spoon in the kitchen.”

Jannik stared. “A spoon?”

“I know athletes. Everything becomes practice.”

Darren nodded. “He’s right. No tennis.”

“Fine. No tennis.”

“Number two,” Simone said. “You still do your recovery.”

“I will.”

“Stretching, treatment, sleep.”

“Yes.”

“Number three: if tomorrow becomes tiring, you say so.”

Jannik frowned. “To Carlos?”

“To Carlos, to your family, to us, to the mountains. I don’t care. You don’t perform being relaxed.”

That sentence stayed in the kitchen longer than the others. You don’t perform being relaxed. Jannik lowered his eyes.

Darren noticed. “That one hit, didn’t it?”

“I am not performing.”

“Sometimes you are,” Simone said, but gently now. “Not because you are fake. Because you are responsible. You think that if someone comes to your home, you must make everything good for them. But Carlos asked to come, knowing this is your rest time. He can accept the real version.”

“The real version is tired,” Jannik said.

“Then let him meet tired Jannik,” Darren replied. “He probably already knows him.”

Jannik did not answer.

Maybe Carlos did. Maybe that was part of the problem. Carlos had seen him in locker rooms after long matches, drained and quiet. Carlos had seen him after losses, after wins, after press conferences, after battles that left both of them half-empty. There were not many players who understood exactly what the tour took from a person. Carlos did.

But home was different. Home was not tired athlete Jannik.

Home was son Jannik. Brother Jannik. The version that took off his shoes in the hallway because his mother would complain. The version that knew which cabinet held the good mugs. The version whose father noticed when he was nervous before he noticed it himself.

Bringing Carlos into that space felt strangely intimate.

Simone’s voice pulled him back. “Jannik?”

“Yes?”

“You disappeared.”

“I’m here.”

“We are not trying to make you nervous.”

“Too late.”

Darren smiled sympathetically. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“Is Carlos coming alone?” Simone asked.

“I think so.”

“You think?”

Jannik looked at him. “You want me to ask if he has a chaperone?”

“I want to understand if half his team appears at your parents’ house tomorrow.”

“No. He said he comes alone. Maybe driver only.”

Darren nodded. “All right.”

Simone sighed. “His wrist. Do you know how bad it is?”

Jannik shook his head. “Only what he said publicly. Pain with acceleration. Needs rest. He was frustrated.”

“Of course he is,” Darren said. “Missing Rome and Roland Garros hurts.”

Jannik looked down. “Yes.”

He could imagine it too well. Carlos sitting somewhere in Spain, racket out of reach, the calendar turning cruel. For players like them, forced rest was not freedom. It was a cage with soft walls. People said, “Enjoy the break,” as if the mind could enjoy being separated from its purpose.

Maybe that was why Carlos wanted to come. Maybe he did not want to sit at home being injured, Carlos. Maybe he wanted, for one day, to be a tourist. To be himself without the racket. The thought made Jannik’s chest ache.

Darren seemed to read part of it. “Maybe he needs a normal day too.”

Jannik looked at him.

“That does not mean you have to provide it,” Darren added. “But maybe that’s all this is. Two friends before Rome. One resting from a win, one resting from an injury.”

Simone watched Jannik’s face carefully. “And maybe not all this has to be understood tonight.”

Jannik huffed a small laugh. “Now you sound like Mark.”

“I am offended,” Simone said. “I am much wiser than Mark.”

“You have never met Mark properly.”

“I don’t need to. I know brothers.”

Darren leaned back. “What time does Carlos arrive?”

“Late morning.”

“Good. Sleep in.”

“My father is cooking lunch.”

“For Carlos?”

“For everyone.”

Simone laughed. “Already? Carlos has no idea what he has started.”

“He asked if Carlos eats well.”

Darren grinned. “That is Johann’s love language, then.”

Jannik paused. “His what?”

Simone waved a hand. “Never mind.”

Darren looked amused. “Just let your dad cook.”

“He will anyway.”

“Good,” Darren said. “Then tomorrow, walk, eat, talk. No tennis. No unnecessary schedule. No trying to make it perfect.”

Jannik nodded slowly.

Simone’s tone softened further. “And Jannik?”

“Yes?”

“If you are nervous, that is not automatically a problem.”

Jannik’s throat tightened unexpectedly.

“I’m not nervous,” he said, because apparently some habits were stronger than honesty.

Simone looked at him for a long moment. “Okay.”

Darren smiled. “Convincing.”

Jannik shook his head. “I regret answering this call.”

“No, you don’t,” Darren said.

He did not. That was the annoying part.

The call lasted another ten minutes. They briefly talked about recovery, Rome arrival plans, practice possibilities once he reached the tournament site, and how much he should do during the three-day break. Simone warned him again not to hit tennis balls with Carlos. Darren warned him not to answer too many media messages. Jannik promised both with varying degrees of sincerity.

At the end, Simone raised a finger.

“One more thing.”

Jannik sighed. “What?”

“Tomorrow, enjoy.”

The word was simple, but coming from Simone, it sounded almost like an instruction.

Jannik smiled faintly. “I’ll try.”

“No. Not try like practice. Just enjoy.”

Darren nodded. “And give Carlos our best. Tell him we hope the wrist heals properly.”

“I will.”

“And tell him,” Simone added, “if he makes you play tennis, I will blame him.”

Jannik laughed. “I will tell him.”

“Goodnight, Jannik.”

“Goodnight.”

The screen went dark. The kitchen returned.

For a moment, Jannik sat still with the phone in his hand. The silence after video calls always felt strange, like stepping out of a bright room into dusk. He could still hear Simone’s voice in his head. Darren’s too.

What do you want from tomorrow? I want to have a normal day. With him? Yes. He placed the phone carefully on the table.

Outside, beyond the glass, Johann sat on the terrace. The old lamp near the door cast warm light across his shoulder. Steam rose from his tea in thin white threads. He had not gone far. He had given privacy, not distance.

Jannik stood. The terrace door opened with a soft wooden creak. Cool air slipped over his face immediately.

Johann did not turn at first. “Finished?”

“Yes.”

“Did they survive the news?”

“Barely.”

His father chuckled under his breath.

Jannik stepped onto the terrace and closed the door behind him. The boards were cool beneath his socks. He had forgotten his shoes, but he did not go back for them. The night smelled of damp earth and pine. Above the dark outline of the mountains, the sky was deepening toward black, with the first stars beginning to appear.

Johann sat at the small table near the railing, both hands around his mug. Another mug sat across from him, empty but waiting.

“I made you tea,” he said.

Jannik looked at the mug. Of course, he had.

“Thank you.”

He sat down. The chair creaked familiarly under him. Johann poured from the teapot, and the scent rose immediately: herbal, slightly bitter, something his father liked in the evenings because he claimed it “settled the day.”

Jannik took the mug and warmed his hands around it. For a while, neither of them spoke.

Down in the village, a few windows glowed. A car moved along a distant road, headlights cutting briefly through the dark before vanishing. The mountains were no longer scenery; at night they became a presence. Large, quiet, close.

Johann sipped his tea. “Your coaches are worried?”

“They are coaches.”

“So yes.”

Jannik smiled. “A little. They don’t understand why Carlos is coming.”

“Do you?”

The question was mild. Not suspicious. Not heavy. Still, Jannik looked into his tea as if the answer might be floating there.

“He wants to see the mountains.”

Johann nodded.

“And he is injured, so he cannot play Rome or Roland Garros. They think maybe he should be in Spain with his family.”

“Maybe he should.”

Jannik looked up. Johann’s eyes remained on the valley.

“Or maybe he needs something else.”

Jannik said nothing.

His father continued, “When someone is injured, everyone tells him what is best. Rest. Treatment. Patience. Family. Routine. But the person inside the injury also has wishes.”

Jannik watched him carefully.

Johann was not a doctor, not a coach, not a man who spoke often about professional sport. But he understood bodies that worked hard. He understood fatigue. He understood the importance of hands, wrists, shoulders, backs. A cook learned early that pain did not care whether service was finished.

“You think it is okay that he comes?” Jannik asked.

“I think he asked. You said yes. Your mother is happy to have a guest. I will cook.” Johann took another sip. “So yes, it is okay.”

Jannik leaned back. The night air touched the side of his face. He tried to let that be enough. But his father was watching him now.

“You are nervous,” Johann said.

It was not a question. Jannik’s fingers tightened around the mug.

“Everyone keeps saying that.”

“Then maybe everyone sees something.”

“Or everyone is wrong.”

Johann’s mouth moved slightly. Almost a smile. “Possible.”

Jannik looked away. “I don’t know why I would be nervous.”

“That is not the same as not being nervous.”

The sentence was too precise. Jannik rubbed his thumb against the warm ceramic.

“It is just Carlos.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

Johann waited. Jannik sighed.

“He is my friend.”

“I know.”

“And he asked to come here. That is all.”

“Maybe.”

Jannik turned. “Papà.”

“What?”

“You are doing the same thing as Mark.”

Johann’s eyebrows lifted. “I hope not.”

Despite everything, Jannik laughed. The laughter eased something, but not enough. He took a sip of tea. It was hot and earthy and calming in a way he resented slightly.

Johann set his mug down. “I do not understand everything in your life.”

Jannik looked at him.

“I understand tennis less than people think,” his father continued. “I know when you play well. I know when you are tired. I know when you pretend not to be tired. But the details, the pressure, all the people around you, I do not know. This life is yours.”

Jannik listened quietly.

“But I know when my son is nervous at home,” Johann said. “That I understand.”

Something in Jannik’s chest shifted. At the table with Simone and Darren, nervousness had felt like exposure. Here, it felt less like an accusation and more like being covered with a blanket he had not asked for but needed.

“I don’t know the reason,” Jannik admitted.

Johann nodded. “That happens.”

“I should know.”

“Why?”

“Because it is me.”

His father looked amused. “You think people always understand themselves?”

Jannik did not answer. Johann gave a low chuckle.

“No. Most people understand the coffee machine better.”

Jannik smiled despite himself. “You understand everything in the kitchen.”

“Not everything. Sometimes bread does what it wants.”

“Bread?”

“Yes. You prepare it correctly, and still the weather changes, the flour behaves differently, the oven is stubborn. You learn to watch, not force.”

Jannik stared at him.

Johann lifted one shoulder. “Maybe people are similar.”

“That is very philosophical for tea.”

“I am tired. When I am tired, I become wise.”

“That explains Mark. He must be exhausted.”

Johann laughed softly, a rare full sound that warmed the terrace more than the lamp. They sat again in quiet.

Jannik thought of Carlos’s messages. The rhythm of them. The quick replies. The lightness. Beneath that, the injury. The fact that Carlos, who usually seemed made of motion, was being told to stop. No Rome. No Roland Garros. No clay-court roar in Paris, no sliding into corners, no fist pumps toward crowds that adored him.

What did it cost Carlos to ask? Maybe more than Jannik had considered.

Carlos was proud too. Different from Jannik, louder perhaps, more open, but proud. Asking to come to someone’s home while injured, outside the tournament flow, meant admitting a kind of need. Not directly. Carlos would disguise it as tourism, jokes, Spanish energy. But still.

He wanted to be somewhere else. He wanted to be with Jannik. The thought made Jannik’s stomach turn softly, not unpleasantly. Johann noticed the change in his face.

“You went far away,” he said.

“Sorry.”

“No need.”

Jannik hesitated, then said, “Simone and Darren asked why he isn’t in Spain.”

“And?”

“I said I didn’t know.”

“Do you think you know?”

Jannik looked at the dark mountains.

“No,” he said at first.

Then, after a long pause, “Maybe a little.”

Johann did not move.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be injured at home,” Jannik said slowly. “Maybe being with family is good, but also, everyone looks at you like you are broken. They mean well, but still. And if he comes here, maybe he can be something else for one day.”

“A tourist,” Johann said.

Jannik smiled faintly. “Yes.”

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“What can you be tomorrow?”

The question entered softly and spread. Jannik looked down at his tea.

Not champion. Not rival. Not Italy’s hope before Rome. Not the guy who had just beaten Zverev 6-1, 6-2 and was expected to carry that form into the Foro Italico. Not the athlete whose recovery mattered, whose schedule was monitored, whose words were analyzed.

Maybe he could be a guide. A son. A friend. Maybe that was what made him nervous. Not Carlos himself, but the possibility of being seen in a place where he had fewer walls.

“I don’t know,” Jannik said.

Johann accepted that answer. The terrace door opened behind them, and Mark stuck his head out.

“Are you two having a serious father-son mountain conversation?”

“Yes,” Jannik said.

“Should I leave?”

“Yes.”

Mark stepped fully onto the terrace anyway.

“Great. I came to ruin it.”

Johann looked at him. “What do you want?”

“Nothing. Mamma says if you stay outside too long, Jannik will get cold.”

“I am fine,” Jannik said.

Mark looked at his socked feet. “You are outside without shoes.”

Jannik looked down as if discovering this with surprise.

Johann sighed. “Go get slippers.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are an athlete. Your team will blame me if you catch a cold.”

“That is not how bodies work.”

Mark grinned. “Tell that to Mamma.”

Jannik stood reluctantly, went inside, grabbed slippers from the hallway and returned to find Mark sitting in his chair and drinking from his tea.

“Excuse me,” Jannik said.

Mark held up the mug. “Quality control.”

“That is mine.”

“It was yours.”

Johann stood. “I will make more.”

“No, papà, sit,” Jannik said. “I’ll get it.”

“You will not. You are resting.”

Mark looked delighted. “Champion is resting. I can get tea.”

Nobody moved. Then all three of them stood at once, which made them laugh in the doorway like idiots.

Siglinde called from upstairs, “What is happening?”

“Nothing!” all three answered, too quickly.

Mark looked at Jannik. “Very convincing.”

In the end, Johann made another pot because he did not trust anyone else to do it correctly, Mark brought out a tin of biscuits, and the serious father-son conversation dissolved into something easier. The terrace became a small island of lamplight in the mountain night. They sat around the table, three mugs steaming, crumbs collecting on a small plate.

After a while, Mark went back inside again, claiming he had better things to do than watch two quiet people drink tea slowly.

Jannik suspected he had only left because he had already caused enough damage for one evening. Johann opened the drawer of the terrace table and pulled out a deck of cards.

Jannik looked at them. “Really?”

“You are thinking too much.”

“So cards?”

“Yes.”

“What game?”

“Watten?”

Jannik smiled. “You want to beat me at Watten before bed?”

“I do not want to beat you. I will beat you.”

“Confident.”

Johann shuffled with practiced hands. The cards made a dry, familiar sound in the night. Jannik had heard that sound since childhood, at kitchen tables, in relatives’ homes, on slow evenings when weather trapped everyone inside. Tennis had taught him strategy, patience, reading opponents. But long before tennis, card games had taught him that his father’s silence could be dangerous.

Johann dealt. The first round began quietly. Jannik picked up his cards and studied them with exaggerated seriousness.

Johann watched him over the top of his own hand. “This is not Madrid.”

“I know.”

“You are making Madrid face.”

“There is no Madrid face.”

“There is.”

Jannik looked up. “Everyone has names for my faces today.”

“Because you have many.”

“I thought I was difficult to read.”

“To strangers.”

That silenced him for a second. Johann placed a card down.

Jannik looked at it. “Already aggressive.”

“Only a card.”

“That is what an aggressive player says.”

His father’s mouth twitched. “Play.”

Jannik played. For the next twenty minutes, the world became cards, tea and small insults. Johann won the first round easily.

“You were distracted,” he said.

“I had bad cards.”

“You were distracted.”

“I had terrible cards.”

Johann gathered them. “Excuses.”

Jannik leaned back, offended.

“I win Madrid and come home to be called excuse-maker.”

“In Madrid, maybe your cards were better.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It does if I win.”

They played again.

This time, Jannik focused more, partly out of pride, partly because the simple structure of the game helped. Cards had boundaries. Rules. Turns. You did not need to understand why your pulse changed when someone texted. You only needed to remember what had been played and decide what to risk.

He won the second round.

Johann nodded once. “Better.”

“Thank you, coach.”

“I am not your coach.”

“No, you are more difficult.”

“Good.”

Another round. Then another.

The night deepened. The village lights went out one by one. The tea cooled. The biscuits disappeared. Somewhere inside, floorboards creaked as Siglinde moved upstairs. Mark laughed faintly behind a closed door, probably at something on his phone.

Between rounds, Johann asked practical questions. What time would Carlos arrive? Did he need picking up? Did he eat meat? Should they make lunch heavier or lighter? Did he drink coffee? Would he stay for dinner? Jannik answered what he could and admitted what he could not.

“You do not know much,” Johann observed.

“I didn’t interrogate him.”

“You invited him.”

“He invited himself, technically.”

Johann looked at him.

Jannik corrected, “I said yes.”

“That is inviting.”

“Fine.”

“Ask tomorrow.”

“I will.”

Johann shuffled again. “Your mother will ask anyway.”

“That is true.”

“She likes feeding guests.”

“You do too.”

“I am a cook.”

“That is not the only reason.”

Johann did not deny it. They played another hand. Jannik lost because he misread his father’s card and Johann looked annoyingly satisfied.

“You are smiling,” Jannik said.

“I am allowed.”

“You enjoy beating your son?”

“Yes.”

“At least you are honest.”

Johann collected the cards slowly. “When you were little, you hated losing cards too.”

“I hated losing everything.”

“Yes. But with cards, you had to stay at the table.”

Jannik smiled. “I remember.”

“You would sit there, angry, but still playing.”

“I was learning.”

“You were suffering.”

“Both.”

The word suffering, spoken lightly, pulled his mind unexpectedly toward Carlos again. Not dramatic suffering. Not tragedy. Just the quieter frustration of being stopped. Of being unable to compete while others continued. Of watching Rome happen without him. Watching Roland Garros happen without him. Maybe seeing Jannik win Madrid had made it worse. Maybe better. Maybe both.

Johann saw the shift. “Carlos again?”

Jannik looked at him. “How do you do that?”

“You are not difficult to read tonight.”

“I must be tired.”

“Yes.”

That simple agreement made Jannik suddenly feel tired. It arrived not as a crash but as a slow wave moving through his shoulders, behind his eyes, down into his legs. The day had been gentle compared to Madrid, but travel tiredness had strange roots. It lived beneath other fatigue.

Johann began to gather the cards.

“One more?” Jannik asked.

His father looked at him. “You are tired.”

“You are tired too.”

“Yes.”

“So one more.”

Johann considered this, then dealt.

The final game was slower. Both of them played badly at times and accused each other of doing it on purpose. Jannik forgot what had been played. Johann misplaced a card and insisted it was part of the strategy. The cool air thickened around them, and Jannik pulled his jacket closer.

Halfway through the hand, his phone buzzed on the table. Both men looked at it. Jannik did not touch it. Johann said nothing. The phone buzzed again. Jannik turned it over, screen down.

Johann’s eyes flickered with approval, though he said only, “Good card.”

“You don’t know what I’m playing.”

“I know you need to play.”

Jannik placed a card down.

Johann studied it, then sighed. “Bad card.”

Jannik laughed.

“Too late,” he said.

They finished the round. Johann won by one point, which he accepted with quiet dignity and the deeply irritating calm of a man who had expected nothing else.

“Madrid champion loses at home,” Johann said.

“Breaking news.”

“I will tell your mother.”

“She already knows you cheat.”

Johann lifted his brows. “Careful.”

Jannik smiled and helped gather the cards. Their hands brushed once over the deck, his father’s rougher, warmer, steady. For reasons he did not fully understand, the contact made his throat tighten.

He thought suddenly of being a child at this same table, or one like it, sleepy but refusing to go to bed because the adults were still awake and he did not want the day to end. He thought of Johann lifting him under the arms and carrying him inside when stubbornness finally failed. He thought of mornings before tennis had become destiny, of school bags, skis, plates of food, his mother’s voice, Mark’s teasing.

Home was not one thing. It was thousands of small returns.

Johann put the deck back in the drawer. “Now bed.”

Jannik nodded. “Yes.”

Neither of them stood immediately. The night around them was full and quiet.

After a while, Johann said, “Tomorrow does not need to be perfect.”

Jannik looked at him. His father kept his eyes on the valley.

“You make many things perfect. Or you try. Training. Matches. Recovery. Words. But guests do not need to be perfect. Friends do not need to be perfect.”

Jannik swallowed. “I know.”

“Do you?”

He gave a small smile. “I’m trying.”

Johann nodded. “Good.”

Jannik hesitated, then asked, “Were you nervous when mamma first came here?”

Johann turned his head slowly. Jannik immediately regretted the question.

“You don’t have to answer.”

But Johann’s expression had changed. Not embarrassed, exactly. More like surprised by a door opening to an older room.

“Yes,” he said.

Jannik waited.

“Very nervous.”

“You?”

“Of course, me.”

“You seem impossible to make nervous.”

“That is because you were not there.”

Jannik smiled. “What happened?”

Johann leaned back in his chair, mug held loosely between his hands.

“She came for dinner with my family. I wanted everything right. Food, table, wine. I thought if anything went wrong, she would see I was not...” He paused, searching. “Enough.”

Jannik listened with sudden attention.

“And?”

“And my mother burned the potatoes.”

Jannik laughed softly.

Johann nodded, solemn. “Terrible. Completely black on one side. Smoke in the kitchen. Everyone talking at once. I was angry because I thought the evening was ruined.”

“What did mamma do?”

“She ate them.”

“No.”

“Yes. She cut off the black part and said the inside was good.”

Jannik smiled.

“Later, she told me she liked that my family was not trying to pretend.” Johann looked toward the house. “I had tried all day to show her something perfect. She liked the burned potatoes.”

The story settled between them, warm and absurd and unexpectedly relevant. Jannik looked down at his hands.

“Carlos is just coming for two days,” he said.

Johann’s voice was mild. “I know.”

“This is not like that.”

“I did not say it was.”

Jannik glanced at him. Johann’s face revealed almost nothing, but his eyes were too knowing.

Jannik sighed. “You and Mark are the same.”

“No. Mark talks more.”

“That is true.”

Johann stood, gathering the mugs. “Whatever the reason you are nervous, you do not need to know tonight.”

Jannik rose too. “That is also what everyone says.”

“Then listen.”

They went inside.

The kitchen lights seemed bright after the terrace. Johann rinsed the mugs while Jannik put the biscuit tin away. They moved around each other with familiar ease, no need to speak. In the hallway, the house felt ready for sleep. The air was warm, the stairs dim, the rooms holding the day’s last traces.

Jannik picked up his phone from the terrace table before closing the door. Only then did he check the message he had ignored.

Carlos: Boarding early tomorrow. I hope your father has not prepared too much food.

A second message:

Carlos: Actually, that is a lie. I hope he has.

Jannik smiled. Then, because he was tired enough to be honest, he replied:

Jannik: He has. Be ready.

Carlos: I am ready for everything except quiet energy.

Jannik: We know.

Carlos: We?

Jannik paused.

From the sink, Johann said without turning, “Tell him goodnight.”

Jannik looked up. “You are reading my mind now?”

“No. Your face.”

Jannik shook his head and typed:

Jannik: My family knows already.

Carlos: Should I be scared?

Jannik: Of Mark, yes.

Carlos: Noted.

Carlos: Goodnight, Jannik. Thank you again.

Jannik stared at the words. Goodnight, Jannik.

He typed:

Jannik: Goodnight, Carlos. Safe flight tomorrow.

Then he locked the phone.

Johann dried his hands. “All good?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

They turned off the kitchen lights one by one. Darkness filled the corners softly. At the foot of the stairs, Johann rested one hand on the railing and looked at his son.

“You sleep now.”

“I will.”

“Not messages until midnight.”

“I won’t.”

Johann looked unconvinced.

Jannik lifted his hands. “I promise.”

“Good.”

They climbed the stairs quietly. At the top, the hallway was dark except for a small lamp Siglinde always left on when Jannik was home. It made him feel young again in a way he never knew whether to resist or welcome.

Johann stopped outside his bedroom door.

“Buonanotte,” he said.

“Buonanotte, papà.”

For a moment, Jannik thought that was all. Then Johann stepped closer and placed a hand briefly on the back of his neck, the way he had when Jannik was a boy, steady and wordless.

“Tomorrow,” his father said, “just be here.”

Jannik nodded.

“I’ll try.”

Johann gave him a look. Jannik corrected himself.

“I will.”

His father smiled faintly.

“Better.”

Then he went into his room.

Jannik stood alone in the hallway for a few seconds, listening to the old house settle. A floorboard clicked somewhere. Wind moved softly against the windows. From Mark’s room came the low murmur of a video or message. Behind another door, his parents moved quietly through their own bedtime routine.

He entered his room.

It was exactly as he had left it and not at all the same, because every return home carried the distance of leaving. The bed was made. His bag sat near the wardrobe, half unpacked. A jacket hung over the chair. Through the window, the mountains were barely visible, large shapes against a darker sky.

Jannik changed slowly, brushed his teeth, and set his phone on the bedside table.

He did not pick it up again. That, too, was a victory.

When he lay down, his body recognized the mattress before his mind did. A deep tiredness spread through him, heavier now, no longer held back by conversation and tea. He stared at the ceiling, watching faint shadows move whenever a car passed far below.

Tomorrow, Carlos would arrive. His coaches did not understand exactly why. Mark probably understood too much. Jannik understood almost nothing.

But under the confusion, beneath the nerves and the questions and the strange flutter that came when he imagined Carlos stepping out of a car in front of the house, there was something calmer.

Not certainty. Not yet. Only this: he wanted tomorrow to happen.

He wanted Carlos to see the mountains. To sit at the table. To laugh with Mark, though hopefully not too much. To taste Johann’s food. To receive Siglinde’s warmth. To walk beside him somewhere quiet where neither of them had to be champion or injured player or rival or headline.

Just themselves. Maybe that was dangerous. Maybe it was simple. Maybe it was both. Jannik turned onto his side and pulled the blanket higher.

Outside, San Candido slept beneath the dark shape of the Dolomites. The house breathed around him, old wood and quiet rooms and family nearby. For the first time all evening, his mind did not chase answers.

It let the questions sit. It let tomorrow come closer. And slowly, with the taste of herbal tea still faint on his tongue and the memory of cards between him and his father, Jannik closed his eyes. He slept.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── 

Jannik woke to the sound of battle. At first, he did not open his eyes. He lay still beneath the blanket, face half-buried in the pillow, listening.

There was the low thud of cabinet doors opening and closing downstairs. The sharp rhythm of a knife against a cutting board. Running water. His mother’s voice, calm but precise, saying something he could not understand through the floor. His father’s lower reply. Then another cabinet. Then the unmistakable clatter of pans.

Jannik opened one eye. For a moment, he forgot everything.

He forgot Madrid. Forgot Rome waiting somewhere beyond the mountains. Forgot Carlos’s messages and Simone’s suspicious face on the video call. He was only home, waking in his childhood room to the sound of his parents moving through the morning.

Then he remembered. Carlos was coming.

He turned his head toward the bedside table. His phone lay where he had left it the night before, face down, obedient for once. Pale morning light slipped around the curtains. The room was cool, but not cold. Outside, a bird called sharply, then another answered.

From downstairs came Johann’s voice.

“No, not that pot. The bigger one.”

Siglinde replied, “Johann, there are only four of us and Carlos.”

“Five people eat.”

“Five people do not eat for twelve.”

A pause.

Then Johann said, with great dignity, “He is an athlete.”

Jannik closed his eyes again and smiled into the pillow. This was already worse than he had imagined.

He sat up slowly, his hair flattened on one side, his body still heavy with sleep. For the first time in days, he felt as if he had actually rested. Not perfectly. His legs still carried the echo of Madrid, and his shoulders had that slight tournament stiffness that always took time to leave. But his head felt clearer, or at least less crowded.

Until another crash came from downstairs. Jannik froze.

Then Mark’s voice shouted from somewhere in the house, “Is the guest a tennis player or an entire football team?”

Jannik laughed silently, rubbing both hands over his face. He got out of bed, pulled on a hoodie over his T-shirt, and stepped into the hallway. The smell hit him before he reached the stairs.

Onion. Butter. Fresh bread warming. Coffee. Herbs. Something roasting. Something sweet. Something rich and deep that probably involved meat and several hours of his father’s attention. It was not even late morning yet, and the house already smelled like a restaurant preparing for a wedding.

Mark appeared from the bathroom doorway at the same time, toothbrush in hand, hair sticking up wildly. He looked at Jannik. Jannik looked at him.

From downstairs, Johann said, “Mark, are you awake?”

Mark leaned over the railing. “No.”

“Then wake up.”

“Why? Am I also being cooked?”

Jannik snorted.

Mark pointed his toothbrush at him. “You did this.”

“I did nothing.”

“You invited one Spanish tennis player and papà activated full emergency hospitality mode.”

“I did not know he would cook for a national delegation.”

Mark walked beside him toward the stairs.

“You knew.”

“I hoped he would be normal.”

Mark stopped and stared at him. “Have you met our father?”

They descended together. The kitchen looked like a controlled disaster.

Every surface was occupied. Bowls of chopped vegetables. Fresh herbs laid on a towel. A pot is simmering on the stove. Another pot waiting beside it, clearly offended that it was not being used yet. Bread rested under a cloth. A cake cooled near the window. There were plates stacked on the sideboard, glasses already polished, napkins folded. Siglinde moved through it all with patient efficiency. Johann stood at the counter, sleeves rolled up, focused on a tray of something Jannik could not identify, but that already looked too elaborate for lunch.

He turned when they entered.

“Good. You are awake.”

Mark gestured at the kitchen. “Are we hosting Carlos or negotiating peace between countries?”

Siglinde laughed. “Good morning to you too.”

Jannik walked closer, looking around. “Papà.”

Johann did not stop arranging food. “Yes?”

“What is all this?”

“Lunch.”

“This is not lunch. This is a tournament buffet.”

“Carlos is injured,” Johann said seriously. “He should eat well.”

Mark leaned toward Jannik and whispered loudly, “Ah, yes. As everyone knows, wrist injuries are healed by roast potatoes.”

Johann pointed the knife toward him without looking.

“You can peel more.”

Mark straightened. “I support the medical value of potatoes.”

Jannik picked up a piece of bread from under the cloth. Siglinde slapped his hand lightly.

“Not yet.”

“I am hungry.”

“You can eat breakfast.”

“This is breakfast?”

“No, this is lunch.”

Mark opened the refrigerator and found more trays inside. He slowly closed it again, then turned to Jannik with solemn eyes.

“We need to warn Carlos. He may not survive.”

“He eats well,” Jannik said.

“You said that yesterday. Papà heard it as a challenge.”

Johann finally looked up. “Does Carlos like mushrooms?”

Jannik blinked. “I don’t know.”

“Cheese?”

“I think yes.”

“Does he drink coffee after lunch or before?”

“He is Spanish. Probably both.”

Mark nodded. “Maybe also during.”

Siglinde came over and kissed Jannik’s cheek. “Good morning, my love.”

“Good morning.”

She studied his face. “You slept?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You look better.”

“Than yesterday?”

“Than on television.”

Mark grinned. “On television, he looks like a very tired carrot.”

Jannik turned. “A carrot?”

“The hair.”

“My hair is not orange.”

“It has history.”

Johann set down the knife. “Enough. Sit. Eat something.”

“I need to shower first,” Jannik said.

“After coffee.”

“Papà.”

“Coffee first.”

Jannik gave up and sat at the table. Mark dropped into the chair across from him with the dramatic exhaustion of someone who had done nothing yet. Siglinde placed coffee in front of them, along with bread, butter, jam, and small slices of cake that she insisted were “only to taste.”

Mark lifted his cup. “To Carlos, who has no idea he is about to be adopted.”

Jannik’s ears warmed despite himself. “Don’t start.”

“I am not starting. I started yesterday.”

Siglinde sat beside Jannik for a moment. “What time does he arrive?”

“He said late morning. He’ll call when he lands.”

“At the airport?”

“Yes.”

“Are you picking him up?”

Jannik nodded. “I’ll go.”

Mark took a bite of bread. “In the Ferrari?”

Jannik looked at him.

Mark’s eyes brightened. “Oh, please. Tell me you are picking up Carlos Alcaraz in your Ferrari in the mountains like a very shy Bond villain.”

“It’s the only car here.”

“That is the most Jannik sentence ever.”

“It is true.”

“What about the other car?”

“You need it for work.”

Mark put a hand to his chest. “I am participating in history.”

Johann glanced up. “Drive carefully.”

“I always drive carefully.”

Mark coughed.

Jannik turned. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You drive like an old man in a sports car,” Mark said. “It is impressive. Ferrari engine, grandfather energy.”

Siglinde laughed into her coffee.

Jannik pointed at his brother. “You wanted me to drive faster last time and then you complained.”

“I complained because you accelerated once and immediately apologized to the car.”

“I did not apologize.”

“You said, ‘Sorry, she is cold.’”

“That is not apologizing. That is respecting the engine.”

Mark looked at Siglinde. “See? Bond villain.”

Jannik ate his bread and tried not to smile.

The truth was, the teasing helped. It pushed the morning into ordinary shapes. His family making too much food. Mark turning everything into comedy. His father pretending not to be excited. His mother watching all of them with quiet amusement. Beneath it all, Jannik’s nerves still moved, but they were less sharp now.

Carlos was coming.

But the house was already full before he arrived. Full of warmth, sound, food, jokes. Maybe that would make it easier. Maybe Carlos would fit into the noise better than Jannik fit into his own thoughts.

After breakfast, he went upstairs to shower.

Hot water ran over his shoulders, loosening the last of sleep. He stood beneath it longer than necessary, palms against the tile, head bowed. Steam filled the bathroom. For a few minutes, no one could ask him questions. No phone could buzz. No coach could analyze his face. No brother could grin like he knew the secret of the universe.

He tried to think practically. Airport. Pick up, Carlos. Coffee, maybe, if Carlos wanted. Home. Lunch. Walk later if the wrist and travel fatigue allow. No tennis. No schedule. No pressure.

Simple. He repeated that word silently. Simple.

When he stepped out, the mirror had fogged. He wiped a circle into it with his hand and looked at himself. Damp hair. Pale skin. Freckles. A faint tiredness beneath the eyes, but less than yesterday. He looked normal.

Did he? He leaned closer, then immediately felt ridiculous.

“Stop,” he muttered to himself.

He dressed in jeans, a plain sweater, and a jacket, then checked his phone. No missed call yet. He brushed his teeth, dried his hair badly, and had just reached for his watch when the phone rang.

Carlos.

Jannik froze for half a second. Then answered.

“Hey.”

“Jannik!” Carlos’s voice filled the small bathroom, bright and slightly breathless. “I arrived.”

“You landed?”

“Yes. And I have already seen three mountains from the window, so I think this trip is successful.”

Jannik smiled. “Those are not even the good ones.”

“Ah, okay. You are arrogant about mountains too.”

“Only accurate.”

Carlos laughed. The sound was warm and immediate, and Jannik felt something inside him answer before he could stop it.

“Where are you?” Jannik asked.

“Outside arrivals. Well, almost. I am waiting for my bag. Very touristy of me.”

“You have a bag for two days?”

“I am injured, not uncivilized.”

“How big is the bag?”

There was a suspicious pause.

“Normal.”

“Carlos.”

“Maybe medium.”

Jannik leaned against the sink. “For two days.”

“I have warm clothes. You told me.”

“I said warm clothes, not your full wardrobe.”

“You haven’t seen it. Maybe I packed very efficiently.”

“Sure.”

Carlos lowered his voice slightly. “Are you coming?”

“Yes. I leave now.”

“Okay. No rush.”

Jannik looked toward the bathroom door, toward the distant sounds of his father still cooking downstairs.

“There is a rush.”

“Why?”

“My father started lunch yesterday.”

Carlos burst out laughing. “No.”

“Yes.”

“I am honored.”

“You should be afraid.”

“I told you, I am ready.”

“You say that now.”

Carlos’s voice softened a little. “Thank you for coming to get me.”

Jannik’s hand tightened around the phone. “Of course.”

For a brief second, neither spoke.

Then Carlos said, lighter again, “I will look for the red Ferrari.”

Jannik frowned. “How do you know it is red?”

“Jannik. It is you. Of course it is red.”

“It could be black.”

“Is it black?”

“No.”

Carlos laughed. “See you soon.”

“See you.”

He ended the call and stood still for a moment in the foggy bathroom, phone in hand.

Then Mark shouted from downstairs, “Was that the tourist?”

Jannik opened the door. “You hear everything?”

“Yes!”

“Unfortunately,” Siglinde added from the kitchen.

Jannik went downstairs. Mark was leaning in the hallway, arms crossed, wearing the expression of someone who had been waiting for material.

“He arrived?” Mark asked.

“Yes.”

“How was his Spanish energy?”

“Already too much.”

Mark nodded gravely. “Bring him carefully. We need him alive for lunch.”

Johann came out of the kitchen with a towel over one shoulder. “Do not drive fast.”

“I know.”

“And do not let him carry heavy bags on his wrist.”

Jannik stopped. “Papà.”

“What?”

“He can carry a bag.”

“He is injured.”

“His wrist, not his whole body.”

Johann looked unconvinced. “Still.”

Siglinde handed Jannik his keys from the small bowl near the door.

“Call if you need anything.”

“I’m picking up one person, not invading a country.”

Mark lifted a finger. “One person with medium luggage.”

Jannik narrowed his eyes. “You are enjoying this too much.”

“More than Madrid.”

“That hurts.”

Mark grinned. “Madrid didn’t involve papà panic-cooking for your-”

Jannik stepped closer. “Finish that sentence carefully.”

“Friend,” Mark said innocently.

Siglinde looked away, smiling. Jannik grabbed his jacket properly and opened the door. Cool morning air entered the hallway. Outside, sunlight washed the road pale gold.

“I’m leaving,” he said.

Johann nodded. “Drive carefully.”

“You said that.”

“I say it again.”

Jannik smiled despite himself. “Okay.”

The Ferrari waited near the house as if it were aware of being discussed.

It looked almost absurd in the quiet mountain morning, low and red against the soft colors of the village. Jannik had always felt slightly embarrassed by how much people reacted to it. To him, it was a car he loved because of the engineering, the precision, the feeling of connection between machine and road. To Mark, it was proof that Jannik had accidentally become dramatic.

He got in, started the engine, and immediately thought of Mark calling it grandfather energy.

“Idiot,” he said fondly.

The drive to the airport gave him time to settle.

The road curved through the valley, past fields, wooden houses, clusters of trees, and slopes that rose toward the mountains with quiet authority. The sky was clear, washed clean after the night. Spring lived everywhere: in the grass, in the melting snow high above, in the small bursts of flowers near fences.

Jannik drove carefully. Not because of his father’s warning. Mostly.

His hands rested lightly on the wheel. The engine hummed beneath him, powerful but controlled. It would have been easy to let the car run, to feel the speed on the open road. But he did not. The morning did not ask for speed. It asked for attention.

Carlos was waiting. The thought appeared and disappeared with every turn. At red lights, Jannik checked nothing. Not messages. Not news. Not Rome. He let the car idle. He let himself breathe. When he reached the airport, he parked, then sat for a second before getting out.

“You are picking up a friend,” he told himself.

The sentence did not help much.

He walked toward arrivals with his cap low, though there were not many people around. A few travelers pulled suitcases across the pavement. A family stood near the entrance with flowers. A taxi driver leaned against his car, smoking and watching the doors.

Then Carlos came through them. And somehow, even in a place of strangers, he looked immediately like Carlos.

He wore a light jacket, dark trousers, sneakers, and a backpack slung carefully over one shoulder. His injured wrist was supported, not dramatically, but enough that Jannik saw it at once. In his other hand, he pulled a suitcase that was absolutely not small.

Carlos looked around, scanning the pickup area. Then he saw Jannik. His face opened into a smile. Not polite. Not controlled. Not the smile for cameras. This one arrived quickly and fully, as if his whole body had recognized something.

Jannik lifted a hand. Carlos came toward him, suitcase wheels rattling.

“Ciao,” Carlos said, then seemed to remember where he was and added, “Buongiorno.”

Jannik smiled. “Not bad.”

“I practiced on the plane.”

“For one word?”

“For two. I also know grazie.”

“Impressive.”

Carlos stopped in front of him. For a second, there was the awkward question of how to greet each other. A handshake seemed too formal. A hug seemed suddenly complicated because of the wrist, because of the airport, because Jannik’s brain had become completely useless.

Carlos solved it by leaning in and touching his shoulder against Jannik’s, a careful half-hug that lasted barely a second.

Still, Jannik felt it.

“You good?” he asked, stepping back and nodding toward the wrist.

Carlos glanced down. “Yes. Annoyed, but good.”

“Pain?”

“Not now. Only if I do stupid things.”

“Then don’t.”

Carlos grinned. “You sound like my team.”

“I spoke to my team yesterday. I am prepared.”

“Oh, no. They know I am here?”

“Yes.”

“Were they scared?”

“Confused.”

Carlos laughed, but there was a small shadow beneath it.

“They think I should be in Spain?”

“Maybe.”

Carlos looked past him toward the mountains visible beyond the airport buildings.

“Maybe they are right.”

Jannik watched him. Then Carlos turned back, a smile returning.

“But Spain does not have you as a tourist guide.”

Jannik’s heart moved in a way he chose to ignore. Instead, he looked at the suitcase.

“Medium?”

Carlos followed his gaze. “It is medium.”

“For a month?”

“For two days with style.”

“I’ll take it.”

“No, no, I can-”

“Papà said not to let you carry heavy bags.”

Carlos blinked. “Your father said that?”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t even met him.”

“He is already worried about you.”

Carlos pressed a hand to his chest, delighted.

“I love him already.”

“You say that before lunch.”

“After lunch, maybe I love him more.”

Jannik took the suitcase before Carlos could argue.

“Come on.”

They walked toward the parking area. Carlos kept looking around, not in the distracted way of someone checking for attention, but with genuine curiosity. His eyes moved from the buildings to the sky to the distant line of peaks.

“It is different,” Carlos said.

“From Murcia?”

Carlos gave him a look. “Very funny.”

“I try.”

“No, but really. The air feels different.”

“It is cleaner.”

“Arrogant about air also.”

“Accurate about air.”

Carlos laughed again. Then they reached the car. Carlos stopped walking. He looked at the Ferrari. Then at Jannik. Then back at the Ferrari.

A slow grin spread across his face. “Jannik.”

“What?”

Carlos pointed. “This is your quiet mountain car?”

“It’s just a car.”

“This is not just a car. This car wakes up and signs autographs.”

Jannik opened the trunk. “Put your bag in.”

Carlos did not move. “You told me you came home to relax. And then you arrive in this.”

“It is the only one I have here.”

Carlos looked around the parking lot dramatically. “Ah, yes. Very sad. Only the Ferrari.”

“My brother needed the other car to go to his job.”

“Of course. Family sacrifice. Mark takes the normal car and you suffer with this.”

Jannik tried not to smile. “Exactly.”

Carlos came closer, still grinning. “Does it have a name?”

“No.”

“It should.”

“No.”

“Red Jannik.”

“That is terrible.”

“Fast Carrot.”

Jannik stared at him.

Carlos looked delighted. “Ah. You hate it. Perfect.”

“Get in.”

“Fast Carrot,” Carlos repeated under his breath, laughing as he walked around to the passenger side.

Jannik loaded the suitcase carefully. When he got into the driver’s seat, Carlos was already inside, looking around with theatrical appreciation.

“Very subtle,” Carlos said.

“You are the loudest thing in this car.”

“Impossible. Start it.”

Jannik did. The engine came alive. Carlos’s eyes widened slightly despite his teasing.

“Okay.”

Jannik glanced at him. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You like it.”

“I respect it.”

“That means you like it.”

Carlos smiled out the windshield. “Maybe.”

They pulled out of the parking area.

At first, Carlos continued joking. About the car. About how Jannik drove as if carrying a glass sculpture. About how Italian roads looked like they had been designed by someone who wanted every turn to be dramatic. Jannik replied when necessary, but mostly he let Carlos talk.

Then the mountains took over.

The airport fell behind them. The road opened into the valley. The peaks rose ahead, bright and enormous, their slopes layered with forest and rock, their highest ridges still touched with snow. Morning light moved across them in slow bands.

Carlos went quiet. Jannik noticed immediately. He glanced over.

Carlos had turned fully toward the window. His face had changed. The humor was still there, somewhere near the corners of his mouth, but wonder had softened everything else. He looked younger. Not childish, but unguarded.

For several minutes, he said nothing. Jannik kept his eyes mostly on the road, but he stole glances when he could.

Finally, Carlos whispered, “Madre mía.”

Jannik smiled. “Good?”

Carlos turned to him. “Good? Jannik, this is crazy.”

“They’re just mountains.”

“No. These are not just mountains. These are...” He searched for the word, gesturing with his good hand. “They look like they are watching.”

Jannik’s smile faded into something gentler.

“At night, even more.”

“You grew up with this?”

“Yes.”

Carlos looked back outside. “No wonder you are calm.”

“I am not always calm.”

“You are compared to normal people.”

“You are not normal people.”

Carlos laughed softly. “True.”

The road curved. Sunlight flashed across the windshield. A field opened on one side, green and wide, with a few cows grazing near a fence. Beyond them, a church spire cut into the sky. Carlos leaned slightly forward, taking everything in.

“It feels like another planet,” he said.

“Spain has mountains.”

“Yes, but not your mountains.”

Your mountains. The phrase landed quietly.

Jannik turned the wheel through a bend. “They are not mine.”

Carlos kept looking out. “Maybe not. But you belong to them a little.”

Jannik did not know what to say to that. So he drove.

The Ferrari moved smoothly along the road, controlled and almost absurdly civilized under his hands. Carlos stopped teasing after a while. He became absorbed in the landscape, occasionally asking questions.

“What is that village?”

“Dobbiaco.”

“And that peak?”

“I don’t know the name from this angle.”

“You don’t know? Bad tourist guide.”

“I know many. Not all.”

“I will review you poorly.”

“You haven’t had coffee yet.”

“Ah. Coffee can change the rating.”

“Do you want to stop?”

Carlos turned. “Can we?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t want to delay lunch.”

“Lunch is already too big. It can wait.”

Carlos grinned. “Your father will not be angry?”

“No. He will just cook something else while waiting.”

They both laughed.

Jannik pulled into a small village bar with outdoor tables and flower boxes under the windows. It was the kind of place he had known all his life, where locals came not because it was famous but because it was there, reliable and warm, with coffee strong enough to repair most mornings.

The Ferrari attracted attention before it even got out.

Carlos noticed. “This is your fault.”

“It became your fault when you named it Fast Carrot.”

“That name stays between us.”

“No.”

They entered the bar, and for one beautiful second, nobody reacted. Then the woman behind the counter looked up. Her eyes moved from Jannik to Carlos. Then back to Jannik. Her mouth opened slightly.

“Buongiorno,” Jannik said, as casually as possible.

“Buongiorno, Jannik,” she said, recovering. Then, after a tiny pause, “Carlos.”

Carlos smiled warmly. “Buongiorno.”

The pronunciation was careful enough that Jannik looked at him.

Carlos whispered, “Plane practice.”

They ordered coffee. Jannik took an espresso. Carlos asked for a cappuccino, then looked at Jannik as if expecting judgment.

“It is morning,” Jannik said. “Allowed.”

Carlos nodded seriously. “Good. I know Italy has rules.”

“They are mostly flexible until lunch.”

They stood at the counter, shoulder to shoulder. The bar smelled of coffee, sugar, and warm pastry. Cups clinked. The machine hissed. Two older men at a small table pretended not to stare and failed.

Carlos leaned closer. “Do you come here often?”

“Sometimes.”

“So everyone knows you.”

“Everyone knew me before tennis.”

Carlos smiled. “That must be nice.”

“It is. And strange.”

The woman placed their coffees in front of them. “On the house.”

“No, please,” Jannik said immediately.

She shook her head. “For Madrid.”

Carlos glanced at Jannik, amused. “Madrid follows you.”

Jannik took out cash anyway and left it beside the register.

“Grazie.”

She gave him a look but did not argue. They took their cups to a small table near the window. Carlos carefully rested his injured wrist on his lap, using his other hand for the cup. Jannik noticed but did not comment.

For a while, they drank quietly.

Carlos looked outside at the street. “It is peaceful.”

“Yes.”

“Do people bother you here?”

“Not much. They say hello. Sometimes ask for a photo. But they knew me when I was small, so it is different.”

“They don’t treat you like...” Carlos gestured. “The whole thing.”

“The whole thing?”

“You know. Jannik Sinner.”

Jannik looked into his espresso. “Here I am, still Jannik.”

Carlos’s expression softened.

“I like that.”

Before Jannik could answer, the door opened.

Three children came in with a woman who looked like their mother. They were maybe nine or ten, wearing school backpacks, faces red from the morning air. One of them spotted Jannik and froze so completely that the child behind him walked into his back.

Carlos lowered his cup and whispered, “You have been identified.”

Jannik whispered back, “You too.”

The smallest child’s eyes had moved to Carlos now. They widened almost comically.

The mother looked mortified. “Scusate,” she said softly. “They are big fans.”

Jannik smiled. “It’s okay.”

The oldest boy stepped forward, clutching the strap of his backpack. “Jannik, posso...can I have an autograph?”

“Of course.”

Immediately, all three children began searching their bags with frantic urgency. One produced a notebook. Another found a tennis ball, which seemed too perfect to be accidental. The smallest girl had only a receipt, then looked devastated until Carlos said, “Here,” and pulled a small card from his own bag.

“You can have this,” he said.

She stared at him like he had offered treasure.

“You are Carlos,” she whispered.

Carlos grinned. “Yes. I think so.”

Jannik signed the notebook and the tennis ball. Carlos signed the card and then the notebook too, when the oldest boy gathered the courage to ask. The mother kept apologizing; both players kept telling her it was fine.

“Are you playing Rome?” the boy asked Carlos.

For one second, the air changed. Carlos’s smile remained, but Jannik saw the effort in it.

“Not this year,” Carlos said gently. He lifted his wrist a little. “I have to rest.”

The boy’s face fell. “And Roland Garros?”

Carlos shook his head. “Also no.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yes,” Carlos said. “A little.”

The honesty in his voice made Jannik look at him. Then Carlos smiled again, brighter but not fake.

“But Jannik will play Rome, so you cheer for him, no?”

The children turned to Jannik with immediate seriousness.

“We will,” the smallest girl said.

Jannik felt something twist warmly in his chest. “Thank you.”

The oldest boy looked at Carlos again.

“Will you come back next year?”

“I will try.”

“You have to.”

Carlos laughed. “Okay. Since you said so.”

They took one quick photo together outside the bar, the mother’s hands shaking slightly as she held the phone. Jannik stood beside Carlos, the children packed between them, all three grinning wildly. Carlos leaned carefully so his injured wrist was protected. Jannik noticed again.

Afterward, the children said thank you at least six times and left with their mother, turning back through the window to wave. Carlos waved with his good hand until they disappeared. Then he sat back down. For a moment, he looked tired.

Not only physically. Something deeper.

Jannik watched him. “You okay?”

Carlos took a breath and smiled. “Yes.”

“That was not yes.”

Carlos looked at him, then looked down at his cup. “It is always strange to say it out loud.”

“What?”

“That I cannot play.” His fingers moved lightly around the cappuccino cup. “I know it. My team knows it. Everyone knows it. But when a kid asks...” He shrugged with one shoulder. “It becomes real again.”

Jannik nodded slowly. Outside, the village moved quietly around them. Inside, the espresso machine hissed again, filling the silence without breaking it.

“I’m sorry,” Jannik said.

Carlos looked up. “It is not your fault.”

“I know. Still.”

Carlos’s expression softened. “Thank you.”

Jannik hesitated. “Is that why you came?”

“To be asked sad questions by children?”

“No.”

Carlos smiled faintly.

Jannik continued, “To not be home thinking about it.”

Carlos looked out the window for a long moment.

Then he said, “Maybe.”

The word was quiet. Jannik waited. Carlos turned the cup slowly.

“At home, everyone is kind. Too kind sometimes. My mother looks at me like I am going to break if I pick up a glass. My team talks about recovery every hour. My friends try to distract me, but they also ask about the wrist. And I know they care, but...” He stopped, searching.

“You are still injured there,” Jannik said.

Carlos looked at him.

Jannik shrugged slightly. “Everywhere you turn.”

Carlos’s eyes stayed on him. “Yes.”

A silence passed between them, not uncomfortable. Then Carlos smiled, small and real.

“So I thought maybe I would go see the mountains. With the calmest man in tennis.”

Jannik almost laughed. “You have chosen badly.”

“No. I think I chose well.”

The words settled too warmly. Jannik looked away first, finishing his espresso though it had cooled. Carlos seemed to sense the moment had become too exposed, because he leaned back and returned to safer ground.

“Also, I wanted to ride in Fast Carrot.”

“No one is calling it that.”

“I am.”

“Only once.”

“Many times.”

Jannik shook his head, relieved and annoyed.

“We should go. My father will start cooking dinner if we are late.”

Carlos stood carefully. “I am ready.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because I am brave.”

They thanked the woman at the counter again. She wished Carlos a good recovery and Jannik good luck in Rome. Outside, the air had warmed. The children were gone, but a few locals glanced toward them with curiosity, smiling but respectful.

Carlos stopped beside the Ferrari and looked up at the mountains again.

“You really came back here after winning Madrid,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Not to celebrate in some big city.”

“No.”

Carlos nodded slowly. “Good choice.”

Jannik opened the driver’s door. “Wait until lunch before deciding.”

Carlos laughed and got in. The rest of the drive to Jannik’s house was slower than necessary.

Not because of traffic. There was little. Not because of the road. Jannik knew every curve. He drove slowly because Carlos kept looking, and Jannik found he liked seeing his home through Carlos’s eyes. Everything familiar became slightly new.

The narrow streets. The wooden balconies. The small chapels. The slopes where he had skied as a child. The places he had passed a thousand times without thinking. Carlos treated each one like it mattered.

“What is that?” he asked, pointing at a building with painted details.

“Old guesthouse.”

“And there?”

“Bakery.”

“Good bakery?”

“Very.”

“We go?”

“Not before lunch.”

Carlos sighed. “Your father’s lunch has power over everything.”

“Yes.”

They passed a meadow, and Carlos pressed closer to the window.

“Are those cows?”

“No, Carlos. They are Italian horses.”

Carlos turned slowly. “You make jokes now?”

“I try sometimes.”

“Very dangerous. Soon you become funny.”

“I hope not.”

Carlos laughed, then looked back outside. “It is beautiful. Really.”

Jannik’s hands shifted on the steering wheel.

“I’m glad you came.”

He said it before he had time to edit it. Carlos turned from the window. For a second, the car felt too small.

“You are?” Carlos asked.

Jannik kept his eyes on the road. “Yes.”

Carlos’s smile appeared slowly. Not teasing this time.

“Me too.”

Neither spoke for the next few moments.

The Ferrari hummed through the village, then turned onto the road toward the house. Jannik felt the familiar nervousness return, but it had changed. It was no longer only fear. It had anticipation in it now.

“My family will be normal,” he said.

Carlos looked amused. “Why did you say that like you don’t believe it?”

“They will try.”

“Mark will make fun of me?”

“Probably me more than you.”

“Good. I can help.”

“No, you cannot.”

“I think I can.”

Jannik glanced at him. “You two meeting may be a mistake.”

“Too late.”

They arrived at the house. The moment Jannik turned into the driveway, the front door opened. Mark stood there, leaning against the frame as if he had been waiting for hours. He lifted one hand in greeting, then looked deliberately at the Ferrari, then at Carlos through the windshield.

Carlos leaned toward Jannik. “Is that Mark?”

“Yes.”

“He already looks dangerous.”

“He is.”

Carlos smiled. “Good.”

Jannik parked and turned off the engine. The sudden quiet felt enormous.

Before either of them could move, Mark called from the doorway, “Welcome! Please exit carefully.”

Jannik closed his eyes. Carlos burst out laughing. Jannik got out of the car.

“I am going to leave both of you at the airport.”

Carlos climbed out more slowly, protecting his wrist, still grinning.

“Too late. I am here for lunch.”

Mark came down the steps.

“Carlos, welcome. I apologize in advance for my brother’s driving.”

Carlos shook his hand with his good hand. “It was very safe.”

Mark nodded. “Exactly. Tragic.”

Jannik took Carlos’s suitcase from the trunk.

“Ignore him.”

“Ignore me?” Mark said. “I am the only honest person here.”

Carlos looked from one brother to the other, delighted.

“This is already better than Rome.”

At that, something loosened in Jannik. Then Siglinde appeared behind Mark. Her face warmed immediately.

“Carlos.”

Carlos straightened, his smile softening into respect.

“Buongiorno, Signora. Thank you for having me.”

“Siglinde,” she said, coming down the steps. “No Signora here.”

Carlos nodded. “Siglinde. Grazie.”

She took his good hand between both of hers for a moment.

“Welcome. How was the trip?”

“Beautiful. Jannik says these are not even the good mountains, so now I am worried for my heart.”

Siglinde laughed. “He is proud of this place.”

“I noticed.”

Jannik felt his ears heat. “I said accurate things.”

Mark whispered to Carlos, “He has been arrogant about air too.”

Carlos nodded seriously.

“Yes. I experienced this.”

Before Jannik could defend himself, Johann came to the door. He wore an apron. Of course, he wore an apron.

Carlos saw him and immediately seemed to understand that this was the person responsible for whatever smelled extraordinary inside the house. He stepped forward.

“Johann,” Jannik said, “this is Carlos.”

Carlos offered his good hand.

“It is very nice to meet you. Thank you for letting me come.”

Johann shook his hand firmly but carefully, eyes flicking to the wrist.

“Welcome. How is the pain?”

Carlos blinked, then smiled. “Good. Not much pain today.”

“You take care with it.”

“I will.”

“No tennis.”

Carlos glanced at Jannik. “Your team told you to tell him?”

“My father needed no instruction,” Jannik said.

Johann nodded once. “Come inside. You must eat.”

Carlos looked at Jannik with wide eyes, whispering, “Already?”

Mark clapped him on the shoulder.

“You have no idea.”

They entered the house together. The warmth embraced them immediately. So did the smell. Carlos stopped just inside the hallway.

“Oh,” he said.

Johann looked almost pleased.

“Lunch soon.”

Carlos turned slowly toward Jannik.

“You said he cooked.”

“I warned you.”

“You did not warn me enough.”

Siglinde helped him with his jacket, fussing only a little over the wrist. Mark took the suitcase upstairs to the guest room after announcing that he would inspect it for Spanish contraband, which Carlos accepted gravely. Jannik stood near the doorway, watching Carlos step into his home.

It was strange. And not strange.

Carlos looked around with open curiosity but not intrusion. His eyes moved over the photographs, the wooden furniture, the small details of family life. He did not comment too much. For once, he seemed to understand silence.

Then he saw a childhood photo of Jannik on a shelf. Carlos’s face lit up.

“Is that you?”

“No,” Jannik said immediately.

Carlos walked closer. “It is absolutely you.”

Siglinde smiled. “That was his first day of school.”

In the photo, young Jannik stood with a backpack nearly as big as his torso, hair bright, expression serious enough for a passport. Carlos put a hand over his mouth.

“Jannik.”

“Do not.”

“You looked the same.”

“I did not.”

“So serious.”

“I was going to school.”

“Like school was a Grand Slam final.”

Mark returned just in time.

“He has always been like this.”

Carlos pointed at the photo. “Look at him.”

Mark joined him. “Ah, yes. Tiny accountant Jannik.”

Siglinde laughed openly. Jannik looked at his mother.

“You are supposed to protect me.”

“I am enjoying this.”

Johann called from the kitchen, “Lunch!”

Carlos turned toward the sound like a man hearing destiny.

The dining table had been set with more care than Jannik had seen outside holidays. Plates, glasses, folded napkins, baskets of bread, small dishes of butter and spreads. A salad bright with herbs. Roasted vegetables. Pasta waiting beneath a cover. Something in a large dish that smelled like heaven and danger.

Carlos stopped again.

“Johann,” he said, “I understand now why Jannik wins. He has this food.”

Johann’s face remained calm, but Jannik knew him well enough to see the pleasure.

“Sit.”

Carlos sat. Mark sat across from him, already grinning. Siglinde took her place, and Jannik sat beside Carlos because somehow that was the empty chair, though he suspected his mother had arranged it that way.

For a brief second, Carlos’s shoulder brushed his. Jannik reached for his water. Mark saw. Of course, Mark saw.

“So,” Mark said brightly, “Carlos. Welcome to the mountains. We have one rule.”

Carlos looked at him. “No tennis?”

“That is everyone’s rule. My rule is: if Jannik becomes too serious, tell us immediately.”

Carlos glanced sideways at Jannik.

“I think I can do that.”

“You cannot join him,” Mark warned. “Sometimes famous athletes become serious together. Very dangerous.”

Carlos nodded. “I will stay strong.”

Jannik muttered, “I regret everything.”

Siglinde passed the bread.

“Ignore them, Carlos.”

“I try, but Mark is very convincing.”

“He has had practice,” Jannik said.

Johann served the first course. Carlos took one bite and went silent. That silence did more for Johann than any compliment could have. Then Carlos looked up slowly.

“Okay.”

Mark leaned forward. “He understands.”

Carlos pointed his fork toward Johann.

“This is incredible.”

Johann nodded. “Eat more.”

“I will. Happily.”

Jannik watched his father turn back toward the stove to hide his smile. Lunch began properly then, unfolding with warmth and noise.

Carlos told them about his flight, exaggerating the difficulty of packing warm clothes for Italy in spring. Mark asked whether Spanish energy was allowed in the Dolomites or required a permit. Siglinde asked about his family, and Carlos answered with affection, speaking of home with a softness that made Jannik listen more closely than he meant to. Johann asked practical questions about the wrist between courses, not intrusive, just concerned.

“Can you cut?” Johann asked when the main dish came.

Carlos lifted his good hand. “Yes, yes. I can do many things.”

Mark said, “Except play Rome.”

The table went still for half a second. Mark’s face changed immediately.

“Sorry. That was-”

Carlos shook his head, smiling a little. “No, it is okay.”

Jannik looked at his brother, who looked genuinely guilty now. Carlos cut carefully into the food.

“It is true. I cannot play Rome. I cannot play Paris. But I can eat this, so today I am winning.”

The tension dissolved. Siglinde touched Mark’s arm lightly under the table, forgiving him before he could punish himself too much. Jannik looked at Carlos. Carlos caught the look and gave a tiny shrug, as if to say, It’s fine.

But Jannik saw the flicker beneath. He wondered if anyone else did.

Lunch continued. Johann brought more food. Carlos accepted everything with the courage of a man determined not to disappoint an Italian father. Mark began keeping count of how many times Johann said, “Just a little more,” while serving portions that were never little.

“Five,” Mark announced at one point.

Johann ignored him.

Carlos leaned toward Jannik. “Is five a record?”

“No. He is warming up.”

Carlos looked genuinely alarmed. “There is more?”

Jannik smiled. “Dessert.”

Carlos put down his fork slowly. “I may need my team.”

“They were concerned already.”

Carlos laughed, then lowered his voice. “Really? Darren and Simone?”

“Yes.”

“What did they say?”

“No tennis. Recovery. Sleep.”

“Very romantic visit.”

Jannik choked slightly on his water. Carlos’s eyes widened, then his smile became mischievous.

“I mean tourist visit.”

Mark, across the table, looked up immediately.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” Jannik said too fast.

Carlos turned his face toward the window, shoulders shaking. Siglinde glanced between them, smiling quietly into her glass. Johann returned with dessert. Apple cake, of course. Cream. Coffee. Small biscuits. Something with chocolate that Mark accused his father of hiding for special occasions.

Carlos stared at it all. “Johann, I need to tell you something.”

Johann paused. Carlos placed a hand over his stomach.

“I am very happy, but I am maybe only human.”

Mark gasped. “He admits weakness.”

Jannik laughed. Johann considered Carlos with great seriousness.

“Small piece.”

Carlos looked at Jannik.

Jannik shook his head. “It will not be small.”

“It is never small,” Mark said.

Carlos accepted the plate like a brave soldier accepting fate.

After the first bite, he closed his eyes.

“Oh, no,” he said.

Siglinde laughed. “No?”

“No, because now I have to finish.”

Johann looked satisfied. “Good.”

The meal stretched long, the way good meals at home always did. Plates emptied slowly. Conversations wandered. Carlos became less like a guest with every passing minute. He asked questions. He listened. He laughed when Mark embarrassed Jannik, but never cruelly. He thanked Siglinde every time she passed him something. He complimented Johann’s cooking until Johann told him to stop talking and eat.

And Jannik, sitting beside him, felt something quiet and complicated settle inside him. This was what he had been nervous about. Not Carlos failing to fit. Carlos fit too easily. That was far more dangerous.

At one point, Carlos turned toward him while Mark was telling some story about Jannik as a child refusing to lose at cards.

“You okay?” Carlos asked softly.

Jannik blinked. “Me?”

“Yes. You are quiet.”

“I am always quiet.”

“More quiet.”

Jannik looked around the table: his mother laughing, his father pouring coffee, Mark gesturing dramatically with a spoon and then back at Carlos.

“I’m okay,” he said.

Carlos studied him for a second, as if checking whether this was the real answer or the first answer.

Then he smiled. “Good.”

Outside, the mountains stood bright beneath the midday sun. Inside, the house was full. Full of food, family, laughter. And now Carlos.

Jannik picked up his coffee cup and let himself sit in the middle of it all, not performing relaxation, not trying to make the day perfect, not yet thinking about Rome. For now, he was home. And Carlos was there.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── 

Lunch became one of those meals that refused to end.

It began with food and turned, somehow, into a small family history, a comedy show, a cooking lesson, and a recovery session for an injured wrist, all happening around the same table while the mountains stood outside the windows like quiet witnesses.

Carlos had arrived as a guest. By the second course, he was laughing like someone who had been coming to the house for years. Jannik noticed it with a strange mixture of relief and alarm.

His parents liked Carlos immediately. That was not surprising, exactly. Carlos made it difficult not to like him. He listened with his whole face. He answered questions warmly. He smiled at Siglinde with open gratitude every time she placed something on his plate, as if each serving was a personal blessing. He complimented Johann’s food so sincerely that even Johann, who had a professional resistance to praise, began to soften around the eyes.

Mark liked him too, which was more dangerous. Mark and Carlos together were trouble from the first ten minutes. They discovered, with absurd speed, that both had strong opinions about pasta. This began because Johann served a dish with mushrooms, herbs, and a sauce so rich and smooth that Carlos went silent after the first bite. Mark, seeing the silence, leaned back with satisfaction.

“You understand now,” he said.

Carlos nodded slowly. “I understand many things.”

“Mostly that papà is dangerous.”

Carlos pointed his fork toward Johann. “This is not dangerous. This is art.”

Johann pretended not to hear.

Mark said, “Careful. Compliment him too much and he will bring another course.”

Carlos looked at the kitchen doorway with both hope and fear. “There is another course?”

“There is always another course,” Jannik said.

Carlos turned to him. “How are you still thin?”

“Training.”

“Ah. Maybe I should play Rome after all.”

“No,” Jannik, Johann and Siglinde said at once.

Carlos lifted his good hand. “Okay, okay. I joke.”

Mark grinned. “You see? This family can coordinate when necessary.”

The conversation drifted from food to Spain, from Spain to Italian food, from Italian food to whether Carlos could cook anything besides breakfast. Carlos insisted he was improving. Mark looked unconvinced.

“I make pasta,” Carlos said defensively.

Mark narrowed his eyes. “What kind of pasta?”

“Good pasta.”

“That is not an answer.”

“Pasta with tomato.”

Mark pressed both hands flat on the table. “We need details.”

Carlos glanced at Jannik. “Is he always like this?”

“With food? Worse.”

“I am trying to protect Italy,” Mark said.

Carlos leaned forward, suddenly animated. “Actually, my brother Álvaro and I once tried to make carbonara.”

The table went still in the way Italian tables went still when carbonara appeared in conversation. Jannik closed his eyes.

Carlos noticed too late. “What?”

Mark whispered, “What did you put in it?”

Carlos looked from Mark to Siglinde to Johann.

“Eggs.”

“Good,” Mark said.

“Cheese.”

“Good.”

“Pancetta.”

Johann made a small approving sound.

Carlos relaxed. “And maybe a little cream.”

Mark put down his fork. Siglinde looked at Jannik. Jannik looked at his plate, refusing responsibility.

Carlos’s face changed. “No?”

Mark inhaled deeply, as if preparing for difficult diplomacy.

“Carlos.”

“Yes?”

“You are injured and you are a guest, so I will be gentle.”

“Thank you.”

“Never say that again in this house.”

Carlos burst out laughing.

“Álvaro said the same! He said, ‘Carlos, Italians will kill us.’”

“Álvaro is wise,” Mark said.

“He sent me a recipe later. Actually, he sent you a recipe, no?” Carlos pointed at Mark, remembering suddenly. “Wait. You two talked once.”

Mark’s face lit up. “Yes! On Instagram. During that off-season thing.”

Jannik looked up. “You and Álvaro talked?”

Mark waved casually. “Briefly.”

“About what?”

“Pasta.”

“You never told me.”

“You were busy hitting balls in Monaco.”

Carlos laughed. “Álvaro asked him how to make proper sauce because I tried to cook and almost ruined dinner.”

“You did ruin dinner,” Mark said. “He sent photographic evidence.”

Carlos looked betrayed.

“He sent photos?”

“Several.”

Jannik stared at his brother.

“You have been secretly exchanging pasta recipes with Carlos’s brother?”

“It was not secret. It was culinary diplomacy.”

Siglinde laughed. “That is actually sweet.”

“It was necessary,” Mark said. “Spain needed help.”

Carlos placed a hand over his heart.

“I feel attacked.”

Johann, who had been listening with quiet amusement, finally spoke.

“If you want, before you leave, I give you a recipe.”

Carlos turned toward him immediately.

“Really?”

“Yes. Simple. No cream.”

Carlos nodded seriously. “I accept.”

Mark leaned toward Jannik.

“There. International relations repaired.”

Jannik shook his head, but he was smiling. The meal kept unfolding.

Carlos told a story about Álvaro trying to make pasta before a family gathering and using so much garlic that the whole kitchen smelled for two days. Mark countered with a childhood story about Jannik eating the same plain pasta before practice for weeks because he had decided routine was more important than taste.

“I was focused,” Jannik said.

“You were boring,” Mark replied.

Carlos looked delighted. “Even as a child?”

“He once refused sauce because it was ‘unnecessary risk,’” Mark said.

“I did not say that.”

“You said something exactly like that.”

Siglinde smiled. “You did like things simple.”

“I still like things simple,” Jannik said.

Carlos glanced at him.

“Do you?”

The question was light, but it landed strangely. Jannik looked at him, and for a second, the noise of the table softened around them.

Then Mark said, “He likes simple until a complicated Spanish tourist arrives.”

Jannik kicked him under the table.

Mark winced. “Violence.”

Carlos laughed, but his ears had gone slightly pink.

Lunch finally slowed only because human beings had limits, even Carlos, who had performed heroically under Johann’s hospitality. Plates were cleared, coffee was served, dessert was finished, and everyone sat back with the stunned satisfaction of people who had eaten too much and regretted nothing.

Carlos leaned back in his chair, one hand on his stomach.

“I understand now why you came home.”

Jannik smiled. “For family.”

“Yes. And because your father is secretly the best physical trainer on tour.”

Johann raised an eyebrow. Carlos gestured at the table.

“Recovery through happiness.”

Siglinde’s expression softened. “That is a good phrase.”

Mark nodded. “We should put it on a sign.”

Jannik stood to help clear the table, but his mother stopped him with one look.

“No.”

“Mamma.”

“You have a guest.”

“I can carry plates.”

“You can bring Carlos upstairs and show him the guest room.”

Carlos immediately began to rise. “I can help too.”

“No,” Siglinde said.

Carlos sat back down.

Mark whispered, “You see? She has power.”

Carlos whispered back, “I am learning.”

Jannik took Carlos’s suitcase from the hallway while Carlos thanked Siglinde again, then Johann, then Siglinde again because she handed him a bottle of water “for later,” then Johann again because Johann wrapped two small pieces of cake in foil “in case he became hungry.”

Carlos looked at the foil packet. “I will never become hungry again.”

Johann shrugged. “Then for tomorrow.”

Jannik carried the suitcase upstairs, and Carlos followed more slowly, still looking around as they went. The house was old in the quiet way of well-loved homes: wooden stairs polished by years of feet, framed photos on walls, small objects placed not for decoration but because they belonged there. Carlos paused at nearly every photograph.

“Is this Mark?”

“Yes.”

“He looks innocent here.”

“He was never innocent.”

Carlos smiled and moved to another picture.

“And you skiing?”

“Yes.”

“You were good?”

Jannik glanced back. “Good enough.”

“That means very good.”

“That means good enough.”

Carlos followed him down the hallway to the guest room. Jannik opened the door with his shoulder and set the suitcase inside.

The room was simple and bright. A bed with a wool blanket folded at the foot. A wooden wardrobe. A small desk near the window. White curtains moving slightly with the mountain air. From the window, the view opened toward the slopes and the line of peaks beyond the village.

Carlos stepped in and immediately went to the window. Jannik watched him from the doorway. For once, Carlos said nothing.

His good hand rested lightly on the windowsill. His injured wrist stayed close to his body, protected by habit now. He looked out at the mountains with an expression Jannik had already begun to recognize: wonder mixed with something quieter, maybe relief.

“Good?” Jannik asked.

Carlos turned his head slightly. “You ask this too much.”

“What?”

“Good? Like maybe I will say no.” He looked back outside. “Jannik, it is beautiful.”

Jannik walked in and put the suitcase near the wardrobe. “You can sleep. You had a long morning.”

Carlos looked at him. “You are sending me to bed?”

“You need rest.”

“Now you sound like my mother.”

“And Simone.”

“And Darren.”

“And my father.”

Carlos laughed softly. “Everyone against me.”

“You are injured.”

“I know.”

The laughter faded a little after that. Jannik leaned against the desk.

“Do you need anything? More water? Another blanket?”

Carlos turned from the window, smiling. “You are nervous host.”

“I am practical host.”

“No. Nervous.”

Jannik looked away. “Everyone says this.”

“Maybe because it is true.”

“I am fine.”

Carlos studied him. Jannik had the uncomfortable feeling that Carlos saw too much when he wanted to.

Finally Carlos said, “I will sleep a little. But not too long. I don’t want to waste the day.”

“You are not wasting it if you rest.”

Carlos smiled. “You really have learned all the coach sentences.”

“I had a video call.”

“With Simone and Darren?”

“Yes.”

“About me?”

“A little.”

Carlos looked pleased and guilty at the same time.

“They are worried?”

“They think you should not do stupid things.”

“They know me.”

“Yes.”

Carlos moved to the bed and sat down carefully, testing the mattress.

“Tell them I am behaving.”

“You have been here two hours.”

“And I behaved for all of them.”

“You called my car Fast Carrot.”

“That is not bad behavior. That is art.”

Jannik shook his head. “Sleep.”

Carlos stretched out slowly, still in his clothes, careful with his wrist. He looked suddenly tired once he was horizontal. The flight, the travel, the lunch, the emotions hidden under jokes—all of it seemed to settle on him. Jannik stepped toward the door.

“Jannik?”

He stopped. “Yes?”

Carlos’s voice was softer. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

Something warm and uncertain opened in Jannik’s chest.

“It’s okay.”

“No.” Carlos looked at him directly. “Thank you.”

Jannik held the look for one second too long, then nodded.

“Rest,” he said quietly.

He closed the door gently behind him. In the hallway, he exhaled. Mark was standing three steps away, leaning against the wall with his arms folded.

Jannik nearly jumped. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“You are lurking.”

“I am observing.”

“That is worse.”

Mark glanced at the closed guest-room door, then back at Jannik. His expression was full of things Jannik did not want to hear.

“Don’t,” Jannik said.

“I said nothing.”

“You are about to.”

Mark smiled. “Fine. I will save it.”

“Thank you.”

“For maximum damage later.”

Jannik walked past him. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No,” Jannik admitted. “But I am considering it.”

They went downstairs together.

The kitchen was quieter now, though still full of the aftermath of lunch. Siglinde and Johann were clearing things with slow efficiency. Mark took a towel and began drying glasses without being asked, which meant even he recognized the size of the meal had required collective recovery.

“Carlos is resting?” Siglinde asked.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Johann nodded. “He looked tired.”

“He was trying not to show it,” Jannik said.

“Like someone else I know,” Mark muttered.

Jannik ignored him.

For a while, they cleaned. The ordinary work calmed him. Plates went into the dishwasher. Pots were washed by hand because Johann trusted machines only so far. Leftovers were stored. Crumbs were wiped from the table. The smell of lunch remained, rich and comforting.

Then Mark glanced at the clock. “You still want to go to the club?”

Jannik looked up. “Today?”

“The kids are there this afternoon.”

Jannik hesitated. The old tennis club.

He had promised Simone and Darren no tennis. He had promised himself not to turn the day into preparation. But visiting the club was not practice. It was something else. Something from before the tour, before cameras, before everything became schedule.

Mark saw the hesitation. “You don’t have to hit.”

“I know.”

“You can stand there looking serious and say useful things.”

“That is my specialty.”

Mark grinned. “Exactly.”

Siglinde looked between them.

“Carlos will sleep for a while. Go. It will be good for the children.”

Jannik glanced upstairs.

“What if he wakes up?”

“He is not a baby,” Mark said. “Also mamma will feed him again.”

“He may fear that.”

Johann dried his hands. “Go. But no playing.”

Jannik laughed. “Even you?”

“No playing.”

“I know.”

So they went.

They took Mark’s car this time, because the Ferrari had already caused enough commentary for one day. Mark drove, which meant Jannik sat in the passenger seat and endured fifteen minutes of exaggerated complaints about how strange it felt to drive the “normal” car after the Ferrari.

The old club appeared at the edge of town, modest and familiar, surrounded by trees and the kind of mountain quiet that made the bounce of a tennis ball sound sharper. Jannik had not been there in a while. Every time he returned, something inside him became both smaller and bigger.

The clubhouse looked almost the same. The courts were better maintained now, partly because people cared more after he became who he became, but the feeling remained. The fences. The benches. The smell of clay, sun-warmed and slightly damp. The water fountain near the entrance. The old noticeboard with tournament flyers and coaching schedules.

A group of children was already on court. When they saw Jannik, training dissolved instantly. One boy missed a ball completely. Another girl dropped her racket. A coach turned, saw him, and laughed because there was no point pretending order would survive.

“Ciao,” Jannik called, lifting a hand.

The children erupted. Not in the way crowds erupted in stadiums. This was higher, messier, full of disbelief.

“Jannik!” “Jannik Sinner!” “He came!”

Mark leaned toward him. “Try not to look terrified.”

“I am not terrified.”

“You look more nervous than before the Madrid final.”

“This is different.”

The coach came over first, smiling broadly. He was older than Jannik remembered and exactly the same in the eyes.

“Jannik,” he said, embracing him carefully. “Madrid champion and still you remember us.”

Jannik smiled. “Of course.”

“And you brought Mark to make sure you don’t work too hard?”

“I brought Mark because no one stopped him.”

Mark shook the coach’s hand. “I am here as security.”

“For whom?” the coach asked.

“For Jannik. The children may challenge him.”

“No playing,” Jannik said quickly.

The coach laughed. “We heard. Your team has spies everywhere.”

“Apparently.”

The children gathered near the fence, trying to appear calm and failing completely. Jannik walked over to them. Some were very small, maybe seven or eight. Others were teenagers trying hard not to look impressed, which made them look even more impressed.

“Hi,” Jannik said. “How is practice?”

Silence. Mark stood behind him.

“Excellent conversation.”

One girl raised her hand as if in school.

“Are you going to play?”

“No,” Jannik said.

A collective groan.

“I promised not to.”

“Because of Rome?” a boy asked.

“Yes. And because I need rest.”

The boy looked disappointed but thoughtful.

“But can you show us something?”

Jannik looked at the coach. The coach lifted both hands.

“No racket. But you can talk.”

Mark grinned. “His favorite.”

Jannik gave him a look, then turned back to the children.

“Okay. I can show without hitting.”

That became the game of the afternoon.

Jannik stood on the clay in sneakers but did not take a racket. He kept his hands mostly in his pockets so nobody could accuse him of temptation. Mark sat on the bench like an overly critical assistant coach, occasionally stealing a ball from a basket and tossing it badly.

The kids hit. Jannik watched. At first, they were too nervous. They overhit, framed balls, forgot footwork, and looked at him after every shot as if waiting for a grade. Jannik softened his voice.

“Don’t try to hit harder because I am here,” he said. “Hit normal. Tennis is already difficult when you are normal.”

Mark called from the bench, “Beautiful wisdom.”

“Mark.”

“Sorry.”

Jannik moved along the baseline as one of the teenagers practiced crosscourt forehands.

“Good,” he said. “But after you hit, recover faster. Not because the coach says it. Because the next ball does not care if you are proud of the last one.”

The boy smiled. Another child, a small girl with a fierce expression, kept rushing through her backhand. Jannik crouched slightly beside her, still outside the hitting zone.

“What is your name?”

“Lena.”

“Lena, can I ask you something?”

She nodded quickly.

“Why are you in a hurry?”

She blinked. “I don’t know.”

“Good answer. Try to wait half a second more. The ball will come to you.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“Then you move. But first, wait enough to see.”

She tried again. The next backhand was cleaner.

Her face lit up.

Jannik smiled. “See?”

Mark whispered loudly, “He does know things.”

The coach threw him a look, but he was smiling too.

For nearly an hour, Jannik taught without playing. He explained balance by standing beside the kids and shifting his weight. He talked about watching the ball. He showed recovery positions without swinging. He asked questions more than he gave speeches.

“What do you feel when you miss?” “Where is your body going after the serve?” “Do you know before the shot where you want the ball to go?”

Sometimes the answers were funny. Sometimes surprisingly sharp.

A little boy named Matteo said, very seriously, “When I miss, I feel betrayed by my racket.”

Mark almost fell off the bench laughing. Jannik nodded with solemn understanding.

“That happens.”

“Does your racket betray you?”

“Sometimes.”

“But you are Jannik Sinner.”

“Exactly. It betrays everyone.”

That seemed to comfort the boy deeply.

At the end, they gathered for photos and autographs. Jannik signed caps, balls, notebooks, even one shoe. He answered questions about Madrid, about Rome, about whether he liked pizza, about whether Carlos was really his friend.

That question came from Lena. Jannik’s pen paused. Mark, standing behind the children, suddenly became extremely interested.

“Yes,” Jannik said. “Carlos is my friend.”

“Is he nice?”

“Yes.”

“Is he sad because he can’t play?”

The question was so direct, so childlike, that Jannik looked up.

“I think a little,” he said. “But he will be okay.”

“Can you tell him we hope his wrist gets better?”

Jannik’s expression softened. “I will.”

Lena nodded, satisfied. Mark looked at him after the children ran back to the court.

“That was sweet.”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t even make a face.”

“I make normal faces.”

“You make chapters.”

Jannik ignored him and thanked the coach. They stayed a little longer, watching the kids return to drills with new energy, occasionally glancing over to make sure Jannik was still real. The old club did something good to him.

It reminded him that tennis was not only stadiums and pressure. It was also small courts near mountains. Children missing balls and laughing. Coaches picking up baskets. Parents watching from benches. Dreams before they became heavy.

When they walked back to the car, Mark said, “You did well.”

“I did not play.”

“That’s why you did well. You looked like you wanted to.”

“I did want to a little.”

“Of course.”

Jannik opened the passenger door. “But I promised.”

Mark paused on the driver’s side and looked over the roof of the car.

“To Simone and Darren?”

“Yes.”

“And Carlos?”

Jannik looked away. “Also.”

Mark smiled. “Interesting.”

“Drive.”

They returned home in late afternoon light.

The house looked peaceful from outside. The air had cooled slightly. Shadows stretched across the road. Jannik felt calmer after the club, tired in a pleasant way, with clay dust on his shoes and children’s messages for Carlos in his head.

Inside, he expected quiet. Instead, he heard Carlos laughing in the kitchen. Jannik stopped in the hallway. Mark nearly bumped into him.

“What?”

Carlos’s voice came again, warm and animated, followed by Siglinde’s laughter. Jannik stepped forward.

In the kitchen, Carlos sat at the table with a mug in front of him and a small plate of cake beside it. His hair was slightly messy from sleep. His injured wrist rested on the table. Siglinde sat across from him, chin in hand, listening as if Carlos were telling the most important story in the world.

Carlos turned when Jannik entered. His smile appeared first. Then his eyes narrowed.

“You.”

Jannik stopped. “Me?”

“You went to a tennis club.”

Mark immediately stepped sideways, delighted. Jannik looked at his mother.

“You told him?”

Siglinde lifted her hands innocently.

“He asked where you were.”

Carlos stood, betrayed in every line of his body.

“You went to a tennis club without me.”

“You were sleeping.”

“I woke up.”

“You needed rest.”

“I am injured, not dead.”

Mark leaned against the counter.

“That is exactly what he said about the suitcase.”

Carlos pointed at him. “Thank you, Mark.”

Jannik tried not to smile.

“I did not play.”

Carlos crossed his arms carefully, protecting the wrist even while performing outrage.

“That is not the point.”

“It is literally the point. Everyone told me no playing.”

“You saw tennis.”

“Yes.”

“You smelled clay.”

Jannik blinked. “Smelled clay?”

Carlos took a step closer.

“You watched people hit balls.”

“Children.”

“Worse. Children are joyful. I wanted to see.”

Jannik laughed. “You were asleep.”

“You could wake me.”

“You had a long flight.”

Carlos looked wounded.

“So you left me here with your mother and cake.”

Siglinde smiled. “He did not suffer.”

Carlos turned to her immediately.

“No, no. I suffered very happily.”

Mark whispered, “Recovery through betrayal.”

Jannik set his keys down.

“The kids asked about you.”

Carlos’s expression shifted instantly. “They did?”

“Yes.”

The outrage softened.

“What did they say?”

“They hope your wrist gets better.”

Carlos looked down for a moment, and when he looked up again, his smile was quieter.

“That is nice.”

“One girl asked if you are sad.”

Carlos’s eyebrows rose. “What did you say?”

“That I think a little. But you will be okay.”

Carlos held his gaze. Siglinde looked between them and wisely said nothing. Carlos nodded once.

“Good answer.”

Then he remembered his betrayal and pointed at Jannik again.

“But still. You went to tennis without me.”

“I will take you next time.”

“When?”

“When you can hold a racket without Simone and Darren blaming me.”

Carlos groaned. “This may be never.”

“It will not be never.”

The words came out firmer than Jannik expected. Carlos heard it too. His face softened again. For a second, something quiet passed between them. Mark, allergic to quiet, clapped his hands once.

“Well. Since tennis betrayal has occurred, we should watch television.”

Jannik turned. “Why?”

“Because you both clearly miss tennis and are forbidden to play. So we watch someone else suffer.”

Carlos sat back down. “What match?”

Mark’s grin became wicked.

“I found something.”

Jannik immediately mistrusted him.

“What?”

“Monte Carlo 2026.”

Carlos froze. Jannik looked at Mark.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Carlos’s eyes moved to Jannik.

“Which match?”

Mark looked delighted. “You two.”

Carlos slowly turned toward Jannik.

“Ah.”

Jannik rubbed his forehead. “We do not need to watch that.”

“You won,” Mark said.

“That is not the point.”

Carlos leaned back in his chair, suddenly amused.

“No, no. I want to see.”

“You played in it,” Jannik said.

“Yes, but I want to watch with you.”

“That sounds terrible.”

Carlos smiled. “For you or me?”

“For everyone.”

Siglinde stood, collecting Carlos’s plate.

“I would watch.”

“Mamma.”

“What? It was a good match.”

Carlos pointed toward her. “See? Siglinde wants.”

Johann entered from the pantry at exactly the wrong time.

“What does Siglinde want?”

“To watch Monte Carlo,” Mark said.

Johann nodded. “Good match.”

Jannik stared at his family.

“You all planned this?”

“No,” Mark said. “But I wish I had.”

Twenty minutes later, Jannik found himself in the living room watching his own match against Carlos. This, he decided, was deeply unfair.

The room had settled into evening comfort. Siglinde sat in the armchair with knitting she pretended to work on but mostly forgot. Johann took the other chair with tea. Mark occupied one end of the sofa like a commentator prepared for broadcast. Carlos sat at the other end, legs tucked comfortably, wrist supported by a cushion Siglinde had insisted on providing.

Jannik sat between Carlos and Mark because fate, apparently, enjoyed jokes. The television showed Monte Carlo clay under bright light.

A younger version of the week. Only weeks ago, yet already it felt distant. Jannik saw himself on screen bouncing the ball before serve, face composed. Carlos across the net, moving lightly, hair dark under the sun, energy restless and coiled.

The score appeared. Monte Carlo 2026. Sinner d. Alcaraz, 7-6(5), 6-3.

Carlos whistled. “Look at you. Very serious.”

Jannik kept his eyes on the screen. “It was a match.”

“You are serious when you brush your teeth.”

Mark nodded. “Confirmed.”

Carlos watched himself return serve.

“Ah, I remember this point.”

“You lost it,” Jannik said.

Carlos turned. “You don’t know.”

On screen, Carlos ripped a forehand wide. Jannik glanced at him. Carlos waved a hand.

“Okay. This one I lost.”

Mark leaned forward. “Great start.”

The first games were tight, full of movement and tension. Even knowing the result, Jannik felt his body respond. His fingers twitched once on his knee when television-Jannik missed a backhand by centimeters. He forced his hand still. Carlos noticed.

“You want to play,” he whispered.

“No.”

“You do.”

“I want that backhand in.”

Carlos laughed softly.

“Same thing.”

The living room became half theater, half analysis room. Johann commented rarely but sharply.

“Good serve,” he said once.

Jannik nodded. “Wide serve opened the court.”

Mark groaned. “Here we go.”

Carlos leaned toward Mark.

“Now they start.”

On screen, Carlos hit an outrageous forehand pass. Carlos sat up.

“Vamos.”

Jannik looked at him. “You know you lose this match.”

“I can still enjoy my shot.”

Mark pointed. “Correct.”

Carlos replayed the point with his good hand, describing what he saw.

“You came in too straight. I knew if I could make the ball dip-”

“I came in because you were late.”

“I was not late.”

“You were late.”

“I hit the winner.”

“Because I chose the wrong volley.”

Carlos smiled. “So you admit I forced it.”

Jannik opened his mouth, then closed it. Mark looked delighted.

“This is better than live tennis.”

Siglinde finally put down her knitting.

“Do you two always talk like this?”

Carlos and Jannik looked at each other.

“Yes,” Mark answered for them.

The tiebreak approached.

The atmosphere in the living room changed despite everyone knowing what happened. Carlos leaned forward. Jannik crossed his arms. Mark turned up the volume as if the outcome might shift with better sound.

At 3-3 in the tiebreak, television-Carlos hit a drop shot that barely cleared the net.

Carlos smiled. “Beautiful.”

Jannik said, “Risky.”

“Beautiful.”

“Risky.”

“Both.”

The next point, television-Jannik chased down a wide ball and redirected it down the line.

Johann said, “Good legs.”

Carlos glanced at Jannik. “Annoying legs.”

“Thank you.”

“That was not compliment.”

“It sounded like one.”

At 5-5, the point grew long.

The television showed them moving each other from corner to corner, both sliding, both refusing to give ground. The crowd noise rose. Carlos attacked first. Jannik defended. Carlos came forward. Jannik passed him with a backhand that clipped the line.

Mark shouted, “There!”

Carlos groaned and threw his head back against the sofa.

“I hated that shot.”

Jannik smiled despite himself.

“I liked it.”

“I know. You walked like you liked it.”

“I walked normally.”

Carlos imitated him badly, sitting up with shoulders straight, expression blank.

“‘Yes, good shot, but I am made of ice.’”

Mark applauded. “Excellent.”

Jannik shook his head. “I do not walk like that.”

Siglinde smiled. “A little.”

“Mamma.”

“Only sometimes.”

Carlos looked victorious. On screen, Jannik closed the tiebreak 7-5. The broadcast cut to his fist pump, small but fierce. Carlos watched quietly. Jannik noticed.

For the first time since they had started watching, Carlos’s smile faded completely. Not because of the point. Not because of the loss. His eyes were fixed on the court, but Jannik had the sense he was seeing something else.

Maybe the wrist. Maybe the clay season he had lost.

The second set began. Jannik broke early. Carlos on screen kept fighting, but the match had tilted. The television version of him was still powerful, still dangerous, still Carlos, but Jannik remembered feeling that day that he had found the rhythm. He could absorb the pace. He could take time away. He could make Carlos play one more ball, then one more, until the opening came.

Carlos watched with his jaw set. Jannik lowered his voice.

“We can turn it off.”

Carlos looked at him. “No.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

Mark heard the tone and, for once, did not joke. The match continued. At 4-2, Carlos on screen missed a forehand long and looked toward his box, frustrated. The camera caught him flexing his hand briefly. Jannik saw it. Carlos saw Jannik see it.

“It was already there,” Jannik said quietly.

Carlos nodded. “A little.”

“You didn’t say.”

“During the tournament?”

“Yes.”

Carlos gave a small smile. “To you? Before playing you?”

Jannik’s mouth tightened.

“No. I mean after.”

Carlos looked back at the screen.

“I thought it was okay. Pain comes and goes. You know.”

Jannik did know. Every player knew the private negotiations with pain. Is it serious? Is it manageable? Is it fear? Can I play? Should I stop? What does stopping cost? What does continuing cost? On screen, television-Jannik served for the match. The living room was very quiet.

He won it with a forehand combination: heavy crosscourt, then inside-in to the open space. Carlos did not reach it. The crowd rose. Television-Jannik lifted a fist. Television-Carlos walked to the net, smiling despite disappointment. They shook hands, then embraced briefly. The camera lingered on them. Jannik felt Carlos beside him watching the image. Two versions of themselves on screen: rivals in sunlight, clay on their shoes, bodies full of everything they could still do.

Now one of them sat on a sofa with a cushion under his injured wrist. The broadcast cut to highlights, but Mark turned the volume down. For a few seconds, nobody spoke.

Then Carlos said, softly but with a smile trying to return, “You played very well.”

Jannik looked at him. “So did you.”

“I lost.”

“You still played well.”

Carlos leaned back.

“You always say these correct things.”

“They are true.”

Carlos turned his head toward him. “I know.”

The room remained gentle around them. Siglinde stood quietly.

“More tea?”

Carlos looked grateful for the interruption. “Yes, please.”

Johann stood too. “I bring.”

Mark picked up the remote.

“No more matches?”

Jannik said, “No more matches.”

Carlos looked at him, the spark returning.

“Because next one maybe I win?”

“Because you need rest.”

“Ah. Coach Jannik again.”

“Responsible tourist guide.”

“Tourist guide who abandons tourists to go tennis club.”

Mark pointed at Carlos. “Never forget.”

Jannik groaned. “You slept.”

Carlos smiled. “Still betrayal.”

Siglinde brought tea. Johann brought the cake Carlos had claimed he could never eat again. Carlos ate a piece anyway, which made Johann look quietly triumphant. The evening settled.

The match remained in the room, but no longer heavily. It had opened something, perhaps, but not broken it. Carlos became cheerful again slowly, teasing Jannik about the backhand pass, arguing that the tiebreak had turned on luck, insisting that when his wrist healed he wanted a rematch “somewhere with less Italian mountain energy.”

Jannik replied that Monte Carlo was not Italian, Carlos said it was emotionally close enough, Mark declared this a valid argument, and Johann said Monte Carlo had good restaurants, which somehow ended the debate.

Later, when Siglinde and Johann went to the kitchen, Mark stood and stretched.

“I am going to pretend to do something useful,” he announced.

“That will be new,” Jannik said.

Carlos laughed. Mark pointed at him.

“Careful. You are guest today. Tomorrow I make fun of you properly.”

“I leave in one day.”

“Then I must work fast.”

Mark disappeared. For the first time since lunch, Jannik and Carlos were alone. The television showed muted tennis highlights from another match now, players neither of them cared about moving silently across the court.

Carlos stared at the screen for a while, then said, “The kids at the club. Were they good?”

“Some.”

Carlos smiled. “Honest.”

“One girl had a good backhand. Too rushed, but good.”

“You told her?”

“Yes.”

“And she listened?”

“Yes.”

“Of course. If Jannik Sinner tells you wait for the ball, you wait forever.”

Jannik smiled. “She asked if you were nice.”

Carlos turned. “And?”

“I said yes.”

“Correct.”

“She asked if you were sad.”

Carlos’s smile weakened.

“I told you that already,” Jannik said softly.

“Yes.”

A pause. Carlos looked down at his wrist.

“I don’t want to be sad here.”

“You don’t have to decide.”

Carlos looked at him.

Jannik continued, “You can be sad for five minutes and still have a good day.”

Carlos was quiet.

Then he said, “You learned that from therapy or from losing?”

Jannik thought about it. “Maybe from both.”

Carlos nodded slowly. “I hate not playing.”

“I know.”

“I hate watching myself play and thinking, there, that person could hit without thinking.”

“You will again.”

Carlos looked at him with a faint smile.

“You say it like fact.”

“It is fact.”

“You don’t know.”

“No. But I believe it.”

Carlos’s expression changed. The words had been simple. Maybe too simple. But they seemed to reach him.

“Thank you,” Carlos said.

Jannik nodded.

Outside the windows, the evening had turned soft and blue again, like the night before. The mountains were fading into shadow. Inside, the house was warm, smelling faintly of tea and wood and leftover lunch. Carlos leaned back against the sofa.

“Your family is very easy to like.”

“They like you.”

“I know. I am charming.”

Jannik gave him a look.

Carlos grinned. “And humble.”

“Very.”

“But really,” Carlos said, quieter. “It felt...nice. Like I was not interrupting.”

“You were not.”

“I was worried.”

“You?”

“Yes, me.” Carlos smiled without looking at him. “You think only you can be nervous?”

Jannik blinked.

Carlos continued, “I knew these were your free days. Your family. Your home. I thought maybe when I arrive, it is too much. Maybe you say yes because you are polite.”

“I am not that polite.”

Carlos laughed softly. “No. But you are kind.”

Jannik looked at the muted television. Kind.

The word touched him differently than champion, professional, focused, calm. Those words belonged to the version people described from outside. Kind was softer. Closer. More dangerous, perhaps.

“I wanted you to come,” Jannik said.

The room seemed to hold its breath. Carlos turned his head toward him. Jannik kept looking at the television, though he was not seeing it.

“I didn’t understand it yesterday. But I did.”

Carlos said nothing for a moment.

Then, gently, “And today?”

Jannik’s fingers rested against his knee. He thought of the airport. Carlos seeing the mountains. Coffee. Children. Lunch. Carlos laughing with his family. Carlos pretending betrayal in the kitchen. Carlos watching Monte Carlo with sadness he did not fully hide.

“Today I’m glad you came,” he said.

Carlos’s voice was low. “Me too.”

From the kitchen, Mark shouted, “I can hear emotional development!”

Jannik closed his eyes. Carlos burst out laughing.

“Mark!” Siglinde scolded, but she was laughing too.

Jannik covered his face with one hand.

“I am going to move out.”

Carlos, still laughing, leaned closer and said, “Can I review the tourist guide now?”

“No.”

“Too late. Five stars.”

“For abandoning you?”

“For bringing me here.”

Jannik lowered his hand and looked at him.

Carlos smiled, not teasing now. “Five stars.”

Jannik felt warmth rise in his face, but this time he did not look away quickly enough. In the kitchen, Mark began humming loudly, probably to prove he was still listening.

Jannik stood. “I’m getting more tea.”

Carlos smiled into his cup. “Running away?”

“Yes.”

“At least you are honest.”

Jannik walked to the kitchen, where Mark was drying a plate with the expression of a man who knew he had won something.

“Say one word,” Jannik murmured, “and I will make you walk to work tomorrow.”

Mark leaned close. “Five stars.”

Jannik took the teapot. From the living room, Carlos laughed again.

And Jannik, despite embarrassment, despite the strange unsettled feeling in his chest, despite Rome waiting and Carlos’s wrist and everything neither of them yet understood, smiled as he carried the tea back.

The day had not been simple. Maybe none of this was. But Carlos was on the sofa in his family’s house, wrapped in a mountain evening, holding tea with one hand and laughing at Mark’s terrible jokes. For now, that was enough.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── 

The morning after Carlos arrived began with music. Bad music.

At first, Jannik did not understand what had pulled him out of sleep. He lay still, eyes closed, face turned toward the cool side of the pillow, listening through the warm blur of waking.

There was a voice downstairs. No. Two voices. One was unmistakably Carlos: bright, unashamed, full of confidence that had no relationship whatsoever to musical ability. The other voice was lower, louder in the wrong places, and somehow worse.

Mark.

Jannik opened one eye.

The singing rose again from below, bouncing up the stairs and under his bedroom door. The rhythm was lively, Spanish, probably meant to be romantic or dramatic or both. Carlos sang it with enthusiasm. Mark sang it with the desperate courage of a man who knew three-quarters of the lyrics and intended to fill the rest with noise.

Jannik stared at the ceiling.

“No,” he whispered.

The chorus came again. Carlos went high. Mark followed. Neither of them should have. Jannik covered his face with both hands.

From somewhere else in the house, Siglinde laughed. Not a polite laugh. A real one, helpless and warm. Then came the scrape of a chair, the clink of cups, and Johann’s voice saying something too low to catch, but the tone was unmistakably resigned.

The singing grew louder. Jannik threw back the blanket. By the time he reached the stairs, barefoot and wearing an old T-shirt, the kitchen scene below looked like something from a strange dream.

Carlos stood near the counter, holding a wooden spoon like a microphone. His hair was still messy from sleep, and his injured wrist was protected close to his body, but the rest of him had apparently decided rest did not apply to morning performance. Mark stood opposite him with another spoon, fully committed, eyes half closed as if he were on stage in Madrid, not in the Sinner family kitchen.

Siglinde sat at the table with her coffee, hand over her mouth. Johann stood at the stove, back turned, shoulders shaking suspiciously. Mark sang a line in Spanish. Correctly. Jannik stopped halfway down the stairs. Carlos pointed the spoon at him.

“Jannik! Buenos días!”

Mark turned dramatically.

“You are awake! Perfect timing.”

Jannik looked from Carlos to Mark.

“You know the lyrics?”

Mark lowered the spoon. “Good morning to you too.”

“You know the lyrics,” Jannik repeated, genuinely shocked.

Carlos grinned. “He knows many lyrics.”

“How?”

Mark shrugged, far too casually. “I am cultured.”

“You are not.”

“I contain multitudes.”

“You contain YouTube.”

Carlos burst out laughing.

“He told me he learned it one summer because of a girl.”

Mark’s face changed. “I shared that in confidence.”

Jannik descended the last steps slowly, eyes wide with delight.

“A girl?”

“No.”

Carlos nodded gravely. “Yes.”

Mark pointed the spoon at him.

“Betrayal.”

Carlos touched his chest. “I am sorry. Spanish music makes me honest.”

Jannik leaned against the doorway.

“Who was she?”

“Nobody.”

“What was her name?”

“No name.”

Carlos supplied, “Jennifer.”

Mark turned to him in horror. “Carlos.”

Jannik laughed so hard he had to hold the doorframe. Siglinde wiped her eyes.

“This is the best breakfast we have had in months.”

Johann finally turned from the stove, expression composed except for the fact that he was smiling.

“Sit. Eat before they sing again.”

Carlos lifted the spoon. “One more chorus?”

“No,” Jannik and Johann said at once.

Mark looked offended. “You are crushing art.”

“That was not art,” Jannik said, sitting at the table.

Carlos came over and dropped into the chair across from him, still smiling.

“You are grumpy in the morning.”

“I woke up to you and my brother destroying Spain.”

“I was honoring Spain.”

“You were shouting at Spain.”

Mark placed a cup of coffee in front of Jannik.

“He is jealous because he cannot sing.”

“I do not want to sing.”

“That is what people who cannot sing say.”

Jannik took the coffee and looked at Carlos.

“Did he really know all the words?”

Carlos nodded. “Almost all. Some were invented.”

“Only the difficult parts,” Mark said.

“There are no difficult parts,” Carlos replied.

“For you.”

Jannik took a sip of coffee, still smiling despite himself. His body felt looser than the day before. Maybe the sleep had helped. Maybe the laughter did. Maybe it was simply impossible to wake up anxious when Carlos Alcaraz and Mark Sinner were performing a terrible Spanish duet in the kitchen.

Carlos looked better too. Not healed, obviously. His wrist remained protected, and when he reached for his cup, he used his other hand carefully. But his face had more color. The heaviness that had appeared while watching Monte Carlo had lifted, or at least moved somewhere less visible.

Siglinde placed bread on the table, then jam, butter, fruit, and yogurt. Compared to the previous day’s lunch, breakfast was almost modest, but Carlos still looked at it with appreciation.

“Your family thinks breakfast is a serious event,” he said.

Jannik reached for bread. “It is.”

“I am learning.”

Mark sat beside Carlos.

“Today, you will learn more. Jannik is taking you into town.”

Carlos brightened. “Yes?”

Jannik looked up. “Yes. After breakfast.”

Carlos turned to Siglinde.

“He agreed yesterday?”

“He told me last night,” Siglinde said.

Jannik frowned. “I did?”

“You said maybe.”

“That is not telling.”

“In this house, maybe means yes if your mother likes the idea,” Mark explained.

Carlos nodded. “Same in Spain.”

Johann placed eggs on the table and looked at Carlos.

“No long walks if the wrist hurts.”

Carlos blinked. “The wrist does not walk.”

Johann pointed at him with the spatula. “Everything is connected.”

Carlos looked at Jannik. “He sounds like my physio.”

“My father is everyone’s physio now,” Jannik said.

Johann ignored them and returned to the stove.

Breakfast unfolded in a gentler version of the previous day’s lunch. Carlos and Mark continued arguing about the Spanish song. Siglinde asked Carlos whether he had slept well, and he answered sincerely that the room was so quiet he had woken once because he thought something was wrong. Johann asked whether he wanted more coffee. Carlos said yes too quickly and then glanced at Jannik as if he had made a tactical error.

Jannik smiled.

“Careful. Papà will respect you more if you drink three.”

“I can do three.”

“You cannot.”

Carlos lifted his chin. “I am Spanish.”

Mark leaned in. “This is not about nationality. This is about survival.”

Carlos drank two. Johann looked pleased.

After breakfast, Jannik went upstairs to change. When he came back down, Carlos was already waiting in the hallway, jacket on, scarf loosely around his neck because Siglinde had insisted the wind could change quickly. He looked slightly amused and slightly touched by the fuss.

Mark stood beside him, inspecting the scarf.

“You look like an exchange student.”

Carlos adjusted it with his good hand.

“A stylish one.”

“You are going shopping for strudel, not attending Milan Fashion Week.”

“Strudel deserves respect.”

Jannik came down the stairs. “Ready?”

Carlos turned. For a second, his expression softened before the joke arrived.

“Yes, tourist guide.”

Mark looked between them, then sighed theatrically.

“Be careful, Jannik. Do not abandon him at another tennis club.”

Carlos pointed at him. “Exactly.”

“I’m taking him to town.”

“The town has shops. Shops have people. People have opinions. Stay strong.”

Jannik opened the door.

“Goodbye, Mark.”

Mark called after them, “Bring strudel! And do not buy the small one!”

Carlos paused on the step. “There is a small one?”

“Not for this family,” Jannik said.

The morning outside was cool and bright. The kind of spring morning that made everything look newly washed. Sunlight rested on the roofs of San Candido and slid down the mountainsides in pale gold sheets. The air smelled of pine, stone and distant bread. Carlos stopped at the bottom of the steps and inhaled deeply.

Jannik watched him. “Still arrogant air?”

Carlos smiled without looking over.

“Still accurate air.”

They walked without hurry. That was the promise of the morning: no car, no schedule, no practice, no rushing toward anything. Just the streets Jannik had known all his life and Carlos seeing each corner with fresh eyes.

The village center was already awake but not crowded. A delivery van moved slowly along the street. An older woman arranged flowers outside a shop. A cyclist passed with a quiet bell. Windows reflected the mountains in pieces. The pavements were clean, the buildings painted in soft colors, balconies edged with carved wood and flower boxes.

Carlos kept turning his head.

“You are going to walk into something,” Jannik said.

Carlos continued looking upward. “Worth it.”

“No head injuries before lunch.”

“Your father would blame you?”

“My mother would blame me. Worse.”

Carlos smiled. “She is very kind.”

“Yes.”

“And your father.”

“Yes.”

“And Mark is...” Carlos searched for the word.

“Annoying?”

“Very annoying. But good.”

Jannik looked sideways at him.

“You like him.”

“I do. He is funny.”

“He is dangerous when encouraged.”

“I noticed.”

“You encouraged him.”

Carlos looked entirely unashamed.

“He encouraged me first.”

They turned into one of the smaller streets. The sound of their footsteps changed against the stone. For a while, they passed shops with displays of wool, local crafts, postcards, chocolate, hiking gear. Carlos looked into every window as if he had never seen a shop before. At one display of carved wooden figures, he stopped.

“Is this traditional?”

“Yes.”

“This one looks like Darren.”

Jannik looked. It was a small carved man with a beard and a serious expression.

He laughed. “A little.”

Carlos looked delighted. “We should buy it.”

“No.”

“For Simone?”

“No.”

Carlos took out his phone and snapped a picture carefully.

“I'll send later.”

“Please don’t.”

“I must.”

They continued toward the bakery. Even before they reached it, the smell found them. Warm pastry. Butter. Apples. Cinnamon. Fresh bread. Carlos stopped mid-step.

“Ah.”

Jannik smiled. “Trenker.”

“This is the strudel place?”

“Yes.”

Carlos looked at him solemnly.

“I forgive you for the tennis club.”

“That easy?”

“I am a generous person.”

They entered the bakery, and the warm air wrapped around them at once.

Inside, the shelves were full of bread, pastries, cakes, rolls dusted with flour, twists of dough glazed golden. Behind the counter, trays of strudel sat in neat rows, apple filling visible beneath crisp layers, powdered sugar like a light snow. The shop was busy but calm, with people moving in the practiced rhythm of a place that mattered to daily life.

Carlos leaned closer to Jannik and whispered, “I need everything.”

“You do not.”

“I suffered injury. I deserve.”

“You ate half my father’s kitchen yesterday.”

“And I am still brave.”

Jannik shook his head and stepped to the counter. The woman behind it recognized him immediately, but she smiled locally: warm, not loud.

“Buongiorno, Jannik.”

“Buongiorno.”

Her eyes moved to Carlos and her smile widened.

“And buongiorno to you.”

Carlos smiled back. “Buongiorno. I am here for the famous strudel.”

“Then you came to the right place.”

Jannik ordered enough for the house. Mark had said not small, and Jannik knew better than to return with anything that could be interpreted as restraint. Carlos added two pastries “for research,” then another because “Álvaro would ask for a report.” Jannik paid before Carlos could fight him.

Carlos frowned. “I could pay.”

“You are a guest.”

“I bought pastries.”

“You chose pastries.”

“That is emotional labor.”

Jannik looked at him.

“You learned that from Mark?”

Carlos grinned. “Maybe.”

While they waited for the strudel to be wrapped, two teenage girls near the door recognized them. They whispered to each other, nervous and excited. Jannik saw Carlos notice too. They both waited. The girls clearly wanted to ask, but were too shy.

Carlos leaned toward Jannik. “You or me?”

“You.”

“I am injured.”

“Not your smile.”

Carlos laughed softly, then turned toward the girls.

“Ciao.”

That broke the spell. They approached with red faces and asked for a photo. Jannik and Carlos agreed easily. The girls wished Carlos a fast recovery and Jannik good luck in Rome. Carlos thanked them with a tenderness that made Jannik glance at him. Outside the bakery, Carlos carried the smaller pastry bag in his good hand while Jannik took the strudel.

Carlos looked down at the packages. “This is an important responsibility.”

“Do not drop it.”

“If I drop it, Mark will hate me?”

“Yes.”

“Then I protect with my life.”

They walked slowly through the center, past shop windows and narrow lanes, the bakery warmth still clinging to them. Carlos took a bite from one of the extra pastries and closed his eyes dramatically.

“Oh.”

“Good?”

Carlos opened one eye. “You know it is good.”

“I asked politely.”

“You are dangerous with bakeries. You hide this from the tour?”

“I do not hide it.”

“You never told me.”

“We mostly talk at tournaments.”

Carlos looked at him.

“We can talk about strudel at tournaments.”

Jannik smiled. “Okay. Next time.”

Carlos’s expression shifted briefly at the words next time. Maybe because there would not be Rome for him, or Paris. Maybe because next time, on tour, felt farther away than it should have. Jannik saw it but did not push.

Instead, he pointed ahead.

“Come. I want to show you something.”

They walked toward Villa Wachtler.

As they approached, the atmosphere changed slightly. The building stood with a kind of quiet confidence, elegant and old, set apart enough to make people lower their voices without knowing why. It had the presence of a place that had seen generations pass by and did not need to explain itself. The walls, the windows, the garden, the careful details: everything suggested stories behind closed doors.

Carlos slowed.

“What is this?”

“Villa Wachtler.”

“It is beautiful.”

“Yes.”

“Can we go in?”

Jannik shook his head. “Private property.”

Carlos looked disappointed for exactly half a second, then fascinated.

“Private, like someone lives there?”

“Yes.”

“Imagine.”

Jannik leaned against the low wall nearby, careful not to block the way.

“Imagine what?”

“Living there.” Carlos tilted his head, studying the building. “Waking up and seeing mountains every morning. Having coffee in the garden. Maybe a library with old books. A piano nobody plays well.”

“Why would there be a piano?”

“There is always a piano in houses like this.”

“You know many houses like this?”

“No, but I have imagination.”

“That is true.”

Carlos took another small bite of pastry, still looking at the villa.

“You would like it.”

Jannik glanced at him. “Me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It is quiet. Beautiful. Serious but not cold.” Carlos smiled slightly. “Like you.”

Jannik looked away too quickly. Carlos saw. Of course, he saw.

“I mean the house,” Carlos added innocently.

“You said like me.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

Carlos’s smile widened. “Maybe.”

Jannik focused on the villa because it was safer than Carlos’s face.

“It is too big.”

“For you alone, yes.”

The words arrived lightly, but Jannik felt the heat rise in his neck. Carlos continued, still looking at the building.

“You would need people there. Family. Friends. Maybe a tennis court hidden in the back.”

“No tennis court.”

“You say that because of Simone.”

“I say that because it is private property and not mine.”

Carlos ignored this. “We put a court there. But grass, maybe. Very elegant.”

“In the mountains?”

“Why not?”

“Because winter exists.”

“Indoor court then.”

Jannik laughed. “You are redesigning someone’s house.”

Carlos lifted his pastry like a pointer.

“Listen. Villa Sinner-Alcaraz Tennis Retreat.”

Jannik nearly coughed. Carlos glanced at him, eyes bright.

“Too much?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Villa Wachtler Invitational. Very exclusive. Only players who behave.”

“So not you.”

Carlos put a hand to his chest.

“I behave.”

“You sang in my kitchen before eight.”

“Cultural exchange.”

“You made Mark sing.”

“Mark was waiting for this moment his whole life.”

Jannik shook his head, smiling. Carlos turned back to the villa, now fully lost in fantasy.

“We invite everyone. Ben Shelton arrives and immediately asks where the gym is.”

Jannik laughed. “Or where the loudest room is.”

“Yes, Ben takes the room with the balcony so he can shout good morning to the mountains.”

“That sounds accurate.”

“Casper Ruud arrives with perfect luggage, very polite, already knows the history of the house.”

“Casper would bring flowers.”

“He would. And maybe Norwegian chocolate.”

“Darren would ask about the court schedule.”

“Simone would say no one is allowed to play because everyone needs recovery.”

Jannik smiled. “My father would cook.”

Carlos turned to him with great seriousness.

“Then everyone comes.”

“Papà would regret it.”

“No, he would secretly love it.”

“He would cook for thirty.”

“And say it is a simple lunch.”

They both laughed.

The laughter echoed softly against the quiet street, not loud enough to disturb anything, but enough to make the moment feel less like sightseeing and more like something they were making together. Carlos looked at the villa again. His voice softened.

“It is nice to imagine.”

“What?”

“A place where everyone is just...there. No tournament. No draw. No one asking who will win. Just people.”

Jannik looked at him. The joke had opened into something else.

Carlos’s face remained turned toward the villa, but his expression had shifted. The injured wrist, the missed Rome, the missed Roland Garros—they were invisible for a moment, and then suddenly everywhere.

“You miss them already?” Jannik asked.

“The tournaments?”

“Yes.”

Carlos let out a slow breath.

“Yes. And no.”

Jannik waited.

“I miss playing. I miss the feeling before a match. The fight. The crowd. The stupid nerves. Even the press a little.”

Jannik raised an eyebrow. Carlos laughed.

“Okay, not the press. But the routine. I miss belonging to the week.”

Jannik understood that immediately. A tournament was exhausting, demanding, sometimes suffocating. But if you were outside it when you wanted to be inside, it became something else: a city with gates closed in your face.

Carlos continued, “But yesterday and today, I don’t miss it every second. That is new.”

Jannik held the strudel package carefully against his side.

“Good.”

“Yes.” Carlos looked at him. “Good.”

The word stayed between them longer than it needed to. A couple passed, smiling politely. Jannik nodded. Carlos smiled back. The ordinary interruption helped them move again. They left Villa Wachtler behind, continuing through the town until the streets opened toward San Michele square.

The square was bright in the late morning. People moved through it slowly: locals with shopping bags, visitors taking photos, children chasing each other near the edges, while parents told them not to run and then gave up. The church stood with quiet dignity, the buildings around it warm in the sun. The mountains rose beyond everything, always present, never needing attention because they already had it.

Carlos stopped in the middle of the square and turned in a slow circle.

“This is very beautiful,” he said.

“You say that about everything.”

“Because everything is beautiful.”

“You are an easy tourist.”

“No. I have high standards.”

“You liked Mark’s singing.”

Carlos winced. “Okay, maybe not.”

They found a bench at the edge of the square, where they could see both the movement of people and the stillness of the church facade. Jannik placed the strudel carefully between them. Carlos looked at the package.

“Should we eat?”

“If we open that before going home, Mark will know.”

“How?”

“He has instincts.”

Carlos nodded. “Like a pastry wolf.”

Jannik laughed.

For a few minutes, they sat without talking. The square moved around them, but gently. Jannik liked that about San Candido. Even when it was lively, it rarely felt aggressive. People glanced, recognized, smiled, but most kept going. A few looked twice at Carlos; a few whispered. Nobody rushed them.

Carlos stretched his legs out carefully.

“I understand why you came here after Madrid.”

Jannik leaned back. “I told you.”

“You told me, yes. But now I understand differently.”

“How?”

Carlos looked around the square.

“In Madrid, everything is big. Noise. Heat. People. You win and everyone wants a piece. Here, you can sit with a strudel on a bench and maybe nobody asks anything.”

“Sometimes they ask.”

“But not like there.”

“No.”

Carlos turned slightly toward him.

“Do you feel lonely there?”

The question surprised him.

“In Madrid?”

“On tour. After winning. Around all those people.”

Jannik looked ahead. A child ran across the square, laughing, chased by another child with a toy. Their footsteps slapped against stone. A bell sounded somewhere, not loud, just enough to mark time.

“Sometimes,” Jannik said.

Carlos did not react, did not jump in. That helped.

“It is strange,” Jannik continued. “You are never alone. Team, fans, media, players. Everyone around. But sometimes the more people there are, the less you can say normal things.”

Carlos nodded slowly. “Because everyone needs something from you.”

“Yes. Or they think they know already. They see the result and decide how you feel.”

“Winner must be happy.”

“Exactly.”

“And the loser must be destroyed.”

Jannik glanced at him. “Yes.”

Carlos gave a small smile.

“Both are sometimes true. But not always.”

“No.”

Carlos looked down at his wrist.

“In Monte Carlo, I was angry. Not only because I lost. Because I knew something was not right. But I didn’t want it to be true.”

Jannik was quiet.

“I watched the match yesterday and could see it,” Carlos said. “The little things. How I changed some shots. How I was late because I didn’t accelerate fully. At the time, I told myself it was nothing.”

“That is normal.”

“Stupid, but normal.”

“Yes.”

Carlos smiled faintly. “Thank you for adding stupid silently.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did with your face.”

Jannik sighed. “Everyone reads my face now.”

“It is a good face.”

The words were said lightly. Too lightly. Jannik turned his head. Carlos was looking at him with that familiar half-smile, the one that made everything feel like a joke until it wasn’t.

“What?” Jannik asked.

“I said it is a good face.”

“That is a strange thing to say.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

Carlos leaned back, entirely comfortable with the chaos he had caused.

“Maybe in Italy. In Spain, we compliment faces.”

“You compliment everyone’s face?”

“No.”

The answer was quick. Jannik’s stomach tightened. Carlos looked away toward the square, as if he had said nothing unusual. The tips of his ears were slightly pink, but his smile remained. Jannik did not know what to do with his hands. He adjusted the strudel package. Then adjusted it back. Then realized Carlos was watching him.

“You are blushing,” Carlos said softly.

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“It is sun.”

Carlos looked up at the sky, then back at him.

“There is not enough sun.”

Jannik pulled his cap lower. “You are annoying.”

Carlos’s smile became gentler.

“Very cute when you are annoyed.”

Jannik froze.

Carlos seemed to realize he had stepped closer to something real, but he did not retreat. He only looked at Jannik, eyes warm, voice still low enough that the square could keep moving around them without entering the conversation.

“Carlos,” Jannik said, though he had no sentence after the name.

“Yes?”

Jannik opened his mouth. Nothing came.

On court, he could make decisions in fractions of a second. Serve patterns. Return positions. Risk calculation. He could face a breakpoint with an entire stadium inhaling and still know where to put his feet.

Here, on a bench in San Michele square, with Carlos sitting beside him and calling him cute, his brain simply stopped functioning.

Carlos’s expression softened further.

“You don’t have to answer like it's match point.”

Jannik let out a breath that was almost a laugh.

“It feels worse.”

“Than match point?”

“Yes.”

Carlos looked delighted. “I am honored.”

“That was not a compliment.”

“I take it as one.”

Jannik looked down, smiling despite himself.

“You take everything as one.”

“Not everything.”

“No?”

Carlos shook his head.

“When you are quiet, sometimes I know it is not a compliment. Sometimes it is because you are thinking too much.”

“That happens often.”

“I know.”

Jannik risked looking at him again.

“And you?”

“I think too much too.”

“You hide it better.”

Carlos laughed softly. “Because I talk while thinking. Then people don’t notice.”

“I notice.”

The words came out before Jannik could decide whether to say them. Carlos’s smile changed.

“You do?”

“Yes.”

The square seemed to become quieter, though it did not. A woman walked past with flowers. Somewhere, cups clinked from a nearby café. A child asked for gelato and received a patient answer. Life continued, indifferent and kind. Carlos looked at him.

“What do you notice?”

Jannik swallowed.

This was dangerous territory. Not because Carlos was pushing. He wasn’t, not really. He was inviting, leaving room, letting Jannik step forward or not. That made it worse somehow. Pressure was easier when it came from outside. This required a choice.

“I notice when you joke because something hurts,” Jannik said.

Carlos’s eyes flickered.

“I notice when you are tired, but you make more energy, so nobody worries. I notice when you talk a lot because silence would make something real.” Jannik paused, surprised by himself. “And I noticed yesterday, watching Monte Carlo, that you missed yourself.”

Carlos looked away. For a moment, Jannik thought he had gone too far.

Then Carlos said, very quietly, “Yes.”

Jannik waited.

“I did,” Carlos said. “I missed myself. The one on court. Even losing. Even frustrated. I wanted to be him again.”

“You will be.”

Carlos looked back.

“You keep saying that.”

“Because I believe it.”

Carlos’s gaze lowered briefly to Jannik’s mouth, then back to his eyes. Jannik’s breath caught. Carlos smiled faintly.

“You know, when you say things like that, it is difficult not to flirt with you.”

Jannik’s face went hot instantly. Carlos laughed, but gently, not mocking.

“There it is.”

“Stop.”

“I can’t. You blush like you are personally offended by blood circulation.”

Jannik looked toward the church, the street, anywhere else.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You can say thank you.”

“For making fun of me?”

“For complimenting you.”

“That was a compliment?”

“Yes.”

“You said I am difficult not to flirt with.”

Carlos tilted his head. “That is a very strong compliment.”

Jannik closed his eyes for one second. Carlos’s laughter warmed the space between them.

“Okay, I stop.”

“You will not.”

“I will try.”

“You will not.”

Carlos grinned. “You know me so well.”

Jannik looked at him then, really looked.

Carlos in San Michele square, with the mountain light on his face and a pastry bag at his feet. Carlos injured but not reduced by it. Carlos teasing him, seeing him, sitting in his home village as if he belonged there already. The thought scared Jannik. Not because it was bad. Because it was too easy to want more of it.

“You were nervous too,” Jannik said.

Carlos blinked at the change.

“When?”

“Coming here.”

Carlos’s grin softened into honesty.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say?”

“I did say yesterday.”

“After.”

Carlos shrugged carefully. “I didn’t want to make you feel responsible.”

“I already felt responsible.”

“I know.” Carlos smiled. “That is why.”

Jannik frowned slightly. Carlos leaned forward, resting his good elbow on his knee.

“You care about people very seriously, Jannik.”

“That sounds like criticism.”

“It is not.”

“It sounds like I am boring.”

Carlos looked at him, surprised.

“No. It is one of the best things about you.”

Jannik’s throat tightened.

Carlos continued, “But sometimes you carry things before anyone gives them to you. I didn’t want you to carry me.”

Jannik looked at the square. “I don’t feel like that.”

“No?”

“No. Not with you.”

Carlos was quiet.

Jannik felt the truth of it as he said it. Carlos brought complications, yes. Nerves. Confusion. The unbearable heat in his face. But not burden. Somehow, despite the injury and the missed tournaments and the emotional landmines hidden beneath jokes, Carlos did not feel heavy to have around. He felt alive.

“I worried you would feel like you had to host me,” Carlos said. “That I was taking your rest.”

“You are.”

Carlos’s eyes widened. Jannik allowed himself a tiny smile.

“But maybe in a good way.”

Carlos stared at him, then laughed.

“You are learning to flirt.”

“I am not flirting.”

“That was flirting.”

“It was a statement.”

“A very Jannik flirt. Almost invisible. But I saw it.”

Jannik shook his head, smiling despite the heat still in his face.

“You are impossible.”

Carlos leaned closer, just a little.

“And cute?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

Carlos sighed dramatically. “Cruel.”

Jannik looked at him sideways.

“Maybe annoying.”

Carlos brightened. “I accept. Annoying is intimate.”

“That is not true.”

“In Spanish, maybe.”

“You are inventing culture again.”

“Yes.”

They laughed together, and the tension eased into something softer. A man passed and recognized them. He hesitated, then smiled politely and kept walking. Carlos watched him go.

“People here are respectful.”

“Yes.”

“In some places, this bench would be impossible.”

“I know.”

“That must be strange. To have normal only in some places.”

Jannik nodded. “Yes.”

Carlos looked around. “Then thank you for sharing this one.”

The sincerity quieted Jannik more than the flirting had. He looked down at the strudel package between them, then at his hands.

“I wanted you to see it,” he said.

“You said that in the message.”

“Yes.”

“I liked it then too.”

Jannik’s mouth twitched.

“You remember everything?”

“Only interesting things.”

“Messages are interesting?”

“Yours are.”

Jannik huffed. “My messages are boring.”

“Yes,” Carlos said. “That is why when you write something not boring, it is very interesting.”

Jannik laughed. “This is your logic?”

“It is excellent logic.”

Carlos reached for the pastry bag, opened it with one hand and pulled out one of the smaller pastries they had bought. He broke it carefully, struggling a bit because of the wrist. Jannik automatically reached to help, then stopped, unsure if that would annoy him.

Carlos noticed.

“You can help,” he said softly. “I won’t break.”

Jannik took the pastry and split it neatly, giving half back. Their fingers brushed. It was nothing. A second. Less. Still, Jannik felt it.

Carlos smiled down at his half.

“Thank you.”

They ate on the bench like children hiding dessert before lunch, though it was technically between breakfast and lunch and they had bought it themselves. The pastry flaked onto Carlos’s jacket. Jannik pointed it out. Carlos tried to brush it off, but made it worse.

“You are terrible at this,” Jannik said.

“I have one hand.”

“You have one good hand. Use it better.”

Carlos looked at him, offended.

“I am injured and you attack me?”

“You attacked the pastry.”

“It attacked me first.”

Jannik leaned over and brushed a few crumbs from Carlos’s sleeve before thinking. Carlos went very still. Jannik realized what he was doing and pulled his hand back.

“Sorry,” he said quickly.

Carlos looked at his sleeve, then at him. The teasing returned, but softer.

“Very attentive tourist guide.”

Jannik looked away. “Crumbs.”

“Yes. Dangerous crumbs.”

“Shut up.”

Carlos laughed quietly.

“You are blushing again.”

“I am going to leave you here.”

“No, because I have the strudel.”

“I can take it.”

“With my injured wrist? You would steal from an injured man?”

“Yes.”

Carlos grinned. “Good. I like ruthless Jannik.”

Jannik sighed, but the smile would not leave his face. They finished the pastry slowly.

The square kept moving. Time did not feel like something chasing them. For once, it stretched. It allowed silence. It allowed crumbs and jokes and questions that did not demand immediate answers. Eventually, Carlos leaned back and looked toward the mountains beyond the rooftops.

“When do you go to Rome?”

“Tomorrow.”

Carlos nodded. “And then everything starts again.”

“Yes.”

“Are you ready?”

Jannik considered the question. Yesterday, he might have said yes automatically. Or no in a way that sounded like yes. But now, sitting here, he tried to answer properly.

“More than before,” he said.

Carlos looked at him. “Because of home?”

“Yes.”

“And strudel.”

“That too.”

“And me?”

Jannik froze. Carlos smiled, but he did not make the question a joke. Jannik looked at the square, then at him.

“Yes,” he said quietly.

Carlos’s expression softened so much that Jannik almost regretted saying it, not because it was untrue, but because it was too true. Carlos did not tease him. That made it worse.

“I’m glad,” Carlos said.

Jannik nodded once, unable to do more. Carlos looked down at his wrist.

“I was afraid coming here would make me feel worse about not playing.”

“Did it?”

“No.” He paused. “A little yesterday, with the match. But today no. Today I feel like I am still part of something.”

“You are.”

Carlos looked at him.

“You don’t stop being part of tennis because you miss tournaments,” Jannik said. “And you don’t stop being...” He hesitated.

Carlos waited.

“You,” Jannik finished.

Carlos’s eyes lowered.

For a few seconds, all the Spanish energy, all the jokes, all the brightness fell quiet. What remained was someone younger than the trophies and older than the pain, sitting beside Jannik in a small Alpine square with one hand wrapped around a pastry and the other wrist healing too slowly.

“Careful,” Carlos said softly.

Jannik’s pulse jumped. “With what?”

“If you keep saying things like that, I will flirt again.”

Jannik looked at him. Carlos’s smile returned, but it trembled a little at the edges. Not from sadness. From feeling too much, maybe.

Jannik surprised himself by saying, “Maybe I can survive it.”

Carlos blinked. Then his face lit slowly, beautifully, with a kind of delight Jannik had only ever seen after impossible points.

“Oh,” Carlos said.

Jannik immediately panicked. “I mean-”

“No, no. Too late.”

“Carlos.”

“You said it.”

“It was-”

“Flirting.”

“It was not.”

“It was.”

Jannik covered his face with one hand. Carlos laughed, warm and low.

“This is my favorite place now.”

“San Michele square?”

“Yes.”

“Because of the church? The mountains?”

“Because Jannik Sinner flirted and then looked like he wanted to retire from conversation.”

Jannik groaned. “You are impossible.”

“You said that already.”

“It remains true.”

Carlos leaned back, smiling at him with open affection.

“You are very cute.”

Jannik lowered his hand.

“You cannot just say things like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know what to do.”

Carlos’s voice softened. “You don’t have to do anything.”

That helped. And hurt.

Jannik looked at him, really looked, and found no demand there. Carlos was teasing, yes, flirting, yes, but beneath it was patience. He was not forcing an answer. He was not asking Jannik to name something before he understood it. He was simply sitting beside him, offering warmth, seeing what would happen.

Jannik breathed out slowly.

“Okay,” he said.

Carlos smiled. “Okay.”

A bell sounded from the church, marking the hour. The sound spread through the square, rich and clear, rising above footsteps and voices before fading into the mountain air. Carlos listened until the last note disappeared.

Then he said, “We should bring the strudel back before Mark sends the police.”

Jannik laughed, grateful for the return to easier things.

“Yes.”

They stood. Carlos picked up the pastry bag; Jannik took the strudel. Before they left the square, Carlos turned once more to look around.

“What?” Jannik asked.

Carlos shook his head. “Nothing. Just remembering.”

“You took many photos.”

“Photos miss things.”

“Like what?”

Carlos looked at him, and the flirtation was there again, gentler this time.

“Like you blushing on a bench.”

Jannik started walking.

“I am leaving.”

Carlos laughed and followed.

“With my strudel?”

“Our strudel.”

“Ah,” Carlos said, catching up beside him. “Now it is our strudel.”

Jannik looked straight ahead, but he was smiling.

“Do not make it a thing.”

Carlos walked close enough that their shoulders almost touched.

“I make everything a thing,” he said.

“Yes,” Jannik replied. “I noticed.”

They walked back through San Candido together, carrying warm pastry through the little streets, the mountains bright above them, the morning full of things neither of them had named yet. And if Carlos looked at him too often, and if Jannik blushed every time, no one in the square said anything.

San Candido, at least, knew how to keep a secret.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── 

By the time they returned home with the strudel, Mark was already standing in the doorway. He looked at the package in Jannik’s hands, then at the smaller bag in Carlos’s, then back at Jannik.

“You are late,” he said.

Jannik stopped at the gate. “We were walking.”

“With strudel.”

“Yes.”

Mark crossed his arms.

“Strudel has a temperature window.”

Carlos lifted the small pastry bag.

“We protected it.”

Mark narrowed his eyes.

“Did you eat some?”

Carlos looked immediately guilty.

Jannik said, “Not the strudel.”

“That was not a no.”

Carlos stepped forward with the solemn expression of someone making peace between nations.

“We ate pastry. For quality control.”

Mark looked at Jannik.

“You took him to Trenker and opened the pastry bag before coming home?”

“He is injured,” Jannik said.

“What does that have to do with pastry theft?”

Carlos raised his good hand. “I needed strength.”

Mark stared at him for one more second, then sighed dramatically and stepped aside.

“Fine. But if the strudel is damaged, I will know.”

“It is not damaged,” Jannik said.

“You are too calm. Suspicious.”

Carlos leaned toward Jannik as they walked inside.

“He really is a pastry wolf.”

“I told you.”

The house smelled of coffee again, though lunch had not been prepared there this time. Siglinde had already packed a small bag with scarves and an extra sweater because, as she explained, “up there the wind changes its mind every five minutes.” Johann had checked the weather twice, then pretended he had not.

“We are only going for lunch,” Jannik said when his mother handed him the bag.

“Exactly,” Siglinde replied.

Carlos accepted a folded scarf from her with both gratitude and amusement.

“I promise to wear everything if needed.”

“Good,” she said. “Do not listen to him if he says it is not cold.”

Jannik frowned. “I know when it is cold.”

Siglinde gave him the look mothers gave sons who thought professional athletic success meant they could no longer be told basic things.

“You know and then you ignore it.”

Carlos smiled at the floor.

Mark appeared behind them, already eating a piece of strudel from the package Jannik had brought.

“She is correct.”

“You opened it?” Jannik asked.

“Temperature window.”

“It has been inside for two minutes.”

“Exactly. Critical moment.”

Carlos laughed, then looked toward the window where the mountains showed bright and distant.

“So we really go up there?”

Jannik followed his gaze.

“Yes,” he said. “Tre Cime.”

Carlos repeated it carefully.

“Tre Cime di Lavaredo.”

“Not bad.”

“I practiced.”

“You practiced buongiorno yesterday.”

“I am expanding.”

Mark leaned against the counter with a strudel in hand.

“Careful. After two days here, he will speak better Italian than you speak Spanish.”

Jannik gave him a flat look.

“I speak Spanish.”

Carlos immediately turned.

“Do you?”

“A little.”

“Say something.”

“No.”

Mark grinned. “He only speaks Spanish when forced by press conferences or when ordering food in Spain.”

“That is enough.”

Carlos looked delighted.

“Later, I will teach you.”

“I don’t need lessons.”

“You do. Your brother knows Spanish songs better than you.”

Jannik pointed at Mark.

“That is one song.”

“One important song,” Mark said.

“From Jennifer,” Carlos added.

Mark nearly choked on the strudel.

“I regret trusting you.”

Siglinde looked interested. “Who is Jennifer?”

“No one,” Mark said quickly.

Carlos whispered to Jannik, “See? Spanish music creates chaos.”

Jannik smiled despite himself. A short time later, they left again. This time, they took the Ferrari because Mark needed the other car and also because Carlos insisted, with great seriousness, that Fast Carrot deserved to see the mountains properly.

“I am not calling it that,” Jannik said as they got in.

“You don’t have to. The car knows.”

“The car does not know.”

Carlos fastened his seat belt carefully. “She knows.”

Jannik looked at him. “She?”

Carlos touched the dashboard lightly with his good hand.

“Of course.”

“You have been here twenty-four hours and now you are emotionally attached to my car.”

“I am emotionally attached to many things here.”

Jannik’s fingers paused on the start button. Carlos looked out the window as if he had said nothing at all. Jannik started the engine.

The road toward the mountains carried them through a world that seemed to rise with every turn. San Candido slipped behind them, smaller and smaller, until the village became a collection of roofs tucked between slopes. The air sharpened. Trees thickened along the road. Patches of snow appeared higher up, gathered in hollows and shaded places where spring had not yet fully entered.

Carlos was quiet again.

Jannik had begun to like this version of him. Not more than the laughing one, not exactly. But differently. Carlos’s silence was rare enough to feel precious. It meant he was not bored. It meant he was seeing.

They passed through curves, sunlight flickering across the windshield.

Carlos pressed his shoulder closer to the window.

“Every time I think the view cannot get better, it gets better.”

“That is the point.”

“You say that as you arranged it.”

“I did. For the tourist.”

Carlos glanced over. “Five-star guide.”

“You already reviewed me.”

“I updated the review.”

The cableway station appeared ahead, small against the enormity behind it. Cars were parked nearby, hikers moving in jackets and boots, families adjusting backpacks, older couples standing with cameras ready before they had even gone up. Jannik parked, and Carlos stepped out slowly, looking upward.

The cableway cables stretched toward the height, thin lines vanishing into the sky and rock. Carlos swallowed.

Jannik noticed. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“You are afraid?”

“No.”

Jannik waited. Carlos looked at him.

“Maybe a little. But in a good way.”

“Cableway is safe.”

“I know.”

“You don’t look like you know.”

Carlos smiled. “I trust the mountains. I am deciding if I trust the little box hanging from a wire.”

Jannik laughed.

“Come on.”

They bought tickets and joined the small group waiting to go up. Carlos kept turning, trying to see everything at once. A child nearby recognized them and whispered to his father. The father smiled but did not approach, which Jannik appreciated. Carlos noticed that too and looked at Jannik with a small understanding smile.

When the cable car arrived, Carlos stepped in first, then immediately moved to the window. Jannik followed and stood beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed whenever the cabin shifted.

The doors closed. The cable car moved. Carlos’s hand shot out and grabbed Jannik’s sleeve. Jannik looked down at it. Carlos looked straight ahead.

“I am fine.”

“You are holding me.”

“For balance.”

“We are barely moving.”

“For emotional balance.”

Jannik smiled and did not move his arm away. As the station fell beneath them, the world opened.

The ground dropped slowly, then all at once. Trees became a textured carpet below. The road thinned into a ribbon. The valley spread wide, green and gold and shadowed by passing clouds. Above them, the peaks grew nearer, no longer distant guardians but massive presences of stone and snow.

Carlos forgot to pretend he was calm.

“Oh,” he breathed.

Jannik watched his face rather than the view. Carlos’s eyes were wide, reflecting light. His mouth parted slightly. The wind hummed faintly around the cabin. Other people spoke softly, but Carlos seemed not to hear them.

“Jannik,” he said, almost whispering.

“Yes?”

“This is insane.”

“You have said that before.”

“I mean it more now.”

The cable car climbed higher. The Tre Cime came gradually, then suddenly.

Three immense peaks rising from the landscape with a force that made language feel insufficient. They stood pale and severe against the sky, their rock faces catching sunlight in silver, amber, and gray. Snow marked ledges and creases. Shadows carved depth into them. They looked ancient beyond measure, but alive, as if breathing through the movement of clouds.

Carlos’s grip on Jannik’s sleeve loosened. His hand fell away slowly. Jannik felt the absence of it. At the top, they stepped out into air that was immediately colder. Carlos inhaled and blinked as the wind touched his face.

“Okay,” he said. “Siglinde was right.”

“She usually is.”

Jannik opened the bag and pulled out the scarf.

Carlos looked at it. “I can do it.”

“With one hand?”

“I have dignity.”

“You also have an injured wrist.”

Carlos sighed and lifted his chin.

“Fine. Tourist guide, work.”

Jannik stepped closer.

It was a simple thing, wrapping a scarf. Practical. Necessary. Nothing dramatic. But Carlos stood very still while Jannik looped the fabric around his neck, careful not to brush the wrist, careful not to let his fingers linger near the warm skin at Carlos’s throat.

Carlos watched him. Jannik focused on the scarf.

“There,” he said, stepping back.

Carlos smiled. “Grazie.”

“You practiced that too?”

“That one I knew.”

They walked along the path toward the restaurant, slowly because Carlos kept stopping.

Every few steps, he turned toward the peaks again. Sometimes he took photos. Sometimes he lowered the phone because the screen disappointed him. Sometimes he simply stood there, eyes moving over rock and snow and sky.

Jannik let him.

He had brought people to the mountains before. Friends. Team members. Visitors who admired them politely. But Carlos did not admire politely. Carlos surrendered. His whole face changed under wonder. The mountains entered him visibly, softening the places where injury and frustration had tightened him.

It did something to Jannik to see it.

“You look happy,” he said.

Carlos turned. “I am.”

“Good.”

“No, not good.” Carlos looked back at the peaks. “More than good. I don’t know the word.”

“You don’t need one.”

Carlos glanced at him.

“You say that because you have known this forever.”

“Maybe.”

They reached the restaurant, warm inside and full of wood, windows, and the smell of mountain food: soup, toasted bread, melted cheese, herbs, coffee. The tables near the windows looked out toward the peaks, and Jannik was lucky enough to get one after a short wait.

Carlos sat facing the view. Of course he did. He barely looked at the menu.

Jannik smiled. “You need to choose food.”

Carlos did not turn. “You choose.”

“You trust me?”

“With food here, yes. With leaving me at home while you go to the tennis club, no.”

“That again?”

“Forever.”

Jannik ordered for both of them: warm soup, local bread, a dish with cheese and potatoes, something hearty enough for the cold but not too heavy. Carlos finally looked away from the window when the waiter left.

“I feel like I am inside a postcard.”

“You are inside a restaurant.”

Carlos leaned closer across the table.

“You are very literal.”

“You are very dramatic.”

“Because this deserves drama.”

Jannik looked out at the Tre Cime.

“Yes. Maybe.”

Carlos studied him. “You are different here.”

“In restaurants?”

“In mountains.”

Jannik gave a small smile.

“I am from here.”

“No. More than that.” Carlos rested his good hand around his water glass. “You become quieter, but not closed. Like...you don’t need to protect yourself as much.”

Jannik looked at him. Carlos seemed to realize how intimate that sounded and looked immediately back at the view.

“Sorry. I talk too much.”

“No,” Jannik said.

Carlos waited.

Jannik looked out the window too. Clouds moved slowly around one of the peaks, dragging shadows across the rock. The light changed the mountain minute by minute. It was never the same mountain twice.

“I think here I don’t have to explain,” Jannik said. “Maybe that is why.”

Carlos turned back, listening.

“When I am on tour, everyone wants words. How do you feel? What changed? What is your goal? Why did you play this shot? Why did you lose? Why did you win?” Jannik’s mouth twitched. “Here, nobody asks the mountains what they mean.”

Carlos smiled softly. “Maybe because they would not answer.”

“They answer. Just not with words.”

The food arrived before Carlos could respond.

For a few minutes, lunch took over. The soup was hot and rich, exactly right after the wind. Carlos ate with visible happiness, occasionally looking out at the peaks between bites as if afraid they might vanish.

“This is unfair,” Carlos said.

“What?”

“Your father cooks. Your town has strudel. Your mountains have restaurants like this. How does anyone leave?”

Jannik dipped bread into his soup.

“I left.”

“For tennis.”

“Yes.”

“Was it hard?”

The question was gentle. Jannik watched steam rise from his bowl.

“Sometimes. At the beginning, not so much. I wanted to play. I wanted to see how far I could go. When you are young, leaving feels like moving toward something. Later, you understand you also moved away.”

Carlos was quiet.

“You miss it?” he asked.

“Yes. But I also chose.”

“That does not stop missing.”

“No.”

Carlos nodded as he understood perfectly. And he did, Jannik thought. Differently, but he did.

When the plates were cleared and coffee arrived, the restaurant had settled into a late lunch hum. Other tables murmured. A child laughed. Cups clicked against saucers. Outside, the light had sharpened, but clouds gathered near the peaks, gray at their undersides.

Carlos sat with his cappuccino, scarf still around his neck, looking impossibly content. Jannik held his espresso but had not drink yet.

“You asked yesterday about skiing,” he said.

Carlos turned immediately. “Yes.”

“I loved it.”

“I know. But you never tell much.”

“There is not much.”

Carlos gave him a look.

“Jannik.”

He smiled. “Okay. There is some.”

Carlos leaned forward, interested. Jannik looked out at the snow patches below the peaks.

“When I was little, I wanted to be fast. Always. On skis, speed felt different than tennis. In tennis, everything comes back. The ball, the opponent, the next point. In skiing, when you go down, the mountain does not come back to you. You go to it.”

Carlos’s eyes stayed on him.

“I fell a lot,” Jannik said.

Carlos smiled. “You?”

“Yes, me.”

“I like this story already.”

“I fell all the time when I was small. I wanted to go faster than I could control. I would see older kids and think, okay, I can do that. Then I could not do that.”

Carlos laughed. “This is very you.”

“I would get snow everywhere. In my jacket, in my gloves, sometimes inside my helmet.”

“Inside?”

“I don’t know how. It happened.”

Carlos was grinning now.

“Madrid champion defeated by snow.”

“Many times.”

“And you cried?”

“Sometimes. More from anger than pain.”

“Of course.”

Jannik looked down, smiling into the memory.

“But then I started winning. Small races first. Then more. And falling changed. It was still annoying, but it became part of learning. I think I liked that. The mountain told you immediately if you lied.”

Carlos tilted his head.

“If you lied?”

“If you pretended you had balance but didn’t, you fell. If you pretended you were brave but were only reckless, you fell. If you respected the slope, you could be fast.”

Carlos’s smile softened into something more serious.

“That sounds like tennis too.”

“Yes. But skiing told me earlier.”

Outside, wind moved snowdust from a ridge, a thin pale veil lifting and disappearing. Jannik continued, quieter now.

“I also liked doing stupid things.”

Carlos’s eyebrows rose. “You?”

“Yes.”

“Please continue.”

Jannik hesitated, already regretting it, but Carlos looked so delighted that he went on.

“When nobody was watching, I liked to roll down in the snow.”

Carlos blinked. Then his face broke into a smile.

“Roll?”

“Yes.”

“Like a child?”

“I was a child.”

“How old?”

“I don’t know. Young. Maybe also not so young.”

Carlos laughed. “Not so young means teenager?”

“No.”

“Jannik.”

“Maybe.”

Carlos covered his mouth with his good hand, laughing harder.

“You, serious Jannik Sinner, rolling down mountains when no one watches.”

“It was fun.”

“I believe you. I am just trying to imagine it.”

“Don’t.”

“I already am.”

Jannik looked out the window, ears warm.

“There were places where the snow was soft. After training, if I was alone or thought I was alone, I would just fall sideways and roll. Everything became white. Sky, snow, jacket, everything. You lose direction for a second.”

Carlos’s laughter faded slowly into affection.

“That is beautiful,” he said.

“It was not beautiful. It was stupid.”

“It can be both.”

Jannik glanced at him. Carlos’s eyes were warm. No teasing now.

“I liked the snow because it was simply white,” Jannik said, surprising himself with the honesty. “When you are small, that is enough. White everywhere. Clean. Quiet. You make a mark and then more snow comes and covers it. Nothing stays too loud.”

Carlos listened without moving.

“I felt at home in the silence,” Jannik said.

The words came slowly, as if he were taking them from somewhere old.

“Not silence like emptiness. Silence like...you don’t have to add anything.”

Carlos looked out at the peaks, then back at him. Jannik wrapped both hands around his espresso cup.

“But the mountains are not really silent.”

“No?”

“No. They have a lot of voices.”

Carlos’s expression changed, becoming stiller.

“The wind,” Jannik said. “Snow when it moves. Ice cracking sometimes. Birds. Skis on hard snow. Boots. Cowbells lower down. Even trees. In summer, the insects. In winter, your own breathing. Everything sounds clearer because there is space around it.”

Carlos did not blink.

“And colors,” Jannik continued. “People think mountains are white or gray, but they are never only that. Snow can be blue, pink, silver, or yellow in the evening. The rock changes all day. Trees are almost black when snow falls. In spring, the grass is too green. Even shadows have colors.”

Carlos looked at him as if he had never heard him speak before. Jannik noticed and became self-conscious.

“What?”

Carlos shook his head slowly.

“Nothing.”

“That is not nothing.”

“No. It is just...” Carlos looked down at his cup, searching. For once, words did not arrive quickly. “I like it when you talk like this.”

Jannik’s face warmed.

“Like what?”

“Like you forget to be careful.”

The sentence reached Jannik somewhere quiet. He looked away, toward the peaks. Carlos did not push. But something had shifted at the table.

Carlos had spent the last two days watching Jannik in pieces: son at breakfast, brother under teasing, champion on television, guide in the streets, quiet boy in the mountains. Now, sitting across from him with coffee between them and the Tre Cime beyond the glass, he seemed to see not pieces but a whole shape beginning to form.

And Carlos, though he did not show it loudly, felt himself falling into awe. Not sudden. Not dramatic. Slowly. Like snow settling on a roof.

It was not only that Jannik was beautiful here, though he was. The mountain light softened his hair and sharpened the line of his face. His cheeks were slightly red from the cold. His eyes, usually guarded by focus, looked clearer in this place. But it was not only beauty.

It was the way Jannik belonged.

Not like someone owning the mountains. Like someone who had been shaped by them and had never fully left. The quiet, the precision, the patience, the hidden playfulness of a boy rolling in snow where nobody could see. The seriousness, yes, but also the softness under it. The way he spoke of colors in shadows and voices in silence.

Carlos looked at him and felt something inside himself become dangerously still. He wanted to say: I could listen to you forever. He wanted to say: I understand you better here. He wanted to say something foolish and honest and impossible.

Instead he picked up his cappuccino and said, “So the mountains taught you poetry.”

Jannik laughed, embarrassed.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I am not poetic.”

“You are. Accidentally.”

“That sounds worse.”

“It is better. Intentional poetry is dangerous. Accidental poetry is honest.”

Jannik shook his head.

“You are making things up again.”

“Maybe. But I am right.”

Outside, clouds drifted lower, touching the tops of the peaks. The light dimmed slightly. The restaurant windows reflected their table faintly: Carlos leaning forward, Jannik turned partly toward the mountains, two cups between them.

Carlos said, “Did you miss skiing when you chose tennis?”

Jannik looked down. “Yes.”

“A lot?”

“At first, yes. Then tennis became more. But sometimes, when winter came, I missed the feeling. The cold before starting. The sound. The fear.”

“You miss fear?”

“Some fear is good.”

Carlos smiled. “Now you sound like a crazy athlete.”

“You understand.”

“Yes. I do.”

Jannik leaned back.

“In skiing, you cannot hide from fear. You stand at the top and go. In tennis, you can play around it sometimes. You can slow down, choose safer, make patterns. In skiing, the mountain is there. You go, or you don’t.”

Carlos turned his cup slowly.

“And you went.”

“Usually.”

“After falling?”

“Yes.”

“Stubborn.”

Jannik smiled. “You too.”

Carlos lifted one shoulder.

“Yes. But louder.”

“That is true.”

For a while, they watched the mountains in silence.

The conversation had become comfortable in a way that made Carlos both happy and afraid. With most people, he filled the silence because silence demanded too much. With Jannik, silence sometimes felt like another language. Especially here. Especially surrounded by rock and snow and sky.

A waiter passed. The restaurant grew quieter as lunch drifted toward afternoon. People began putting on jackets. Outside, the wind moved more visibly now, bending the edges of clouds. Carlos noticed Jannik looking toward the sky.

“What?”

“Weather changes.”

Carlos looked out. “It is still beautiful.”

“Yes. But colder.”

“I have a scarf.”

“You have one scarf and one wrist injury.”

“My wrist does not get cold?”

“Everything is connected,” Jannik said, mimicking Johann.

Carlos laughed. “You sound exactly like him.”

“Good. Then listen.”

Carlos leaned back with a sigh.

“You want to go down.”

“Soon.”

“But I just fell in love.”

Jannik froze. Carlos realized what he had said at the same moment. For half a second, neither moved. Carlos recovered first, looking dramatically out the window.

“With the mountains.”

Jannik’s ears turned red.

“Yes,” he said, too quickly. “The mountains.”

Carlos looked back at him, and there was laughter in his eyes, but also something else he carefully did not show fully.

“You are blushing.”

“It is cold.”

“We are inside.”

“The window.”

“The window made you blush?”

“Yes.”

Carlos smiled slowly.

“Powerful window.”

Jannik finished his espresso to avoid answering.

Carlos let him have the escape, though it cost him effort. He wanted to keep teasing. He wanted to see that blush deepen, to see Jannik’s careful composure crack into shy warmth. But something in the mountains demanded gentleness. Or maybe Jannik did. So Carlos only smiled down at his cup and held the feeling where it was, hidden but growing.

They paid and stepped outside. The cold had indeed sharpened. Carlos admitted this with a small grimace as the wind touched his face.

“Okay.”

Jannik looked smug.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You are cold.”

“I am a little fresh.”

“Fresh?”

“Spanish translation.”

“Italian mountain translation: cold.”

Carlos pulled the scarf tighter with his good hand.

“Fine. Cold.”

Jannik took the extra sweater from the bag.

“Put this on.”

Carlos stared. “You brought extra?”

“Mamma did.”

“Siglinde is a genius.”

“Yes.”

Carlos struggled a little with the sleeve because of his wrist. Jannik stepped closer without asking this time.

“Here.”

Carlos let him help.

The sweater was plain, dark, probably Jannik’s. It fit Carlos slightly differently, sitting loose at the shoulders. When Jannik adjusted the collar, his fingers brushed the scarf, then Carlos’s jacket. The wind moved around them, but in that brief closeness, everything felt warm.

Carlos looked at him. “Do I look like a mountain person now?”

Jannik stepped back. “You look like someone who forgot proper clothes.”

“But stylish?”

“No.”

Carlos smiled. “You are cruel again.”

“Honest.”

They began walking back toward the cableway station. The path seemed different now. The light had changed, and with it the colors Jannik had described. Snow held blue shadows. Rock looked almost gold where the sun still touched it, while the clouded sides became purple-gray. The grass near the path appeared vivid against patches of white. The mountains did not lose beauty as the weather moved in; they deepened.

Carlos saw it all.

“Colors,” he said softly.

Jannik looked at him. Carlos nodded toward the peaks.

“You were right.”

Jannik smiled, small and pleased. “I know.”

“Arrogant.”

“Accurate.”

Carlos laughed, but the sound was quiet. At one point, they stopped because the wind lifted suddenly, cold enough to make Carlos tuck his chin into the scarf.

Jannik looked at him sharply.

“Too cold?”

“No.”

“Carlos.”

“I am okay.”

“We go down.”

“We are going down.”

“Good.”

Carlos looked amused.

“You worry like your father.”

“Because I am responsible.”

“Because you care.”

Jannik’s eyes flicked to his. Carlos did not smile this time. The wind filled the space where a reply might have gone.

Jannik looked away first.

“We both cannot get sick before Rome.”

Carlos’s expression shifted.

“Before Rome for you.”

Jannik closed his eyes briefly.

“Carlos.”

“No, I know.” Carlos smiled, but it was softer, touched by something. “You are right. You cannot get sick. Italy would blame me.”

“My team would blame me first.”

“Then Simone would blame me.”

“And Mark would call you a Spanish disaster.”

Carlos laughed. “He would.”

The cableway station came into view. They joined a small group waiting to descend. Carlos stood closer than before, maybe because of the wind, maybe because neither of them moved away. Their shoulders touched once. Then again. Then stayed lightly touching.

Jannik did not comment. Carlos did not either.

When the cable car arrived, they stepped inside with several hikers and an older couple. Carlos took his place by the window again, but this time he did not grab Jannik’s sleeve when the cabin moved.

“You are brave now,” Jannik said.

Carlos glanced at him. “I have a mountain sweater.”

“It gives courage?”

“Yes. And a tourist guide.”

The cable car descended.

The Tre Cime rose above them at first, close and immense, then slowly became distant again. Carlos watched with an expression Jannik could not fully read. It was not sadness exactly. More like reluctance. As if leaving the height meant returning to a world with more noise, more injury, more unanswered things.

Jannik stood beside him, one hand holding the rail.

“You can come back,” he said.

Carlos looked at him. “Can I?”

“Yes.”

“With you?”

Jannik’s grip tightened slightly. He looked out at the valley below.

“If you want,” he said.

Carlos smiled, but he turned back to the window before Jannik could see too much of it.

“I want.”

The descent continued. Below them, trees rose to meet the cabin. The valley regained shape. Roads, houses, fields, cars. The ordinary world returned piece by piece. But Carlos felt changed.

He did not know how to explain it. He had come to San Candido to escape being injured for a day. He had wanted mountains, jokes, maybe quiet. He had expected Jannik to be kind, perhaps awkward, perhaps serious in a way that would make the visit gentle but careful.

He had not expected this.

Not the kitchen singing, or strudel, or Mark’s chaos, or Siglinde’s warmth, or Johann’s steady concern. Not Jannik wrapping a scarf around his neck with hands too careful to be casual. Not Jannik speaking about snow as if whiteness could be a home. Not the realization that Jannik’s silence had never been empty.

It was full. Full of mountain voices. Full of colors hidden in shadows. Full of things Carlos suddenly wanted to learn slowly, patiently, without frightening him away. He looked at Jannik’s reflection in the cable car window.

Jannik was watching the view, unaware for once. Carlos let himself look for two seconds longer than he should have. Then he turned away, smiling faintly. He would not show it. Not yet.

At the bottom, the air felt warmer, though still cool. Jannik seemed satisfied by this, as if he had personally prevented illness through good timing. They walked back to the car, Carlos carrying the borrowed sweater now like evidence of survival.

When they reached the Ferrari, Carlos patted the roof lightly.

“Fast Carrot waited.”

Jannik groaned.

“The mountains made you emotional and you still say this.”

“Emotional people need jokes.”

“That is true for you.”

“Yes.”

They got into the car. Before Jannik started it, Carlos looked back toward the high peaks, now partly hidden by cloud.

“Thank you,” he said.

Jannik paused. “For what?”

Carlos kept his eyes on the mountains.

“For showing me the voices.”

Jannik did not speak for a moment. Then he started the engine.

“You’re welcome,” he said quietly.

The drive back was softer.

Carlos did not talk much. Neither did Jannik. The road curved down through trees and light. The mountains remained behind them and around them, never fully gone. Carlos watched them until the village appeared again.

Near San Candido, Jannik glanced at him.

“Tired?”

“A little.”

“Good tired?”

Carlos smiled. “Very good tired.”

“My mother will ask if you were warm enough.”

“I will say yes.”

“My father will ask if you ate enough.”

“I will say yes.”

“Mark will ask if you cried at the mountains.”

Carlos turned. “I will say you cried first.”

“I did not cry.”

“But he will believe me?”

Jannik considered this.

“Maybe.”

Carlos laughed.

They pulled into the driveway just as the afternoon began turning toward evening. The house stood warm and familiar ahead of them, smoke curling faintly somewhere nearby, windows catching the pale light.

Before getting out, Carlos said, “Jannik?”

“Yes?”

“I understand you better now.”

Jannik looked at him. Carlos smiled, small and careful.

“Not completely. But better.”

Something moved across Jannik’s face, too quick to name.

“That is good?” he asked.

Carlos’s smile deepened.

“Yes,” he said. “Very good.”

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── 

By the time they reached San Candido again, the mountains had followed them down.

Not literally. The Tre Cime stayed where they had always been, high and ancient, partly hidden now by cloud and distance. But something of them remained in the car, in the silence between Jannik and Carlos, in the way neither of them filled the drive with unnecessary words.

Carlos sat beside him, wearing Jannik’s dark sweater over his own clothes, scarf still loose around his neck. He looked out the window with a softness Jannik had not seen in him before arriving in San Candido. Not tired exactly, though the long day had settled into his shoulders. More like he was holding the afternoon carefully inside himself.

For once, Carlos was not talking to keep the world moving. Jannik noticed. He noticed everything now, which was inconvenient.

He noticed Carlos’s hand resting against his thigh, the fingers of his good hand relaxed after hours of careful protection. He noticed the way his injured wrist stayed close to his body, always considered, always managed. He noticed when Carlos smiled faintly at nothing, probably remembering the cableway or the peaks or the ridiculous fantasy of Ben Shelton shouting good morning from Villa Wachtler’s balcony.

He noticed that Carlos was still wearing his sweater. He noticed that he liked it. That last part was the most inconvenient of all.

The Ferrari rolled into the village quietly, or as quietly as a Ferrari could manage while Mark’s terrible nickname still haunted it. The late afternoon light had changed again, turning the streets warmer, slower. San Candido looked as if it had been waiting for them to return: shutters half-open, smoke faint from chimneys, bakery windows glowing, a few people walking home with bags tucked under their arms.

Carlos stirred beside him.

“We are back,” he said.

“Yes.”

Carlos glanced at him. “You sound relieved.”

“I am making sure we are not sick.”

“You are impossible.”

“You were cold.”

“I was fresh.”

“You admitted cold.”

Carlos smiled. “Only because you forced a confession.”

Jannik turned onto the road toward the house.

“Good.”

Carlos looked toward him, and the smile became something smaller, more dangerous.

“You liked taking care of me.”

Jannik’s hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

Carlos leaned back, looking pleased.

“That was very fast.”

“Because it is simple.”

“Simple no, red ears.”

Jannik looked straight ahead.

“It is the heating.”

“The car heating?”

“Yes.”

“It is off.”

Jannik did not answer. Carlos laughed softly, not loudly, not enough to break the strange warmth in the car. Just enough to let Jannik know he had been seen and would absolutely not be spared. They reached the house.

The front door opened before Jannik had fully stopped the car. Mark stood there. Of course, Mark stood there. He leaned against the doorway with one shoulder, arms crossed, wearing a look so full of expectation that Jannik considered reversing back into the village.

Carlos saw him and smiled.

“Your brother waits like security.”

“Security for gossip,” Jannik muttered.

They got out of the car. The air outside felt colder after the warmth of the drive, and Carlos immediately pulled Jannik’s sweater closer around himself. Mark’s eyes dropped to the sweater. Then to Carlos. Then to Jannik. Then back to the sweater. A slow grin spread across his face.

Jannik closed the car door.

“Do not.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You are preparing.”

“I appreciate.” Mark stepped down from the doorway and looked at Carlos. “Nice sweater.”

Carlos glanced down, then back up, entirely too innocent.

“Thank you. It belongs to your brother.”

“I noticed.”

“It was cold.”

“Was it?”

“Yes,” Jannik said.

Mark did not look at him.

“I asked Carlos.”

Carlos smiled. “It was very cold. Jannik saved me.”

Jannik turned sharply.

“I gave you a sweater.”

Carlos nodded solemnly. “Heroic.”

Mark put one hand over his heart.

“My little brother. Saving lives in the mountains.”

Jannik walked past him toward the door.

“We are going inside.”

Mark followed immediately.

“How was lunch?”

“Good,” Jannik said.

Carlos said, “Amazing.”

Mark stopped in the hallway.

“Ah.”

Jannik looked back. “What?”

“Different answers.”

Carlos, apparently unaware or unwilling to avoid danger, continued.

“The restaurant had this view of the Tre Cime. It was incredible. And Jannik told me about when he was little and skiing and the snow and the mountains having voices and colors-”

Jannik turned red so quickly that Mark’s eyes lit like Christmas.

“Voices and colors?” Mark repeated.

Carlos looked between them.

“Was I not supposed to say?”

Jannik closed his eyes.

“It is fine.”

Mark leaned against the wall, delighted beyond measure.

“No, no. Please. Continue. My brother, mountain poet.”

“I am not a poet,” Jannik said.

Carlos looked at him. “You were a little poetic.”

Mark clapped once.

“Excellent.”

Jannik pointed at Carlos. “You are supposed to be on my side.”

“I am on truth’s side.”

“Traitor.”

Carlos smiled.

“You told me the mountains answer without words.”

Mark made a sound that was almost a gasp.

“Jannik.”

“It was normal conversation.”

“Was it?” Mark asked.

“Yes.”

Carlos added, “He also said he used to roll down in the snow when no one was watching.”

Mark froze. His face transformed. Jannik looked at Carlos in horror.

“You told him everything.”

Carlos realized too late. “This was a secret?”

“It was not for Mark.”

Mark slowly turned toward Jannik.

“You rolled down in the snow?”

Jannik put one hand over his face.

“How old were you?” Mark asked.

“No.”

“Were you seven? Ten? Fifteen?”

“No.”

“Twenty-three?”

Carlos laughed. Jannik dropped his hand.

“Carlos.”

“I am sorry,” Carlos said, looking entirely not sorry. “I didn’t know this was classified information.”

Mark came closer, eyes bright.

“This explains so much.”

“It explains nothing.”

“It explains your relationship with gravity.”

Jannik stared. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know yet, but it sounds important.”

Carlos laughed harder, leaning slightly against the hallway wall. Jannik saw him shift carefully because of the wrist and despite embarrassment, his attention went there immediately.

“You okay?” he asked.

Carlos looked at him. “Yes.”

Mark saw that too. Of course, Mark saw that too. His grin softened into something more knowing, then sharpened again because he was Mark.

“So,” Mark said slowly. “Lunch was amazing. Mountains had voices. Carlos is wearing your sweater. You both came back quietly and now both of you are blushing.”

“We are not both blushing,” Jannik said.

Carlos lifted a hand.

“I might be a little. The mountains were emotional.”

Jannik turned to him. “You are not helping.”

“I know.”

Mark leaned between them, stage-whispering.

“Did you two have lunch or become protagonists in a tragic Alpine romance?”

Jannik grabbed the scarf Siglinde had given Carlos and threw it at him. Mark caught it, laughing.

“Violence again. Always when truth comes too close.”

Carlos took the scarf back with dignity.

“I think Mark needs to see the mountains too.”

“I grew up here,” Mark said.

“Then why are you like this?”

Jannik laughed before he could stop himself. Mark pointed at Carlos.

“Careful. You are a guest, but I like you less when you are funny against me.”

Carlos bowed. “Sorry.”

“No, you are not.”

“No.”

Siglinde appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel.

“You are back. How was it?”

Carlos turned to her immediately, expression warming.

“Beautiful. Really. I understand now.”

Siglinde smiled at him with such softness that Jannik looked away.

“And lunch?” she asked.

“Very good,” Carlos said.

Mark raised a finger. “Apparently, lunch included Jannik discovering metaphors.”

Siglinde’s eyes moved to her son.

“Oh?”

Jannik walked toward the stairs.

“I am going upstairs.”

“No,” Mark said, following. “You must explain the voices.”

“I explained to Carlos.”

“Then Carlos can explain to us.”

Carlos looked at Jannik, smile wicked.

“I can try.”

“Do not,” Jannik said.

Carlos pressed his lips together, trying not to laugh.

Johann called from the kitchen, “Did you wear the sweater?”

Carlos lifted both arms slightly. “Yes.”

“Good.”

Mark leaned toward Carlos.

“He sounds like that because he thinks Jannik is irresponsible.”

“I am not irresponsible,” Jannik said from the stairs.

“You went outside in socks yesterday,” Johann said.

Carlos looked delighted.

“You did?”

“It was the terrace.”

“The cold terrace,” Siglinde added.

Mark nodded. “The responsible athlete.”

Jannik pointed upstairs.

“Carlos, shower. You said you wanted one before dinner.”

Carlos looked down at himself.

“Yes. Mountain air, cableway, pastry. I need to become civilized again.”

Mark looked at Jannik.

“You are sending him away because you are losing.”

“I am sending him away because he is a guest and needs rest.”

Carlos walked toward the stairs, then paused beside Jannik.

“Also because you are blushing.”

“I am not.”

Carlos leaned a little closer, voice low enough that only Jannik could hear.

“A little.”

Then he went upstairs with that infuriating smile. Jannik stayed at the bottom of the stairs for half a second longer than necessary. Mark watched. Jannik turned slowly.

“What?”

Mark smiled. “Nothing.”

“Say nothing properly.”

“Nothing.”

“That was not properly.”

Mark came closer, lowering his voice with dramatic seriousness.

“You are in danger.”

Jannik rolled his eyes. “From what?”

“Spanish charm. Mountain poetry. Shared sweaters.”

Jannik frowned. “What?”

Mark lifted both hands.

“I am predicting chaos.”

“You are creating chaos.”

“I merely witness it.”

Siglinde, from the kitchen, said, “Mark, leave your brother alone.”

Mark answered, “I am supporting him emotionally.”

Jannik said, “You are doing the opposite.”

“That is how brothers support.”

Jannik walked into the kitchen, partly to escape him and partly because he suddenly needed water. Johann stood at the counter, slicing vegetables for dinner as if lunch had not existed and as if he had not spent the previous day feeding them enough for a winter. Siglinde was checking something in the oven.

Home had returned to its evening rhythm. Normal. Almost. Jannik took a glass from the cabinet and filled it. His phone rang on the counter. He looked at the screen.

Simone. Video call.

Besides the name, another small notification showed Darren being added. Jannik stared at it.

Mark appeared immediately over his shoulder.

“Ah. The committee.”

Jannik sighed. “Again?”

“Answer. I want to hear if they can smell mountain poetry through the phone.”

Jannik pushed him away and accepted the call. Simone’s face filled the screen first, close and suspicious. Darren appeared a second later from what looked like a hotel room, glasses on, calm as always.

“Ciao,” Jannik said.

Simone did not bother with a greeting.

“You alive?”

“Yes.”

“Carlos alive?”

“Yes.”

“Wrist intact?”

“Yes.”

Darren smiled. “Good afternoon to you too.”

“Hi, Darren.”

“You sound relaxed.”

Jannik glanced at Mark, who was hovering near the refrigerator, pretending to search for something.

“I was relaxed,” Jannik said. “Then you called.”

Simone ignored this.

“What did you do today?”

“Walked in town. Bakery. Then Tre Cime for lunch.”

Darren’s eyebrows rose.

“Tre Cime?”

“Yes.”

“Beautiful,” Darren said.

Simone narrowed his eyes.

“Cableway?”

“Yes.”

“Cold?”

“A little.”

“You wore proper clothes?”

“Yes.”

Mark whispered from behind the phone, “Carlos wore his sweater.”

Jannik turned. “Go away.”

Simone leaned closer.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Darren’s mouth twitched.

“Was that Mark?”

“Yes,” Jannik said. “Unfortunately.”

Mark waved at the phone.

“Hello, coaching staff.”

Simone pointed at him through the screen.

“You. Did he play tennis?”

Mark straightened as if being questioned in court.

“He did not. I was present yesterday at the club. Hands mostly in pockets. Very heroic.”

Darren nodded. “Good.”

Simone looked back at Jannik.

“You went to a club?”

“I did not play.”

“He did not play,” Mark confirmed. “He only gave advice and looked tortured.”

“I was not tortured.”

“He wanted to hit balls.”

“Of course, I wanted to hit balls.”

Simone sighed. “But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“Good.”

Darren smiled. “And Carlos? Is he okay after the travel?”

“Yes. He slept yesterday. Today, he seemed good.”

“Did he walk too much?” Simone asked.

Jannik frowned.

“He has a wrist injury, not a leg injury.”

Mark whispered, “That is exactly what he told papà.”

Simone said, “Still. Travel fatigue matters.”

“He is okay.”

Darren studied Jannik through the screen.

“You look different.”

Jannik instantly distrusted this.

“Different how?”

“Less full.”

“That is vague.”

“Less like your head is crowded,” Darren clarified.

Jannik did not know what to say. Simone’s expression softened slightly.

“Good. That is good.”

Mark leaned in again.

“The mountains have voices.”

Jannik shoved him out of frame.

“Mark.”

Darren laughed. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

“It means,” Mark said from somewhere offscreen, “that my brother took Carlos to lunch and became a poet.”

Jannik turned fully.

“I will throw you outside.”

“You cannot. Mamma likes me.”

“Mamma likes Carlos more today.”

Mark gasped. “Betrayal.”

Simone watched the exchange with increasing amusement.

“So Carlos is fitting in?”

“Too well,” Jannik muttered.

Darren heard it. His smile became knowing.

“Is that a problem?”

Jannik looked back at the phone.

“No.”

“Convincing,” Simone said.

“It is not a problem.”

“Okay.”

“I said okay.”

“You said okay like you mean not okay.”

“I am hanging up.”

“No, wait,” Darren said, still smiling. “We wanted to check the plan for tomorrow. When are you traveling to Rome?”

“In the afternoon.”

“Good. Morning recovery. Light movement only.”

“Yes.”

“No extra mountain adventures,” Simone said.

Jannik frowned. “You sound like papà.”

“Then your father is smart.”

“He is.”

“And Carlos leaves when?”

Jannik paused.

“I don’t know exactly. Maybe before I go. Maybe to Rome, then Spain. He has to check.”

Simone’s eyes sharpened.

“He is not staying through your Rome prep?”

“I don't know.”

Mark whispered, “Unless invited.”

Jannik grabbed a towel from the counter and threw it at him without looking. Mark dodged and laughed. Darren was laughing now too.

“Your house sounds lively.”

“It is usually quieter.”

“Spanish energy,” Mark called.

From upstairs, a door opened. Jannik heard footsteps. He did not think about it at first. He was too busy answering Simone’s next question about recovery and trying to stop Mark from appearing in the frame again with the expression of someone who knew far too much.

Carlos’s voice came from the hallway above.

“Jannik?”

Jannik glanced up automatically.

“Yes?”

Carlos appeared at the top of the stairs. Fresh from the shower.

Wet hair, dark and curling slightly at his forehead. Skin still warm from the water. One towel wrapped low around his waist. Another towel was draped carefully over his injured wrist and hand, probably because he had needed to keep it dry or because he had not yet figured out how to manage everything one-handed.

He stopped halfway down the stairs when he saw Jannik on the video call. Jannik stopped breathing.

On the phone, Simone said, “Jannik? Are you there?”

Darren’s voice followed.

“Mate?”

Jannik’s face heated so fast it felt physically impossible. Carlos looked from Jannik to the phone. Then smiled. Slowly. Dangerously.

“Sorry,” Carlos said. “I did not know you were busy.”

The word busy should not have sounded like that. Jannik looked at the screen too late. Simone and Darren had seen. Of course, they had seen.

Simone’s face had gone completely still for one second, then cracked into laughter. Darren covered his mouth, but his shoulders gave him away. Mark, from the kitchen corner, made a strangled noise that might have been pure joy. Jannik looked like he wanted the floor to open.

“Carlos,” he said, voice too high.

Carlos took one more step down, completely unbothered.

“I was looking for my clothes. I think I left my shirt-”

“Upstairs,” Jannik said quickly.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Carlos tilted his head.

“You did not look.”

“Your clothes are upstairs.”

On the phone, Darren wheezed.

“We should go.”

Simone, still laughing, pointed at the screen.

“Recovery. Sleep. No tennis. And apparently close doors.”

“Simone,” Jannik said, horrified.

Carlos lifted his good hand in greeting toward the phone.

“Ciao, Simone. Ciao, Darren.”

Darren managed, “Hi, Carlos. Good to see you’re, uh, recovering.”

Simone laughed harder. Jannik pressed a hand over his eyes.

Carlos, with impossible innocence, said, “My wrist is very good today.”

Mark lost it entirely. He bent over laughing near the refrigerator. Jannik lowered his hand and glared at everyone at once, which was difficult because his coaches were on a screen, Carlos was half-naked on the stairs and Mark was almost on the floor.

Darren waved.

“We’ll leave you to it.”

“No,” Jannik said quickly, then realized that sounded worse. “I mean-”

“Bye, Jannik,” Simone said, grinning. “Enjoy dinner.”

The call ended. The screen went black. The kitchen fell into a silence that lasted exactly two seconds. Then Mark burst out laughing again. Jannik slowly lowered the phone.

He turned around.

Carlos stood at the bottom of the stairs now, still in the towel, still smiling like a man who had wandered accidentally into chaos and decided to become its king. Jannik’s blush deepened so much that even he felt it spread from his neck to his ears.

“You did that on purpose,” Jannik said.

Carlos opened his eyes wide.

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“I just came downstairs.”

“In a towel.”

“I showered.”

“You could put clothes on.”

“I was looking for clothes.”

“They are in your room.”

Carlos leaned one shoulder against the wall, the picture of relaxed innocence.

“Maybe I got lost.”

“You got lost in a hallway with three doors?”

“I am a tourist.”

Mark made a sound.

“I need to sit down.”

Jannik pointed at him. “You. Stop.”

Mark dropped into a chair, laughing silently now, one hand pressed to his stomach. Carlos looked at Mark.

“Was the call important?”

Mark wiped his eyes.

“It was. Now it is historic.”

Jannik stared at Carlos. “Simone and Darren saw you.”

Carlos glanced down at himself as if only now noticing his lack of clothing.

“They have seen players in locker rooms.”

“That is not the same.”

“No?” Carlos stepped a little closer. “Why not?”

Jannik’s mouth opened. No answer. Carlos’s smile became softer, more focused. He was enjoying this far too much.

“Jannik,” he said quietly.

Jannik looked at him despite every survival instinct telling him not to.

“Yes?”

“You are very red.”

“I know.”

“It is cute.”

Mark stood abruptly.

“I should leave.”

Jannik turned. “No, you should stay.”

Mark looked at him, amused.

“You want me to stay now?”

“Yes.”

Carlos laughed under his breath.

“Protection?”

“No.”

“From me?”

“No.”

Mark leaned against the counter, delighted.

“This is incredible.”

Carlos took another step toward Jannik.

There was still a respectable distance between them. Technically. But the kitchen suddenly felt smaller, warmer, louder in its silence. Carlos smelled faintly of soap and steam, clean and sharp against the lingering scent of dinner. Droplets of water still clung near his collarbone. His hair dripped once onto his shoulder.

Jannik saw it. Immediately wished he had not. Carlos saw him seeing it. His smile turned wicked.

“You are staring,” Carlos murmured.

Jannik looked at the cabinets.

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“I am looking at the wall.”

“Very interesting wall?”

“Yes.”

Carlos stepped close enough that Jannik had to look back or step away. He did neither quickly enough. They were inches apart now.

Not touching. Not even almost, if one wanted to be strict about distance. But close enough that Jannik could feel the warmth coming from Carlos’s freshly showered skin. Close enough to see the tiny water drops in his hair. Close enough that the kitchen, his family’s kitchen, suddenly felt like the least safe place in the world.

Carlos tilted his head. His voice dropped lower.

“You know, if you keep blushing like this, I will think you like my towel.”

Jannik’s eyes widened.

“Carlos.”

“What?”

“You cannot say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because-”

He had no because. Carlos’s eyes danced.

“Because Simone will call again?”

“Because Mark is here.”

Mark lifted one hand from the counter.

“Physically, yes. Spiritually, I have left the room.”

Jannik glared. “You are enjoying this.”

“I am witnessing cinema.”

Carlos laughed softly but did not move away.

“Should I apologize?”

“Yes,” Jannik said.

Carlos leaned a fraction closer.

“For the towel or for making you blush?”

Jannik’s brain failed. The answer, unfortunately, was visible on his face. Carlos’s smile softened.

For a second, the teasing thinned into something more real. His eyes searched Jannik’s, warm and bright and careful beneath all the flirtation. He was pushing, yes, but not carelessly. He was watching for the line. Waiting to see if Jannik stepped back.

Jannik did not. His heart beat hard enough that he felt it in his throat. Carlos’s voice became almost gentle.

“Still okay?”

The question changed everything. Jannik swallowed.

“Yes,” he said, very quietly.

Carlos’s expression shifted, delight and tenderness crossing together. He looked like he wanted to say something else, something that would make the moment impossible to return from. Then Mark made a tiny choking sound. Both Carlos and Jannik turned.

Mark stood in the doorway now, no longer near the counter. He had apparently tried to leave after all, then returned at the exact worst second. His eyes went from Carlos in the towel, to Jannik’s red face, to the almost nonexistent space between them. His mouth opened.

Jannik and Carlos sprang apart so quickly that Carlos almost knocked into the wall.

“Nothing happened,” Jannik said immediately.

Mark blinked.

Carlos, still flushed now too, added, “I was asking where my clothes are.”

Mark looked at Carlos’s towel.

“I see that.”

Jannik ran a hand through his hair.

“He got lost.”

Mark nodded slowly.

“In the house.”

“Yes.”

“In the hallway.”

“Yes.”

“While wearing only a towel.”

Carlos lifted his good hand.

“Tourist mistake.”

Mark looked at him. Carlos looked back, trying to remain composed. Then Mark’s face cracked. He began laughing again, louder than before. Jannik pointed toward the stairs.

“Carlos. Clothes. Now.”

Carlos nodded, but he was smiling so hard that he looked equally embarrassed and thrilled.

“Yes. Clothes.”

“Please.”

Carlos started toward the stairs, then paused beside Jannik, leaning just close enough to whisper.

“You liked the sweater better?”

Jannik’s face burned anew.

“Go,” he muttered.

Carlos laughed and went upstairs. Mark watched him go. Then he slowly turned to Jannik. Jannik did not wait. He lunged. Mark yelped and ran around the kitchen table.

“You are dead,” Jannik said.

“I did nothing!”

“You laughed.”

“Anyone would laugh!”

“You came back.”

“I forgot my phone!”

“You did not.”

“I might have!”

Jannik chased him around the table, not fast enough to truly catch him, not slow enough to pretend he was not trying. Mark grabbed a chair and used it as a shield, laughing so hard he could barely stand.

“Careful!” Siglinde called from somewhere down the hall. “No injuries before Rome!”

Mark pointed at Jannik.

“Tell him! He is attacking me because Carlos forgot clothing!”

Jannik stopped. “Do not shout that.”

From upstairs, Carlos laughed. Jannik looked toward the ceiling in despair. Mark seized the opportunity and darted around the table toward the hallway. Jannik caught him by the back of his sweater and pulled him into a headlock that was more brotherly than threatening.

Mark struggled dramatically.

“Help! Madrid champion abuses innocent civilian!”

“You are not innocent.”

“I am emotionally supportive.”

“You are unbearable.”

Mark twisted free and shoved Jannik lightly. Jannik shoved him back. They pushed at each other like teenagers, half wrestling, half laughing, the kind of fight that knew exactly where not to hurt. Johann entered the kitchen holding a bowl.

He stopped. Looked at Jannik. Looked at Mark. Looked toward the stairs where Carlos had disappeared.

Then said, “Do I want to know?”

“No,” Jannik and Mark said together.

Johann considered this, then continued to the counter.

“Good.”

Mark, still laughing, leaned against the wall and wiped his face.

“Papà, Simone and Darren saw Carlos in a towel during the video call.”

Johann paused. Jannik closed his eyes.

“Mark.”

Johann set down the bowl slowly. He looked at Jannik with an expression so unreadable it was terrifying.

Then he said, “At least he showered before dinner.”

Mark collapsed into laughter again. Jannik stared at his father.

“Not you too.”

Johann shrugged and began seasoning something.

“Dinner in thirty minutes.”

From upstairs, Carlos called, “I am sorry!”

Johann called back, “Wear warm clothes.”

Carlos answered, “Yes!”

Mark whispered, “He is part of the family now.”

Jannik grabbed a towel from the counter and snapped it at him.

Mark jumped back.

“Violence!”

“Deserved.”

Siglinde appeared in the doorway then, looking between her sons and Johann.

“What happened?”

All three men answered at once.

“Nothing.”

Siglinde narrowed her eyes. Mark opened his mouth. Jannik pointed at him.

“Do not.”

Mark closed his mouth with great effort. Siglinde looked suspicious, then shook her head.

“I will ask Carlos.”

“No,” Jannik said too quickly.

That was a mistake. Her eyebrows lifted. Mark covered his mouth. Johann turned away, shoulders moving suspiciously again.

Jannik looked around at all of them.

“I am going outside.”

“It is cold,” Siglinde said.

“I know.”

“Shoes.”

“I know.”

“And jacket.”

“I know.”

Mark murmured, “Responsible athlete.”

Jannik took his jacket from the hook and left before he could be teased into actual combustion. Outside, the evening air hit his face like mercy.

He stood on the small terrace, breathing in cold pine and mountain shadow. His heart was still beating too fast, half from laughter, half from embarrassment, half from something he refused to count properly because that made three halves and nothing about the last ten minutes had obeyed mathematics.

Carlos in the towel. Carlos stepping closer. Still okay? Yes. Jannik leaned both hands on the railing and stared out at the darkening village.

The mountains had gone blue again. Their outlines were soft, the peaks disappearing into cloud and dusk. The quiet outside should have steadied him. Usually, it did. But now even the quiet felt alive. He heard the terrace door open behind him.

“Relax,” Mark said. “It’s me.”

Jannik did not turn.

“I came out here to avoid you.”

“I know. That is why I followed.”

“You are impossible.”

Mark came to stand beside him, shoulder brushing his. For once, he was not laughing. Not fully. For a while, they looked out together.

Then Mark said, “You okay?”

Jannik exhaled.

“Yes.”

“Real yes?”

He glanced at him.

“You sound like Carlos.”

“Terrible. I’ll stop.”

A pause.

Then Mark said, quieter, “I tease you because it is funny. And because you are very easy to tease right now.”

“Thank you.”

“But also...” Mark leaned his forearms on the railing. “I’m not trying to make it bad.”

Jannik looked at him. Mark shrugged.

“Whatever this is. I’m not trying to make it bad.”

Jannik’s irritation softened, though he did not quite know what to do with the tenderness behind Mark’s words.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

Mark nodded. Inside, they heard Carlos moving upstairs, a door opening and closing. Then water in pipes. Then footsteps. Mark smiled faintly.

“He likes you.”

Jannik looked away immediately.

“Mark.”

“I know. I know. You don’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t know what there is to talk about.”

“That’s fine.”

Jannik turned to him, surprised.

Mark held up his hands.

“Look, I can be mature for four seconds.”

“Can you?”

“I am already on the second three, so listen fast.”

Despite himself, Jannik smiled. Mark’s expression became gentler.

“You don’t need to know what it is tonight. But you know it is not nothing.”

Jannik looked back toward the mountains. Not nothing. The words were simple. They sat somewhere between his ribs.

“I know,” he admitted.

Mark nodded, as if that was enough for now.

Then, because he was Mark, he added, “Also, when a man appears in your kitchen in only a towel and you turn the color of tomato sauce, it usually means something.”

Jannik shoved him hard enough that Mark stumbled sideways, laughing.

“I gave you four seconds,” Mark protested.

“You wasted them.”

“I used them beautifully.”

The terrace door opened again.

Carlos stood there now, dressed for dinner in dark trousers and a soft sweater that was not Jannik’s this time. His hair was still damp but neater, curling slightly at the edges. His face had cooled from earlier, though when he saw Jannik, color returned faintly to his cheeks.

Mark noticed immediately.

“Oh, good,” he said. “Both red again.”

Carlos pointed at him.

“You are worse than my brothers.”

Mark looked delighted.

“Thank you.”

Jannik turned to Carlos.

“You found your clothes.”

“Yes.” Carlos’s smile flickered. “Miracle.”

Mark coughed loudly. Jannik took one threatening step toward him. Mark raised both hands.

“I am going inside. Dinner. Safety. Walls.”

He slipped past Carlos and into the house, but not before whispering, “Still okay?”

Jannik lunged after him, but Mark closed the door fast. Carlos laughed softly. Then he and Jannik were alone on the terrace. The cold moved around them. For a moment, neither spoke.

Carlos came to the railing, leaving a careful space between them. Not inches now. A little more. Respectful. But the memory of the kitchen remained, warm and ridiculous and impossible to ignore.

“I am sorry,” Carlos said.

Jannik looked at him. “For what?”

“For the call. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay.”

“I did flirt too much.”

Jannik looked down.

“Maybe.”

Carlos smiled. “Maybe?”

“Yes.”

“I can flirt less.”

Jannik glanced at him. Carlos’s smile softened.

“Or not.”

Jannik’s mouth twitched despite himself.

“You are not good at less.”

“No. But I can try.”

“You said that in San Michele square too.”

“And failed?”

“Yes.”

Carlos leaned on the railing with his good hand.

“Do you want me to try harder?”

The question was gentle. Jannik knew it was not only about jokes.

He looked out at the village, then at Carlos. The answer should have been complicated. Maybe it was complicated. But standing there in the mountain evening, after laughter and embarrassment and Mark’s teasing and Carlos’s careful question, he found one honest piece of it.

“No,” he said softly.

Carlos’s eyes warmed.

“No?” he repeated.

Jannik shook his head.

“Not harder.”

Carlos’s smile came slowly, like sunrise over something dangerous.

“Okay.”

Inside, Mark shouted, “Dinner!”

The moment broke. Jannik stepped back from the railing.

“We should go.”

Carlos nodded. “Yes.”

Neither moved for one second. Then Carlos, because he was Carlos, leaned closer as they turned toward the door and murmured.

“For the record, I liked your face more than the towel.”

Jannik stopped dead. Carlos opened the door and disappeared inside before Jannik could answer. From within came Mark’s delighted voice.

“Why is he red again?”

Jannik stood on the terrace alone for one more second, staring at the open doorway. Then he smiled despite himself.

“I hate all of you,” he said, and went inside for dinner.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── 

Dinner, somehow, was calmer than the hour before it.  That was not because Mark had become merciful. Mark had never become merciful in his entire life. It was because Siglinde controlled the table.

She did not do it loudly. She did not need to. She placed plates down, asked Carlos whether he wanted more bread, told Mark to sit properly, reminded Jannik to drink water, and gave Johann one look when he tried to bring out a second dish too early. The whole room adjusted around her.

Carlos noticed. Jannik saw him notice.

They sat together again, not exactly side by side by accident this time. Jannik suspected his mother had stopped pretending the seating arrangement was random. Carlos sat between Jannik and Mark, which meant he spent half the meal being fed by Siglinde and the other half being interrogated by Mark about Spanish music, towel navigation, and whether he had survived the mountains emotionally.

“I survived,” Carlos said, cutting into the food with his good hand.

Mark leaned closer.

“But did you cry?”

“No.”

“Did Jannik cry?”

“No.”

“Disappointing.”

Jannik looked at him.

“Why do you want people to cry?”

“I don’t want people to cry. I want evidence that your mountain poetry has impact.”

Carlos smiled at his plate.

“It had impact,” he said.

Jannik stilled. Mark turned slowly, delighted.

“Oh?”

Carlos glanced at Jannik, the mischief returning.

“The mountains. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Mark repeated.

“Eat,” Siglinde said, placing more vegetables on Mark’s plate with such precision that the conversation had no choice but to move.

Johann asked Carlos whether the sweater had been warm enough. Carlos said yes, very warm. Mark said it had looked very romantic. Jannik kicked him beneath the table. Mark accused him of violence again. Carlos laughed, then immediately apologized to Johann when he almost dropped his fork.

The dinner moved like that: warm, teasing, full of little interruptions. But beneath the jokes, Jannik felt something changing. Not only around Carlos. Around everyone.

His family had folded Carlos into the evening with alarming ease. Johann no longer watched him like a guest to be evaluated but like someone whose plate needed checking. Siglinde asked Carlos about his mother with genuine interest, and Carlos answered softly, telling her about home, about being injured there, about how hard it was to let people worry over him. Mark made fun of him, but in the brotherly way that meant acceptance, not distance.

Carlos gave as much as he received.

He asked Johann about cooking in the mountains. He asked Siglinde what Jannik had been like as a child, which Jannik immediately tried to stop, and failed. He asked Mark about the mysterious Jennifer, which made Mark’s ears turn red for the first time in two days.

Jannik enjoyed that far too much.

“Ah,” Carlos said, pointing at him. “Now you smile.”

“Of course,” Jannik said. “This is important information.”

Mark glared.

“I regret welcoming you.”

“No, you don’t,” Carlos said.

Mark looked at him for a second, then sighed.

“No. But I might soon.”

Siglinde laughed.

At some point, dessert appeared, despite everyone insisting they could not possibly eat more. It was not strudel this time, because Mark had already claimed they needed to save the proper Trenker strudel “for strategic breakfast.” Instead, Johann brought out something smaller, with berries and cream, and Carlos looked at it with the expression of a man facing a challenge he respected.

“You are trying to defeat me,” Carlos told Johann.

Johann sat down at last.

“No. If I try, you know.”

Carlos looked alarmed.

“This is not trying?”

Mark shook his head solemnly.

“You have only seen mercy.”

Jannik watched Carlos take the first bite and smile. That smile did something to him.

It had all day. In the bakery. In San Michele square. In the restaurant near the Tre Cime. On the terrace, when Carlos had asked if he wanted him to flirt less and Jannik, somehow, impossibly, had said no.

Not harder. He still could not believe he had said it. He still could not believe Carlos had understood.

By the time dinner ended, everyone was sleepy in the slow, satisfied way that came after food, laughter, cold air, and a day lived fully. Johann began clearing plates. Mark offered to help, then immediately tried to leave with the last piece of dessert. Siglinde caught him without looking.

“Plate first,” she said.

Mark froze. “How did you know?”

“I am your mother.”

Carlos whispered to Jannik, “Power.”

Jannik nodded.

“I told you.”

Carlos helped carry two glasses despite everyone telling him not to. He moved carefully, stubbornly and placed them by the sink with great dignity.

“There,” he said. “I am useful.”

Johann looked at the glasses.

“Good.”

Carlos looked absurdly proud. Jannik smiled.

A little later, the house loosened into the evening. Johann went outside to check something near the terrace. Mark disappeared upstairs with his phone, muttering that if anyone sang tomorrow morning, it would not be him. Carlos went to the guest room to call his family and check in with his team.

Jannik stayed in the kitchen. Siglinde was wiping the counter, though it was already clean. Jannik knew that movement. She did it when she was waiting for him to speak. He leaned against the table.

She looked over.

“Tea?”

“No. I’m okay.”

“You are standing like someone who is not okay.”

He smiled faintly.

“How does that look?”

“Like you.”

That was unfair. He sat down.

Siglinde rinsed the cloth, folded it neatly, then came to sit across from him. The kitchen was quiet now. The lamps were warm. Outside the windows, the village had gone dark except for scattered lights. Somewhere upstairs, Carlos’s voice moved softly through a closed door, speaking Spanish.

Jannik heard it and looked down immediately. His mother noticed. Of course she did.

“Today was good?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“The mountains?”

“Beautiful.”

“For Carlos?”

He nodded. “He loved them.”

“I could see it when you came back.”

Jannik rubbed his thumb against the edge of the table. Siglinde waited. He had never liked being pushed. She knew that. She also knew he sometimes needed silence placed in front of him until he could walk into it.

Finally, he said, “I wish Rome were not so close.”

Her face softened.

“Because you are tired?”

“Yes.” He paused. “And no.”

“Because Carlos leaves?”

Jannik swallowed. There it was, said simply. He did not answer right away. The house seemed to listen with her.

“I don’t know,” he said at last.

Siglinde folded her hands.

“You don’t know if you wish he could stay?”

“No. I know that.” He looked up, then away. “I wish he could stay.”

Her expression did not change, but something in her eyes warmed. Jannik continued slowly.

“I just don’t know what that means.”

“It does not need to mean everything tonight.”

“Everyone keeps saying things like this.”

“Then perhaps everyone is right.”

He let out a small breath, almost a laugh.

“Maybe.”

Siglinde tilted her head.

“You like him.”

“Yes. He is my friend.”

She smiled gently.

“Jannik.”

He looked down again. The word friend had once been enough. It had covered everything neatly: messages, jokes, rivalry, respect, warmth. Carlos was his friend. That had been true. It was still true. But now the word felt too small.

He thought of Carlos standing beneath the Tre Cime, scarf around his neck, listening while Jannik spoke about snow. Carlos in San Michele square telling him he was cute. Carlos in the kitchen, wet hair, towel, impossible smile. Carlos asking, still okay? Not as a joke. Not as pressure. As care.

Jannik’s voice became quieter.

“Maybe I like him a little bit more than a friend now.”

There. Once said, the sentence seemed to sit on the table between them like something fragile and alive. Siglinde did not gasp. She did not smile too widely. She did not make it heavier than it needed to be. She only reached across the table and placed her hand over his.

“Okay,” she said.

Jannik’s throat tightened.

“Okay?”

“Yes. Okay.”

He looked at her, searching for surprise or worry or disappointment. There was none. Only his mother, steady as always.

“You are not...” He stopped, embarrassed.

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

“Worried?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

“I am always worried. I am your mother.”

That made him smile.

“But not because you might like Carlos,” she continued. “I worry because your life is already complicated. Because Rome is close. Because people watch you. Because feelings can make people careless or afraid. But love, or liking, or whatever name it has today: this is not something I would be against.”

He looked at her sharply. She squeezed his hand.

“Never.”

The word entered him deeply. Never. Jannik looked down, blinking once. Siglinde’s voice softened.

“You know this, yes?”

He nodded.

“I hope you know this.”

“I do.”

“Good.”

For a while, neither spoke. From upstairs came Carlos’s laugh, muffled but recognizable. It made Jannik’s mouth move before he could stop it.

Siglinde smiled. “You hear him.”

“I hear everyone.”

“No. You hear him.”

He pressed his lips together. She laughed softly.

“It is all right.”

“It doesn't feel all right.”

“Why?”

“Because I have Rome. He is injured. We are friends. We are rivals. Everything is...” He searched for the word. “Messy.”

“Yes.”

“That is not comforting.”

“Life is messy. Tennis is only pretending not to be.”

Jannik laughed under his breath.

Siglinde leaned back. “Does Carlos know?”

“Know what?”

“That you may like him more than a friend.”

Jannik stared at the table.

“I think he knows something.”

“Because?”

“Because he says things.”

“What things?”

Jannik immediately regretted beginning this conversation.

“Mamma.”

She smiled. “I am not asking details.”

“You are asking details.”

“I am asking as your mother.”

“That is worse.”

She laughed quietly.

“Does he make you feel bad?”

“No.”

“Confused?”

“Yes.”

“Unsafe?”

Jannik shook his head immediately.

“No.”

“Then take your time.”

He looked at her. Siglinde’s expression became serious.

“But be kind to yourself too. You do not have to decide everything before Rome. You do not have to hide from it either. Both things can be true.”

“I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Then don’t pretend.”

He breathed out slowly.

“That sounds simple.”

“It is simple. Not easy.”

Carlos’s voice upstairs quieted. A door closed. Footsteps crossed faintly. Jannik looked toward the ceiling.

Siglinde followed his glance.

“You should sleep tonight.”

“I will.”

She gave him a look.

“I will try.”

Another look.

“I will.”

“Good.”

She stood and kissed the top of his head as if he were still small enough to accept it without embarrassment. He did not move away.

“No matter what,” she said softly, “you are my son. Carlos is welcome here. And whatever happens, you come home.”

Jannik closed his eyes for a second.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

She rested her hand briefly on his shoulder, then returned to the counter. Soon after, the house was prepared for bed.

Carlos came downstairs again to say goodnight, now dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie, hair dry enough to curl at the edges. He looked sleepy but happier than he had been when he arrived. He thanked Johann again for dinner. Johann told him to sleep. Carlos promised. Mark called from the stairs that he expected no towel incidents overnight. Carlos threw a cushion at him with his good hand and missed badly.

“Wrist injury,” he said solemnly.

Mark picked up the cushion.

“Terrible excuse.”

They all laughed.

By ten-thirty, doors had closed. By eleven, the house was quiet. Jannik did not sleep.

He lay on his back, staring into darkness, listening to the old familiar sounds of home: the settling of wood, the whisper of wind near the window, distant movement from pipes, then nothing. His body was tired. His mind was not.

Rome waited. Carlos was down the hall. Those two facts refused to sit separately.

He turned onto his side. Then onto his back again. He thought of his mother’s hand over his. He thought of Carlos saying the mountains had colors. He thought of the almost-moment on the terrace, then the almost-moment in the kitchen, then all the almosts that had gathered over the last two days like snow on a ledge.

At 11:07, he heard a door open. Not his parents’ room. Not Mark’s. The guest room. Jannik held still.

Soft footsteps moved along the hallway, then down the stairs. Careful. Slow. Carlos trying not to wake anyone. Jannik sat up. For thirty seconds, he told himself to stay in bed. Then he got up.

The hallway was dark except for the small lamp his mother always left on. Jannik moved quietly, bare feet on wood, then down the stairs. A faint light glowed from the kitchen. Carlos stood near the counter, one hand holding a glass of water. He turned when Jannik entered.

They looked at each other. Neither seemed surprised.

“Can’t sleep?” Carlos asked softly.

“No. You?”

Carlos shook his head.

“Too quiet.”

Jannik smiled a little.

“You said that yesterday.”

“It is still true.”

“Do you want tea?”

Carlos looked at the kettle, then back at him.

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Then why ask?”

“I don’t know. Hospitality.”

Carlos laughed under his breath and leaned against the counter. The kitchen looked different at night: softer, secretive, the edges of things silvered by moonlight from the window. The table where Jannik had spoken with his mother now sat empty. The chairs were pushed in. The strudel Mark had guarded was covered under a cloth like a treasure.

Carlos noticed him looking at it.

“Do not worry. I did not come for strudel.”

“Good. Mark would know.”

“I came for water. And maybe because my head is loud.”

Jannik nodded. The sentence needed no explanation. They stood in silence for a while, both careful not to wake the house. Then Jannik had the most idiotic idea of his life. He knew it was idiotic the moment it appeared. Which did not stop him from saying it.

“Do you want to go to the court?”

Carlos blinked.

“What?”

“The tennis court.”

“At eleven at night?”

“Yes.”

Carlos stared at him. Then his face lit up in a way that was both dangerous and beautiful.

“Jannik Sinner.”

“No.”

“You want to break rules.”

“No.”

“You do.”

“I said, go to the court. I didn’t say play.”

Carlos leaned forward.

“Do you have access?”

Jannik hesitated. Carlos’s smile grew.

“You do.”

“I have an extra key.”

“Of course you do.”

“Since I was a kid.”

Carlos set down his glass.

“This is the best thing you have ever told me.”

“It is not a good idea.”

“It is an amazing idea.”

“You have a wrist injury.”

“We can be careful.”

“My team will kill me.”

“Then we do not tell them.”

“My mother will kill me.”

Carlos paused. “That is more serious.”

Jannik looked toward the stairs. The house remained silent.

He should have gone back to bed. He really should have. But the idea had already opened a door in him. The old club at night. Empty court. Moonlight. Carlos, who had been forbidden from tennis and missed himself. Jannik, who had promised no playing and wanted one private moment with the sport before Rome swallowed it again.

Maybe it was reckless. Maybe it was exactly what they needed.

“Soft hitting,” Jannik said.

Carlos’s eyes widened.

“You are serious?”

“Very soft. No serves. No hard forehands. Nothing with the wrist if it hurts. We stop immediately.”

Carlos was already smiling.

“Yes, coach.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“You need clothes.”

Carlos looked down at his hoodie.

“I have clothes.”

“Training clothes.”

“You lend me?”

Jannik swallowed. “Yes.”

Carlos’s smile became smaller.

“Okay.”

They moved like thieves.

Upstairs, Jannik pulled open his wardrobe as quietly as possible. Carlos waited in the hallway, biting his lip to keep from laughing every time a floorboard creaked. Jannik found spare training pants, a long-sleeve top, and a jacket. The pants were a little long on Carlos, the top a little loose in the shoulders, but he changed in the guest room and emerged looking far too pleased.

“How do I look?” Carlos whispered.

“Like someone wearing my clothes.”

Carlos looked down at himself.

“Good?”

Jannik looked away. “Fine.”

Carlos grinned.

“Fine. Very emotional.”

Jannik found shoes that were close enough and a spare racket bag. Carlos’s own racket, thankfully or dangerously, had come in his luggage despite the injury. Jannik stared at it when Carlos lifted it.

“You brought a racket?”

Carlos looked guilty. “For emotional support.”

“You are unbelievable.”

“I wasn’t going to play.”

“And now?”

Carlos’s smile returned.

“Now you have an idiotic idea.”

“Do not make me responsible.”

“You are a responsible tourist guide.”

They left through the back door. The night air was cold enough to bite. Jannik almost turned around immediately.

Carlos whispered, “No. You cannot regret now.”

“You need another layer.”

“I am fine.”

“Carlos.”

“I am wearing half your wardrobe.”

That was unfortunately true. They walked through San Candido under moonlight.

The village was asleep. Windows dark. Streets pale. The mountains rose around them like shadows against a sky scattered with stars. Their footsteps sounded too loud, though they were careful. Once, Carlos sneezed softly and Jannik glared at him.

“I am not sick,” Carlos whispered.

“You better not be.”

“You worry too much.”

“Yes.”

Carlos’s expression softened.

“I like it.”

Jannik almost tripped. Carlos laughed silently. The old tennis club looked different at night.

By day, it had been full of children, clay, movement, voices. Now the fences were dark lines, the clubhouse quiet, the courts silvered by moonlight. The air smelled colder, cleaner, with the faint earthy scent of clay resting under dew.

Jannik took out the key. Carlos watched with reverence.

“This is a very illegal feeling.”

“It is not illegal. I have a key.”

“Since childhood. Very suspicious.”

“I was trusted.”

Carlos smiled. “Dangerous decision.”

The lock clicked. They slipped inside.

Jannik turned on only the smallest lights near one court, enough to see but not enough to announce themselves to the village. The court glowed softly, unreal in the night. Clay under artificial light looked darker, almost red-brown, marked faintly by old lines and evening moisture.

Carlos stood at the baseline and breathed in. His face changed. Jannik knew that look. Hunger. Not for winning. Not exactly. For the feeling. Racket in hand. Space across the net. The body remembers what injury had interrupted.

“Carlos,” he said softly.

Carlos looked at him.

“I know.”

“Really soft.”

“Yes.”

“No wrist pain.”

“Yes.”

“We stop if-”

“Jannik.” Carlos lifted his racket gently. “I know. I promise.”

Jannik believed him. Mostly. They began at half-court.

No pace. No spin that required force. Simple contact. Ball over the net. Soft. Controlled. Almost like children learning, except both of them moved with the instincts of men who had built their lives around yellow felt.

The first ball left Jannik’s racket and bounced gently. Carlos met it carefully, guiding rather than hitting. The sound was quiet. Pop. The ball came back. Jannik smiled before he could stop himself. Carlos saw it.

“Ah,” he said. “There he is.”

“Focus.”

“On this speed?”

“Especially this speed.”

They hit like that for several minutes. Soft forehands. A few backhands. Carlos avoided anything that pulled his injured wrist too much, using shorter motions, sometimes switching hands awkwardly and laughing when the ball died in the net.

“You are terribly left-handed,” Jannik whispered.

Carlos put a hand to his heart.

“Cruel.”

“It is true.”

“I am injured.”

“You were terrible before the injury with your left hand.”

Carlos sent the next ball so softly that it barely crossed. Jannik ran in and caught it on the bounce, laughing.

“That was not tennis.”

“That was art.”

Everything felt strange and wonderful.

The court at night. Carlos in his clothes. The rules were broken but gently. No crowd, no ranking, no cameras, no scoreboard, no match. Just the ball traveling back and forth under quiet lights while the mountains stood around them unseen but present.

After ten minutes, Jannik stepped back.

“Enough.”

Carlos groaned. “No.”

“Yes.”

“I just started.”

“That is why we stop.”

Carlos looked at him, annoyed, then breathed out.

“You are right.”

“I know.”

“Arrogant.”

“Accurate.”

Carlos smiled, but there was sadness beneath it. Jannik walked to the net.

“Pain?”

Carlos shook his head.

“No. Not pain. Just...” He looked at the racket. “I miss it.”

Jannik nodded. Carlos touched the strings with his good hand.

“Even this. Soft, stupid hitting at midnight with someone who should know better.”

“I know better.”

“You still came.”

“Yes.”

Carlos looked at him. “Why?”

Jannik could have said because you were awake. Because I was awake. Because Rome is close. Because you miss tennis. Because I missed being with you without everyone watching.

Instead, he said, “Because I had the key.”

Carlos laughed softly.

“Coward answer.”

“Yes.”

They put the rackets down and sat on the bench beside the court.

The night settled around them again. Without the sound of the ball, everything became enormous. The sky stretched dark and clear above the lights, stars scattered between thin moving clouds. The moon sat low enough to make the world silver at the edges.

Carlos leaned back, looking up.

“Beautiful,” he said.

“You say that a lot here.”

“Because you keep showing me beautiful things.”

Jannik looked at the court.

“This is an old tennis court.”

Carlos turned his head.

“It is beautiful to you.”

“Yes.”

“Then beautiful.”

Jannik smiled faintly. Carlos pointed upward with his good hand.

“Do you know constellations?”

“Some.”

“Which?”

Jannik looked up.

“The obvious ones.”

“That means no.”

“I know Orion.”

Carlos laughed. “Everyone knows Orion.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. But he is not the only one.”

Carlos shifted closer on the bench, pointing carefully at the sky.

“There. See those stars? That is Cassiopeia. Like a W.”

Jannik followed his finger.

“I see it.”

“And there, if the sky is clear enough, you can find Andromeda near it. Not always easy. My grandfather used to show us when we were kids.”

Jannik looked at him.

“Your grandfather?”

Carlos nodded, eyes still on the sky.

“He liked stars. In summer, sometimes we stayed outside late. He would tell stories. Not always correct stories, I think.” He smiled. “But good ones.”

“What stories?”

“Greek ones. Heroes, queens, monsters. He made them dramatic.”

“Of course.”

Carlos glanced at him.

“Are you saying I am dramatic because of my grandfather?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe true.”

He pointed again. “There, that bright one, maybe Vega. Part of the Summer Triangle. With Deneb and Altair. In Spain, we see it a lot in the summer. I used to think Altair was the best name for a tennis player.”

Jannik laughed softly.

“Altair Alcaraz?”

“Strong, no?”

“Sounds like a spaceship.”

Carlos grinned. “Even better.”

Jannik looked up, trying to find the shapes Carlos described. He had lived under mountain skies his whole life, had seen stars bright enough to make silence feel endless, but he had never learned them this way. Not as names, not as stories. Carlos spoke of them like familiar people.

It made something in Jannik weaken. Not dramatically. Just enough that his knees felt less reliable even sitting down. Carlos noticed his silence.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You are doing nothing face.”

“I am listening.”

Carlos smiled. “You like stars?”

“Yes.”

“But?”

“I like that you know them.”

Carlos turned toward him. Jannik kept looking upward, embarrassed by his own honesty but not retreating from it. Not tonight.

Carlos’s voice softened.

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Jannik thought of the mountain restaurant, of Carlos listening while he spoke about snow. He thought of accidental poetry. He thought perhaps honesty could be returned like a ball, softly enough not to hurt.

“Because I didn’t expect it,” he said. “And because you talk about them like they are friends.”

Carlos’s smile faded into something warmer.

“My grandfather would like that,” he said.

“I think so.”

Carlos looked up again.

“When I was little, stars felt like proof that the world was bigger than tennis.”

“You needed proof?”

“Sometimes. My family loves tennis. My town loves tennis. I loved it too. But when you are a kid and everyone says you are good, suddenly everything becomes tennis. Stars were not tennis. They were just there.”

Jannik listened.

Carlos laughed quietly. “And now I am injured and still talking about tennis under the stars. So maybe I failed.”

“No.”

Carlos looked at him.

“You are talking about stars,” Jannik said. “I am the one who brought you to a tennis court.”

Carlos smiled slowly.

“True. Bad influence.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Jannik Sinner, secret rule-breaker.”

“It was one time.”

“With a key you have had since childhood. That means long-term criminal planning.”

Jannik laughed. Carlos leaned closer on the bench, his shoulder almost touching his.

“You know, I like this version too.”

“What version?”

“The one who breaks rules at night but still worries every three minutes if my wrist hurts.”

Jannik looked down.

“That is a strange version.”

“It is cute.”

Jannik’s face warmed, but this time he did not look away immediately. Carlos noticed. His eyes brightened.

“No denial?”

Jannik breathed in. The night air was cold. The bench was hard. The old court smelled of clay. Carlos was close enough that Jannik could see the moonlight catch in his eyes.

“No,” Jannik said.

Carlos went very still. Jannik’s pulse jumped, but he stayed where he was. Carlos’s smile came carefully.

“No denial,” he repeated.

“No denial.”

“That is new.”

“Yes.”

Carlos leaned a fraction closer.

“Should I flirt more, or will you run?”

Jannik surprised both of them by saying, “Try.”

Carlos’s breath caught. For once, he looked almost speechless. Then the smile returned, slower than before.

“Okay.”

He shifted on the bench, turning toward Jannik.

“You look good in moonlight.”

Jannik’s mouth twitched.

“That is your line?”

“I am warming up.”

“It is not bad.”

“Not bad?”

“Good.”

Carlos looked delighted.

“Good. Then: I liked wearing your clothes.”

Jannik looked down at Carlos’s borrowed jacket, the training top beneath it.

“I noticed.”

“Because I looked good?”

“Because you mentioned it three times.”

Carlos laughed softly.

“And?”

Jannik swallowed, then forced himself not to retreat.

“And yes.”

Carlos’s expression changed. The court seemed to tilt.

“You think I look good?” Carlos asked, voice lower.

Jannik’s heart hammered.

“Yes.”

Carlos stared at him as he had just won something more important than a point.

Then he whispered, “Jannik.”

The way he said his name was almost enough. Jannik turned fully toward him.

Their knees nearly touched. Their shoulders did. Carlos’s good hand rested on the bench between them. Jannik looked at it, then at his face. Carlos did not move quickly. He gave him time. Always time, beneath the teasing.

Jannik realized, with a strange calm, that he was ready. Not ready for everything. But ready for this moment. Carlos leaned closer. Jannik did too. Their faces were inches apart. Carlos’s eyes flicked down to his mouth. Jannik stopped breathing.

A noise cracked from behind the clubhouse. Both of them jumped. Carlos nearly knocked his racket off the bench. Jannik turned so fast that his shoulder hit the backrest.

“What was that?” Carlos whispered.

“I don’t know.”

Another rustle. Then a small clatter. They sat frozen. A cat emerged from behind a bin, looked at them with total contempt, and disappeared through a gap in the fence. Carlos stared. Then covered his mouth to keep from laughing. Jannik dropped his head into his hands.

“A cat,” Carlos whispered.

“A cat.”

“We were interrupted by a cat.”

“Yes.”

Carlos began laughing silently, shoulders shaking. Jannik tried not to, failed, and laughed too. The almost-kiss dissolved into moonlit absurdity. After a minute, Carlos wiped his eyes.

“Maybe the universe says not on a tennis court.”

“Maybe the universe says go home before my mother wakes.”

Carlos looked at his phone. His laughter stopped.

“Jannik.”

“What?”

“It is 12:36.”

Jannik stood immediately.

“We have to go.”

Carlos stood too quickly, then remembered his wrist and slowed.

“Yes, coach.”

“Do not joke.”

“I am not joking. Your mother is scarier than Simone.”

“She is.”

They turned off the lights, locked the court, and hurried back through the sleeping village with the guilty speed of teenagers. Neither spoke much. Every tiny sound made them glance around. Carlos started laughing again halfway home, and Jannik had to stop walking because laughter made quiet impossible.

“Stop,” he whispered.

“You stop.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You look guilty.”

“I am guilty.”

Carlos grinned. “Me too.”

They reached the house at 12:55. Jannik unlocked the back door as silently as possible. The kitchen light switched on. Both of them froze. Siglinde stood in the doorway in her robe, arms crossed. Jannik felt his soul leave his body.

Carlos whispered, “Madre mía.”

Siglinde looked first at Jannik’s training clothes. Then, Carlos wearing Jannik’s training clothes. Then, at the racket bag in Jannik’s hand. Her expression became very calm. Terrifyingly calm.

“Where were you?”

Jannik opened his mouth. No sound came. Carlos, brave and doomed, lifted his good hand.

“It was my fault.”

Siglinde looked at him. Carlos lowered his hand. Jannik found his voice.

“No. It was my idea.”

Her eyes returned to him.

“I know.”

That was worse.

“Mamma-”

“No.” She pointed gently but firmly toward the table. “Sit.”

They sat. Immediately. Carlos looked like a schoolboy about to receive punishment. Jannik felt like one. Siglinde stood across from them.

“You went to the tennis court.”

Jannik looked down.

“Yes.”

“With Carlos injured.”

“We were careful.”

“With Rome tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“After promising everyone no tennis.”

Jannik winced.

“Yes.”

Carlos said softly, “We hit very slowly.”

Siglinde turned to him.

“Carlos, I like you very much. Do not help him.”

Carlos closed his mouth. Jannik almost laughed from nerves, then wisely did not. Siglinde looked at her son.

“Jannik.”

“I know.”

“No, I do not think you do. You are not fifteen. You cannot sneak out to hit tennis balls at midnight before Rome.”

“I know.”

“And you.” She turned to Carlos again. “You cannot risk your wrist because my son has romantic, idiotic ideas.”

Carlos went red instantly. Jannik also went red. Siglinde saw both blushes and closed her eyes for one second.

“Dio mio.”

“Mamma.”

“I am serious.”

“I know.”

“I should tell Simone and Darren.”

Jannik looked up, horrified.

“No.”

Carlos whispered, “Please, no.”

Siglinde crossed her arms.

“I should. They would enjoy this very much.”

“They would never let me live,” Jannik said.

“That may be useful.”

“Mamma.”

She held his gaze for several seconds. Then her expression softened, but only slightly.

“Did his wrist hurt?”

“No,” Carlos said quickly. “I promise. No pain.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I will tell if there is pain.”

“You will tell Jannik, your team and me.”

Carlos blinked. “You?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

She looked back at Jannik.

“And you. No more secrets tonight.”

“No more.”

“No more courts.”

“No more courts.”

“No more idiotic ideas.”

Jannik hesitated. Her eyes narrowed.

“No more idiotic ideas tonight,” he corrected.

Carlos covered his mouth. Siglinde pointed at him.

“Do not laugh.”

Carlos nodded solemnly, eyes bright. She sighed deeply and maternally.

“Go to bed. Both of you. Shower tomorrow. Sleep now.”

“Yes,” Jannik said.

Carlos stood. “I am sorry.”

Siglinde’s face softened more.

“I know. And I am glad you had fun.”

Both of them looked at her, surprised.

“But,” she added sharply, “if Rome goes badly because my son is tired from midnight tennis, I will tell everyone. Simone. Darren. Your father. Mark. The newspapers, if necessary.”

Jannik stared.

“The newspapers?”

Carlos whispered, “She is powerful.”

Siglinde looked at him. Carlos straightened.

“Goodnight.”

She kissed Jannik’s cheek as he passed, despite reprimanding him, then touched Carlos’s shoulder gently.

“Goodnight. Sleep.”

They climbed the stairs in silence. At the top, they looked at each other. For three seconds, they stayed serious. Then Carlos started laughing. Quietly at first. Then more. Jannik tried to shush him, but he was laughing too, hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking.

“Romantic, idiotic ideas,” Carlos whispered.

“Do not.”

“Your mother knows.”

“She knows everything.”

Carlos leaned against the hallway wall, still laughing silently.

“She threatened newspapers.”

“She was serious.”

“I believe her.”

They reached the guest-room door. The laughter softened. The almost-kiss returned between them, not awkward now, just unfinished.

Carlos looked at him.

“Tonight was good.”

“Yes.”

“Even with the cat.”

“Especially with the cat.”

Carlos smiled. “And your mother.”

“Maybe less with my mother.”

“No. I like that she cares.”

Jannik nodded.

Carlos’s voice dropped.

“Sleep?”

“Yes.”

Neither moved. Carlos looked at him with warmth and a little mischief.

“No more idiotic ideas tonight.”

Jannik smiled. “Tonight.”

Carlos’s eyes brightened.

“Goodnight, Jannik.”

“Goodnight, Carlos.”

Carlos stepped into the guest room and closed the door softly. Jannik stood in the hallway for a moment, still smiling, still blushing, still hearing Siglinde’s voice threatening to tell Simone and Darren everything. Then he went to his own room. This time, when he lay down, sleep came quickly. Not because his mind was empty. Because it was full of the right things.

Moonlight. Clay. Stars. Carlos naming constellations. A cat ruining everything. His mother waiting in the kitchen like justice in a robe. And somewhere beneath all of it, the warm, terrifying knowledge that whatever this was, it was no longer nothing. Jannik fell asleep laughing quietly into his pillow.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───