I sit with that for a second. The third center-back slot will be open. I have read this sentence on the screen and the sentence is doing things in my chest that the email from Munich has not done in three months.
The browser is still on the page. The names are still there. The center-back slot is still going to be open in December. My contract in Munich expires at the end of the month. Drew the chili-pepper is somewhere in this city right now, possiblyleaning into Tobík’s shoulder over a glass of natural wine, and I am looking at the third center-back slot of an MLS team because I have apparently decided that this counts as research.
I put the laptop on the desk. I do not close it.
Recovery at nine. Weights at eleven. Group stage match Saturday. Tomorrow Tobík is going to text me about a morning walk because Tomáš told him to, and I am going to say yes because Tomáš told me to and because I want to.
Chapter 9: Tobík
He texts me on Thursday.
Czech, short, the way Damián texts when he isn’t editing.
Šíma won’t stop watching something. Hotel room’s too small for this much volume.
I’m standing at the kitchen counter eating a peach over the sink because the peach is ripe and the sink is right there and this is how I eat peaches in July. I read the text. I read it again. I type my address and send it before the part of my brain that manages consequences catches up with the part that manages thumbs.
His three dots appear. Disappear. Appear.
Twenty minutes.
I put the phone down. I change my shirt. Not because I’m performing. I change from the practice shirt to the green polo, the one that people tell me I look good in, and I’m doing this because the practice shirt has a stain and the green polo does not have a stain and that is the reason I’m giving myself and I’m letting the reason stand.
I straighten the books on the counter. I move a cup. I’m rearranging objects in my apartment because a man is coming over and my body needs small tasks to focus on.
His knock. Three taps.
I open the door.
Damián. Hair down, curls against his neck. A simple gray t-shirt. The evening light from the stairwell window falls across one shoulder.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
He holds up a bottle of wine. “I brought this. I don’t know if you drink wine.”
“I drink wine. Sometimes. When a person brings it to my apartment.”
“Has that happened before?”
“You’re the first person to bring wine to my apartment. This is a historic moment.”
The corner of his mouth turns up.
“Come in,” I say as I open the door wider for him.
The apartment feels smaller with him in it. He looks around the way a person looks around a room they’ve decided to pay attention to. He takes everything in.
He puts the wine on the counter. His hand stays on the bottle for a beat and then falls away. He leans against the counter. My counter. The place where my hip goes in the morning when I’m waiting for the water to reach ninety-three degrees.
“Water?” I say. “We have the wine you brought. Or I also have coffee if you want the full experience.”
“Water’s fine.”
I pour him a glass. The kitchen is small enough that pouring a glass of water for someone puts you close to them. I hand it over. Our fingers don’t touch. I made sure our fingers don’t touch.
“The contract. The deadline was yesterday.”
