I look up. Tomáš is across the locker room. His phone is in his hand. He’s watching me. He nods once. The nod says: I knew. The nod says: I’ve known for longer than you think.
Šíma is the loudest. “ATLANTA. ATLANTA, VEŽ. YOUR CONTRACT EXPIRED AND YOU SIGNED IN AMERICA AND YOU DIDN’T TELL US?”
“I’ll explain. I have to do something first.”
“What could you possibly have to do first?”
“Something.”
I grab a fresh shirt. I change faster than I’ve changed after any match in my career. Šíma is still talking. Kovár has stopped eating. Novotný and Polášek are staring at me with the face of men who have just learned a thing they didn’t know about a man they’ve known for a decade.
I leave the locker room.
The corridor toward the post-match area is the same corridor from two weeks ago. Tobík is there. Standing with Marchetti and Thompson. Marchetti has his phone out, showing them the screen. They’re all looking at it.
Tobík looks up. His eyes find me across twelve feet of tunnel. Three weeks of Atlanta. Eight days of silence. One text I’d unsend if unsending were how life worked. The tunnel is loud with post-match noise and the tunnel is also the quietest place I’ve ever stood.
Marchetti looks between us. Reads the room faster than his hockey reflexes would suggest. “We are going to step over there.” He pulls Thompson sideways.
I walk the last few feet between us. “Tobík.”
“Damián.”
The silence sits. His face is controlled. Not flat. Controlled. He’s had eight days to prepare for any version of seeing me and he’s not letting his face go first.
I open my mouth. The sentence I planned doesn’t come out whole.
“I signed with Atlanta. Atlanta United. It was finalized this morning. The announcement just went out. I...”
The sentence stops. The fragments are all I have.
“I...I want this. I want to be here. I want...” I can hear my own voice losing the fluency I’ve had my whole life in three different languages. “Tobík. I’m sorry about the text. I shouldn’t have sent it. I want to be here. With you. I want this city. I want to wake up here. I want to walk on your Beltline. I want...” The fragmentsare getting smaller. “I don’t have all the words for it. I’m not asking you to forgive the text. I’m telling you I’m here. And I want you.”
I stop. I’ve run out of pieces to give him.
Tobík’s face changes. Not all at once. In stages. The controlled mouth softening. The eyes going somewhere I haven’t seen them go since the night three years ago when I leaned in and pulled back and called it a weird night for three years afterward.
He takes one step forward. His hand comes up. It lands on arm. His thumb rubbing against my skin. His palm is warm and his fingers are steady and I can feel his hand the way I feel a ball at the top of a jump, which is to say in my whole body.
“You signed with Atlanta.” His voice is soft.
“I signed with Atlanta.”
“When does it start?”
“As soon as the tournament’s over. I need to go back to Germany briefly and then I move here.”
“Okay.” The smallest word. Doing everything. “And the text…” he says.
“The text was wrong. It came from a version of me that doesn’t get to make decisions anymore. I’m sorry.”
“Damián.” He pauses. “I’m going to take some time to figure out what to do with the text. I’m not telling you no right now. I’m telling you the text happened and I need to understand what to do with it.”
I look down the tunnel. Tomáš is standing at the far end, outside the locker room door. He’s watching us. He does the smallest possible nod. Then he turns and walks back inside.
I look at Tobík. His hand is still on my arm. I bring my hand up and cover his. I hold it there.
“I love you. I’ve loved you for three years and I didn’t know it until I had to choose.”
