Perhaps I should have kept my peace, but though I knew it wouldn’t help, I needed Miles to know that someone had his back. That I refused to be just this week’s piece of arse. “Do you mean when he shouted at Miles for being lazy?” I asked. “Or when he called him an embarrassment?”
She set her hands on her hips with an angry clack of bangles. “What is this? Who is he?”
“Just a friend, Ma,” Miles said, and true as it was, it burned. And was my own damn fault. With a rueful smile, he jerked his head toward the door. “You should probably go.”
I could hardly refuse. Not when he pulled it open for me.
“Who’d have thought you’d be saved by my mother,” he murmured as I paused on the threshold. And before I could answer, he bent to kiss me, heedless of the open door and his mother’s watching eyes, a kiss that was quick and light yet tender, like he sought to capture me in a moment.
Then he let the door go, leaving me with nothing to do but walk away, trying not to think about how he’d kissed me like he was drowning.
WHO’D HAVE THOUGHTyou’d be saved by my mother.The words haunted me through my match prep and all the way to the tournament, while Tomas and Macca talked tactics in the back of the car. I ought to have been listening. Instead, all I wanted to do was run back in time and tell him I hadn’t wanted saving.
While I waited for the match before mine to finish, I found a quiet corner and called Katie.
“I love him,” I said as soon as she answered.
“No shit,” she laughed down the line. “Although, I’m glad you’re finally admitting it. Have you told him?”
“No. I—
“Mat!”
“I know!” I pulled tighter into my corner as a door opened at the end of the hallway, spilling voices from the player lounge. “I just . . . tell me, what would you think if you found out that an openly gay man was having a secret relationship?”
“You mean what do I think people would say about Matteo Russo, gay tennis icon—”
“Gross.”
“—being found out as Miles Callahan’s secret boyfriend?”
I looked up as a pair of tournament staff walked by, and waited before replying, “Yeah, something like that.”
She hummed thoughtfully. “That it was none of my business? Or that there was probably a good reason? I might even be disappointed in the sport for being like this, but if you’re wondering if I would think you a queer traitor, then no.”
“Not even to myself? I didn’t come out just to go back into the closet again.”
“Would you be? Everyone knows you’re gay and you wouldn’t be pretending otherwise. I know you hate the whole ‘you don’t owe anyone your queerness’ thing because what about solidarity, butthat’s his problem. Yours is more ‘do I owe anyone the details of my relationships’, and the answer is surely no.”
I let her words sink in, let myself realise I’d already known her answer. Realise, too, that my refusal to consider being his secret had more to do with anger than anything else. “I’ve been so annoyed at him for not coming out,” I said, digging a finger and thumb into my brows. “Because with two of us, I wouldn’t have become The Gay Player. Wouldn’t have been alone. But while I’ve been mad, Miles has been dealing withall thisand just not saying anything.”
“All what?”
“He fired his whole terrible, bigoted team last night – you should have heard the things his trainer and Mannering said about him. And then his mother showed up this morning and god, Katie, they’re all awful. His dad, too. Somehow, he’s become who he is despite them, like a tree growing in poisoned ground. And then this morning, I tried to stand up to his mother and she called me this week’s piece of arse, and I couldn’t even tell her she was wrong!” Frustrated tears pricked my eyes and I turned away toward the wall while all around me the distant buzz of the tournament was ever-present. “I’m an idiot.”
“No, Mat, you’re not,” she said. “How were you to know?”
“I could have started by not assuming. I could have fucking asked!” I’d told myself it had been none of my business. And why change that when righteous anger had felt so satisfying?
Katie sighed. “You have to tell him.”
“I have to tell him,” I repeated.
“Mat?” I turned to find Tomas coming along the hall, his lips set in a grim line. “You’re up in five.”
“Fuck, I have to go,” I said to Katie. “Um . . . thanks for listening to all that. Somehow, I have to stop worrying about this and go play tennis. Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need luck,” she said. “Just pretend the guy at the other end is Leo Mannering and humiliate the shit out of him.”
