“Yup.”
“Sure did.”
“Of course we knew!” Tina patted my arm. “He told me he was going to do it during the tournament before he even flew out here.”
“Before he flew out here?”
She laughed and went back to scrolling through her phone, leaving me stunned by just how wild it felt to be the centre of Miles Callahan’s perfectly planned-out world.
At the bottom of the stairs, the main corridor was bustling with tournament staff. Many stopped to clap as we passed, while the two players from the women’s draw waiting to take the court called out congratulations. One followed with a wolf whistle and gave me a thumbs up, so it was with heating cheeks that I reached the locker room. Miles’s team were ahead of me, but at the door, Marcel touched Cam’s arm and tilted his head my way. “Let’s give them two minutes, huh?”
So, I walked alone into the locker room to find Miles towelling some of the sweat from his hair, not long having set down his bags. “Oh, hi,” he said, grin spreading.
“Oh, hi? You rotten, monstrous, rotten monster!” I shoved him against the bank of lockers and pressed against him, capturing his mouth in a hard kiss. And as I did, I couldn’t but think of how close he had stood in the locker room at the French Open, glaring down at me as I called him a coward. I ought to have regretted my unkindness, but how could I when it had led us here? When he loved me and was mine and now the whole world knew.
“Rotten monster, huh?” he murmured against my lips as we paused for breath. “Do you kiss all rotten monsters like this?”
“You could have warned me!”
“I could have, but that wouldn’t have been as fun, would it?Also, it would have been very embarrassing if I’d then lost and couldn’t do it.” A hint of worry flickered in his eyes. “You don’t really mind, do you?”
I pulled back to look at him. “What? No! God, no. It was amazing, I’m just still in shock.”
With a pleased hum, he leant in for another kiss and slid his hands down my back. “It’s nice to know I can surprise you too.”
“You always surprise me.”
Laughing voices passed outside the door, and as my heart jolted with the panicked instinct to pull away and hide, I realised we didn’t have to. The relief was like a dropped weight and I sagged against him, unexpected emotion dampening the corners of my eyes.
“We’re safe,” Miles said softly, cupping my face. “We’re good. I promised I would take better care of you, didn’t I? It just took me awhile to figure it out.”
“Is everything going to be all right, though?” I asked, swallowing the lump in my throat. “With your parents and sponsors and everything.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be the sponsor who dropped me after that, or the parents who sued their son after that, but it’s all still up in the air. I’m just choosing us and letting the rest fall where it may.”
“Fuck, I love you.”
His smile stretched, so fond, and he trailed the backs of his fingers down my cheek. “I love you, too.”
Footsteps halted in the doorway, and in an echo from Roland Garros, there was a member of Miles’s team come to call him away. Not Tarelli this time, eying me suspiciously, but Cam Michaels running his ponytail through his hand and trying not to grin. “You did good,” he said. “But don’t forget you played a whole match outthere, right? We’d better get on with your cool-down, before the press eat you alive.”
“Yeah, I’m coming. I was going to ask if you wanted to stay and do press together,” Miles added to me as he stepped away to pick up his towel. “But I actually think I should take the heat on my own.”
“I can come if you want,” I said.
He shook his head. “Let me be The Gay Player this time. It’s my turn.” He kissed my forehead. “Why don’t you escape back to the hotel and I’ll be there as soon as I can?”
“As long as you’re sure.”
“Very sure. I want them to askmethe questions.”
Katie Zhang
MAT! THAT WAS SO SWEET!
God, he really nailed that whole thing, didn’t he?
Wait! Did you know he was going to do it, too?
