“Wait, are you saying you don’t want to share an apartment for the US Open?”
“Not that I don’t want to, you just won’t need to. You’re going to be in fancy hotels from now on, like you deserve. Between the prize money and the points from this run, you’re set.”
Not something I wanted to think about yet, this tournamentjust a tiger I was riding until it shook me off. “Maybe,” I said. “But wherever I am, you can be too. We’re a team.”
“We are, but you have Miles now.”
“I don’thaveMiles.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Mat, don’t give me that. You two were so cute lying on the couch together the other night it was almost nauseating. Every time I walked by it was all teasing and little kisses and staring deeply into one another’s eyes.”
As though summoned by her words, the tennis returned from the ad break as Miles was getting out of his chair, towel in hand. He looked focussed and sure and utterly gorgeous, and the very sight of him was enough to make my heart thud like a drum.
I made myself shrug. “That’s just who he is. Under that cocky façade, he’s generous and affectionate and decent and yes, he uses that on me to get what he wants—”
“Yes! You!”
“No, notme, someone safe he can fuck on tour without having to worry about his secret.”
She tilted her head, something like pity in her gaze. “Mat . . . you can’t still be lying to yourself about this. You—”
“I have to! This can’t be more than that. I came out because I refused to hide, so being a secret, safe fuck is one thing but a secret boyfriend?” I shook my head. “I can’t do that. So I’m going to keep seeing this for what it has to be, especially while I’m playing well.”
While Miles ripped an ace out wide on the TV, Katie wrapped her arms around me with the fierceness of a mother bear. Or a really good friend. “I understand, I do,” she said, squeezing me and letting go. “But god, Mat, you are going to break yourself like this. You can’t know what he’ll do or what might change until you tell him how you feel. Tell him you love—”
“Don’t.” I shook my head, a fierce little twitch like I could shakeoff her words. Shake off the way my heart lurched. “That’s not what this is. That’s not—He’s just decent and funny and—andthere. Easy to have stupid thoughts and a few feelings about someone you’ve spent too much time with.” She parted her lips to argue and I lifted a hand. “Please. I’m on a winning streak, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get this chance again. Nothing can change or it’ll be gone.”
With a soft little sigh, Katie set her hand on my shoulder. “Okay. Well, whatever this isn’t with Miles . . .” She turned toward the TV, where he was tucking his necklace into his shirt in preparation to serve. “I’ll always be here if you need me. Just call, all right?”
Seventeen
REACHING THE THIRD round of a grand slam is huge. Reaching the fourth makes you someone. With a final ace, I had just become someone, and the crowd applauded as Sebastien Esser, the twenty-ninth seed, made his way off court. He was no Marco Bicchieri, but a qualifier making the round of sixteen was news. I’d already noticed an uptick in the amount of people pointing me out and coming by my practise sessions, and a crowd was now gathering near the player’s entrance waiting for my autograph.
But first, I had to suffer through an on-court interview. Bag at my feet, I shared my thoughts on the match and how well I was playing, but just when I began to hope I might escape with only straightforward questions, she said, “There’s been a lot of talk lately about the expense of travelling with a team and how it’s unrealistic for many players outside the top hundred. We’ve noticed your player’s box is always empty, so do you want to say a few words about that?”
“Yeah, sure, I mean it’s just the way our sport works, right?” Isaid, trying to suppress a smile at what Miles had started. “We aren’t part of a team like in football, so no one pays us a base salary. And the tour is such that you can’t have another job, you have to be out here playing week-in, week-out, working your way up into the bigger tournaments where the money is.” I shrugged, painfully aware I had an audience, and that for once I was saying something that mattered. “So yeah, it’s hard. It’s draining. In tennis you only eat what you kill. If you don’t come out here and win then you don’t get paid, and every day, half of all players will lose. Those are difficult working conditions and money doesn’t last long when you have to pay for everything.”
“And is this a situation you would like to see remedied?” the woman asked. “I mean not just for yourself, since I think you’re well on your way to that, but more generally?”
“Of course. People say it can’t be done because it’s just the nature of individual sports, but I don’t think that’s true. And I don’t think we should settle for a sport where so high a financial barrier to entry—let alone success—means we’re missing out on a whole load of amazing players.”
The applause started before I’d finished and rose to a cheer, because I really had just said all that out loud into a microphone. So much for rocking no more boats.
“Well said,” the interviewer said over the ongoing applause, something that could have been genuine approval in her expression. “Matteo Russo, ladies and gentlemen! A big congratulations, Matteo, into the round of sixteen!”
Round of sixteen.Round of sixteen. The words kept circling my head like a broken record as I headed off the court. Sixteen men left in the draw and, in theory, they ought to have been the top sixteen players in the world. Instead, one of them was me. I looked at my phone.
Miles C
you’re amazing
Such simple words, yet for a moment I held my breath. Almost I didn’t reply, but Miles had never been chill about my lack of replies before and seemed unlikely to start now, so I said,no congratufuckinglations this time?
Miles C
nah, you deserved better than that today
Surely beating the 3rd seed was bigger though
