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Not my most eloquent love declaration, but I’m pretty sure he gets the point.
Victor mock gags beside us. ‘Gross.’
Gabriel turns to him, spitting a barrage of French words that only make Victor smile, but when he turns back to me, Gabriel is grinning like a fool as well.
‘You are serious about being with me—even when all this is over?’
I nod. ‘I mean, it’s gonna be fucking hard, but yeah, I’m in.’
Gabriel brings my knuckles to his mouth, kissing them, and every anxiety about who we are together and what will happen after the tournament melts away. I want this, want him, want to find a way forward together.
‘Right,’ Victor says. ‘New rules are in place. No more hooking up in semi-public places as a general blanket rule. No talking to the media without my permission. Any question that isn’t about tennis, you will both respectfully decline to comment.’
‘And no sex before the match,’ Bernard says, reappearing in the living room. ‘Atall.’
Gabriel’s face flushes a deep red. Consider us both suitably chastised and completely mortified.
Bernard’s gaze turns to me. ‘Come with me.’
‘Papa—’ Gabriel says, standing up.
He raises a hand to quell Gabriel’s protest.
‘Mamanis awake. You should call her.’
Gabriel nods soberly. I’ve rarely heard him talk about his family back in Paris—his sister, his mother. It must be hard being apart from them for so long; only seeing each other through the other side of a screen.That’ll be you, soon, a small voice reminds me.
I don’t want to risk Bernard’s ire, so I follow him out the door. Gabriel mouths the wordsI’m sorryas we leave. What have I got myself into?
There’s no one in the hotel pool as Bernard swipes us in, grabbing a few towels from the rack by the door. He hands me one.
‘Get undressed and join me in the sauna,’ he says.
He opens a locker a little way away from where I’m standing and undresses. Holyshit, my lover’s father is undressing in front of me. I avert my eyes. Not only is heactivelyundressing right now, but Bernard expects me to get naked too, and join him in a hot room to sit and get sweaty.
‘Relax,’ Bernard says as he opens the door to the sauna. ‘I will not murder you.’
‘Well, now that’s all I’m gonna think about.’ I pull off my shirt and kick off my shorts.
‘If I did, Gabriel would be upset, and he wouldn’t win the tournament,’ Bernard replies, deadpan, and I realise a beat too slow that it’s a joke. A joke! So, he’s got a sense of humour after all. Great. Lovely.
I follow Bernard into the sauna and take a seat opposite him. The little thingie—oven, stove, grate?—shoots out steam.
‘I’ve never been in a sauna before.’
‘They’re good for recovery and relaxation,’ Bernard says, closing his eyes.
And for interrogating-slash-torturing your son’s boyfriend, too, I consider.
Bernard, like Gabriel, has crops of thick hair across his arms, chest and legs. Unlike Gabriel, his dark hair is styled in long locs that fall around his shoulders and down his back. I can tell he’s careful to maintain them.
‘So,’ he says after a long while.
‘So,’ I echo.
‘Who are you?’
Fear prickles up my back. ‘What do you mean?’
