Work Text:
Prologue
Barcelona, October 2002
Andy hurts when he wakes up.
Which, strictly speaking, is the understatement of his short life.
His back is on fire.
His abdomen aches worse than it does after Leon pushes him past a few hundred push-ups.
His upper thighs clench and tighten to ward off the pain.
Outside, he can hear his parents hissing at each other. It’s the short form for yelling they developed during the divorce, when they thought he and Jamie were in bed when they were really curled together at the top of the stairs, straining their ears to listen. Andy doesn’t even, really, have to strain his ears now.
"You let him do this," Willie’s hissing. "You let him think tennis could be his life. And now what?"
"I didn’t let him do anything," Judy spits back. "It’s what he wanted. And he had a chance to be great- what kind of mother wouldn't let him at least try?"
All the past tense sinks into Andy’s mind and he’s about to turn away when the door opens, tentatively, and Rafa sticks his head in, smiling shyly. "Hola."
"Hey," Andy offers, with something approaching a real smile. "Come in."
Rafa nods, slipping in and letting the door close softly behind him. He hesitates, before he crawls onto the end of the bed, by Andy’s feet. He’s holding a box of spiral buns, dusted in sugar and icing. He holds them up. "Ensaimada," he says. "Mama, ahh-"
"Baked," Andy tries. His mouth feels sticky and cloudy.
Rafa brightens, with a grin. "Si, si. Baked."
"Thank her for me," Andy says, then, with his few words of Spanish, "muchas gracias to your, um, mama." He tries to shrug in apology, but his back burns and he closes his eyes as they fill with water.
Rafa jumps off the bed, spilling words of apology in Mallorquin.
"It’s okay," Andy tries, around the ball in his throat. "Water?"
Rafa tilts his head for a moment, but then his eyes light up and he mimes drinking. "Si, agua."
He bends a long, striped straw towards Andy, and Andy takes a couple of sips before he starts choking.
"Lo siento," Rafa says, quickly, pulling back the straw and holding up his hands, his eyes frantic. "Lo siento."
Andy catches his hand, says, "it’s okay, I’m okay," before his parents burst in, their fighting written all over their faces in splotches of red.
Rafa looks from them to Andy, his eyes sad and too understanding, like the remnants of Andy’s tennis career are spilled on the floor for everyone to see before he does.
Andy looks away.
"I go," Rafa says, the words thick and accented, his fingers warm as they squeeze Andy’s.
And then he’s gone.
***
London
July 2012
"Welcome back to the last day of the BBC’s coverage of the 2012 Olympic Games. We’re here with Andy Murray, sports psychologist for many of the UK’s best medal contenders coming into these games. In the end, Team GB's won 64 medals, the most since 1908. What accounts for such a good showing?"
Andy shifts in his chair. The lights are shining in his eyes and he really wants to cross his legs, but the chairs are low and his mum called him right before the show to remind him not to do anything exceptionally awkward on national television. "It’s true what they say about home field advantage."
Gary Lineker laughs.
"Really." Andy frowns. "The crowds have been amazing, cheering on our athletes. Confidence is the most important part of an athlete's’ mental game, but athletes are as self-conscious as anyone else. Hearing all that cheering, or looking up and seeing the Union Jack in every arena- that support can’t be underestimated."
"So should UK Sport put aside funding for spectators as much as athletes? So we can have these crowds in Rio, too?"
Andy shrugs. "Couldn’t hurt."
Gary laughs again.
"But," Andy continues, "it’s not just the crowds. Familiarity plays another large part. It’s much more relaxing to play in familiar venues, use familiar equipment, get dressed in familiar locker rooms. So, if UK Sport can transport Wembley to Rio, that’d be grand."
"I’ll let them know." Gary chuckles, tapping his notecards against his knee. "So, you worked with long distance runner Mo Farah, diver Tom Daley, and the men’s and women’s gymnastics teams."
"That you know of, yes."
Gary pulls up short. "That we know of, yes. Who don't we know of?"
"I don't shrink and tell." It's a stupid, graduate school joke, and he cringes even as Gary gives him a pity laugh.
"Seriously, though, is there still a stigma against the use of sports psychologists?"
Andy shrugs. "I don’t know of an athlete who doesn’t use a sports psychologist from time to time, but, yeah, they don’t all want to announce it to the press."
"Huh. So is there like an underground railroad to get athletes into secret rooms so that you can work with them?"
"We call it the Underground Psych Road," Andy deadpans, before he can think better of it.
Gary, though, just laughs again, because he’s a commentator and is trained to laugh at others’ stupid jokes. Andy’s pretty grateful for the skill, if he’s honest.
"Last thing," Gary says, as someone holds up a sign across the studio, warning him of the next commercial break. "Your brother, Jamie, won silver in the mixed doubles tennis competition."
Andy’s stomach flips uncomfortably.
"Does he come to you for advice?"
"I don’t work with tennis players." He barely - just barely - manages to make it sound like a joke.
Gary, at least, laughs.
***
London
January 2016
"It’s bloody cold," Andy says as he enters the pub, speaking before he even, really, looks up. There’s snow in his hair and his cold body is prickling in the sudden warmth of the room. "It’s like people forget how to ride the Tube when it’s snowing."
Jamie chuckles – at him, he's pretty sure - and pushes a beer in his direction.
"The Tube runs on tracks. We’re not driving it. It should be the same in the snow as any other time of the year," Andy continues, undeterred.
"Andy," Jamie interrupts, his elbow bony and strong in Andy’s ribs. "This is Miguel Nadal."
Andy automatically pushes Jamie’s elbow away, while, inside, he freezes at hearing the name, flat in Jamie’s Scottish accent, but no less recognizable. But, Nadal’s a popular name. At least, Andy figures Nadal is a popular name. It surely can’t be-
"He played for Barcelona," Jamie continues.
Miguel holds out his hand. "Was long time ago."
He has the same dark complexion, high cheekbones, easy, graceful humility.
Andy takes his hand, careful to meet the intensity of Miguel’s handshake. "You missed a penalty, once, against England."
Jamie buries his head in his hands, muttering something about manners and younger brothers.
Miguel, though, just chuckles. "Si, si. It happen."
"Well," Andy reaches for his beer. "I have a contract with Arsenal, runs through the rest of the season. It has a no compete clause, so, I’m sorry, but I can’t help Barcelona."
"I not here for Barcelona."
Andy closes his eyes. It’s like watching a train wreck, and not being able to do a single thing to stop it.
"Lauds, he and I play together, many years. He say you are good." Miguel’s voice drops. "Discreet."
"I have to be, in this business."
"Good, that is good." Miguel leans forward. "I am here for my nephew. Rafael."
The beer doesn’t burn enough on the way down. "I don’t work with tennis players."
"Andy-" Jamie’s fingers are warm, soft on his wrist, but Andy shakes him off, shoving away from the bar.
Miguel isn’t nearly as gentle as he pushes a DVD into Andy’s hands. "Watch. Is all I ask."
Andy takes the DVD, but he doesn’t make any promises.
***
Andy isn't lying when he says he doesn't work with tennis players.
He hasn't been on a court since that day in Barcelona, fourteen years ago, when the doctors told him he'd never be able to play again.
He hasn't even watched a match since then. Not Jamie's Wimbledon-winning match. Not Jamie's silver medal-winning match. Not-
It's long past midnight and the halfway-point of a bottle of Jameson before he puts in the DVD.
It starts in 2005, just a few years past the Rafa he remembers, with shaggy hair and long, baggy shorts. He still looks like the child Andy remembers, swinging his legs off Andy's bed as they shared their first bottle of beer over an intense FIFA battle, football the only necessary language between them. Young, naïve, like he's forgotten that he should be afraid when he walks on court to battle Federer or Roddick or Hewitt.
The DVD rolls through a few of Rafa's earlier matches, mostly middle-round Slam matches and a couple snippets of Masters finals. Sets chosen not for Rafa's best shots, but to lay down a baseline of what he can accomplish, match-in and match-out.
Sheer, raw power and fancy footwork, and a mental fortitude unlike anything Andy's seen in the hundreds of athletes he's worked with. All belayed by the shy, unassuming smile that Andy still remembers so well.
It makes is all the harder for Andy – in the dark solitude of his small London flat – to watch Rafa lose it all. To see how tentative Rafa's become, how surprised, then resigned he becomes when his forehands start hitting a foot wide rather than an inch in.
As the DVD rolls through Rafa's 2015 season – his quarterfinal loss at Indian Wells, where he squandered three match points and a host of break opportunities; his quarterfinal loss at the Italian Open, where he lost four set points; his second round loss at Wimbledon to Dustin Brown, who simply outplayed him – Andy reaches for his iPad to make three important notes.
Doesn't expect to play a good match
Doesn't believe he can win
Doesn't trust his body
Andy has to pause the video after Rafa's five-set loss to Fognini at the US Open, the frame freezing over Rafa's dejected walk back to the locker room, head thrown back and shoulders defeated.
Andy can't, possibly, say no to that.
He reaches for the bottle.
***
Jamie wakes him too few hours later with a tap to his hip and a handful of aspirin.
Andy moans, managing to sit up on the couch while his stomach rolls. He downs the aspirin and a bottle of water, blinking blearily at Jamie.
Jamie rolls his eyes and Andy has to close his before he starts seeing double. "You're always so dramatic."
"Reason to be" Andy says, because he can't really deny it.
"There's really not." Jamie leaves the room, calling behind him. "Get up, shower. I'll pack your bag."
"Where am I going?"
"Argentina."
***
Andy’s used to flying on private planes, loud and raucous and smelling of sweat and beer and football players. First class is entirely different, with the quiet, polite stewardesses, the unlimited alcohol, and the complimentary noise-cancelling headphones.
He sleeps most of the way, trying not to think about what it would have been like, traveling just like this as he chased the Tour around the world.
Toni Nadal is waiting for him, with a sign that says "Nadal Party" and the same grim look that Andy remembers from matches when he was a teenager. He looks older, a little thicker around the middle, a little thinner around his cheekbones, but definitely Toni and definitely, definitely a Nadal.
"Hey," Andy says, then, "hola," because it feels more polite.
Toni stares at him. "No try with the Spanish. Is embarrassing."
"Sorry," Andy offers, following Toni into the waiting car. They sit in silence on the drive to the hotel, and Andy taps at his knee, feeling nervous just being in the same town as a tournament.
He doesn’t know how he’ll deal, tomorrow, when he has to actually walk on court.
When they get out at the hotel, Toni leads him to a plush room on the floor below Rafa’s. He stops at the door, something vulnerable and a little softer on his face. "Thank you, for coming so far. Is important for Rafael."
"This is just a trial," Andy says, because if he’s learned anything from his own psychological teachings, it’s to set attainable goals.
Toni nods, and lets the door shut quietly behind him.
***
"Has been long time." Rafa greets him with a smile and a kiss on both cheeks.
He looks even more tired in person than he does on TV. Dark bags under his eyes, body long and lanky and under-muscled. He looks older, road worn, but when he smiles it’s real and lights up the room and throws Andy immediately back to that late afternoon when he woke up to Mallorcan pastries and the end of his tennis career.
"Too long," Andy agrees around the lump in his throat.
"I, ahh-" Rafa picks up a magazine from Andy's coffee table and thumbs through it without looking. "I never talked to anyone before. A, um, professional." Rafa rubs at his nose with the side of his finger.
Andy wants to say something comforting. Call out the friendship they had, fifteen years before they were doctor-and-patient, or remind Rafa that he’s worked with a number of high profile clients with confidence issues. It sounds glib and insincere in his own head, though, and Rafa’s biting his lip, looking anything but insincere.
"That's okay," Andy promises, putting aside his notes and focusing, specifically, on Rafa as he is now rather than Rafa as Andy remembers him. This Rafa is dressed in flip-flops and shorts and a hoodie. Not the kind Nike have made for him, that fit him like a glove, but an over-sized red zip-up without Rafa's logo on the breast. "It's never too late to start."
Rafa flinches. "This will hurt?"
"Not the way you're used to." Andy shrugs. With athletes, he finds, it's always best to be upfront about the pain and hard work he'll be asking of them. "But, yeah, it's gonna hurt."
Rafa takes a deep breath, then squares his shoulders and looks straight at Andy. "Should start then, no?"
***
"Visualize a moment on the court when you were playing your best. Hitting every forehand. Making all your first serves."
Rafa crosses his legs, bare and tan to the sock line at his ankles. He looks smaller when he does it, like he's trying to extinguish all the raw energy he carries with him. He doesn’t look at Andy as he picks at a loose thread in his shorts.
"Come on," Andy pushes. "You’ve won nine French Opens. Surely one of those you were playing well."
"None were perfect."
"Doesn’t have to be perfect."
Rafa closes his eyes, says, "the second win," like it pains him to even think about.
"Okay." Andy glances down at his notes. He’d spent the last day watching each of Rafa’s Grand Slam wins, holed up in his hotel room with the curtains closed against the courts in Buenos Aires. "You beat Federer in four, yeah?"
"Si."
"Talk me through it."
Rafa speaks quietly, listing off points and lingering on as many games he lost as the ones he won, even though he won a whole lot more than he lost that day.
By the time he gets to the end of the second set, Andy holds up his hand. "Stop."
Rafa frowns, picking up his chin and looking at Andy for the first time since he entered the room. "Is not okay?"
"Not really, no."
Rafa flinches, sucking his lower lip in-between his teeth.
Interesting.
"I asked you to visualize what it was like to be there, on that court, in that moment. You’re giving me a list of stats."
Rafa tilts his head. "Is what I remember."
"Hmm." Andy puts his tablet aside and leans forward on knees. "Close your eyes, okay?"
Rafa nods.
"I want you to stand on the court. Clean the baseline, smell the clay under your feet, feel the sweat tickling at the edge of your nose. Push your hair behind your ears."
Rafa smiles, "pick my wedgie?"
"Sure," Andy chuckles. "Are you there?"
Rafa nods again.
"Okay, great. Tell me what you hear."
"The crowd. They are yelling in French. Is nice." Rafa scrunches his nose. "And Toni. He tell me I am not focused."
"How do you feel?"
"Nervous," Rafa says, without hesitation. "Is important moment, I cannot miss."
Andy hums. "And what do you see?"
"Roger. He is young, with shorts stupid long," Rafa makes a motion towards his knees to show how long Roger’s shorts were.
Andy snorts.
"My shorts also this long." Rafa tilts his head. "Hair too. I am also at baseline. I no look nervous."
"Rafa," Andy takes a deep, steadying breath. "Are there two of you on that baseline?"
"For sure." Rafa opens his eyes and looks at Andy like he’s an idiot. "Me, when I was kid. And me now. We are different, no?"
It’s the same thing Andy sees, the few times he’s allowed himself to visualize his time on court. Something he only ever does after enough alcohol that he sees four of himself, and only ever when he’s alone. He’s thrown back there now, though, to that last match before his back gave out. The clay is sticking to his feet, painting his socks red, and when he looks down, it looks like blood, splattered up his pale thighs. He’s older than he remembers, thicker, broader, but less defined. And when he looks up, he sees himself, knocking the clay out of his white sneakers, pulling a ball from his shorts, stretching up for a serve that pulls at his back and lands, perfectly, an inch from the line.
Andy remembers it all absently, as if through a fog. The pain, the satisfaction, the ache in his muscles. He feels it like it’s happening to someone else, some younger, fiercer version of himself that he can’t access anymore. Andy left that boy behind a long time ago.
Rafa, though, should be able to visualize himself at twenty. A little younger, a little looser, a little less road weary, but still him. Hitting the ball the same way, choosing shots with the same clarity. If he can’t-
"Andy?"
Andy shakes his head, brings himself back to this luxurious hotel room in Buenos Aires. "We’re done for the day."
"I say something bad?" Rafa uncrosses his legs, setting his body straight. "I try again."
Andy feels like an asshole, but his heart is still beating wildly in his chest, sweat gathering behind his knees. He needs a moment, or three, even if Rafa doesn’t. "It’s good. Just, we’ll pick it up here tomorrow."
Rafa still looks unconvinced, but he goes.
Andy sighs, closing his eyes and letting his head roll back as he carefully and forcefully pulls his mind, piece by piece, off of that court in Barcelona. How he felt his back snap, pain pushing through the cortisone shot to shoot. How his muscles seized, spasming and rigged. How he fought through it to win the match. The last match he’d ever win.
Slowly, slowly, Buenos Aires comes back to him.
Andy takes a deep, shaky breath.
***
Rafa loses in the semis and the Nadal team leaves immediately for Rio.
Andy dozes on the short flight, and he wakes just before landing as Rafa slides into the seat next to him and clicks his seat belt into place. He leans into Andy's space so that he can see the city appear from the clouds, nestled between the ocean and the mountains.
“Xisca, she always love Brazil.”
Andy looks at the back of Rafa’s head, brushing against Andy’s chest as he peers out the window. “Is she-”
“We break up,” Rafa says, with a shrug. “Has been many months.”
“I’m sorry.” Andy’s heart thumps and he worries that Rafa can hear it through the places they’re pressed together. “The press-”
“The press think what the press want,” Rafa says, resigned. “It no matter. Was over long before official over, no?”
“Yeah,” Andy breathes. “Yeah, I get that.”
Rafa hums into the space between them for a long moment, and Andy almost starts to doze again when Rafa says, quietly, only loud enough for Andy’s ears, “is not good.”
"What isn't?"
Rafa looks at him like it's obvious. "My head."
Andy spreads his fingers, just enough to press a light touch to Rafa's thigh.
***
Andy thinks a lot about going on court.
Or, at least, leaving his hotel room. The plain, yellow walls and mediocre dandelion watercolor paintings are starting to get to him.
"Come to match," Rafa says, the morning of his second round match against Almagro.
"Visualize your forehands," Andy says, instead, and Rafa rolls his eyes.
When he comes back later, though, wind-swept and flushed from a mostly-routine two-set victory, he admits, "I visualize forehand. Like you say."
"I know." Andy turns his laptop, shows Rafa the short video of his perfect shot that's been circulating around the ATP's social media channels.
"'Vintage Rafa,'" Rafa reads the caption slowly, his tongue struggling to fit around the words.
"It means-"
"I know what means," Rafa cuts him off, scowling. "Just is not fair."
"What's not fair?"
"'Vintage Rafa'." Rafa makes air quotes, then drops his hands, playing with the thumb holes in his sweatshirt. "Is not me no more, no?"
"I don't know. What do you think? Are you the same player you were when you were winning majors?"
"No. Obviously." Rafa crosses his arms. "No one same person after ten years, no? Ten years ago you played tennis, won tournaments, were best player. Now you sit in chair."
Andy closes his eyes, struggling not to rise to the bait. This isn't about him, he knows that. His clients need someone to lash out against, and Andy's there and he's the one pushing them, causing them pain. Comments about his lack of athletic success aren't new. Usually he takes them on the chin, shrugs them off, gets the session back on track.
Rafa, though- Rafa knew him, when he was someone. When he was winning, when he was poised to be Britain's next great tennis player. He was there, too, when it all fell apart.
Rafa sinks into his chair, rubbing at the moisture at the inside corners of his eyes. "I not mean- I should not have said those things. I am sorry."
Andy lets everything out on a deep sigh. "I did the best I could, with the challenges I was given."
"Si," Rafa says, but keeps his head turned away. "Me too."
***
Andy accepts the apology, but Rafa walks on pins and needless around him for the next few days. He's quiet and infallibly polite in their sessions, as if he's worried that the next thing he says will drive Andy away for good.
It’s the same way he walks around the tennis center. Like if he puts a foot out of place or says the wrong thing or loses the next point, this might be his last time in this city, on these courts, with these people.
Andy knows he needs to say something, but to his surprise it's Rafa who presses the issue.
At the end of a session extended by Dolgopolov's withdrawal from their quarterfinal match, Rafa looks to the side and breathes out, "you no want to be here," like it isn't even a question.
Andy doesn't let any of his surprise show. "Do you?" He asks, twisting it back on Rafa.
Rafa doesn’t hesitate, not for a second. "For sure. Tennis is best job in world, no?" He looks at Andy for the first time in days. "Even if I no win no more matches, I have good career, good life. I no complain."
It's the turning point Andy's been waiting for.
And now it's Andy's turn to meet him halfway.
He takes a deep, shuddering breath, letting out a decade of anger and regret and resentment on the exhale. "I want to be here," he says, surprised by how much he means it. "I believe in you."
Rafa’s face splits into a smile and Andy thinks he’d do anything, even face the tennis tour again, if he could just keep making Rafa smile like that.
"Is good." Rafa stands. "I believe in you too."
"That’s not really how this works," Andy complains.
"No?" Rafa tilts his head. "Is okay. I not do things normal way."
"Yeah," Andy agrees. "Me either."
***
Andy watches Rafa's semi-final from the hallway. He thinks about taking a seat in one of the last rows of the stadium, but then he thinks about the crowds, the unobstructed view of the court, the cheering and the commentary and shies away from the few strides he has made today.
It was hard enough just taking the few steps needed to enter the grounds. He remembers all of it. The smells of high-quality stadium food, gourmet tacos and red wine. The sounds of low, controlled, excited chatter. The feel of the sun on his face and the collage of well-dressed men and women.
And, while he's not worried that anyone will remember him from his playing days, he is worried that he'll be recognized for who he is now. He can already hear the announcers cackling in glee and decades of stereotypes as they connect Andy's appearance, far up on the stands, with Rafa's fourteen-month downturn in the rankings.
So he stays in the shadows, his frown deepening as Rafa lets the second set slip away and then fails to gain a foothold in the third.
When it's over and Rafa's sitting, stone-faced, with the press, Toni finds him. He leans against the wall, digging at the cement with his toes.
"You are going back to London?"
"Yeah," Andy agrees. "I have some things to take care of, with other clients."
"I understand."
"It'll take a couple weeks," Andy continues. "I'll meet you at Indian Wells."
Toni's head snaps up.
Andy lets himself smile, just a little, as he holds out his hand. "I think we can help him through this, you and I."
Andy can feel Toni's relief through the handshake. "You are good man, like I remember."
Not quite like Toni remembers, Andy thinks, but maybe he's getting there.
***
"You signed a contract through Roland Garros?" Kim parrots, disbelieving.
"Yeah." He finishes off his beer and waves for another. When he looks back she's still staring at him. "What?"
"Two weeks ago you hadn't been on a tennis court in fourteen years. Now you've agreed to follow the tour for, what, three months?"
"I'm not following the tour. I'm working with Rafa. That’s all."
Her eyes light up and he groans. Sometimes, he hates having her for a best friend.
"Don't do that."
She holds up her hands. "I'm not doing anything, just reading through the lines."
"There aren't any lines."
She hums through pursed lips.
"He's a patient."
"Sure, right, of course he is." She smirks. "And there are rules against that sort of thing."
"Right."
"Since when do you play by the rules?"
"Since now."
She snorts. "Whatever."
"Kim."
"Andy." It’s a standoff, but she breaks first, not because he’s stronger than her, but because she has more sense than he’ll ever have and she has better things to do with her day. She taps her nails against her glass. "Jamie's going to cry bloody murder."
Andy buries his head in his arms, groaning out Jamie's name.
She rubs her hand between his shoulder blades and doesn't bother to stifle her laughter.
***
Indian Wells is exactly how he imagined it would be. A tennis mecca in the California desert, patches of blue and green courts breaking through the dirt and sand. The sun doesn’t stop shining from the moment he and Jamie arrive, bleary-eyed and jet-lagged, a couple days before the tournament starts.
Rafa greets them at the Palm Springs airport, his hat pulled low over his eyes, bouncing on his feet with the pent-up energy of being off the tour for the past two weeks.
Andy meets him with a hug and a gruff, "good job at Davis Cup."
"Gracias," Rafa grins. "Was good, no? You watch?"
Next to Andy, Jamie rolls his eyes. "Three times. Can’t get him to watch a set of my Australian Open win, but-" Jamie holds out his hand. "I’m Jamie. Andy’s brother."
"Si, si. I watch you play on TV." Rafa takes Jamie’s hand and uses it to pull him in for a hug. "Congratulations."
"At least someone watched."
Andy makes sure to trip him as they pile into the tournament Kia Rafa’s borrowed to come pick them up.
***
"I wish this no here," Rafa admits, crossing his arms over his chest and looking up at the banner outside the locker room. It’s a picture of Rafa, hair as long as his shorts, with the years 2007, 2009, and 2013 emblazoned under it.
"What do you think, when you see that?" Andy nods at the banner.
"No head shrink on match day."
Andy leans on the wall next to it, ignoring Rafa’s protests. "You know what I see? History."
Rafa wrinkles his nose. "Si. Like I am already dead, no?"
Andy tries not to picture his own banner. He would have had a thick head of curls, probably, and a simple, monotone kit. If he were lucky, very, very lucky, he would have had a year or two written under it. "Is that what you think when you see Federer’s? Or Djokovic’s?"
Rafa tilts his head, glancing down the hallway to look at Roger’s banner, with four years written in sharp, silver writing under his picture. "I think," he says, slowly, "that Rogi done great things. Not mean he cannot do more."
Andy nods, but before he can say anything, Toni rounds the corner from the locker room, his racquet in his hand. He frowns when he sees them. "Less talk, more practice."
Rafa looks almost relieved, but Andy claps his shoulder before he can leave. "Think about why you see yourself so differently than you see Roger, yeah?"
Rafa nods, shrugging his shoulders and catching Andy’s wrist, the rough edges of the tape on his fingers coarse on Andy’s skin. "I make deal. I think about the Rogi thing." Andy nods, and Rafa grins, self-satisfied, and Andy knows he's in trouble before Rafa even finishes. "And you come with me to Jamie’s match. Is after mine, on Stadium 5. Will be no media."
"If your match is over on time," Andy hedges.
"Will be," Rafa promises, with a quick flash of his old confidence.
***
Rafa wins in two sets. "I need good motivation, no?"
"Prize money and rankings points aren’t enough," Andy deadpans. "You need my mental anguish to focus."
"I am competitive man," Rafa agrees, showing his badge to the ushers at Stadium 5.
They sit a few rows back, in the center. The metal benches dig uncomfortably into Andy’s thighs, and he shifts against the ache that’s still there, will always be there, in his lower back. He drops his hand to the spot, massaging for a moment, and Rafa frowns, pushing Andy's hand away.
"Still hurt?" His fingers dig into the worst of it.
Andy groans, leaning into what feels like a heat pad, warming and easing the muscle. "Doctors say it always will."
On court, Jamie notices them in the sparse crowd, catching his practice toss and staring. Rafa moves his hand from Andy’s back and waves enthusiastically. Jamie shakes his head, and Andy can’t read Jamie's eyes behind his sunglasses, but he can read the surprise and interest in the twitch of his mouth.
"Focus," Andy calls, putting all his authority into his voice.
Jamie gives him the finger.
Rafa leans closer, his shoulder pressed to Andy’s as he whispers, like it’s a secret, "My sister, she no like my advice either."
Andy laughs, not pushing Rafa away. It’s nice to feel his body, a physical reminder that grounds Andy here, in 2016, at a tournament he's never played, on a court he’s never seen before.
Still, it’s hard to watch Jamie. Andy feels every miss like it’s one of his own, flinching when balls go long or slip inches past Jamie’s racquet. On their first break point against, Jamie leaves his feet for a drop shot that sails into the net, and Andy’s body is clenched so hard that he doesn’t even feel the pain until Rafa’s hand returns, hot and smooth and insistent, to that spot on Andy’s back.
"No wonder you no watch him," Rafa admits between sets. Jamie and Bruno pulled the first set out in a tiebreak and Rafa hasn’t moved his hand, just situated himself so that it looks like he’s leaning back against the bench behind them.
"I was never good at it," Andy admits. "Even before-" He swallows, unable to say it. "Even when we were kids."
"Except when you play him?" Rafa guesses.
"Yeah," Andy laughs, feeling tension slowly, incrementally, leak out of him. "I hated losing to him."
"It happen often?"
"Oh yeah. Most of the time. Everywhere but the tennis courts."
"I see." Rafa’s eyes glint in the setting California sun. "Is why you so good at tennis."
"Not so good," Andy reminds him.
Rafa hums in disapproval, his fingers digging patterns into Andy’s back. "If no injury, you would have been great."
Andy shrugs it off, like it isn’t something he thinks about all the time, wondering if his game would have stacked up against Rafa’s, against Roger’s, against Novak's. If his second serve would have improved, how many hours he would have spent in the gym to improve his fitness, if he ever would have been able to flatten out his backhand. He dreams about it, sometimes, and wakes up aching, as if he put in the training time in his sleep. "We’ll never know."
Rafa hums. "You very good psychologist. The game change, but you still win, no?"
Andy turns his head, catching Rafa’s eyes to see if he’s taking the piss, but Rafa just gives him a shy, sincere smile and doesn’t drop his gaze.
"I think," Rafa says, slowly, his voice low against the chattering crowd, "that is definition of greatness."
Something loosens, deep and stubborn and fourteen years strong, behind Andy’s ribcage.
"Time," the umpire calls.
Rafa leans into him as they turn back to the court. Andy doesn’t push him away.
***
Rafa loses in the quarters. It’s a three-set nail-biter, with two tiebreaks and two ill-timed third-set breaks of serve.
It's not a good match. Made worse, Andy reasons as he leans back in his first class seat, because Rafa had been convinced that he was healing. And he is, Andy knows it, but it's slow, incremental progress. The giant leaps forward had been a temporary facade, possible only by treating the symptoms without addressing the root problems.
"You have to commit. This isn’t going to stop unless you do," Andy tells him, later. They're in Andy's Miami hotel room, on the balcony in the sweltering humidity. Andy's finding it hard to breath after the dry heat of California, but Rafa is luxuriating in it, his feet resting on the railing and his head turned towards the sun.
"I commit." Rafa catches his lower lip between his teeth bullishly.
"No," Andy says and, when Rafa turns his head to glare at him, he doesn’t look away. "No, you don’t. You say you want to win, but you know why your body lets you down at the most important moments?"
Rafa crosses his arms across his chest and stares back out at the sun. "If I know, I no do it."
"It’s not that easy." Andy wants to reach out, touch his wrist, the way he's seen Titin or Benito do a hundred times or more, but he can't. He’s here as Rafa’s therapist, he's here to play the bad guy, and he really needs Rafa to get this point. "I think that you don’t actually want to win. You’re scared to. Your body thinks it’s doing you a favor by failing."
"I not afraid of winning."
"Maybe not of winning, itself, but of what it means," Andy insists. "You’re afraid of trying, because if you try and fail, that’s that. Real, physical proof that you’re over here," Andy points to a spot on the railing, then to another spot shoulder-width apart, "and 'Vintage Rafa' is over here."
"I not afraid of winning fourteen times before," Rafa amends.
"Yeah," Andy agrees. "But you’re afraid that, this time, you’ll get to the baseline, you’ll make your best serve, hit your best forehand, and it still won’t be enough."
"I not the same as before. I know."
Rafa sounds resigned, a weighty, angry feeling permeating the air around him, and Andy gives in, reaching over to press two fingers to his wrist. "Maybe you aren't. Maybe you are. You’re never going to know until you commit to trying."
Rafa lets out a deep, shuddering breath, like Andy’s fingers are drawing out all of the anger, leaving behind something vulnerable and raw.
"And if you’re not?" Andy continues. "If you’re someone else, someone different? It’ll be someone who is stronger, more resilient, more at peace with himself."
Rafa snorts, but it’s wet and weak.
"You don’t believe me now, but you will. I promise."
Rafa turns his hand, catches Andy’s fingers in his, holding them lightly.
***
"Basketball?" Rafa sounds dubious, looking at the shiny, holographic ticket in his hand.
"You love sport," Andy explains, leading him past the bemused ushers and into the players’ box. His hand is gentle on Rafa’s lower back, leading him forward, and he tries not to notice how Rafa leans into it.
"AM, my man." Chris Bosh limps forward to greet him with a slap on the back.
"CB." Andy smiles. It’s been too long since he’s been to a game. "How’s the knee?"
Chris shrugs. "Getting better all the time."
"That’s the right attitude."
"I learned from the best." He winks.
Rafa’s eyes are wide, staring at Chris’s bandaged knee, and he’s twisting his hands nervously around the pale parts of his fingers, where tape usually is. Andy squeezes his shoulder. "This is Rafa Nadal."
"Yeah, dude, I’ve seen you play. You can do some amazing shit." Chris holds out his hand and Rafa takes it as Chris nods at Andy. "You listen to this guy, you hear me? He can cure whatever ails you."
Rafa nods, and, as they move into their seats, asks, "You help him?"
Andy chooses seats at the front of the box. Good seats, with a good view, but tucked into the inside corner so that they’re mostly out of the way of the press and the injured players. "I’ve worked with the Heat, yeah."
Rafa nods, settling back in his seat. "I not know much about basketball."
"It’s a different sport," Andy agrees, "but I think it might help."
Rafa looks dubious, leaning forward in his seat like Andy’s given him a homework assignment to learn the shots and the footwork and he’s afraid there might be a test at the end of the night.
Rafa heads to the bathroom during halftime, though, and doesn’t come back to the seats. At the end of the third, Andy glances back to see him talking, low and close, with Chris. They’re both holding beers, a tray of vegetables between them, and Rafa’s gesturing wildly with a celery stick, his face intent and open.
At the end of the game, Andy rises to meet them, pleased when Rafa leans into his shoulder, before he turns back to Chris with a "thank you" and quick kisses to each of his cheeks.
Chris pulls Andy in for a quick hug, shrugging off Andy’s own "thanks."
"He’ll be okay," Chris says, quietly, into Andy’s ear.
Andy’s inclined to agree.
They head to the tournament-provided car and sit, close, in the back seat. Rafa murmurs, "thank you, for bring me with you."
Rafa’s breath is warm against his neck, his knee tight against Andy’s. The car is dark except for the streetlights, and Rafa feels like a secret, wrapped against him, like they’re the only two people in the world, and Rafa’s offering him something, vulnerable and dangerous and precious.
Andy allows himself a long, desperate moment. Breathing Rafa in, cataloging all the points where they’re touching, pressing his hand to Rafa’s knee and learning how soft his skin is. "Thank you for trusting me," he whispers, so close to Rafa’s ear that he barely needs to say it out loud.
Rafa turns into Andy, his voice just as low. "Is me should thank you, for trusting me."
***
At Indian Wells, Andy had managed to bypass most of the other players by sticking close to the hotel or Rafa or Jamie, and by relying on a certain amount of luck that he doesn’t, usually, enjoy.
He should have known, then, that the luck would run out in Miami.
"Andy?"
Andy pauses, considers putting his head down and pretending that his name is Ewan or Steve or anything but Andy.
"Andy Murray?"
Andy turns, forces a smile onto his face. "Novak?"
"Andy," Novak says, for the third time, grasping Andy’s arms. Andy’s spent quite a bit of time at the gym since his retirement, but his biceps feel small and flimsy under Novak’s hands. "I heard you were around. It has been- how long?"
"A decade," Andy shrugs, like he didn’t, for a long time, count the days.
Novak whistles. "Doesn’t feel so long."
Andy shrugs. It feels longer for him.
"Come," Novak says, like he’s used to everyone being free whenever he asks. When Andy pauses, though, he seems to remember himself with a self-deprecating chuckle. "If you have a moment, I mean- Smoothies? I’ll pay."
"You better," Andy says, something loosening in his shoulders as he falls into step with Novak. "What was it last? Eighty million?"
Novak shrugs. "It’s not the money that matters."
Andy thinks about the eleven Grand Slam trophies gracing Novak’s mantel in Monte Carlo. He shies away from the thought, pulling his mind, instead, into the images he remembers best, of a gangly, knobbly-kneed Novak, with hair almost as big as Andy’s.
"Well," Novak amends, following Andy’s train of thought, "it’s a little bit about the money. Remember, when we were boys? You’d put on a wig and dance to Serbian folk music for loose change?"
"I liked the smoothies at the club and mum always said they were a waste of money." Andy flushes. "I also always liked dancing. When I could do it incognito."
"Still do?"
Andy shrugs. "I don’t know. I haven’t tested it in a while."
"We could fix that," Novak says, reaching into his wallet to pay for their smoothies. "Normal boys would have used the money for cheap vodka."
"Scotch," Andy corrects. "And we weren’t normal boys."
Novak leans forward, waggling his eyebrows so that they reach almost into his springy head of hair. "We did some things normal boys do, if I recall."
Despite himself, Andy flushes. It’s been years since he thought about those few nights, scrabbling under the covers in dorm rooms and cheap hotel rooms on the Juniors circuit, squeezing into twin beds not meant for their bulk and rutting against each other.
"We weren’t half-bad."
Andy laughs. "We were awful."
"Maybe," Novak allows, then, leaning back, crossing his ankle over his knee and surveying Andy carefully. "You were my first."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Huh." Andy takes a long, smug sip of his smoothie.
Novak flicks him with his straw and says something thick and low in Serbian that Andy takes to mean asshole.
"I read your book," Andy offers, as a peace offering.
Novak tilts his head, a pleased flush on his neck, under the Uniqlo t-shirt. "What did you think?"
"It was good."
"It was good," Novak repeats, deadpan. "I am not a wilting flower. Say what you mean."
Andy laughs. He’d forgotten what it was like, sparring with Novak, on or off the court. "I mean, it was good. You twist the truth a little in some parts, ignore half the canon of psychological literature in others, but, good."
Novak straightens his back.
Andy laughs again and settles in for a long debate about the theory of sports psychology.
Rafa finds them there, an hour or so later. He’s flushed and newly-showered, the edges of his hair curling around his ears. He greets them both with kisses and steals the rest of Andy’s smoothie, which has been sitting out, warming in the sun for the better part of the hour.
Rafa makes a face at it and wanders to the bar to order one of his own.
Novak looks from Andy to Rafa, then back to Andy. "Ah."
"Ah?" Andy straightens, glancing at Rafa. "No 'ah.'"
Novak hums.
"What?"
Novak smiles, secretive and small. "Nothing. Is good, that he has you."
Andy stares at him.
"And that you have him."
"I don’t." Andy shakes his head. "I don’t know what you mean."
Novak stands, throwing away his empty cup and lifting his racquet bag to his shoulder. "This is good," he says, decisively, and walks away before Andy can stop sputtering.
He’s still staring when Rafa comes back, pushing another glass between them. "Is papaya. Remind me of home. Is okay?"
Andy grabs the smoothie and takes a long, calming sip. "It’s good."
***
Rafa loses in the semis.
"Progress," Andy tells him, then, "things always seem worse before they get better."
Rafa huffs says, "my mind hurt," and curls against Andy's shoulder to sleep for the long flight.
***
They arrive in Monte Carlo a week before the tournament starts and a few days before Rafa's professional obligations begin.
Andy gives Rafa a day of jetlag and another to get his tennis legs under him again, and then he knocks on Toni's door.
"Andy," Toni says, surprised. Despite the amount of time Andy's been spending with Rafa, he's maintained a healthy, professional distance between himself and Rafa's team. Particularly between himself and Toni. "Come in."
Toni's room is sparse, compared to the tornado that's run through Andy's and the organized chaos of Rafa's. Rooms, Andy thinks, are a good physical representation of their inner mental turmoil.
Which means Toni's mind is a simple, uncluttered, spare place that Andy wouldn't like too much.
Or, Andy's reading too much into it.
He sits on the edge of the couch, his arms hanging loosely between his knees, careful not to touch anything as he says, as forcefully as he knows how, "I need a day."
"Take it."
"No, I mean, with Rafa. An entire, uninterrupted day."
Toni blinks. "Rafael need to practice."
Andy shrugs. "He's practicing great. It's his mental fitness that we need to practice."
Toni looks away uncomfortably. "Practice is important."
"Yeah," Andy agrees, treading softly. This has been Toni's turf for twenty years and Andy's not above pissing on it, but he needs to do it lightly. "But it won't do any good if he can't implement it in a match."
Toni's hands twitch around the baseball cap he's holding and Andy flinches internally. That was not lightly. Andy's never been so great at lightly.
"This is why you hired me," he says, instead.
Toni's eyes narrow. "Miguel hired you."
Andy shrugs a shoulder. "You let me stay."
Toni huffs, then falls into an armchair, dropping his hat and reaching for the remote. He waves Andy away with his other hand. "Fine, go, have your day. I watch TV, be lazy for whole day."
Andy doesn't need to be told twice.
***
"I like the beach," Rafa perks up as they park behind a rock crag and get out of the car. It's warm and sunny and Andy brings his sunglasses, a large tube of sunscreen, and a cooler of sandwiches and water with him, and nothing else.
"It's going to be work," he warns.
"Is okay." Rafa jogs to the crest and looks back at him. "Work and beach is better than work and no beach, no?"
"Sure," Andy agrees.
He chooses a spot strategically, angling their bodies towards the sea. It’s not just beautiful, although it’s definitely that, but it’s also calculated so that, when Rafa looks out across the water, his brain is balanced and active. The sun shining off the water keys the left side of the brain, the vastness of the ocean keys the right.
"Is beautiful," Rafa says, bending his knees and hanging his arms between them. "What we do?"
"We’re here," Andy says, taking a deep, lung-rattling breath and holding it for a five count before letting it out. Rafa mirrors him. "We’re here in this moment. We’re practicing that."
Anyone else Andy's worked with would have closed their eyes, dropped their body to the blanket, dozed off. But Rafa stays, blinking his eyes into the sun, practicing his breathing, until his neck is pinking up and he’s sweating through his white t-shirt.
"As athletes, we’re attuned to our bodies to the fault of everything else. I want you to forget your body," Andy says, finally, when he’s sure that if he waits another moment Rafa will start to fidget.
"How?" Rafa asks, turning his head to look at him skeptically.
"Think about each part of your body. Spend a moment noticing each, then let them drift away. Start with your toes, feel them cool and coarse in the sand, then let them go."
Rafa wiggles his toes in the sand, then stills with a deep sigh.
"Good. Now, the muscles around your knees, the ones that always ache and pull and burn, acknowledge them, and then let gravity pull them into the ocean."
By the time Andy gets to Rafa’s shoulders, Rafa is so loose-limbed that Andy’s a little worried he won’t be able to hold himself up for much longer. He gives Rafa a moment, looking out at the ocean, feeling it have the same effects on him that it’s having on Rafa, and he lets his mind wander. He follows it, realizing with a sudden, surprising jolt, that he wants to be here, on this beach with Rafa, more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life.
More than he wanted his parents to get back together, even when he was ten and felt like his entire world was shifting and realigning around him.
More, even, than he wanted to play tennis, even when he was lying in that hospital room, his dreams cracking and splitting in front of his eyes.
He wants to be here more.
Maybe this is what he was always meant to do. Maybe this is what he can be great at.
With an effort, he pulls his mind away from the thoughts. He turns his head to look at Rafa. "Now, I want you to turn to your mind. This is your mind without your body. Allow it to be open, follow where it wants to go, without judgment. No thought is wrong."
Rafa hums, closing his eyes for the first time all day.
"What do you feel?" Andy asks, keeping his voice low and melodic, adopting the rhythm of the waves breaking on the shore.
"Peace."
"What else?"
"Calm."
"Dig deeper. What else?"
"Worry."
"Okay, that's good." Andy rests his temple on his knees, and pushes, his voice as gentle as he can make it. "What else?"
Rafa’s face contorts, his brows knitting together, lines deepening around his eyes, his lips pouting and thick as he says, thickly, a little surprised, "anger."
Andy lets out a deep breath that he hasn’t realized he’s been holding since their first session in Buenos Aires, seven weeks of stale air flowing out in one, long exhale that leaves Andy looser and more confident. "I get that."
"I not get." Rafa shakes his head, without opening his eyes. "I have good life. Great life. Toni say be happy with what we have, is most important thing. I should be happy."
"Sometimes it’s not that simple." Andy knows that first hand. "We always want things, no matter how much we have. It’s a good thing, not to settle, to always be moving forward."
"I am grateful," Rafa argues. "For my family. For Toni. He give so much, for me to be here."
"Didn’t say you weren’t. You can be grateful, and still be angry at them."
Rafa drops his head to the tops of his knees, opening his eyes and looking back over the ocean. Andy watches as all the weight flows back into his muscles. "When they see me, they see 'Vintage Rafa.'" Andy can hear the capital V, capital R. "What if he and I are not same person anymore?"
"You’ll always be the same person. He’ll always be your past." Andy reaches over to brush his fingers against Rafa’s shoulder, lightly, barely even there. "But who you are, now? He’s really great too, and he’s going to do great things. You’re allowed to think that."
Rafa huffs.
"Who do you think you are?"
"My family-"
"No, not your family. We know what they think. Who do you think you are?"
Rafa shrugs. "I am just me, no?"
Andy smiles, and he doesn’t speak, leaving space for Rafa to think.
"My knees hurt, always," Rafa finally continues. "I am more tired, but also more strong. When I was kid, I just make shots, no fear and no thought, no? But now I take time and think. Is slow."
"But also smarter," Andy offers.
"For sure."
"You can’t play a game based on your old strengths. You need to develop something new, something a little less battering to your body, that plays to your physical strength and your improved mental game."
Rafa leans into Andy’s fingers on his shoulder. "Who tell Toni this plan?"
Andy laughs, before continuing. "And you and I, we’re going to develop some techniques to deal with your family."
Rafa bristles, pulling away.
"Sorry, bad choice of words. I just mean that they put a lot of pressure on you. Family always does, because they remember you when you were little, when you did stupid things, when you did great things, things you don’t even remember. It’s natural to feel that pressure."
"I no want to be mad at them."
"I know." Andy puts his hand on the blanket between their hips, a peace offering. "We’re going to come up with better ways for you to deal with their support and their expectations than months of internalized anger, okay?"
"Si, is okay." Rafa stretches, straightening his legs and lying back on the blanket, his fingers brushing with Andy's. "I exhausted," he accuses. "Is worse than training."
Andy laughs. "Take a nap. We have time."
***
"Don’t let Andy bully you into anything. He can do that." Jamie speaks close to Rafa’s ear, but without lowering his voice.
Andy rolls his eyes, spearing an asparagus stalk with his fork. "I’m a sports psychologist. My job is to bully the most obstinate people in the world to do things they don’t wanna do."
Rafa leans over to tap Andy’s thigh, his hand lingering longer than it necessarily has to. "You very good at it."
Jamie laughs, shaking his hair off his forehead. "You make a better psychologist than you ever would have an athlete." Jamie says it softly, like he’s testing the water, but Andy just shrugs at him, fighting the internal battle not to stiffen, and succeeding considerably well. Jamie’s face splits into a grin. "You’re growing up, little brother."
Andy snorts. "I hear you were slipping a lot on the court this morning."
Jamie’s eyes narrow. "I knew that was you." Andy shrugs, innocently. "I take it back. You’re still a child. And I liked it better when you weren’t on the tour." He crosses his arms across his chest, pulling his lower lip in for an exaggerated pout.
"You do it?" Rafa tilts his head towards Andy. "You not say."
"I honestly forgot," Andy apologizes. "But, as you can see, the plan worked perfectly, so, thank you."
Rafa preens. "Is okay. I am good prankster."
"The best," Andy agrees.
"The worst," Jamie argues, at the same time. "Should have known this had your hands all over it."
Rafa shrugs, innocently, unable to keep a shy smirk off his lips. There are laugh lines around his eyes, and his shoulders are loose. Andy gives himself a pat on the back.
Just an hour ago, Rafa was looking anything but relaxed. Stretching on the floor of Rafa's suite, his hair still wet from his post-match shower and ice bath, watching tape with Toni and Maymo and the rest of the team. Every time Toni paused the tape to say something, half in Spanish and half - Andy figured for his benefit - in English, Rafa would flinch, his thigh muscles tightening as the lines in his forehead deepening.
Since their day at the beach, Andy’s gotten better at reading Rafa’s body language. He knows, now, to watch Rafa closer when he’s with his family, or with his team, and he understands the slight seizes and slow blinking eyes as symptoms of the pressure he feels as his mind struggles to connect the man he is, now, with the boy his team, sometimes, imagines him to be.
Andy’s suggestion of dinner with Jamie was a good one. Rafa’s smiling quicker, laughing easier, focusing on practicing his English and teasing Andy rather than his looming quarterfinal match with Novak.
Even as they head back upstairs to finish their video review - the price Toni charged before he reluctantly allowed them to go - Rafa is loose-limbed, leaning against Andy’s shoulder in the elevator and using Andy’s momentum to propel him to the suite.
The tape of Novak’s last clay court final is still queued up, and Andy presses play before he continues into the kitchen to make them both a cup of tea with a generous splash of whiskey.
"Toni kill me if I sleep," Rafa whines, as he takes his first, careful sip.
"I’ll take the heat," Andy promises. "My mum always said whiskey is nature’s best sleep aid."
"Your mama is a smart woman," Rafa agrees, stretching out along Andy’s side.
His body is everywhere, his feet tangled with Andy’s on the coffee table, his thigh warm and hard against Andy’s on the couch, his arms flung half across Andy’s lap. When Andy breathes, he can smell Rafa, fresh from the shower but with the lingering hints of clay that he never seems to wash away, mixed with the whiskey on his breath. Andy fights against the reaction in his body, forcing himself to stretch out, relaxed and comfortable and warm.
They’re both asleep long before Novak’s second set is over.
***
Rafa loses to Novak, which is entirely predictable. It’s a tighter match than Rafa’s played against him in ages, though, and he’s in a good mood the last couple days they spend practicing in Monte Carlo before heading to Madrid.
"Is home," Rafa tells him, as they get off the plane in Madrid and gather their luggage onto two push trolleys. Behind them, two older men in business suits swear and push past them. Rafa frowns. "Well, is not my island, no?"
Andy laughs, thinking of Scotland and the grass courts, covered in mud and melting snow, that he grew up on. So far removed from the sterile modernity of his London flat and the important bustle of Heathrow. "I get that."
Rafa takes a deep breath in, his knuckles white on the grips of his trolley, and pushes out into the warm Spanish sun.
It’s going to be a long week.
***
Rafa rents a house close to the tennis center. It's big enough for all his uncles and cousins who have made the short trip from Mallorca to Madrid.
Rafa tries to bully Andy into staying there, too. "My cousins will share room."
"No, that’s ridiculous." Andy shakes his head. "Besides, I have some work I have to catch up on. It’ll be better if I’m at the hotel."
Andy ignores the way Rafa’s face falls.
Just like he ignores the niggling voice in the back of his mind, the one reminding him that he’s Rafa’s therapist and he'd do good to remember that.
Andy tries not to listen a whole lot to that voice.
The hotel suite seems to be a good decision, too, with the amount of time Rafa spends there.
"I have game tape," Rafa says, the first time, holding up a DVD. "Is too loud at the house. We watch?"
The second time he says, "my cousins spill flour all over kitchen. Is a travesty," as he pushes his way in.
"Is just- is too much," he says, the third time, before Andy even has the door open. "I not want so many people right now."
Andy reaches for his jacket. "I know," and he does. Rafa’s equilibrium is new and fragile, and while they’ve made massive progress since January, Andy knows that the push-and-pull of Rafa’s love for his family and the pressure he feels from them will be a lot to handle this week. "I’ll go out for a bit. Stay here, enjoy the quiet."
"No." Rafa’s hand reaches out, wraps around Andy’s wrist. "You no count as people, no?"
Andy freezes, for longer than is probably rational, before Rafa’s thumb rubs against the inside of his wrist and Andy melts onto the couch next to him. "I suppose not," he agrees.
Rafa’s grin could light up half of Madrid.
***
The fourth time, Rafa stands in the doorway with that same bright grin, brandishing two tickets. "I repay for Heat game."
"Um." Andy holds the door open, trying not to stare at Rafa, who’s dressed in a well-fitting white button down, open at the collar, tucked into straight-styled suit pants. There’s a Real Madrid scarf hanging over his shoulders, and he’s playing with the fringe, looking only a little nervous.
"Is for Real," Rafa continues, as if he’s actually worried that Andy will say no. "You not have plans, no?"
"No," Andy says. Rafa’s face starts to fall and he continues, hurriedly, "I mean, yes, of course, I’d love to come. Let me just get dressed."
He doesn’t clean up nearly as well as Rafa does, but Rafa still eyes him from head to toe on their way down to the waiting car. Andy watches the way his throat moves as Rafa swallows, hard, and explains, "My uncle, Miguel, he supposed to come with. But, Barcelona play on TV. He a sore loser."
"I won’t tell him you said that."
"I tell him already," Rafa shrugs. "He roll his eyes and suggest I take you."
Andy’s chest tries to do a somersault. He’s never been very good at gymnastics.
***
"Maybe would be best if I give up tennis." Rafa dribbles the ball between his feet, staring glumly down at it. His Real Madrid scarf is still draped over his shoulders, but his shirt is untucked and his sleeves rolled to his elbows. "Play football instead."
"Real could use your help," Andy agrees, good-naturedly. He reaches out, stealing the ball with the toe of his dress shoes.
They're on the practice pitch next to the main stadium, waiting out the crowds and the traffic before their tournament car picks them up. Spectators stream by, faces downcast after an unspirited 1-2 loss.
Rafa glares at him.
"When I was a kid, I thought about playing professionally," Andy offers, passing the ball back to Rafa. "Was even asked to train with a team back home."
"I won regional championship when I was a boy."
Andy laughs, and Rafa kicks the ball harder than necessary. It bounces against Andy's shins, muddying the bottoms of his dress pants. "It's not a competition."
Rafa pushes his hair behind his ears. "Is always competition."
"First to three?" Andy rolls the ball under his foot, taking a moment to roll up his own sleeves.
He's glad they're no longer in the President's box, as the cuffs are starting to chafe his wrists and he knows there's a thick, red line where he's been scratching at his collar. He was, at least, on his best behavior during the match, sitting next to Rafa, who introduced Andy as "part of his team" in a way that implied so much more, and who carries himself throughout the stadium with the subtle confidence of knowing he belongs there.
It's still what's missing from his tennis game, and Andy spent much of the game subtly taking notes on Rafa's demeanor. Until, at least, Real started losing and Andy had other things to focus on.
They may not be in the box anymore, but there are fans leaning against the fence, phones out. This is definitely going to end up on YouTube or the tabloids or both.
But, Rafa's still exuding that calm, mellow confidence - despite the scowl - and Andy's not going to let a few amateurs with camera phones keep him from capitalizing on that.
He kicks the ball to Rafa. "I'll give you the handicap."
"I not need," Rafa insists, kicking it back.
Andy shrugs. "Have it your way." He twists around Rafa, protecting the ball with his quick footwork, and hits the back left corner of the goal.
He pumps his fist, pointing right at Rafa.
"You trick me," Rafa accuses.
"Maybe," Andy agrees. "Maybe you shouldn't be so easy."
Rafa scoffs, digging the ball out and returning it to their starting point. He feints right, but Andy reads it, staying with him and blocking the shot with his chest.
Rafa throws his head back, hiding his face with his hand for a moment, and Andy holds his breath, waiting for Rafa's shoulders to droop.
They don't.
Rafa just straightens his head, grins at him, and bends his knees to ready himself to defend Andy's run. Resilient and good-humored.
Rafa wins 3-2, and Rafa falls to the grass, throwing his hands over his head and whooping ridiculously.
"No need to rub it in." Andy digs his toes into the strip of skin at Rafa's waist, where his dress shirt has ridden up.
Rafa hops up, throwing his arms around Andy's neck. "You no seem sad about it."
"Nah." Andy catches his hips to keep them both from falling. "Hard to be," when you're smiling like that, he doesn't add, but he's pretty sure Rafa gets it.
Rafa pulls away, catching Andy's hand. The crowds have thinned out and their car is waiting for them, idling at the curb. Andy squeezes in first and Rafa tumbles in after him. Their clothes are both covered in dirt and grass stains and Rafa tries to clean them both off, with little result.
Eventually, he gives up, resting back against Andy's shoulders and grinning at him. "Next year you should sign contract with Real. They do need help for sure."
"On field and off," Andy agrees, swallowing thickly around the idea.
"Si. I play midfield, you do-" he motions towards Andy's head, "things with head."
"I'd like that." Despite himself, it comes out soft and tinged with longing. Quickly, he covers it with a shrug. "As long as your knees will hold out."
"My knees are good," Rafa insists, scoffing. "Your head maybe not."
Andy laughs, trying desperately not to let the idea sink in. Abandoning his country, coming to Madrid to work with a football team he doesn't particularly like, to spend his days in the Spanish sun just a stone's throw away from Rafa.
It's a joke. Rafa meant it as a joke.
But Rafa's still grinning at him, his thigh pressed tightly to Andy's and his arm loose and warm over Andy's chest, and Andy kind of wishes Rafa meant it.
***
The pictures do show up in the tabloids, under headlines that read Rafael Nadal Swaps Coach for Shrink? and New Member of Team Nadal Works his Mind not his Body.
Andy feels bad about it, a little.
Rafa, though, seems unperturbed, and when he's asked about it by reporters the next day he just shrugs and says, "tennis is most part mental, little part body, no? Only make sense we train mental part, too."
"Good boy," Toni murmurs, where he's standing next to Andy and Miguel in the hallway, watching the press conference.
Miguel claps Andy's shoulder. "He looks happy. You are doing good work."
"Thanks, for coming to me, in London."
"You were good kid," Miguel says, like it's just as simple as that. "And Jamie say you were also good man."
Andy ducks his head. "You shouldn't believe everything Jamie says."
Miguel laughs, throwing his arm over Toni's shoulders. "Brothers, they are all the same."
***
Rafa loses in the Finals to Novak, then the next week to Roger in the semis in Rome, both in a respectable three sets.
The team moves into another rented house a short distance from Roland Garros, big enough for Miguel, Sebastien, and Toni’s kids, who have made the trip to Rome and then on to Paris.
Rafa’s making progress, both on and off the court. He’s getting better at saying things like, "I was so young then, no?," when his uncles share war stories from Rafa’s first few Slam wins.
"I am okay," Rafa promises, when he insists on walking Andy back to the hotel after the first team dinner in Paris. "Is more easy to hear, every time."
Andy can almost see Rafa fitting into his body again, slowly, slowly, combining the image he has of himself in the past and the image he has of himself now. The fit is rough and fragile, but it’s getting there. "I believe you," Andy says, sincerely.
Rafa ducks his head and grins.
***
Rafa wins his second round match in four sets. They’re tight sets – tight enough to have Andy barking at the TV set in the players lounge - that drag out long into the night.
It’s Andy, though, who’s still asleep when he gets a text early the next morning. He gets dressed mostly without opening his eyes, and he's barely more awake when he jogs the few blocks to the Nadal house.
Rafa answers the door, freezing when he sees Andy, eyes caught on his wild hair and his rumpled t-shirt.
"It’s early," Andy bites, defensively, tugging at the hem of his shirt. "Aren’t you tired?"
Rafa shrugs, ushering him in. "I need run, but, Toni not want."
Toni’s sitting at the breakfast table, a cup of coffee and a bowl of fruit and yoghurt in front of him. The newspaper is spread over his knees and he doesn’t look like he’s running anywhere. "Nerves are your job," he says, without looking up.
Andy blinks.
Rafa ignores them both, pulling on his sneakers and ushering Andy out the door.
Andy doesn’t bring it up until they’re a few miles away from the house, breathing steadily and muscles feeling loose and awake. "Nerves?" He asks, jogging in place at a stoplight.
Rafa scowls. "No nerves. Is only Toni being lazy. He want you to run instead."
Andy laughs. "Should have known."
"Si," Rafa agrees.
When they stop at a small cafe for breakfast, though, Rafa leans back in his chair and admits, "I guess is a little nerves."
They’re sitting outside. It's warm, with the humidity and the light rain that’s been falling since dawn. Behind Rafa, there's a street cleaner and his terrier, preparing Paris for its morning routines.
"Nerves about what?"
Rafa shrugs, reaching for his little glass of orange juice and drinking it in one sip.
Andy stretches his legs under the table. "Letting your family down?"
Rafa pauses, fiddling with the ring of the glass, really thinking it through before shaking his head. "No, is only a little that."
"Nervous about losing?"
"Sure, of course," Rafa scoffs. "Always is true, since I little boy, no?"
Andy nods, picking slowly at his eggs. "Right, but, it manifests in a different way."
Rafa tilts his head. "Maybe, but, I am prepared, no? My body is good. My mind is good."
"Well, I wouldn’t go that far," Andy interrupts good-naturedly. "Don't get cocky."
Rafa scowls at him. "Is good enough, no?"
"As good as we’re gonna get it, probably," Andy agrees.
"You are worst psychologist," Rafa moans. "Not even listen when I have real problem."
"You don’t have a real problem."
Rafa crosses his arms.
Andy rolls his eyes as he pats Rafa's knees. "Buck up. You have the same nerves everyone has during a big tournament."
Rafa stares at Andy's hand as he asks, cautiously, "These nerves, they are normal nerves?"
"Yeah."
"Huh."
Andy laughs, throwing a handful of bills on the table and getting up, stretching out his legs. "Race you back?"
He doesn’t wait for an answer.
***
Jamie joins Andy for Rafa's third-round match. They watch from the last row, high above the court with the city of Paris stretched out behind their backs.
Rafa's up two sets, but he goes down a break in the third.
"If he loses this match, what do you do tomorrow?" Jamie asks.
"He's not going to lose."
"If he did, though?"
Andy shakes his head. "It's not going to happen."
"It's a theoretical question."
On court, Rafa loses the next game, and the break is consolidated. His posture is still good, though, as he bangs clay from his sneakers and tosses the ball up for his serve.
"In a theoretical world that's never going to happen." Andy shrugs. "But in this idiotic scenario you've developed, I go back to London."
"You hate London."
"I don't." Andy pauses. "Maybe a little."
"Your flat is shit," Jamie reasons.
"My flat's fine. Mum says it's," Andy holds up his fingers for air quotes, "'modern.'"
Jamie laughs so hard that the fans in front of them turn around and spit something that Andy assumes is shush in French. Andy hides his face behind his hand, biting his guffaw into his palm.
Jamie holds up his hand and says, "pardon," in the worst French accent, made worse around his laughter.
"It wasn't that funny," Andy grumbles, finally, to hide his own smile.
Jamie sobers. "It's really not, actually." He looks at Andy, sympathetic and worried. "'Modern' is gonna look a lot colder after all this."
"Oh yeah," Andy snorts. "All this being a new hotel room every week, incessant jet lag, and constant reminders of a sport I'll never play again."
"All this being exploring the world with a sport you love and a man you-" Jamie pauses, measuring Andy for a moment before he settles on, "care a lot about."
Andy's chest thumps, and he tries to keep it out of his voice. "I believe in him."
"Sure," Jamie agrees. "That's the first step, sure."
"Anyway, he's going to win this match, and he's going to keep winning, and my job will be done." On court, Rafa gets the break back and Andy makes a small fist pump. "A good job done, if I do say myself."
Jamie eyes him skeptically. "And he continues with the tour and you go back to London."
"I'm scheduled with Arsenal in ten days, yeah."
Jamie hums, disbelieving.
Rafa breaks again, then stands on the baseline, readying to serve out the match. He glances up towards their seats, throwing the move into his routine before he pushes his hair behind his ears.
Jamie rolls his eyes, shaking his head. "You're an idiot."
***
Rafa keeps winning. He gets through the fourth round, then the quarters, then the semis.
"I think is good, no? To reach finals, is good." Rafa says it like he’s trying to convince himself that he doesn’t want - doesn’t need - a tenth French Open title.
"It is," Andy agrees, taking a long drag of his beer and leaning back against the steps of the house Rafa’s renting. It’s a humid night, as if the city is preparing Rafa for his final tomorrow. "It’s okay, though, to want to win."
Rafa bites his lip, crossing his arms over his knees.
"I want you to try something, yeah?" Rafa nods and Andy continues. "I want you to close your eyes, visualize your second French Open final."
Rafa closes his eyes when Andy asks him to, but it doesn’t last for long. "We do this before."
Andy nods. "That’s the point."
"Sure." Rafa, reluctantly, closes his eyes again.
"Are you picturing it?"
"Si, si."
Andy looks up at the Paris sky, squinting his eyes to make out stars behind the light pollution. The city feels vast, like maybe they could get lost in it, just the two of them, if they let it swallow them.
He turns back to Rafa. "Tell me about it."
"Was warm day, like this one. Something like twenty-six degrees- I am not sure." Rafa waves the thought away. "The crowd, they are rooting for Roger, no? I was, maybe, rooting a little bit, too."
Andy chuckles. "I’ll make sure to tell him that, next time we see him."
Rafa’s eyes fly open and he swats at Andy’s shoulder. "You no do."
Andy twists away, holding his shoulder and laughing. "Close your eyes. We’re working."
Rafa huffs, but closes his eyes again. He takes a moment, but then he starts, his voice quiet and calm. "The crowd is all in white, almost like Wimbledon. Is beautiful, with the white and the red clay and the blue sky. Is almost like dream, no?"
"Yeah," Andy breathes, closing his own eyes and picturing it, letting the image get caught in his throat. "Where are you?"
"I am at baseline," Rafa says, a little surprise tingeing his voice. "It is fourth game, I am down already, 0-3. I am very nervous. My hands, my knees, they are shaking. I not know if I can beat Roger when he is like this. Young and confident."
Andy smiles to himself at the present tense. "Are you the only one on the baseline?"
"Si, yes, is only me." Rafa opens his eyes again, staring at Andy. "What mean?"
Andy lets his smile grow. "It means we’ve made progress. And it means that you’re ready for tomorrow."
"I not know if I am ready." Rafa shakes his head. "Really?"
"Yeah," Andy nods indulgently, "really."
"Huh." Rafa leans back, his shoulder brushing Andy’s as he follows Andy’s gaze up into the sky.
They lay like that for so long that Andy loses count of the time passing, until the door opens behind them and Andy looks up to see Toni standing above them, his arms crossed.
"Dishes not wash themselves."
"We be in. Very soon," Rafa promises, waiting for Toni to go back inside before he turns, wrapping his fingers around Andy’s wrist. "Whatever happen in match tomorrow, good or bad, you need to know-" He pauses, his face close enough that Andy can see the slightly lighter tan lines at the edges of his mouth, where his skin crinkles when he smiles. "You know I not be here if you not help. You are very important to me."
Andy’s stomach twists. There are so many things that he wants to say, all of them inappropriate, or inadequate, or so terrifying that he shies away without even thinking them. So he settles on, "you, too," and scrambles up to help Rafa with the dishes.
***
Rafa wins in five, grueling sets.
Andy watches from the team box, biting at his fingernails as Rafa breaks Novak with a blistering forehand down the line to end the fifth 6-3, then falls to the clay like he’s won his first Slam.
Which, Andy figures, in a way he has. His first slam as the player he is now, older and slower and wiser, but still fierce and strong and with just as much belief in himself again as he had when he was twenty.
Novak is devastated, barely holding himself back as he hugs Rafa at net. Andy can't be too sorry, though, as Rafa climbs into the stands, still covered in clay, to find his team. He showers them with hugs and long strings of Spanish that Andy can't translate, but understands anyway. He reaches Andy near the end, throwing his arms around Andy’s neck and Andy has to catch him before he falls, clutching at Rafa’s t-shirt, slick with sweat, and laughing into his ear.
Rafa’s gone as quickly as he comes, and Andy doesn’t see him until a few hours later, when he comes out of the locker room to pull Andy in for a team photo.
Andy's pretty sure that he's staring at Rafa rather than the trophy when the photographer takes the picture. When they disperse, Rafa pulls him towards it, holding it out for Andy to touch, feeling it cool and metallic under his fingers. It's coated in history and dirt and so much hard work that Andy aches not so much with the trophy itself, but for what it means for Rafa to have won it.
"This one is special," Rafa says, quietly, so that Toni can’t hear him. "And it is yours, same as mine."
"Rafa, no, you did all the hard work in the end."
"And you do all hard work, in beginning," Rafa counters, tilting his head down. "I know I not an easy patient."
Andy laughs. "Not really easy, no."
"Was worth it, though, no?"
Andy’s throat feels tight and wet as he nods. "Yes, definitely, yes."
Rafa takes a step closer, pulling Andy into a tight hug. Rafa’s body is shaking with fatigue and relief, even after an ice bath and a massage and a long break for interviews. Andy takes his weight, for as long as he can, knowing that if he could, he'd take it forever.
There are so many things Andy wants to say. This is it. When he leaves this room, his contract is over, and tomorrow he goes back to being Andy Murray, sports psychologist for Arsenal F.C.
He holds Rafa tighter, looking over his shoulder at the trophy, sitting cool and neglected on the bench behind them. There was a time, not so long ago, Andy thinks, where he would have done anything to win that trophy. Now, though, with Rafa in his arms and the trophy right there, right in reach, it feels like he's done enough.
So, he settles on, "thank you," and knows it isn't sufficient, knows that nothing he can ever say will be, and hopes that his body is saying so much more.
***
Rafa leaves for Mallorca late in the night, taking his team and his smile and the trophy with him. Andy waits out the night, and grabs the Chunnel early the next morning.
London is cold and dreary, with thick clouds overhead and packs of people on the Tube with their umbrellas open and dripping. It feels like home, a little, but after thirteen weeks on tour, chasing the sun and the beach, the chill settles thick and heavy in that area of his lower back that still gives him trouble.
The chill has also seeped into his flat. He’d asked Kim to stop by a couple of times, just to make sure that his power was still on and the pipes hadn’t burst, but there are signs of disuse everywhere. A box of unopened mail on the kitchen counter, dust gathering on his bookshelves, his fridge empty of anything but ketchup and jam when he goes to find something for lunch.
It’s not all that different, he figures, from how he’s lived the few years. His job keeps him always on the road, living mostly on take away, his flat not much more than a bachelor pad he rarely brings people home to. Now, though, he remembers what it’s like to smell pasta and seafood cooking in the kitchen, to hear laughter and children’s voices in every room, to feel comfortable and warm just by being in a house.
"Are you cooking?" Kim asks incredulously, when she comes by a couple days later to find him in the kitchen, his sleeves rolled up and wrist-deep in shelling shrimp.
"I can cook."
"Never have before." She reaches over to pluck a tomato from the simmering pot. "Wow, this is actually good."
"Well, thanks," Andy deadpans, swatting her hand with the spatula. He side-eyes her as she slips out of her coat and freezes. "Are we going out?"
She glances down at the sequined top and tight skirt she’s wearing and shrugs. "When you texted, I figured this was going to be one of those get-Andy-over-his-crush-by-clubbing sorta nights."
He frowns. "It’s not."
She eyes the pasta and the bag he still hasn’t unpacked, sitting in the doorway. "I see that."
She heads towards his bedroom and comes back in a pair of his sweatpants, rolled a few times at the waist, and a hoodie, the sleeves hanging over her hands.
He wants to thank her, for being flexible, for getting it, for not asking when she has every right to ask how he’s feeling. Instead, he hands her a bowl of pasta and settles next to her on the couch.
She hums in approval. "Jamie said you’ve become a new man. I didn’t believe him."
He ducks his head, hiding his smile and struggling to keep it from his voice. "I wish you and Jamie wouldn’t talk so much."
"Someone needs to care about you." She puts her bowl aside, unfinished, and scoots closer, draping her legs over his. "It’s a hard job."
He snorts, putting aside his own bowl and resting his elbow on her knees.
"But I bear it with dignity, I think."
He throws his head back and laughs.
She runs her hand through his hair, her face softening. "What are you going to do?"
He turns his head to look at her, leaning into her hand. "I don’t know," he murmurs.
***
Andy spends the rest of his first week or so in London catching up with friends and his other patients. He’s been in constant phone contact, but he hasn’t actually been to the Arsenal stadium since February.
He spends a lot of time there over the next few days.
It’s good, relaxing, routine.
It’s boring.
Andy doesn’t remember it being boring.
***
Two weeks after the French, Jamie makes it to the finals at Queens.
Andy spends most of the tournament watching from home, in the peace and quiet of his flat, where he can scream and throw things at will.
Under duress, though, he agrees to watch the finals in person.
"Rafa’s asking about you," Jamie says, in greeting, when he stops by Andy’s flat to drop off his pass for the team box.
"You saw him?" Andy asks, despite himself.
"We had lunch yesterday." Jamie shrugs.
"Oh." Andy really doesn’t know if he’s supposed to be angry or happy about that, so he settles on his normal, generally-disapproving resting frown. "Didn’t know you were friends."
"Honestly, I think he just needed a break and I’m the closest thing to you, so-" Jamie shrugs again, reaching across the counter to grab an apple from Andy’s fruit basket.
Happy. Andy settles on happy, tinged with a healthy dose of nerves.
***
Andy sits in Jamie and Bruno’s box, a good ten seats and two rows away from his mum. She’s too intense, too emotional, and he gets riled up enough without her helping him along.
It’s a close first set. They trade breaks, then mini-breaks in the tiebreak until Jamie and Bruno finally pull it out. Andy’s still breathing hard when he feels callused fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck.
He’s not able to keep from smiling as he sees Rafa. "What are you doing here?"
"Jamie come to my match yesterday." Rafa sits next to him, spreading his knees just enough to press against Andy’s. "I return support."
"That’s very nice of you."
Rafa shrugs. "Is also selfish," Rafa adds, leaning closer and smiling that small, shy smile that shows his teeth and the wrinkles around his eyes. "I see you, too, no?"
Andy’s mouth goes dry. "Yeah."
The second set is easier than the first. Andy doesn't know if it’s because Rafa is next to him, now, or if it’s because Jamie and Bruno break in the second game and don’t look back.
He's pretty sure it's the former, but hopes it's the latter.
When the match is over and Jamie’s done his best to embarrass Andy by mentioning him in his acceptance speech, Andy finds himself in the hallway outside the locker room, waiting for Jamie to finish so that Judy can take a family photo with the trophy.
"The first one I’ll have," she says, grasping Rafa’s upper arm. "I hear you’re the one to thank for that."
"No, no," Rafa protests. "I do nothing."
"Nonsense." She squeezes harder and Rafa winces. "Five months ago, he wouldn’t have been caught dead at a match. Now we can’t keep him away."
She winks.
Rafa flushes.
Andy groans, dropping his head back against the wall.
"Is all Andy," Rafa insists, catching Andy’s eyes over Judy’s head. "He put in all of hard work."
It’s all you, Andy thinks, shaking his head without looking away from Rafa. And, when the door opens behind them and Judy pushes into the locker room, Andy catches Rafa’s forearm, holding him back. "I may have put in the work," he says, quietly, "but you made me want to."
For one, brief, terrifying moment, Andy thinks Rafa’s going to kiss him. Right here, in the hallway behind Queen’s Club, at a tennis match Andy vowed he’d never attend. In the space of that moment, Andy can see what it would have been like, playing tennis, traveling the world like Rafa's been doing, sharing kisses and victories and hardships. Andy’s chest thumps.
And then the moment is gone.
Rafa takes a step back, holding up his phone, a sheepish smile on his face. "Is Toni. Say watching tennis is not same as playing it."
Andy laughs, and it sounds almost normal. "Probably shouldn’t keep him waiting."
"No," Rafa agrees. He turns at the end of the corridor with a little wave and a bright smile, and then he’s gone. And Andy still hasn’t said any of the things that he needs to say.
***
Andy takes the family photo, but begs off of dinner and grabs the Tube to Kim’s flat.
"Jamie won," he says, voice scratchy and wobbly, as she opens the door.
"That’s a good thing, yeah?" She asks, skeptically, ushering him in.
"Yeah, 'course." Andy sits on the couch, his smile threatening to fall and he drops his head in his hands to hide it. "Rafa was there."
The couch sinks as she folds herself next to him, her voice tender and low. "Oh, Andy."
"I can’t-" He breathes through the thickness in his throat for long, quiet moments, trying to match his breathing to hers until he feels less like he's drowning. "I should have never taken this job."
She purses her lips loud enough for him to hear. "Taking this job may have been the best thing you’ve ever done."
He turns his head to look at her, and he knows he must look awful - his Scottish skin blotchy and red and too expressive - by the way her face gentles.
"I’m so proud of who you’ve become the last few months," she tells him. "I’ve been trying for years, and you know I wish I could take credit for it, but- He’s made you a better man." She laughs, a little wetly. "Who would have guessed? A tennis player."
He tries to laugh with her, but it comes out unsteady and slippery. "Ironic."
"Maybe." She shrugs. "Or maybe tennis has always been meant to be, just not in the way you thought when we were kids."
Andy thinks back to that beach in Monte Carlo, where he first had that same thought. He thinks about how Rafa looked, tanned and tense, opening his mind to Andy, trusting Andy to keep him safe.
Andy didn’t – wasn't prepared to - realize it then, but over the last few months he’s trusted Rafa to do the same.
"Maybe," he admits.
She lets him sit with the realization for a long time before she finally asks, for the second time in as many weeks, "what are you going to do?"
"What can I do?" Andy leans forward, dropping this head and scrubbing at his hair, before taking a deep breath and looking at her again. Rafa trusted Andy to help him see it through, and now it's Andy's turn. "Rafa did what he set out to do. He won the French. I’m going to do the same."
She laughs. "You’re going to win Roland Garros?"
"It’s a metaphor," he huffs.
She falls back against the couch cushions, laughing, bright and loud. "Never change, alright?"
He scowls. "That phrase is more condescending than you think it is."
She kicks at his thigh. "Oh, no, it’s exactly as condescending as I think it is."
"Piss off." But he’s laughing now, too, as he joins her against the cushions.
***
Andy doesn’t get up to Scotland nearly as much as he’d like. In the week before Wimbledon, though, Judy plans a clinic to capitalize on the excitement of Jamie’s win at Queens and the buzz around a possible Wimbledon victory.
"Bet360’s giving you 8:1 odds," Andy says, scrolling through his phone on the train to Dunblane.
Jamie groans. "I liked it better when you weren’t involved in my tennis career."
Andy hums, still scrolling through the article and pausing on Rafa’s name. His odds are still low, after four early-round Wimbledon losses in a row, and Andy cringes hard enough for Jamie to read over his shoulder.
"You should have invited him," Jamie offers, seemingly happy to find a change in subject that rattles Andy more than it does himself.
Andy glances up from his phone and frowns. "To Dunblane?"
"Sure."
Andy’s heart flips for an inordinately long minute as he allows himself to picture it. He imagines Rafa in his childhood home, cooking in his mum’s kitchen, being gracious and charming to his grandparents. He imagines showing Rafa the courts he grew up on, the playground where he had his first kiss, imagines Rafa laughing at him, taking Andy’s hand, incongruously tan and warm even on the pale Scottish summer day, like he brings Mallorca with him, everywhere. He imagines showing Rafa that they’re not that different, Dunblane and Mallorca, both small towns with families and friends and communities that love them, that support them.
He says, instead, "I don’t normally bring my patients home for a holiday."
What he really means is that he has to do this on his own. Just like Rafa had to, in the end. Andy and Toni could help him through the legwork, but when it comes down to the match, it's Rafa on the baseline and Andy and Toni in the stands.
It's Andy's turn to step up to the baseline along. Quite literally.
"Right," Jamie says, drawing the word out. "Patient. Sure."
Andy hopes, desperately, that Jamie and Kim haven’t been talking. He’s saved, at least, from finding out as the train pulls into the station. He looks out the window to see Judy on the platform, waving at their car, and he turns his attention towards the day ahead, his stomach rolling with the enormity of what he’s about to do.
"Ready for this?" Jamie asks.
"Not one bit."
***
The racquet feels lighter than he remembers. Smaller, more fragile, like it might break as his as his hands tighten, his palms sweaty and slippery around the grip. He can already feel blisters forming.
The clinic's packed with young Scottish girls wanting to learn tennis. Wanting to learn, specifically, from his mum and Jamie, and Andy manages to smile even as he stands, awkwardly, next to the net, watching Judy walk up, a girl's hand in hers.
"This is Elsbeth. She’s going to be hitting with you." Judy squeezes Andy’s shoulder, then leaves them alone so that she can manage the rest of the clinic.
She’s maybe eight years old, with two long braids and bangs that hang over her forehead. Her eyes are big and green as she blinks up at him.
"Don’t worry," he promises her. "I’m more nervous than you are."
"He’s not lying," Jamie calls from the side of the court.
Elsbeth’s eyes blink rapidly as she looks from Jamie to Andy, then back to Jamie. "Are you- Is he-?"
"My brother, yeah." Andy pitches his voice high enough for Jamie to hear. "Don’t believe everything you read. He's a right git."
She covers her mouth as she giggles.
"Are you gonna throw shade or are you gonna play tennis?"
"Okay, okay." Andy can’t push it off any further. "Ready?"
She nods, reaching down to grab a tennis ball in her small hand and skipping to her side of the net. Andy remembers being like that, young and enthusiastic and full of so much energy that Judy had to send him out to practice just to tone him down.
Andy reaches for that little boy as he bends his knees, squares his shoulders, and watches her toss the ball. His heart thumps in his chest, hard enough to hurt.
Her first shot hits the net, but the second clears it, bouncing a few feet in front of him and he takes a step forward, feeling the ball connect with the center of his strings, pushing it forward.
The ball sails over the net, hitting the back line with a thump.
A camera clicks behind him.
She stares at the ball, then at him, scowling as she puts her hands on her hips. "Are you a tennis player, too?"
"Not anymore," he laughs. "But, yeah, I used to be."
"Hmm." She huffs, before dropping into her receiving stance and waving her racquet at him. "Go again. I’m ready."
He hits it back a little softer this time.
***
When the clinic’s over, he digs his phone out of his bag.
There's a text from Kim. ur Roland Garros, huh?
He sends back the middle finger emoji.
There’s also a text from Rafa, just a series of smiley-face emojis and exclamation marks.
thank u, he texts back.
***
London is abuzz with Wimbledon.
Jamie's in the newspapers every day, under headlines about Novak's dominance and Rafa's comeback. The paps – well, one lonely pap with a zoom lens – camp outside his house. Andy's not really sure what they're hoping for, but he's pretty sure that these pictures of Jamie leaving for practice, of Jamie and Alex walking their dog, or of Andy arriving for dinner aren't it.
The day that last one hits the Internet, Andy's at his Arsenal office, scrolling through the Wimbledon app for live updates on the day matches.
"You're twitter famous," the team ribs.
"If 100 likes counts as twitter famous," Andy says, skeptically.
It has a lot more than 100 likes by the evening, however, and Kim makes sure to rub it in when he comes over for dinner and to camp out on her couch to watch the night matches. "Jamie's a superstar."
Andy tilts his head. "Super's a strong word."
"It's not mine." She holds up the Daily Mail, open to a cartoon Jamie, with a big head and spindly legs and a British flag around his shoulders like a cape. He's standing next to Johanna Konta, dressed in a British leotard, under the headline Great Britain's Tennis Superheroes. "Just think, this could have been you."
Andy snorts.
***
When he shows up on her doorstep the next day, with a six-pack and a guilty expression, she crosses her arms and shakes her head. "Just go to the match."
"Come on," he whines.
"If I wanted to spend my evenings watching tennis, I'd hang out with my dad."
"I brought beer."
"So would he."
In the end, Andy gives in, but so does she, rolling her eyes the whole taxi ride to Wimbledon. "I meant alone," she grumbles, as they pull up to the front gates.
It's still quite early in the afternoon, a couple hours before Jamie's match, but she shows her badge and they're ushered in without question.
Johanna Konta's on the practice courts, and she waves them over. "Andy, hi."
"Hey," he hugs her gingerly. He hasn't seen her since Madrid, but she's sweating in the humidity at the end of a long practice. "Nice match Monday. Mum couldn't stop talking about you."
She grins, flushing high on her cheeks. "She's too sweet."
"That's a word for it." Andy winks. "Also, nice superhero outfit."
"Ugh." She groans, dropping her shoulders. "I don't wanna talk about it."
"I'll save my ribbing for Jamie, then."
She narrows her eyes. "I don't believe you."
Andy shrugs. "That's probably a good choice."
Two courts over, Rafa's arriving with his team, bags slung over his shoulders and already buzzing with pre-practice energy.
"Hey," Andy squeezes her arm. "I've gotta go, but, if you ever need anything, just call alright?"
She follows his gaze, then throws a wink at Kim over Andy's shoulder. Andy catches it, but doesn't want to think about it. "Now that you're back on the circuit?"
"Yeah," he agrees, waving and heading towards the other court. "Rafa."
Rafa looks up, his face splitting into one of those wild, wide, world-splitting grins. He catches Andy with kisses to his cheeks. "You here."
"Yeah," Andy agrees, holding Rafa's elbows until Kim kicks at his ankles. "Right, sorry, this is my friend, Kim Sears."
Rafa looks over Andy's shoulder. His face shutters and he steps back, jarring out of Andy's grip to hold his hand out. "I am Rafa."
She takes it. "Kim. I've heard so much about you."
"Andy, he not say-" Rafa stops, shakes his head. "Is nice to meet people who important to Andy."
"Same." She's smiling, her hair glinting in the sun.
Rafa shuffles uncomfortably and jumps when Toni clears his throat. He almost trips over his feet reaching for his racquet.
Kim's smiling as she places her hand on Andy's forearm, her nails dark against his skin. "I'm going to go find my dad."
Andy nods. "I'm gonna stay here."
"Obviously." She laughs, pulling away, waving at Rafa. "It was so nice to finally meet you."
Rafa, who's always overly polite to the point of shyness, doesn't take his eyes off Andy's forearm and doesn't say goodbye. The space between them feels uncomfortable in a way it hasn't since those first few weeks in South America, and Andy can't stand the way his skin crawls under Rafa's gaze.
He casts around for something, anything, everything to say to set things right again.
"I was thinking," he settles on, shrugging his shoulders with a forced casualness he isn't feeling, "I could hit with you, for a bit. If it doesn't mess up your practice, I mean."
Rafa's eyes snap up to meet his, a shadow of his normal grin on his face. "Yeah, is good."
It's still only the second time Andy's held a racquet over the last decade, and the grip feels awkward in his hand. Rafa hits a lot harder than Elsbeth, and he's not holding much back as he whips his serves down the line and sends Andy's shots back with spin and speed.
Andy's too tired as Rafa runs him across the baseline, at least, to have nerves.
Andy hopes that was Rafa's intention.
When Toni finally holds up his hands to stop practice, long after both Andy and Rafa are exhausted, Andy wipes his face with a towel and joins Rafa on his side of the net.
"Was fun," Rafa says, his smile still a little darker, a little more wary than it usually is.
"Sure," Andy agrees. "We can call it that."
Rafa reaches out, but pulls his hand back before he can touch Andy's sweaty skin. "If practice more, will be easier."
"Maybe I'll take you up on that."
Rafa nods, fiddling with his own towel.
Andy wants this to stop.
"Well, I need a shower." Andy picks at his t-shirt, now sticking to him in unpleasant places. "And then I should probably find Kim."
"Oh." Rafa looks at the grass court, digging at it with the side of his foot. "Sure. I sorry, should not have kept you so long."
"She's a big girl. She can take care of herself."
Rafa grunts, but doesn't look up.
Andy can't walk away like this, not knowing when, or if, he'll see Rafa again. "Will you come to Jamie's match? Tonight?"
"Maybe." Rafa looks up, shakes his head. "Yes, si, of course."
"Okay." Andy nods. "Okay, good."
Andy can't shake that crawling on his skin.
***
Jamie and Bruno win the first set, 6-3, but Andy isn't paying them any attention.
Next to him, Kim and Judy are cheering enough for the entire box. On his other side, Rafa's sitting with his legs crossed, his body angled away from Andy's, putting a few inches between them that feels more like a few miles.
At the end of the set, Rafa touches his knee lightly, and Andy's body jumps towards the touch before he can stop himself.
Rafa pulls away, his brows dark and weary as he says, quietly, "tell Jamie I sorry I can not stay for whole match."
"You're leaving?"
"Si. Early practice."
"Okay," Andy says, feeling anything but okay as he watches Rafa walk away. He turns to Kim. "I'll be back."
"What?" She turns to him, then Rafa's empty seat, and waves him off. "Go, go."
"I'm going," he says, gruffly, climbing the stairs two at a time.
Wimbledon is quiet this time of night, even the official personnel watching the match, rooting for Great Britain's own out on court.
Andy's glad for it as he jogs through the bowels of the building, catching Rafa in one of the twisting, empty hallways between the court and the locker rooms. "Rafa."
Rafa freezes, his face darkening in surprise as he turns. "You no should be here. Jamie is playing."
"He'll understand." Andy crosses the few feet between them, his chest aching as he breaths. "Rafa."
Rafa looks at him, a frown twisting across his mouth and his shoulders slumping towards his ears.
Andy takes another, deep breath. "I don't know what's going on, but, I couldn't let you go like that."
Rafa shrugs. "I no should be there. Is family box."
"You should be there," Andy shakes his head. "If I should be there, then you should be."
"Andy." Rafa closes his eyes, like he's in pain, and Andy's pretty sure that it's his fault. "No say these things. Is not fair."
"I know," Andy whispers. "I know, and I'm so sorry. Hurting you is the last thing I've ever wanted."
Rafa shrugs.
"I shouldn't feel this way," Andy continues. "And I definitely shouldn't be laying it on you, but- I think you should know."
"Is not fair," Rafa repeats. "Kim-"
Andy freezes. That's- ridiculous. It's ridiculous, and it explains so much about this day, and it's an out. An out that Andy should take. A believable, legitimate way of erecting the barriers Andy so gravely needs to erect.
Rafa makes a noise, deep in his throat, and it matches the look on his face and Andy can't do it. He can't let Rafa think he's anything less than the most important person in Andy's life.
"Kim is a friend," he says, urgently, his voice low and dark and sincere. "Her dad works with my mum on Fed Cup. We've been friends since we were little."
"Oh." Rafa looks up, finally, finally, losing the mask that he's been wearing for hours.
Without it, Andy can read weariness in the curve of his shoulders, hope in the corners of his mouth, affection and relief in the wrinkles at the sides of his eyes.
And maybe, just maybe, Rafa feels the same way.
"Yeah, 'oh,'" Andy whispers, taking another step forward, crowding Rafa against the wall.
The kiss is slow and gentle. It settles into Andy's chest, lodging into places Andy hasn't felt in years, not since his parents divorced and his career was ended too soon. Settling into places that Andy had closed off until six months ago, when Rafa sat in his hotel room in Buenos Aires, looking as lost and tired as Andy felt.
Andy tries to memorize everything. The brush of Rafa's arm against his neck, the pull of Rafa's fingers in his hair, the feel of Rafa's hips in his hands. Heat radiates from Rafa's body and he moans into Andy's mouth, releasing the same breath Andy's been holding for months.
As Andy predicted, it's over too quickly. Rafa pulls back, resting his head against Andy's, his thumbs drawing gentle, mesmerizing circles on Andy's neck.
"I'm sorry," Andy breathes. "I shouldn't have done that."
Rafa drops his chin, presses a quick, light kiss to Andy's mouth. "I no regret."
"Good, I-" Andy swipes his thumbs over Rafa's hips, under his t-shirt. "I just needed you to know."
Rafa huffs, a little wisp of a laugh that brushes against Andy's cheek.
Cheers erupt from the court, signaling match point. Soon, the halls will be crawling with people, officials and tournaments organizers and players and their teams. Andy's never wished actual ill will on his brother, but he wishes, now, for Jamie to miss the match point.
The cheers get louder.
Andy pulls half a step away. "I don't regret it either," he finishes.
Rafa blinks his eyes, and takes the other half step.
***
Andy watches Rafa's quarterfinal match from his couch.
Rafa's playing fiercely.
Andy feels every perfect shot in the memory of Rafa's mouth on his. Every ace in the indents of Rafa's fingers on the nape of his neck. Every blistering forehand in the ghost of Rafa's skin against his palms.
Rafa doesn't look up during the quick, three set match. When Tim Henman meets him at Centre Court for his post-match interview, he's jumpy and anxious, giving rote "was good match" and "I played well" answers.
And then he's gone, off the court, away from the cameras.
Andy doesn’t want him to go.
***
Rafa's standing in Andy's doorway.
His hair is wet, curling around his ears, and his skin is flushed. Like, maybe, he rushed his post-match interview so he could shower and run here. To Andy.
Like, maybe, he's been missing Andy as much as Andy's been missing him.
"Hola," he breathes. His chest is heaving, his fingers twisting in front of him, rubbing at the sticky residue of the tape he wears there.
He looks smaller, less substantial, than he does on TV.
God, Andy's missed him.
"Did I wake?" Rafa asks, his body angled away from Andy, one foot already ready to run again. "I sorry, I leave-"
"No." Andy reaches out, wrapping his hand around Rafa's wrist to keep him there. "I fell asleep after your match, but, I don't mind. I never mind."
Rafa closes his eyes, his body swaying towards Andy's.
"Come in?" Andy asks. "Please."
Rafa steps forward, and the door slams shut behind him. The neighbor's dog barks at the noise, but Andy barely notices.
"Good match." Andy shuffles his feet. He can feel Rafa's pulse, fast and staccato, against his fingertips. "Great match, actually."
"Thank you." Rafa pulls out of Andy's grip so that he can push his hair behind his ears. He frowns, frustrated, shaking his head. His hair falls back over his forehead. "No, no, I no care about match."
"Rafa." Andy's voice cracks around the ache in his chest. It's only been twenty-four hours, but it feels like it's been there forever. "Rafa."
Rafa steps forward, backing Andy against the door, his hands going to Andy's hips to steady him. Andy's body is sleep-warm, his shorts slipping down his hips, and he arches, automatically, into Rafa's touch.
Rafa stares down at him, where his hands are dark and tan against Andy's pale skin.
"I not your patient anymore," he says, his accent thickening around the words as his thumbs start to move in slow, rhythmic patterns that short-circuit Andy's brain from his body.
"Never were, really," Andy admits, as Rafa takes down his barriers, one by one. Running roughshod over the careful plan Andy's put in place. Andy doesn’t know why he expected anything less.
"No," Rafa agrees. His bottom lip bumps against his teeth and his fingers stutter. His voice comes out cracked and slippery. "Knowing, it is enough for you?"
Andy closes his eyes as another barrier comes crashing down. "No," he whispers, barely audible over the sounds of Roger's late night match still playing on the TV in the den. “Not nearly enough.”
Rafa shakes his head, his hair brushing against Andy's jaw, his laugh small and choked. "I think is just me. For long time."
His index fingers slip under the waistband of Andy's shorts. Andy shivers.
"No, God, no." Andy slits his eyes open. His laugh is as ragged as Rafa's was. "I thought I was so obvious. Everyone could see it."
"I not sure." Rafa is looking down, at where his hands dip out of sight. "I can-?"
Andy groans, "Rafa," fighting it for one last moment. His fears and his worries and his insecurities have been loosening their hold over him for months, and finally they dislodge under Rafa's touch, leaving him weightless, hollow, and he sinks back against the door, trusting Rafa to catch him. "Yes, please, shit, Rafa."
Rafa hooks his fingers into Andy's waistband, pushing his shorts down in the same, smooth motion as he sinks to his knees.
"Oh, god." Andy tangles his fingers in Rafa's hair, pushing Rafa's curls behind his ears and caressing his cheekbones. "You're beautiful."
Rafa shakes his head, caressing up Andy's thigh with his hand, before cupping between Andy's legs. Andy bucks into him, straining forward against his briefs and the hand Rafa still has on his hip, holding him, steadying him, keeping him together.
"I no deserve," he says, just a brush of air against Andy's leg, as he brings his hand back down. His fingers catch in the hollow of Andy's knee, caressing the soft skin as he brings his mouth to the birthmark on Andy's calf, pressing his tongue flat against the spot.
Andy's body trembles.
Rafa holds him steady, one hand on his hip and one around his knee, as he worships Andy's skin with his mouth, stopping only when his lips reach the fabric of Andy's briefs. He slits his eyes up at Andy, dark and fierce, his pupils blown wide like he's enjoying this as much as Andy is.
“I want.” Rafa wets his lips. “So long I want.”
Andy moans out a breath of curses before Rafa even gets his mouth on him. His tongue is hot and humid through the fabric, pulling and twisting, and Andy's dick jerks towards him, leaking steadily through the cotton and onto Rafa's tongue.
Rafa lets go of Andy's knee just long enough to press his palm between his own legs and Andy swears. "Fuck, fuck, Rafa, I can't-"
Rafa grins, so shy that it's dirty, and then he's pulling at Andy's briefs, urging them down and off, and Andy spreads his knees, obscene and needy and he can't bring himself to care. Not when Rafa's fingers slip in the sweat behind his knee again, pulling it over his shoulder, opening him to Rafa's care.
Rafa caresses the back of his thigh, his other hand flirting with the smooth skin where Andy's thighs meet, before pushing at Andy's shirt and pressing his forearm against Andy's stomach. Holding him steady.
Andy can't arch into Rafa's mouth, but his muscles pull and bunch as Rafa holds him on his tongue, tasting him, learning him. It's not nearly enough and too much already, and Andy groans, guttural and low and deep in his throat, where he can feel the rumble in his chest and the beat of his heartbeat breaking against Rafa's arm. Urging him on.
"Rafa, Rafa."
His fingers tighten in Rafa's hair, loosening and pulling in the same rhythm as Rafa's mouth around him. Long and slow. Short and quick.
"Beautiful," he repeats, over and over again, caressing the bulge of Rafa's cheek, watching as Rafa stretches his mouth to accommodate Andy, determined and ferocious and everything he is on court, but here, in the front hall of Andy's dusty, cold apartment.
Andy meets him halfway. With his hands, with his voice, with his toes curling over Rafa's shoulder.
His stomach bunches and curls. His thighs jerk around Rafa's head. His arms shake, and he warns Rafa with three quick tugs to Rafa's hair.
Rafa swallows him through it, gentling him with his hands and his mouth, until Andy's weight is too much for them both and he sinks to the floor, his knees on either side of Rafa's.
"Jesus, Rafa."
Rafa surges forward, his fingers tight in Andy's hair as he pulls him into a kiss. He tastes bitter. He tastes like Andy.
Andy groans.
Rafa whines, pushing at his shorts with his own hands until Andy slaps him away, getting his fist around Rafa, already hard and straining and wet.
"Mierda," Rafa whimpers, breathy and hot against Andy's cheek, his hips thrusting with no sense of control or rhythm.
“I'll do better next time,” Andy promises, knowing his hand is too loose, too unpracticed, not nearly enough of what Rafa deserves.
Rafa doesn't seem to mind much, though, as he strains towards Andy’s hand, his voice broken and hoarse as he struggles for what he needs. “Keep talk. Andy, keep-”
"Yeah." Andy tightens his fingers, pumping hard and fast and slick. "Yeah, Rafa, come for me, come on."
Rafa's whole body tightens and he lifts his mouth, searching desperately for Andy's as he comes between their bodies.
Andy kisses him through it, until Rafa's mouth is open and slack, just breathing against him.
Rafa pulls back, dropping his head to Andy's shoulder. "I sleep now."
Andy laughs, pulling at Rafa’s shoulders, lifting his weight. “Bedroom.”
Rafa grumbles, wincing as he uncurls his body.
When he gets Rafa onto his bed, he presses long, hot kisses to both knees, warming the muscles until Rafa sighs, content.
“Sleep,” Andy orders, stretching out along Rafa’s back, pulling him close. “I’m not going anywhere.”
***
Andy wakes a few hours later to the tight heat of Rafa's hand around him. It's slow and gentle with sleep, and Andy barely spreads his knees before he's coming, loose and warm and happy.
Rafa falls onto the mattress next to him, sighing contentedly. In the moonlight, Andy can just make out the joyful twist of his mouth and the pleased wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Under the sheets, he can feel the pleasant, unhurried heat of Rafa's dick brushing against his hip.
Andy thinks about never having this.
He thinks about giving this up, living the rest of his life in this horrible flat. He thinks about going back to the way things were, spending his days on the football pitch and his nights dreaming about one, sweet kiss in the bowels of Wimbledon. He thinks about going to Jamie's tournaments, the ones he can get to, at Queens or Miami maybe. He thinks about waving at Rafa across the court, smiling a little shyly, a little sadly.
Six months ago, that was more than he ever thought he'd be able to have.
Now, it's unbearable.
He turns towards Rafa, whispering "thank you" into the space between them, "for fixing me."
Rafa shakes his head, his hair brushing against Andy's cheeks. "You fix me, no?"
"Maybe." Andy drops his free hand, running the back of it against Rafa's dick. "Maybe we fixed each other."
"Si." Rafa kisses him, raising onto his elbows and slipping into the hollow between Andy's hips. "Si. Is trust, no?"
"Yeah." Andy bows his back, sliding against Rafa's body. "Yeah."
***
Rafa loses in the semis.
The next morning, Toni wakes them for an early practice. He makes it pretty clear that he blames Andy for a lapse in Rafa's concentration, rather than Roger for his superhuman ability to still move on grass the way he did when he was 22.
"If I take the blame for this," Andy grumbles as he twists the racquet in his hand, "then I should also get the credit for the quarters."
"In the quarters Rafael was focused." Toni crosses his arms across his chest. "That is why his forehand work well."
"I win quarters because I miserable," Rafa says, frankly. "I lose in semis because I lose. No one win this fight."
Toni's mouth flattens and Andy's chest twinges.
After practice, Toni holds Andy back, his hand heavy on Andy's chest. "I not know what I think of this," he pulls his hand away, motioning between Andy and Rafa's retreating back. "But you have done good for Rafael."
Andy nods.
"I want my nephew to be happy." Toni shakes his head, squinting into the sun. "Would not be my choice, but he choose you."
"I choose him, too."
Toni grunts.
"Nothing's going to change." Andy smiles a little, promising something he knows he can't ever promise. "Tennis-wise," he amends.
Toni laughs. "Everything change." He shrugs. "Maybe not all for bad."
Andy takes it for the olive branch that it is.
***
Jamie and Bruno's box is crowded for the final.
It's a hot, humid day, and Andy blinks into the sun, caught up in the rush of the crowd as Bruno sets up match point with a beautiful volley.
Andy holds his breath, clutching at Rafa's knee as Jamie's serve hits the line and Bruno hits a perfect drop shot.
It feels like all of Great Britain is screaming Jamie's name, and Andy stands, cheering with them. It's overwhelming to think that, six months ago, he would have been hearing about this through a series of texts from his mum, rather than being here, experiencing it, with all the people he and Jamie care about.
His mum and Kim and Alex and Rafa.
He leans over, pressing a kiss behind Rafa's ear. "I am so in love with you," he whispers, loud enough for Rafa to hear above the crowd.
"Si." Rafa grins, stealing a kiss while the cameras are focused on the court.
Below them, Jamie lifts the Wimbledon trophy high over his head and Rafa leans into him as the crowd roars.
Andy can't imagine being anywhere else.