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WIMBLEDON, 2023.
Juan Carlos cannot relax. He sits on the bed to try to force his body to calm down, but quickly stands back up again and begins pacing back and forth. The room isn’t big, and there is nowhere to go to burn off his worry. He settles at the window, a hand pressed against the wall as he looks out over Wimbledon. This can’t go on. Carlos feels something for him, he’s sure of it now. There had been hints, moments of it, over the past few months. The way Carlos checked in on him about his grief in the months following his father’s passing, had helped him out of bed on days when Juan Carlos didn’t feel like it. The way he’d dragged Juan Carlos into the pool after Barcelona. The way he’d hugged him in New York when he won, when he became the youngest ever world number one, the way he’d asked Juan Carlos to be there when he got his tattoo, his first one, because he was scared, but so excited. The way they’d called every night when they were apart in February.
And today, he’d felt it in the way Carlos had held him, kept holding him, until they were almost falling over. In the way that after, Carlos had found him after his locker room shower and sidled up to him and nuzzled the side of his face, had told him this was all thanks to him, until Juan Carlos had playfully pushed him off and said no, it’s because of you. Because you dreamed of it, and you made your dreams come true. I was only a gentle guiding hand. You weren’t that gentle Carlos had said. I meant figuratively, Juan Carlos had joked back. You’re right, I wasn’t gentle. Because you could handle it. Yes, Carlos had said, his voice trance-like. I can handle it. It was the look then, the one Juan Carlos recognized; he knew that look. It bore right into him, and Juan Carlos knew, at that moment, beyond any measure of a doubt, that there was something between them. For a second, his heart had bloomed with the warmth of new, real love. Tenderness gnawed at him; he’d wanted to reach out and hold Carlos’s face in both of his hands. As soon as he’d felt that, though, he remembered where he was: in the Wimbledon champion’s locker room, surrounded by others. By Albert around making appointments for post-win media appearances, by the father sulking jealously in the corner that Carlos was clinging to Juan Carlos instead of him, by Juanjo running the ice bath for another round of muscle recovery. As quickly as he’d realized what was between them, so too did he realize what was beyond them. There were no paths forward. There was no way to pursue this. What was he to do then, now burdened with this knowledge?
He paces back and forth again in his room, running through the possibilities in his head. He could go to less tournaments, have Samu or Toni go in his stead. Let them have some space from each other to ease the pull of desire between them. Almost as soon as he thought of it, Juan Carlos eliminated that solution from his mind. No way. Carlos’s father already wanted his head when he missed Buenos Aires and Rio this year. He’d fire him—or he’d tell Carlos to fire him, no. No. There is more to teach Carlos. They have to keep working on his serve, on his forehand, on his backhand, on his fitness, on his emotions. There is so much left for Juan Carlos to teach him. He can’t leave him yet.
He could try to continue ignoring what was between them. Play dumb, pretend he doesn’t know what it means when Carlos finds him first, holds him the longest, kisses him everywhere on his face but for his lips when he knows Juan Carlos is sad or emotional. He could become a colder, more withholding coach, never hug Carlos, never ruffle his hair, never fall into horseplay with him during practices, never touch him or smile his way again. No, it’s not humanly possible. And Carlos doesn’t do well with such people. He needs smiles, he needs sunshine, he needs laughter. That’s what he needs to do well. And Juan Carlos wants him to do so well.
The only thing that Juan Carlos could think of was the scariest thing of all: having a sit down, one-on-one conversation, acknowledging this new truth. Being the adult, treating Carlos like another adult, having a real talk about expectations and boundaries with him. Explaining to him that love between a teacher and a student sometimes happens, but must not be pursued. They must not mix romantic love and professional mentorship, lest it lead to ruin. Carlos will understand, Juan Carlos is sure of it. He’s only 20 but he’s demonstrated incredibly maturity. He will understand what Juan Carlos is trying to communicate—he will take seriously the risk and put his career and their successful professional partnership above all else. He will have Mercy on Juan Carlos’s soul and not make it harder than it will already be to have this talk.
Juan Carlos checked the time on his phone. 2:00 a.m. His lock screen displayed a notification, a text in the group chat from Molina confirming that everyone was back in their rooms, and there were more celebrations to be had tomorrow, so everyone should rest well. Now was as good a time as any, then. No sense in putting off the inevitable. He toed on his shoes, pulled on his jacket.
He opened the door and didn’t get a chance to step out, because Carlos, the Wimbledon Champion, the one who dethroned Novak Djokovic, the new king of the tennis world was in his doorway. Then there was a hand on Juan Carlos’s chest, there were knees against Juan Carlos’s knees, walking him back in the way he’d come, arms around his waist and a mouth, that mouth, on his mouth. The sound of the door shutting behind them, the softness of the hotel bed appearing under Juan Carlos’s back, the sensation of shoes being pulled off his feet, off lips and mouth at his neck and under his chin, of hands snaking under his jacket, untucking his shirt, trailing up his chest. His own hands, moving mindlessly, or perhaps of the soundest mind, responding in kind, rucking up the back of Carlos’s hoodie, shirt, touching the boy’s warm skin—always, always warm, no matter what, even in December in Villena, he’s always warm to the touch, and Juan Carlos has been wanting to touch him so much more than the customary handshake and half-hug at the ends of their practices for months now, and now he is, and his dick is already hard, and Carlos is reading his mind, because his hand is snaking downwards, and this is all happening so fast, and didn’t Juan Carlos need to talk to him about something?
“Charly,” Juan Carlos tries, but it comes out as a moan rather than a notice to stop so they can talk.
“You just don’t know how long I’ve wanted this.”
His hand goes for it then, undoing the drawstring tie of his sweatpants and then down under the waistband, over his briefs, palming, massaging. It’s nothing fancy, in fact it’s filthy, the way his thick, calloused fingers smear the wetness at the tip leaking through the fabric and spread it around, the way they curl around his balls, the way they sweep up and down, not gentle at all, but how could Carlos know that not gentle is exactly what Juan Carlos likes.
“Tell me then.”
“Since I was sixteen and you wiped the yellow clay off the backs of my legs after one of my matches in Sevilla, because I’d missed a spot. Don’t tell me no now. Not when I’ve waited for so long.”
Juan Carlos arches into Carlos’s touch, the boy’s hand now having made its way under his briefs, his calloused hands caressing Juan Calros’s engorged cock. He’s tearing up.
“Don’t cry,” Carlos says, kissing the corners of Juan Carlos’s eyes where the tears are welling up, starting to spill over. He trails his kisses down to Juan Carlos’s ear, where he whispers that he loves him, that they’re going to be okay, that he just wants him just like this. That he’d held back but he couldn’t anymore.
“I’ve struggled with this for so long. I’ve talked myself out of it a million times but there’s just no point, what we have is special. I know it is.”
“Yes,” Juanki echoes. His voice hoarse, his lips tingling and swollen, to the extent that they tingle more when they meet each other when he speaks. “it’s special. I care about you so much, even this way, even though I shouldn’t. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I failed you.”
“No,” Carlos insists. The movements of his hand is jerkier now, less coordinated, less smooth. “You have never failed me."
The tight lid concealing Juan Carlos’s emotions flies off. There is nowhere for the affection to go, so he grabs Carlos’s face with both hands and brings him up for more kissing, despite the pain in his lips and the soreness in his jaw. Then he reaches down, down into Carlos’s pants, take his cock out.
“You’re hard,” Juan Carlos murmurs. Like it’s a miracle.
“Yeah,” Carlos says. His voice is low, rough. It runs through Juan Carlos—molten heat, pouring through the core of his body.
“What do you want?” Juan Carlos manages to ask.
There is, then, the most subtle shift in Carlos’s body language. Imperceptible to anyone but Juan Carlos, who has spent countless hours watching him and his body.
“I—”
Juan Carlos gets it. He knows, but the knowledge isn’t enough.
Carlos looks up at Juanki from under his lashes. His eyes, usually such a light hazel in the sunlight that they remind Juan Carlos of flower petals, have grown dark. His face contorts, looks conflicted. The words are slow to come, but Juan Carlos is always patient with him.
Carlos leans down and whispers it in his ear. I want to fuck you.
“Do you have—?”
“It’s in my room,” Carlos says, and a look of understanding passes between them. No way Carlos leaves in the middle of this to get lube and condoms from his room. Later, later. The night is yet young. Later.
Juan Carlos motions to sit up, and Carlos eases off of him, his hands never leaving some part of Juan Carlos’s skin—his hair, his neck, his face, his back. Juan Carlos turns him over then, on to his back, shimmies down the bed, helps the boy out of his sweats. There are no underwear underneath. Then he pauses. Looks at him. Carlos is looking back at him like he has never wanted anything more in his life. Like this will be the single most earth-shattering event of his life, like his heart will beat out of his chest in a way it never has before, not even when he won Wimbledon that very afternoon and then hugged Juan Carlos tighter than anyone has hugged him in a long, long time.
There is no going back from this. Juan Carlos has to stop it here. Kisses and the boy touching him were one thing. This will be another entirely. He hesitates.
“Sevilla wasn’t it, actually,” Carlos says, unconscious of, or at least trying to appear so, his cock out and, currently, unattended to. “That was when I realized I had a crush. But when I fell in love with you. That was Australia, two years ago. In that room, with you, no way out. And I wanted to get out, but I realized that wherever I would go, in the city, in the world, in my life, when I left that room, I didn’t want to go without you.”
Carlos sits up, reaches out, runs his hand through Juan Carlos’s hair. “I still don’t.” He kisses him again, and again and again, and again and again and again, until Juan Carlos pushes him back down, kisses down his chest, his perfect, beautiful stomach, waxed and smooth and hard and soft and rippling under his mouth. His pubic hair is gone, too, because it’s comfortable for him when he plays, and Juan Carlos has the errant thought that he wishes the boy would grow it out again, so Juan Carlos could could feel it dampened with his sweat against his cheek, and then he’s kissing up the side of Carlos’s cock, putting his mouth around the head, and he’s not thinking of anything else but this, then. Of the taste of Carlos in his mouth, the salt and brackishness but also the taste of his skin, the thickness of his cock it as it grows harder still in his mouth.
Carlos is making sounds Juan Carlos has never heard him make before, not even when he overheard him jerking off in the adjoined room when they were locked together in Australia before putting headphones over his ears to block out the noise. He’s never sounded like this—like he’s ecstatic, like he’s going to die, like he’s never experienced more bliss. His hips rock, even though Juan Carlos can tell he’s trying not to let them. There’s a hand in his hair and another fisted in the sheets. He’s holding back so much.
“Stop, Juanki, stop, please.”
But Juan Carlos doesn’t want to stop. He wants to finish what he started.
“I’m close I’m close Juan Carlos please I want to come together stop.”
Carlos pushes him off, gently but a little jerky. “Come here, come lie with me, oh god Juanki, oh fuck.”
Juan Carlos goes to him, his brain all confused, but Carlos arranges him so they’re back to chest, pushes Juan Carlos’s sweatpants down so the waistband’s under his ass, shoves his cock between Juan Carlos’s ass cheeks and thrusts desperately. At the same time, he wraps his head around Juan Carlos’s cock. He’s kissing the back of Juanki’s neck, his trapezius, his shoulder, his ear, everywhere he can reach in this position. God, god, you. God!
Juanki reaches a hand back, to hold Carlos’s head in place where it’s kissing him. He moves his hips as best he can, back against Carlos’s dick, into his fist, trying to chase the high, trying to get there with him.
Carlos is moaning, crying out into his ear. His breath is hot and heavy on the side of Juan Carlos’s face, in the crook of his neck. His lips are relentless. When was the last time Juan Carlos had sex like this? This intense, this earth-shattering, axis-tilt, never-going-to-be-the-same sex? Has he ever? Has he ever felt like this in his life? Has Carlos?
Juan Carlos twists his head around as best he can, tries to press his mouth to Carlos’s mouth, Carlos pushes himself up on one elbow just the slightest bit to meet his mouth fully, to shove his tongue down Juan Carlos’s throat, his hips still jerking his cock against Juan Carlos’s ass, his hand still moving furiously up and down Juan Carlos’s cock. He rises up on his elbow more and more, using his body to press down on Juanki more so that Juan Carlos’s face is pressed into a pillow and they can’t kiss anymore, and Carlos snaps his hips down in the cleft of Juan Carlos’s cheeks, precome getting all over his hole, sticky and hot and wet, and he’s leaking into Carlos’s hand, and they’re both so close.
Juan Carlos’s arms wrest their way out from under Carlos’s body and awkwardly strain to reach back. They find what they’re looking for—Carlos’s ass. He squeezes with both his hands, pulls him down, encouraging the friction. Carlos moans wildly and bites down on Juan Carlos’s neck and then it’s over, it’s happening, Carlos is spurting hot and warm and so much between Juan Carlos’s ass, it’s dripping on to his hole, it’s smearing up and down as Carlos keeps thrusting through his orgasm, and his hand, trapped between Juan Carlos’s body and the bed squeezes on the stroke upwards and Juan Carlos can’t breathe anymore, he’s gone, he’s coming so hard it’s almost painful, he hasn’t come like this in months, in years maybe, come so hard his eyes roll back in his head and he loses all sense of time and space and he’s gasping through it, trying to breathe, and Carlos is kissing him everywhere, all over his face and arms and back and ass and his tongue is wet on his hole and then he’s turning Juan Carlos back over and licking the come from his sensitive cock too until Juan Carlos is batting him away and then Carlos’s head is resting on Juan Carlos’s chest, cheek on his sweating sternum, and Juan Carlos is hugging it, stroking the hair with his hand and they’re both still sighing and gasping and groaning from the sex, that life-altering fucking sex.
There was something Juan Carlos needed to talk to Carlos about. What was it? He turns around, onto his other side, facing Carlos, his blown-out eyes, his pink, pink face, his fringe matted to his forehead with sweat, his acne and his smile and his teeth, his lips, Juan Carlos kisses them. His nose, Juan Carlos kisses it. His cheeks, raised in a joyous smile. He kisses each of them, then the boy’s eyelids. He remembers what he needed to talk to him about, he has remembered it throughout the whole course of this, but he can’t bring himself to say it right now, not when Carlos has just won Wimbledon, not when he’s holding him close.
Carlos grins and extricates himself from Juan Carlos’s grip, pushes himself up on an elbow. The elegant line of his obliques dips where he rises. He leans in for another quick kiss on the mouth. “I’m going to go get the condom. I’m going to be right back, Juanki, don’t you go anywhere. Don’t you go anywhere.”
And then, Juan Carlos watches, as Carlos picks up the spare keycard from the side table, and walks out of the room, naked.
The hotels they stay in take celebrity privacy very seriously, they stake their reputation on it. And their team has the whole floor booked out, and no one on this team would ever betray Carlos. But it is still so shocking, so illicit, that Juan Carlos is left with his face heating up instead of cooling off in the aftermath of sex.
He doesn’t get the chance to collect his thoughts before there’s a beep at the door and Carlos comes back in giggling and breathless, shocked at his own daring, pleased with it. In his hands are lube and condoms and, and—
Juan Carlos gasps.
Carlos places the items to the side, climbs back into bed, over Juan Carlos, surrounds his body, snakes his hands down Juan Carlos’s arms until he’s intertwining his fingers in Juan Carlos’s fingers, moving their joined hands up the bed until Juan Carlos’s hands are pinned above his head.
“Do you want to?”
Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. “Yes.”
A smile. “Then I’ll give you some time. Enough time for us both to recover, yeah?” He’s being kind. He needs no time to recover, only Juan Carlos does. The wordless acknowledgment of that stark difference in their physical capabilities makes Juan Carlos blush.
“Charly—just because I want to—this isn’t, if anyone. I’d, they’d—”
Carlos holds Juan Carlos’s face in both of his hands and kisses him so sweetly, heat pouring into his mouth, body so solid against his.
“Let’s celebrate winning Wimbledon together, hm? Let’s both have what we want.” Carlos looks up at him from under dark eyelashes. “Please.” He trails his kisses, his sweet, young kisses off the side of Juan Carlos’s mouth, all along his jaw, underneath it, down his neck, and Juan Carlos offers him that access, turning his head and closing his eyes, the heat of it is delicious. Yes, he wants to.
Carlos pulls back then, maintains eye contact as he climbs off, watches Juan Carlos rise from the bed and grab the box off the side table. Carlos rises on his knees and kisses Juan Carlos’s back, right in between his shoulder blades, then gives him a gentle push towards the bathroom.