Break a Sweat: MM Sports Romance

by Joe Satoria

  “Ayy,” Cesar let out, twanging his fingers together.

  Pulled to stop. “What about Sandro?”

  At the mention of his name he stared.

  I didn’t need an answer. I’d trained with Sandro before. It was his overreach, he hadn’t trained, I’d seen him play with Cesar, and each time, he’d go in for some showstopping catch of the ball, but he only made that hit a third of the time.

  Cesar held his hands up, walking back to the scowl on Sandro’s face—that at least put a smile on my face, I knew his weakness, just as I knew Cesar’s weaknesses were his gloats over each volley, just because you can, it doesn’t mean you should, especially when you’re so close to the net.

  Whatever the results—I was going to be ready for Friday, I was going to be ready with a smile, a polished racket, and the knowledge I would be playing in the final, there was no doubt about any of it. I needed to get through two other players—and nobody else impressed me.

  My weakness was my speed, and given my size and muscle mass, that was a weakness I was working on overcoming. Not only that, but I needed to get it down to improve my speed—cardio was my best friend.

  I trained until my stomach cramped—I barely ate all day, and this was my five-minute reminder that if I didn’t stuff something in my mouth, I’d be in the foetal position.

  It had happened before—I was told it was because I put everything else ahead of eating and properly sustaining myself. A protein bar usually worked, but they didn’t have those to hand here.

  Great—

  Dinner rush.

  Everyone was seated at the table.

  I hadn’t seen everyone together like this since our first day, and I didn’t want to see them again until I was first place and shaking the scout’s hand with my letter for the invitational.

  Dinner was nothing new—carbs, protein, vegetables.

  I ate outside on a patch of grass. The air cooled around me as I tried to savour each bite. There was nothing worse after the hunger pains to get indigestion. My mind swirled with thoughts over the invite—it would be the first time I’d be playing anything professional—televised even.

  And I’d been through enough tennis coaches, none of them stuck around for longer than a couple months. I never made it easy, I wanted to be great now, I wanted everything they told me I’d have to work and wait for.

  I was just impatient.

  Those thoughts would’ve drove me crazy in the past.

  Those were the same thoughts that would’ve made me punch the plastic strings loose. I was working through that, I had been for a while now, and this was the first time in the same stress as before—but something was working or helping at least.

  * * *

  Time escaped me—petrified of me. I was abusing myself through exercise until the cleaning crew arrived in the gym to remind me this was the latest I’d been training.

  I was avoiding him.

  1:32 A.M. and I hovered around the dorm room door.

  He was awake. Tucked in bed, his face glowing in his phone screen.

  Other than that, the room was dark.

  He looked to me then looked away.

  No distractions, I told myself. He was a distraction, and I didn’t know why. I’d never felt it before, far worse than rage or anger—but I hated the feeling as much, if not more.

  Leaving with my washbag and towel, I needed to feel something on my skin before my brain exploded. It helped that the showers were empty. Quiet.

  I let the soft warm water patter over me. It seemed to amplify my inside voice as I leaned against the tile, making faces from the texture in the back of the door. Anyone but his face was fine.

  The dorm was dark. He was asleep. I tiptoed inside, my attempt at being quiet as I rubbed myself dry with the towel. My tender muscles ached beneath the pressure of my hands as I wiped my legs and arms.

  Bollock naked, I climbed into bed—I didn’t even care about the thread count, I covered myself in the duvet like it was a cloud. I stared up at the ceiling, tracing the shadows where moonlight spilled in through the window.

  Head tilted, I turned to Harvey. He was face away, his hands straight by his side. The same hand that had been all over my body—

  No.

  I couldn’t even tempt myself out of it.

  Against the duvet, my cock was already hard.

  “What are you doing?” he grumbled.

  I yanked my hand away to my torso. “Nothing.”

  Facing me, he chewed on the side of his mouth. “Can we talk about what happened?”

  I didn’t want to. “What about it?”

  His duvet ruffled as he shuffled up in bed. “I can’t stop thinking about—how—h—how.”

  My throat swelled as it clenched. “Me either.”

  He continued to shuffle, swinging his feet around the bed. Facing me, his feet on the floor. “I just—I—”

  I budged over to pat a spot on the side of my bed. “I feel the same.” I let out through mu still lips, my voice soft.

  He sat by me in the small space I made. I pressed myself against the wall on the single bed. “You’re confusing.”

  “I’m not confused.” It was a lie, I tugged at his arm. “Lay.” I wanted him to, so I wasn’t speaking to his back.

  Face-to-face, he pressed his legs under the duvet, his cold knees touching mine. I continued to press my hard-on between my thighs—it wasn’t going away.

  “Are you gay then?”

  I wasn’t—the word didn’t fit. I shook my head.

  “But you like me?”

  Nodding, I reached out and took his hand. To my chest, I let him feel the thunder lash in each beat—with each question.

  He kissed me.

  Again.

  “I like you,” he said.

  “I like you.”

  I’d told him—I’d said it.

  My sweaty palms and the heat in my face forced it out again. “I do, I really like you.”

  He reached out to my other hand, pressed against my cock, tucked between my thighs. He pulled away, his wide eyes staring like he hadn’t meant to. “I—um—”

  “It’s ok—can I?” I hadn’t touched him like that before; the soft touch, the finger stroke. I reached across the small length of single bed to him. He was wearing a t-shirt, from his chest, my hand explored to find where it ended.

  “You’re so warm,” he let out through a shallow minty breath.

  I kissed him again. My teeth gently biting into his lip as his hand traced a line from my chest, tingling in his fire touch. He reached my hand again, still covering my cock.

  “Oh,” he said back with a smile. He took my hand and pressed it to his underwear, feeling at his hard cock. “I—I—want you.”

  I wanted him twice as much.

  I wanted him like a fire to wood.

  Freeing his cock, I let it fill the grip of my hand. It was the first time I’d touched any guy like this—it was like touching myself, except it was his hand on me.

  Face to face, moaning into each other.

  We pressed closer in the single bed. The tips of our dicks touching.

  His grasp on me was nothing I’d felt before.

  He didn’t stop. He kept going. Faster. Faster.

  I matched him. Moaning out into his mouth like I wanted to devour him.

  A warm shot of cum sprayed my body. I let go of him in surprise.

  I came instantly, cumming with each tug and squeeze he gave like he was trying to get it all out of me.

  We laid in the mixture of body heat and warm cum across our bodies.

  I didn’t want to move.

  17. HARVEY

  I woke with an arm around me. Squeezing my chest, pressing me against a radiator warmth. I leaned into it, before I opened my eyes. Jordan’s hard sticky cock was pressed against my thigh.

  I laid for a moment.

  “Morning,” Jordan said through a yawn.

  The room was filled with light now. Looking across at th
e bed I’d abandoned during the night. “Morning,” I let out, trying not to panic. I remembered feeling warm in his arms and as he stretched, his hard dick throbbed by my ass.

  I was still in my underwear and t-shirt.

  His warm breath on my neck—he kissed me.

  “We should get up,” I said, whipping the duvet from me and pulling his arm away. I stood, turning back.

  “The alarm hasn’t gone off,” he said, covering his naked body like his tanned muscular physique was something to be ashamed of.

  “We should shower before breakfast.”

  He smiled.

  “Separately,” I continued. “I mean, not that I have anything against showering with you—but.” And I really didn’t have any issue with that, the mere thought of being in the shower with him on purpose stirred a tickle in my stomach.

  “I know,” he said, nodding, “it’s still a competition.”

  “Yes,” I said back, a large smile pressed to my face. He understood. We were both here for the same reason, whatever this was, it was probably just two mutual frustrations, and now they were gone.

  “Well, we can train together again, right?”

  I was grateful the words came from his mouth. I hadn’t been able to get much training in with anyone else. I was paired with a couple of others while they were taking their one-on-one slots to practice and play, but none of them gave me quite the competition I felt from Jordan.

  Across the room, I grabbed at clothes from my bag—I still hadn’t replied, I still hadn’t said a word and yet, the longer I waited, the more awkward it would be to say anything at all. I hummed.

  “Found someone else to train with?” he asked, sitting up still pulling his duvet around him.

  “No,” I said back in a panic. “We should train together. If anything, it’ll give you an edge.”

  “Har-har,” he let out, grabbing at a pillow, he threatened to throw it.

  “Well, I’m going to shower, then breakfast, and—”

  “If we’re training to win, we should start now,” he said, his toned bicep grip on the pillow grew, sending my hand to scratch at my own inferior muscle.

  “I just—” I stood by the door, I didn’t want to say I wanted to clean last night off my body, but at the same time, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. “See you in ten.”

  He was a distraction.

  I shouldn’t have agreed to train with him.

  I shouldn’t have agreed to climb into the bed beside him.

  He was in my head and now I was in his bed.

  That was a recipe for disaster.

  After a shower and a quick breakfast with him by my side, I fended off the weird looks people gave—I knew it wasn’t because any of them knew what happened last night, but it felt odd—everyone knew what I’d said, and now I was by his side at the breakfast bar as he mumbled something over my clouded thoughts—I couldn’t organise any of it.

  There were only three days until the event.

  Three whole days of blood, sweat, and tears—minus the blood and the tears, the sweat I could handle.

  “Let’s go,” he said, patting my shoulder, pulling me back to the granola and yoghurt cup.

  “I haven’t—” I gestured with the plastic cup and spoon in hand.

  “Bring it.”

  Perhaps the awkward glances had gotten too much for him to handle.

  As we walked out, Pedro was stood in the hall, looking at the wall of plaques and awards—he turned.

  “Kissed and made up?” he asked.

  Nearly dropping my granola, I let out a heavy cough

  Jordan chuckled. “Settled our differences.”

  “What?” I let out through a mumble.

  His smiling face, genuinely happy as he looked me over. “We had a falling out, I asked if I could go into another room. We patched everything up now.”

  Pedro nodding back and forth. “Expected,” he said. “You’re both competitive, and I expect you to keep that competition on the courts. I don’t want to hear of any fights.”

  “No fights,” I said. Only wrestling with my thoughts into submission, wrestling each and every miniscule thought until it was nothing. What happened was over, it was done, and now we had agreed to train again. It was simple.

  On our way back to the room, in the quiet as we passed through the communal area, Jordan grabbed at my hand. Pulled to a stop, I looked around—we were alone.

  “Yeah?”

  “You ok?” he asked.

  I pulled my hand away to wipe at my mouth. “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You seem off.”

  I seemed off? He seemed—absolutely normal. This was how he was every single day, and I was the one who was off. I mean I was, I didn’t know how to act around him. I thought he hated me or wanted to kill me. I thought he would be the type to bait me out and call me gay when I acted like I wanted him.

  He didn’t do any of that—except the fag comment.

  “Probably tired,” I said, scooping the remainder of yoghurt and granola into my mouth.

  “You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”

  He’d been with me all morning—except for the shower. “No.” And who would I tell? Who would even listen to me talk about how I felt attraction to any guy who paid the slightest attention to me? I figured this was all that was; he was hung up on someone, he wanted attention, and I’d served the purpose of giving it to him.

  “Ok,” he said, “I don’t want that to get in the way of the competition.”

  “It won’t,” I quickly said back.

  I hoped it wouldn’t.

  We had three days to train like our lives depended on it. My life did. I’d been putting off the nightly reading because my brain couldn’t handle it—it went as far as giving me time to speak to my aunt, but my brain seemed to shut off near the textbook.

  “What do you want to do first?”

  “Tennis, I need to get practice in before my one-on-one after lunch.”

  “Alright then,” he said, smiling—he tried to reach my hand again. I turned, headed straight for the dormitories.

  With our rackets and water bottles, we found an empty court. We were the first ones at there, and usually the last to leave—or so we had been last week before I’d told everyone I thought Jordan was a spoiled daddy’s boy. The mutual hand jobs we’d given each other made me think overwise.

  “Tell me my weak areas,” he called out, pressing a hand into his shorts—that was my weak area, that action, pulling at the fabric to reveal himself.

  I nodded back, stepping into the court.

  “Your weak areas are—”

  “I didn’t ask,” I grumbled back, wide eyed.

  “I’m helping you,” he said, bouncing the ball.

  I knew my weaknesses. It was powerful serves. I tried to match it, which was a benefit to playing on clay, it slowed the bounce and speed, in turn pulling some of that power. On concrete or hard floor, that was where I lost most of the points—failing to return a powerful serve.

  “Just serve,” I told him.

  In Jordan’s familiar and unforgotten style, his first serve was a release of energy. He knew my weakness, but I’d been working on my arms, building the muscle—he’d felt it.

  In a squat on my knees, side-to-side like a crab, holding myself at the core—I whacked back.

  POP.

  THWACK.

  Back and forth.

  His hit seemed softer, looser with each touch from his racket. He smiled, looking back at the perplexed look across my face.

  “Game—me,” he said.

  Shit.

  He was a distraction.

  And he knew it.

  “That’s your only game point,” I told him.

  He nodded back. “Your serve.”

  Jordan bounced around on his feet like some amateur boxer, he was faster on them, looser in his body as he jogged, waiting for me to serve. I rebounded the ball against the ground a couple times, watching him as he swung his rac
ket around.

  “Let’s do it,” I mumbled back, throwing the ball—hitting it with a swing I thought would break my wrist.

  No bounce, no groundstroke. He volleyed it back.

  THWACK.

  POP. THWACK.

  Pedro had been telling me how much he thought I’d grown in the little time I’d been here—but I wasn’t so sure on that now. I’d beat Jordan that first time, and now he was actually giving me a run across the court—matching me in speed and agility, extending his arm and catching the ball before it bounced out.

  Twice.

  He caught me twice. I thought I’d got the point before he’d clocked the ball back and I was already mid swipe at my forehead and brow. Drained and drenched, he was actually winning.

  “You prepared for Sandro?” I asked, uncapping the top of my water bottle.

  He scoffed. “I’d ask you the same, but I have more respect for you,” he snickered, “of course, I’m ready.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know you’ve already got Cesar beat.”

  I let the cool water wash over me from the back of my throat as I wondered how to reply. I was confident, but to say I had anyone beat might’ve been too quick. “I’ve never played him.”

  “You’ll only need to play him the once,” he said back, pulling at the cap of his bottle with his teeth.

  “Why?”

  “He’s easy,” he said. “He doesn’t take this serious, he’s only here because of Sandro. It’s Sandro’s dad paying for them both.”

  “What? Why?” I wiped at the sweat and water from my mouth.

  “Which?”

  Cesar came off as the humbler of the two. He was also quieter. “He’s really paying for them both?”

  “They’re best friends,” he said. “They know Nico too. We all know—or knew Nico.”

  “Pedro’s son?”

  He nodded back.

  This was the first I was hearing of it—I suppose I had been hanging around with them, and none of them had mentioned it—but they were all friends from old meets, and I was only friends with Sasha, and she didn’t gossip about friends, only people she disliked.

  “Originally five of us,” he continued. “Me, Nico, Sandro, Cesar, and then Kristoph. Kristoph quit, or he broke his wrist climbing, got it stuck between two bars. Slipped between the two and he dangled from it—click.” He gestured with a limp wrist.