Diego stayed back, as though not to get caught up in the questions, which wasn’t like him. Perhaps he was coming down from the highs and lows of that night.
“I think it’s too soon to say anything about the podium. It would be nice to have both Brazilian teams up there, sure, but as I said, lots of competition before we get to the end.”
He stepped back to walk away, but before he could do that, a flurry of questions came up.
“What happened last night, Caio?”
“Is this a new development for your team?”
“Was that picture staged? Or did they catch you guys in an unfortunate moment?”
“Can we expect it to impact the preparation for this competition?”
Those questions, and some others he didn’t hear clearly, went unanswered. Caio pushed down the uncertainty that came over him and made his exit as a couple of volunteers showed him the way toward the backstage area where Diego was waiting for him. Caio breathed a sigh of relief when he managed to get away from the light of the cameras.
As he stepped out of the main court, he saw Diego staring at his feet.
“Did something happen?” Caio inquired in a quiet voice, letting the world fall away so it could be just the two of them.
He expected to see Diego vulnerable right then, but his partner just breathed out and raised his head. No lines of worry marred his features. Maybe that reaction had just been part of releasing the tension from the night, but it brought out Caio’s protective side.
“I’m fine. We’re fine, right?” Diego turned it into a question, and Caio could feel that Diego wasn’t just talking about the game.
“Of course, we are,” he assured Diego. Caio brought him close for a one-arm hug. “We’re always fine.”
Chapter Five
DIEGO heard the words loud and clear—they were fine. And it wasn’t that far from the truth, because they played well their first game, and as far as Diego could gather, nothing between them had changed, even though the media questions had caught him off guard.
They left the backstage area and were met by a line of people wanting to talk to them—other reporters from the Brazilian press and fans asking for pictures.
If minutes earlier Diego had stepped back in fear of saying something in the heat of the post-match moment, now he felt the need to prove to himself he wasn’t hiding from the world. In the end the questions weren’t all that complicated—and maybe Marina had a hand in that. He managed to thank the fans for their support, and it was all good.
By the time they freed themselves from the waiting crowd, Marina motioned with her head for them to a corner where Diego’s parents stood by.
“That was a good game,” she said. “Some stuff to fine-tune on defense, and there were some problems on the timing of a few attacks, but you guys managed to do what you needed to do.”
Diego’s mom approached him. “You played so well,” she complimented them with her words and a smile, while his father’s hand around her waist kept Roberta from jumping up and down in place. She was visibly excited.
Alice, on the other hand, did jump into her father’s arms, and Diego couldn’t help but follow the motion, but he jerked his gaze to the rest of the group.
“Thanks. I’m glad you’re all here.” Diego’s words sounded honest and tired.
Caio’s voice pulled him in again. “Yes, thanks to all of you. It’s good to have everyone around.” He coupled his words with one of those sincere curls of his lips. It wasn’t a proper smile, but it was close.
In his arms, Alice smacked a kiss to her father’s cheek.
The night seemed to be winding down as the exhaustion of the past few days, and perhaps months, was finding release. Playing in the sand with the crowd behind them was energizing, but also very consuming, and Diego was relieved after the game, ready to decompress and pull himself together. He’d have to analyze the match another time. Now he’d rather just get back to their dorm.
Alice yawned as they started to move to the exit, following groups of people doing the same.
“Do you guys want a ride?” Diego’s father offered as they left through the main gate. “You’re a bit farther away, but we might as well drive around since I’ve rented a car.”
Diego wondered if his father was just saying that because his parents missed him. He looked at Caio for an answer. Diego wouldn’t mind taking the bus, but he also liked the idea of spending some more time around his parents. The car wouldn’t get them to the village as quickly, but at least there wouldn’t be a crowd of people around them.
“Well, if we’re not imposing,” Caio gave his answer and then gestured with his hands to their clothes. “And if you don’t mind some sand in the seats.”
“It’s a rental. I’m sure that’s covered somewhere in the contract.” Júlio didn’t seem worried in the least.
When they reached the parking lot, Diego noticed the way Alice clung to Caio.
“We have to go, Princess Jellyfish.” Caio didn’t let her go right then, though.
“Bye-bye, Daddy.” She pressed her nose to Caio’s neck, and then she released him so he could let her down.
It was clear by Caio’s face that he’d like to have her next to him, but that was out of the question. They said their goodbyes, and Marina left with Alice. Caio followed them with his eyes and blew a kiss to Alice. Then he tacked on a dim smile.
They were quiet on the trip back to the village. Diego replayed some of the moments of their match without analyzing them. He just let the images flash through his mind as the Parisian streets blurred together. He wasn’t paying attention to anything else.
Before he knew it, they had reached their destination.
“You two are training tomorrow, right?” Roberta asked, turning on her seat to look back as Júlio stopped the car by the sidewalk. “We have a little side trip to Calais in the morning, but we’ll be back for lunch.”
Diego was opening his mouth to answer, but Caio beat him to it.
“We’re taking the morning off. But in the afternoon, we’re going back to the arena. We can always eat there before training.” Caio glanced at Diego to include him in the conversation.
“Yeah,” Diego managed, not sure if there was anything to add.
“We’ll come by, then,” Roberta confirmed.
“Yes, we can figure something out,” Caio told her. “Have a good night, Roberta. Júlio.” Caio waved at them and then opened the door on his side and left Diego behind for a moment.
“See you two tomorrow.” Diego squeezed his father’s shoulder, leaned to kiss his mom’s cheek, and left the car. He waved at them from the sidewalk as the car moved away.
Diego pivoted on his feet to go after Caio, but he realized that Caio wasn’t moving. He was looking at something, and when Diego followed his line of vision, he found Adônis and one of the prez’ assistants talking just outside the gates. Since there were athletes going in and out of the village, some of them dressed for parties or a night out, there was enough of a buffer zone between their roommate and them that neither Adônis nor his companion could see Caio and Diego there.
“Let’s go in?” Diego asked when he reached Caio, who only then seemed to notice that Diego had caught up to him.
“Yeah,” Caio confirmed a moment later, but his gaze took a while to move on.
In silence, they made their way to the Brazilian tower. Diego felt his ears buzzing when they got indoors, and his throat was sore after a night of grunts and shouts in the sand. He should have remembered to bring cough drops, but later he’d make a note to buy some.
Their apartment was quiet when they went in, and the door to their roommates’ room was closed.
“You want to wash up first?” Diego asked as he motioned with a hand to the bathroom when they walked by it. He parked his backpack on the floor beside his bed as they entered their room. Putting it on his shelf would accumulate sand in there. Caio did the same.
“No, you can go.” Caio didn’t
turn around. His strong shoulders were set in a tense line.
Diego couldn’t help but feel like this was one of those moments where he wanted to ask what else there was between Caio and his ex-partner, but instead he made his feet move and grabbed his stuff to take a shower.
He wasn’t in the bathroom for long. When he came back, Caio was already back to his normal self, his face more relaxed as he went to clean up too.
Diego checked his social media. A lot of his followers were using the #pato hashtag when posting, and some even had live-blogged the match.
Those moments when he could just read what his followers said about him were good for his ego. He liked the attention, and he used the platform more to talk about his own experience as an out-of-the-closet athlete than anything else. There were a lot of people who had gone through the same thing he had.
The political climate of the world was a mess, and sometimes people forgot how powerful their words were. They could hurt someone. Diego had firsthand experience. It wasn’t for nothing that he left the indoor courts during his college years. The bullying wasn’t any different than what he’d dealt with back in school, but it seemed harder to fight for his right to play when no one was beside him on his team.
His social-media persona was the perfect escape from that part of his life, and he liked to cultivate the following he had because it helped him feel stronger. He knew none of those people, but they were still behind him, supporting him.
The sound of locks turning made Diego look up from his phone, and he looked up to see two doors opening at the same time—their apartment’s and the one to the bathroom. Diego could barely see through the hallway, but it could only be Adônis coming in right when Caio was getting out of the shower.
The tension in the air seemed to ratchet up a notch as Diego saw Caio stop by their door as he looked out into the apartment. Diego couldn’t see Adônis, but he knew the man was there.
“Congrats on your first win,” Adônis said, his words sounding anything but congratulatory.
“Thanks. You too.” Caio, on the other hand, tried to seem earnest in his tone.
“You and Diego seem to be playing a lot better than I expected.”
That comment didn’t sit well with Diego, but he wouldn’t go out there, especially when Caio could very well defend their partnership, and by the way he changed his stance, lifting his chin and squaring his shoulders, he was ready to do it.
“How did you expect us to play?”
To that, Adônis said nothing at first. Diego couldn’t see him properly, but he could hear his feet moving. Maybe he was going back to his room, but he didn’t get in before opening his mouth again.
“I just thought you’d miss me a little more, Caio. That kid doesn’t seem like your type of man, on or off the sand. But maybe I was wrong. Good night.”
In the silence that followed, the words rang in Diego’s ears. It was only when Caio turned around and his eyes found Diego’s that the world seemed to move again.
“That was very confrontational.” Diego lowered his phone and adjusted himself on the bed as he sat up.
Caio sighed and closed the door into their room. His lips were drawn into a frown.
“It always is.”
Diego knew that, but another question came out before he could stop it. “And why’s that?”
Caio leaned against the door as he seemed to mull over the answer. He pushed away from the door and went on to hang his towel over the curtain rod and then came to sit on his bed and turn to Diego. The fresh smell of his soap reached Diego before his voice.
“I don’t like to talk about this, but I think you heard what Adônis said to me.” Caio hesitated and sighed. “You know that Adônis and I were partners, and how our career panned out. But there’s more to it. And what I’m going to tell you should stay between us, all right?”
Diego nodded, and his heart beat faster in anticipation. He turned on the bed so he could look at Caio.
“We were partners in more than just one sense of the word. On and off the sand, if you know what I mean.”
And that confirmed a suspicion Diego never knew he’d even had. But it all made sense when he looked at the animosity between Caio and Adônis, and how it seemed like they never got on. There was a wall between them.
“So, you guys were together?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Confirming that almost seemed to hurt Caio, judging by the way his face fell. “We were together for a few years, but not many people knew about that.”
Many athletes never came out with their private relationships, and there was a reason for that. Homophobia still ran rampant in every circle, and coming out had repercussions. But Diego was curious about why Caio and Adônis led different lives. As far as Diego knew, Adônis was straight.
“You guys managed to hide a relationship, and it worked?” he asked.
“We thought it was the best thing for us. Not even Alice knew, and she was too young anyway. I wanted to come out after the last Olympics, when we would have some downtime away from the spotlight. But Adônis didn’t want that. Well, we never even got around to discussing it. We broke up before that.”
“And it wasn’t amicable,” commented Diego.
“You could say that.” There was a sad smile on Caio’s face. “I found him in bed with another guy on our last day at the village.” And that wasn’t something unheard of in the Olympic Village. Diego hadn’t seen any of it yet, but he knew people got their itches scratched wherever and whenever they could.
“And what was the reason for him to… cheat on you? You guys weren’t happy together?”
“Who knows?” Caio lifted his shoulders, and then vulnerability dampened his eyes. “I thought what we had was enough. We didn’t fight when it was over, because it was impossible to go back to training on the same sand after that. He wanted to move to Rio. He said it was to be closer to his family, and I had a life in the South.”
“Did he at least apologize?”
Caio dipped his head once.
“He wanted me to forgive him for what happened. He said he made a mistake, but too many things happened later that made it seem like his attempt at an apology was dishonest, to say the least.” Caio shook his head, and though Diego wanted to know more about what happened, he wasn’t sure he should ask the questions just then.
His partner sighed as he looked up to the ceiling. Caio wasn’t done yet. “The worst thing was knowing that he had lied to me and that the trust I had placed in him had been broken. It took me more than a year to gather the courage to search for someone else to play.”
“And that’s when you found me?” Diego asked.
“Yeah,” his quiet answer was raw and honest.
They stayed in silence for a beat.
“Maybe you were too good for him, anyway,” Diego said.
At that, Caio huffed out a laugh and shook his head.
“Not so sure about that, but let’s go with it.”
“Hey, I’m being serious.” Diego sat up and put his feet on the floor, close to Caio’s. They were one in front of the other, each on their own beds. Diego looked Caio in the eye and waited until Caio lifted his gaze to him. “You’re, like, the best person who came into my life in the past two years. Well, pretty much the best thing that happened to me in forever. With you I feel like I’ve found my place.” Diego knocked his knees once, twice and lowered his head as though he felt too much came out at once.
“Thanks.” Caio seemed flustered when Diego looked at him again. He lifted his shoulders, and the muscles tensed and then relaxed again.
“It’s how I feel,” Diego added.
“I know,” Caio confirmed, and their eyes met.
There was a current between them—a push and pull that Diego didn’t know how to read, but he was glad to know more about Caio’s past.
But he couldn’t help but embrace jealousy when he thought about what Adônis had the chance to have but threw away. Diego never would have.
&
nbsp; Chapter Six
CAIO wanted to keep some secrets to himself, but he was glad to tell most of the truth to Diego. He wished he’d done that before, but Caio had been protecting someone, and it felt like a duty to him not to out another athlete. That was the difference between him and Adônis. Caio wasn’t one to put himself first, and some people walked all over him because of that.
But he had changed a lot in the past years. He was more into planning life with himself in mind. It was a work in progress, though there were still some things missing—like a gold medal on his chest, a sure plan for after the Olympics, and maybe someone to come home to, someone to share the life he had outside the court. Diego was the person Caio spent the most time with, but that was different. Caio had never seen Diego as more than a friend, although lately it felt like the world was trying to change that.
When he went out to eat lunch with Diego and his parents the next day, there was a familiarity between them, as though they all belonged together. When he and Diego took pictures together under the Eiffel Tower, he was sure they could have been mistaken for more than just partners in the sand. They barely had time to see some of the other sports during the games, but they went together to see one of the volleyball matches and cheer for their friends, Ágata and Maria. They were side by side, screaming words of encouragement to the girls on the sand.
They were together all the time, and Caio had started to realize that it was almost the same thing he shared with Adônis, except for sleeping together. But things were good the way they were. Why would Caio think about upsetting that balance? Even considering the possibility scared him.
It scared him because he knew he wanted more than what he had, but he wasn’t sure if he should keep toeing that line. In order to go to the other side, Caio would have to break a promise he’d made to himself when he said goodbye to Adônis.
Caio feared this relationship could reach the same fate. And he didn’t want that.
THEIR next match in the competition was against the team from Australia.
Matchpoint Page 5