Rounding Out Family, Part Two

[luxover]

Part One

One day, after practice that week, Mesut walks by his locker with only a towel wrapped around his waist; his hair is messy and his eyes are wide, and Cristiano has to force himself to look away, at his cleats or his duffel bag or at whatever is inside his locker.

Mesut asks him, “Steam room?” It’s strange, how they used to just automatically go together, and now, after two weeks of nothing, Mesut feels the need to ask.

“No,” Cristiano says, reaching into his locker for his socks. “Can’t; my mom’s watching Cris and she needs to leave early today.”

“Oh,” Mesut says, and then he pauses, keeps standing where he is. Cristiano flicks his eyes up to Mesut’s face, and for a second Mesut looks like he’s going to say something, but then the moment passes and Mesut just says, “Alright. Another time,” and he walks away.

Cristiano lets out a deep breath and rubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms.

The problem is-the problem is that he doesn’t know how to sort himself out because this has never happened to him before. He’s never wanted someone more than they wanted him and so Cristiano doesn’t know what to do, not in the slightest. How can he be just friends with someone he doesn’t want to be just friends with? Cristiano tries, he does-he tries to be normal, to not ignore Mesut just because it’s easier for him-but it’s hard, harder than he thought, because he’s not used to this, to wanting something he can’t have. Mesut’s his teammate, his friend; it’s not Mesut’s fault that Cristiano’s fucked in the head, and Cristiano knows that. Still, it doesn’t stop him from going out of his way to avoid Mesut, from ignoring him because it’s easier than having to talk to him.

Iker asks about it, too; he says, “Hey, listen,” and his voice is hard in the way that it only ever is when he’s talking official squad business. “A couple of the guys and I had just sort of noticed-you and Mesut-I don’t know what happened, or why you’re fighting-”

“We’re not fighting,” Cristiano says. They’re not.

“Not talking, then, whatever,” Iker continues. “And I don’t care. But you’ve got to sort it out because if it follows you onto the pitch, it’ll become an issue.”

Cristiano nods, mostly to himself, and asks, “Did Mesut say something to you?”

“No,” Iker says.

“Then we don’t have a problem,” Cristiano tells him, and he walks away before Iker can say anything else.

At practice, Sergio announces that he and Iker are organizing a team dinner, and then rags on everyone until they say that they’ll come. Cristiano tells him that he needs to see if he can get someone to watch Cris first, but both he and Sergio know that’s as good as a yes; Cristiano knows the importance of team unity, knows how much of it is built on the pitch and how much of it off, and he wouldn’t miss the dinner, not if he could help it.

Mou runs them ragged again that day; they missed out on a couple of fast breaks that could have ended in goals for them the last match, and so El Mister has them spend more time than usual doing ladder sprints, suicides, and working on fast break scenarios. It’s okay, Cristiano doesn’t mind it; he’s tired, exhausted, but he doesn’t mind it.

When they’re done, everyone drags themselves to the locker room to shower or to go sit in the sauna, but Cristiano stays out on the pitch, lowers himself onto the grass and lies starfish, his eyes closed. He feels good after all that, the running and pushing himself harder than he thought he could, and he takes a minute to just do nothing, nothing at all, because he knows that there’s so much he still has to do at home before he can really relax.

He doesn’t realize he’s not alone until Mesut says, “Hey.” Cristiano opens his eyes and watches as Mesut sits down next to him, still flushed and sweaty from practice.

“Hey,” Cristiano says back, and he watches as Mesut starts winding grass around his fingers.

Mesut doesn’t say anything and so Cristiano shuts his eyes again and relaxes. For a second Cristiano thinks that maybe Mesut’s out on the pitch for the same reason as him, just to have a minute where everything’s not moving a hundred miles an hour. It’s nicer than he had expected, to not be alone when all he thought he wanted was to be away from everyone.

And then Mesut says, “Hey, Cristiano?”

“Yeah?”

“Did I do something?”

Cristiano doesn’t get what he means.

“It’s just,” Mesut says, and Cristiano turns his head to look at him. Grass scratches at his cheek, and Mesut keeps talking, saying, “the past few weeks you’ve been-I don’t know-not mad, but-”

He makes a gesture, and Cristiano understands that to mean that he doesn’t know the word, can’t think of how to convey what he means in Spanish. He gets like that sometimes; less often than expected, but still.

“Why would I be mad?” Cristiano asks. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Mesut licks his lips. He says, “Okay. Just wanted to ask.” And then he smiles at Cristiano, just a little bit, before getting up and heading insides, leaving Cristiano on the pitch by himself.

It’s not as relaxing, anymore.

After that-after talking to Mesut, just the two of them alone on the pitch-it hits Cristiano just how much he misses him. Yeah, he’s started thinking all these new things about Mesut, but Mesut’s his friend, and practice hasn’t been the same, always having to avoid him. It’s more taxing like this, more of a job than something that he wants to do. He hates that that’s what football might start to feel like for him, and he has to stop it.

The next day, when the team has finished morning practice and everyone’s inside getting ready to eat lunch, Cristiano goes out of his way to sit at the same table as Mesut, between him and Angel. It’s awkward, when he gets there, because Angel and Mesut are already talking about something, and Angel leans forward, cranes his neck around Cristiano when he sits down.

“No,” he says, waving his arms. “No, it’s just-you have to. It’s so good.”

“Okay,” Mesut says, and he laughs, his eyes cutting over to Cristiano as he does. Cristiano wants to make him laugh, too.

“What’s good?” Cristiano asks. He’s trying.

“El Barco,” Angel says, and Cristiano just says, “Oh,” back to him, because he’s heard of the show, knows it’s popular, but he doesn’t watch much tv anymore, didn’t even really watch it before he had Cris, either.

“That show’s terrible,” Chori says, pulling out a free chair as he walks over with Pepe. “It’s not even possible, did you know that? I can’t watch it anymore.”

“What’s not possible?” Cristiano asks. The show is about people trapped on a boat.

Angel rolls his eyes and says, “Basically, a particle accelerator in Geneva exploded, and so all the land sunk into the ocean. I don’t watch it for the science.”

“No, but like, I looked it up,” Chori says. “On Wikipedia. It says that if one of those things really did explode, we’d all be obliterated.”

“I know,” Angel says, laughing, and then he repeats, “I don’t watch it for the science.”

“I did,” Chori says. “Kind of, I mean, but-”

“But there’s nothing scientific about that show!” Pepe cuts in, and Angel laughs, says, “I know,” and Chori says, “I know.” Cristiano smiles a little at their antics. He turns to look at Mesut just as Mesut’s turning to look at him, and they both raise their eyebrows and try not to laugh.

“Sorry,” Cristiano says quietly to him. “I kind of-“ he waves a hand vaguely, but doesn’t finish the sentence because he can’t say the truth, and he doesn’t know what else he could say that wouldn’t be a lie.

“Hey,” Mesut says, and he shrugs his shoulders, smiles a little like he doesn’t want Cristiano to apologize at all, just wants him to act like normal again.

Cristiano smiles back, and then it’s like everything is normal again, only there’s still that bit where he wants to kiss Mesut, but that’s fine, and ignoring that is just a new part of his normal. He jumps back into the table conversation feeling just-happy. Just happy.

“What do you mean?” Cristiano says, jumping back into the conversation. “X-Files almost made me wish I was a special agent.”

“Exactly,” Chori says, and when the table bursts out into laughter, he says, “No, come on, I didn’t-I know that’s not real, you guys, I’m not-”

That just sets them off even more, if Cristiano’s going to be honest about it. He laughs, and Mesut laughs, too.

Cristiano’s always liked days off from practice, days when he can just stay in the house and not be bothered by the cameras or the people, but now, with Cris, he likes them even more. He’s never said anything about it-doesn’t really have anyone that he could say it to-but he worries that he’ll go to practice one day, and come back that night to find out that Cris has already learned how to walk, and that he suddenly speaks like a five-year-old. It’s stupid, and so even though he stops spending his time doing a lot of the things that he used to, Cristiano tries to put it out of his mind.

When he wakes up in the morning, he lies still in his bed and listens for the baby monitor, to see if Cris is awake. He’s not, and so Cristiano thinks about just lying there in bed for a while longer; the only reason he doesn’t is because he knows Cris will wake up sooner or later, and then it’ll be ages before he can shower.

Cristiano fishes a bath toy out of the tub before he turns the shower on, and as the water’s heating up, he strips, looks at himself in the mirror. He likes how he looks, but he thinks he might need a haircut soon. He thinks for a second about just letting it grow out, until his hair looks like Sergio’s, but the mental picture is too ridiculous for him, and he bursts out laughing.

By the time Cris finally wakes up, Cristiano’s been out of the shower for almost a half hour, and has gotten dressed in jeans and a polo. He brings Cris downstairs and feeds him, and in the afternoon they sit together on the floor of the living room, watching cartoons. Cristiano does sit-ups even though his belt digs awkwardly into his lower back, and when he stops, Cris crawls over to him and climbs up onto his chest. They nap for the next two hours, right there on the floor, just the two of them alone in the house, the tv still going in the background.

Cristiano can’t believe he ever lived without moments like these, that just months ago, he wasn’t even a father. It seems like longer, a lifetime ago, almost.

It’s back to practice the next day, and when Cristiano gets to the locker room, he flips on the lights and starts getting ready. He’s tired-he and Cris napped too long and too late, and getting Cris to bed was a nightmare-but that’s no excuse to slack off, not in the slightest. He moves slower than normal, though, laces his boots like he’s just learning how to. A run will be good; the cold air on his face will wake him up.

It’s quiet out on the pitch, quieter than it will be for the rest of the day, and Cristiano likes that, how it lets him think or not think, depending on what he wants. His boots hit the ground in rhythm, and he just focuses on that for a while, the steady thump, thump, thump, almost in time with his heart.

He’s alone for about twenty minutes before Mesut walks out of the locker room and starts jogging alongside him, shoulder to shoulder. Cristiano looks at him, waiting for him to say something, but Mesut just quirks him a smile and then looks forward, running and not saying anything and just being there, with Cristiano.

It’s strange; Cristiano was so sure that his mornings were better alone.

Marcelo comes up to him when he’s doing lateral raises in the weight room mirror. He doesn’t say anything at first, just stands off to the side and lets Cristiano count his reps without distraction, which in turn distracts Cristiano more than anything. When Cristiano hits eight, his muscles shaking, he puts the weights back down in the rack; Marcelo picks them up, and does a couple of reps without counting.

“You’re coming to the dinner tonight, yeah?” he asks, his voice tight with strain. “You found someone to take Cris?”

“Yeah,” Cristiano says. “My mom’s taking him.”

“I figured,” Marcelo says, and pauses in his reps, holding the weights down by his sides. “Clarisse said she’d watch him, but I told her you were like that.”

“Like what?” Cristiano asks, and he reaches out, pulls at a curl of Marcelo’s hair; Marcelo tries to shrug him away.

“You know,” he says, and Cristiano kind of does. Then Marcelo re-racks the weights and says, “Man, those are heavy. I don’t want a six pack if I gotta do that.”

“Really letting yourself go, huh?” Cristiano asks, because that’s standard for them, joking like that.

“Fuck off,” Marcelo says lightly, and he smiles at Cristiano in the mirror. “You know, I read one of Clarisse’s magazines once, and it was all bullshit, like, don’t lift heavy or you’ll bulk up, and like, do a zillion reps each set to stay lean, stuff like that. I didn’t know how to tell her that I didn’t want her to slim down, anyway, because I love her ass.”

“So what’d you say?” Cristiano asks. He’s never really had that problem, never really had someone like Clarisse.

“I said, Baby, I don’t want you to slim down, because I love your ass,” Marcelo says, completely serious, and Cristiano bursts out laughing. He doesn’t know why he expected anything different.

When practice ends and everyone’s heading towards the showers, Cristiano sees Mesut peeling off his jersey and tries not to stare at his skin. For some reason, it makes him think about how they haven’t shared the steam room in a long time, and now that they’re friends again-or at least, now that Cristiano’s trying to be-he thinks that maybe they need to, that maybe they should.

He catches Mesut as he’s walking past him to shower, wrapping one hand around Mesut’s elbow to grab his attention. Mesut looks up and smiles, easily, and Cristiano wishes it were half as easy for him.

“Hey,” he says. “Want to hit the steam room?”

“Oh,” Mesut says, surprised, like he still wasn’t expecting that even after Cristiano waved his flag in surrender at lunch the other day. Then he shrugs, keeps smiling. “Sure, okay.”

And Cristiano didn’t realize how hard it would be, sitting with Mesut in the sauna like they used to, but now, when it’s just the two of them in that little room, it’s all he can do not to stare at Mesut’s collarbones, or the sweat that drips down the center of his chest, or the way his hair falls in front of his eyes and sticks to his face.

Mesut says, “I’m glad that, you know,” and he waves a hand vaguely. “It made Spain seem even farther from home.” Cristiano doesn’t know exactly what he means, if he’s glad that they’re talking or if he’s glad that they’re in the steam room, or if he’s glad that Cristiano got over himself. Whatever it is, Cristiano’s glad, too. He leans back on his hands, and the muscles in his stomach are prominent, and women like that; it’s one reason why he works so hard for it. He wonders if Mesut likes it, too, or if he doesn’t even notice.

“Yeah,” Cristiano says. “I know,” and it’s a complete lie, but it’s a small one and it’s not hurting anyone, and so he doesn’t feel bad about it.

“At first,” Mesut says, trying to dispel the last bit of awkwardness, “I thought maybe you were upset because you realized that I would beat you, at the crossbar, if we played again.”

That shocks a laugh out of Cristiano, loud and unrestrained, because, “No. No. You couldn’t; you won’t. I’ve been practicing.”

“I’ve scared you into practicing,” Mesut says, and he’s laughing a little, too. “I’ve already won.”

“I’m still retired,” Cristiano reminds him, and Mesut just smiles in response, small and secretive as he says he knows, and Cristiano tries not to look where Mesut’s towel has been tugged low, revealing pale skin that never sees the sun.

The team dinner is at some Italian place, the kind that places mounds of bread on the table, with olive oil to dip, and Cristiano eats none of that. He drove over here in Mesut’s car, left his at the Valdebebas because Mesut had asked and he didn’t think, just said yes and climbed into the passenger seat. It means that Cristiano will have to get a ride to practice tomorrow, but that’s not the end of the world.

He sits sandwiched between Kaka and Sergio, until Marcelo makes Sergio switch, and across the table, Alvaro and Chori play some sort of hand game as they wait for their food. They try to teach it to everyone, at one point, but they’re terrible at explaining the rules, saying things like, “Okay, so if I put out a two, right, then he has to put out a one,” and, “No, I could put out a three,” and, “No, I know, but this time you put out a one, okay, just pretend,” until no one’s paying attention but Kaka, and even then, it’s only half-heartedly.

It’s not much longer until Kaka finally says, “Guys, I think I’ll pass.”

“Alright, but you’re missing out,” Chori tells him, and Cristiano laughs, because they’ve all been missing out, because none of them understood a word of what was said.

“You guys are ridiculous,” Marcelo tells them, and then he yells down the table to Sami and Mesut, “How do you say you’re an idiot in German?”

Simultaneously, Sami and Mesut holler back, “No German!” and everyone laughs, because that’s a phrase that they all heard a lot, back at the beginning of the season, when Sami and Mesut could barely say anything to anyone. Mourinho was a big proponent of that, because he said that if they spoke German on the pitch, they’d take longer to learn Spanish, and if they didn’t learn Spanish, he was exiling them to the bench for the rest of forever.

“Well, that’s completely unhelpful,” Marcelo says to himself, and Cristiano steals a glance back down the table. A couple of people are drinking some wine-just one glass each, and because they’re allowed to-but Mesut’s just drinking water, same as Cristiano but for a completely different reason. He looks good, though, smiling next to Sami, wearing a grey t-shirt that Cristiano could never fit his shoulders into even if he tried. Mesut’s slender, not a lot of bulk to him, and while Cristiano would never want to look like that-he works hard and eats right in order to look exactly the way he looks-he likes it on Mesut.

Kaka leans into him and says, quietly, as if it were a secret, “You guys work it out?”

Cristiano drags his eyes away from Mesut, and how he’s standing halfway out of his seat as he and Angel yell jokingly at each other.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s all good.”

“I’m glad,” Kaka says. “I thought maybe-I don’t know what I thought, but I’m glad. I think you’re good for each other, you know? On the pitch, and just at practice.”

He doesn’t mean anything by it, couldn’t possibly, but it still makes Cristiano smile a little, the thought that he could be good for Mesut. He’s never really wanted to be good for anyone like this before.

Iker gives his captain speech as the dishes are being cleared away, all, Work hard, play hard, and, Barca’s not far off, and, This is our year, guys, you know it is, and he sounds like a general sending his men off to war. It’s so different to the Iker that Sergio tries to teach to dance in the locker room, or that came back from the World Cup loose-limbed and relaxed, but Cristiano imagines that it must be hard, being a captain of a team as big as Real Madrid. He’s got enough pressure on himself without the additional weight of being a captain, and can only imagine how Iker must feel. He imagines that Iker is tired, but then doesn’t know where that comes from.

Back on the street, Mesut comes up to him and offers to drive him home.

“I wasn’t even thinking,” he says, “when we came here together.”

“Me either,” Cristiano says with a shrug. “But I can always get a ride with someone else, I mean-”

“No, no, it’s cool,” Mesut says, and he smiles as he unlocks the car.

The first thing he does when he turns the car on is plug in his phone, so that he can put some music on. It’s German rap, and Cristiano shakes his head and tsks.

“What is this trash?” he asks, joking.

“Sorry we can’t all like Sade,” Mesut shoots back, and Cristiano mocks like he’s wounded, clenching at his heart.

When they reach his street, Mesut slows down to take the turn, and he’s actually a better driver than Cristiano would have ever expected one of his teammates to be. He’s cautious, looks both ways and handles the car smoothly even though he speeds. Cristiano thinks that he’d trust him enough to put Cris in the back, all strapped into his car seat, but then he shakes that thought away just as soon as he thinks it. That’s not good, to keep thinking that way.

A few minutes later, they pull into his driveway and Mesut throws the car into park, idling so Cristiano can undo his seatbelt and grab his things.

“Is the little man home?” Mesut asks, and he jerks his head towards the house. Cristiano likes how Mesut calls Cris the little man; he thinks it’s funny.

“No,” Cristiano says. “He’s at my mom’s, leaving me all alone tonight.” And he means it jokingly, something to cut the tension-all alone, like he doesn’t know how to live without baby monitors and having to tip-toe down the hall-but something about it makes him think of how now would be perfect, if it was possible, to take Mesut inside and take off his shirt, to bite down on his earlobes, his collarbones, the sides of his ribs, to do everything he’s ever wanted to Mesut without worrying about waking Cris up, and suddenly, Cristiano wants to kiss Mesut so, so bad. And he doesn’t say any of that out loud-he knows he doesn’t-but either way, Mesut’s eyes go wide. Maybe he saw Cristiano looking at his lips, or maybe not; either way, it doesn’t really matter.

What does matter is the way Mesut leans over, presses his lips to Cristiano’s like he’s not entirely sure if he’s allowed to. Cristiano kisses back; of course he kisses back. He kisses back and slides one hand behind Mesut’s neck, and he’s wanted this for so long, it seems, that he almost can’t believe it’s happening.

He asks, “Do you want to-?”

“Yeah,” Mesut says. “Yes,” and he scrambles to undo his seatbelt and turn off his car.

Inside, Cristiano wastes no time; he takes off Mesut’s shirt and sucks on the skin just below the hollow of Mesut’s throat. His hands are everywhere, all over Mesut’s bare skin, until Mesut stops them, his hands around Cristiano’s wrists. Cristiano has one second-just one-to think that he’s gone too far too fast, before Mesut reaches forward, his fingers carefully unbuttoning Cristiano’s shirt; he gets halfway before Cristiano gets tired of waiting and pulls away to do it himself, tossing it on the floor once it’s off.

They make their way upstairs like that, shedding their clothes along the way as they touch whatever skin they can. Halfway down the hall, Mesut trips over one of Cris’s toys that got left out, and Cristiano thinks, He’s going to realize what he’s doing and I’m going to be cock-blocked by my one-year-old son. But then Mesut just laughs and places a kiss to the side of Cristiano’s neck.

Cristiano doesn’t let himself think about how nice it could be to have this every day, all the time, and instead focuses on how nice it is to have it just this once.

When they get to the bedroom, Cristiano takes his time. He kisses Mesut slow, uses his tongue and his teeth, and Mesut’s fingernails bite into his hips, blunt and hard at the waistband of his briefs. He doesn’t know how Mesut wants to do this, doesn’t really know how to ask, and so instead he just avoids it all together and pushes Mesut back onto the bed, kisses Mesut hard as their hands wander, as they jack each other off. And it’s so strange, that Mesut actually wants him back, just because Cristiano had thought Mesut was a dead end, not happening, but there he is, his hands on Cristiano’s skin, his fingers just on the right side of too tight, and he has Cristiano’s hips stuttering sooner than Cristiano would care to admit.

He pulls back a little, just to look at Mesut. His eyes are trained on Cristiano’s face, his body, and the point where their hands are pressed between their hips; Cristiano doesn’t know what he did to deserve any of this, but he wants it again, wants it again already even though this time isn’t even over yet, and he thinks that maybe Mesut will want to spend the night, maybe he’ll want to go down on Cristiano later, or let Cristiano go down on him, or maybe they’ll fuck, and Cristiano doesn’t care whether he’s on the top or the bottom, not when it’s with Mesut, and not when Mesut’s looking at him like that, his mouth open and his breath catching in his throat, and then later, biting his lip so that he stays quiet, their hands all over each other, their hips almost flush together, saying his name-Cristiano-like it means more than it does, and suddenly Cristiano can’t hold back any longer, and he squeezes his eyes tight enough to see stars.

Afterwards, he realizes that Mesut must have come too, that it’s their come pressed between their bellies, and Cristiano doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to deal with this kind of thing, the kind of thing that he doesn’t want to be just one night.

Mesut reaches up and pushes his own sweaty hair out of his eyes, saying, “You know, I never thought that you’d, um-that you’d be interested.” He stumbles over his words but doesn’t blush afterwards, not like he used to when he was first learning Spanish. Cristiano thinks vaguely that it’s a shame; he’s wanted to know how far the flush went, if reached his chest or stayed in his cheeks.

“Well, I am,” Cristiano says, and for some reason, he’s embarrassed. He tries to think of what else to say, but comes up empty; for all the outward perfection that he has, for all the football talent that he’s got, he has no clue how to talk to someone like maybe they mean something, like maybe they could hurt him if they tried.

Mesut smiles and says, “Me too,” and he kisses Cristiano again, differently this time because it’s not leading to anything, and Cristiano wasn’t at all expecting that.

A few minutes later, when Cristiano gets out of bed and finds that the come has half-dried on his stomach, he thinks maybe he’ll ask Mesut if he wants to shower with him.

“You should probably-“ and he just waves to their stomachs.

Mesut looks like he doesn’t follow for a second, but then his eyebrows shoot up and he says, “Oh. Yeah, just let me-just let me clean up and I’ll be gone in a second.”

And he is; he wipes off his stomach in the bathroom and struggles back into his clothing, and then he looks at Cristiano, pulls as face as he scratches the back of his head and says, “Well. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And then he kisses Cristiano again before he leaves.

It’s not exactly the way Cristiano had planned, but Cristiano figures that if he has his way, there will be lots of time to practice.

Next time, you stay for the shower, he texts Mesut, because now that Mesut’s not actually there, Cristiano snaps back into his old self. Mesut must be driving, though, because Cristiano doesn’t hear back for almost fifteen minutes. But when he does, when Mesut finally does text back, he says, Next time, and it sounds like a promise to Cristiano.

The next morning, Cristiano calls a car service and gets to practice early as usual. No one is there and Valdebebas is empty, quiet, exactly how Cristiano likes it. He uses the keys that they gave him to open the locker room, and then he suits up, heads out onto the pitch to get some running in.

Almost forty-five minutes later, the rest of the guys come out onto the pitch; Cristiano is sitting at the opposite touchline from them, stretching, and they wave. Kaka heads over, though, like he usually does, to say good morning.

Only when he’s standing next to Cristiano, blocking the morning sun from Cristiano’s eyes, he tilts his head and says, “You look different.” And Cristiano must look confused because he’s exactly the same, and so Kaka continues, “You look like you normally do after a really good date.” It’s his way of saying, There’s a hickey on your neck and you look thoroughly fucked, Cristiano supposes.

Cristiano doesn’t want to lie because the hickey already says everything even if he doesn’t, and so he just says, “Yeah, I guess.”

It’s such an evasive move, the way he doesn’t add anything else, and he’s convinced that Kaka’s going to call him out on it, but then he doesn’t.

Instead, Kaka smiles so widely for him and prompts, “So? What did you guys do? Movie? Drinks?”

“No,” Cristiano says, and he shrugs. Kaka will get what he means by that. “Just stayed at my place.”

Kaka’s smile slips a little, and Cristiano wants to tell him, wants so badly to tell him, It’s not like that, not this time.

“You deserve to be in love,” Kaka says, and it’s something only he could ever get away with. It kind of stings, even though it wasn’t at all meant to, the way that Kaka is so used to Cristiano’s one-nighters that he has no problem assuming that’s what’s happening again. Kaka catches himself, though, makes a face at the way he just sounded, and then adds, “I know you’re looking, but this isn’t it, Cristiano. You deserve better than this.”

“I know,” Cristiano says, because that’s what he’s supposed to say. But what does Kaka know? Kaka doesn’t know anything, doesn’t know that it’s Mesut that they’re talking about, or how Cristiano feels; Kaka’s only ever had Caroline, and Cristiano’s only ever been alone.

He thinks, though, later on when they’re stretching and Mesut is paired with him, that he might not be alone forever. He doesn’t mean it like he thinks Mesut’s it for him or anything, but he’s good-looking, he knows, and he’s got money, and fame, and people like those things. And he likes Mesut.

Mesut lies in the grass, and Cristiano holds him by the ankle, pushes his leg back until Mesut says that he can feel the stretch. All Cristiano can do is think about how different it would look, if they were in his bed, or in Mesut’s, instead of out on the pitch, in front of the whole squad. He thinks about what it would be like, to fuck Mesut.

“Hey,” Mesut says, and it startles Cristiano out of his thoughts. “We’re okay, aren’t we?”

Cristiano smiles as wide as he can without it coming across as fake, and he says, “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

Mesut smiles back and Cristiano strokes his thumb along the inside of Mesut’s ankle.

After practice, after he and Mesut spend time in the sauna and shower and get dressed, they walk out to the parking lot together, and Sami’s out there amongst the cars, talking on his cellphone. He waves at them.

“New girlfriend,” Mesut explains vaguely, and Cristiano just nods his head and waves back. His shoulder knocks against Mesut’s.

“What happened to him and the other one?” Cristiano asks, because he thought Sami was dating someone when he transferred.

“She didn’t like that he was in Madrid or something, I don’t know,” Mesut says with a shrug. “I don’t think they were serious.”

It makes Cristiano wonder, for the first time, just how close Mesut and Sami were before they came over; he always just assumed they were really close, although maybe that’s just because they were both Germans in Spain.

Sami hangs up and jogs over, using a hand to shade his eyes from the sun because he forgot his sunglasses.

Mesut motions to Sami’s cell phone and asks him, “How’s she doing?”

“She’s alright,” Sami says, shrugging. “She’s going to come visit, but she’s worried because she doesn’t know any Spanish.” He pulls a face like, What can you do?

Cristiano says, “But she’ll have you to show her around, so,” and Mesut lets out a loud burst of laughter.

“No,” Sami says to Mesut, and he points his finger at him. “Don’t you even dare.”

Mesut keeps laughing and Cristiano looks between the two of them, confused.

“What?” he asks.

“When we first got here, and we were still sharing that apartment,” Mesut starts, but then he’s laughing again and Sami’s looking embarrassed.

“Okay, okay,” Sami says, and he says it calmly, like none of this is a big deal. “Maybe when I first moved here, I went into a grocery store and asked for something using the wrong word. It’s not a big deal.”

Mesut turns to Cristiano, a huge smile on his face, and says, “He was looking for marmalade and asked the woman at the register for a blowjob.”

Cristiano bursts into laughter as Sami tries to explain himself, “Mermelada and mamada sound similar alright? I can hardly be the only person that’s made that mistake!”

“Let me guess,” Cristiano says. “He walked out with neither.”

“He’s not allowed to shop there anymore,” Mesut explains, his face still flushed with laughter.

“And I don’t really want to talk about it!” Sami says, but he’s laughing, too, and so Cristiano doesn’t feel that bad. He can’t believe Mesut kept it secret for so long; if it was him, and Marcelo had been the one who got kicked out of a grocery store, the whole team would’ve known by sundown.

By the time the three of them finally leave, they had been talking for almost forty-five minutes, there in the parking lot, and Cristiano calls his mom to let him know that he’s on his way back. When she answers, Cris is crying hysterically in the background, and Cristiano’s heart irrationally jumps in his throat.

“What happened? Is he okay?” he asks, and he speeds through a yellow light.

“He’s fine, he fine,” his mother says. “He just tripped and bumped his head. Just a bruise; he’s fine.”

“Alright, alright,” Cristiano says. “I’m on my way.” And as he hangs up, he thinks, for a second, that he should have been there, with his son, and not shooting the shit in the parking lot of the Valdebebas with his teammates. There’s no way he could have known-he knows that-but still. The thought’s there.

Part Three