Archive of Our Own

“Oh, c’mon,” is the first thing Ben says, squinting down at Google Maps.

“That’s-”

“What’re you gonna do, Munich? Stuttgart? What kind of tourist destinations-”

“-can you-”

“Ooh! We should go to Liechtenstein, I don’t think anyone’s ever been there-”

“-well, I have actually-”

“Oh fuck, I zoomed it out. Go back, go—wait, how much of a detour would it be to go to Italy? Maybe we can visit your home? Let me just draaa-aa-aaag—there we go, only seventeen hours, assuming we stop overnight that’s not terrible-”

Jannik’s head thunks against the wall behind him.

He’s so fucking tired. He thought he knew exhaustion after winning Beijing, but the trip to Shanghai was painless and he perhaps did not put as much of an effort into the next tournament as he could have. Which is, all told, part of the reason he lost to the man across the table from him currently holding his phone hostage.

And why is Ben still here, anyway?

“Sightseeing, bro,” he says when Jannik asks, blinking slowly as if to punctuate with obviously.

“Oh.” Jannik scrubs a hand over his face. “Did you have fun?”

“This city is awesome. Wienerschnitzel are so much better than I thought they would be.”

Jannik has to consider this. His brain is fried. “Why did you think that they would not be good?”

“The name.” Blink, blink.

“Ri-ight.”

“Where does your family live again?”

“I—Sesto. Near San Candido.”

Ben tap-taps. He’s a much faster typist than Jannik. “Okay,” he says after a pause. “Your parents are still around, right? They drove here?”

Jannik doesn’t like where this is going.

“So,” Ben plows on, bravely, “we hitch a ride back to yours, crash there, then, look! We can go right through Liechtenstein to Paris. Easy peasy.”

“Liechtenstein,” Jannik corrects absentmindedly. Ben’s been saying lick-ten-stine. “What do you mean, crash?”

“Yeah, like. Spend the night.”

“With… my family?”

Ben abandons Google Maps. Jannik’s phone glows dully between them. “Is that okay? You’re always welcome at our place if you’re in the States. If you play Miami, I’m sure we could set something up. We’re not super close to it, but.”

“I-”

Jannik’s not sure how they ended up here. Five minutes ago, he’d been coming back from the awkward post-victory photoshoot in the Center Court lounge, stopping by the deserted cafeteria for a coffee and to massage his aching quads. He hadn’t expected anyone else to join him except maybe Darren and Simone, though they’d said their goodbyes already. If anyone, it certainly would not have been Ben Shelton, who by all logic should have skipped town after Jannik avenged his Shanghai loss.

But here they are. And what’s he supposed to say—no?

*

“Mama, Papa,” Jannik says. “This is Ben.”

His parents stare.

To be fair, it’s hard not to. Ben is improbably bigger than Jannik and impossibly more energetic. He bounces on the balls of his feet, then grins with a touch of hesitation and thrusts out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Hanspeter recovers first. “Nice to meet you too,” he says, politely overarticulating one of the only English phrases he knows.

Ben shakes his dad’s hand, then his mom’s.

“He needs a ride to Paris,” Jannik says to them, Südtirolerisch now. “I thought we could all drive home together, and Ben and I will keep going tomorrow. He can stay with us, right?”

He feels like he’s nine again, asking his parents’ permission to have Kai or Jonas over for a sleepover. The situation probably warrants more of an explanation, given that he has never once fostered an interaction between his family and another player beyond a simple introduction, much less invited one to his childhood home. But he’s tired and faintly embarrassed to still be holding his trophy, which he couldn’t make fit in any of his suitcases.

“I thought you were going straight to Paris,” his mom says. “To warm up.”

Ben is looking between the three of them and nodding as if he understands.

“It’s okay,” Jannik says. “Don’t worry.”

It’s a nonanswer, but his parents’ eyes flick at each other, to Ben, and back to Jannik in quick succession. Eerie, the kind of synchronicity that comes from nearly three decades of marriage. “You’re always welcome,” his dad says. “And any of your—friends.”

Jannik’s brain hitches on the hesitation, but it’s not until they’ve loaded up four sets of suitcases, two racket bags, and one Gucci bag that he figures it out. Over Siglinde’s protests, Ben and Jannik have taken the backseat, unable to arrange themselves comfortably enough to sit without brushing against one another every three seconds. Jannik sighs and presses his temple against the cold of the window and realizes: his parents think he’s bringing home a lover.

Ben Shelton, of all people. Jannik closes his eyes and restrains a smile.

He’s asleep before they’ve left the city.

*

He wakes up to a lot of nothing. They’re still in Austria, presumably. The landscape blurring past is dark and hilly and infinitely comforting. Sleep drags at him; with great effort, he flutters his eyelashes until he’s certain that he won’t pass out again.

“Hey,” Ben says quietly when Jannik stirs.

Jannik stretches as much as he’s able to, which is not a lot. “Hey.”

Ben lowers his headphones. “You were out, man. We’re almost there.”

Jannik squints out the window, but nothing looks familiar to him. His eyes feel dry and scratchy.

“Mama, hosch du meine Brüll?”

She hands Jannik his glasses case over her head. He grunts in thanks and slides his contacts out.

“Ew,” Ben says. “Oh my god. Don’t-”

Shrugging, Jannik rolls down the window a crack and flicks the contacts outside.

“Come on,” Ben says, dismayed.

“Fucking tired,” Jannik mutters, resettling against the window. “Want to be home.”

“Almost there,” Ben says again. “That’s funny that you get cranky.”

Jannik doesn’t know why Ben thinks he’s cranky or what would be so amusing about it. He aims a kick at Ben’s foot. It lands true, honed by years of careful practice doing the same to Mark in this very backseat.

There’s no response. Jannik’s eyes drift shut. He’s on the cusp of falling asleep again when a burst of pain startles him upright: a sharp flick to the kneecap.

“Asshole,” Jannik says, and Ben laughs softly.

*

It’s well past midnight when they make it home.

“Whoa,” Ben says.

Jannik doesn’t blame him. Sesto is striking in a way that he forgets about every time he leaves and is reminded of the few times a year he comes back. Mountains rise starkly out of nothingness, illuminated by moonglow. These are the slopes that all of his earliest memories belong to. The air here is different. Better. Maybe it’s dumb, but Jannik thinks it smells like it’s never had contact with the outside world.

The Sinner home would be considered modest if not for one technicality. Two years ago as Italy was just shaking off the throes of the pandemic, Jannik had hired contractors to build a second house on the property. Even then he’d been earning enough money to let his parents retire comfortably, which they refused on the many occasions he brought up the topic. The guest house was a compromise that he took as a considerable victory.

“We will stay here,” Jannik says, pointing. He always stays in his old bedroom when he’s home, but he feels weird abandoning Ben to an empty house.

“Sweet,” Ben says and starts dragging his suitcase. “Dude, I’m starving. Are there snacks?”

*

Hanspeter does not fuck around when it comes to food.

He’s fretting when Jannik enters the kitchen, unhappy, it seems, about not being able to have anything ready for their guest.

“Relax, it’s fine,” Jannik says. “We’ll have some cheese or whatever. Go to sleep.”

This will apparently not do. His dad assembles a basket of bread and an entire charcuterie board. Jannik stops feigning indifference long enough to beg for the homemade Schlutzkrapfen in the freezer.

“They’re a little old,” Hanspeter says dubiously.

“Please please please please please?”

Siglinde has work the next day and looks dead on her feet. She’s leaving too early for him to catch her in the morning, so he kisses her goodbye. “I’m so proud of you,” she says, and Jannik blushes with the earnestness of it. “You were marvelous today. The whole week. And it was so nice meeting your friend.”

“He’s just a friend, Mama.” For all its precision, the German language does not distinguish between friend and boyfriend. Ben isn’t really a friend, either, but no language he speaks has a term for a distant coworker who’s invited himself to your family home and onward travels.

She smiles at him, sleepy and unbothered. “All the same.”

“Oh my god,” Ben says when Jannik returns to the guest house, hands full. “Ohhhhh my god.”

Jannik puts him in charge of heating the pasta on the stove, if not just to keep him from decimating the charcuterie. This backfires. Ben keeps sneaking half-thawed mezzelune from the pot, hissing when he singes his fingers.

“These ravioli things,” he says. “Holy shit.”

“Let me have some,” Jannik grouses.

“You can have two.”

“No,” Jannik says, horrified.

They make short work of the food and then it’s two in the morning. “That was insane,” Ben says, burping a little, and Jannik half-expects him to lick the bowl. “I’m so coming back here next year. Or before then.”

“Time for bed.”

“Yes, Mom.” Ben salutes and trundles gamely toward the room Jannik set him up in earlier. “Hasta mañana.”

“Morgn seng wir uns,” Jannik says.

*

Ben is at the kitchen table when Jannik rolls in the next morning. He’s shower-damp and holding—something. Jannik puts on his glasses. It’s the Tageszeitung.

“Your hair,” Ben says by way of greeting. “You sleep forever, dude.”

Jannik runs a hand through his curls fruitlessly. He glances at the paper over Ben’s shoulder. “You can read this?”

“No, but I get the gist.”

It’s open to one of the later pages. Jannik sees his own grainy headshot. SINNER SIEGT IN PEKING, reads the headline.

He snatches it from Ben, who lets out a cackle. “I honestly can’t wait to see your trophy room.”

“We don’t have one,” Jannik lies. “Let’s see if we can have breakfast. We should start driving.”

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty, you don’t have to tell me. I’ve been awake for two hours. I went on a run.”

It was enough time, too, for Ben to have done the dishes. Jannik dresses and runs through the abbreviated version of his hair routine. Just enough that the curls won’t drive him insane. They take the pots and utensils, cleaned and dried surprisingly well, back to the main house.

Hanspeter has taken last night as a personal failing and prepared them a minor feast. There’s bread, meat, cheese, yogurt, muesli, several kinds of beverages and even more kinds of spreads. “Thank you so much,” Ben says, taking some of everything except the coffee. Jannik is vaguely affronted. “Wow. I wish we could have this to go.”

“We can,” Jannik says after he’s translated for his dad, and Ben perks up.

A mountain of cold cuts and pastries rises from Ben’s plate, the yolk of a fried egg its wobbly summit. He starts to sit at the table with Jannik and his dad, and then hesitates, eyes darting to the sofa by the window.

“It’s alright,” Jannik says. “Please sit here.”

They eat in relative silence and it’s not as weird as it perhaps could be. Ben makes little exclamations as he makes his way through the plate, something Jannik is sure will endear him to his dad forever, and goes through the entire jug of multivitamin juice by himself.

Ben and Hanspeter bicker good-naturedly in two different languages over cleaning up. Ben gets shouted down and goes back to the table to pick over the remaining croissants. Jannik is offered no such reprieve and helps his dad wash the dishes, using it as a chance to negotiate the car situation. In the end, Jannik is allowed the use of his dad’s car, provided that he also drive it back after the end of the tournament.

“And the hotel for tonight-”

“I’ll take care of it,” Jannik says. This is the kind of thing he has an agent for, but he doesn’t like to bother Joseph on short notice.

“You’re sure you don’t want us to come out there?”

Jannik half-smiles. “If I make it to the final, then sure.”

“I have no doubt.” Hanspeter is frowning. Jannik thinks he’s on the verge of saying more, but it doesn’t come out until they’ve got the suitcases loaded back into the car and Ben has said his goodbyes, having shaken Hanspeter’s hand with such enthusiasm it seemed he might pull him in for a hug. Ben settles into the passenger seat, and through the windshield Jannik can see him carefully arranging the picnic basket in the footwell.

“Put yourself first, okay?” his dad says. Jannik nods, unsure what he’s referring to. “If you’re tired, don’t push yourself too hard.”

“Great advice, Papa, that sounds exactly like you,” Jannik says. “Not working too hard.”

His dad just smiles. “Good thing you’re a lot smarter than I am.”

They hug. Jannik feels a slight twinge, saying goodbye just around twelve hours after he arrived. It’s the story of life on tour: a perpetual state of leaving.

“Be well. Safe travels. Play hard.”

“See you soon, Papa.”

*

So then: the Autostrada.

They spend the first few minutes in total silence. Jannik realizes that outside of yesterday’s interaction, he’s never spent any time alone with the guy. Then again, he doesn’t think he’s spent any time alone with any other player, either, barring the few uncomfortable minutes in the locker room before and after a later-round match. Otherwise there’s always been someone else around; coaches, agents, fellow players, the media, an endless throng of fans.

It could be nice. Maybe.

“Let’s get some tunes, deej,” Ben says.

“Sorry?”

“Oh, uh. You can play some music, if you want.”

Hanspeter’s car is a clunker, a 2010 Volkswagen Golf whose better days are behind it. Yet another thing his parents had refused his help with. He would’ve just bought them a car if he weren’t confident that Hanspeter would have sent it right back to the dealership.

It takes some fiddling around to get the aux cord plugged in. He misses the Alfa Romeo intensely. His poor baby, all alone in Monaco, rotting in a garage somewhere. He connects his phone and hands it to Ben. “Pick something.”

He’s got playlists, but he doesn’t really like to share them with strangers. Ben seems up to the occasion, though. “You like rap?”

“Of course.”

“I’m going through a Central Cee phase.”

“I don’t know them.”

Ben smiles. The music comes on a second later, fuzzy through the VW’s shitty speakers. They bop their heads along without speaking and it’s only somewhat awkward. Jannik wonders if he’s supposed to make conversation.

A few songs play. Ben leans down and lifts the top of the picnic basket at his feet. The smell of bread and ham rises from it. He lets out a low moan.

“You can if you’d like,” Jannik says, amused.

“Nah, it’s okay,” Ben says wistfully, closing the basket again. “If I start now I’m gonna destroy this whole thing in three minutes.”

“Alright.”

“Your dad is so, so nice,” Ben says. “Your mom, too, obviously. I just didn’t talk to her as much.”

“Your dad is also,” Jannik says. Bryan had sought him out after his matches against Ben both in Shanghai and Vienna, shaking his hand with the smile his son so clearly inherited and telling Jannik how well he played. “You’re very lucky.”

Ben hums in agreement. “Doesn’t your dad travel with you?”

Jannik finds himself talking, slowly at first, then faster as he settles into the English: about his dad’s retirement, how he accompanies Jannik and his team to tournaments, refusing any attempts Jannik makes to furnish him with a salary, cooking for them all whenever there’s an opportunity. Ben’s a good listener, which surprises Jannik maybe more than it should. He doesn’t interrupt, but he laughs in the right places, loose and unselfconscious about it in a way Jannik envies. “But it’s different when he’s your coach, I’m sure.”

Ben shrugs. He turns to the window for a second and then turns back to face Jannik. Jannik has appreciated this about him. He struggles with the Americans sometimes, the way their accent turns sentences to potato mash in their mouths. But Ben talks in his direction and slows down just a little. He’s more soft-spoken than his on-court persona would suggest. “Like you said, I’m lucky. If the person telling you what to do is also your family, someone you love, you better hope you have a good relationship.”

Jannik thinks of Darren. “This is true.”

Silence again. It’s as good a segue as Jannik will get for what he actually wants to know. “And your dad, he’s in Paris already?”

“Yeah. Flew there last night.”

“You did not want to go with him?”

There’s a pause. “Nah,” Ben says, casual. “Lowkey, I hate flying.”

“Lowkey,” Jannik says.

“Yeah. It’s always so cramped and gross in a plane. And then you miss all the scenery. Driving’s more fun.”

“It is,” Jannik agrees. It’s still not much of an answer, but he doesn’t think Ben will be forthcoming if he pries.

They end up making it almost an hour before Ben succumbs and takes out a sandwich. “Okay to eat in here?”

“Ehm, sure. Give me one too, please.” He’ll get the VW cleaned before he drives it back.

They’re near Aica, where the autostrada will loop around and take them north, back toward Austria. Jannik pokes a finger at his window. “My brother lives here, south.”

“You have a brother?”

“In Bolzano, yes.”

“I don’t think I knew that. Does he play tennis too?”

The idea of Mark holding a racket makes him laugh. “No, he is an instructor. At the, how do you say it, the firefighter school.”

“They have fire here?”

Jannik can’t tell if he’s joking. “They have fire everywhere.”

“Damn. He’s doing like, real work.”

He can’t register anything but admiration in Ben’s voice, and something in him softens. “It’s not so many people who would say this.”

“What, that he’s doing real work? And we’re not?” Ben grins. “Sure, because whacking around tennis balls is totally as important as firefighting.”

Ben sleeps only once that day, a twenty-minute power nap he snaps out of just as quickly as he had succumbed to. There comes a lull in the conversation, and after a few minutes Jannik glances over to see Ben conked out against the window. He seems happy to be asleep, Jannik thinks. The smile that’s always hanging around him when he’s awake follows him into unconsciousness. Jannik’s been told by his family and various bedmates that he sleeps hard and angry, brow furrowed like he’s trying to make passing shots in his dreams.

He takes a moment to envy Ben’s blissfulness before exhaling quietly and refocusing on the road ahead, letting his mind go blank and numb. For a few minutes he thinks about nothing. Then he calls the number he’d pulled up just before they left, a hotel in Zurich his mom had recommended in a text this morning, and books two rooms.

“Want me to drive at some point?” Ben says when he wakes up. He seems just as energetic as before. It’s a talent; Jannik tends to pass out in any mode of transportation he isn’t driving.

“You know how to drive with the stick?”

“...No.”

Jannik bites back a smile. “It’s okay. We will stop in Zurich overnight.”

“Okay. But first-”

“Liechtenstein,” Jannik confirms, and Ben whoops his approval.

*

“It’s nice,” Ben says, turning slowly on the spot.

They’re outside of a literal castle in Balzers. Ben had picked it out from a list of tourist destinations he’d pulled up on his phone after they crossed the border. Jannik had hesitated when they parked, unsure, suddenly, of wandering around in public with Ben. But he wasn’t about to stay in the car by himself while Ben got to explore, so he compromised, retrieving one of his caps and tucking his curls into it. They would still draw attention for their height, but Jannik had figured he was far less recognizable with his hair concealed.

The castle grounds are mostly devoid of tourists, anyway, and no one glances at them twice. Jannik keeps looking around every few seconds, jumpy. It’s not like it’s weird to be seen in public with Ben. It isn’t.

Ben meanders, pausing to take pictures of the view. After they had stopped for a late-afternoon snack at a café, it had been a brief hike to the top of the hill. Jannik had been less interested in the castle, of which he’s seen hundreds, and more in the chance to stretch his legs and get fresh air.

Ben takes a few more pictures, then changes to the front-facing camera and snaps a selfie with the castle in the background, holding up a peace sign. “For the ‘gram,” he tells Jannik.

“Uh-huh.”

“Here, c’mere.”

Jannik hesitates and Ben lowers the phone, lips pursed. “I’m not gonna post it.”

“Right.” Jannik goes to stand next to him and remembers to show his teeth in the photo. Ben takes one with eyes narrowed, the same face he makes on court when he’s particularly impressed with his own shot. Then he takes another in which he’s smiling. Jannik can’t really rearrange his own expression, but he tries to show a few more teeth.

They crane over Ben’s phone to look at the pictures.

“Sweet,” Ben declares.

“Send those to me?” Jannik says, surprising himself.

Ben nods and they continue on. Jannik doesn’t think that he’ll ever see the pictures again. But after they’ve made their way down the hill and stopped by the tourist center for Ben to buy a few postcards before clambering back into the VW, Jannik’s phone chimes with a notification. He glances at it to see a WhatsApp message from Ben Shelton.

Back on the road, over yet another border and they’re in Switzerland.

*

“Out.”

“Out.”

“Out!”

“OUT.”

“Out,” Ben chirps. “Aht.”

“Oh, that one was good. I think it’s like that.”

“Ahp.”

“Eht.”

It’s been going on like this for the past few minutes. There’s one voice in the Hawk-Eye system that’s particularly memorable in its curtness—a woman’s, though it sounds more robot than female. Ben has the better impression of it.

“Ehhhk,” Ben says.

“That was more like when someone hit the ball. Maybe Diego sounds like this.”

Ben cracks up. “Oh shit, dude, the media people made me do that insane game where you guess the players’ grunts. You ever done that one?”

“I have never.”

“It’s so hard, man.”

“Did you know any?”

“Yeah like, none of them. We did that in Auckland? So I’d been on tour for, what, six months?”

“I never pay attention to these things.”

“Same. But this is you.”

There’s silence. Jannik glances over at Ben, who’s staring fixedly out the window. It’s only when Ben’s lips twitch into a smile that he gets it. “Ha.”

“Some guys are so fucking loud, though. I mean, I know I can be, too.”

“Carlos. Rublev.”

“Rublev.”

They trade bwehs, Ben miming a right-handed forehand in the limited space of the passenger seat, and nod, pleased with themselves. Then Jannik clears his throat, reaches down into his core and moans gutturally. “Ahhhh.”

It’s the most sexual noise he’s ever made outside of a bedroom. Ben dissolves into laughter. “What the fuck was that!”

“Dominic Thiem.”

“No cap,” Ben says, and Jannik thinks he sounds almost impressed.

*

They check in just after dark to the hotel Siglinde had recommended. It’s on the outskirts of Zurich, not the city proper: she knows her son well. Jannik is nervous, again, about the possibility of being recognized, but he dusts off his Hochdeutsch to speak to the receptionist and they don’t spend more than a few minutes holding tennis gear in the lobby.

“Do you wanna get dinner soon?”

There’s no reason not to. “Yes. Okay. Maybe we go eat in an hour? I need to do a little bit of gym today.”

Ben nods and Jannik worries, briefly, that Ben will want to accompany him there, too. But when he goes to the hotel gym it’s empty, and Jannik lets himself revel in the solitude.

He’s got a list of workouts Umberto’s created specifically for hotel gyms and makes his way through one of the shorter ones. After he’s gotten back to his room and showered, he sees that Ben has messaged him a few restaurants in the vicinity. Jannik picks one at random.

The feeling of being watched, usually manageable when he’s out on his own, makes its unwelcome return, especially once they’re seated. Jannik keeps sneaking glances at Ben, but he seems completely unbothered. Maybe he isn’t famous enough to get it, yet; maybe he just doesn’t care.

The restaurant’s relatively quiet, though, and once Jannik feels confident no one has recognized him, he stops looking over his shoulder. He’s been with Ben for nearly eight hours now. It should be exhausting, but he doesn’t feel it.

“I watched your final,” Ben says without preamble.

“You mean on the TV?”

“No. I was there.”

Jannik raises his eyebrows, oddly flattered. “The people did not recognize you?” One would think Ben stands out in a crowd.

“A few.” Ben shrugs. “But everyone was there for you. Vienna really loved you.”

“Oh.” Jannik never knows what to say in situations like these, how to return the sentiment to a crowd when he’s so outnumbered by it. “I did not see your Tokyo final,” he admits, and Ben laughs. “But I hear that you played well there. Your first title is a very big accomplishment.”

He hates this part, usually, the obligatory praising that players do when reuniting after tournaments. To his credit, though, Ben seems equally uncomfortable. “Thanks. I wasn’t fishing for that.”

Jannik smiles. “You don’t have to.”

They pore over the menu. “Let’s get some drinks,” Ben says.

“I do not.”

“Drink? Ever?”

Jannik shrugs. “Maybe for a special occasion.”

“Not beer? You’re German.”

“I’m Italian.”

“Okay, so wine,” Ben says easily.

“I don’t like the taste.”

“Fair. But we’re in Zurich. The beer’s probably really good.”

Jannik doesn’t see the correlation. “Do you drink often?” Most of his colleagues don’t, as far as he knows, barring the occasional glass of wine with dinner. They’ve all learned how quickly alcohol can wreak havoc on a tournament performance.

“Nah, since I’ve turned pro, not really. In college I got fucked up a lot.” Ben smiles, nostalgic. “So you’ve never been drunk? Oh,” he says. “When you turn red you turn red red.”

Jannik turns red. “No I don’t.” Ben laughs, which doesn’t help. “Okay. We order one beer.”

“My man,” Ben says approvingly.

By the end of dinner, they’ve had two each. Jannik doesn’t usually like the taste of beer, either, but Ben’s chosen well and the drink goes down smoothly. Jannik tries to repay the favor, makes sure they get enough food that they won’t end up fighting for it.

“This is my new favorite dish of all time,” Ben says.

“You have never had fondue?” Jannik loses a piece of bread to the pot and fishes it back out with the fork.

“Sure, the American shit. You can’t even compare. Oh my god. I’m moving here tomorrow.”

Jannik reaches for his wallet to settle and gets his hand slapped by Ben. They stand and Jannik doesn’t feel the alcohol. Probably.

He’s about to say something about going back to the hotel—they had walked here, and the night air is cool but not unpleasant—when Ben smiles broadly. “I looked it up and there’s a place nearby with live music.”

Jannik should say no. It’s not late, exactly, but he tries to keep a fairly regular bedtime so he can actually drag himself awake in the mornings. He hesitates and Ben presses his advantage, something that shouldn’t surprise Jannik now that he’s twice faced the guy on a court. “We can just swing by. It’s on the way to the hotel, anyway.”

This ends up being untrue, but somehow Jannik still lets himself get dragged along. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but the inside is dim and warm, the floor tacky with spilled beer. Cozy, in a way. There’s a band near the front, just as Ben had said, playing a cover of an old song Jannik faintly recognizes.

“Oh, Green Day,” Ben says. “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

“Yeah. I like this one.”

They sing along quietly. Ben’s actually got a decent voice. “Hold up. I’ll get us some drinks.”

“No, don’t-”

It’s too late. Ben vanishes, leaving Jannik to rub tiredly at his face. When he comes back, he’s got two shot glasses of full clear liquid.

“What is it,” Jannik says.

Ben shrugs. “I dunno. I asked for something Italian.”

Jannik doesn’t want this.

Ben lifts the shot glass and waits, smiling expectantly, until Jannik does the same, and then taps it down onto the table. “Cheers, man. No, what is it?”

“Prost,” Jannik says, glum.

He hates shots, but this one is smooth and sweet and reminds him of adolescence. “Oh, sambuca.”

“Sure, that.”

The band isn’t half-bad. They listen in silence, Ben bobbing his head and tapping his fingers. The empty shot glasses rattle on the table, and Jannik realizes it’s because both of them are bouncing their legs. The world softens around the edges, almost imperceptibly.

He doesn’t attempt to turn down the next two that Ben brings around, which he does simultaneously, balancing two shots of something sunshine yellow in each of his hands. Clever Ben. The limoncello tastes like covert nights out in Bordighera, freedom and guilt in equal measure. Sneaking into the Discoteca and a series of firsts. His first kiss, Claudia Amato, both of them studiously avoiding each other on the courts after that. First tournament won while suffering from his first hangover.

The fourth drink is something different and comes in a bigger glass. It’s an amber liquid and smells vile. “My dad and I would always drink whiskey with the team when we won tourneys. Oh my—fuck, don’t shoot it.”

It’s too late. Jannik attempts to knock the entire thing back and nearly chokes on it. “Ben!”

Ben slides down the bench, laughing riotously. “You’ve got balls, Sinner, swear.”

Jannik smiles at him. The aftertaste in his mouth is horrid and he wants more sambuca, but the rest of him is warm, pleasant.

“Mm-kay.” Ben takes a demonstrative little sip and stands up. Jannik thinks he’s going to get something else from the bar until he realizes that Ben is towering above him, unmoving.

“What?”

“Let’s dance.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Get your ass up.”

Jannik stands, gawking. “I don’t-”

“Dance?” Ben snorts. “Yeah, like you don’t drink?”

The argument is valid. Still, Jannik takes inventory of everyone else in the bar. They’re practically alone: there’s an old couple, sitting side-by-side and listening to the music without speaking, a group of girls who look young enough to be teenagers, each scrolling through her phone and ignoring the others, and a pair of young men already on what might count as a dance floor. They could be backpackers or honeymooners, Jannik isn’t sure.

Ben’s already out there, his shoulders and feet moving in a smooth rhythm alien to Jannik. He follows a bit woozily.

He stands a few feet away from Ben, feeling desperately awkward.

“That’s it,” Ben encourages.

Jannik moves his feet left, then moves them right. He glances at Ben, who is biting his lip, hard. “I—you’re a tennis player, man,” Ben says, voice wobbling with suppressed laughter. “You know how to move your hips.”

Jannik takes offense. “That is different.”

“Honestly, it’s really not. Here.”

There isn’t any time to react; without knowing quite how they got here, Jannik feels two hands on his hips, feather-light. The sensation isn’t new—Giacomo and Simone have done the same thing hundreds of times—but its source is. Jannik stares.

“Like this.”

There’s a bit of pressure, alternating, and Jannik shifts his weight.

“Don’t move your feet.”

“That is bad advice,” Jannik says, and he smells whiskey when Ben laughs.

“Sometimes it’s like tennis. Sometimes it’s not.”

“Helpful,” Jannik says. But he’s moving of his own volition now, Ben having dropped his hands and taken a few steps back, and it’s easier when he doesn’t think about it. The beat and the liquor flow through him, leaving him loose, free of thoughts.

This goes on for a few songs. Jannik sways, more or less, and Ben’s got an easy groove. The backpacker-newlyweds are holding each other’s hands and Jannik feels a stab of loneliness.

The music shifts into something softer, downtempo. Jannik thinks he might recognize this one from his childhood, but he can’t place it. His legs are heavy and he stumbles forward.

“Careful,” Ben says, giving him a light push back upright. “If you wanted to slow-dance with me, you should’ve just asked.”

“Very funny.”

It’s not the world’s worst idea, though. Jannik tips forward a little more deliberately this time and puts two hands on Ben’s chest. His head feels very heavy all of a sudden, and he lets Ben’s shoulder hold its weight.

He feels Ben go still, and then both of them start moving again in unison, slow and swaying. Jannik is facing outward, his glasses nudged askew, and he can’t see Ben’s face. “Full of surprises, aren’t ya,” he hears.

Not really, he wants to say. But his tongue is thick and foreign in his mouth and he doesn’t know how to form the words.

They stay like this until the song ends and then Jannik huffs out a deep sigh. “Tired.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Ben says. “C’mon, bud, let’s get you to—okay, sure, finish that.” Jannik lurches back over to their table to drain the rest of his glass. He contemplates Ben’s, also unfinished, but Ben grabs his wrist and hauls him away. “Oh my god, leave it, you freak.”

The walk home is faster than Jannik would have thought. He doesn’t lean on Ben and he doesn’t stumble into him, either, which he thinks should earn him more praise than Ben is giving.

“I have been drunk before,” Jannik says.

“Okay.”

“I have!”

“I said okay!”

Jannik tips his head back and laughs. Everything feels shinier, easier. He wonders vaguely if the hotel has a tennis court, if they’d let him and Ben have a hit.

“Happy drunk, huh.”

“You are a happy drunk.”

“I am getting your ungrateful ass back home. Watch out, steps.”

They climb the stairs back to the lobby of their hotel. Jannik wonders distantly why they’re here. He could have kept dancing. He gives the receptionist a beatific smile, but Ben doesn’t let them stay long enough to see if she returns it. He stumbles over his own feet as they get into the elevator.

“Smooth,” Ben says. “Where’s your room?”

Finding his key is a slight ordeal. He panics, wondering if he lost it somewhere in the restaurant or the bar, before he reaches into his coat pocket and finds it there. It’s a physical key, not a key card—the hotel is old-school—and it takes him a bit to get it into the lock. Ben plants his face into the wall and laughs and laughs.

“Shut up.” Jannik toes off his shoes, takes off his glasses, and collapses onto the bed. Above him, the ceiling and Ben’s face are spinning.

“You gonna be alright?”

“I will be alright.”

“Okay. Don’t vom.”

“I will not vom.”

“Call me if you need me, okay? Don’t sleep on your stomach. Yeah—on your side, that’s fine.”

“Mmh.”

He thinks Ben might have said something else, but the bedside lamp clicks off and he hears his door opening and closing a moment after that, leaving him to the room’s dizzy silence.

*

There’s a pounding noise the next morning. As it turns out, it’s not just inside Jannik’s head.

“Hng,” he says.

“Morning, sunshine,” Ben’s voice says on the other side of the door. Jannik aims a pillow in his direction. It flies in a miserable arc before dropping to the ground a meter or so away.

The noise stops and Jannik closes his eyes, trying to go back to sleep.

Ben starts knocking again. “I’ve got coffee.”

The distance between him and the door is—daunting. Jannik takes several deep breaths, wrangles himself out of the bed, and half-crawls there.

“Hey, dude, you look like shit,” Ben says genially. His voice is overloud.

Jannik winces and slouches back into bed. “Coffee.”

Ben holds out a paper cup. “I dunno how you drink it, so it’s just black. You should eat, too.” In his other hand is a slice of bread and a banana.

Jannik’s gut roils and he lies back down with a groan.

“Do we need to get you an industrial-sized trash bin?”

Ben’s lucky Jannik isn’t wearing his glasses. He takes his blurry expression for one of genuine sympathy. “Coffee.”

It’s another few minutes before he feels capable of sitting up. Ben is sitting on the bed next to him, scrolling through his phone. He nods at something just over Jannik’s shoulder. Jannik fumbles around the table until he finds his glasses. Beside them, Ben had set down the coffee, food, a napkin, and two little white pills that Jannik swallows without questioning.

“Your tolerance is ass,” Ben says.

“How—how much?” How much did we drink, he wants to say, but anything beyond two syllables is proving difficult.

Ben presses a hand over his mouth. He might actually be laughing, the bastard. “Honestly not that much. I don’t feel shit.”

They sit in silence and Jannik hates everything. By the time he finally trusts his intestines enough to take in sustenance, the coffee’s barely warm. He swallows it down in four big gulps, chasing it with the bread. “I need to shower.”

“Mhm,” Ben says. It’s neutral enough, but his lips twitch.

Jannik returns from it feeling vaguely more like a person. He doesn’t bother with his hair. His curls will surely frizz up, but he can’t be assed to do more than scrub a towel over them. “Let’s go.”

It’s cruel, really, that he has to be the one to drive. He weighs the costs and benefits of hiring someone to chauffeur the VW so he can pass out in the back seat. Then he weighs the costs and benefits of hiring someone to put a bullet through his head.

“No music,” Jannik says once they’re on the road. Ben’s hands had twitched toward the aux cord.

“You got it.” Ben pats his knee and puts on his headphones.

Jannik rolls the window down a crack and breathes. He tries not to think about what Umberto would say. Thank fucking god it’s only Darren and Simone waiting for him in Paris.

They keep going until Jannik is fairly sure the pain in his stomach is hunger, not nausea. “Food,” he grunts, turning off the nearest exit.

“Yeah,” Ben enthuses.

They’re in France by now. Jannik has always liked Alsace in its Germanic cultural confusion, likes not always having to decipher the street names or fumble his way through a lunch order in his limited French. Not that it really matters right now. He sends Ben into the nearest Carrefour with some loose euros from the cupholder.

Ben returns with two massive baguettes stuffed with ham, cheese, and cornichons. They eat outside the car, leaning against the hood.

“What are you thinking about?” Ben says. Jannik has finished his baguette; Ben’s still working on the remains of his.

“Death,” Jannik says. “Pain. Suffering. Stop laughing. This is your fault.”

“I know, I know,” Ben says, crumpling up the empty bread bag and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s just—I dunno, I always thought you were kinda strait-laced. But you’re actually pretty cool.”

Jannik is unfamiliar with the term, but he can infer its meaning from context. “Thanks,” he says morosely.

“Hey, that’s a good thing! We’ve all gotta cut loose sometime. Have some fun.”

If this conversation were in Italian, Jannik could probably do a decent job translating his thoughts on the mutual exclusiveness of Ben’s definition of fun and obtaining the world number one ranking. In English, it’s hopeless. “Winning tournaments is fun,” he says instead.

“Yeah, whatever.” Ben rolls his eyes. “One day we’ll teach you it’s possible to have it all.”

*

Ben is capitalizing on their last few hours before they reach Paris.

“And Daniil?”

Jannik should not be engaging with this. Discussing other players in too much depth betrays his own hard-won secrets, and what’s more, he hates anything that could resemble gossip. He tries to keep it broad, nothing Ben won’t already know. “He can run forever. You have to finish the point in whatever way. Serve and volley, or get him to come to the net. It isn’t enough to hit hard.”

Ben absorbs this and Jannik feels guilty, but he can’t entirely blame the conversation on Ben’s prying. It’s a heady rush, trading tactics and analyzing play styles with someone other than Darren and Simone for a change. Someone living his reality, not guiding it from courtside. It must have been how Ben felt, all those years on a team. His limited Davis Cup experience notwithstanding, Jannik only knows the sport as one of solitude.

He tries to put this last thought into words and Ben nods. “But you’re close to other people on tour, right?”

“For sure.” It's a half-truth. Jannik can’t imagine not being on good terms with anyone, and holding grudges strikes him as laughably childish. Still—these are coworkers. At the end of the day, people go home to their teams, their families, their real friends. “I like to hang out with a lot of the guys. Sonego, Hurkacz, de Minaur.”

“What about you and Carlos?”

Jannik’s hands twitch on the steering wheel. This could have gone unnoticed if the entire car didn’t jerk with the motion. Ben grins knowingly.

“We are just friends.”

Ben huffs out a surprised laugh. “Yeah, I mean, I figured. But wouldn’t there be, I dunno, more to that? Just like—the rivalry. Your relationship. Everyone’s constantly talking about it, but you always seem so chill. I kinda thought that you at least would have each other.”

Jannik’s jaw tightens. “The thing is-”

The thing is, the press asks him about Carlos multiple times a tournament, whether or not he’s actually in the draw, and he never knows what to say. They’ve played seven times, far less than some of the other active players, yet there’s no one else who seems to draw the kinds of murmurs they do. When they’re in front of a crowd Jannik can almost hear on every exhale a collective sigh: Roger, Rafa. Roger. Rafa. Jannik can count on one hand the number of times they’ve interacted without a camera present. He doesn’t know if the person who saved himself in Jannik’s phone as “Carlitos 🎾”, who texts him congratulations after he’s won particularly important matches and to whom Jannik can only ever respond with inadequate heart reactions, is Carlos Alcaraz Garfia or simply a figure that people made up for Jannik’s narrative, his kryptonite and mirror and great love and whatever the fuck else he’s supposed to be.

The thing is, there’s no relationship to speak of outside of a mostly even head-to-head and the enormous shadow of a rivalry gone by.

But he doesn’t know how to talk about it in English. He doesn’t know how to talk about it at all. He finds himself reaching for the same tired talking points he trots out in press conferences. “He’s a good player and we get along off the court, too. I enjoy playing him always and we make each other better. It’s… nice that people think we are so exciting.”

Ben presses his lips together in a thin, skeptical line. “Yeah, ‘nice.’”

Jannik wants to push back, what do you mean, but dissecting the topic in front of someone he hardly knows in an environment he physically can’t escape makes his stomach turn. So he says nothing and Ben, mercy of mercies, lets it drop.

*

The conversation lightens. They bounce from topic to topic: the worst match they’ve ever played, the ugliest ATP trophies, the Slam they’d most like to win, the rampant cheating in college tennis from players calling their own lines. The remaining hours tick down fast, even when Jannik has to pull up an alternate route into Paris as protestors are blocking the main roads.

They’re staying in two separate hotels, so once they’ve made it into the city, Jannik has Ben input the address of his into Google Maps. Outside, it’s started to drizzle. Jannik has practice scheduled for this evening and is itching to get back onto the court. As much as he loves driving, his legs are starting to feel cramped, and he misses drilling groundstrokes to Simone’s gentle monologuing from the doubles alley.

Ben’s hotel is centrally located, modern, and clean. Jannik deliberates pulling into the driveway, entertaining himself briefly with the idea of getting out of the VW and tossing the keys to some befuddled valet with a take care of her. Instead, he parks across the street.

The silence is unbearably loaded. Jannik knows with inexplicable certainty that this is his last chance to find out what he’s wanted to know.

“Why did you come?”

Ben fidgets, looks out the window. Jannik thinks he might ignore the question or brush it off as he had yesterday. But then-

“Look, I don’t know a ton of people on tour,” Ben starts, his voice low. “I mean, aside from Frances and Chris and the other Americans. And the girls, obviously, when we see them. But recently, it’s like…” he pauses and shrugs. “It feels like they, um. That I’m often there longer than they are.”

Jannik understands. “You win more than them.”

“Sure, yeah. And then when they’re gone-”

“You are without your friends.”

“It’s lonely at the top,” Ben says. Jannik thinks he’s heard that before, a Darren quote or Drake lyric.

Still, he’s unable, or maybe just unwilling, to put the pieces of Ben’s strange logic together. “So, driving with me-”

“I just thought you were cool, okay?” Ben says, and laughs a little. “I was obviously wrong-”

“-wow, thank you so much-”

“-you’re a huge nerd with zero alcohol tolerance who can’t dance for shit-”

“-this is all so kind, really-”

“-but you’re also super easy to talk to, and smart, and like, way too nice, and honestly kinda funny. And, yeah. Really fucking cool.”

“Oh.” Jannik looks down at his hands, lost for words.

“So… yeah. After Vienna, my instinct told me I should make friends with you. And my instinct is never wrong. Bee tee dubs.”

Jannik has no idea what that means. Maybe it’s an American thing. More pressingly, he doesn’t know how to respond, nor how to handle the flood of warmth in his chest. “I think that you’re nice, too. I-” If only he were half as good at words as he is at tennis. “I had fun. I’m happy you came.”

This feels woefully lacking, especially after Ben’s praise. But Ben must get it, because a second later he unbuckles himself and smothers Jannik in a twisty hug from across the console.

It’s like being embraced by a brick wall. Jannik brings his hands up, pats Ben’s back, and tries not to suffocate.

“Let’s hang sometime, yeah?” Ben says, throwing open the door and sliding out. “After you win Paris.”

“Let’s see,” Jannik says, flattered in spite of himself, and Ben leans down to scowl at him. “About Paris! We can always hang.”

This seems to appease Ben, who reaches into the car to touch Jannik’s shoulder. “Love you, man.”

“Love you, too,” Jannik says, bemused, and he thinks he might mean it.