Julian spends three weeks in Sicily. It would be an exaggeration to say that they fall into a routine. There's so much to do, and Julian doesn't know where to start, and he's not sure he knows what he's even doing. First things first, he goes shopping for some climate-appropriate clothing and so that he doesn't have to rotate the same three outfits like an idiot. Then he starts working on building a fitness routine for Fabio. Times have changed since he was the one on the court, Julian knows that. What worked for him in 2010 isn't going to cut it now. Athletes are stronger, faster, better conditioned. He spends his nights poring over dense scientific papers and frantically trying to make sense of them. Hypertrophy, plyometrics, 7-frame. Jesus Christ. He ties a resistance band to the pull-up rack and has Fabio loop it around his hip and sprint.

"I feel like my aunt's dog," Fabio says, making Julian laugh.

There's no time to deconstruct Fabio's serve and rebuild it, so they make minor adjustments. At first Julian tries to explain what to do, step by step, but Fabio finds it hard to follow the instructions. His body falls out of alignment and the serve lands weak.

"Is it okay if I touch you?" Julian asks, and Fabio gives him an easy grin,

"I'm all yours."

He extends Fabio's left arm, holds his wrist firm. "Resist me," he says, his voice even and quiet. "Now pull your palm downwards and back." Fabio's body responds immediately, instinctively, and Julian thinks it's remarkable. He rotates Fabio's wrist and hand to show him how to subtly tweak the toss. He hands him a ball, makes him simply toss it repeatedly, keeping the resistance in his arm.

He steps behind Fabio and places his hands on his shoulders. Fabio radiates heat like a furnace, Julian can feel it through his t-shirt. "Resist me again," he murmurs, and pushes down lightly with his right hand. Fabio's posture straightens under his hands, his shoulders stacking on top of each other. The way his muscles tense, how they are so clearly a living thing, overwhelms Julian for a second.

"Now hold that," he says softly. He moves to Fabio's right side.

"Show me your grip."

Fabio picks up his racquet, lifts it up, turning his face slightly but not looking at Julian.

"Hmm." His grip is not very good, an awkward continental. He must have learned it badly at some point and stuck with it. Julian decides it's better not to comment. He takes Fabio's hand and wraps his fingers around his knuckles to direct them where they need to be.

"Do you feel the difference?" he asks. Fabio nods.

"Yeah," he says, sounding kind of hoarse. Julian becomes vaguely aware that he's still holding his hand, so he drops it.

"Now let's put it all together. Show me a serve." He places his hands briefly on Fabio's shoulders to remind him how to stack them, then steps back. Fabio takes a deep breath, then executes a perfect serve, the ball landing in the corner of the court with a satisfying thwack. Flushed with the effort, he turns back to Julian to give him a grin.

A big lesson for Julian: Fabio thinks with his body.

The forehand is another can of worms that Julian doesn't know if he wants to open. They adjust the grip slightly, and it helps to an extent, but Julian quickly finds a pattern behind where the real problem lies. Fabio's forehand is neither better nor worse than anyone's. However, once he makes an error with it, he gets frustrated, is unable to reset, and will fuck up the next two or three shots in a row. Julian spends an entire sleepless night coming up with a drill for it.

The next day, while Fabio is eager and limber from his warm-up, Julian sets up a bright orange cone on the backhand side of the court.

"What are we doing?" Fabio asks, following Julian around the court with a wary eye.

"Forehand drills," Julian says. "Listen." He explains: he will feed aggressive balls to Fabio's forehand side, and he wants Fabio to return them deep. Every time he mishits, or goes too long, Julian will count him down from five. In those five seconds, Fabio will sprint to the cone, tag it, then skip back to the returning position, ready for the next ball.

"Do you understand?" he says, and Fabio laughs, nods, and twirls his racquet between his hands.

"Let's go."

But he's not prepared. He sends a forehand out wide, and Julian starts counting him down loudly. Fabio freezes in place for a moment, then curses on some saint. He jogs up to the cone, unconvincing, and doesn't make it back in time before Julian feeds him the second ball.

"I said sprint, Fabio, not take a stroll," Julian laughs. "Come on, you can do better."

Fabio groans and gets into position again. Once he gets the hang of it, though, he gets way into it. Once Julian shouts "out", he starts sprinting without a word, then gets into the returning position with a determined expression of his face. He starts hitting deep and clean, despite the fatigue in his legs.

"Well done," Julian tells him afterwards. "Do you understand the point of what we did?"

Fabio frowns as he takes a drink. "To torture me?"

"Sort of." Julian laughs. He reaches out to ruffle his hair, and Fabio swats his hand away, his lips still locked around the mouth of the bottle. "Once we make a mistake, we don't get stuck in it. We move on and reset. Keep going. It's not that hard, right?"

Fabio tosses his water bottle on the bench gives him one of those blinding smiles. "You're so smart," he says sweetly. "Too bad you're evil. You will make me cry."

On recovery days, Fabio drops by Luca's house and the three of them watch old matches on the TV, snacking on biscuits and fruit and debating every point at length. Julian often feels like he loses these debates on the sheer baseline volume produced by Luca and Fabio.

"Ivanov's game is boring," Fabio complains once when they're watching a classic, the 2009 US Open semifinal. "He just stands around and hits the ball really hard."

Julian disagrees.

"Look again."

He rewinds the footage and they rewatch the entire point, Ivanov moving his opponent around the court like a chess piece and finishing him off with a slice that swooshes behind him like a comet.

"Do you see it? He was setting up this point three shots ago, with that topspin forehand. He knew exactly where he wanted his opponent to go and how he wanted to finish the point."

Fabio thinks about it for a beat. "Fine," he concedes. "He can be a genius and boring at the same time."

Julian snorts. "God help anyone trying to teach you anything."

The match rolls on, the ball thumping against the New York hard court rhythmically, far away in space and time. Fabio yawns and stretches like a cat, accidentally kicking Julian in the shin.

"Sorry," he says, not sounding sorry.

Julian eyes him with the hint of a smile. "Are you tired?"

"No," Fabio says too quickly, like a child protesting bedtime. He's clearly lying, and no wonder. The lessons have been relentless — they have been getting to Julian too. Fabio must be knackered. It's kind of sweet, how he's trying to be heroic about it. Julian feels something soften in his chest, not unlike tenderness.

"It's okay," he laughs softly and reaches for the remote. "We're done for the day. Go home."

Fabio looks between Julian and Luca, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"You heard the man," Luca urges with a nod of his head. "Go home, eat something, take a nap."

Fabio, still looking doubtful, slides off the sofa and stands up, stretching his legs. He takes an orange from the coffee table slowly, as if for checking for any reaction, then pockets it with a swift movement of his hand.

"Well, then," he announces, "Ciao." He strolls away and the door lands shut after him with a dramatic thud.

Julian shares a look with Luca, and Luca must have seen the uncertainty in his eyes because he is quick with some words of comfort.

"You're doing great, Julian. He really likes you."

This is the last thing that Julian expected to hear. He raises his head and frowns. "What gives you that impression?"

Luca leans back in his armchair, looking pleased with himself. "He wants to impress you. And he listens to you."

"What's he like when he doesn't listen?" Julian muses.

Luca's laughter fills the entire room. "You don't want to know."