The white leather with which the Barcelona chair was covered was soft and cold. Cristian touched one of its buttons with the back of his hand. He had positioned the chair in the studio, where among the cherry wood furniture it stood out for its classic modernity.

Above all, he had done well to position it in front of the windows without curtains overlooking the park. He liked to observe the leaves of the trees lashed by the wind, the play of light beams between the gnarled trunks of the olive trees, the elliptical and silvery leaves, the ruby shades of the red maples and the emerald ones of the green magnolias. The sun would set in a little over an hour, and he already noticed the shadows elongating on the ground.He definitely deserved that afternoon of rest after the game of the night before. He absently touched his right thigh, he was now perfectly healed, and his performance on the pitch showed that. Thanks to his goals, the team had reached the top of the ranking. If they kept on like this, they would win the championship.Arturo sat behind the desk in the Louis XIV-style armchair. He was holding a DVD that they would watch that afternoon.

They were comfortable even when they were silent, comforted by the habits they had accumulated over the long years of their friendship.

"Who are you texting with that dazed expression on your face?," Arturo asked after a while.

"My friends". Technically it wasn't a lie.

"If you also text me with that smile on your face, people will think you love me."

"Thank goodness I don't need to text you, you're always here with me."

"And you're happy about it, obviously."

"Obviously..." Cristian put the phone away.

Arturo propped his elbows on the desk. "You are an ungrateful friend."

Cristian smiled. "To make up for it I invite you to Paris."

His friend laughed. "I'm not interested in spending a romantic weekend with you."

"This is because you don't have good taste, but I didn't mean a romantic weekend. Would you like to accompany me at Samir's next match?"

Arturo raised an eyebrow and looked puzzled. "He invited you, and do you want to go?"

Cristian nodded. "It's the 21st of this month."

Arturo looked at the calendar on the desk. "But it's a Wednesday, isn't it? It's training day."

"With my jet we'll get there in no time, and it would be after training, of course". He turned his head towards his friend, but his inquiring gaze led him to fix his eyes again on the trees beyond the windows.

"Do you like Samir?"

"It's not the first time we attend sporting events."

"In town," Arturo pointed out.

"Do you remember when I bought the jet, and we said we could finally go wherever we wanted?"

"Come on, we weren't serious, not during the championship at least. Why don't you answer my question?"

"I like Samir as a sportsman." Cristian hoped to sound convincing, but Arturo wasn't stupid and, above all, he knew him well.

"You have never been interested in this type of sport." Faced with his silence Arturo continued: "Listen, we are friends, and you can tell me everything. Samir isn't a person I would advise you to hang out with. If you see him sometimes as friends, OK. You post pics on social media, newspapers write about how beautiful and diverse your friendships are. An European and a Franco-Tunisian athletes who understand each other thanks to sport etc. Maybe you two can collaborate on that charity project you mentioned the other day. Samir goes home happy, because they know him even where before they had no idea who he was. This helps him to have more sponsors, until he doesn't mess up again".

"Don't talk like that". Cristian tensed up, leaving his lazy pose on the chair. As if he didn't already knew the best thing to do was stay away from Samir.

Arturo ignored his protest. "All that aside, he is a famous person, less than you but he still is one. If you give people the idea you are more than friends the press is going to eat you up".

"So I can't go and see one of my friend's boxing match?"

"You can go, if it's just a friend. Look, I'll come with you if you convince Saiyd to come with us".

"OK, I'll ask him, but if he says no I'll go anyway. The press, as you called it, can go fuck itself," Cristian hissed, his eyes fixed on the trees. He was angry because he hated to be told what to do, angry because two men going out together shouldn't be newspapers material anymore, and angry because for a moment he had seen Samir through Arturo's eyes and he didn't like what he saw.

*******

The hotel room was spacious almost as a suit should be. The polished marble floor peeked under the damask carpet and matched the ice-colored curtains and the embroidered champagne-colored bedspread. The bed was large. Cristian had sat on it and found that it was also comfortable. Samir had been kind to pay the rooms for him and his friends. Including the extras, he pointed out.Cristian anxiously looked at the clock. 11.50 pm. He figured Samir was still at the party to celebrate his victory. Cristian had been there too, but he had stayed for a short time, just long enough to greet Samir, admire his slender figure, the jeans that wrapped his muscly legs, the patch on his injured eyebrow. Then he had slipped away because he didn't want to attract too much attention. Sayid and Arturo probably stayed with him.

He lay down on the bed and thought of the boxing ring, of the crowd trying to reach out to Samir, as he walked on the catwalk, as if they believed he was carrying a thaumaturgical power, he thought of Samir fighting ferociously, as if his life depended on that victory. He couldn't help wondering if all boxers had some innate violence or aggression, and if the ring was the only chance to take it out without too much damage. Without having to beat paparazzi or break the windows of a club.He got up nervously, he couldn't stand still. On the table, far from the bed, there were still a little Eiffel Tower-shaped chocolate and the macarons, stuffed with butter cream, laid on a finely decorated porcelain saucer. They were a gift from the hotel and come with the body creams and fragrances of a well-known cosmetic brand. He didn't touch the chocolate, but he used the body cream and took a relaxing shower. His skin smelled like sweet almond. He had the bathrobe on. Maybe Samir wouldn't come.

He looked at his watch again. Midnight had struck. A knock on the door made him jump. Without asking who he was, he opened it.

"I was hoping you would come."

Samir slipped inside quickly. "Did you come to see me just to have sex?"

"Isn't that why you invited me?" Cristian smirked.

"Actually no, I wanted you to see me fighting. I liked to know that you were there looking at me."

Cristian touched his injured eyebrow. "You've been amazing".

They were close, Samir could have unfastened his bathrobe belt and taken it off. He did it. He kissed him on the lips and then on the neck so long and intensely to leave a mark. And Cristian thought he would have Samir's kisses marks on his skin again and again if that meant Samir wanted him as much as he wanted Samir.

After making love, they held each other. A soft yellow light filtered through the lampshade and surrounded them.

"Don't fall asleep," Samir whispered on his neck, holding him from behind.

"Why?"

"If you fall asleep, time passes too quickly."

Their time together always seemed too short, Samir was right. Cristian felt his nose touching his shoulder, inhaling the smell of the body cream and the smell of the sex they just had.

"Did you leave your son with his grandmother?" Samir asked.

"With his mother." Cristian hesitated, then said, "I suspect he doesn't like soccer very much."

"Why?"

"My mother says he starts crying at the stadium or in front of the TV ten minutes after the game starts."

"He's just a kid." Samir held him a little tighter. "Did he took after you?"

"No, he's very sensible, even though he's only four years old, unlike me." He smiled, thinking of Martin's big blue eyes and how they looked at him when he gave him advice, brilliant in their simple naivety.

"You don't have to be very sensible to stay in Paris, in the middle of the night, in a hotel room with me. You are right".

Cristian would listen to him for hours, he would listen for hours to that low voice that seemed to exist just for him. He felt the man's warm breath on the skin of his neck, while Samir said to him "I like your smell."

I like you like crazy, he would have instinctively replied, but he bit his tongue. "I like your hands," he allowed himself to say and interlaced his fingers with the elegant and long fingers of the other man.

Samir touched his temple with his lips. "Do you also like the room?"

Cristian loved it, it had a beautiful view over the city. "From the window I think I can see the Eiffel tower."

"This room was for my coach, but I swapped it with yours so you could have this one." Samir laughed. "If he finds out, he kills me."

"You're crazy," Cristian turned to face him.

"I didn't want you to feel lost in a cheap room."

Cristian frowned "You're not serious when you say these things, are you? I adapt to any situation". He didn't want to be considered a stupid spoiled soccer player.

"Sayid used to say the same, did he ever tell you that once he went on vacation with me and ran away from his hotel room because it was, and I quote, "not elegant and clean enough?"

Cristian held back a laugh. "What an idiot. Where did he go to sleep?" He had to remember this story the next time he wanted to make fun of him.

"He came to my room," Samir said. The smile died on Cristian's lips, he felt his stomach clenching like every time Sayid named Samir, every time their common friend gave him a knowing look, which made him think I'm not the only one. He stiffened. "Do you have sex with him?"

"What difference does it make to you if Sayid liked men and slept with me?" Do you have an ethics that requires you not to share lovers with colleagues and you would stop seeing me?" His arrogant gaze was the same that Cristian had seen on the yacht after they had been together. Then Samir stroked his face. "Anyway, if you care so much about it: no. Sayid is a friend." He said it condescendingly, as if he were speaking to a child, which made Cristian even more nervous.

"Sometimes I wonder if you go around fucking players who pretend to be straight and then laugh at them with your friends, with Sayid, maybe. In Arabic of course, so you don't even have to make the effort to speak another language." He sat up on the bed, the tenderness of the previous moments vanished. He knew he was unfair, he and Samir had no commitment, he himself had occasional one night stands, and Samir could do the same, but when he thought about it jealousy assailed him, as if the sense of wholeness felt during love was shattered into a thousand pieces. He was even jealous of Samir's mother tongue, which people like Sayid understood. He on the other hand had no idea what Samir whispered to him during love. He felt ridiculous even just thinking about these things, but he couldn't help it.

"Oh yes! I go around telling something that would destroy my career". Samir got out of the bed and angrily put on one of the bathrobes. "Or my life," he added through gritted teeth.

"Does Sayid know about us?"

"I didn't tell him, but maybe he got it by the way you rushed here to fuck me."

"I only came here to do you a courtesy. Do you think you're the best man I've ever fucked? Well, I'll give you some news: you're not much better compared to the other lovers I've had. Average, probably. Maybe we should stop seeing each other. You already gained enough popularity on the newspapers when they papped us at the game."

Samir turned towards him abruptly. He hit a glass vase on the table, but instead of putting it back, he threw it on the ground. It fell noiseless on a carpet, but the sound seemed deafening to Cristian. "What is your problem? You should have a glass of wine every now and then or a game of poker. It would relax you." Samir retorted coldly.

Here it was the low blow from Samir. Poker, alcohol, gambling, his father. Samir knew then and used what he knew against him. Cristian should have expected it, Samir wasn't one to take punches, he gave them. Metaphorical or not.

"Fuck you," he hissed. He didn't know what was doing still naked on the bed, but he couldn't move.

"To be an asshole you don't need to become addicted to gambling or alcohol, you are already one. Your father would be proud of you."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Cristian found the strength to reply.

"I think I do. Do you think I bought your story? The fact that you don't drink alcohol because of calories? You're afraid of becoming like your father. You are afraid that people won't love you anymore if you become like him, so you try so hard to look beautiful, to dress well, to be perfect. You think that if you are perfect they will always love you. Do you think if you had been better, your father would have loved you more than a slot machine?"

I have to get dressed, Cristian thought, but he knew that at that moment, even with all the clothes on, he would feel naked. "Instead of playing psychologist with me, you should find one for yourself," he replied angrily. Shit. From the look on Samir's face he knew he hurt him. His words hurt him because one of his fears was to be considered a desperate case even by those who knew him well, a bad boy, a prodigy kid who had wasted his talent, a person to be dismissed. To be dismissed just as his father had always dismissed him, even though he was taking him everywhere. What an irony.

"I'm going outside, the view is certainly better than the one I have here." Samir went out slamming the sliding doors of the balcony with such force that Cristian heard the windows trembling.

Cristian didn't move, he didn't have the strength to get up or get dressed. What was he supposed to do? Leave the room to go where? To Arturo? Or Sayid? To tell them what? He didn't want to go anywhere. He touched the place next to his with his hand, Samir's body warmness vanished, the sheet were cold. That was the first time of the night he felt like crying. He remembered that Samir was out there with only his bathrobe on and he thought that probably he was feeling cold too. He got up, put on the other bathrobe, grabbed the blanket at the foot of the bed and went out onto the balcony. He saw Samir sitting on a bench, his long legs close to his chest, his arms crossed, as if he wanted to defend himself from the damp and icy night air.

"Why did you come out like this?" Samir asked when he noticed his presence. He no longer seemed angry.

He looked sad, Cristian thought and he hated himself. "And you? Just with a bathrobe on?". His voice rang out loud in the muffled silence of the city. He went over to him and wrapped both of them in the blanket.

"You too," the other murmured making space on the bench. They sat that way, in silence. Cristian felt the heat of Samir's body pressed against his again. He hoped they didn't ruin everything, whatever that everything was.

"I don't know what got into me," Cristian said.

Samir turned his head towards him, a proud glint in his eyes. "I don't laugh at the people I sleep with. I don't laugh at you. And you're not part of a players collection that I use to increase my popularity. Why did you come if you think that? "

"I ..." He didn't know how to tell him that he would still join him, that he didn't know what made him take that plane to Paris even against the advice of his best friend and his common sense.

"Shit, Cri. I'm sorry I talked about your dad. Having read about him in the newspapers doesn't give me the right to talk about it like that".

"You're right, you shouldn't have done that. And I shouldn't have told you those things about Sayid, about... everything."

Silence fell between them again, interrupted by some sporadic honking horns and cars accelerating in the half-empty streets. Cristian saw the Eiffel Tower: it was bright and beautiful. Instead, he felt sad, dull.

"I shouldn't have invited you here, it was a mistake. Maybe we should really stop seeing each other. What are we doing?" Samir tilted his head back, resting it on the wall behind him, as if he could find relief from his torment.

"I don't know, but you understand me as if we were friends. You were right about my father, he..."

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"I want to. My dad, Juan, has always gambled. Poker, slot machines, horses. That's almost all I remember about him, he going out to gamble, my mum getting desperate, and me wondering if there would ever be a time when I would have become more important than the next slot machine, the next game win, the next debt". He stopped. He rested his head on Samir's shoulder, and Samir let him do it, then, comforted by that contact, he went on, "He died at 44, a seizure caused by stress, the doctors said. Obviously, trying to find money to gamble or escape creditors can be stressful. I was 14 years old when it happened. I used the first money I made to pay off his gambling debts. "So you were right. I don't touch alcohol, poker games, not even the lottery because I don't want to become like him. All the addictive substances terrifies me. I hate them." It was the first time he said it aloud to someone. His closest friends understood this, but he had never talked about it so openly.

"Do you know what I think? You could drink an entire bottle of wine or gamble an entire salary on horse racing, and I wouldn't change my opinion about you".

Cristian felt a warm sensation invading his chest. No one had ever told him this, other people had always let him chase perfection, believing that this would help him defeat his demons, but it was a damn lonely chase. And what do you think about me? he wanted to ask him, but Samir's fingers were touching his face, and he found himself unable to move his tongue.

"You're not like him and you're not like me," Samir continued, shaking his head as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. His eyes seemed even blacker and deeper.

"Like you?" Cristian whispered.

"An idiot who just messes things up all the time."

"Samir, I'm sorry I told you ..."

"No". The boxer put his index finger on his lips. "Don't say anything, please," Samir said in such pleading tone that Cristian felt guilty about how the night was going. He got up, guiding the other man with him, being careful that the cold air didn't hit his skin under the champagne-colored blanket, he led him into the room. He would have made love to him gently. He no longer wanted to feel like he had felt out there, with a bad taste in his mouth, catapulted to the ground by a roller coaster that had gone too fast. It had never been like this in the past, his one night stands were just that, he wasn't jealous of them, and if one of his lovers shared the bed with one of his teammates, he would laugh about it.

"It was cold out there," he said stupidly.

Samir nodded, slipping into the bed. Cristian took the glass jar of body cream, one of the hotel's free gifts, untied the pink satin bow that held the lid and began to spread it on Samir's chest, massaging it.

"This is cold too," Samir murmured.

Cristian sat astride him. "It won't be any more soon," he said, as he spread it on his belly, on his hips. His fingers lingered on the star-shaped scar he had noticed on the yacht.

"This looks like a star."

"No". Samir took his wrist, pulling his hand away.

"Was it caused by a hard boxing match?"

"It was ... nothing," Samir said in a whisper, letting go of his wrist. Cristian continued to massage him, while the smell of almonds was spreading around the room again, soon they'd also feel the smell of their bodies coming together.