When they reached the end of the game, and the Russians won against the Americans, Caio and Diego applauded. They were part of this select group of athletes, and as they left the stands and got some high-fives from the crowd and a few handshakes, Caio felt at peace in the middle of these people.
There were a few who glanced at him with a side-eye, but that was nothing new. He knew how to deal with that. He’d rather know how people felt about him than live in a pretend world.
And maybe that’s why it had been so easy to fall for Diego—he might have tried to hide how he felt, but he never lied about his feelings. He also never tried to take advantage of Caio. Quite the opposite; Diego’d put himself on the line for him. Caio had been afraid of making a move that could destroy their relationship and their friendship, and they only took the gamble because they both were willing. And it was paying off.
“Look who’s there.” Diego poked him in the arm when they left the main arena to the plaza. In a group, there were Tobias and his wife, his partner on the sand, Mario, and Ágata. The latter two were involved in conversation.
With no hesitation, Caio and Diego greeted them.
“Checking out the competition, hombre?” said Mario after a handshake with Diego.
“We have to, right?” Diego answered.
Caio smiled when Ágata noticed they were there, and her cheeks reddened momentarily. Maybe she wasn’t only interested in a conversation with Mario, but that wasn’t a subject for Caio to get his nose in.
“It was a good game, but you two have a chance,” Tobias told them. “Get one for the hermanos.”
“Oh, we’re on,” Diego answered, and the two of them bumped fists as Caio watched. He knew the guys were more subdued as they greeted him and perhaps looked at Caio in a different light, but the truth of their friendship was also in their eyes. They wouldn’t leave Caio alone.
When Júlio and Roberta also came to join them, Alice and Marina were right behind, and Marina was walking with Elton in tow, though he was yet to become a part of their group.
Everyone commiserated about the end of the competition and about missing home. There were more people around Caio than he thought there would be. And they were all his friends, all there for him in one way or another.
He looked around to see smiles and laughter, the group at ease, and he knew he’d made the right decision by having them in his life.
Alice came to hug him around the waist a moment later, and Caio lifted her up.
“We’re almost going home, right, Daddy?” she asked.
“Yeah, princess. We’re almost going home. What do you want to do when we get back?”
Alice seemed pensive for a moment. “I miss your barbecue.”
Caio also missed a good, meaty meal, and a good drink of mate before dinner.
“I miss that barbecue too,” Diego added, lifting a hand.
Alice reached her hand toward Diego, and he grabbed her smaller one to hold it in his.
“I want to go in the pool.” She started to list things on the fingers of her other hand. “And I want to play in the rain.”
At that, Caio laughed. “But it’s still winter back home. I don’t think we can do any of that now.”
She sighed, disappointed. Caio grinned at the way her lips formed a pout.
“We can always go to that park with the hot springs, right?” suggested Diego. “I’m sure we’ll have some time for that.”
“Can we go, Daddy?”
Caio glanced at Alice and Diego, and they stared back at him with similar pleading looks on their faces. He had to wonder how much those two would team up against him in the future, but he wouldn’t mind that one bit. He didn’t care that they might take over his life. Maybe they already had.
Chapter Nineteen
WHEN he first started playing in the sand, Diego dreamed he’d step onto the court one day to fight for the gold medal at the Olympics, but he never quite believed he’d get there.
Now, when they were in the last stretch of the competition, Diego couldn’t be more excited, because his feet were almost touching the sand inside the court.
“Your game is going to be one of the last finals of any Brazilian athlete in Paris, so expect it to be broadcast live,” Marina had told them.
Diego couldn’t help but think about his country watching him and Caio on TV. Would they mention that they were both gay? Would they know what had happened during the competition? Most of it would never make it onto the TV screen—like the treatment they received from the Federation—but the relationship between Diego and Caio wasn’t going to be hidden for long.
They hadn’t seen the prez in a few days, although Diego suspected Marina had something to do with that. She’d been talking to representatives from other sports and officials from the Brazilian Olympic Committee, and in light of their final game, no one was discussing much besides the match.
Diego had stayed focused. He and Caio watched videos of their Russian opponents. They were a team that had taken wins from Diego and Caio in past tournaments, but the Olympics couldn’t be compared to anything else. It was a league of its own.
And there was nothing else but this game between Diego and the gold medal.
He finished squirting water into his mouth as Caio looked toward the tunnel that led to the arena. The noise of the crowd was already deafening. Outside in the plaza there were fans everywhere and Brazilian flags painting everything in shades of green and yellow and blue, and in the stands, the biggest cheers came from the Brazilian fans.
“We’re here,” Diego said. His hands didn’t want to settle down, and his heart fought to pump the blood through his veins.
Caio turned to him and deemed it safe to bring Diego into his arms for a hug. Caio’s proximity made everything else come second, and Diego would have loved to stay right there, but he also wanted to play the game.
“Yes, we are.” Caio squeezed him once and then pushed him a step back. “And we’re ready.”
Diego nodded, even if he wasn’t as sure. The technique, the training—he had done the work. There was nothing else he could do to get better inside the court. He’d like to have trained some fundamentals differently, he wished he had developed them more, but if he wasn’t a good enough player by now, he wouldn’t have gotten to the Olympics.
“We can win this, right?” he asked.
Caio was silent for a moment, but then he dipped his head.
“We can win this, but we have to play, just like we did in the other games. I think we have what it takes, but the only thing that matters is what we can do inside the court.”
Diego agreed. “You’re right.” He nodded, nervously. Diego knew their opponents had their faults. He’d watched their game against the Americans, and that knowledge was enough to give him confidence.
He took a breath to settle down, and Caio reached an arm around him. That was all he needed.
In the next minute, a pair of volunteers called them up and placed them in a line after the Russians so they could follow protocol to get onto the sand. There was no chit-chat before they got into the court.
Welcome to the Final Match of the Men’s Beach Volleyball Tournament!
As they stepped toward the main arena and the lights hit Diego in the face, he felt a bit dizzy. The noise of the crowd came at him like a freight train, and he almost stepped back.
He couldn’t adjust right away, and the moments before the match began to blend into one another. He remembered that Caio was called for the coin toss and then the sides of the court were picked. Diego drank some more water, checked his bandages, checked his hands. He did some squats to see if his knees were in good shape as his eyes went to the stands to search for Marina and Alice and his parents. They were somewhere out there cheering for him.
His fans had sent him a thousand messages of support, and they wanted to see him win the game. There was already a medal around his neck because he was guaranteed the silver. But Diego wanted more—he wanted more for Caio
and for the people who had helped him get to where he was now.
When he stepped inside the lines and the crowd lowered their chants to let them prepare for the match, Diego’s focus sharpened at the last minute, and he zoomed in on the ball and the lines.
On the other side, their opponents were two walls of cold, hard muscle, their cool gazes aimed at him.
It was going to be a difficult match. The pressure was even worse because he and Caio had advanced to the finals having skipped one game. In effect, they had more energy conserved and were obliged to play the better match.
In the end, none of that mattered, and there was more at stake than just a medal.
A good result for Diego and Caio could imply better funding for their sport in the coming years, more chances to keep playing and to evolve for those teams that were waiting on the sidelines. A win here could result in better sponsorships in the future, which translated into a greater chance to climb in the rankings, both domestically and worldwide.
Yet the fact that there was still Caio’s video hanging in the background didn’t help with Diego’s anxiety about the future.
Diego glanced over one last time as Caio positioned himself, ready to receive the ball.
The referee blew the whistle, and Diego’s heart stuttered inside his chest.
This was it.
The first ball flew his way, and he had a tiny second of panic, thinking he wouldn’t be able to get it, that he would overthink his moves and give the point away to the other team, but his body reacted for him. Almost in perfect synchronization with Caio, he received the ball and passed it to him. Then Caio set the attack so Diego had to jump high to spike it down.
After that first moment of indecision, Diego realized that it was better to simply trust his body. And midair, he got the ball with the full force of his hand, and the sound echoed around him as he hit it. The ball went straight down and found a home on the sand before either of the guys from the other team could get it.
“Yes!” he shouted. An exhilarating rush of adrenaline ran through every part of his body, and Diego couldn’t keep it in.
The crowd cheered from the stands.
“That’s good,” Caio stepped close to him and offered his fist for a bump. “But take a breath, and keep going,” he said as he moved to serve at the back of the court.
Diego tried to will the euphoria away. He had to come back to himself.
However, the crowd got louder after the next serve. They reacted to every ball they defended on their side and every move the Russians made on the other. Maybe that was what held Diego back, because he didn’t defend an attack from the other team and Diego and Caio ceded a point to them.
That point drove home the fact it wasn’t going to be an easy match.
“That’s okay. Next ball is ours,” Caio said when they met before the next serve.
Diego said nothing, but he knew what he had to do. He tried to keep a semblance of control over his emotions, but it was impossible not to hear the crowd, not to feel the pressure.
Any medal for Brazil was always important. They were a big country with a disorganized sports system, and most of the athletes survived thanks to social projects developed across the nation. These projects were where a good part of all talent came from—and Diego knew Caio had plans to do something in that area in the future, to give back to the community that supported him.
They were never just playing for themselves and their own careers. Behind every athlete there was always the dream of taking their sport to the next level, making the people know they were there, that they needed the attention of the general public and support from private institutions and the government.
Still, it all seemed so small when there was only the ball in his hands. When the ball came fast across the net, he could only react to what happened right in front of him and trust his partner to do his part.
As the set advanced and both teams fought neck and neck for the top of the scoreboard, Diego knew it wasn’t impossible. He knew all the ways to win the game, but he knew he wasn’t invincible, and that losing was another side of what awaited him.
But the Brazilian team was the one that reached the first set point of the game after almost a half hour of arduous playing. It was a chance for Diego to make that first step onto the highest place on the podium, because he had the responsibility of serving the ball.
“Just put it into the game. We can get the point when we receive the ball back,” Caio advised him.
But Diego didn’t want to listen to him. He wanted to force the serve, and that was what he did.
Diego breathed deeply and tried to foresee where the ball would go. Then he launched it into the sky and hit it hard and fast. As soon as he did, he saw that the angle wasn’t the best, and the ball was going straight to the net.
“Fuck.” He had just given away a point to the other team. Yet the moment went by so fast that, as soon as the ball hit the band of the net, it got caught in it and then flipped over to the other side and fell right in front of both Russian players, who were too stunned to step forward and save the ball.
“Oh my God!”
Diego let out a deep breath and then made a fist to commemorate the point. They had won the first set.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Caio told him as he embraced Diego and socked him on the back a couple of times, but he wasn’t mad.
The arena was like a party as they waited to restart the game. From the stands, the only instruction Marina gave them was a thumbs-up, which meant they were playing the best they could.
“We’re close,” Diego said, more to himself than Caio. They both sat down to rest, but a nervous energy surrounded them.
“Yeah,” Caio said. They were indeed as close as they would ever be to a gold medal until they actually put it around their necks.
Tension came to embrace Diego, but he tried to breathe and let it go.
“I’m glad I’m here with you,” Caio added, and Diego tilted his head to look at him.
He could see a lot in those eyes, but his words failed him.
“Me too.”
The referee called them back to the sand.
When the game restarted, Diego’s body felt tired, but he was prepared. He knew the second set was where they would shine.
And he wasn’t wrong.
The Russian team started to lose steam after the first ten points. And with the crowd right behind the Brazilian team, each time Diego or Caio put the ball down, he could almost feel his body thrumming with the energy coming from all around.
Diego wanted to cry and laugh and scream on the inside, but he had to keep pushing, to keep going until the end of the game.
He got increasingly focused on the ball and only remembered to look at the scoreboard when they were almost at the match point. And when they reached the last serve, once again, Diego had the ball in his hands to close this match.
The gold medal point. Diego was hyper-aware of everything—of Caio almost too close to the back of the court, the Russians too spread out on the other side and leaving him with the perfect opening to score. He felt the crowd awaiting, and the team of referees watching. The world was watching him, everyone back home who loved or hated him, knew him or didn’t know him—they were all there.
And he was here.
Caio didn’t turn. He waited and concentrated, ready for the ball to come back from the other side if needed, ready to keep playing to win.
If before Diego had wanted to risk, now he knew what he wanted from his hands, the ball, and his body. It turned into an almost perfect reconstruction of how he’d envisioned it.
When it was time, he sent the ball into the sky and then jumped as he let his arm complete the full circle to hit it. When he did, the ball went fast toward the other side of the net.
As he expected, the Russians were too spread out on their court, too far from the middle of the sand. The ball went past them and reached the back line but was still inside. The point was decis
ive, and when Diego realized he’d sealed his fate, the world imploded in noise.
Right in front of him, Caio fell to his knees and put his hands on his face as he cried. Diego just wanted to scream.
“It’s ours! We won! We won!”
Turning to the crowd, he drank in that energy, lifted his hands, and conducted them in their cheers. He chanted with them, “Pa-to! Pa-to!” The moment of a lifetime was going by in front of his eyes, but it wouldn’t be complete if he couldn’t have Caio with him.
He turned around. Caio had gotten up. Their eyes met in the middle of the sand. Maybe words would matter some other time, but Diego knew he needed those arms around him.
He went on to embrace Caio, and lean his head onto Caio’s shoulder, but Caio surprised him by grabbing his chin and directing Diego’s lips to his own.
Diego only realized they were kissing because the crowd went nuts—the crowd that, even without knowing, had watched their love blossom in front of their very eyes. Now they could see the ultimate show of affection in the middle of the biggest sports event in the world.
Maybe it wouldn’t change a thing, maybe it wouldn’t make a difference, but for those who had to live in fear and now could see their kind of love being shared with the world, unashamed and uncensored, yet pure and real, this was a win.
In that kiss, Diego could taste Caio on his tongue and feel those arms around him, but eventually they separated as their foreheads touched.
“We have to talk to the press,” Diego said.
“We need to greet the other guys first,” reminded Caio, and Diego nodded.
They didn’t want to move, but they had to. They had to greet the other players and the referees and thank the people who had been there for them, because without those people, Diego and Caio were nothing.
The Russian players seemed to be happy with their medal, and the referees congratulated Caio and Diego on their victory. The volunteers who guided them to the mixed zone were also happy to be in this energy, and the crowd was still chanting “Brazil! Brazil!”
“Congratulations for the gold. It’s our medal number twenty-five in these Olympics, though only our third gold. How do you see your participation in the wake of so many political and social changes in Brazil?” the first reporter asked. The question seemed too loaded for the moment, but that’s just how everything back home felt lately.
Matchpoint Page 16
