My Friend Came Back from Valencia and I Won a Bet Against Him

In high school I became friends with Aleix, a Catalan boy who had come to Argentina when he was just a little kid. His parents had emigrated for work and he ended up attending almost all of school with me, in the same class and on the same neighborhood soccer team.

He was one of those guys who walk into a place and every head turns. Light brown hair, a clear forehead, green eyes, and eyelashes that looked painted on. A fine nose, a chin with a little dimple in the middle that showed when he smiled. And an athlete’s body, lean without being overdone, with legs shaped by so much running after a ball and an ass that, even back then, it was hard for me not to stare at.

My cousin was after him, like half the school. I kept my own feelings quiet and covered them with my usual confidence: I was the touchy friend, the one who’d sling an arm over his shoulder and jokingly squeeze his biceps. Nobody suspected those jokes were the only thing I allowed myself.

The problem came in our fourth year. We were sixteen and Aleix’s father was sent back to Valencia. He took the whole family with him and I was left with a void I couldn’t name for a long time. We texted, sent photos, long audio messages in the middle of the night. But it’s not the same.

Two years went by. Once he turned eighteen, Aleix told me he was coming back to Buenos Aires to spend the holidays with some uncles who still lived here. And between Christmas and New Year’s, while the rest of my family was still elsewhere, the two of us would be alone in the apartment they had rented on the coast.

The two of us alone. I repeated that phrase so many times before he arrived that I memorized it.

***

I went to pick him up at the bus terminal. When I saw him step down from the coach, I almost didn’t recognize him. Two years in Spain had transformed him: taller, broader in the shoulders, a harder jaw. The pretty kid had become a man who cut through the air.

We hugged tightly and, as always, I took the chance to feel him up everywhere: his arms, his chest, his back, even his legs, shamelessly. He laughed and let me, because he knew me and knew I was that kind of touchy person.

“You’ve turned into a bull,” I said.

“And you’re still as annoying as ever,” he replied, and his accent had become more Spanish than ever.

We got to the apartment and started unpacking. He didn’t have much clothing. All of a sudden I heard him let out a snort.

“Fuck’s sake!”

“Well, look at that, the Spanish slipped out,” I said, laughing. “What happened?”

“My aunt didn’t put my swim trunks in the bag. I’ve got nothing to go into the sea with.”

“No problem. I brought a couple extra. Pick one.”

I tossed the ones I’d brought onto the bed. Aleix took his pants off right there, without fuss, and started trying them on. I sat on the edge with a dry mouth, pretending I was checking my phone.

First he tried on a very pale blue pair, then a pink one. Both showed off the bulge in front, tilted to the right, and both hugged that perky ass I hadn’t been able to forget through the distance and the years.

“They look amazing on you,” I said, and inside I was thinking something much less decent. “Especially from behind.”

“No fucking way I’m going to the beach in these. They make me look too gay.”

“And what’s the problem with that?” I shot back. “The girls won’t be able to take their eyes off you. They’ll want to touch you.”

And me first, I thought, feeling myself start to get hard just from looking at him in front of the mirror.

“No and no. Impossible.”

“God, you turned out so prudish!” I teased. “I’d love to see you on a beach in Maspalomas showing off the way you move that ass. Here, try these.”

I handed him two briefs: one with a red-and-white floral print, the other striped black and white. He took off the shorts and tried them on, one after the other, and what I saw reflected in the full-length mirror took my breath away. He settled on the floral one and kept grumbling that it was too tight.

Something else was too tight on me, but I kept that to myself.

***

The days were beautiful. Even sunlight, warm sea, not a familiar face in sight. On the beach there were always matches going: volleyball mid-morning, soccer at sunset. Aleix and I challenged each other over everything. We bet hot dogs, hamburgers, beers. Any excuse was good enough to needle one another.

On the second day, while we were waiting for the teams to be set, I decided to raise the stakes.

“Let’s do this,” I said, chewing on a piece of ice. “If I beat you in the whole day, volleyball and soccer, I collect my prize with you.”

“With me?”

“You heard me. Since you’re such a stud, I’m fucking you this very afternoon.”

He burst out laughing, a long laugh, absolutely sure I was joking.

“You’re still an idiot,” he said, and slapped my hand to seal the deal without taking it seriously.

But I meant it. And I spent the whole day reminding him. In volleyball, every time I went to serve, I’d pass close by and murmur that he’d be sleeping face-down that night. In soccer, when I was marking him, I’d stick to his back and press my hard-on against that ass that drove me crazy. Sometimes he’d lean back, as if by accident, and I’d feel his cock, trapped in that tiny brief, brushing between my cheeks. By halfway through the match I was hard and I no longer knew whether he was doing it on purpose.

I won volleyball easily. My team lost soccer in a crushing defeat. A tie. And, like proper competitors, there had to be a tiebreaker.

“Penalties,” I said. “Whoever misses loses everything.”

Aleix agreed with a smile that was no longer entirely innocent. Something had changed in his gaze over the course of the day. We took our shots at a makeshift goal made from two jackets. I made mine. On the last one, he sent the ball into the sky like it was a tarp.

He stood there looking at me, out of breath, his chest rising and falling.

“You won,” he said quietly.

“I won.”

I didn’t add anything else. It wasn’t necessary.

***

We went back to the apartment without talking much, our skin still sticky with salt and sun. The tension had been walking along with us, one step behind, breathing down our necks.

Aleix went into the shower. I stayed in the living room listening to the water run, imagining him, not quite daring to believe it was really going to happen. When he came out, he was wearing only a towel tied around his waist, and his wet hair dripped onto his shoulders.

“Well,” he said, leaning against the doorframe. “A bet’s a bet. Or are you going to chicken out now, you fucking Catalan?”

I laughed at the backhanded insult and walked up slowly. I brushed a wet strand of hair off his forehead, that gesture I’d wanted to make for years, and for the first time nobody stopped me. I kissed him. He kissed me back with a hunger that told me it wasn’t his first time, that in Valencia he’d learned things I still hadn’t even asked him about.

The towel fell to the floor. I laid him down on the bed and finally got to run my mouth over everything I’d been stealing glances at all those days: his neck, his hard chest, the groove of his abs, his hips. I went down to his cock and took it all into my mouth, slowly, feeling his legs tense and his hands clutch the sheets. He let out broken breaths, said my name mixed with curses in Catalan that I didn’t understand but that turned me on like nothing else.

“Turn around,” I told him, my voice coming out rougher than I expected.

He obeyed. He got on all fours and there it was, at last, that perky ass that had stolen my sleep since I was fifteen. I spread it with my hands, kissed it, bit it slowly, worked him open calmly until he started pushing back on his own, asking for more without words. When I entered him, very slowly, he let out a long moan and tipped his head forward.

“I’ve owed you this for years,” I whispered in his ear, without stopping.

“Then collect it all,” he replied, panting, and arched his back to take me better.

I grabbed his hips and fucked him the way I’d fantasized a thousand times, first slowly and then without mercy, feeling his body move against mine in the rhythm I set. He was jerking himself off while pushing back into me, both hands searching, our bodies sliding with sweat. When I felt him tremble and come over the sheet, it was too much for me. I came inside him, wrapped around his back, my face buried in his neck.

We ended up lying there, breathing hard, our legs tangled. Aleix gave a soft laugh.

“I should’ve made that penalty,” he said.

“Liar,” I answered. “You missed it on purpose.”

He didn’t deny it. He settled against my chest and we stayed like that, listening to the sea in the distance, knowing there were still several days left before the rest of the family arrived.

That night we didn’t make up any other bets. No excuses were needed. What had started as a joke between two competitive kids had turned into something neither of us wanted to end with the holidays.