Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (46 page)

“Yeah, sure.” He shrugs.

I follow Colin into the shower, still thick and warm with the smell of soap and disappointment, as if we’d been able to get it all off of us there. We stand away from the damp walls, near the drain in the center. The moment we’re out of sight of the locker room, before I have a chance to say anything, he gets all up in my face. “Listen,” he says, “I only agreed to come in here so you wouldn’t start slandering me in front of the team. They don’t need to hear that after this game.”

I stand there and look coolly back. As coolly as I can while wanting to punch him in the throat, anyway. “You do know that his name is ‘Argonne,’ right? The fox who’s been blowing you before road games?”

He steps back, and his tail is so tightly wound it looks like a spring. “If anyone told you that, they’re lying.”

“Mm. No, that’d be difficult.” I don’t want to lean against the wet wall, so I just fold my arms. “No, I got up close to him the other night. Smelled his breath. It smelled real familiar.”

“Like you can tell from smells,” he snorts derisively.

Fucking foxes. Despite his attitude, his nostrils flare and his eyes are wide. If we weren’t in the shower, I bet I’d be able to smell the change in his emotion. I take a breath. “Yeah, well. When I realized who it reminded me of, I asked him about you. He’s discreet, didn’t want to tell me, but when I told him your name and mentioned your…jewelry,” I gesture at the cross around his neck, “he told me he’s been your regular, how did he put it, ‘muzzle check-in’ before road games. Some home games, too.”

His eyes flicker, and he starts to walk past me and out. “I don’t have to stay here and listen to whatever stories your little road-whores make up.”

I don’t chase him. “I’m guessing—just a shot in the dark—that Penny doesn’t know.”

That stops him. He edges to one side, out of view of the locker room again. “Are you threatening to tell my wife lies?” His voice is louder and higher, echoing off the tile.

“No. I’m not threatening to tell her anything. I’m just wondering how you justify being such a bigoted prick when you’re not only letting a guy blow you, but also cheating on your wife. I never cheated on Lee.”

“Sure.” He sneers again, and again I’m reminded of Lee in a negative way, the twisting of words and the cleverness without the caring behind it. “What were you doing so close you could smell the breath of that little slut, if you weren’t cheating?”

“Talking to him,” I say. “Not leaving any of my scent on him. Or in him.” It was a near thing, but Colin doesn’t have to know how near.

“Right. Because he’s so good at conversation.”

“I guess you wouldn’t know what else he can use his muzzle for. But it sounds like you do know him.”

He drops his mouth open, says, “You—” and then snaps his jaw closed, giving me a momentary flush of satisfaction at having outwitted a fucking fox. His ears flatten, and his paw reaches up to grab his cross, then lets it go. “I am not cheating,” he says in a low, vicious hiss. “I’m not lying with another vixen, or letting her touch me inappropriately.”

“But you are letting another male touch you—”

His eyes narrow. I marvel that he and Lee are the same species. “Even if that were true, it wouldn’t count. It’s just a—a thing that doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone.” I don’t like saying that because what he’s saying is kind of pissing me off. “But you are cheating, you know. You are having sex.”

“I am
not
. It’s not real intercouse. It’s not what relationships are founded on, no matter what you and that coyote have deluded yourself into thinking. And you’re trying to convince cubs all over the world that you’re right, that they can have families with anyone they let touch their privates. That’s not God’s plan for the world.” His paw twitches through his chest fur just short of the cross and then drops to his side again.

“So because you really like sticking your dick in a boy’s mouth—”

“Shut up!” His ears flatten. “I am not going to be talked to like this.” He points a finger at me, inches from my nose. “And if you try to tell this despicable lie to anyone, I will make your life miserable.”

He starts to walk away. I say, “Seems to me it’d make your life pretty miserable, too. So what say you lay off my private life? Then I won’t feel any need to discuss yours.”

“I don’t make my private life the world’s business,” he hisses over his shoulder, at the exit.

“Neither do I!” I have to raise my voice. “The fucking world makes it their business!”

He’s already out in the locker room. I stand there, tail lashing, and then I slam one fist into the wet tile of the shower wall and stalk out.

And almost smack right into Gerrard and Coach. Both of them say at about the same time, “What’s going on? Everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” I’m not sure why my paws hurt, then I realize my fists are clenched and my claws partly extended. I force them to relax. “Everything’s fucking fine.”

I stalk past them. Behind me, Gerrard says to Coach, “They weren’t fighting.”

I don’t look toward Colin’s locker, because if I see his smug smile or his big black ears, I’m going to want to punch him. And we’ll be off soon enough, and I won’t have to see him until the flight back home. By then I should have calmed down.

Gerrard comes up and puts a paw on my shoulder. “Look,” I say, “I’m leaving this in the locker room. He’s a good corner, I know that. The team needs us both. I was just trying to settle something before the off-season. I don’t have football to take up my life now, not for three or four months. So just lay off.”

He removes the paw, then settles it down on my shoulder again. “I was only going to ask if you wanted to come out for a drink. Just the linebackers. Steez wants to take us out.”

I glance at my phone. I want to figure out what to text Lee, and I agreed to meet Polecki later, and probably Mom and Dad will want to get together. But Polecki won’t be free for a while and I want to stay part of this team for as much longer as I can manage. “Sure,” I say. “Should have time for that.”

It takes two hours, and it’s a really nice two hours. It feels strange to think that we’re not going to be on the field again in a week or two, but we start comparing minor injuries and talking about things we want to catch up on. “I’m actually looking forward to spending time with the cubs,” Gerrard says, and laughs. “In a few months I’ll be ready to get back to football.”

“What,” I say, “no off-season workouts?”

“Oh, there’s workouts, and you’re coming.” He grins at me. “Just not football.”

Carson remains fairly quiet. Zillo is going to some tropical island with his family and a girl they want him to meet, and Marais is going to work on a charitable foundation for Vidalia youth, out where he grew up.

They ask me what I’m going to do, and I can’t say, “Figure out my relationship,” so I say, “Probably start working with the Equality Now people and maybe do some PSAs, appear at schools. Try to help gay kids.”

I’m not worried about football anymore, and, I realize, not worried about how anyone in this group will react. They react just the same as they did to everyone else: with nods and approving noises, and moving on to Steez, who says, “Good work,” to me before talking about coaching pee-wee football camps back in his hometown.

I think about Lee, and about Polecki, and how just the fact that there’s another gay player now makes me feel less self-conscious. Why couldn’t I get that from Lee? Maybe it’s that plus the lack of pressure for an upcoming game. Or maybe it’s both those things plus six months of learning to rely on each other. Whatever it is, it feels good, the linebackers all as close as any family gathering I’ve been to in years. As we talk, I slowly process that nobody else thinks of me as the odd guy out even when I talk about being gay. I’m just Dev, sitting between a couple cougars and across from a couple coyotes. Every one of us is different, no one more different than the others, gay or straight, monogamous or less so, from poor or middle-class families. Maybe that was always true. Maybe that’s what Lee was trying to teach me, and I just couldn’t see it.

By the time I have to grab a cab to meet Polecki, the rest of the guys are taking off to do their own thing, meet up with other teammates or go visit some C.C. hotspots. I know I’ll see them on the plane, but I take a moment to look around the table and remember this group, these guys who were with me all season long. It’s a special group, and talking about our lives outside of football, even for this brief time, has reinforced the bond we have.

It’s illusory, I know. Gerrard’s under contract, Carson is too. Probably none of us are going anywhere. But any of us could be traded, or someone else could be brought in. Steez could be promoted or could get a better job. Life wears down the bonds we form, sometimes almost as soon as we form them.

Chapter 31 - Departures (Lee)

Dev’s probably busy, I keep telling myself. But at least there’s one thing I can do. I track down Peter. “Hey, do you have the number of the GM in Crystal City?”

“Sure,” he says. “But you might want to give him a few minutes.”

I pull up Dev’s number on my phone. “In case Polecki wants to get in touch with him. I’m pretty sure they don’t have each others’ numbers.”

“Oh. Yeah, that might be handy. Thanks.” He takes my phone and walks off with it, pulling up a number on his own phone. “Gil? Hey, congratulations, possum! Listen, I was looking at Polecki—yeah, hell of a thing, right? Well, guess who I got here? Miski’s boyfriend. That’s right. So if you want to pass along Miski’s number…yeah.” He reads off Dev’s number, gives me back the phone, and pads out of earshot.

Hal pats me on the shoulder. “So now there’s two.”

“And more to come.” I exhale. “It’s only going to get easier from this point on.”

“So I’d think.” He beckons me back and leans against the wall, the two of us removing ourselves somewhat from the post-game party going on. A lot of people are on their phones; I guess everyone knows someone connected with Crystal City. The ones who aren’t on the phone are half-talking, half-watching the screen, or else settling up prop bets with the lemur. Every now and then, one of the people I’ve met walks by, but they leave us alone when they see us in conversation. “So look. Your tiger, he’s going to need some support.”

I eye him. “Really? You’re going to try to get us back together
now?
”

“Been trying a while.” He grins. “Guess it was a little subtle. I know you reds like things direct.”

I scowl, and he goes on. “So you got this job sewn up, and you’ll be moving out here soon, but I want my office back.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Another week, tops.” My tail brushes the wall, back and forth, a soothing rhythm. I could probably stay with Father for a while. That reminds me that I should call Mother soon and find out what’s going on with her.

“Other thing.” Hal points at the screen. “Less pressure on him now. Someone else is out, so he can worry about his life. Let other people be activists. Or not. But it should be more relaxed, and you can be you, and he can be him. Seems to work pretty well for you when that happens.”

“Maybe.” I follow his finger to the screen. They’ve moved from the Sabretooths’ trophy presentation to the crowd, talking to people while the players move back to the locker room. Polecki is still surrounded by reporters; they cut back to show him every now and then. One of the announcers sounds a little disapproving, but the sound is down and the room is loud. I catch the phrase, “disrespecting the game, he could have waited a day,” and then the response, “seemed to be from the heart, you can’t fault that.”

Hal nudges me. “Maybe?”

“Well, I don’t know,” I say. “Being me didn’t work out. Not being me didn’t work out. I don’t know what I’m left with.”

Hal sighs. “Well, being a martyr don’t suit you either. So drop that.”

“I’m not.” I turn from the TV to glare at him. “I’m being realistic.”

“You’re being emotional.”

“Says the guy who’s been divorced.”

“Not my decision.” He shrugs as I just stare at him. “Little bit my decision.”

“Didn’t you say that I’ll get over this emotional thing in time?” I fold my arms and slump against the wall.

“Mostly. But all I’m sayin’ right now is that I think you should send him a message or something.” He talks softly but firmly.

“I did send him a message.” My phone is warm in my pocket. “He hasn’t replied.”

“You sent him a message before the championship game,” Hal says. “Before the biggest game of his life, which ended, what, half an hour ago?”

“So why should I send him another message now? Give him a chance to reply, if he’s going to.” The thought that he won’t gnaws at my stomach. I tell myself rather brutally that Dev not responding to me is something I’m going to have to get used to.

“You don’t think he would have something to say about this?”

“I’m sure he does.” Just maybe not to me. Too close to our fight, too wrapped up in gay activism, too much of the two worlds intersecting and colliding. I hope he has a good conversation with Polecki. I hope the coyote is as nice and genuine a guy as his speech indicated.

Hal shrugs. “Okay, then,” he says. “I guess you know best.”

*

When I do finally get the message from Dev, it’s hours later in the hotel room. Hal’s back to researching his story, and I’ve just been lying back on the bed playing some stupid game I downloaded for my phone, which is terrible, but I don’t have anything else to do other than think about the day, the Firebirds losing, and so on. I have e-mail from Brian but I don’t want to read it yet because I know pretty much what it’s going to say, and I have a voicemail from Kodi, which I should answer sometime.

But the message from Dev, that one I want to see. I call it up and read it, and then I read it again.

“Huh,” I say.

Hal looks up from his laptop. “Message?”

“Yeah. From Dev.”

He turns his chair, faces me. “And?”

I stare down at the text again. “I don’t know. I mean…we’re talking. I guess.”

“Are you going to message him back?”

“Yeah. Eventually.” Once I think of something to say.

“Should do it sooner than later.”

“And you should stop trying to make up for your failed marriage through my relationship,” I snap, pulling the game back up on my phone.

I notice that Hal isn’t typing much, but I don’t think anything of it until he says, “Maybe that is what I’m doing. But I don’t think it’s such a bad thing to be doing.” I don’t respond to that, and he goes on. “You guys still have a chance, you know. I’m tryin’ to help with the lessons I’ve learned because you have it about a thousand times harder than me and Cim did.”

“Not a million times harder?” I don’t look up from the game.

“No,” he says. “No, I’d say about a thousand. We had lots of our own problems that you two don’t. Thing is, you got a lot of advantages we didn’t.”

Now I put the game aside. “Like?”

“For one thing, your families don’t expect you to have cubs anytime. That’s a big one.”

“Mine does.”

He shakes his head. “Not the same. I mean, it is sort of because with your family, it’s like an indictment of your whole life, but it’s all or nothing. They can’t say, ‘We love your boyfriend but when are you going to get him pregnant?’ Accepting you means accepting the ‘no cubs’ thing. And you’re three for four on that.”

“Cubs aren’t the big issue anyway. The big issue is that we want different things. Like you and Cim.”

“Or like me and Pol. And we’re working on it because we both like each other a lot.” He reaches up to scratch behind an ear. “Not as much as you guys like each other.”

“Your differences aren’t as strong either.” I don’t know if that’s true, but it makes me feel better about where Dev and I are if it is.

“Maybe, maybe not.” Hal’s smart enough not to get sidetracked into that discussion. “I guess my thinking is you should at least talk it out face to face. Now that the game’s over and all.”

“Yeah, I kinda think we will. But…” I draw my knees up and curl my tail around them, trying to figure out how to vocalize what I’ve been trying not to think. “Maybe this is just rationalization, but I think it’s also important for us to learn that we can live apart. I mean…I don’t want to end up one of those guys who can’t function without a boyfriend.”

“At the risk of bein’ flip,” Hal says, “I’ve been pretty happy for thirty-some years without a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, well, you just haven’t had a good one.” I stick my tongue out at him, not suggestively.

“Maybe.” He chuckles, and nods at me. “Go ahead.”

“Well, ever since I came out, in college…” I think about it. “I had Brian as a best friend, I had a series of boyfriends. I wasn’t seeing anyone when I met Dev, and partly that played into what happened. Brian was gone, I’d broken up with—shit, what was his name? Some fox. Anyway. I was doing fine. I was independent and I was on my own, but I was also a little bit scared. I’ve always wanted to prove myself, that I could get out there and be my own person and succeed without help, and I’ve always been scared that I couldn’t. Dev helped me get my job as much as I helped him get his, and then I lost it again. And these last few months I’ve been scared that I’ll never be anything but his boyfriend.”

“Those guys at Yerba thought you were plenty smart,” Hal says.

I nod. “It helps. And I’m starting to think that maybe—maybe—I’ll be okay whatever happens.”

He rubs the side of his muzzle. His whiskers flatten and then spring back. “Okay, then I’m gonna say my piece. I haven’t seen you two together all that much. But when I’ve seen it, you guys had a joy about you that I don’t see much anywhere. Cim and I had it for a year or two, then it disappeared.” He looks down at his paws.

“I’m sorry,” I say. It’s hard to meet his eyes when he lifts his muzzle, but I make myself do it. “For saying that about you reliving your marriage. It was a shitty thing to say.”

He nods acknowledgment. “Apology accepted. But it wasn’t wrong. I’d give just about anything to have that time back. So I don’t want you to waste the chance at it.”

“What if I’ve already had my time?” I drop a paw to the tip of my tail, where the red shades into white. I’ve sifted claws across that border more times than I can count, trying to see where one ends and the other begins, and I can never sort it out. The first white hair is deep in the red side, the last red hair deep in the white. From the outside, it looks stark and easy, but when you look closer, it’s not that easy, not by a long shot.

“Then…” Hal pauses. “I dunno. I think you never know it’s over until you look back. But don’t stop fighting for it. Take it from me. You don’t know when it might come around again.”

I smooth the fur over slowly. Red and white, plain as day. “Thing is…every time I dated someone else, I got more of those moments, and better. I couldn’t imagine them getting better, and then they did.”

“That stops.” Hal laughs. “It doesn’t keep getting better.”

“What if there’s someone else? I mean, I love Dev. I do. But can he really be the only one out there who makes me feel this way?”

“What if you never find that other person? Why not stick with the one you know?”

“What if there’s someone out there who’s the right person without all the fights and the conflicting goals?” But even as I say that, I know it’s not the fights that are the problem. Dev and I fight, but fighting is our way of pushing each other, of challenging each other. We both enjoy that. Plus, the make-up sex.

It’s the goals that are the problem. None of our fights uncovered issues the way this last one, which wasn’t even a fight, did: communication, goals, methods. So the question is, is that something we can work out? Can we figure out a way to live together even with these differences? Or should we just stay friends and start over?

I close my eyes and imagine his arms around me, the warm fur and tight muscle, the scent of tiger and athlete. There’s no-one like him, not anywhere, that combination of tough jock and vulnerable kid, the strength and weakness, the way he approaches sex with such boundaries and then with such enthusiasm and energy inside them. The way he won’t let me be less than what I am. A different guy would have told me to cut out the activism altogether, to just sit around the house and be his fuck-toy because he could afford it. Or another guy would have just told me to go do whatever I wanted and distanced himself from it. But Dev…what caused him that stress is that he wanted to be part of it, that he felt guilty not doing the things I asked him to. And I love that about him.

“You know,” Hal says softly. “You can create the perfect partner in your head. Have dreams, write in your diary, whatever you do.”

“I don’t write in a diary,” I say.

He eyes me. “Guys write in diaries.”

“Guys write in journals,” I say, “and I don’t do that either.”

“Fine.” He rolls his eyes. “For someone who puts on a dress, you’re pretty touchy about it. Whatever. The point is, that perfect partner doesn’t exist anywhere outside your diary, or your dreams, or your head.”

“I know.” I squeeze my tail tip in both paws, my ears flat against my head. “But if your partner doesn’t want to call you back, then what can you do?”

“What you don’t do is you don’t give up.”

“Easy for you to say.”

He shakes his head. “All right, all right. Go ahead and mope. I know that feels good, too.”

“I have to make a call.” I go out into the hallway, as much to avoid the conversation as to not let on to Hal whose number I’m dialing.

“Hi,” Kodi says when he picks up. “Thanks for calling back.”

“What are you up to?” I ask. I walk near the ice machine, but it’s too loud, so I head down the other direction.

“Oh, sitting around. Not thinking about the game. Whatever losers do. Where are you?”

“Up in Yerba. Just had a job interview-slash-championship game party-slash-gay rights discussion.” I find an elevator lobby with a nice view out onto the park and the bay, the same view as our room.

“Yeah.” He fidgets. “That’s why I called.”

“I figured. So how are you feeling?”

He takes a moment. “I don’t know. The coyote, he’s a superstar.”

“I don’t know about that,” I say, not meaning to interrupt, but he talks pretty slowly. “He’s a starter, but he wasn’t better known than Gerrard.”

“But he’s a starter. And guys like me…”

“You’ve got a whole off-season,” I say. “Guys like you are going to be able to come out eventually.”

“You think I should announce it?”

I rub my whiskers. “I wouldn’t right now. But I do think you should tell Dev. He’d be cool with it. And I think you’d find the rest of the team will be, too.”

“Pike,” he says.

“Well, yeah. You’re gonna have to work out that one for yourself,” I say. “I don’t know how he’s going to feel about it, but I’d bet he’ll be okay hanging out with you still. He likes you, doesn’t he?”

“But what if he likes me because he doesn’t know that I’m…like that?”