Divisions (Dev and Lee) (32 page)

I don’t know how long I can keep the lid on, but fortunately, Pike comes back and joins the conversation. So I just talk to Kodi about Twin Dolphin, and about some of the northeastern colleges, and he does open up a bit. Pike talks about his school—he went to North State, of course, won two bowl games there—and then gets dragged off by Fisher to talk about the Hellentown game.

I want to bring the conversation around to Kodi’s relationships, and I ask him at one point if he has a college girlfriend, but he just shakes his head. “Kind of a loner,” he says, but his ears flick back when he says it and he clasps one paw with the other briefly. His scent has a touch of fear about it, too. “We moved around a lot. Mom’s a bear, but Dad’s an elk. Lots of people didn’t understand me—us.”

God, I am so sure. Fortunately, before I have a chance to confront him, my father comes over to talk with us. “Nice group,” he says. “I can see why you work together as a team.”

“Oh,” Kodi says, “I’m just a backup.”

“Still, you have to be ready to get in there and play.” Father gestures. By this point, a leopard and bear have arrived to fill out the room. “It looks like you’d mesh with these guys really well.”

“Maybe.” Kodi looks over to where Pike is standing and shuffles in that direction. “I’m gonna try the cookies.”

“They’re great,” my father calls after him, and then, to me. “She uses real butter. You can tell.”

“I like ginger cookies,” I say, still focusing on Kodi and not thinking that that’s what Mother used to make.

“Carolyn probably has the recipe,” Father says, and his ears are down. I hadn’t thought that maybe he does miss our family Christmasses more than I do.

“Sorry,” I say, and Father puts a paw on my arm.

“Wiley.” His tone is low, and despite the crowd in the room and the buzz of conversation, it feels very private. “You don’t have to pretend either that your mother doesn’t exist, nor that everything is okay.” He smiles, a little. “I’m fine, and you are doing okay. Eventually this will heal, but I don’t want you to give up your memories. You want ginger cookies, get ginger cookies. In fact…” He hesitates, and then trails off.

My tail swings back and forth, relaxing. I give him a chance to go on, but he doesn’t. “I don’t want ginger cookies. Not now.”

“No, you should have them.”

I laugh to defuse things. “It’s okay. You don’t have to force me to move on. I’ve moved on.”

“Have you?”

I look away, toward the group of people around the cookie table. “I don’t want to bring up sad emotions. It’s Christmas.”

“Ah, when you get older…” He releases my arm. “Nothing’s purely about joy any more. There’s sadness in everything. The Christmasses we had as a family are lovely memories, but I also remember Christmas with my parents, and those are gone too.” He takes a drink, and the smell of cider hits me strongly. “So I’m just enjoying this one, standing in a room with Fisher Kingston and Gerrard Marvell—and my son—on Christmas.”

“Okay—” I’m not about to bring up calling Mother if he isn’t.

The doorbell rings again, and this time, when Angela hurries to answer it, there’s a boisterous “Merry Christmas!”

I don’t recognize the voice, but Vonni and Gerrard’s ears shoot up and then go flat, almost in unison. The felines in the room snap their heads up, too, but their ears don’t move as dramatically as big canid ears do.

“Oh, shit,” Vonni says.

A moment later, a tall, muscular cheetah in a Santa suit with a bag slung over his shoulder bursts into the room. “Merry Christmas!” he calls out, and surveys the room. “To all my teammates and their families.”

Even if I didn’t recognize his build, there’s no mistaking the red and green dye in his fur: red dots in the green fur on his head, red paws with somehow dyed-green pawpads that look—well, ‘hideous’ is probably not a strong enough word. When he takes off his Santa hat, we see little Christmas trees painted on the backs of his ears, one red, one green. My jaw drops, and Father just stares.

“I can’t stay long,” Strike says, dropping his bag to the floor, “but I brought presents for everyone.”

A few of the players manage a feeble “Merry Christmas.” The wives just look stunned. Angela alone looks amused, though she stands in the living room doorway and keeps glancing out toward where, I assume, her cubs are playing. Only the tigers, Bradley and Fisher Jr., really seem pleased that Strike is there. They drop their games and jump up.

Strike sees them right away and says, “Aw, boys, I didn’t know you were going to be here.” He rubs his chin. “Tell you what—Marvell, you got some footballs around? I brought a couple for your boys, but…”

“I’ll get them,” Angela says, and disappears. A moment later, the yelling of her cubs, which has been present in the background of the conversations throughout the afternoon, subsides. Angela’s voice, telling the cubs to behave themselves, filters back through the silence. All of us are just staring at Strike, not sure what he’s got in the bag. Fisher reaches out to his sons, but Gena grabs his shoulder and pulls him back. He listens to her and steps back, but still folds his arms, flexing his paws into fists and glaring at the cheetah.

Dev makes his way to my side and whispers, “He’s known us for a week. What could he possibly be getting us?”

“It’s a nice gesture,” I whisper back, not convinced.

The cubs appear, Jaren and Mike. Mike, the younger one, holds a football in his paws, but more like he’s offering it as a sacrifice than if he’s going to play with it. Jaren sees me and I think recognizes me from a couple months ago, but his eyes, like his brother’s, are as as huge as if Strike really is Santa, and they can’t look away from him for more than a second.

“Hi there!” Strike crouches down and produces a pen from somewhere, a thick black marker. “You guys want an autographed football?”

The two coyote cubs nod their heads, tails wagging. Now the teenaged tigers look more disgruntled, as though hoping they would get something different from what the two cubs are getting. But when Strike’s signed the football and given it back to Mike, the teens are happy enough to get the brand new one he pulls from his bag. Fisher still has his arms folded and is glaring; Gena has a paw on his arm and whispers something to him that he shakes off, but at least he doesn’t look like he’s going to punch Strike.

“Now,” the cheetah says, “for the rest of you. I know it’s only been a week, but I’m really excited about this team, and I wanted to get you guys something nice.” He reaches in and pulls out a bunch of boxes, all about four by three by three, all wrapped in silver with silver twine around them that catches the light and glitters. “I didn’t know who all was going to be here, so I brought a lot of them.” He hands out the boxes to everyone: Gerrard, Angela, Vonni, Daria, Fisher, Gena, and everyone else. When he comes to me and Dev, he hands me one box, and Father a box, and then says, “I got something special for you,” to Dev.

“Oh, no,” Dev murmurs under his breath. Some of the people in the room are opening their boxes already. I can tell just from holding mine what it is—the same iPhone Dev got me earlier today. So I’m not opening mine, and neither is Father, and half the people in the room are waiting to see what Strike got for Dev.

He pulls out a larger box with a flourish, wrapped in gaudy rainbow paper, tied with a bright red and gold bow. He tosses it to Dev, who catches it neatly, and then holds it. He looks at me. “Go ahead,” I say.

“Merry Christmas!” Strike says. “I went to a special store for this. The guy said you’d love it.”

The guy? I count only six colors on the rainbow paper and start to get an inkling of what store Strike might have gone to. I think Angela does, too, because she tells Jaren and Mike to run and put their football away upstairs. My embarrassment for Dev fights with my giddy desire to see just how horrible it is. I see my apprehension and anticipation reflected in other muzzles around the room. Now almost everyone is staring. Only my father is looking down, away from me and Dev and the package—and Kodi, over on the edge of the sofa, is picking at the wrapping paper on his box.

Dev claws the paper free, and there on the box…well, it takes me a minute to fully parse it. It’s a picture of a polar bear in black leather wristcuffs and a leather collar, both studded with silver. He’s not wearing anything else, but fortunately the picture is just from the belly button up.

We all just stare at it. Strike leans forward, eyes wide. “The guy said they’re really easy to manage. They’re the most popular item in his store.”

The leather wristcuffs, I can see now, are connected to each other by thin black cords. I think there’s a silver loop on the collar where more cords might be connected, but I don’t get a chance to look closely, because Dev drops the box abruptly to his side and says, “Thanks.”

“Is it the right size?” The cheetah looks honestly worried. Behind him, Vonni and the leopard—Pace?—look like they’re about to die laughing; both of them run out to the foyer. Daria just looks confused. Fisher and Gena are fielding whispered questions from their boys, looking harried. Fisher’s ears are flat down, actually, and he’s snarling. Gena is trying to calm him as much as keep her boys from being too interested. If I turned my ears, I could probably hear their conversation, but I can’t keep them from straining forward toward Strike.

“It’s fine,” Dev says, one paw flat on the box, covering as much of the picture as he can. He looks around the room. “Thank you.”

Nobody seems to want to move. So I rip the paper off my box, as loudly as I can manage, look at the picture of the iPhone, and say, “Wow, a new phone! This is cool! Where did you get them?”

I get an instinctive thrill from all the eyes that turn to me, the moment before Strike relaxes and says, “I made a deal with the store. Reserved a whole bunch of them a month ago.”

He smiles all huge. Beside me, Dev’s shoulders relax and he shifts; his tail brushes mine in quiet thanks. But everyone else’s expressions change from bemusement to calculation as people realize something. “So,” Gerrard says, “you were going to give these to the Port City team?”

“Nah.” Strike waves a paw—the green one—and points at the phones. “Those guys don’t deserve these. I knew I was gonna get traded so I figured I’d grab something for the new team. Because I knew wherever I ended up was going to be a great team.”

“Thanks,” Vonni says, hefting his still-wrapped box. “Feels good to be appreciated.”

Strike doesn’t quite get the sarcasm, but he does sense the mood. “If you guys don’t like ‘em, I mean, when I was in Hellentown, I got watches. I could exchange ‘em.”

“No, the phones are fine,” Fisher says, but he’s still looking at Dev’s paw. “The phones are appropriate.”

The growl does tip off Strike that something’s wrong, and he lays his ears back—both the green and red one. “Hey,” he says, “Sorry, I mean, if you guys have some team thing, I didn’t know about it.” He looks at Dev and then rummages in his bag. “If you want a phone, fifty-seven, I can give you one too, it’s no biggie.”

“No, that’s fine,” Dev says. “Thanks.”

“I just can’t believe you would bring that in here. In front of the cubs.” Fisher takes a step forward. “I think you better go.”

“Hold on.” Angela steps between them, and she’s glaring at Fisher, not Strike. “He’s welcome to stay as long as he likes. He meant well.”

Everyone’s looking at Dev, who’s staring down at the box again. I brush his tail with mine, as subtly as I can, but he doesn’t react. So I tap my foot against his, and finally, he looks up. “Yeah, Fish,” he says. “It’s okay.” He bends to set the box on the floor, out of sight, and keeps talking in the uneasy silence. “I mean,” he says, “the phones are cool. And…and thoughtful. Look, if we were all assholes, he didn’t have to give us anything at all.”

Looking at Strike, I can’t imagine he wouldn’t give his team something, whether because he really is filled with the Christmas spirit, or because he is pretty good at marketing himself. He is savvy enough to nod as people consider Dev’s remark, which is the best thing he could have said.

Fisher’s arms are at his sides, but at least one of his paws is curled into a fist again. Gena steps up to hold his shoulder, and then the fingers unclench. She looks harried, but not surprised. I guess when you’re married to a football player, you live with a violent world. I wonder idly if he ever hit her—by accident, I’m sure. Dev hit me once, when I was drunk, but we both talked about it and made sure it wasn’t going to happen again.

“Well, I think it’s cool.” Pace hefts his. “Got a camera and everything.”

“So you can take pictures of all those wideouts running by you with the ball,” Vonni snickers.

“Yeah, and then take pictures of you missing tackles on ‘em.” Pace grins at the fox, and Vonni shoots a finger-gun back at him with a big grin back. “Or of Dev getting flattened by that wolverine.”

Dev laughs, but one paw goes to his side. “You know what I’d pay to see pics of? Corey tackling that stag.”

“Go to the New Kestle locker room. I think they’ve got it up as wallpaper for next year.” Pike joins in the conversation.

“Do they play Port City next year?” “I can get you that pic if you want. Or of the stag getting him.” Vonni and Pace talk over each other.

And just like that, the conversation is back to normal. Strike talks to Angela for a little bit, and she’s smiling, so I guess things are going okay. Dev is still absorbed with Pike, Vonni, and Pace, and Kodi is hanging around that group too, so I grab my father and go over to Strike, waiting until his conversation with Angela hits a lull. In the meantime, I try not to ogle him, but good lord, he’s huge and muscular. He’s got to be about two feet taller than me, probably weighs twice as much. You can see the grace in his movements that translates to his success on the field, from the balance on his feet to the whip-snap of his tail tip, unexpected, seemingly random.

Angela excuses herself to run out to the kitchen. Strike notices me and my father and turns to us, extending a red-dyed paw down to mine. His grip is firm and courteous. “You’re with Dev, right?” His eyes go to my father. “Both of you?”