Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (15 page)

“Oh, what the hell would you know?” Fisher growls.

“Hey,” I say, but Gena cuts me off.

“You know, the town is really coming together for the playoffs. I haven’t seen anything like this in Chevali. I had a cashier ask me what I was doing for the game.” She laughs, forced at first and then easing. “I didn’t dare tell him I was from out of town.”

“Sorry,” Fisher growls across the table at Lee. “Just that you don’t really know unless you’ve played in the playoffs. That’s why these coaches don’t know, most of the players don’t know. It’s frustrating, is all.”

Lee nods, and I step in. “It’s something we’re all working toward, and I know the coaches are doing the best they can.”

“Samuelson doesn’t know what he’s doing. You can’t just do the same things over and over when the situation’s different. It’s life or death in the playoffs.” He cuts another piece of steak and stabs at it. “Might be my last chance. I don’t want to waste it.”

“It’s really helped having you back,” I say. “Not that Pike is bad, but he doesn’t have that spark.”

That gets Fisher to smile, a glint in his eye. “Damn right.”

“Statistically, he’s not as productive on the field,” Lee says. “The coaches make up for it by drawing up plays that have other players covering for him, and Dev does a terrific job of that. But his numbers aren’t as good as yours.” He nods at Fisher. “And I don’t even mean when you were his age. I mean three months ago.”

Fisher eases up on his steak and even purrs a bit as he says, “Well, I keep in shape.”

I chew my own steak and think about him coming out of the trainers’ room, and I don’t say anything.

Fisher picks up the check and we walk out of the restaurant lost in football talk about last year’s playoffs, about our mindsets, and the defensive line. Behind us, Lee and Gena are talking in low voices I can’t catch, but Lee’s ears are down and Gena looks intense when I look back. She’s talking and he’s listening, nodding. I angle an ear back, but then Fisher says something else about Brick, and I have to pay attention again.

Gena’s staying in the same hotel as Lee, so we all walk back together like that, and by the time we get to the Intercontinental’s lobby, they’ve moved on to another conversation: Lee reluctantly telling Gena about his mother and the anti-gay group. The large tigress puts an arm around Lee as we get to the elevators. “It must be so hard on you,” she says.

His tail is curled around his legs, but he smiles up at Gena. “Thanks. I’m dealing with it. Father helps a lot. So does Dev.”

“Her own son.” Gena clucks. “If Bradley or Junior were gay, we’d be supportive.” There’s a bit of an awkward silence, and then she says, “Well, at least we wouldn’t burn their old things. I hope she comes around soon.”

The elevator dings and the doors open. “I’m working on it. Thanks,” Lee says again, and we all get in and go to our different floors after “good night” and “see you tomorrow.”

“What were you guys talking about?” I ask as we walk out onto his floor.

He hesitates. “She asked me to do some research on some things, and to not talk about it with you yet.” He glances back at me. “Sorry.”

“Huh. Okay.” I shove that back onto the pile of things I’m trying not to think too hard about. “Is it about us?”

He shakes his head. “Nah, just…a thing.” He smiles up.

“At least she was nice about your mom.” I fidget, not sure what to say next. I wish I had better advice to give him about his mom. I really think he should talk to her—calmly, not yelling. But I don’t know how to say that, or what I could say that would make him do that. Part of me wonders if he was exaggerating how bad the fight was…but he wouldn’t have lied about her burning his things. And how do you forgive that?

He’s lost in thought too, so I go on. “What did you mean, you’re working on it? You think she’ll ever change?”

He walks over to the desk and stands near it, dropping his room key there and then his wallet and some coins from his pocket. “I don’t know. In my dreams, yeah. But probably the best that I can hope for is we’ll go back to calling on the holidays and acting like nothing’s wrong.”

I know there’s not a lot he can do. I can sympathize with that helpless feeling, so I go stand next to him and pull him against me. “You’ll be welcome at my house.”

“Unless your brother’s there.”

“Yeah, well, fuck him.”

He grins up. “I’m not even going to make a remark about that.”

“Good.” I lean down to nuzzle his ears. “We’ve got an hour and a half and I don’t want to spend it talking about either of our families.” I take a breath. “I kinda feel like I didn’t do so great with the make-up sex last night. Give me another chance?”

He raises an eyebrow. “You think it was a real fight last night?”

“We were yelling at each other. Or at least, we were snapping.”

“We had an argument.” He unfastens his pants and slips them off. “It happens.”

“It felt like a fight.”

He gives me a look. “Do you want to spend your hour and a half talking about the difference between an argument and a fight?”

I glance down at his briefs, nice and tight and revealing, and then follow my look with a paw, holding the warmth of his sheath through the cloth, curling my fingers under his sac, rubbing there. “No,” I say. “Not really. Are these new?”

His eyes widen, and then he presses into my paw, letting me get him warm and hard. “Uh-huh,” he breathes, and for what seems like the first time that night, he really relaxes into me. “I didn’t want to wear boxers here.”

“I like them.” I grin and tease a finger through the opening at the front so I can feel the warmth of his sheath right against my pad, and then the skin of the shaft above it.

He pants against my chest, his fingers working at removing my shirt. “Don’t you want me to put on the shirt?” he says.

I get a second finger in beside the first, enough to curl around and stroke him. “In a minute,” I say, and wrap my other arm around his back, just enjoying holding him without any game thoughts or social issues to distract me and ruin things.

After a good few minutes, when he’s got my shirt open and his little teeth tugging at my left nipple, I’m panting pretty good myself. So I pull my fingers out of his underwear and grin. “Go put the shirt on,” I say.

He flips his tail at me as he saunters back to the bed, and while he’s got his back turned, I get my pants off. He turns around with the Boxers t-shirt on and grins at the sight of me standing there with a paw under my own erection. “Well, look at the big bad Firebird,” he says, and turns his back on me, sliding his briefs down. He curls his tail over his naked rear. “Think you can get through this defense?”

I lift both paws and step forward. “Just watch me.”

After a brief chase around the room, I have him pinned to the bed on his back, legs up against my chest. It still isn’t as good as some of our make-up sex has been after fights, but it’s as good as I’ve felt the night before a game in a long time. I let out a lot of tension, and from the way he squirms and thrusts back and gets into it, it feels like he’s doing the same. Sure hope the Intercontinental has thick walls.

We lie on the bed, post-climax, me on top of his sticky Boxers shirt, his muzzle up against mine. I slide my arms under him and hold him. “Just two more weeks,” I whisper into his ear.

He flicks it and murmurs, “Does that mean we only get to have pre-game sex one more time?”

“Depends how far before the game we can do it.” I press my hips into his rear, making him squirm again. “And there’s always next season.”

“That’s not too far off.”

I think about who else on the team is having pre-game sex, and that leads my mind back to the conversation over lunch. “You think someone else on the team might be gay?”

He goes really still and his ears flatten. His eyes dip to my nose and then back up. “What makes you say that?”

“Oh, the guys were wondering at lunch. Ty says there’s got to be someone else.”

“Did he say if he thought anyone…” He trails off.

I nose between his ears. “Did one of them come on to you?” I play-growl.

“No.” His tail flicks up against my legs. “No, but I think he’s probably right.”

“Your gaydar’s better than mine, then.” I exhale. “But Argonne said that he had been with someone else.”

“Doesn’t mean they’re gay,” he says. He reaches up to hold my shoulder. “Being gay is more than just letting a guy blow you. Or fucking a guy. It’s about building a relationship with one.”

“Mmm.” I kiss his ears. “I’m glad I have you, fox.”

“Me too,” he says softly.

As much as I would like to lie there all night, I have to get back to the hotel for curfew. But I feel much better, very relaxed, all the way back to the hotel. When I get to my room, Charm is there already, wonder of wonders, playing with his new phone. He grumbles about how the clubs all close at eleven, and we actually have our lights out before they come to check.

Sunday morning starts with Charm throwing a pillow at me to wake me up, a hearty breakfast of oatmeal and steak and eggs, and then a quick walk down to the stadium for the nine o’clock call. For the noon kick-off, the Boxers gave us the early practice time on the field. We run through basic drills—nothing fancy; the media and some of the Boliat team staff are hanging about watching. At ten, the Boxers players come out. We say some quick hellos, but we’re all tightly focused and talk is minimal.

In the locker room, Coach spends fifteen minutes with us and then turns us over to Steez. I work with Gerrard and Carson, and then a little bit with Zillo. We stretch and dress and sit around trying to stay loose, trying not to think about the fact that this is the biggest game of our lives.

Gerrard helps. We all know that he’s been with the Firebirds for years without making the playoffs, and so this should be more important to him than to any of us. And yet he’s half-smiling, calmly wrapping his own ankles in tape, and stretching. His ears are up and his tail swings freely behind him, relaxed and confident, and the rest of the linebackers take our cues from him. The minutes and hours tick by.

And then we’re walking out into the domed stadium, and as I come out of the tunnel, I pause to take it all in. It’s nearly deafening, full of people, and the dome overhead is a confusing background of greyish-white with steel-grey girders stretched across it. Signs dot the crowd, but all of them are pro-Boxers. I don’t see any homophobic ones. I feel comforted there; it feels like they’ve forgotten that I’m gay, which is perfect. I’m just a football player, now.

Zillo, beside me, folds his ears down. “Always forget how loud this place is,” he says, loudly enough that I can hear him.

“It’s indoors. Just amplifies all the sound,” Vonni says behind us.

“That’s not how that works,” Pace says. “It doesn’t amplify it, it just reflects it back.”

“Right. Amplifying it.”

“No. Amplification is a completely different process…”

Zillo and I look at each other and grin. “It’s fucking loud is what it is,” I say.

We trot out as we’re introduced, looking across the field at the big blue-and-white arch and the empty Boxers’ sideline. The stadium fills with boos for us, and then gets eerily quiet as the lights dim.

The Boxers come in, anonymous in their uniforms and helmets. I know their names, but there’s only one person on the team I actually know, a cornerback who was with the Dragons last year and joined the Boxers as a backup this year because he wanted to win a ring. I see antlers over the helmets and claws at the end of paws, hands on the horses and deer. They’re just another team of football players like us, who won one more game during the regular season, just one.

The lights come up during the national anthem. We stand there, paws over our hearts, and then it seems to take forever for the game to get under way. There are opening ceremonial things and people coming out to speak, a children’s charity, and interminable announcements about the history of the Boliat franchise in recent years. I remember what Gerrard said about the Knights’ stadium intimidating visitors, and so I tune out all the announcements.

Next to me, though, Zillo’s looking tense, his tail tightly down and his weight shifting from one side to the other. I cast around the stadium and then nudge him. “Hey. You see that funny sign there at the end zone?”

He startles out of listening to the announcements and looks down at the ad (something for Chicken Fingers; it’s not really all that funny). For a moment, he just stares at it, and then he breaks into a laugh. “Yeah,” he says. “Reminds me of that stupid Chick’n’Biscuits ad back home.”

“I hate that fucking chicken mascot,” I say.

Zillo’s tail uncurls and swings more freely. His posture shifts and he grins. “Everyone does.”

Charm leans over from behind us and says, “You think that’s bad, you should see the mascot over at Sweet Peppers.”

“Yeah?” Zillo half-turns.

“With or without the costume on?” I say.

“She’s better without.” Charm grins.

We joke back and forth until it’s time for the team’s captains to go out for the coin toss, and then we cheer on Gerrard and Aston. “Come on, call it right,” I mutter.

“Don’t fuck up!” Charm yells as they walk out to the center of the field. Aston ignores him, but Gerrard waves a paw back at us.

The guys coming out for Boliat are a whole squad of captains: their running back, a cornerback, a safety, and their quarterback. Everyone shakes and then the referee asks Gerrard to call the toss, as the visiting team’s representative. He calls heads, and the coin lands heads. “We want the ball,” he tells the ref.