Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (24 page)

I stand my ground, challenging him. I can be a dick, too. “How much is it going to cost you to bring all these people back another day? You’re lucky I’m not asking for ten thousand.”

Everyone stares at the pronghorn. He stares at me, and then looks down at the paper. “Fuck me,” he says again, and initials next to my changes and then signs it. “All right,” he says. “You’re hired. Now get into costume. Sorry we don’t have a wardrobe trailer.”

He has kind of a malicious smirk on, as though making me take my clothes off in public is his punishment for the uppity fox who’s shaken him down for what I’m sure is a minute fraction of what he’s making for this shoot. How little he knows. I slide my pants down without really caring that I’m standing in my boxers, even the tight ones I bought for Dev. The pine marten behind the camera stares, and maybe the director does too, but I pretend not to notice.

They have a lot of shorts and t-shirts, but the director likes the red shorts the cheetah’s wearing and insists I try them on. The cheetah looks a little uncomfortable at having to undress, so the boar finds a towel to drape over him while he does it. Maybe he’s wearing rocket-ship underwear, or nothing at all. I’m starting to think this director has a voyeur thing going, which fits, given his profession.

I pull the shorts on and take off my shirt. The director eyes my bare chest and I guess his shrug passes for approval. Fortunately, the cheetah is slender and around the same build I am, so the shorts and t-shirt fit, if a little long. “Doesn’t matter,” the director says, smoothing down my fur around the sleeves of the peach-colored t-shirt the cheetah was wearing. “It’s not supposed to look like you have muscles. No, no, this doesn’t work. Your black paws just do not go with it.”

“They’re brown.” I take the yellow shirt off and try on a black one, which just highlights that my paws and lower arms are not, in fact, black.

“No, no, no. Nothing is going to work with that brown fur coming up the forearm.” The director pivots dramatically. “Why can’t you just be a uniform color?”

“Your mom’s a uniform color,” I mutter under my breath, reaching for the electric green shirt.

“What if he rolls up the sleeves?” the cheetah says. He’s in a better mood since the director told him he’ll still get paid.

The pronghorn whirls and snaps his fingers. “Yes! Roll up the sleeves! No, not with the green one, that’s hideous. Put the black one on again.”

Finally, we settle on the black shirt with rolled-up sleeves. It looks “passable,” the director assures me. “Now go, get in position.”

“He’s too short,” the camera operator, a pine marten, says.

“So we film from the waist up, we only use shots of Miski leaping for the ball. Looks more impressive.”

“Yeah, we can do that.” The marten gets back behind the camera.

And just like that, I’m acting in my first paid commercial. Mindful of the cheetah’s misstep, I try to run my routes as precisely as Dev does and find how hard it is. I mark spots on the pads, but I can’t watch my feet landing there because I have to look at where the ball is coming, and I manage to get in position to catch the ball, but when I stop and look at where I am, it’s a foot or two off from where I’d intended to be. Part of that is because the ball is going to slightly different spots every time. The boar started out throwing again, but then the cheetah said he could throw from a seated position, and his throws were much crisper, so they’re letting him do it.

“This is hard,” I say to Dev as we reach the side of the pads for the fourth time. He’s not leaping to get the ball, just practicing being in the right spot. I’m panting already and he’s just smiling, barely winded even though he’s run twice as much as I have.

“Maybe you should spend some of your days working out,” he says, and elbows me in the stomach.

“Oof. Yeah.” I grin and go back to it, and after a few more runs, we start shooting.

We do thirty-five takes in all. Every time, I run the route, I reach up for the ball, and Dev leaps in front of me to take it away. At first, I’m just happy to be acting with him, but as the takes go on, I find myself wishing I could catch the ball, just once.

Chapter 10 – Broken Coverage (Dev)

I have a blast acting in the commercial with Lee. I show off a bit, twisting in the air in front of him, coming down on one foot, one-handing the ball. He grins, appreciating the show, I’m sure. I like how he looks in his shirt with the rolled-up sleeves and the athletic shorts. “You should wear that more often,” I tell him, low, between takes.

The director calls for us to get back in position before he has a chance to respond. The cheetah tosses the ball in our direction, Lee jumps for it, and I jump in front of him, grabbing it and pulling it down. Then they do about five takes of Lee picking up the Ultimate Fit shirt and grinning at the camera. He says, “Let’s go again,” and then asks if they need him to say it again.

“No,” the director says. “We’re going to loop Jorgy’s voice over it anyway, because he signed the contract to speak on camera and I can’t afford another thousand to use your
voice
.” He turns away from Lee, back to me, and gets courteous again. “I think we got enough. You guys mind sticking around while I look through the takes real quick?”

“Sure,” I say. It’s a nice enough day out, and I like being up here.

“Hey,” Lee says to the cheetah. “Throw me one.”

The cheetah grabs a football and tosses it. I grin, stalk behind Lee, and then leap in front of him to grab the pass at the last minute. When I turn, flaunting the ball, he’s standing with his ears flat and paws on his hips, staring at me. “Nice catch, stud,” he says, and walks over to where he left his pants.

I drop the football and walk over, but he’s already shoved down his shorts. He steps out of them and picks up his pants. “Hey, you okay?” I put a paw on his bare shoulder, just below the rolled-up shirt.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says. “This was fun.”

He smiles, but I don’t know whether to take it seriously. “I was just kidding around.”

“I know,” he says. “It’s not a big deal.”

“I’ll throw you a football if you want.”

“Maybe some other time.”

The boar’s already picked up all the footballs and one of the other assistants is cleaning up the pads, and yeah, maybe we shouldn’t do this on the roof of a parking garage in front of a whole camera crew. “Tell you what,” I say, “I’ve got some footballs at the apartment. We can head down to the park.”

“Sure,” he says again.

The director tells us he’s got everything he needs. We shake paws and head on down to the truck, where I grab an energy bar and devour it as I turn on my phone to check it. Ogleby’s left me voicemails with the times of the interviews I’m supposed to be doing, and it turns out one of them was ten minutes ago. The last voicemail is from that reporter.

“Fuck.” I hit the steering wheel. “Can you drive home? I need to get on this interview.”

He nods. “Sure.” We switch places and I call the reporter back.

The questions are all pretty standard football questions. He asks about stepping in for Corey, about keeping the spot when Corey came back, and what it’s like working with Gerrard. I talk about football, the extra practices and the schemes, and how Gerrard keeps us really focused on the game and helps us make in-game adjustments. And then he asks, “Do any of them care that you’re gay?”

“No,” I say.

“Really? Was there any behind-the-scenes trouble when you came out?”

“You know,” I say, “this was all reported pretty thoroughly back then. I don’t really want to talk about it any more.”

Lee glances at me, navigating the streets. “Sorry,” the reporter says into my ear. “Didn’t realize it was still a sore subject.”

“It’s not a sore subject.” I try to keep my voice calm. “It just doesn’t have anything to do with the championship game, and that’s what I’d prefer to talk about.”

“You’re going to be the first openly gay player to play for a championship,” the reporter says. “That doesn’t mean anything to you?”

“Well.” I reach over and put a paw on Lee’s thigh. “Sure it does. But what would really mean something to me would be if a few other players would come out. Then you guys could go bother them for a while and then it would all die down and people wouldn’t care whether the guys suiting up were straight or gay or bi or whatever.”

“Why do you think nobody else has come out?”

“Maybe because they don’t think it’s important. Maybe because they just want to play football. I don’t know. I’m not them.”

“Well, why did you come out?”

Christ. I bite my lip to stop myself from saying,
this has all been talked about already!
“My circumstances were pretty unusual. I have a partner and there had been a lot of rumors. I don’t know any rumors about any other players in the league.”

“What about your quarterback?”

I laugh. “Aston? Those aren’t real rumors. Those are people who hate him because he’s clean-cut and he said one time that he liked that one country singer, so he gets photoshopped in with him a lot.”

“So you’re saying he’s not gay.”

“I’m saying I don’t know. He never talked to me about it. It’s his business if he is, but I can’t tell you one way or the other, and I wouldn’t tell you if I knew. Which I don’t.”

“All right.”

“Now,” I say, before he can go off again, “do you have any more questions about the game?”

The interview ends a couple blocks before our apartment. I close the phone and my eyes and press my fingers to the bridge of my muzzle. “Tough,” Lee says. “All those questions about being gay.”

He’s a little snappy, and I snap back, “You said you weren’t going to do this until after the championship game.”

“I didn’t know I’d have to ride in a car with you while you told a reporter you didn’t care about being gay.”

“That’s not what I said.”

He pulls into the garage. “You couldn’t have just said, ‘I’m proud to be the first gay player,’ and left it at that?”

“He wouldn’t have left it at that.”

“You could have talked about your influence on other players.”

I look at him. “Like what other players? Who else has come out?”

He pulls into the parking spot and shuts off the car. “It’d have to be a star.”

“I wasn’t a star.”

His ears flick as he turns to me, one eyebrow raised. “‘Wasn’t’?”

“Well, not that I’m that big a star now. But people know who I am.” My tail flicks self-consciously.

“Yeah, they do. A lot of that—not all—is because you came out. That’s why you had this commercial today.”

I get out of the truck and close the door as Lee gets out the other side. “I’m a pretty good football player, you know.”

He stands with the door open for a moment and then closes it softly. “You’re right. And I said I wouldn’t do this for two weeks, so I won’t.”

We ride up the elevator, and I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen when those two weeks are over. If we win the game, am I going to be barraged with requests to do these interviews with gay rights papers? If we lose, am I going to be in any mood to listen to Lee’s badgering? It wouldn’t be so bad if we had time to spend apart. But we’re going to the same apartment for the rest of the day, and I have two more interviews to do this afternoon and I don’t know where I’m going to do them unless I lock myself in the bedroom.

And then we get out of the elevator and he unlocks the door, and I can’t believe I was just thinking that. Because I love him, and living together is still as wonderful in a lot of ways as it was when he first moved in. Maybe when he has his own job, things will be going better. But even that thought makes me feel guilty. I want to help him. I want him to think he can rely on me. I just can’t distract myself from football right now.

“I need to do some more interviews,” I say when we close the door. “Should I just go into the bedroom?”

“Yeah.” He pauses, looking at his laptop, then disappears into the kitchen for a moment. “Maybe I’ll look at making something for dinner. Want to eat in? We only have one more day before you leave.”

“Sure,” I say. “Whatever is fine.”

“All right.” His tail swishes, and I go into the bedroom.

The other interviews follow similar lines as the first. They talk about football for a while and then ask me how it feels to be the first openly gay player to be playing for a championship. Mindful of Lee in the next room, who would probably have to be trying hard not to hear me even with the door closed, I use his lines about how proud I am to be there, how I hope to be an inspiration to other gay players, and how I hope to see more out players in the UFL soon.

They poke with some follow-up questions, but after the first interview, I’m better at deflecting them blandly, and they go back to football when they get better answers from me on those questions. I’m happy to talk about our preparations in a very general way, to talk about how great the Firebirds are and how much potential they have, and how I’m looking forward to winning multiple championships with them, no matter what happens in two weeks. Or, now, a week and a half.

And when I’m done with the interviews, I feel unaccountably nervous about the championship game. The attention focused on it from the reporters, which usually I don’t care about because I avoid papers and websites, is as impossible to ignore as the sun.

The smell of roast chicken filters through the bedroom. My stomach growls; that energy bar I had after the commercial shoot is long gone. I open the door and look through to the kitchen, but Lee’s not there. I sniff, then turn to the living room. He’s curled in the sofa, typing on his laptop.

“I’m all done,” I say.

He nods, staring down at his screen, his ears flat against his head. I lean over the back of the couch. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” he says. He flips the window he’s working on to the background, but not before I catch a glimpse of the document and the name “Vince King” jumps out at me. He’s writing an article or something about it.

“You don’t look fine.” I reach over to his shoulder.

He flinches away from me, and his ears go even flatter. “I’ll tell you in two weeks.”

I pull my arm back and stand up. “You know, not talking about stuff for two weeks includes not talking about how you’re not talking about stuff.”

He looks up. “Sorry, stud. I tried to put all the non-football parts of my life on hold for two weeks, but…” He stares at the laptop and then shuts it with a click. “Some things just wouldn’t wait.”

My tail lashes. I scowl and stalk across to the window. “Fine. Should I just go out until you’re done taking care of your other things? Or should I go back in the bedroom?”

“You don’t have to go back in the bedroom,” he says softly. “I’m done.” He puts the laptop on the floor, but he doesn’t get up, just sits there and pulls his tail into his lap.

“You know,” I say, “I’m under enough pressure this week. Having you moping around isn’t going to help at all.”

“I know you’re under pressure,” he says, an edge creeping into his voice. “I’m trying not to make it worse.”

“You’re not doing that great at it.”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

“Well, do better! Lion Christ!” My claws snag the back of the couch.

He doesn’t respond, and the silence grows. I retract my claws and say, “Sorry. I’m hungry, I guess, and those interviews…everyone’s talking about how important this game is.”

“It is,” he says quietly, and gets up to walk to the kitchen. “I’ll get dinner.”

“Lee…” I start, but he’s vanished, down-curled tail and all, and I want to kick something, but the only thing nearby is the couch, and his laptop is there on the floor in front of it…

I stare down at the closed computer for a second, then pad around the couch and pick it up. I’m sure I can take whatever it is, and if I get it out in the open, maybe he’ll perk up and be the fox I want him to be.

So I open the laptop, and it comes up with a web browser. Behind the browser, though, is a document, and that’s what mentioned Vince King. I just skim what he wrote—it looks like he’s talking about his mom, and how what she did reflects on the King kid. Then I see the word “court,” and realize why the language is all stiff and formal. There’s a court case, and he’s writing something for the court, helping maybe try to sue Families United for driving the kid to suicide.

I close the laptop and put it back on the floor. I get that he thinks I don’t want to hear about Vince King anymore—and I don’t—but he’s not asking me to do anything for it. I feel shitty then, that I made him so goddamn paranoid about talking activism around me that he doesn’t even feel like he can tell me about the shit he’s doing on his own that doesn’t involve me.

And it’s not like I just want to forget about that kid anyway. Just yesterday when I was talking to Mom, she asked what Lee was doing and I told her he was really upset by the suicide, but there wasn’t a lot we could do about it. She thought it was terrible, but she agreed with me.

The other thing that makes me feel shitty is that I only talked with him the one time about
his
mom, and we didn’t even get into it that much. He’s so bent on this whole “I can take care of myself” thing that I sometimes forget what a whole pile of terrible things he’s gone through lately—losing his job, his parents divorcing, the fight with my dad, and I guess you could toss Vince King in there too, ’cause it hit him pretty hard.

Lee brings out chicken (half a chicken for me, a thigh and drumstick for him) with mashed potatoes, peas, and carrots on two plates. I go into the kitchen and get a beer. “Want one?” I call.

“No,” he says.

We sit at the table and eat. I feel like I should say something, but I don’t know what. He’s just staring at his plate. So I pick up my fork and knife, and eat.

“This is pretty good,” I say.

“Store-bought,” he says flatly, and then, with more warmth, “thanks.”

I would think I’d know, after two and a half years, what to say or do. And if it were just him, then I would. I’d lean over and I’d smile and tell him I know a way to make him feel better. But I chew bite after bite of chicken, worrying that if I say anything, it’ll open a floodgate or just make him feel worse. Finally, scraping the last few peas around my plate, I say without looking at him, “I know about the court case.”