Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (25 page)

He doesn’t answer. I look up and he’s staring at me, ears flat, fork frozen in his paw. His eyes are bright and wide and—and scared? “The Vince King case,” I say, and try to control my tail’s lashing. “Look, it’s okay. I appreciate you not talking to me about it.”

His eyes don’t shift. I squirm in my seat as he lowers his fork and whispers, “You know?”

“Yeah.” I lick my lips, regretting having said anything. I determinedly do not look at his laptop. I can only imagine what he’d say if he figured out I was spying on him. Is that what he’s so upset about? “Look, it’s cool. I was talking to my family yesterday and they agreed, it’s a shame.”

“A shame,” he echoes, and then makes a weird sound, kind of a hiccup, maybe. “They think it’s a shame. Well, yeah, so do I. So I guess you didn’t talk to Gregory.”

“What? No.” I frown. “He wasn’t home. I wouldn’t talk to him about it, anyway. I just…Mom was asking what you were up to, and…”

I trail off, because he’s looking at me weird. “Oh,” he says. “That’s nice of her. I should give her a call.” And he stands up, real fast, and grabs his plate and mine.

“I can do that,” I say.

“I know.” He hurries to the kitchen, where I hear the clatter of the dishwasher.

I follow him. His tail’s bristled somewhat, and curled tightly down around his legs. “Look,” I say as he finishes the last one. “I was just trying to ease the pressure on you.”

“Yeah,” he says. “That makes sense.” He shuts the dishwasher and walks out of the kitchen without saying another word.

“Lion Christ,” I mutter under my breath. I straighten up a little in the kitchen and then go back out to the living room, where Lee’s starting up UFL ’09.

We play in an uncomfortable silence, which isn’t broken except for minor exclamations of disgust whenever one of our plays doesn’t work, or one of our players underperforms. “I know that guy,” I say. “He makes that play ninety-nine times out of a hundred.” Or, “That guy’s a stiff, and he’s a jerk.”

Lee just grunts curses under his breath, and he doesn’t celebrate when something goes right. I thought that the game might help ease tensions, but it doesn’t seem to. We didn’t pick Crystal City as one of the teams, but still I keep looking at the plays and thinking about what I would do, how the Sabretooths would play it differently, and I’m not focusing on the game as a result.

Maybe for that reason, Lee wins the first game, and the last two, three out of four total. And I’m already kind of on edge about the whole argument, so I just toss the controller on the floor and get up. “I should get to bed,” I say. “Maybe I’ll call Gerrard tomorrow and see if he’s up for some extra practice.” He doesn’t respond. “Unless we have something else to do.”

I wait and watch him. He shakes his head, staring straight ahead at the TV. “I didn’t have anything planned.”

“So,” I say finally, “are you coming to bed?”

He reaches down for his laptop. “In a bit.”

“Lion Christ,” I explode, “if you want to work on whatever the hell you’re doing for the Vince King case, you can tell me. I’m not going to get pissed off because you’re doing it.”

“I thought you didn’t want to hear that name anymore,” he says. He brings the computer up and sets it on his lap, but doesn’t open it.

“I didn’t want to hear it as a reason for me to waste my time yelling at people about how they shouldn’t hurt their gay kids! I don’t care if it’s something you want to do. Hell, doc, I’m glad you feel that way about it. I mean, someone has to.”

“Well, if you don’t, at least someone in your family does.”

What the hell does that mean? Is it a shot at me? I shouldn’t have told him I talked to Mom. Somehow he managed to turn that against me, and all I was trying to do was help, be understanding and sympathetic to what he’s going through. “Fuck,” I say. I go into the bedroom and I take my shirt off and sit down on the bed. Fuck Families United, and Lee’s mom, and fuck Lee, too. He’s supposed to be helping me deal with my life, not sulking so I feel awkward bringing it up and have to keep going around and around in my head about it.

I stalk back out to the living room, where he still hasn’t opened the laptop. “You’re supposed to be helping me,” I say, standing over him. “You keep going on and on about that Vince King, well, what about us? We’re still alive, we’re here, right? What about our life?” He’s very still. “Don’t we have a life to work on?” I press.

When he talks, it’s slow and deliberate. “I know you’re tired of hearing about Vince King,” he says. “Believe me, I wish it hadn’t happened. I’m tired of bringing it up over and over. But you never asked what it meant to me. Never asked why it was so important.”

I stare at him. “I know why it was important. Because you miss being an activist and this was a cause. Because you saw the kid play once and so you feel invested in his tragedy. I get all that.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “It’s partly that, yeah. But it’s more…it’s more that these people destroyed his family. The parents should have been there for Vince, yeah. They should have supported him. But they didn’t know how to handle it, because it’s hard to find positive messaging.”

“Messaging. Yeah, if only I’d done that PSA—”

“Let me finish, stud.” He challenges me, blue eyes bright, but they’re not hard, and the nickname lacks bite. He struggles as if the words are sticking in his throat. “His parents called these people to help, to save their family. And they destroyed it. They preach love, but when it comes down to it they’re about conformity and division, about throwing away people who don’t meet their stupid fucking outdated standard of living. And Vince—he was alone. He was a confused kid who might have been able to love someone the way you love me and I love you, and now he’ll never get that chance because of a bunch of religious bigots. And it—it could’ve been—it could’ve been different.”

There’s nothing I can say to that. I mean, I can’t tell him he’s wrong. What I really want to say is, can we have this conversation in two weeks? But I’m the one who brought this up, so all I can really do is just nod and tell him he’s right and then go to bed and forget about it. That’s what I should do.

“I’m sorry about what happened with your mom,” I say. “It sucks. I want to help, I want to tell you that you’ve got a family in me, and with mine.”

For some reason, that makes his ears go flat again. “Yeah,” he says. “Thanks.”

“Well, god dammit, doc, what the fuck else can I do?” I’m yelling now. “Not every problem can be solved by going on TV and telling the world about it even if I had the time to do that.”

He glares at me. “Some things need light shined on them. These people are bullies, plain and simple. Maybe you never got beaten up in school, but I did.” He waves a paw. “Even that isn’t the point.”

“Two weeks.” I hold up two fingers. “In fact, you know what? Forget that. Can we just get through tomorrow? After that I’ll be in Crystal City and we’ll be practicing every day.”

“You think I shouldn’t come with you to Crystal City?”

God damn him. “I didn’t say that.”

He watches me carefully. “You didn’t say ‘no.’”

“I don’t think you should come tomorrow, but yeah, I mean, I want you there…” I imagine getting into a fight on the night before the championship. Lee wouldn’t do that to me. Would he?

“I’m sorry,” he says, curling his tail around himself. “I promised myself I wouldn’t talk about this, and I guess I’m not as good at keeping it hidden as I thought I could be. This lawsuit is going on right now, and the Equality meeting was last week. I know how special a playoff run is and how hard it is to get back. I’m trying hard not to fuck that up. But I can’t stop thinking about…about those kids, about their lives, all those families falling apart right now.”

“That’s not my problem!” The words spill out. “My problem is how to stop the Sabretooths fucking passing attack in a week and a half, how to keep that slot receiver from getting five yards on the short curl patterns, how to catch the running back when he hits the edge and stop him from turning the corner.”

Lee doesn’t look at me. He turns off the video game console and sits on the couch, tail curled around his legs, ears flat back. “Those are pretty big problems,” he says. “You oughta get your rest.”

“Look.” I come back to the couch. My tail’s lashing and I try to stop it, then give up. “What you’re doing is important. I get that.”

“To me.”

“Fuck, it’s important to me, too, fox. It’s just—not right
now
. I mean, it’s important now, it’s just not the
most
important thing…” I hate not being as good with words as he is. He doesn’t answer. I wait and then stalk to the bedroom. At the doorway, I turn around. “Well?”

His head comes up slowly. His eyes meet mine. “You go to bed,” he says.

“What are you going to do?”

“I guess I’m going to sit here and figure things out.”

“Don’t sleep there,” I say. “It’s bad for your back.” It takes me an effort to add, “And my front.”

He doesn’t smile or make any other acknowledgment. So I go into the bedroom, but I leave the door open.

I take my pants off, crawl into bed, and lie there, but I don’t get to sleep. I wonder what Lee’s thinking, out there in the living room. Probably about the court case, or his mom. Or me, and football, and the championship. Or his father, or Vince King…I don’t know how that fox keeps so much going on in his head at once. Sometimes it feels like it takes all my brain just to do my job. Until I’m on the field. Then it’s easy. Then it’s just me and my team, and them and theirs, and the rules are bound in a big book and there are striped shirts to enforce them.

The clock shows it’s been half an hour since I came in to lie down. I guess I dozed off a bit. I left the light on, but Lee still hasn’t come in. So I go to the bathroom and glance through the open doorway on my way back. He’s still sitting cross-legged on the couch, head down. I can’t tell whether his eyes are closed or not.

I should really go out there and just bring him back to bed. But then I think, he’s trying to act the martyr, and I should just let him. I’ll go practice tomorrow, we’ll have dinner and a nice, cuddly night tomorrow night, and then I’ll be off to Crystal City and all of this will be behind us. I turn the light off and get back into bed.

Still, sleep doesn’t come. I close my eyes, but I can’t stop seeing Lee’s expression, sad and a little scared. He’s gotta do what he does, and I do what I do, right? Is it really my responsibility to be the best linebacker I can be and also single-handedly save the gay youth of the world from the forces oppressing them? Even Lee said he didn’t think that. He always told me: football comes first. I mean, if we win this championship game, I can pretty much write my own ticket when my contract is up next year. I could even negotiate for an extension this year. And if we don’t, I still have a year to play well and prove myself. Once I get that big payday, then I can start funding charities and doing PSAs and speaking out. In the offseason, of course.

I turn over and look at the clock: it’s almost one in the morning. Lee’s probably sleeping on the couch. Fine. Maybe in the morning he’ll have worked something out before I go off to practice. Or maybe it’ll be once we come back. I feel pretty sure he’s going to apologize, and whatever he thinks of to do will be the right choice to let me play football and let him worry about his social responsibilities.

*

In the morning, my head is full of football, thankfully. I don’t know what I was dreaming, but it’s left me worrying about curl patterns and flare routes. And then I flop an arm beside me, onto the empty bed, and I remember.

God damn martyr fox. He slept on the couch all night. I yawn, lie in the bed thinking about how comfortable it is, and how silly Lee is for not coming back to it. He’s probably going to be all kinked up.

I think pleasantly about getting some of the kinks out of his back, and other parts, and rest a paw on my sheath. The apartment is very quiet, even the usual traffic noises from outside fainter than usual, and after I notice that, the silence starts feeling wrong and oppressive somehow, like I’m afraid to make a noise in case I miss something else going on.

Stupid. I give myself a quick brush of the paw through the boxers—I’m pretty hard by this point—and swing my legs off the bed. The morning sun doesn’t come through the bedroom window, but the soft light of morning (late morning; it’s after nine) suffuses the room, making the whole place dreamlike.

And still the apartment is silent. Lee is a quiet sleeper, but I feel like I should be able to hear his breathing. I pad toward the doorway, my tail curling behind me as shivers spread out from my stomach. Silly paranoia, I think, but my whiskers twitch and my hackles rise. I’m convinced that when I step into the living room, I’m going to see an empty couch, that Lee will be gone.

I’m so convinced that I don’t want to take that final step through the doorway, so convinced that I hang back with my head behind the door jamb so the couch remains out of sight. I can see the front door, and it looks completely normal. The half of the kitchen I can see looks completely normal. I take a deep breath and go out to wake up Lee.

And the couch is empty.

I stare at it. Car engines approach and recede outside, louder in the living room but still distant. Where the hell did he go?

The kitchen is empty too, no sound nor smell of coffee. Of course—Lee went out to get coffee. But normally, if he did that, he would leave me a note or something.

I turn around and there it is, on the refrigerator, a folded piece of paper held there by a magnet with my name on it in big letters. I take it down.

I hold it in my paws for a long time after reading it. Then I go get my phone and I text him three words. I call Gerrard and tell him I’m going to the field to practice, and he says he’ll meet me there. I get dressed and I don’t think of anything but football.

Chapter 11 – Shattered (Lee)

I really thought two weeks would be easy. I underestimated the capacity of the universe to lob shit at me.

When Dev goes to bed, I stare at my e-mail program, the highlighted message with the name of the lawyer in the “From” column. I can’t stop myself from clicking on it, looking at it again just to make sure I read it correctly. Then I close the program and close the laptop.

If I’d only left well enough alone, I wouldn’t have to keep seeing that name over and over again, even though the laptop sits cooling in my lap, powered down. If only I’d really ended things the way I did with Brian, if only I hadn’t pressed. If only I hadn’t been so fucking fired up to shove my muzzle into the case, to push myself at it so that I could show it off to Mother. All I wanted was to use poor Vince’s suicide to make my case, to compare myself to him somehow even though I’m living with my boyfriend and he’s dead. My life isn’t that bad, and if I’d just realized that, I’d be lying in bed next to my boyfriend now, not sitting out here with a secret caught in my throat.

I thought I was going to die when he mentioned his family. For a half-second, I thought that his parents knew and were okay with it, and then I realized that he might have found out about the case somehow, but he didn’t find out the way I thought he did at first, the most blindingly obvious way. He didn’t find out from his brother, who is one of the attorneys defending Families United.

“I received a message from the court today advising that your relationship to one of the defense attorneys, Gregory Miski, will be taken into account when reading your
amicus curiae
.”

That’s what the lawyer’s e-mail said. So short, so simple, and I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t tell Dev. In fact, I have to call his parents first thing in the morning to make sure that they don’t say anything about it if they find out. Because talk about your huge distractions…we’re already fighting about the case, and I have gotten to know myself better over the last two weeks. I don’t think I would say anything about his brother, not specifically, but I won’t be able to stop thinking about it for the next day at least, and he’ll notice, and he won’t understand how important it is for me not to tell him. Hell, I almost told him tonight.

And then he’ll call Gregory and he’ll yell at him. He’ll talk to his parents, he’ll get involved in a family drama, and he’ll blame me—eventually. Or I won’t tell him, and he’ll be mad at me and wonder what I’m hiding.

I wish I were as good at pretending with him as I am with the rest of the world. But Dev has always had a way of getting into my heart, getting past all the trickery and lies. Even just lying about the phone call earlier today was difficult.

He has the same problem with me. He can put everything aside and focus on football—except where I’m concerned.

In this case, it’s not about the distraction of his brother, though that would be the final straw. The problem is that the things I’m doing just aren’t as real to him as they are to me. He has a great life, and his team has made him welcome. The one guy who keeps giving him shit for being gay got slapped down by the coach. While he can understand that there are problems outside the team—he’s not an idiot—he doesn’t feel them the way I do. He didn’t sit in the hospital with a best friend who was beaten up for being gay. He didn’t get fired for being gay (well, sort of).

I remember sitting in a restaurant in Hilltown thinking that Dev had it right, that all we had to do was be happy with who we were, and that was enough to advance the cause, that being a positive example worked as well as being an angry thorn in the side of the status quo. But I’m not so sure about that now. Dev has football, and yes, being an ordinary football player regardless of whom you go home and fuck at the end of the day helps, it does.

I’m just not sure anymore that it helps enough. I wish I could get that image out of my head, of Vince King slumped on his bench. I wish I didn’t think his thoughts every time I see it, didn’t realize now what I should have seen then, that he was alone with nowhere to turn. I wish I’d talked to him, if only to say: No matter what your family says, you are a person who deserves to live a full and happy life. I wish I’d said more to Kodi when I had the chance, but I can’t talk to him either, not in the middle of their playoff run.

I know I can’t go talk to every gay college student. But Dev could. He could reach out and save lives, and I can’t stop thinking about that.

At the same time, I know I need to. It’s our life together, yes, but it’s also his football career. I can stand here and say that the greater moral obligation is to the kids whose lives are in danger, but I can’t tell him, at the end of the day, how to live his life. I know he’s not blind to the problems kids are facing, and I know he thinks that he’ll get his big football-star payday and then he’ll have a lot more freedom to help. I admire that, I do. I even think he’s right.

So I sit here and I feel like a complete jackass because I’m supposed to love and support him, and instead I’m just picking at everything that’s wrong. I should be telling him how proud I am that he’s helped his team get to the championship game—the Firebirds, who finished 4-12 last year. That’s an amazing accomplishment. That he came out, the first active football player, or basketball or baseball or hockey or soccer or anything in this country to do so, is incredible. He’s already done so much and here I am, mad because he’s not doing a little bit more.

I could walk into the bedroom. I could walk in there and take my clothes off and lie beside him, and go to sleep. And in the morning, I could let him fuck me again, before he goes off to practice. I could tell him how proud I am, and that he’s done all I could expect of him. I could tell him I’m sorry and that I’ll shut up and be a good boyfriend.

I could, except I promised not to lie to him again.

And what’s more, I am terrified of what will happen if he finds out about his brother. I’ve been on this crusade to get some concrete fact to make Mother see what she’s doing; will he become similarly obsessed? Will he get into a fight with his parents? Shit, I’m going to have to call them, and what am I going to say?

I drop my muzzle to my paws and close my eyes, letting comforting darkness enfold me. Right now, I can’t see myself being anything but a distraction to him in the two weeks, week and a half, whatever, leading up to the game. Even if I apologize in the morning, he’ll know it’s just another argument waiting to happen, and he’ll be waiting for it to come up again, walking on eggshells around me every moment.

My shoulders slump as I squeeze my arms together. The room feels cold even through my fur. My brain, ever helpful, recites the litany of my crimes against Dev: the arguments, the story about him in the paper, the lying about Brian. How can he still want to be with me?

He gets up to use the bathroom. I don’t look up. When he lies down again, I check the time on my phone. One in the morning.

My thoughts are leading me down a path, and I don’t see much alternative to it. Outside, the city seems to be as asleep as Dev is. There’s nobody I can call, nobody I can talk to. That’s okay, though. This is my decision to make.

One forty-five. I unfold my legs from the couch and stand up, shaking pins and needles from my right foot. There’s a pad of paper near the refrigerator; I bought it so Dev and I could leave notes about what we need to buy at the supermarket. For about five minutes, probably, I stand holding it and thinking about that, while my eyes blur. I have to put the pad down to wipe my eyes, and then they get blurry again as I think about what to write. It takes a long time.

Dev,

I’m sorry about last night. I think it’s one of those things I just can’t let go of and can’t stop thinking about. I can’t see any way I’m not going to be a distraction for you in the next two weeks, so I’m just going to go to a motel until you leave for Crystal City. Maybe I’ll see if I can stay at Hal’s tomorrow night.

I’m doing the right thing. Of course I am. It’s just late at night and I never thought I would be walking out on my tiger for any reason. That’s why I’m finding it hard to breathe, why my breaths sound like sobs, why the fur around my eyes is still damp even though I just wiped it.

I’m so proud of you, now and always.

Love,

Lee

It doesn’t look any better the second time I read it over, but I can’t think of anything to add. I could fill all the pages of the pad with the things I want to say, but most of that wouldn’t be helpful. We’ll have plenty of time to talk after the championship game.

He’d go off to be by himself if he could figure out how to do it. I see him pacing around the apartment, desperate for his own space. Maybe next year, if I don’t wind up in Yerba, we should get a two bedroom apartment, or if he signs a deal with Chevali, he could buy a house.

I fold up the note and slip it under one of the magnets on the fridge. Whether or not he’s in the habit of looking for notes from me on the fridge, he’ll have to go in there to get his protein breakfast drink. I write his name on it in big letters, so he can’t miss it.

My overnight bag is in the closet in the bedroom; taking that and some clothes would be risky, because Dev might wake up and then he’d want to know what I was doing, and I don’t think I could tell him to his face.

Maybe I want him to talk me out of it. Maybe I want him to wake up and say,
D
on’t go, fox. You can be as much of an activist as you want, I’ll understand
. But I know enough to know that that voice in my head isn’t the real Dev. The real Dev is prickly and complicated, and right now what he needs is peace and quiet to be the best football player he can, without distractions from his family or his fox.

Besides, I can always come back to get my clothes tomorrow when he’s at practice if I need to stay out one more night. If he doesn’t end up calling me and we don’t end up talking out our fight and calling some sort of truce.

So I just take my laptop and computer bag, hefting it over my shoulder as I walk to the door. I lift my fingers to the bolt on the apartment door and turn it softly, then ease the door open. I slip through quiet as thought, and pull the door closed. I even lock it, though I’m worried that the bolt will wake Dev.

If that didn’t, the rattle of the elevator surely would. So I take the stairs, hurrying down and trying not to think about what I’m doing. Like, if I’m so sure I’m doing the right thing, then why am I so afraid of Dev waking up to talk me out of it?

Because he wouldn’t understand what I’m doing, that it’s best for both of us. This way, I can’t screw up his shot at a championship and he can just be a linebacker. I get to the bottom of the stairs and have to wipe my eyes again, because I come out into the elevator lobby and it looks just like it did the last time I walked out on him, after our big fight.

The elevator rattles, moves up.

I hold my breath. Did Dev wake up? Is he coming down to get me? I should leave, but I can’t force myself to move. The elevator stops, waits forever. I’m just about to go on out the door when it starts to rattle its way back down.

Last time I walked out, I was sure we were going to break up, but that was mostly because I kept doing stupid things. This time, I don’t think we’re going to break up, but I’m scared we will because we have different priorities. Like Hal with Polly, like Mother and Father.

The elevator grinds to a halt in the lobby. The doors slide open. Out comes an old caribou. She takes two steps out onto the tiled floor and then looks at me, her eyes widening. “Couldn’t sleep either?” I shake my head. “Nice walk,” she says. “That always does it for me. You’re too young for arthritis, though. What’s keeping you up?”

My throat is dry. “Boyfriend trouble,” I say.

Maybe I want her to turn away in disgust. Maybe I want her to ignore me. But she just nods and says, “Happens to the best of us.” And then she goes on out the front door.

After a moment, I follow.

*

The motel is pretty much the same as I remember it. They don’t give me the same room I had last time, thankfully. It would probably still smell of sex, if not for real, then at least in my memory. I take the key and stumble into it. The door swings shut behind me, its slam still echoing in my ears as I fall to the bed.

Still, I find sleep impossible to catch. The bed is alien, the smells sterile and wrong. Why am I here in this bed and not next to Dev? I have to keep reminding myself, like a child, why it has to be this way, and every time I go through it, it’s only a few minutes before I reach my arm out, or rub my nose into the pillow, and I miss Dev, and the whole thing starts over again.

Somehow, I lift my head from the pillow and see the sun shining bright through the window; I forgot to draw the curtains. I’m unsure whether I slept at all. My eyes feel sore and gummy, but that could just be from the half-crying I was doing all night. I still feel frustrated at myself for my inability to not be an annoying prick.

But I’m also feeling a little more hope. I might have over-reacted a little—well, I certainly over-reacted; let’s not qualify it. Problems always seem worse late at night, don’t they? Dev will understand. He’ll be angry, and maybe I won’t see him again until Crystal City, but at least this is all out in the open and we’ll be able to talk about it.

My shoulder has a kink in it from sleeping funny, or just lying on it funny and not sleeping, whatever it was I actually did. And my fur is all matted and feels gross. Well, I paid for the room, might as well take a shower.

I breathe in the steamy air and soak myself through, dousing my fur in shampoo and scrubbing myself thoroughly, taking care to soap my tail and run claws through the fur. For a good long time, I stand under the water, until I’m so soaked that the water running into my fur just pushes out more water. It’s so relaxing that I close my eyes and doze off briefly before waking up with water in one ear from having tilted my head the wrong way under the shower.