Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (30 page)

My phone beeps. I crane my neck to stare over at it. The screen brightens with a message, but I can’t read it from this angle. Slowly, I reach out to take it in my paw, but by the time I get it near my eyes, the screen’s gone off again. I bring the phone up and read Dev’s note:
Just let me get through this game.

Get through this game. He’s still thinking about football. He doesn’t miss me at all. I’m sitting here miserable, throat killing me, without having slept in pretty much two nights, hugging my tail, and he’s still worrying about his football game. That’s just great. So I type back,
Fine. You want to be on your own, good luck
. And I throw the phone down.

Of course it’s unfair of me, and I regret typing it as soon as the phone hits the floor. But lying there with my eyes closed, the importance of the game has receded dramatically. I want him to be distressed. I want him to be repentant. I want him to miss his flight to C.C. (the one he’s probably already on) so he can come here and we can fix this. And I know as I’m thinking it that it’s not reasonable. I know in the back of my head and in my heart that he still cares about me. But I can’t stop arguing with myself. If he cares about me, why hasn’t he said so? Why has he just left me here at Hal’s without even asking how I am? (Never mind that I didn’t ask how he is.)

And, worse, wondering what this means about me. I’ve been part of a couple for almost three years now, and I’ve put that ahead of almost everything else in my life. Without Dev, now, I have more freedom, but it’s about the last thing I want. I wasn’t ever
not
free with him; if I get the job in Yerba, he’ll be supportive. If I want to do Equality Now work on my own, he’ll be supportive. It’s just that he has his own life, and now our lives are separate.

Well, not completely. I don’t think they’ll ever be separate. Look at me and Brian, for example.

Or don’t. There was a time when I would’ve wanted to call Brian and complain to him about how I was being treated, but those days are gone. He’d be so gleeful at the prospect of our breakup, and then he’d offer me his couch to stay on, which would turn into his bed, and yeesh. As nice as it would be to sleep in a warm bed with someone, I’d rather stay on this air mattress being sick than be in Brian’s apartment feeling his desperate clinging to the past.

And I don’t want to cling to the past either. So I should just let go, at least until after the game. Let Dev play his best without me, because he’s already made it clear he doesn’t need me.

I curl up against the bed and try to breathe through my nose, because my throat is raw and the air is so dry, but my nose is half-clogged and I can’t. I look around the room for tissues and only find a few Neutra-Scent wipes; I try one, but it makes me sneeze and gives me that weird feeling in my nose, like there’s a scent there that I just can’t detect. I throw the wipe in the trash can.

I despise fucking Neutra-Scent. It’s supposed to make it easier to live with us strong-scented people, and easier for people with sensitive noses to live with everyone. You know, so our scents don’t intrude on each other all the time, so we can live our separate lives blissfully ignorant of our fellows. Well, I’m both: I can sniff out a tiger at fifty feet, and he can sniff me out a day or two after I’ve been somewhere. And I get along okay without Neutra-Scent. We never had it in the house when I was growing up, not even for company.

When Hal knocks on the door, that’s the first thing I say to him: “You don’t even have proper tissues in here, just fucking Neutra-Scent.”

“Well, yeah.” He scratches below his ear. “In case I get some red foxes in here stinking up the place.”

“I can’t blow my nose in these.” I sit up in bed and kick the box.

“Jesus Fox, no,” Hal says. He reaches up to a bookshelf and grabs a box of tissues. “Why would you try?”

“Because I didn’t want to blow my nose on your sheets. Thanks.” I take the box and grab several out, pressing some to my nose and some to my eyes.

“Are you sick or just still, you know…”

“Both.” I try to blow my nose, but it’s not really that stuffed and it just makes my throat hurt more. I struggle to my feet. “I can make some tea myself.”

“You okay with Lipton again?”

My tongue finds the places in my muzzle where the bitter taste still lingers from last night. “Is there a coffee shop in walking distance?”

“It’s Starbucks.”

“God dammit.” I stand there with the crumpled tissue in one paw, staring at the carpet. “I guess their tea is okay.”

“That’s the spirit.” Hal grins. “I got this thing almost wrapped up. Let me scribble a few more notes. You want to shower?”

“Sometime,” I say. “I can wait ’til we get back.”

The sun is out, bright and piercing, which seems vastly unfair to me. I have to squint at everything because I left my sunglasses at Dev’s, and my eyes water from the reflections off the sidewalk, the ochre sand in the front yards, the tan stucco walls of every building. “Why can’t they build dark buildings here like they do in Hilltown?” I grumble. “Everything’s so damn bright.”

“Any word from your tiger?” Hal judiciously ignores my whining.

I show him the phone and the last exchange, because I don’t really feel like saying the words. He reads and then gives me the phone back in silence. We walk to the corner of the street and wait for the light.

“It sounds like maybe you broke up with him,” Hal says carefully.

“He’s the one who told me to leave him alone.”

“Until after the game.”

I don’t feel like going into all my reasoning with him. “He didn’t even ask about me. He doesn’t care.”

The light changes, and we cross. Hal’s tail swishes, the shadow distracting me as we walk because my tail doesn’t have any life in it at all. “He’s playing in the championship,” Hal says finally. “He’s doin’ what he needs to do. You oughta do the same. Then after the game, you guys can talk.”

“Sure. We can.” I see the green sign of Starbucks up ahead. Instinctively I look around for an alternative, but of course there’s very little else around, and zero in the way of coffee shops.

We cross the parking lot and go in to the air-conditioned sameness, the bland coffee-friendly smell that permeates every one of these stores I’ve ever been in. I stand behind Hal as he orders and then asks me what kind of tea I want. “Don’t care,” I say. “Something for a sore throat.”

The perky desert rat behind the counter has a smile I have to squint at. “I’ll get you a chamomile. That always helps me when I’m sick. And we’ve got some honey packets you can put in it.”

“Thanks,” I mumble.

“Aw.” She smiles. “I hate when I get sick, too. Don’t worry, it’s just a cold. It’ll be over soon.”

“Thanks,” I say again, and then wander away because I don’t want to talk to her smile any more. Maybe she’s hitting on me.

I stand and stare down at the newspapers, and of course in the local Chevali Herald there is a big story on the Firebirds, and there’s Dev’s face staring out at me. I can’t quite look away. I just stare, and then Hal is grabbing my arm and I’m letting go of the paper. “Hey,” he says. “I’ll buy you a tea, but you gotta get your own paper.”

“Oh, shit,” I say. “I’m sorry.” I fish in my pocket and come out with my wallet.

He holds out a cup, condensation showing through the plastic top. The floral scent of the tea breaks through my nose as I take it. The steam feels good on and in my muzzle. “And here,” Hal says.

Three honey packets lie in the paw not holding his coffee. “She said to put one in the tea and take the others with lemon juice when you get home. I said I didn’t know if we had lemon juice and she said that orange juice would be okay.”

“Thanks.” I take them and shove them in my pocket without even checking to see if they’re sticky.

“Then she told me to take care of you because you seemed really cute and we made a nice couple.”

It takes me a second to parse this, and then I take a quick step toward the register, where the rat’s already talking to someone else. Hal grabs my arm, but I shake him off. “I’m okay,” I say.

“I thought you’d think that was funny.” He shakes his head. “Didn’t think you dumped your sense of humor.”

“Great. Thanks.” I stalk to the exit.

He hurries after me with his coffee and calls a quick “thanks” to the baristas. Outside, he catches up to me and says, “Hey, listen. If you’re gonna get through this, you’re gonna need to get through it quick. You can’t go back to him all whiny and needy with your nose running, because that’s just a turn-off.”

“And you know him so well.”

“No.” We stop at the corner again, waiting for the light. “I know how I went back to Cim.”

I swallow against the raw skin of my throat and look at him, bringing the tea to my muzzle. “I wouldn’t,” he says. “Still too hot.”

The steam is in fact still as powerful as it was in the store. I lower the cup. “How’d you go back to Cim?”

“Well, my nose wasn’t running.”

“Mine isn’t running.” I swallow. “Will be in a day or two if this is a typical cold, though.”

“Great,” he says. “I’ll lay in some orange juice.”

We cross, the asphalt warmer than pavement under our paws. I still get moments when I look around and think, wait, it’s January? The sun, the fifty-degree weather, it’s all wrong for the season, and it adds up to everything else that’s wrong about my life. I squint ahead and flick my ears toward Hal. “So?”

“Ah,” he waves the paw that isn’t holding coffee. “We had a conversation and I said some things I don’t wanna repeat. I don’t think she’d have taken me back even if I were all strong and independent. But I’d feel better about myself.”

“So, what? I should be strong and independent?”

“Sure. That so hard?”

We amble slowly down the street. I can’t see his tail’s shadow now, but I can still feel its motion against my fur. “Am I not being independent?”

“Okay, well, I grant you, you’ve always seemed pretty strong. Maybe that’s why this is kind of unsettling. Didn’t think you’d be the one going to pieces over losing him. Kinda thought he’d be the one.”

“Maybe he is.” I think about Dev losing it during practice, or crying in his bed in some hotel. “I hope not.”

Those words come out without me thinking about them, and they feel true and honest. That calms me a little bit. “Well,” Hal says, “I’m just trying to get you past this initial shock so you can be more…more
you
when you face him.”

“I’ll be fine.” I inhale more steam from my cup. “I’ll be me. I’m just sick and running on like five hours sleep the last two nights.”

His ears perk. “Air mattress not comfortable?”

“No, it’s fine. I just…” I rub my throat. “Combination of the sore throat and thinking about stuff. I’ll probably nap today and I’m sure I’ll sleep well tonight. And you know what, I should call Peter. Emmanuel.”

“The fox from Yerba?”

“Yeah. He was worried about conflict of interest. I guess I should tell him he doesn’t have to now.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that. I’d just say that you’ve worked things out and that if necessary, Miski’ll sign an agreement saying he won’t disclose anything you tell him. Paperwork, that’s what they want. Cover their tails.”

“Yeah.” That actually sounds reasonable and makes me feel better. I had been looking forward to the cathartically bitter statement that Dev wasn’t part of my life any more, but after two days that seems extreme, and it would open up the conversation to a lot of questions I don’t necessarily want to deal with in a business call.

So when we get back to Hal’s, I shut myself in the office/guest room, sit cross-legged on the air mattress, and call up the Whalers. It’s past eleven here, so after ten in Yerba, and Emmanuel should be in his office. In fact, he answers the phone himself.

“Secretary out of town?” I ask.

He laughs. “Whole office is taking a holiday. Can’t do a whole lot until the championship anyway. That’s the official position. I’m in here all the damn time. What can I do for you?”

“Well, uh. I wanted to call and talk to you about the conflict of interest thing.” It’s a plausible place to start, an easy way to give him new information without just calling to ask what the status is.

“Oh, yeah. You told Jocko that Miski would sign an NDA, right?”

“Right.” I’d forgotten about that. “He said we never talked about prospects when I worked for the Dragons, but he understands the need for you to have something more concrete.”

“I think that’d be great. Not that we expect you to be giving away secrets, but…”

“No, when two people share a life, you know, I know how things just kind of…” I trace a claw along the side of my phone. “Come out. Sometimes you don’t know what things you need to keep secret.”

He laughs. “I guess so. Yes, if you can get Miski to sign some paperwork, that would help. I mean, if we end up offering you the job, which we’re not going to do anything about until the season’s over. Not that we can’t, just that DeJordy always leaves his changes ’til then. Old school. Otherwise he thinks it shows up like he’s trying to take attention from the championship. Sour grapes kind of shit. So anyway. Let’s straighten out this paperwork, then see where we are. Your references came back pretty glowing, to be honest.”

I assume that includes Jocko, because honestly, if the interview’d gone badly, Peter would be making excuses about why they couldn’t bring me on. So I guess I did okay. “You talked to Morty?”

“Flew him out here for a day. Between you and me, we might be picking him up too. But that’s strictly confidential.”

“That’d be terrific.” My tail twitches, like it wants to wag but has forgotten how. “I’d love to work with him again. Is he definitely leaving the Dragons?”

Peter clears his throat. “Anyway, all that aside, I wanted to ask if there’s a good time for you to come out here and meet the rest of the office in person. I’m guessing you’re going to the game?”

I take a sip of the tea, which is now cool. It tastes pretty good. Damn. “Actually,” I say, “I don’t think I am.”

“Oh.” He pauses. “Do you want to? We might be able to swing some tickets…”

It’s tempting. “No,” I say. “It’s okay. I’m sure I’ll have other chances. I mean, Yerba’s going to go to some in the next few years, right?”