Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (35 page)

The mushroom I get is much more reasonably sized (and for forty bucks, it should be). It’s still not enough to completely fill me up, but at least it takes me more than one bite to eat. The wine is good, too, and in fact, the first thing I think when Carmen pours the wine is that Lee would really love this place. Then I think, too bad for him, because he could have been here with me and Strike and Iva, and we’d have made fun of it afterwards, in bed.

“Devlin?” Machaine rests a paw on my arm, lightly.

I snap my head around to him. “Uh, sorry. What?”

“You looked all spacey there for a moment.” His nose twitches. I wonder if he can smell me thinking about Lee. Probably not over the wine and mushroom and Neutra-Scent.

Strike and Iva get along great, and sometimes seem to be so much on the same wavelength that I wonder if he’s been in touch with her on the phone since our commercial. Machaine and I do all right keeping up the conversation, though it feels to me more like we’re two separate people struggling to join in. Still, once I get over thinking about Lee and remind myself that nothing needs to happen, it’s okay and even a little bit fun.

At the end of the night, Strike pays the bill, and we troop downstairs, Iva gushing about how lovely the place was. Machaine is a little quieter, hanging back, and out of courtesy, I hang back with him.

“Thank you for a lovely night,” he says quietly.

“Oh, uh. You’re welcome, I guess.”

He laughs. “You know, I kind of thought you’d be like everybody else in this town. Don’t know why. I mean, you’re a football player, and you’re not from C.C. But it was just nice talking about real things. Even if I don’t really understand football yet.”

“It’s not that hard,” I say. “I mean, some of the guys I play with can’t do basic math, and they understand it.”

“I don’t know.” He waves a paw. “I can coordinate an outfit like whoa, but I’ve never been able to catch a ball, much less throw it. Never cared much.”

“Not everyone can.”

“See, I also thought you’d think less of me if I didn’t care about football.”

“You’re a pretty good guy.” I hold the restaurant door for him. “If the flouncy bit is just an act, why do it? Why not just be you?”

“Oh, honey,” he says, and giggles—the sincere giggle. We stop just outside the restaurant, and about ten feet in front of us, Iva is draped all over Strike. He’s got one red-and-gold paw on her butt. “This is C.C.,” Machaine goes on. “People have expectations. If you’re gay, you flounce.” He follows my gaze. “If you’re an actress…you put out.”

“I don’t expect you to put out,” I say.

“I didn’t offer.” He winks.

I can’t help smiling. “I just think you’re a pretty nice guy without the, you know.” I flop my paws around. “Limp-wristed bullshit.”

“Well, thank you.” But his smile fades a bit. “But the ‘limp-wristed bullshit’ is part of me, too. I like playing that role. I like saying, ‘Oh,
girl!
’ and ‘She said
what
?’ and all that. I like dressing fabulously. Maybe I don’t want to do it all the time, but I like it, and it’s part of me, too.”

“But you said…”

“Oh, it gets tiresome when people expect it. I want to play the role on my terms, you know what I mean?”

“Do I.” I think about that Media Day, and about the barrage of questions at every press conference. “I guess it’s like you said. People have this framework of how they expect you to act. They want you to fit into their view of the world.”

Machaine tilts his head. “I bet you get that a lot. Jocks, must be difficult.”

“Kind of. I mean, my teammates are great.” I sigh. “Mostly. It’s the rest of the world that won’t leave me alone.”

“You’re famous, though. You can make them accept you on your terms. Or am I buying into a ‘famous athlete’ stereotype?”

I chuckle. “I’m not that famous. I can still lose my job pretty easily, and football players who lose their job wind up with…” I make the “poof” motion with my paws. “Nothing.”

“At least you have a boyfriend waiting at home. That’s good.”

“Yeah,” I say, and somehow it feels easier to talk about the situation with Lee here, to this almost-stranger. “I don’t know if I do.”

His eyes widen a bit. “You want to talk about it?” he asks with gentle, experienced kindness.

I slump back against the wall. It doesn’t look like Strike and Iva will be done anytime soon—he’s got a paw pretty much right on her tit—nor are they making a move to take their groping elsewhere. We’re a little away from the entrance to the restaurant, but not so far that the people walking in can’t take a moment to gawk at the couple. I could just call my own cab, and I’m about five minutes from doing that, but I don’t mind talking to Machaine for a bit longer. “He wants me to be more active and more out about being gay. I just want to play football.”

“Sure,” he says. “Buckle down and do your job.”

“It’s more than a job.” I’m aware that I’m arguing against my own words. “It’s…it’s a thing only like eight hundred people in the country can do. Three hundred fifty or so if you only count starters. And I’m good enough to be one of them.”

“So you have to keep proving it?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s more…I’m really proud of it. I love being one of those guys, someone everyone else can count on. When we stop the other team’s offense, we do it together, and it’s…it’s the best feeling. When I get an interception, it’s great, but when one of my teammates does, it’s great too.”

“You’re like a family,” he says. “I wish acting were like that.”

“Like a family…” I think about last Thanksgiving, with Uncle Roger and Gregory and Auntie Za. “With all the sniping and stuff behind the scenes. But we’re doing something out on a big stage—the biggest stage, in a few days—and we all want to see how good we can be. We want to get to the top together. And who I’m sleeping with shouldn’t have any bearing on that.”

“It shouldn’t,” he agrees. “In C.C., being gay is an asset, as long as you behave the way they expect you to. And you got to do a commercial.”

“That was nice,” I say, “but it was also a pain, kind of a distraction.”

“Wish I had more distractions.” He examines his claws, and the next question comes out very casually. “What’d you get paid for it?”

I’m surprised at the blunt question. “A lot,” I say.

“Iva got two thousand dollars.”

“Really? That’s all?” He inclines his head, long ears flicking. I scratch my muzzle, and blink as someone takes a picture of Iva and Strike. “Well, if I’d known…”

He shakes his head. “She doesn’t care. I wouldn’t. That’s how it works here. You want to get paid, you do your time and you get famous and then you can get a million dollars for thirty seconds of commercial time.” He grins as I lay my ears back. “It was close to that, wasn’t it?”

“Something like.”

“Good for you. Get paid, sister.”

The term “sister” unsettles me enough that I don’t answer right away, though my ears do come up. Right then, Strike and Iva break apart and make their way over to us.

“Hey,” Strike says, “I’m gonna get my own cab back to the hotel. Looks like you guys are having a fun conversation. You going to be okay?”

He’s still holding Iva by the paw. I don’t have Lee’s nose, but I can smell the sex between them, and Machaine’s nose twitches as well, which is kind of cute on the bunny. “I’m fine,” I say. “We’re having a good talk.”

“There’s a good ice cream place near here,” Machaine says. “They serve low-fat milkshakes. For real.”

“Okay,” Strike says. “You guys have fun. Thanks for coming along, Dev.”

I raise a paw and watch the two of them wander out to the street.

“He’s going to fuck her,” Machaine says.

“Yeah,” I say. “Hypocrite.”

“What?”

“Oh.” I gesture. “He’s just got this whole ‘tantric mantra’ or meditation thing or whatever, and says he doesn’t need to have sex, and he’s clearly going off to get some.” They get into a taxi. I think I see him pull her top up before the door’s even completely closed. I remember groping breasts, back in college. I wonder if any of the ladies really enjoyed it. I try to remember if I did.

Machaine stands still. “We don’t have to get ice cream,” he says, and though he’s still got a little swishiness to his voice, it’s deeper and more sincere.

Charm’s words about bunnies echo in my head. I half-turn and really look at him. He’s brushing a paw down his blue shirt, and his pants are pretty tight, not leaving much to my imagination. I’m reminded of being back in a bar on the Forester campus, cruising for a girl to take home and spend the night with. It didn’t mean anything then, and I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t mean anything now. It’d just be a way for me to get off, to get rid of some of the tension I’ve got stored up, not just over football and Lee, but the natural “I haven’t had sex in a week” tension that I haven’t felt since—well, since early on in the season, when Lee made a bet with me that I’d be starting soon and promised not to have sex until I did. Then it was motivating. Now it’s just distracting.

And he’s cute, he really is. Those long ears would be fun—not quite as fun as black triangular ears, but different. His body is pretty similar to Lee’s, too, though his tail is short and fluffy rather than long and bushy. Maybe that’d be nice; it wouldn’t get in the way as much.

But I like the way Lee’s tail gets in the way, and I like his ears, and god dammit, as much as I’m getting hard thinking about fucking Machaine, there’s still a part of me that knows I wouldn’t enjoy it all that much. Well, I mean, I’d
enjoy
it, sure. He’s got a nice butt and seems like a fun guy. But would it really be that much better than just jerking off? Would I feel like I was betraying Lee?

He did give a hand job to Brian that one time. So maybe I could jerk off Machaine and call it even.

He’s still looking at me and the smile grows. “Okay, so, just the milkshake then.”

“Sorry,” I say.

“Nah.” He grins. “Much as I’d like to have a football player, I know where to go if I want one. College boys are more fun anyway.”

My ears perk up. “You know other gay football players? I mean, you know that there are some?”

“My heavens, no.” He laughs. “But I have friends who go down to UCC campus every now and then, you know. They say it doesn’t mean the guys are gay, though. They’ll just take a blow job if it’s offered. They’re young.”

“Huh.” I sink back against the window of the restaurant.

“But I wouldn’t do that, myself,” he says.

I turn. His ears are askew—down, kind of. “I thought you said you’d like to have a football player.”

He nods. “But not that kind. Not the ‘any mouth in a storm’ kind. They don’t want me, they just want a no-strings blow job, and if they get it from a female, then they feel like it means something, because they’re straight and they’re supposed to have a relationship.”

“I know a stallion who doesn’t think that at all.”

His right paw lifts, waves airily. “They’re not all like that. But there’s some that are, you know. They don’t really like us gays, but they’ll come in our mouths. Because we’re happy to lick it up. Not like the girls they know, probably.”

I think about that. “That’s kind of sad.”

“And that’s why I don’t go to the colleges.” He smiles. His ears come up. “I may be a fag for show, but I’m a fag with pride.”

“And you’re cute. And that friend of mine, he’d kick me for turning down a bunny. But—what?”

He’s glaring at me. “Come on,” he says. “I know you’re a fangy big tough tiger, but at least get the species right.”

“What?”

“I’m a snowshoe hare. I guess if you grew up in the desert…”

“Um.” My ears are getting warm. “I grew up around Hilltown, up north.”

He swats my shoulder. “Shame on you. Didn’t you have any snowshoe hares up there?”

“We called them all bunnies!” I mock-cringe, and finally he laughs.

“All right,” he says, and shakes a finger at me. “But you’re going to buy me a milkshake to make up for it.”

“Deal,” I say, and I feel a lot better as he leads me off down the street. As tempted as I was—which was not all that much, I tell myself as we get farther from the restaurant—we’re just going to have dessert. And I have someone else to talk to about what a fucking pain in the ass it is to be gay in this fucking world.

Chapter 17 – Reactions (Lee)

I drag my feet out into the living room. Hal’s looking at his laptop, not the TV, which is showing one of the Sportscenter anchors. On the laptop screen is a picture of Dev and the headline, “Gay Player Wishes He Hadn’t Come Out.”

The room drops ten degrees. My fur prickles as I hug my arms around myself and lean closer.

It’s a short story, only two paragraphs. The gist of it is that after being questioned for half an hour about his sexuality, Dev said he wished he hadn’t come out. That’s all there is.

Hal’s looking up at me with what I think is pity. I step back and find myself breathing more easily. “Is that all?” I say.

“Um.” He scratches behind one of his ears. “Seems like a big deal.”

Brian was there, of course, hence the smug voicemail. I want to take the photo of Dev and rotate it so I can see the crowd of reporters, but I’m as sure as if I could actually see his black and white muzzle and shiny black eyes that Brian was one of the people asking questions. Goading Dev, probably, one of the things Brian excels at. And Dev just snapped, like he does sometimes. I swish my tail, making sure I’m really as relaxed as I think I am. “He wants to focus on football and be treated as a football player, and all they were doing is asking him about being gay.”

“Uh-huh.” Hal looks at the article again. “Shouldn’t he know how to handle the media by now?”

“He’s passionate.” I smile, sadly, and then I have to sit down on the sofa. I land just near Hal’s tail, but he doesn’t flip it away. “He’s passionate and he wants so much to succeed. And I was getting in the way of that.”

“Hey, uh.” Hal sets the computer down. “You were helping him. Didn’t you tell me you coached him?”

“Yeah.” I stare down between my knees. “And he doesn’t need me coaching him anymore.”

“That doesn’t mean he don’t care about you.” Now Hal does flip his tail away from me.

I exhale. “No. But I don’t know if we can make it work. That’s going to be all over the place now, and I don’t know if he’ll be able to apologize for it. I mean, of course he will, but I don’t know if he’ll want to. I think he does—the Dev I know does, or would, but… He’s just going to want to play his game, and I can’t…I can’t.” I swallow and stop rambling.

The whole thing overwhelms me, what’s gone between me and Dev, what he wants and how he probably won’t be able to achieve that with me in his life. He’s passionate, sure, and in the long run this comment probably isn’t a big deal in the media. He’ll apologize after the fact (probably already has), he’ll explain that what he meant was that he wished he could just answer questions about football at a football press conference, and talk about being gay at somewhere appropriate for that. Everyone will forget, his Strongwell beer commercial will come out, his new agent—because he’d better fire Ogleby—will advise him to do PSA spots in the off-season and he’ll be fine. But I can’t stop thinking that he would much rather have had me as a good friend than a lover, even if we were both pining for each other, because it would’ve made his life less complicated. After football, there’ll be time for love and such, but I feel like he’s just reached out and told me that he doesn’t want me back.

And I can’t articulate that. I press my fingers to my eyes and feel the tears leaking out again, and I think, how stupid of me, am I not done crying yet? But apparently the answer is no, because I’m shaking, and then Hal has an arm around my shoulder and I’m leaning into him getting his shoulder damp with silent tears. He’s warm and solid and he smells good and it just feels so, so good to have someone hug me that that makes it worse. The crying seems to have a momentum all its own, so even though I want to stop, I can’t.

He’s a good friend. He holds me through the whole thing. I finally manage to get myself under control when I feel the warmth building in my nose and have to reach for a tissue. “Sorry,” I mumble, and he lets me go as I blow my nose.

“Not a problem,” he says. “Like I said, when Cim left, I was kind of a mess. Though I drank more than I cried, I think. Threw up a lot, too.”

“I haven’t done that yet.” I laugh, shakily. “Not for lack of trying. Oh god, Dev.” The picture’s still on Hal’s laptop screen.

He closes it quickly. “Sorry.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I mean, I need to get over it. I’m going to watch him play a championship game in five days, for heaven’s sake. I can’t start bawling in the middle of the Yerba offices.”

“They’d be impressed,” Hal says. “Means you’re a sensitive guy.”

“Oh, screw that.” I blow my nose again. “No, I’ll get it together. Sorry. Uh. Thanks for the shoulder.”

“Didn’t have a whole lot of choice.” He grins at me. “All happened so fast.”

I breathe in and out, grab a couple more tissues and clean up my muzzle, and sit back on the couch. “I don’t know why it hit me like that. It’s not about me, I know. Except…it sort of is, you know?” He just nods. “I don’t know what to think. I want to believe we’re still together, or can get back together, but it just seems like it’ll be too hard.”

“Hard don’t mean it’s impossible,” he says. “Hard don’t mean it’s not worth trying.”

“No, I know.” I hold my tail in my paws and rub the fur. It feels good and soothing, and I’m not even shedding that much anymore. “But if he doesn’t want to…”

“If he didn’t want to,” Hal says, “likely he woulda stopped long before now.”

“Yeah. I guess…”

“I’m right,” he says firmly. “Now let me get some work done, and you do somethin’ other than watching a movie or reading the Internet.”

I have no idea what that might be, but after half an hour, I think that maybe I could do some preliminary work for Yerba. So I spend time reading up on the bowl games from the end of the year, looking at the college athletes and the draft, and at Yerba’s team by position. That’s what I’m doing when the phone rings.

I haven’t used the phone much in the last few days. I don’t have anyone to call, and it just reminds me that it was Dev’s gift to me. But when I look down and see Mother’s phone number, I pick up the phone and stare at it.

Great. Just what I need.
Just
what I fucking need.

I stand up and head for the office, swiping the bar to answer the call on the way. I don’t even know why I’m doing it. Brian I can ignore, but Mother—the flood of emotion chokes my throat as I slide the mic out and put the phone to my ear. “Hello,” I say finally.

“Wiley?”

“Yes. Hi, Mother.” If I close my eyes, I see her standing in the hallway, feel the shouts building in my chest. So I look around the office at Hal’s stacks of papers and books, and try not to think about the things behind my locked door.

“How are you?” she says, and though I’m usually snappy about people who dance around with small talk when they clearly have something else to say, this is a welcome respite for me to collect myself so I don’t start, I don’t know, bawling or yelling.

I take a breath. “I’m fine,” I say, and then I repeat it. “Fine. How are you?”

“I’m fine. It snowed here. Six inches.”

“Did the plows come around?”

We talk about snow and the weather, the conversation calm like the air on a day when thunderclouds are gathering. And finally I feel emptied of emotion, strong enough to say, “Why did you call?”

She pauses. “Harold said you wanted to talk.” When I don’t say anything, when the silence stretches on and on and I start zoning out, she says, in a smaller voice, “Did you?”

“Yeah,” I say, even though I never told Father I did. I know why he lied, though. Now I wonder if she really wanted to talk to me, if she was really crying when she called him, or if he made all that up. I give her all the time in the world to apologize for locking my room, burning my things.

Finally, she gets tired of waiting for me to talk, I guess. “He said you were upset over that boy who killed himself. I…I thought you were making it up. But there was a lawsuit.”

“Yes.” I sit up straighter. Keep a rein on yourself, I think. “Your friends got sued by the family.”

“It’s a terrible thing.” It sounds like she means it. “Celia says the family is just lashing out. They’re hurt and want someone to blame, and they’re abusing the courts.”

“I—” I swallow. “I think that’s partly true. The family should have supported him. But they also expected the people they brought in to help, not to—not to drive him to such despair that he wanted to kill himself.”

“We don’t—” She catches herself. “They would only have offered messages of hope.”

“If he changed who he was.”

She exhales across the phone. “Celia said…that one of the lawyers is your football player’s brother.” I draw my knees up to my chest. “Wiley?” Mother says, after several seconds. “Is it true?”

“Go ahead,” I say. “Tell me that even my boyfriend’s family doesn’t agree with his lifestyle.”

“I assume you know that.” Her voice is cooler. “Why would you need me to remind you?”

“To try to get me to leave him. The way you left Father.” It’s not fair, of course it’s not. It’s just way more true than I want to admit.

“I didn’t
leave
your father. He’s the one—”

“I’ve heard the story. You’re the one who changed, who grew apart.”

“Did you ever think,” she says, even colder, “that perhaps it was the two of you who changed? That you two left me behind? Were you homosexual in grade school, Wiley? Did Father encourage you to behave unnaturally—”

“There’s plenty of evidence that it’s natural,” I say, loudly.

“Really,” she says. “Celia told me there was some news about your ‘natural’ friend today.”

Of course. The timing of the call—this is what had to have triggered it. “He’s under a lot of stress.”

“Yes, and stress is where true character is revealed. What did he say, exactly? That he wished he didn’t have to go through all this? That he was praying to be relieved of this affliction?”

“What? He didn’t—” I lurch forward off the air mattress because I can’t just sit down at that, I can’t keep myself curled up tightly. Emotion overrides my speech, sending my thoughts out a half-second before I’m ready for them to go. “He didn’t say anything about praying, about being relieved—about it being an ‘affliction’—what the hell are you—where are you getting—”

“People change, Wiley.”

“Not the way you’re thinking, they don’t. Was I homosexual in grade school? Yeah, I was. Absolutely. Did I know what it meant or how to express it? No. But I was. I have been ever since I was born. Or before that, or whenever it is you think life starts.” I stomp up and down.

Hal appears in the doorway, ears askew. I ignore him, focused on Mother’s reply. “Studies have shown that you’re influenced by popular culture—”

“That
I
am?” I yell. “You have studies that show what I’m influenced by?”

“—that young men in search of an identity to rebel against their parents with,” she goes on as if I hadn’t spoken, “will often choose a homosexual lifestyle for its unconventional and shocking effect on the family—”

“It didn’t seem to shock Father all that much.”

“Your father,” she says, “was as shocked by it as I was. He thought we should let you do what you wish and find your own path, and I said that our duty as parents was to show you the proper path. I take no satisfaction in being proven right—”

“You think you’re right? Still?” I grab at a tissue and hold it to my nose, and then have a short coughing fit.

“I’ve read the studies that Families United references and they all show that my instincts were correct.” She talks faster now.

“I know about those studies,” I say. “The ones that are discredited by just about every serious researcher in the field.”

“Discredited by the homosexu—”

“I swear to Jesus Fox if you say ‘agenda’ I will drive back up there right now.”

Hal’s eyes widen. He leans against the hallway wall, watching me like a ref at a hockey game wondering when he needs to come in and break up the fight.

Mother’s quiet. I wonder if she’s reliving the memory of our last confrontation now, like I am. I stop pacing and lean against the wall, eyes closed, ears down, my tail lifeless. I don’t feel good about the implied threat, and finally I say, “Sorry.”

“Well,” she says, softly. “I guess we always knew we would never reach agreement. But I hope you know that all that I’m doing is out of love. I didn’t want you to be hurt. I just wanted you to find the joy in life of meeting a vixen and starting a family.”

“I can have joy without a vixen,” I say.

“Not real love,” she says. “I wish I could explain…”

“You want to explain?” The pressure of the day clamps around my chest and squeezes the words out, tumbling as fast as I can think them, and I keep my eyes closed, imagining her standing there listening. “No. Let
me
explain. True love, real love, is letting someone go. It’s realizing that you might not be the best thing for him in his life and stepping back so he can have a better life. It’s sitting at home with your heart tearing apart because you want so much to be part of that life and you think you might have already ruined not only your own chance at that, but his chance at having anything worthwhile. It’s—” I wipe my eyes. “It’s standing by someone no matter what your family says, no matter what your job says, because you know in your heart that that’s where you want to be. And when it all falls apart, it’s feeling sadness and grief without an ounce of regret.”