Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (36 page)

She doesn’t say anything, but she’s still breathing, still listening. I collect myself, though my voice is starting to crack. “Did you feel that with Father? When you defied your family to move to the Midwest and live with him, did you feel that it was the right thing to do? And when you grew apart, did you regret it? Do you? Do you wish you’d stayed in Port City, wish you’d stayed in Grandma’s society circles and grown up the proper vixen your parents wanted you to be? Or are you proud of the choice you made, not to be a different person, but to express the person you are?”

I sit down hard on my air mattress, back to the wall, and close my eyes. Seconds tick by. I can feel Hal still there, still watching, while Mother breathes on the other end of the line and I force air through my mostly-clear nose because I don’t want to breathe across the mic. I’m tense, gripping the phone, ready for whatever she’s going to say, and finally she answers. “It’s not the same,” she says, wavering, uncertain.

“It’s exactly the same,” I say. “It’s why Vince King killed himself, because he told his parents who he was and they brought in specialists to tell him he was wrong and twisted and he never thought he would have a normal life. He didn’t have the strength you and I have, he didn’t have the friends and the love that has gotten us through those times, that’s made up for disapproving parents and friends and whatever else.”

Silence on the other end of the line. Silence in the apartment. She’s breathing into the phone, and I can’t breathe through my nose so I’m breathing into the mic, the hell with it. I open my eyes and meet Hal’s. He’s completely still, even his tail.

“Are things falling apart?” Mother says softly. “For you?”

“Maybe.” I wipe my eyes again and curl my tail up against the wall. “Maybe. I hope not, but I don’t know. I have to wait until after this game.”

“That’s the championship? On Sunday?”

“Yes.”

“Well.” She pauses. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

I drop the phone onto the mattress and close my eyes again. Motion stirs my whiskers, and Hal’s scent comes forward. “Sorry.” I reach up and press fingers to my eyes.

“Don’t worry about it.” He’s a foot away or so. “Could hear you no matter where I went. Figured I’d remind you I was here. It was either that or just go outside, and, um.” He’s looking all awkward when I open my eyes, muzzle pointing away from me, down at his printer. “You, ah…need another hug?”

“No,” I say, but I lean forward and I can’t hold back the pressure on my chest, on my eyes. I grab a tissue and hold it to my face, and he kneels and puts an arm around my shoulders anyway.

Chapter 18 – Switching Assignments (Dev)

Machaine sits and listens to my troubles with Lee, and I sit and listen to his troubles with his on-again, off-again boyfriend, a Jewish fallow deer who hates when Machaine flirts with predator species, which is partly why he agreed to go out on the date with me (partly, like Strike told me, he was just curious about football players). I don’t just talk about the troubles though. I mention Lee getting into the fight in Boliat and Machaine shakes his head and says, “That’s why I moved out of the Midwest. Mostly lovely people until they’ve been drinking a bit.” And I guess I talk a little more about Lee, because when we finish the milkshakes, he squeezes my paw and says, “You know I don’t really care what Geoff thinks about who I date, right?”

“Uh.” I’m not sure if that’s a come-on, so I don’t say anything.

The hare gives me a smile. “It’s just fun to tease him. But someone who gets under your skin the way that fox does…well, there’s a reason for that.”

I sigh. “I know. I love him, I do. I just don’t know if that’s enough.”

“It’s not.” He says it plainly, quickly, and I stare at him. “You have to love yourself, too.”

“I…” I pause. “I like myself.”

He gives my paw another squeeze and then lets it go. “That’s a start. But you have to do better. I’m surprised none of your gay friends have told you that yet.” At my expression, he puts one paw on his hip. “Oh, honey. You
have
to have some gay friends.”

“When would I have met them?”

“Through your fox? No? All right, then. Now you have one.” He pats my shoulder.

When Charm asks me with a friendly bellow how my date went, I say truthfully that I got his number. He laughs and claps me on the back and says he knew I had it in me. As if it were just that easy to pick up and date someone else, for someone who isn’t a big, confident, straight stallion.

So I let Charm think what he wants and I try to deal with the problem of being all pent up, not from wanting Machaine or any of the other athletic guys out there, but just from wanting some kind of release. It’s not like I haven’t jerked off enough times on this trip. It’s that that isn’t enough. I thought it would be, but I’m increasingly edgy in practice on Wednesday, and it’s not just because of the coverage of my embarrassing comments the day before, or the half hour I spent talking to people and clarifying and apologizing and saying the right things about being gay and coming out. It is, I think, because all during that apology session, I felt Lee over my shoulder, nodding, and I wanted to take that shadow and hold him and kiss him and feel him against me, and at the same time it made me grit my teeth because I knew he would say something abrasive.

I almost call him Wednesday night after practice to tell him I was thinking about him while I jerked off in the shower. But I don’t want to be the first one to call. He’s the one who walked out on me; he can call me when he’s good and ready. And I have no idea when that will be. He’s probably still mad about the remarks Tuesday. I have no idea how much coverage my apologies got; all I did was return the calls I got from a Chevali local paper and from a gay sports website. I hope they posted the things I said, but I don’t have the energy to spare to go look for them.

Coach talks to us Wednesday night to tell us again how practice is going well, how we have to be careful not to wear ourselves out, how it’s just another game. Nervous laughter all around. We all try to believe it. But I see Kodi and another guy duck into the bathroom, and we all pretend not to hear the retching sounds that follow. By Saturday, from what Fisher tells me, more of us will be in that state.

I never had to throw up before a game, but I played with people who did. Not that I’ve been in an important game in a while, but in college, before the playoff game, well, I’ll just say that the locker room bathroom smelled pretty foul. This year, during the playoffs, I guess a couple guys probably snuck into the bathroom, but by and large it all seemed so improbable that we were there at all that I don’t think any of us felt pressure.

Now it’s been two weeks, and the Media Day interviews really brought it home to us. We can ignore the radio and TV and print and web pretty effectively—you have to, if you want to play a full season in the UFL—but when every one of us has to be available for press conferences, it’s hard to ignore those outside forces, hard not to feel the weight of millions of eyes watching your every movement. And then you start thinking ahead to the game, wondering what you’re going to do, becoming hyper-aware that something as small as a foot planted wrong can snowball and cost you, and your team, the game.

Kodi throws up. Me, I fidget and I think of Lee, because he’d be the one to ground me in this case. But I can’t think of Lee, because right now that’s too stressful. So I have to shut out everything else and find the place inside myself that lets me focus, that lets me concentrate. The problem is, that place has always been “next to my fox.” With that gone, I can only focus on where it used to be.

Wednesday night I go out with Gerrard and Carson to a burger joint Gerrard has heard recommended. It’s pretty good, with thick burgers and a fixings bar three yards long. Like lots of places in Crystal City, it has a wall of photos up of famous people who’ve eaten there. We joke that we should have our pics up there one day.

Going back to the hotel, Gerrard stops a block away at a different hotel and says he’ll see us later. I don’t peer past him into the lobby, but as Carson and I walk on alone, I ask, “What’s that about?”

Carson shrugs. “You know,” he says.

“Maybe.” I look back. “You got a girl here?”

The leopard shakes his head slowly. His tail twitches. Maybe I should let it drop. Maybe.

But hell, it’s just the two of us. So I say, quietly, “Got a guy?”

He snorts, and then looks at me with a grin. “No,” he says clearly.

“Would you tell me?” We stop at a corner to wait for a light. I feel conspicuous, not only because we’re both six-foot-plus, but also because our t-shirts and jeans stand out beside the other pedestrians waiting: a pair of hedgehogs in business shirts tailored to accommodate their back spines. But they’re both absorbed in typing out text messages on their phones and barely spare us a glance.

Carson gives me a long look, but doesn’t say anything until the light changes and we’re walking across the street, and then he says, “Probably. Think so.”

“Lee thinks someone else on the team does. Er, is.” My ears flick back to the hedgehogs, even though there’s almost zero chance they’re listening, even if they can hear us over the traffic.

The leopard just shrugs. “Chances are,” he says, and then, as we reach the curb, he looks up again. “So what?”

“Well, I dunno,” I say. “It’d be nice to not be alone.”

He nods. We get to the lobby of the hotel, where he holds the door for me, and walk across the fancy lobby. Some of the groupies are there already—word leaks out on the Internet about where we’re staying, I guess. I spot Argonne talking to a vixen. He’s almost become a fixture of my games now; I think if I didn’t spot him before one of them, I’d start to worry about him.

Carson doesn’t spare them a glance, just goes straight to the elevator. We get one all to ourselves and go up to our floor, and on the way up, he says, “You’re not.”

I’ve completely lost the thread of our conversation, so I blink and say, “What?”

“Alone. You’re not.”

We step out onto our floor, and I’m still looking at him. “You mean, you know someone…”

He smiles, as much as I’ve ever seen Carson smile. “You’re a Firebird,” he says. “And you’re a helluva linebacker. And a friend. You’re not alone.”

“Oh,” I say. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” He stops at his door. “Now shut the fuck up and let’s get ready to kick some ass Sunday.”

I’m still grinning as I let myself into my room. Charm is out, of course, which means I can lock myself in the bathroom and let off some tension. But it’s more work than it has been the last few days to get myself off, and it’s not that my cock is sore from my rough paw rubbing it (it’s not, but it makes me wonder if Lee’s gets that way, and then I remember that I usually have lube on my paw). It’s more that it’s lonely, unsatisfying. I keep wanting to smell fox, to hold him, and his absence works like reverse oysters or something. I’m stroking myself, but my mind’s not in it. And, well, you know what they say about sex: when it’s good, it’s great, and when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. Yeah. By the time I get myself off, I’m seriously wondering about that. There’s a flash of pleasure, but mostly relief, and the relief doesn’t last all that long. It sends me to bed, where I take out the video iPod Gerrard gave me and look at film of Crystal City next to the playbook, and when Charm comes in reeking of sex, he calls me a teacher’s pet and I throw a hotel bible at him. And he gets to sleep in five minutes while I lie there in the dark staring at the ceiling.

Of course, I tell myself, it’s just the sex. I just have to train my body to get used to it. Like when—like what Strike’s always talking about, training himself to live on healthier proteins and whatever other shit he eats. Of course, he talked about tantric meditation too, but apparently that’s no match for a good pair of tits.

Iva was pretty too. I think about her lying in bed with me, and wow, it’s been years since I had a female in bed. I used to like the feel of tits, myself, and now I mostly think about how they’d get in the way. I like the lean lines of Lee, the way I can stroke down the fur and feel the warm skin and the muscle underneath. Was I always gay? Was I born like this? Or am I just training myself to love this one fox because of all the other things he does for me—did for me?

Regardless of the greater implications, I need to get some rest and some focus. And Thursday I’m still stumbling around the field. Not critically; I mean, it’s only once or twice. But I notice it, and so I stay quiet all during dinner, imagining stumbling during the championship as the Sabretooths run for a touchdown.

Strike wants to go out again that night, but when he mentions Iva, I pass. Gerrard is nowhere to be found, and as encouraging as Carson was, I can’t imagine trying to hold a conversation with him for an entire dinner. So I join Ty and Charm, for old times’ sake, on their way to a strip club Charm’s been to three times already. Zillo tags along at the last minute.

We talk about the game, and the two of them keep pointing out different dancers to me. One’s a tiger, and Ty, a few drinks left of sober at this point, asks me, “You don’t feel nothing?”

I tell him that if she came up and offered to suck me off, I’d probably let her, but I wouldn’t take her home, and that leads to a longer conversation than I would like about the difference between guys and girls giving blow jobs. Charm insists that although he’d never try it, he thinks guys would be better at it. “Because you guys sucked your own dicks at least a few times in high school, right? I mean, I haven’t done it in years—I outsource that now—but man, in ninth grade I was worried I’d end up hunchbacked.”

Ty just grins and nods, while Zillo sticks his tongue out. “Gross.”

“You did it too, don’t try to pretend you didn’t. That long muzzle and all.” Charm elbows him.

“Yeah, yeah.” Zillo gulps down the rest of his drink and grins, and shoves Charm back.

I clear my throat. “You have a point?”

“Yeah, just that…you know, guys know what to do. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some girls who had a lot of practice. A lot. But I just think a guy would have the advantage.”

Ty bumps his shoulder into mine. “Dev, you had both. Whatcha think?”

I bury my nose in what is still my first beer of the night. “You know, I’m not drunk enough to talk about this.”

Charm raises a hand to the waitress. “My buddy here needs another beer,” he yells.

“No, I mean—that’s not—”

“Shuddup and finish your beer.” He glares at me.

For a horse, he’s got a mean stare. I gulp down the beer and slide the empty mug across the table. “So which one of these gals do you guys like? Going to get a lap dance?”

Charm laughs. “Why pay for the merch when you can get a free sample? Nah, we’ll just hang out and then see if one of the waitresses wants to party after. But don’t avoid the question.” The stallion grins down at me.

Zillo waves him off. “C’mon, Charm, he—he don’t wanna t-talk about it.”

Charm leans in. “I got blown by a guy once.”

His breath stinks of beer. He’s on his fourth at least. Ty puts his drink down, big ears swiveling forward, and I raise an eyebrow. “You never told me.”

“Nah,” he says. “Not the sort of thing to brag about, y’know. But in college. Guy comes up and says he thinks he can show me a good time, and you know, I like me a good time.”

“So was it a good t-time?” Zillo leans in.

“He was damn good, tell ya that,” Charm says. “Ain’t sayin’ I didn’t have girls who were better, but maybe that’s just cause of the tits and I like watchin’ ’em more.”

“I guess so.” Zillo shrugs and rubs his muzzle. “Don’ make you gay, right?”

Ty glances my way and grins. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” He might not be fully sober, but he’s quite a bit less drunk than the coyote.

Charm just throws his head back and laughs. “Hey,” he says, “it’d take a guy with great tits to make me gay.”

“Probably not even then.” I raise a glass to him.

“But hey, that’s just how I am, and Dev here likes guys—at least one guy—and that’s cool. Whatever.”

Ty licks at his cocktail glass. “If you look at it just, like, what kind of person you wanna be with…I mean, that’s not so bad at all. There’s guys on the team, married guys, who sleep around, and nobody says shit about that.”

“Well,” I say, “I mean, that’s how some people have their lives. Couple of the wives I talk to, they know it goes on.”

“Don’t know everything that goes on,” Zillo mumbles, and then ducks his head, ears flat.

“You want a refill?” Charm asks.

I’m intensely curious to ask what Zillo means, but it’s something he got in confidence, I think, so I’m not going to push him. He’s drunk anyway, so it wouldn’t be fair.