Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (37 page)

But I think about it again in the taxi on the way home, after I leave the three of them to hit on a pair of waitresses who are impressed with the size of their drink bill (right as I’m leaving, Charm invites them to share some of his $1,000-a-bottle champagne, and I know for a fact that he doesn’t even like the stuff). Ty, the most sober, tells me with a wink and a wave that he’ll get them back home. Zillo doesn’t show much sign of being two days away from the biggest game of his life, and Charm, particularly, whose job is maybe the least demanding physically and most stressful mentally on the whole team, has an amazing facility for being able to relax that I envy.

Not that my job isn’t stressful, but it’s multiple small points of stress. One mistake can be costly, sure, but I have a whole game to make up for it. Charm comes in, often with the game on the line, and if he misses, he might not get to try again that game.

That doesn’t mean I can afford to make any mistakes. I lean back against the seat and close my eyes, and I think about what I’m going to do during the game. For the first time, it really hits me that Lee isn’t going to be up there in the stands watching me. I clench my paws and breathe in. He’ll be watching on TV, of course he will. And I know…I think I know…that he still believes in me.

I never gave a lot of thought to love, in high school. That was something the girls wanted. I just thought someday I’d find a girl I could hang out with after sex, and we’d have a family. Treated it the same way I did football, really: just a game to learn the steps of, to go through the motions, to win or lose. But losing wasn’t that big a deal, before Lee. I was still getting to play football, still getting to walk around with the team and get excused from homework and stuff. If I lost, well, the team was partly to blame for that. There wasn’t much I could do, me alone, to make a bunch of other guys play better and win games. And what was the point? There was no football life after college for me anyway. I wasn’t good enough.

Except he showed me that I was. I liked that feeling and I haven’t stopped chasing it since.

I exhale. And then, I remind myself, he showed me that he wants to pursue his life, and I want to pursue mine, and it’s fucking hard to make that work. But I can’t blame him for it, because I think what he wants to feel is the same thing I want to feel: that he’s important, that he matters, that he’s good at something. When you uncover all the things we chase through this life, doesn’t it come down to that? Don’t you want people to admire you and friends to know they can rely on you, no matter what you’re doing? Machaine said I have to love myself too, but I guess when Lee was around, he loved me enough that I didn’t worry about that.

I miss him. I want him so badly that my teeth grind and my claws prick my paw pads and it takes a deep breath and a real effort to get myself to relax. I’m wound up and thinking about Charm and Ty fucking those waitresses, and Strike with his holier-than-thou tantric bullshit fuckwaddery still groping Iva, and Gerrard doing whatever it is Zillo doesn’t wanna tell me about, but I’m sure it involves him getting laid. So I’m going to go up to the room and jerk off and it’ll just make me angrier because it’s not what I want; it’s just the only thing I can have.

The taxi pulls up in front of the hotel. I pay the driver and stalk inside. I know I’ve gotta do something. I just have no idea what. My paw slides into my pocket and curls around my phone. My fingers brush the cracks in the screen. Maybe I’ll call Lee, tell him I want him to fly out here.

Right, and then how would that go? “Hey, hon, can I just fuck you a couple times to keep myself loose for the game?” Oh, he’d love that. He would just fucking love that. I let go of the phone in my pocket and round the corner to the elevators.

I get there right as one dings. The doors open, and Argonne steps out.

He’s wearing a white cotton short-sleeved shirt with pink trim on the collar and cuffs and sleek tan slacks, both a little rumpled. He’s just lifting a paw to his muzzle, but when he sees me, he puts the paw back in his pocket. His ears flick back and he murmurs, “Going up, handsome?”

The long brush of his tail clears the elevator door. I stand there and watch it in the empty elevator lobby. For a moment, the need in me pulls me back to college. I’m a horny football player, and he’s just a girl I want. And I can have any girl I want.

He’s walking away. From behind, he could almost be Lee, with that little satisfied strut, that swish to his tail. What would Lee tell me to do, if I need to get laid to be effective in the football game? I come to an immediate decision. “Yeah,” I say. “You coming?”

He turns. His eyebrows rise, eyes widen. But he doesn’t decline or walk away, so I grab his wrist and pull him into the elevator, then stab the Door Close button and my floor.

At about the fifth floor, he regains his composure and his smirk. “Well,” he says, “boyfriend away, tiger can play?”

“Something like that.” I eye him. “No
ascot
?”

He pulls the filmy scarf from one pocket. “Didn’t want to get anything
on
it.” He winks.

I don’t want to stand too near him in the elevator, don’t want to think too much about what I’m heading toward doing. It’s a sign that he was walking out as I was walking in, just as I was thinking about Lee.

I push thoughts of Lee aside. If he cared about me, he’d be here now and he wouldn’t have pushed me to this. Anyway, it’s not that big a deal. Argonne’s already said he’s discreet, and he has to be, if he’s been seeing someone else on the team. And he’s a fox, and if I were a little more drunk this would be perfect because I could tell myself he’s Lee, and I might even remember it that way in the morning.

When the door opens, I push him back against the elevator wall and step out to check out the hallway. It’s deserted; still too early for most guys to be coming back.

“I know the drill.” He steps out behind me, quiet and graceful.

“Shut up,” I say.

“I know that, too,” he murmurs, just low enough that I can hear him.

I walk fast down the corridor to my room, and he hurries behind me. We get into the room without anyone seeing, and I lock the door behind me. If Charm comes home early, then he’ll just have to see Argonne in the room, but at least the lock’ll give me time to get decent. And Charm is maybe the one person who won’t judge me.

“Well, well. So patience does pay off.” Argonne puts a paw on my hip as I turn.

I growl and push him against the wall, not too roughly, but firmly. “This is how this is gonna work,” I say, my nose inches from his. “You’re gonna shut up. One more word and I toss you out in the hall.”

He loses a little of his smirk. I can smell him strongly now, that musky fox scent, so like—so familiar and yet different. “Otherwise you can just leave right now,” I say. “If you wanna stay, just nod.”

Slowly, his muzzle moves up and down, his eyes never leaving mine. “Okay,” I say. “Then get over there on the bed on the right.”

I can’t fuck him, probably. Well, he might have lube—probably does, now I think about it. But just a blow job, that’d be enough, wouldn’t it? And it’s not really cheating. Not really. It’s not like I’m going to fuck him, no matter how tempting it is, with that bushy tail of his swinging back and forth as he gets up onto the bed, just like Lee’s, that smirk on his muzzle that’s so much like my fox’s—

My fox? Can I still call him that? Of course I can. Maybe just not right now.

Argonne is younger, his ears a little larger. He holds them up, looking back over his shoulder at me, on paws and knees on my bed. His tail flicks back and forth slowly, and I step forward. “Not like that. Turn around.”

Now that I’ve gotten to this point, I’m less sure. I need this, I know—or I think I know—but the fantasy in my mind that I could just close my eyes and imagine Lee, or forget who I was with, is receding. The smell is different, even to me with my short tiger nose. The lights are on in the room still, and there’s just something off about the whole thing even as he turns, angling his head to look up at me and then down my body.

And then Argonne puts a paw up to my pants, without saying a word. He lets the tip of his tongue stick out of his lips, a little pink flicker whose meaning I get right away, and his fingers brush my pants next to my sheath. Not touching, but the vibration of his claws on the fabric makes its way across, and I get a little harder than I already was. I swallow. Maybe this won’t be so hard to go through with after all.

When I don’t stop his fingers, he reaches up and undoes the fastening at my waist. Then the zipper. The air is cool through the fabric of my underwear, but his paw is warm.

I close my eyes. Just another fox, I think. Even if he smells different, there’s still an underlying familiarity to his musk. Maybe it’s something all foxes have in common. Though I’m still having trouble thinking of him as Lee, even with my eyes closed.

His paw tickles my sheath through my underwear, and then he pulls down the waistband. He exhales a soft breath over my stomach fur. And then I feel his tongue wash across my tip, and his paw holds my shaft at the base.

I think about sucking off Lee when he was on the phone with Hal, about him returning the favor in the shower. “Hang on.” I push Argonne off, step back from the bed. My heart’s pounding, my cock is throbbing, and I don’t know what the fuck to do.

I don’t want to open my eyes to look at him, so I hear the bed creak as he gets off it, and then my whiskers shiver as he steps close to me, muzzle against my chest. Fingers slide up my cock and then curl around it. “You need this.” His breath washes over my muzzle and whiskers, a warm, insistent message that I feel I should be listening to, only most of my attention is focused on those fingers, their soft pads and gentle claws. “And I won’t tell anyone. I’m very discreet.”

All my wiring is short-circuiting. Discreet, he says. Fuck, the last thing I’d need would be for it to get back to Fisher or Gerrard or their wives. But it’ll be just five minutes, a quick suck and coming in his muzzle and then he’ll be gone and I can relax. What if Charm walks in on us? Lion Christ, that paw is rubbing and I can’t think. What if Colin finds out? He’ll sure as fuck use this against me—no, I can’t do this, but I can’t make him stop, and if I just do nothing it’ll be over soon…

The smell of Argonne’s breath tickles my nose again, and this time, this time I finally understand what it’s trying to tell me.

My eyes open. Argonne’s smile is inches below mine, a sly fox grin in a lithe body. “Oh, shit,” I say.

Chapter 19 – Final Round (Lee)

Hal and I fly to Yerba on Saturday. In comparison to Tuesday, the rest of the week actually went pretty well. I only broke down crying one more time, I didn’t have any thoughts of sleeping with my gracious host (okay, I did have one kind of guilty fantasy that night, lying on the air mattress, that he would come in and lie down with me and put his arms around me, but there wasn’t even any sex involved, that’s how pathetic my fantasies are these days, and the only reason it was Hal was that I couldn’t bring myself to wish for Dev even though I wanted to), and I didn’t yell at Mother on the phone or make any more embarrassing emotional revelations.

Father called Wednesday, though, and while he didn’t specifically say, “You upset your mother,” he did say he’d talked to her and that they’d discussed me, so I sort of read between the lines. And I have managed to follow some of the buildup to the championship game without getting all emotional about Dev.

Partly it’s because I’m forcing myself to confront it. I know I can’t just hide in a corner. Either Dev and I will get back together or we won’t—or, to look at it another way, either we’ll formalize our breakup or we’ll make up like we usually do. In either case, I’m going to be working in football and watching football and I can’t just pretend like he’s not a part of that world. I need to get used to watching him and not thinking, “That’s my tiger.”

Even though I still think that, deep in my heart. And near the surface of my heart, and also in my mind and in other places too. Speaking of which, I also confirmed that I am not completely broken: I managed to jerk off in the restroom at Starbucks. Okay, I don’t recommend it to everyone, but I didn’t want to jerk off at Hal’s; I remember from college how I could smell every time one of my roommates did. And I didn’t want to use his bathroom because it smells strongly of him and I don’t want to start associating him with sex. So I sat in the bathroom, thought about some porn, and when I was done, sprayed around a lot of air freshener. Not my finest hour, but hey, it’s better than not being able to jerk off at all.

By Saturday I feel like I am under control enough to watch the game with the Yerba people and not break down crying when Dev’s introduced. I manage to watch his whole Media Day interview and it just makes me feel sorry for him, because clearly he’s being goaded into an outburst. I recognize Brian’s voice, though he doesn’t show up in the video, and I go so far as to call the White Witch—er, Paula at Equality Now and try to explain that Dev didn’t really mean what he said, that he was under a lot of pressure. But she never responds to my voicemail, so who knows if that did any good.

The only other hitch comes on Friday, when Hal says that Pol wanted to watch the championship game with him. He’s close to the point of backing out of the trip, which would be fine, but I kind of would like the company. I don’t pressure him, though, and a while later he says that making the connections in Yerba would be good for his career and so he wants to come along on the trip. I don’t point out that he’s choosing his career over Pol, because I can tell from the guilty flick of his ears and the flattening of his whiskers that he already knows.

So Saturday at the airport, he’s on the phone with her for twenty minutes once we’re through the security gate. I play with my phone, which at least I can use without thinking about how I got it. Mostly. I download two or three new games, mindless diversions I can use to distract myself from life.

And when we land and get to the hotel, Hal calls her again to let her know we arrived safely. “Jesus Fox,” I say, teasing, “you’re only dating, you’re not married yet.” I have a couple messages on my phone, too, but neither of them is from Dev. One from Gena, one from Father.

He sweeps his ears back and says, “When you—” and then stops. “Ah, shit,” he says, “I just feel bad leaving her behind.”

I don’t ask what he was about to say. I think I can guess at least generally. “Long as she doesn’t think you’re desperate,” I say. “That kinda scent doesn’t wash off.”

“Hah.” He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about me.”

We check in. The Whalers are paying for the hotel, as this is technically an interview visit, so it doesn’t cost anything. But it’s a hotel chain where I have a lot of points, so the clerk is really nice to me, welcoming me back as a “special guest.” On our way up to the room, I show off the “special guest” perks to Hal. “Free breakfast, free Internet…see, when you travel with a real VIP, you get treated nice.”

“I see that.” Hal takes the envelope and rifles through the coupons. “Free drink at happy hour. Too bad they don’t do that on Saturday.”

“Maybe we can talk them into it.” I grin at him. “Think like a fox.”

“Don’t need you to tell me to think like a fox.” Hal hands me back the envelope. “Damn reds, think you’re the only real foxes.”

I swish my tail pointedly as I step out of the elevator ahead of him. It’s nice to be in a different location, in a hotel where I’m called a special guest even if it’s only because I’ve spent a lot of money with them, even if it isn’t the nicest hotel in the world. And I’m glad it’s not up in the city of Yerba proper, where Dev and I made love and looked out the window and dreamed about what it would be like to live there.

The room is clean, and they don’t overcharge foxes to stay there (not VIP foxes, anyway), and right now that’s paradise to me. I drop my bag on one bed, Hal takes the other, and while I call Peter to get directions for the party tomorrow, Hal unpacks. I watch, amused at how familiar I am with his clothing already. When I hang up, I restrain the urge to ask him if that’s what he’s planning to wear for the game tomorrow.

Instead, I turn and look out the window, at the frontage road (the highway is behind us), the low flat grassy park, and the grey-blue of Yerba Bay. Only a few boats break the plane of the water, and there are no waves, but the air’s hazy and I can’t see the other side, so if I squint and imagine the sound of breakers, I can imagine it’s the ocean as I put the phone to my ear and listen to my voicemail.

Gena asks if I’m okay; she hasn’t seen me around and Fisher doesn’t know or won’t tell her what’s going on with us. There’s a note of worry in her voice about Fisher, too, which flattens my ears with a guilty flush because I’ve pretty much let that slide while I’ve been recovering from walking out on Dev. Father says he is looking forward to the game and hopes it’s a good one, and offers to be by the phone if I don’t have anyone to watch it with.

Father is the easy call, so while Hal is setting up his computer, I sit by the window and make that one. I tell him I’m in Yerba, meeting with the Whalers front office guys to watch the game, and he laughs.

“You don’t have to impress me with your football connections anymore,” he says.

“I’m just trying to tell you it looks hopeful for the job.”

“I knew that. You’re smart and good at what you do.”

“Thanks,” I say, watching the wind pick up over the bay. White-capped ripples chase silvery shorebirds around until the birds take wing in a massive, coordinated flight. “Where are you watching the game?”

“Few of the guys from work are getting together at Wild Wings.” I can hear the face he’s making.

“Hey, their wings aren’t bad,” I say. “I hear they’re pretty wild.”

“Ha. I’ll bet you get better wings at the team-catered lunch.”

“I dunno. It’s the Whalers, so they don’t really go in for spending for the sake of spending anymore.”

“Yeah, but they treat their players well.” He pauses. “Couple reporters said Dev might get traded there.”

The pang is just a twinge in my chest. I don’t think my voice betrays any of my emotion. “Maybe. I think he’d be better off staying in Chevali, though.”

“Even if you get the job?”

I think about that. Wouldn’t it be great, being able to work for the same team, live in the same area? It would, but it wouldn’t be the best thing for Dev. It’d just be better for me, and I’ve already gone through figuring out that what’s good for me might not be good for Dev. Then again, if the Firebirds lowball him and Yerba makes a good offer, maybe it would be good, financially. It’s just a risk for him because he’d have to start over again with a new team. Players do that all the time, but not players with the kind of risk he has.

“Yeah,” I say to my father. “It’s the switching teams. He’s got a lot of really good teammates, and he could easily wind up in some situation where the coach or a couple key players are hostile. I mean, if more players start coming out, in a year or two, when it’s not a big deal any more, then maybe…” I trail off. “But that’s not happening.”

“I think it will,” Father says.

“I hope so.”

There’s silence. Hal’s listening to me as he types; I see the insides of his ears. Outside, a pair of kangaroos hops slowly along the walk down to the park, and a red wolf family—no, dholes, actually—pass in the other direction. Cars speed up and down the road. This whole area feels much more energetic than Chevali, or sleepy Hilltown. “You know,” Father says, “I think you should call your mother.”

“Why?” I make the question as dry and uninterested as I can.

“Because she was upset.”

“Good.”

“Wiley.” He sighs. “She loves you.”

“I know,” I say. “She only hates the sin.”

“Yes, actually. But that lawsuit you won’t shut up about…”

I shift on the chair and rub fingers against the window pane. “Don’t tell me she actually read something about it.”

“We talked for an hour.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s a serious subject,” he says. “Of course we talked seriously.”

“Ha. So…I mean, how did it end up?”

He takes a breath. “I think. I think she understood that a boy doesn’t just kill himself because he’s weak. I think she started to understand how difficult it is for someone to be different.”

“Even if she doesn’t like the way in which they’re different?” I curl my tail around into my lap and rest a paw on it.

“Even then.”

“So does she think the way I’m different is okay, now?”

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly—”

“Then I don’t know what we have to talk about.”

He sighs. “Dear Lord, how did the two of you not kill each other?”

“We almost did, remember?”

“I know it’s difficult. I know that you and she don’t see eye to eye—”

My reflection hovers in the glass, over the park and the street and the water and the haze. “We don’t just not see eye to eye. We’re not even on the same floor of the same building.”

“—but the way to make things right is to talk about it. Or did you not learn that this past fall?”

I bite my lip. “This is different. Mikhail was just angry that Dev didn’t come talk to him first.”

“He wasn’t thrilled with his son’s lifestyle, either. The real question, Wiley, is whether you care about your family.”

“It’s not whether I care about my family. It’s whether I care about her. And I’m finding it pretty hard to care about her when she clearly only cares about me to the extent that she can stop me being who I am.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“No, I don’t know that’s not true!” In the window, I look angry, but also desperate. My paw clenches around my tail. “I haven’t had a single conversation where she’s been interested in me and supportive of me since—since I decided what college to go to.”

“And have you supported her?”

“She’s a parent. She doesn’t need my support.”

He laughs. “Wiley, now that you’ve graduated college, I can let you in on a little secret. Parents are actually just people who had cubs. We get scared, and sad, and insecure. We like it when the people we care about show that they care about us.”

“How long, though? How long do I have to beat my heart against that wall?”

Hal, openly looking at me now, raises an eyebrow and nods approvingly at my metaphor. Father sighs again. “I wouldn’t be telling you to call her if I thought it was going to hurt you. I would hope you would think better of me than that. I really think she is struggling right now, and talking to you would help her.”

“Struggling?” I sit up straighter. “Is she leaving Families United?”

“I don’t know. She just said she was struggling with a lot of things.”

“I should call her—”

“Wiley, don’t call and start going on at her about your cause and what’s right.”

I scratch claws through my tail fur. “First you tell me to call, then you tell me not to.”

“I’m telling you to call with the right attitude. I know things are hard for you right now and you may be tempted to take it out on her. If you have to wait until after the game, then wait.”

My tail looks ragged now; I smooth it down. “I don’t know what difference the game will make.”

“Maybe you’ll be less tense. Maybe you and Dev will have talked.” When I’m quiet, he says, “Strike that—you will have talked.”

“Thanks. I hope so.”

“You know, Lee, you do have some control over whether the two of you talk.” He sounds vaguely amused. “Those new fancy phones make outgoing calls, I’ve found.”

“I know. I just have to decide whether I think it’s a good idea.”

“Why would it not be a good idea?”

“Wouldn’t it be better to end it now, rather than trying for years to make something work that’s just going to fail anyway?” There’s a lull in traffic outside. The dhole family is out of sight, but a small group of feline cubs plays in the fringe of the park.

“That’s a point,” Father says. “Of course, if your mother and I had believed that, you might not have been born.”

I watch the cubs play, running after each other in some weird form of Tag. They don’t seem to be playing by the rules I learned, but they’re screaming and laughing all the same. “So you had misgivings from the start?”

“Every relationship has misgivings at the start.”

“But I thought you said she changed over the last couple years.”

He exhales. “Dammit, Wiley, I’m trying to be encouraging. You want to stop analyzing everything and just listen?”

I smile at my reflection, down at the cubs. “You think I can?”

“I don’t know. But it’d be a good skill to pick up.”