Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (8 page)

Chapter 4 – Game One (Dev)

We sit in the locker room stretching and doing light exercises while the Highbourne-Peco game is going on. The bets—friendly bets, of course, because betting in the locker room is illegal—are pretty evenly split between the teams. The guys who bet on the Rocs are remembering losing to them in Chevali; the guys betting on Peco are mostly betting the odds and hoping we don’t have to face Highbourne again. If they win and we win, next week’s game would be in their stadium, about a mile higher than ours.

Charm is all for that, because kicks travel farther where the air is thinner—“I’ll kick it from seventy!”—but the rest of us who have to breathe it for an entire game hate the idea. We’re hopeful early on, with the Rocs and Fraters trading scores to finish the first half tied, and then the Rocs’ pounding running game breaks open the third quarter and they’re up 28-17 at the end of three. “Get the oxygen tanks ready,” someone says.

And then something funny happens. The Fraters tighten up their defense. The Rocs seem pretty happy to just run, run, run, chew up the clock, keep the lead. But they can’t get a first down. The Fraters get the ball and go down the field for a score, showing patience. “Poise,” Fisher says. He stands up and points to the screen after they score, and stays through a few half-hearted “siddown” calls. “Poise. No panicking. That’s the mark of a champion. That’s why they’re gonna win this…” He pauses, and then goes on. “Game. And they’re a threat to defend their title.” Pretty bold for him to predict a win. I’m absorbed in the game, though, and I don’t really pay much attention.

It turns out he looks pretty smart as the game goes on. Clinging to a four-point lead with the clock running down, now it’s Highbourne that panics. They still can’t get through the Fraters’ line, so they start throwing, and as soon as they do that, Fisher turns away in disgust. “Getting away from what works,” he says. “Game over. You guys who bet on Peco might as well collect your money now.”

“Hang on there,” Vonni says. “Rocs got a chance still. They got a Hall of Fame quarterback.”

“Uh-huh. And who’s he throwing to?” Ty puts his two cents in.

“A bunch of guys with more experience than you,” our tight end snaps at him, but everyone else stays quiet, watching. Ty’s not entirely wrong; the Rocs have a middling crew of wide receivers. Personally, I think we’ve got three that are more talented than their number one, but their quarterback is good enough to make middling receivers shine. He used to be, anyway, as recently as earlier this season, but here it’s not working for him anymore. He gets them a first down with a short pass, but the run still isn’t there on first, so he throws again on second down, or tries to. The rush overwhelms him, his receivers can’t get open, and he goes down seven yards behind the line.

He comes out of the game then, limping slightly. The commentators say he can’t put weight on his ankle, that he’s trying to walk it off, and meanwhile there’s Seito, white paws and tail in the white uni, trotting out to take the snap. It’s third and long, so he drops back and scans the field. A moment before the defensive end hits him, he gets off a nice-looking pass, but he overthrows the receiver by about five yards, and he’s lucky it’s not picked off.

Head down, he trots back to the sideline. I make a mental note to call him later. Methodically, like clockwork, the Fraters drive down the field and score on a short run with thirty seconds to go. The stunned Rocs can’t even muster a block attempt on the kick. It’s 31-28 and the home crowd is crazy loud.

Lee calls me just then. “Phone off soon?”

“In a few. Once the game’s over.”

“The game’s over,” he says. “It was over when they started throwing.”

“That’s what Fisher said.”

“Seito didn’t get much of a chance. Anyway,” he says, “I know you’ve gotta go. I just wanted to say that I know you can do this. You’re really good. You’re better than you were two months ago, and you’re going to win this game.”

I flush all warm and get a big smile on my muzzle as I look up and see the score go final. “Thanks. Any advice on running the plays?”

“Nah. You know it all. You don’t need me.”

“Hey.” The TVs go off and money changes paws as the guys who were betting on the Rocs all remember money they had previously borrowed from the guys who bet on the Fraters. A few sit hunched over their iPods; some are just chatting, but most of us are getting dressed in earnest now. “I need you.”

“Thanks,” he says, “but not for the next few hours, you don’t. I’m up in section 224—no owner’s box this time.”

“You’re not even sitting with Gena?”

“No. Where’s she?”

“She’s with the player’s wives in 109. Go down there, I’m sure they can find a spot for you.”

“I’m good here. I just wanted to say—if that fox or any of them gets on your case again, you know what to do?”

“Ignore it.”

“Or give it back to them. Tell him, ‘Hey, if you want a date I’ll see if I know a leather daddy who wants a little bitch.’”

I laugh. “Maybe I’ll try that one. See, I do need you.”

“Have a good game, tiger. I’ll see you after. Love you.”

I turn the phone off and toss it back in my locker, then pull my pads on and my jersey over it. It never really occurred to me to get Lee tickets with the other wives, but of course I should do that. For next week, I remind myself.

The locker room is getting more restless. Fisher goes around to the defense saying, “Poise! That’s what makes a champion. Let’s go out there and take care of business.”

His energy makes me feel better about our chances. Even Pike, demoted to backup, seems excited and happy. Of course, when I asked him how he felt about Fisher coming back, he said, “Y’know, I think I played myself into a good position for a new contract.” Part of it was the coaching staff changing things to fit him, but he also played his heart out, and people notice that.

Gerrard sits and watches with amusement. I edge over closer to him and say, “You miss being the veteran in the room?”

“Nah.” He grins. “Saves me the energy of making people get up for the game. Fish does it better than I do anyway.”

“Not true,” I say, but I say it low because Fish comes over just then.

“You ready?” he asks me in particular and the three of us in general.

I nod, give him a fierce smile. “We know how to win in this stadium. Don’t worry about that.”

“Yeah.” He rubs his leg and growls. “Wish I’d been here for that. Fucking boar.”

“Happens,” I say. “Part of the game.”

“I never missed more than one game a season before.” His tail’s switching, and he flexes his claws in and out. “Just let me out there.”

That’s just when Coach comes in and sits us all down for the pre-game speech. He doesn’t say anything at first, just paces back and forth in front of the room as we all watch him. “I’m not gonna tell you this is just like any other game,” he says finally. “You’d all call bullshit on me. But I’m gonna tell you about a friend of mine, Captain Richards, was an F-18 pilot in the war back in ’91. He and his squadron did drills until they were perfect. Top marks every time. Then they went to war, and they thought the drills weren’t going to matter. But they did. What saved his life, he said, was remembering that he’d been taught those drills for a reason, that whether it was live warheads coming at him or a simulation, he had to remember that he’d been trained in what to do, and trust his training.” He points out the door. “This is our war, yeah. We lose here, we go home. But that field is a hundred yards long. You’re going to line up against the same eleven guys you did last week. The plays are the same. The ball’s the same. There’s pressure, yeah. Thrive on it. That’s where champions are made. This is the reward for all the shit you go through, all those injuries and the defeats. You know how to play this game. And if you go out there and play the game the way you know how—the way I know you know how—we’re going to Boliat next week.”

“Yeah!” We scream it, echoes ringing through the locker room.

“On three,” he says, and as a team we put our fists in and call out, “FIREBIRDS!”

Blue Yonder Stadium is one of those big, bright ones, built right before the craze of putting roofs on things even though Hellentown gets regular rain showers. Today, in fact, the clouds are threatening and it’s already damp on the sidelines. Supposed to be rainy but not so much that it’ll affect anything in our game.

Shows what the weather guys know. The rain starts right after the national anthem. I inhale the moisture and feel the dampness soaking into my tail. Some of the guys grumble, but it energizes me, takes me back to my days in Hilltown and Forester. Playing in a desert is nice for the warmth and all, but you get dehydrated easily if you aren’t careful, and days like this remind me that I still haven’t gotten completely used to it.

We win the toss and elect to receive. Zillo comes up to stand next to me as the game kicks off, and we cheer our offense as they run out. Again, the Pilots try double-covering Strike, and Aston responds by handing off to Jaws and dumping off short. Ty is targeted twice in the first five plays and hauls in both catches easily, including one that wasn’t very well thrown.

We’re excited and cheering as we get to midfield, and then I look at how the Pilots are lining up and I see the safety cheating toward the middle. “Safety,” I say to Gerrard.

“I see it,” he says. “Aston does, too.”

I look toward the wolf under center. He’s barking out an audible and then he hurries back to the shotgun position. Jaws listens to him and breaks out to the right, as if they’re going for a screen pass. It draws the attention of the corner on that side, which is also Strike’s side; the safety, who should cover when the corner switches assignments, doesn’t see it.

At the snap, Aston fakes the short toss to Jaws and then looks down the field, not even bothering to conceal where he’s going to throw. The safety sees it and sprints toward Strike’s side, but the cheetah’s already almost past him. Aston’s throw arcs through the drizzling rain.

“Long,” Zillo says, beside me. “Dammit.”

It sure looks like it’s going to fall two yards in front of Strike. But… “Wait,” Gerrard says.

Strike glances up, sees the ball. And then, amazingly, he extends his stride, sprints faster—visibly faster, kicking in that extra gear. He reaches the ball and doesn’t even have to dive for it, just raises one paw and snags the ball out of the air in stride and keeps going. The safety has no chance, already two yards behind him and losing ground, and by the time anyone else even gets to within ten yards of the cheetah, Strike is dancing in the end zone.

He’s painted his fur with patriotic colors, red, white, and blue, and the red isn’t the true red of the flag, but it’s the red of our away jersey so it all goes together, even with his gold number. When he drops the ball in the end zone, he faces the flag hanging above it and holds a salute for a good five seconds, until Ty and Rodo get to the end zone and mob him. On the sidelines, we’re jumping up and down and hugging each other, and Charm flashes us a smile as he goes out to kick the extra point and says, “Watch me,” and sure enough, he knocks it clean and true between the uprights.

Then it’s our turn to go out and keep that lead. The field squelches under our paws as we hurry to our positions. Brick comes up beside me and taps my arm. “Hey,” he says, “that guy mouths off to you again, you want we should flatten him?”

I shake my head, spotting the fox in brown and gold, the big “83” on his chest. “I got him.”

When we line up, the fox doesn’t say anything at first, focusing on the snap count. So I yell across to him, because I’m up at the line to stop the run, “Hey, you get a boyfriend yet or are you gonna be hitting on me the whole game again?”

Fisher, next to me, laughs. The fox’s ears flick toward me, but he doesn’t react otherwise; still, when the ball’s snapped, I think he’s a little slow to get off the line. He doesn’t block effectively and I get past him, teaming with Fisher to drop the running back for a loss.

As we’re walking back to our line, the fox passes me and snaps, “Don’t flatter yourself, homo.”

“I wasn’t,” I say. “Just thought you looked lonely.”

“Fuck you,” he yells after us.

“That’s how to get to him,” Fisher says with a pat on my back. We huddle around Gerrard with the rest of the defense.

“Watch the short pass,” he says, “but they could audible to a draw.”

“I’ve got my eye on eighty-three,” I say.

“I think he’s straight,” Brick says. “Just a guess.”

“Yeah, well.” I flex my paws. “I’m gonna stick closer to him than his girlfriend does.”

“Don’t let him in your head,” Gerrard says. “Don’t start anything if he doesn’t.”

Fisher pats my shoulder. “Dev’s got that asshole,” he says. “Don’t you worry about him.”

We line up, and I spare a glance for their QB, Andy Buck, a big lion who’s starting to get “future Hall of Famer” attached to his name. I see his head turn toward eighty-three, but I’m as close to the fox as I promised, matching him every step, running the play just the way we drew it up. Buck tries to go long to one of the receivers in the middle of the field, and Vonni knocks the ball away.

On third, they throw long, and there’s not much for me to do except help cover the middle. Fisher is a dynamo, a force of nature collapsing the line with his speed and strength, playing like he’s ten years younger. He hurries the quarterback and the pass falls harmlessly incomplete. They punt it back to us.

By the second quarter, it feels like it’s not even going to be a contest. We’ve marched for a field goal and they’ve only gotten past midfield once, and then only to the 45. We get another score in the second quarter, and even when they match us with a touchdown, we feel like we’ve got it under control. The fox receiver has shut up more or less completely, acting more tentative in the damp grass. I’m heavier, with firmer footing, and I knock into him just off the line plenty of times. When he tries to block for the run, I shoulder him aside and hit the gaps hard. He only catches the ball once.

Late in the second, the lion throws to eighty-three and I tackle him right as the ball gets to his paws. He clutches at it, but it’s slick and it squirts away from him, off to my right. I see a flash of red, and turn to watch the ball drop neatly into a pair of tan paws. They cradle it to the big gold 55, and the next thing I see is Gerrard’s tail as he takes off. I drop the fox to the ground and get up immediately to block for Gerrard down the field, knocking aside one of the speedy Pilots receivers who turned to chase him. We get into the end zone untouched, where he sets the ball down and folds his arms before I jump on him and yell, “No flags!” because the field is clear of yellow penalty markers and the touchdown is going to stand.