Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (9 page)

He laughs and then the rest of the defense catches up to us and all of them pile on and we don’t even care that they block the point after, we’re up 23-7 and we’re
feeling
it.

They get another score before the half, but we block the extra point to keep it to 23-13, a two-score lead still. Coach has a hard time getting us to calm down in the locker room. “We’re doing great,” he says. “Keep it up. That’s all I’m gonna tell you. They’re going to make some adjustments, but you just keep doing what you’re doing. It’s working.”

That said, he still huddles with the coaches and Steez comes over to us afterwards with a list of simple things to watch out for and two plays he wants us to focus on executing better. “You are all doing well,” he says. “Heads in game. Very good.”

We run out for the third quarter into harder, driving rain. Charm has gotten over the blocked extra point enough to tell me that this makes the Pilots’ cheerleaders look even better. I say, “Why are you telling me?” and he says that just because I don’t want to hit that don’t mean I can’t appreciate beauty in the world.

The Pilots come out as hard as the rain. They block ferociously, taking advantage of the slippery conditions when we can’t get complete leverage. Play after play, we give up a couple extra yards because we can’t hit the holes as hard, even when we dig in our claws. Twice we think we’ve got them beat, and then Buck makes an amazing short pass to pick up the yardage. He drives them down to our nineteen, and there we finally stop them, getting more pressure on the line so our corners can make plays on the passes.

On fourth down, they don’t settle for a field goal, and we huddle up, tense. If they get a touchdown on this drive, then our big lead is down to three or four. What’s more, they’ll be confident, feeling in their element here in the rain and slop against the team from the desert. I think they’re going to pass, but Gerrard looks at the formation and barks, “Up! Up!” which means he thinks it’s a run. Sometimes when he does that, the QB changes the play to something else at the line—sometimes that’s why Gerrard does it. But Buck just goes ahead with the snap, the Pilots charge forward, and we all charge against them, the line, linebackers and safeties. I’m pushing Fisher forward; Vonni piles in behind me, adding his weight to the scrum. We’re forced backwards an inch and then we shift the momentum, pushing forward, and our strength wins the day. The running back lands a yard short. It’s our ball.

After that, I look up toward Lee in the stands, and realize that this is the first time I’ve done that in the game, at least from the field. I hope guiltily that he didn’t notice, but even if he did, I’m sure he understands. I’m just thinking about the game and doing the best I can. And anyway, after the last game when I was distracted thinking about him and his equality issues, maybe it’s better I keep my mind on the field until I can get back to focusing on the things he’s helped me with and done for me.

I look up his way again from the sidelines while the offense is marching down the field, just as the crowd collectively gasps and then groans. So I only see the big play on the JumboTron replay: Strike slips on the grass, and the cornerback covering him tries to change direction and skids and falls. Strike recovers his balance and takes off down the middle, and our offensive line has given Aston enough time to make a beautiful throw, a spiral that finds Strike right in the paws. Two seconds later, it’s 29-13.

“That’s what Strike does,” Gerrard says as we prepare to go back out. “That’s why he’s worth all the trouble. He knocks a team down, makes them feel like the game is out of their reach. If he can get that touchdown at any time and they know it…that’s hard, mentally. He got into their heads from the beginning.”

“Also Fisher is kicking ass,” I point out.

“He had half the season off.” Pike comes up behind us.

Gerrard half-turns. “Don’t worry. You’ll get back in.”

“Oh, I know.” Pike laughs. “We’re gonna have one more game at least.”

After that, the fox, eighty-three, is completely silent, his tail wet and muddy, his ears splayed to the side. None of the Pilots play with the same energy they came out of the halftime break with, though they go through the motions and get another score. We control the ball as the fourth quarter winds down, up by a comfortable 38-23 margin, which has the defense standing on the sidelines and starting to celebrate once we get under a minute of game time left.

“Hey.” Fisher elbows me. “Help me get the Bolt.”

The clock’s ticking down past twenty. A couple other players have the same idea, so we all grab the big tub of Bolt-Ade and come up behind Coach. The assistant coaches behind him grin and move out of the way, and we heft it and pour the whole thing over Coach’s head.

He laughs and shakes himself, turning around to see our grinning muzzles. “First playoff win!” Fisher yells, and we pounce on Coach, hugging and congratulating him as the clock runs down to zero.

“I gotta go! I gotta go!” He wrestles free of us, laughing, his tail wagging, and runs out onto the field to shake the paw of the Pilots’ coach. We all follow after him, squishing through the wet grass, our bedraggled tails showing our giddy highs even as we try to keep our features calm. We know what it’s like to be on the other side, and as hard as it is to keep that in mind during our first playoff win, we remember last week only too well, so we don’t rub it in.

The Hellentown linebackers come find us again, like they did last week, and compliment us. “You guys are tight,” the wolf Kniss says. “Go kick the hell out of Boliat for the South, huh?”

“Do our best.” I shake his paw, and Zillo, next to me, does too. “You guys played ’em this year, any tips?”

He shakes his head. “They got a hell of a tight end game. Carson’s gonna have his paws full, so you might have to cheat over to help. We played ’em here, so I dunno, but I hear that stadium is insane.”

“Fucking domes,” I say, and we all look up into the rain and laugh.

“Wish I could be there,” he says, and I see that longing in his eyes that Fisher was talking about. “Hey,” he says, lowering his voice. “Now the season’s over—for us—just wanted to say, good luck. There’s a lot of us straight guys pulling for ya. My cousin’s gay. Didn’t know about it ’til a few weeks ago. He e-mailed me and asked what I thought about you and I said I didn’t know, thought it was cool, and he told me he’s gay too.” His smile shows his canines. “I’d ask for an autograph for him, but not out here…”

“Yeah, send me an e-mail, I’ll send him something,” I say. “Not a problem.”

“Cool, thanks.”

The other wolf, Price, is talking to Gerrard about the Boxers. “That raccoon, Pietro, the tight end—keep tight to him. He’ll block and then spin out to catch a screen. They run that fucking play at least once a series.”

Carson nods. “But here’s the thing,” Price says. “You guys can take ’em. We kept the game close, just didn’t come up with the ball at the end. You play like you did today and you’ll have a chance.” His eyes drift beyond us, to our sideline. “That fucking cheetah,” he says, and shakes his head. “Gets to be too much, y’know, the off-the-field shit. He takes off, you say ‘don’t let the door hit your ass,’ and you think you won’t miss him. And then this…bet he couldn’t fuckin’ wait to come in here and stick it to us.”

“Too bad we can’t just play his former teams,” Gerrard says, and they laugh. But the laughter is short, and their ears are flat with more than just the rain, and they don’t talk much beyond that.

“That’s what we don’t want to feel,” he tells me and Carson and Zillo as we trot back to the locker room. Zillo hangs back, and I drop back a bit with him.

“Do you get that a lot?” he asks.

“I dunno. Never won a playoff game before. But some of the guys on other teams are usually cool about upcoming opponents. We try to—”

“No, I mean.” His ears flick, spraying water. “People who know people who are gay. That sort of thing.”

“Oh. Yeah, well. More now than I used to.” I grin at him. “Why? You know someone?”

He rubs his ear and takes a long time to answer. “I probably do, but nobody’s talked to me about it.”

“Okay…”

We had been jogging, but he slows to a walk. Vonni jogs up beside us and slaps Zillo on the shoulder with a rain-wet smack. “Come on, we can enjoy this in the locker room!” he says.

“We’ll be in in a minute,” I say.

“See yas there, then.” He jogs on ahead.

“So what’s up?” I ask Zillo when Vonni’s out of earshot.

The coyote brushes rain from his whiskers. “I know I was kind of a dick to you,” he says finally.

“That was a couple months ago.”

“Yeah, but.” He sighs. “I dunno, I’m probably just being stupid. I’m wondering if I’m just a dick in general. And, like, people don’t want to come out to me because I’m a dick.”

“Maybe. I hear gay guys like dicks, though.”

He squints. “You makin’ fun of me?”

“A little, maybe.”

He shakes his head. “I know, I shouldn’t even be worrying about it. I just don’t wanna be an asshole.”

I laugh and put an arm around his shoulder. “What made you all worked up about that?”

“Ah, it was just…the shit last week and this week, and you’ve been working with me, helping me out, and you’re a good guy. Colin said you’d try to turn the rest of us gay, or put the moves on us or something, and hell, I didn’t know any gay guys except from movies.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But you know, after that Gateway game, it was like, I realized you were tryin’ as hard as you can, and that…I could trust you. And you weren’t pushin’ the gay thing on me or anything, you weren’t trying to get in my pants or make me ‘admit to my repressed gay fucking feelings’ like Colin says a lot of those fag—those guys do.”

I can’t help thinking about how I met Lee. “Do you have repressed gay feelings?”

He half-twists away from me, and I drop my arm. “No.” Then he looks at me and laughs. “Hell, I dunno. If I do, they’re repressed pretty deep. But I wanna be a good guy.”

“I think you are.” We get to the tunnel. “You’re talking to me now, anyway. Are you talking to Colin again?”

He shakes his head. “He asked Coach for a new roommate.”

“Who’s he hanging out with these days?”

“I dunno, really. Most of the guys I talk to on the team don’t give a shit who you’re sleeping with, to be honest. I’m glad you don’t hold it against me. From when I was an asshole, I mean. I’m learning a lot working with you.”

“Thanks. I’m learning a lot from Gerrard.”

“Yeah, he’s awesome. He’s gonna be a coach as soon as he retires.”

“If he wants to be. He’s got a family to spend time with.”

Zillo doesn’t say anything, but his ears, which came up once we got indoors, are down again. I nudge him at the entrance to the locker room. There aren’t any other guys in the tunnel, and I keep my voice low enough that even the big-eared foxes in the locker room shouldn’t be able to hear it (one thing I have practice with, having a fox boyfriend). “You know something about Gerrard?”

He shrugs. “Not really. But you notice how Fisher’s wife is out here, and Vonni’s wife, and your boyfriend, and…where’s Angela?”

I wipe my whiskers clean of water. “Watching the cubs?”

“Yeah, I guess. Ah, forget about it.”

“I know he’s got a couple flings on the side when he’s on the road,” I say, quietly. “But I just got here last year. You know more?”

Zillo hesitates. “More than just a couple flings,” he says. “Look, if you really wanna know, I’ll tell you later.” He smiles, big and long and coyote-ish. “But maybe not. Maybe talking about it would make me an asshole, y’know? Let’s go get some champagne.”

“They won’t have champagne,” I say, but we open the door and I’m wrong. It’s not popping and running all over everyone, but there are bottles all over the locker room and guys are hooting and whooping and drinking. Soon as I get in, someone presses a bottle into my paw and I drink through my mouthguard, then hand it off to someone else and run to my locker to get at least the helmet and my soaking wet jersey off. The whole place smells of champagne and wet fur and sweat and it’s glorious.

“Great game,” I say to Gerrard when I get to the locker, but it might as well be to any of the guys in the room, and it’s Ty who responds with a whoop, shoving a bottle of champagne at me and spilling it on my uniform. I laugh and take it, gulp some down, and pass it on to one of the defensive line guys nearby. The room is full of “you freak!” (in a good way, mind) and “remember that play” and “we did it,” bursts of reminiscence replaying the game over and over, every moment a highlight, every one of us a star. This is the kind of moment I live for, just out of battle with another team, when we’ve imposed our will on them and proven ourselves better. With the Dragons, I had precious few wins to celebrate; only in Chevali did I contribute to the team winning, and never in a game with higher stakes than this one—until next week.

We’re a little giddy—some of us more than a little—when Coach tries to calm us down. He keeps it short: we did great, we’ve got a tough game to prep for, enjoy ourselves tonight and we’ll be on the plane tomorrow, practice Tuesday. He clears his throat, looks around, and says, “Thanks for the shower. No more until we win a championship, okay?”