Isolation Play (Dev and Lee) (16 page)

I grin. “He still thinks you’re a girl?”

He nods. “He wants some good quotes from you so he can write up articles and sell them.”

“
You know what kind of things I say. Just make up something nice and bland. Why did you call him now?”

Lee shakes his head. “He called me.”

“
You gave him your number?”

He shrugs and gives me a hint of a foxy smile, stepping closer. “He knows Corcoran. The better he thinks of you...whatever I can do...” His sentences break up as he trails a paw along my stomach.

I reach out and put my paws on his hips. “You don’t have to stop doing the voice.”

“
Oh, don’t I?” He does it low and husky.

“
Mmmmm.” I pull him close and hold him there, and the rest of the room just kinda fades away in the wash of his scent and the tickle of his fur against my nose.

He nuzzles against me, and turns his head to look at my science project. “I always wondered why footballs flew,” he says, still in the voice.

I chew at his ear. “God dammit,” I say. “I was sixteen.”

He squirms against me. “And very—hee!—studious!”

I tug at his ear, feeling the predatory and protective impulses rise up and tighten my arms, pulling him against me. He hooks his paws into the waist of my pants, and I can feel the same urges rising in him. Specifically, rising in a certain part of him that presses up into me, matching the hardness I’m pushing into him. I growl into his ear, and he chews at my shirt just over my right pec. I pant, hard, and then when I open my eyes, I see my graduation picture on my dresser, and I remember where I am.

I push him away. We both stand there, panting, looking at each other. He opens his muzzle to say something and then perks his ears. I hear it a moment later, humming in the hallway outside. I scramble away from the door to stand beside the dresser, as Lee saunters back to the bed to make a show of rooting through his bag.

Mom knocks on the door. “I have towels,” she says. She had to pass Gregory’s room to get here, so she must have seen I wasn’t in it.

I reach out and open the door. “I was just showing Lee some of my stuff,” I say. I hope Mom doesn’t hear his little snort of amusement.

She sets a folded towel on the dresser. I recognize it; it’s one of the ones we’ve had around forever, that’s always been in the back of the linen closet, so faded it’s become a generic worn beige color. “Dinner’s just about ready,” she says.

“
Okay, we’ll come down.” I don’t demand a nicer towel for Lee.

Mom smiles. “Oh, just in a few minutes. Devlin, I left your towel on Gregory’s bed.”

“
Thanks.” Lee’s tail swishes as he grabs his music player out of his bag and sets the bag on the floor. He checks to see that Mom’s gone before he bends down to sniff the bed.

He pads back over to me and starts to close the door. I hold it open. “We’ve got a few minutes,” he says. “And your bed doesn’t smell enough like you yet.”

“
Not now,” I say. “Let’s go downstairs.”

His eyes flash, but he doesn’t let the argument out. “Okay,” he says, and follows me down the stairs.

I show him where the plates and flatware are, and we set the table over Mom’s objections. It’s fun; Lee and I almost never eat in together, and when we do it’s just on paper plates. He has wine glasses, but that’s the only thing we have to wash. They’re actually nicer than the wine glasses we’re setting out here, but then, I’m fairly sure his wines are nicer than what Mom’s picked out here, too. If it’s not a holiday or special occasion, Dad just has beer and Mom has juice. I put a wine glass at Dad’s place, keep my fingers on it for a moment, then leave it there.

Lee sniffs at the wine, though, and says it smells good, smiling as he pours it out. Dinner smells great, all steak and potatoes and some kind of boiled vegetable. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Mostly the steak; Mom’s never been great with veggies.

Dad still hasn’t shown when Mom brings out a platter of steaks. She looks around, her brow creasing, and then goes back to the kitchen for the side dishes. Lee pads after her to help, and comes out carrying the bowl of vegetables. “Go ahead and sit down,” Mom says, putting a bowl of mashed potatoes on the table. She rubs her paws on her apron and walks out.

Lee looks after her, then at me. “Where should I sit?”

“
Dad usually sits there,” I say, pointing at the head of the table, “and Mom there. So either of these two.”

“
Don’t you have a usual place?” He moves around to the chair to my left, across from my mother, leaving me across from Dad’s place.

I shake my head. “Not really. This is fine.” I sit down and stare at Dad’s empty chair. Lee reaches for his wine, then pulls his paw back and sits down as well. He looks at me, and I force a smile, reaching out for his paw under the table. “It’s gonna be fine,” I say.

“
Maybe I should sit there,” he whispers, nodding at my place. “Looks like he could still reach me from here.”

My laugh is a little too loud. I clamp down on it. I hadn’t worried about Dad getting physical, not until now. I mean, sure, he hit me a lot growing up, but I was a kid. He’s not going to take a swing at Lee. Especially not at the dinner table, in front of Mom. Probably. “Can’t you just throw him to the ground or something?”

“
Oh, sure.” He’s still talking softly. “I just thought it was bad manners to use aikido on your boyfriend’s parents in their house.”

“
Not in this house,” I whisper back. “Here it’s just another way of having a discussion. Though I wouldn’t call it ‘aikido’ in front of Dad.”

The door to the den creaks. We can hear Mom’s voice, but I, at least, can’t make out what she’s saying. Lee’s big black ears might, but he doesn’t betray any indication. We hear the low rumble of response, and then the creak of the door again. There are no footsteps to listen for, but I can still feel the weight approaching, as if Dad’s presence is pushing a wall of air in front of him. I’m excited and nervous, tail flicking from side to side. It’s been months since I’ve seen him.

Mom comes back into the room first and takes her seat. Lee and I are both watching the doorway as Dad steps into it.

He fills the door frame. Lee will say later that I’m my father’s son, but the first impression I have, the first impression I always have when I see him again, is of how big he is. He pauses there in the doorframe, surveying the room with a beer bottle in one paw. I see the way he looks when his eyes settle on Lee. Lee doesn’t look away, but I see his tail go still and then curl, not beneath his chair, but upward. He straightens in his chair and then, slowly, stands.

“
Pleased to meet you,” he says. “I’m Lee.”

Dad looks him up and down, with the same expression he had when I told him I was going to Forester. “I supposed there wouldn’t be more than one fox in this house,” he says, and then looks at me. “Hello,” he says, and as I half-rise, he sits down. The bottle clunks onto the table.

Lee reaches for the vegetables, but I touch his arm to stop him. Mom, looking down at her plate, says, “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.”

We all murmur, “Amen.” Nobody moves for a moment, during which Lee sneaks a glance my way. I try to figure out a way to communicate that we have to wait for Dad to take his portion first, and end up making some kind of weird half-jerk of my head toward him. Whether Lee gets it or not, he waits, and a second later, my father casually reaches out a paw and spears a steak on a knife. He drags it to his plate and then scoops a spoonful of mashed potatoes beside it. He doesn’t bother with the veggies.

“
Would you like a steak?” Mom asks Lee.

“
Thank you.” He holds his plate up. When she’s given him a steak, she offers me one. Lee gives me a wide-eyed look at the size of the steak as he helps himself to vegetables. Mom almost drops my steak, trying to help Lee with the vegetables despite his protests. She doesn’t serve herself until the two of us have all our food, by which time Dad’s halfway through his steak, cutting huge chunks and chewing them with great concentration.

Nobody’s saying anything. Even in the little time Dad doesn’t have steak in his mouth, he shows no sign of wanting to talk. Mom kinda looks up at us from time to time, starting with her vegetables and chewing quietly. Just about the time I decide to say something, Lee speaks up. “This is really good steak,” he says.

“
Good game yesterday.” Dad doesn’t finish swallowing his steak before cutting Lee off, talking across the table to me. Flecks of meat and saliva spray onto his plate. Lee’s ears fold back.

“
Thanks.” I nod. “Didn’t do much.”

“
Stood up for your team.” He points at me with the fork before stabbing another piece of steak with it. “That shut up Ivan good.”

I almost ask him what Ivan had been saying. “The guy went after Fisher. I had to go after him.”

“
Never met a boar had more sense than you could beat into him.” Dad snorts. “Good right cross, that’s all they understand. Worth the ten grand.”

Mom is looking at Lee, but talking to nobody in particular. “The Horens are nice boars.”

“
Ten grand?” I say.

“
League fine. It is nothing. You keep playing like that,” Dad says to me, “and this other shit will all go away.”

“
That’s what Coach tells me,” I say. Lee’s eating quietly, but his ears are still back. I can feel his temperature going up slowly. I want to reach over and pat him on the knee, but I don’t dare. I don’t even care about the league fine.

“
Samuelson,” Dad says. “Never thought he’d make it as a coach. Not after what he did at Yerba.”

I should probably defend Coach, but I know where this is gonna go. I steel myself for the dismissive scorn that’ll follow me saying that Coach isn’t that bad, but I don’t get a chance to experience it.

“
Really?” Lee says, before I can open my mouth. His ears are back up, staring at Dad, looking determined. “’Cause I kinda thought it was the Yerba front office that put a crappy team on the field, drafting like a blind three-year-old and then refusing to pay for free-agent talent.”

Dad started out staring down at his plate, then frowns at Lee, like he doesn’t quite know what to make of that. Hell, I don’t know what to make of that. Mom smiles behind a forkful of mashed potatoes. Lee’s watching Dad, with his head tilted to one side. “I mean,” he says, “look who they drafted from 01 to 06.” And he rattles off six names, of which I know maybe two. None of them are still in the league, at least not starting.

When Dad doesn’t respond right away, Lee lowers his head and takes another bite of steak. Dad watches him and finally says, “Did
you
play football?”

“
Lee works for the Dragons,” I say.

I’m watching Dad as I say that. I haven’t told him, of course, so it’s interesting to see the news sink in. “I didn’t know they hired faggots,” he says.

“
Mikhail!” Mom says.

Lee’s ears flick, but he just looks amused. “Sure,” he says.

“
I’m so sorry,” Mom says.

“
It’s okay,” Lee says. “It’s catching on around the league.” He looks at me, eyes glinting, but I don’t have a chance to tell him not to go on. “I mean, Chevali does, too.”

“
Lee,” I growl, as Dad’s expression darkens. His paw clenches around his fork. The prospect of him taking a swing at Lee doesn’t seem so remote.

“
Sorry.” He apologizes quickly, mouthing to me,
he started it
. Before I can answer, he turns to Dad. “I work in the front office. College scout, northeast territory. I scouted Pineta and Booker, and wanted to get Seidel, but Millenport sniped him from us at the last minute.”

Dad’s claws retract slowly. He goes back to eating his steak without saying anything. But five minutes later, in the middle of Mom talking about a sale at the local J.C.’s, he coughs, and says to the middle of the table, “Booker’s pretty good. Barsey would’ve been better.”

“
Not my region,” Lee says. “But you’re right. We had to decide between him and Callahan, and the team thought we needed a quality tackle more.”

Dad meets that with a grunt. “If they’d gotten one. They only played one decent game all year, and that was against you.” He stabs the air toward me with a fork.

Thanks, Dad. At least he’s not growling at Lee any more. I can’t help being defensive anyway. “It was pouring rain.”