Isolation Play (Dev and Lee) (54 page)

By the time I get home, a little later than I’d intended (“we can sleep on the plane,” Charm says), I’m feeling more mellow. Maybe Dad does just need time. I know Thanksgiving’s going to hurt. I just gotta keep my mind on football, and my fox. Between the two of them, I’ll get through.

The flight to New Kestle goes as well as could be expected. We troop into the bus laughing and joking loudly. I’ve never been to New Kestle, so the vets point out the highlights of the city: the Sonoran liquor store, the strip club, the mega-church with the glittering silver dome. Some of the vets do, anyway; Gerrard is nose-deep in his iPod, watching plays. The hotel, at least, is in a more upscale, developed neighborhood a few blocks from their stadium. To our mild surprise, there are a few people with signs outside the hotel. When they see us get off the bus, they get more animated, standing up and bobbing their signs up and down.

“
GOD HATES FAGS,” one of them reads. “SODOMY = DAMNATION” another says. A third has a long list of sinners adorned with crosses: “FORNICATORS THIEVES LIARS ADULTERERS MURDERERS ACCEPT THE LION JESUS AND YE SHALL BE SAVED.”

“
Wow,” Charm says casually, “who called the freak brigade?”

“
Three guesses.” I clench my fists. But the team around me is laughing, ignoring the signs. I spot Colin giving them what he probably thinks is a surreptitious thumbs-up. The nearest guy, a cougar, doesn’t acknowledge him at all. Colin’s grin falters; he lowers his ears and keeps walking. I relax my fists.

A hotel security guard, a big wolf whose nametag reads “Kagusaki,” comes over to us. He spots me and singles me out. “Mister Miski?”

I nod. He holds out a paw. “I’m Kagu. Just wanted to apologize. They’re off the hotel’s private grounds, so...”

He grimaces. I take his paw and shake it. “It’s okay,” I say. “You get used to it.” I know that’s the sort of thing I’m supposed to say, even if I don’t quite feel it yet.

“
I’ll make sure they don’t bother you. Just ignore ’em, okay?”

“
Sure.” I grin. “Thanks.”

“
Oh, uh, one more thing...” He looks nervous, his tail curling down behind him. I wait, Charm looming over my shoulder. “Uh, could I get an autograph maybe?”

My grin gets wider. “Sure. Got a pen?”

“
Oh, yeah!” He digs in his pocket and comes out with a ballpoint and a small notepad.

I scrawl, “Thanks for the help, Devlin Miski, #57” and return the pad. He beams and stuffs it back in his pocket.

“
Thanks, Kagu,” I say. “Appreciate the help.”

“
Take care, Mister Miski!” He waves as we head into the hotel.

We’ve got an hour or so ’til practice. I try to call Lee, but he must be on a plane or on the road. So I hang out with Charm and Ty, who’s brought his portable video game system, and we play video basketball until it’s time for practice.

New Kestle is more humid than Chevali. Not a lot, but enough that we’re all gulping water by the end of practice. Our locker room isn’t air-conditioned, but someone set up huge fans that we jostle for space in front of. A few guys don’t dress immediately out of the shower, because it feels cooler to let your fur air-dry. Three or four have developed a ritual of coming over wearing their Ultimate Fit gear to ask me how they look, posing like in the commercial. I tell them if they keep working out, they might make it to the bigs one day.

I know Lee’s on the east coast now, so I walk back to the hotel room right after dinner and call him before Charm gets back.

He’s in this college town about fifty miles outside Freestone. “You know Jamesbridge, right?”

“
Never heard of it. What’s the college?”

“
White State. I think it only admits arctics.”

I laugh. “Snow?”

“
Hell yes. You wouldn’t know I had black on my paws, it’s that high.”

“
I’d know.”

“
Course you would.” He sighs. “I got a phone call.”

“
From...Kinnel?”

“
From your dad.”

I stare out the window. “What?”

He recounts the conversation briefly. “Lion Christ,” I say. “Why didn’t you tell me about this the other night?”

“
Don’t call him.”

“
Why are you telling me if you don’t want me to do anything?”

“
Because I’m telling you everything, remember?”

I scratch at the glass of the window with a claw. “Oh, yeah.”

“
He’ll give it up pretty soon.”

“
What if he does out you? I mean, after getting so upset about personal business...fucking hypocrite.”

He sounds amused. “I’m out at work now. Worst that happens is I get some publicity. Dragons might not like that. But I’ll go through Harry—he’s our media guy—and make sure everything’s nice and sterile for the media. It’ll be okay. Worry about the Unicorns.”

“
I’m not worried about them. They suck.”

“
Yeah, well, they knocked Corey out for six weeks. Might be you this time.”

I snort. “I won’t try to tackle a stag by his antlers.”

“
Okay, then. Don’t worry about me, don’t worry about your dad.”

“
You’re not going to call him back, are you? Don’t call him back.”

He laughs. “No, I’m gonna leave it alone for a while. I know Thanksgiving’s gonna be hard for you.” He pauses. “If you can come up here...my father might join us.”

“
Really?” My claws stop against the window.

He sighs. “It’s not definite. I didn’t say anything before, because he just said he might, but if it’d help you...”

“
To have your father there?” My claws retract.

“
Yeah, I know, it’s dumb.”

“
No.” I rub pads along the cool glass. “It’s not. I think it’s a nice idea. I liked your father. That one time. I’m just surprised that you want to invite him.”

“
Yeah.” I can almost see him rubbing his ears, getting that resigned look in his eyes. “He’s...going through some stuff with Mother. I sort of caused it.”

“
Wow, two families in one year.” The words slip out before I can stop them.

“
Thanks, stud.” He says it dryly. “Maybe you should invite me back to Gerrard’s. I can turn his kids against him or something.”

“
I didn’t mean that.”

“
No, it’s not...it’s Mother, it’s me, it’s...you know, I’d better get to sleep. Got to get up early tomorrow.”

“
I’m sorry.”

He huffs, or something. “You can make it up to me later.”

“
I will.”

“
With sex.”

“
I know.” I grin.

“
Night, tiger.”

“
Night, fox.”

I sit back in bed flipping through the iPod Gerrard gave me, looking at film. It’s hard to make out the figures on the tiny screen, and for the first five or ten minutes, I’m tempted to give up. But I think of Lee telling me to keep at it, and I manage to force myself to view play after play, again and again, and pretty soon I can see the patterns that are important. The actual players I can figure out later. I don’t even hear Charm come in, I’m so caught up in it.

“
Hey. Gramps!”

I blink and look up. The stallion’s grinning down at me. “Got naked babes on there? Sorry! Dudes? Wait, sorry—your dude, whatsisname? Lee!”

He’s really excited that he remembered. I set down the iPod, smiling. “No, just football film.”

“
Aw.” He strips off his shirt and flops down onto the bed, which creaks. “Does he send you naked pics of himself?”

“
No.”

“
Why not?”

“
Um. I don’t know. Never really thought of it.”

He yawns. “You should ask.” Then he rolls over. Five minutes later, he’s snoring lightly. I will never understand how the fuck he does that.

But I’ve missed hanging out with him. Even if it’s just in a hotel room at night. It’s been a month since we were on the road, and Charm’s “whatever” attitude toward everything is pretty refreshing. Maybe I could ask him about family after all.

The next morning, though, he sleeps in while I eat breakfast, and then it’s football all day. Sprints, drills, film, plays, stations. We flop down in the locker room at the end of the afternoon. Gerrard grabs the linebackers for dinner—though Corey declines when he sees I’m going—and we hit a good Sonoran place, because there are even more of those in New Kestle than Chevali. It’s less colorful than the restaurant in Chevali, more spicy, and the margays who run it are all so familiar with each other, we decide they must be from the same family. There are no weasels, and they don’t make fancy margaritas.

They do, however, make strong ones. I get halfway through mine and realize I’d better not finish it. Gerrard doesn’t get one, but all the linemen do. The coyote keeps an eye on them, and I see him tell the waiter not to bring any more alcohol to the table.

The guys at the next table, a wolf and two coyotes, recognize us and call some good-natured taunts about how the Unicorns are gonna stomp us. We grin and wave back. Gerrard says we’re better than we were when we beat them in week three. His easy confidence makes us all relax. We believe we’re gonna win.

I knew Dev hadn’t completely forgiven me that easily. Little offhanded comments like “two families in one year” remind me that the leak to the tabloids is still between us, and probably always will be. But it’s far from the only thing. In a way, the fights have made us stronger. We’re aware of how much each of us can really screw things up when we want to. We’ve skated close to the edge more than once. We always come back.

That thought warms me, alone in my bed. I think about my father again, and whether it’d really make Dev feel better for him to be there. Any parent is better than none, I guess, and right now we’ve just got the one between us.

Father, private like me. Didn’t really want to let me know what was going on with Mother and that Families United group. It explains a lot, actually: Mother’s reluctance to talk to me at all, and Father’s impatience with me. We’re all so absorbed in our own lives that we don’t really mind drifting apart. At least, I don’t feel anything like Dev’s heartache. Father doesn’t really let on much beyond a kind of weary obligation to stay connected to his son.

I wonder if I could get Mother to calm down if I do what I’m doing with Paul. Tuesday, Paul ignored me. Wednesday, when I had to ask him about one of my prospects, he let out a typical remark about my inexperience, looked panicked for a moment, and then calmed down again when I didn’t react any differently than normal. The old relationship, the one that worked before, wins out if you let it.

Instead of shoving Dev in Mother’s face and making her accept him, I could just go back to being gay in theory. That worked for two years. Of course, she didn’t belong to Families United then. And the other major problem is that for both me and Dev, having the other around is “normal.” My mother and his parents can’t just ignore it. They could just pretend he’s straight and I’m a “friend,” but that doesn’t feel honest to me, and I don’t think it does to Dev, either.

He’s lucky, though. He’s got his team. However temporary a family it is, it was clear just from that afternoon at Gerrard’s (and I am so glad I managed not to turn into a tail-wagging drooling fan) that the team functions like a family. And again, from what I hear, Dev is doing with them exactly what I’m doing with Paul. Everything’s the same, I’m still the same guy. Eventually they fall back to their old routines.

I have plenty of time to think about this, driving around to two games on Saturday. They’re good games; we’re into the season where schools play within their conferences rather than beating up on small state colleges who are just in the game to get the paycheck. Dexter University has a really pretty campus, near the ocean, so I find a small coffee shop near the beach and write up my notes there.

Another gay football player wrote in to Dev’s e-mail this week. But this one isn’t in my region; he’s actually close to Chevali, down at Kingman U. I could point him out to Brad, who covers his region for the Dragons, but I don’t know how it would go, what I would say to him. Maybe I could tell him I found him in the directory. Would he assume I was sleeping with the kid? Or that Dev was? If he buys into the ‘promiscuous gay’ stereotype, then he might. And if I head that off by telling him I’m not, he’ll wonder why I’m bringing it up. I haven’t written the kid back. I don’t think I’m going to.

Sunday begins at the Freestone airport. I booked an early flight, so I’m home by the time Dev’s afternoon game starts, relaxing on the couch with a beer. Dev and the defense look great; the offense, not so much. They stall several times. Aston’s overthrowing his receivers, looking nervous for some reason. Could be the Unicorns’ defense, which is stouter than it was in week 3. They traded for a defensive end, and he’s in Aston’s face the whole first half, close enough that I’m sure Aston’s smelling him every time he drops back to pass.

But the Unicorns can’t do anything against the Firebirds’ D. They run left, run right, can’t get around the defense. That stag of theirs lowers his antlers and all the red-and-gold defenders sidestep him and tackle him from the side. Pike is coming up to speed, enough that they have to slide some men over to pay attention to him. This results in Sully, the nimble cougar at the other defensive end, forcing a fumble from the Unicorns’ QB. Chevali recovers, and with the short field, Aston lets Jaws take it down for a score. Seven-zip at the half.