Isolation Play (Dev and Lee) (57 page)

The next day, I’m up before he is, out the door while he’s still snoring. I head down for breakfast and am almost inside the restaurant before I notice someone sitting just outside, nose buried in a newspaper, chocolate-pointed ears sticking up above it.

Hope, again, flickers in me. I snort at myself being stupid. It’s not Lee, no matter how much I want it to be. It’s probably Vonni. “Hey,” I say, leaning against the wall.

The paper lowers, revealing Colin’s muzzle. He doesn’t say anything.

“
Oh, sorry.” I take a step back. “I thought you were...”

“
Your ‘friend’ from last night?” He snorts and lifts his paper again.

“
He’s not my friend,” I say, “or did you miss the part where I had him thrown out?”

He snorts. “So you aren’t a sodomite
and
a cheater. Congratulations.”

“
At least I’m not a hypocrite,” I say, and then lean closer. “So why were you down in the lobby last night, anyway? At the same time he was?”

He stares at me, the paper falling to his lap. “Are you...seriously...?”

“
I won’t tell anyone,” I say, in what I hope is a reassuringly confidential tone.

For another moment, he just stares, and then he stands up, and if he could kill with just his eyes, I think I’d be dead. “Listen to me,” he hisses. “You may think you know some things about me, but if you ever, ever insinuate—”

Toeclicks on the marble of the lobby floor interrupt him. He looks around my shoulder, and I hear Zillo’s voice. “Hey, Colin.” He gets closer, and the toeclicks pause. “Um. You going to breakfast?”

I step back, look at Colin’s sour expression, and decide to take a small, petty revenge. I turn to Zillo. “Yeah. Want to join me?”

The coyote’s uncertain expression brightens, though he glances at Colin. “Uh, sure,” he says. “Yeah. Hey, Colin, thanks for clearing out of the room last night.”

Colin stares at Zillo. He doesn’t say anything. Then he sits down, very deliberately, and picks up his paper. A moment later, not even his ears are visible.

Zillo and I don’t say much until we sit down. His tail curls below him until we get to the table, when he lets it swing behind him. “Don’t be hard on Colin,” he says. “He believes what he believes.”

“
You don’t?”

He shrugs. “I don’t have to live with ya. Just play football together. You keep your paws away from me, and I guess, y’know...” He jams a forkful of bacon into his muzzle and chews. “Rather be playin’ with you than against ya.”

“
Leave it on the field, huh?” As half-hearted as the sentiment is, I’m touched. Gerrard’s attitude must be rubbing off on the team. I look around for him, but Zillo’s the only coyote in the buffet. I guess Gerrard must be sleeping off the sex.

Part of me is thinking, I wanted someone to celebrate with last night. I could’ve just taken Argonne up to the room and let him suck me off, or maybe I could’ve fucked him, instead of just jerking off. It wouldn’t have been any different from what Gerrard did, or what Charm does every other night, for that matter. Lee and I aren’t really married.

That thought sits wrong as soon as I think it. No, we’re not married. We’re as good as, though. I mean, for me to do anything with Argonne would be cheating. Doesn’t that mean we’re married? More married than Gerrard, or Fisher—he never did cheat on Gena this year, that I saw, but he told me stories.

When Gerrard does finally arrive, he sits near us. “Hey,” he says, and Zillo and I nod back and keep eating. I’ve walked through road hotel lobbies a dozen times. I’ve seen the girls there. I know what goes on. I even knew it went on with Gerrard. But somehow, after having met his family, I don’t feel like I can just laugh it off like I used to.

Zillo’s words come back then. Leave it on the field, right? I don’t have to live with him. Everyone does things other guys don’t get, don’t share, or don’t approve of. We don’t have to live together, just play together. Whatever Gerrard’s doing after the game is between him and Angela. It’s what he does during the game that matters. And Gerrard’s been so good about respecting me and sticking up for me, I can’t turn around and start lecturing him. So I just say, “Practice today?”

“
Yep.” He looks around. “Good to see not everyone was out ’til stupid o’clock.”

I sniff at a piece of salmon on my toast and then shove it in my mouth. “Maybe some of us just don’t need ten hours of sleep.” I’m pretty happy when he chuckles.

Later, when Vonni and Norton come down yawning, I find out that they went to the bat-eared fox’s friend’s club. “Totally lame,” Vonni says, and jerks a thumb at Norton. “Nobody wanted to dance with Spots.”

“
I had fun,” Norton says.

“
Yeah, you came back here alone, didn’t you?”

“
So did I,” I say. Vonni raises his eyebrows, but Norton gives me a little smile.

“
Whaddya talkin’ about?” Pike calls from two tables over. “I had two gals all night and Kodi here got lucky first thing!” He claps a paw on the brown bear’s shoulder. Kodi looks embarrassed, but smiles sheepishly.

“
Yeah well,” Vonni says. “Maybe the gals there just like their guys big.”

That’s the cue for Pike to flex his biceps, and soon everybody’s laughing. Even the normally quiet Carson and Kodi are having fun. To top it off, Gerrard actually cracks a smile, and gets the biggest laugh when Charm convinces him to roll up his shirt sleeve and flex, and he does it right under the stallion’s nose.

The good mood carries over into the day. Some of the guys are tired or hung over, but the practice goes great. We’re still jazzed from winning. The practice squad is loose, excited to be out on the field. Gerrard, Carson, and I mesh, anticipating each other’s movements. We talk constantly between plays and then guess right on almost every play. We kid that we know the guys so well because we’ve been studying film of them.

Mid-afternoon, we take a break. Because it’s not a real practice, I have my cell phone on. I skip through the usual few messages from Ogleby, file away some interview requests for later in the day, and give Lee a call.

“
Hi,” he says.

His voice is flat, subdued, but it sounds like he’s about to laugh. Not a real laugh, a nervous, I-don’t-know-what-else-to-do laugh. He doesn’t do that often. My fur prickles. “What’s wrong?”

“
You know how it sucks that we both work weekends?”

Is this about him coming to Hellentown? “Yeah?”

“
Don’t have that problem any more.”

I frown. “What happened?”

“
I got fired.”

“
What?” I try to think. “Just you, or the whole staff? I haven’t seen the news...”

“
No, it’s just me. I finished the paperwork an hour ago.”

“
What happened?”

“
I didn’t disclose my relationship with you.”

“
Oh.” I sit down on the bench in the locker room. “And when you came out...”

“
No. Someone called them.”

My claws scrape the plastic of the phone. “Who?”

“
Someone anonymous. Who knows about us and knows I work for the Dragons.”

Oh, shit. I can’t think of any words to say. I know who it has to have been, after my father threatened him with exposure.

Lee goes on a moment later. “It’s done. I mean, I deserved it. I should’ve disclosed the relationship.”

“
You told Morty.”

“
Never specifically. He probably figured it out, but...” Lee sighs. “He doesn’t deserve to be fired. He told me he’d put in a good word for me with a couple other clubs who might be looking. Maybe I can get on with a college.”

“
Wait, did he get fired?”

“
No. I told Campbell I hadn’t told anyone else at work.” He tells me how he cleaned out his desk, how his friend Alex took him out to lunch, how he turned over all his files to Morty and signed a long non-disclosure agreement, a non-compete agreement, and some other nons I don’t catch.

I lean my elbows on my knees. Jake, from the practice squad, comes over to see if I’m ready to go back. I wave him away. “So...how do you feel?”

He chuckles. Dry, humorless. “Kind of numb. A little like I got caught with my paw in the cookie jar.”

Me, I just feel this nausea, and a little bit of falling-backward-off-my-chair unease. But I don’t want to tell him that. I need to be strong. “It’ll be okay,” I say. “Hey, you can come stay at my place.”

“
I’ve got some savings,” he says. “Apartment’s paid for a few months.”

“
Don’t you want to move down?”

“
Look, I kinda want to digest this. I have some time to figure out my next move.”

“
Okay. Yeah, I get that.” I breathe in, make myself more confident than I feel. “It’s gonna be okay, fox. You’re good, you’ll find another job. Come to Hellentown next weekend.”

He doesn’t say anything right away. “We’ll see,” he says, finally.

I have to remind myself that getting fired probably sucks. All through training camp I was terrified of being cut. But I want to see him so badly that I can’t stop myself. “I’ll get you a good seat. Up close. We can go out to dinner, just the two of us. Look up some good restaurants there.”

“
We’ll see, stud.”

Gerrard walks in. He gestures to me. “Look, I gotta go. We’re doing an extra practice.”

“
Okay,” he says. “I’ll be here.”

“
I’ll call you tonight.” I pause, with Gerrard looking at me. I stand up. “Love you,” I say, not looking at Gerrard, but not hiding the words either.

“
Oh, I love you too, stud,” he says. “I just need some time to deal with this.”

“
I’ll talk to you soon.”

Gerrard raises an eyebrow as I hang up. “Ready?”

“
Yeah.” I follow him out. He doesn’t say anything. “Lee got fired,” I say as we walk out into the sunshine.

He stops. His tall ears swivel toward me. His eyes stay focused on the field, where the rest of the guys are waiting for us. After a second, he says, “What happened?”

“
Someone called the Dragons. Told them he was dating me when I was drafted.”

The expression on his long muzzle doesn’t change. His tail swings from side to side, lazily. “Shitty thing to do.”

“
Do you know...” I try to frame the question. He flicks an ear. “Anyone who was at your place, that afternoon. Did anyone, maybe...”

Now he turns his head to fix me with one brown eye. “Nobody’s said anything to me.” He looks away, like he’s thinking of something to say. “Is he gonna be okay?”

“
Yeah, I’m trying to convince him to move down with me.”

“
Long as it doesn’t become a distraction.”

We walk toward the other guys again. Motivated by God-knows-what, I say, “Hey. Thanks.”

The coyote turns, gives me a long grin. “You get pretty caught up in off-the-field stuff.”

I spread my paws. “I can’t help it.”

“
Work on it.” He points back to the locker room as the guys come up to meet us. “Leave it in there, and let’s go.”

Click.

I stare at the phone in my paw. I didn’t want to give Dev all the details about my afternoon. It’s just so depressing. I sleepwalked through it, almost, my ears down the whole time. It was like a punishment that drags on for hours. Going through spreadsheets with Morty, signing agreements not to discuss anything with other clubs, a formal expulsion that has a horrible feel of ritual about it. Here you go, you’ve done something wrong just like all the others before you, this is what we do with people like you. At least Dev got an emotional family scene in a restaurant. I just got paperwork and pity.

All the guys came by to wish me well. Morty and Campbell said they wouldn’t tell anyone why I was let go. They’ll make it about budget, about performance of draftees. Newest guy gets axed as motivation to the rest of the staff. But I told Alex, over lunch, and I swore to him several times that I didn’t change Dev’s evaluation because I was sleeping with him.

“
You know,” he said then, pointing his fork at me, “if anything, his performance now shows that you were right.”

I know I was right. But he didn’t do anything with the Dragons, and I have to disclose relationships anyway, because I shouldn’t even have been allowed to participate in his evaluation. I didn’t officially, but I was interning then. I do think they’re on thin ice, perhaps open to a lawsuit, but I don’t want to do that. Morty said he’ll send me a list of guys to talk to, in a couple days. It goes without saying that when I do, I’ll tell them everything. But I doubt anyone will take me on this season. Maybe not until after the draft.

I haven’t gone back to the apartment yet. I’m in a coffee shop between the Dragons’ office and the apartment, deserted in mid-afternoon. From my corner, I watch the baristas, too far to overhear me even if they weren’t small-eared otters. They chatter happily back and forth, loudly, about their plans for that evening, every so often sneaking a look over at me to check that I’m not sleeping or stealing.

I nurse the latte for a good hour, occupying my mind by alternating between feeling sorry for myself and thinking about my prospects. Would this have happened if I weren’t gay? If I were female, with an eye for college football? Well, no. Because first of all, it’s such a boy’s club that I doubt I’d have been hired in the first place. And secondly, I would’ve been asked immediately if I were sleeping with any of the players.