Isolation Play (Dev and Lee) (7 page)

“
Persistence, and then separation.” His tail curls around my back, comforting. “I got tired of waiting for her to deal with things and move on. It’s harder ’cause I’m not in their faces with it. After that time you came to P.J.’s, I thought she’d realize that she can’t ignore this forever. But whenever I went back, if I so much as mentioned you, she did that high-pitched talking-about-something-else thing again. So I never call them, because she might answer.”

“
You don’t miss them?”

He shrugs. “They don’t miss me.”

“
They have to miss you. You’re their son.”

“
They don’t call.” He sighs. “They haven’t disowned me or anything. I just don’t have that much in common with them anymore.”

I can’t imagine that. How can he not have anything in common with his parents? I have to word this carefully, though. Things started to go bad with his family a couple years ago, after I walked up to them in a restaurant and introduced myself as his boyfriend. He’s told me over and over, softly and sharply, lovingly and frustratedly, that it’s not my fault. “What about all the hard times growing up? The family vacations?”

“
The hardest time we had was when we had to downgrade our winter vacation hotel to one without a beach view. My father didn’t play sports with me. I didn’t have a brother to get in trouble with. We had okay times, but I changed and they didn’t change with me.” His shrug seems melancholy to me. “I don’t care. I’ve got you.”

“
I wish I didn’t care.”

He puts his arm around my shoulders, with difficulty. I relax them, to make it easier. “You don’t wish that.”

“
No.” I hug him back. I know it must hurt him to have lost his family, on some level. “Come home with me.”

“
What?” His blue eyes stare into mine, his mouth partly open.

“
Seriously. When they get to know you, they’ll like you. They’ll have to.” It all makes perfect sense. All they know is me, from my childhood and adolescence. In order to really know me as an adult, or at least a more mature adolescent, they have to know Lee. He’s part of my life now.

“
Shouldn’t they get to know you again first?” he says slowly.

“
It won’t be like with your mom,” I say. I won’t let it be like that. “Mom will love you, and you can talk football with Dad.”

He snorts. “I’m sure that’ll just make him forget all about the fact that I’m your boyfriend.”

“
Not right away. But you’re good with people.” He looks doubtful. “Seriously. You can talk football with him better than I ever could. I memorized some names, but he knows games and drafts. He’ll be impressed you’re a scout. He’s a huge Dragons fan.”

He grins and scoots back, stretching his long foxy body out on the bed. His shaft is partway back into its sheath, but he doesn’t make any motion toward it. He slides himself gracefully under the covers and pats the bed beside him. “Let’s get some sleep. We can talk about it in the morning.”

I crawl in beside him. He turns his back to me as I press up against him and drape an arm over his chest, my body surrounding his. He turns his muzzle back for a good-night kiss, and our breath mingles for a moment. Then I reach out for the switch and turn off the light, and bury my nose between his ears, his tail squirming against my stomach.

?

In the morning, we talk briefly on the way to the airport. He’s still not convinced, and I confess I’m starting to have second thoughts. Even so, I don’t see a reason he shouldn’t come home with me. “Look,” I say, as I’m pulling around the curve to the airport, dodging shuttle busses, “sooner or later you’re going to have to meet them, right?”

“
Right,” he says, and I pounce on that.

“
So why not now? Get it over with quickly, right?”

“
I’m just not sure...” He trails off.

“
You’ll be fine.” Stopped at a light, I look at his muzzle. “You’re not hyper-activist guy all the time.”

He turns and raises an eyebrow. “I was going to say, I’m not sure we have to do this that early.”

“
Really?”

The eyebrow lowers. He laughs. “Well, I was worried about my activist side, too. But like you said, I don’t have to be ‘on’ all the time.” He grins just a little, just enough to relax me.

The light changes. I turn and roll forward. “I don’t want to hide you. If you’re there, they won’t be worried about who I’m dating.”

“
No, they’ll know they hate me.”

I force a laugh. “They won’t hate you.”

“
They won’t think I’m some evil fox who corrupted you?” I can see the flicking of his ears out of the corner of my eye. My chuckle trails off as I realize that it might not be that farfetched for Dad. Lee goes on. “I guess they might not be as upset with you then, huh?”

“
We just haven’t really talked in a while,” I say. “Phone and stuff, but no serious talks. Once we sit down, it’ll work itself out. We’re family, right?”

“
Family doesn’t always mean you get along,” he says.

“
It doesn’t always mean you don’t.”

He doesn’t answer, but his ears stay down, and I know he’s thinking about his family. I leave him to those thoughts, talking myself into my plan in my head. It’ll just take us sitting down as a family, and maybe they won’t want Lee included at first, but that’s okay. We haven’t sat down like that in a long time. Holidays, phone calls, it’s all surface stuff. Now that I can talk to them about this part of my life, they’ll understand.

At the airport, Lee takes his bag out of the back seat while I get out and walk around to the side. A hyena in uniform starts to tell us to move along, then gets distracted as another car tries to stop in the middle of a moving traffic lane. Lee takes advantage of the chaos to slip his arm around me, a one-armed “guy hug” that we hold a bit longer than buddies would. He looks up at me for a moment before pulling away.

“
Fox,” I say, “I really want you to come.”

A smile breaks over his muzzle. “Okay,” he says. “Come stay with me the night before and we’ll drive out there Tuesday.”

My tail curls as I let him go, my smile getting wider. “Deal.”

We stand there for about ten seconds just smiling at each other, until he says, “You need to get to practice.”

“
See you in a week.” I squeeze his shoulder and he manages somehow to pat my butt while making it casual and not a big deal, and nobody around seems to have noticed. Fuck, he’s good at that. I watch his own rear moving below his swinging tail, and lean against the car.

“
Hey!” The hyena barks at me. “You can’t stay there.”

I raise a paw, get back in, and drive on. I already miss him. I want him to be at the apartment when I come home from practice, but I can’t ask him to leave his job.

The sun’s staring me full in the face as it comes up, all the way from the airport down to Hughes Stadium. I pull into the players’ lot just as another SUV pulls in behind me and parks to my right. Carson gets out, the other linebacker who starts with me and Gerrard. A leopard about my height, he’s faster than I am, but not as bulked. He wasn’t around the locker room for my big moment yesterday, but the only thing I’m worried about is if he thinks coming out will distract me from playing football.

When he walks up beside me, he aims a punch at my shoulder like he always does, and grins when I swat it away. We mock-spar for a few seconds, and then he says, “New week, new game.”

His eyes glint at me. “I’m ready,” I say. “Bring it on.”

“
Damn straight.”

If it were anyone else, I’d think that was a subtle dig at me. But Carson doesn’t glance to see if I get it, he doesn’t act self-conscious or smug; he just walks in with me and heads to his locker, a few over from mine. I glance around at the rest of the team. Everything looks normal.

My coming out wasn’t news to any of them; I told them a couple weeks ago in a private meeting. The guys who had a problem with me Sunday still have a problem with me on Tuesday. I spot Colin, the fox who’s risen to backup cornerback in his rookie year, dressing on his side of the locker room. He doesn’t look my way. Some of the guys dressing near him do, suspicious glares more pointed than they had been before the press conference.

I ignore them as best I can, but it occurs to me that I should go thank the guys who did stand behind me. So once I get my uni on, I walk over to Ty Nakamura, the fox who’s already starting for us as the third wideout. His nickname in college was “Fish,” which he never explained, but because Fisher already uses that name, I just call him “Ty.”

Half-dressed, he looks like a bigger, more muscular Lee. But that’s not enough to turn me on. Never has been. I give his arm a punch. “Hey, I never said, but thanks.”

“
Ah.” He waves the thanks away. “Next time you’re gonna come out on TV, let me know and I’ll wear somethin’ more fashionable.”

I grin. “Once is all it takes.” I jerk my head over to Colin and his crew. “What’s with them?”

“
Whatever. Fuck a hundred girls and it’s cool, but one guy and suddenly it’s all...” He rolls his eyes.

“
Seems worse today.”

He shrugs. “Who knows what’s up their ass?” Then his ears flatten and he looks around. When he talks again, he lowers his voice. “Hey, uh...I know it ain’t my business, but...you’re the guy, right?”

“
What?” The question comes out of nowhere. I’m torn between laughing and shoving him. Neither one seems like a good option.

“
I mean, you know, you...do the fuckin’, right?”

“
Jesus.” Now I do laugh. “Yeah, so what?”

His ears go up. “Nah, nothing.” He grins and pulls his shirt on.

The morning practice is all just drills, running stations, learning plays, working with your position coach. I expect the stands to be full of people come to watch us, but they’re emptier than usual. Steez, the cougar who’s my linebackers coach, tells me Coach Samuelson closed our practices this week. Worried about distractions. That makes me self-conscious because I know the distraction he was worried about is me. But I put that aside and do my best to concentrate on football.

The coaches have been reviewing film over the weekend. I should’ve been studying it yesterday, but I was occupied with telling the world that I like guys. So I follow Steez attentively as he coaches the linebackers through the plays we had trouble with, because most of the trouble centers on me. It’s not my first year in the league, but it’s my first at linebacker, and even though I picked it up well, I have a ways to go to catch up with Gerrard and Carson.

One play in particular is a little tricky because we haven’t used it yet. It’s in the drills now because of Millenport, our Sunday opponent, so I focus hard on it. Even so, I keep half-stepping to the wrong side before remembering where I’m supposed to be going, so that Steez growls at me, his tail lashing, “Corey learns this play in half hour! Head in game!”

“
I’ve got my head in the game,” I mutter to myself. For the first time all season, I really feel free to concentrate on football, no worries about being found out or about what Lee’s doing. And the mention of Corey, I’m sure, is meant to remind me that the cougar whose position I’ve taken will be back from his injury in two or three weeks, and I’d better have this thing memorized by then.

By noon, I’m at least stepping to the right side every time. Even Steez is pleased, his ropy tail calm, sending us off to lunch with a smile. Afternoon is a film session, and then basic exercises until dinner. I take ten minutes to check my voicemails after lunch.

The mailbox is full. But the first six are all from Ogleby, becoming progressively more panicked because I haven’t called him back.

So I call, and man, if I thought his voice was squeaky before, that was nothing. “Dev, listen, before you dump me, gimme a chance, I got six sponsors lined up and that’s three-quarters of a mil on the table up front.”

“
Ogleby,” I say, “settle down.”

“
I know I walked out on you but that was just because I knew my phone was gonna be ringin’ off the hook and it was, babe, it was. Twelve calls! I weeded out the ones I knew you wouldn’t want but we can call ’em back, and I got two interviews lined up for ya, and the Today Show called, they want you on next week, so I got you a plane ticket from Chevali—”

“
I can’t.”

“
Dev, sweetie, I know your schedule. Come on! You’re not playing next week! A whole week to build up your brand! You can’t pass this up. I’ve been in this business thirty years—”

“
No, I mean, I’ve got other plans next week.”

“
Okay, look, for you, because it’s you, I...” He takes a deep breath in. “I’m gonna drop my fee one point. Just for this set of deals. Come on, that’s an extra seventy-five hunnerd in your pocket, Dev, babe.”

“
I mean it. I can’t do next week. I have to go home.”

“
Go home? Go home? You can go home anytime, didn’t you hear me, this is the
Today Show
!” I try to interrupt him, but I can’t get a word in. “You leave Wednesday night, they put you up in a swanky hotel, you do the show Thursday, bada bing. What could be easier?”

“
Not doing it could be easier.” I’d wanted to stay home longer, but two days is better than nothing. And if Lee could come with me to Port City, it might be a nice vacation. Celebrate him meeting my parents, unwind from the trip. I have a creeping feeling that we will need some unwinding.