Safety Net (26 page)

Dale tsked. “Hindsight is
twenty-twenty, homeboy. ’Night.”

“’Night.”

A thought occurred to Dale and he
paused at his bedroom door. “Hey, Menacker. You guys aren’t forgetting about
Dr. Brandt’s plants, are you?”

“Oh, shit, the plants,” Lowell
said, wincing.

Dale got a text from Erick the
following day, timing he found suspicious and imagined the correspondence:

dude call dale he never sees u

Busy. Do it later.

dude call him

Yes, dear.

But he was glad to hear from Erick,
and Erick wanted to meet up for dinner at Hopkins after class. Dale hadn’t been
to Hopkins in ages. Erick hardly spent any time there. He’d told Anson the
truth, as far as it went: that he was housesitting for a professor and using
the apartment to study in quiet.

There was a bunch of their guys in
the dining commons, and Dale and Erick joined their table. Everyone had spring
training war stories to tell and war wounds to display. Dale happily showed off
his left big toe, which had lost the toenail after being crushed during a
practice tackle. A new toenail was very slowly growing in lopsided over the
raw, scarred, purple flesh. It was nice and gross, and the guys at their end of
the table admired it appropriately.

After dinner they walked toward Dr.
Brandt’s. It was raining, and when they got to the apartment, Erick moved the
plants on the patio so they’d catch some rain. They didn’t look completely dead
yet.

Dale sat down on the sofa and
looked around. “Where’s Lowell?”

Erick closed the vertical blinds. “Studying.
He has a paper due tomorrow.” He sat down in the chair facing the sofa and
looked at Dale. Dale waited, and when Erick didn’t say anything he asked, “So
how’re things going? How’s the shack working out?”

Erick’s eyes flicked around the
apartment. “Oh. Good. It’s good.” He blushed a little. “Um, yeah. You know.”

“Uh-huh.” Dale grinned. He patted
his own shoulder. “Yes, I am the best friend ever, thank you very much.”

Erick smiled at him. “Yeah. Thanks.”
He sat back and said, “Lowell said you have a boyfriend.”

Dale blew out a disgusted breath. “Lowell
is a gossipy old woman. I’m dating a guy. Casually. Nice and easy. None of this
crazy stuff,” he said, gesturing at the apartment around him.

“Good. That’s good. It’s the
basketball guy he told me about?”

“Is there no aspect of my life
Lowell will not blab about?” Dale raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, it’s the basketball
guy. His name’s Andy Park.”

“Lowell told me he was hot,” Erick
said with a strange grin.

Dale narrowed his eyes. “Yeah. He
would tell you that, wouldn’t he?”

“That’s our Lowell,” Erick sighed,
amused. “Can I meet him sometime? Andy?”

Dale looked at him, thinking it
over. “Yeah. Sure. I think you’ll like him.” He paused and said with a smirk, “I
bet Lowell will want us to double date.”

“Lowell would want that, wouldn’t
he?” Erick grinned.

Dale laughed.

After a silence, he said, “Those
extra practices. They’re grooming your replacement?”

Erick shifted and frowned a little.
“The other QBs always have to be prepared, anyway. I don’t think of it as
replacing me, but being ready in case something happens. Coach Miller said it’d
be good if I didn’t have to play every quarter of every game next season.”

“Makes sense,” said Dale, nodding. “Why
risk injury. Any of them standing out?”

“Christiansen is good,” Erick said
firmly. “He’s got a great arm, just needs to work on his logistics. Reading the
field, improving his accuracy. He’s very competitive, very motivated. I like
him for next QB if he stays on the upward path.”

“What about Battista?”

Erick cocked his head from side to
side. “Battista’s inconsistent, and I can’t figure out why. In practice last
week he threw fifty-two yards. It was a beautiful throw. Other times, it’s all
he can do to get it into a receiver’s hands at any length. But the thing about
Battista is that he understands the plays immediately, he soaks up diagrams and
tactics like a sponge, seriously understands it. And I think he’ll be great
around his O-line. If you could blend Battista and Christiansen together, you’d
have, like, the perfect quarterback.”

Dale smiled. “You’d have Erick
West, you mean.”

Erick shook his head. “Ugh, don’t
start sounding like our PR guy. I rely on you and Lowell to keep me grounded.
Besides, Battista’s way better at diagrams than I am. It takes me a couple of
tries before I fully visualize it.”

Dale, who knew exactly how quickly
Erick could read a diagram and read a field, allowed him his modesty and didn’t
argue. He said, “Lowell keeps you grounded? Making cow eyes at you and swooning
whenever you text? You sure about that, homie?”

Erick chuckled but looked
embarrassed. “Oh, it’s not that bad.” After a moment he said, “We make your
life a living hell, don’t we?”

“Occasionally,” said Dale. “Way I
see it, you’re providing me with hours of material for future therapy sessions.
I’ll send my bills to you, not Menacker. NFL quarterbacks make more than tight
ends, right?”

“Probably depends on the team,” Erick
mused.

They fell into silence. Dale
thought about the paper he had to finish by next Tuesday and said, “Homeboy,
this has been real. Real what? I’ll get back to you on that.” He flashed a grin
at Erick. “I gotta go hit the books,” he said, standing up.

Erick got up with him. “Dale,” he
said, stopping by the door.

“Yeah?”

“You and Lowell. Did you ever, um,
fuck?”

Dale stared at him, his first
reaction being the ridiculous satisfaction that he’d finally heard the word “fuck”
out of Erick West’s mouth. But,
fuck
, not the way he’d ever expected to
hear it.

“Oh God, no,” Dale said
emphatically. “No. Absolutely. No.”

Erick looked down, his brow knit. “Oh.
Okay.”

Something off about his reaction,
and Dale said, though he could hardly believe it, “Did Lowell say we...?” But
that made no sense. Why on earth would Lowell say something like that?

Erick glanced up. “What? No. Oh, no
no, he didn’t. No, um. I just...” He released a deep breath and met Dale’s eyes
with the same intensity he used when scanning the field for an open receiver.
Dale found it disconcerting.

“Um,” Erick said again, and Dale
raised a hand.

“Whatever you’re about to say, don’t
say it. Have the next part of this conversation with Lowell. Whatever it is, ‘mkay?
Please,” he added, opening the door. “Think of my future therapy bills. They’re
already adding up.”

Erick relaxed and smiled a little. “Okay.
Yeah. Understood.”

Dale bade him goodnight and got the
hell away from there before Erick changed his mind about having inappropriate
heart-to-hearts with the wrong person.

-----

Dear Candace,

I’m sorry I haven’t replied in a
while. School’s been so busy this quarter. Our robotic solar assembly prototype
project is almost finished. I think we have a good chance of getting an A with
it. There’s going to be a national competition in April, and we’re going to
submit our project. Maybe we’ll win a prize and they’ll give us a patent and I’ll
be an instant millionaire! Ha ha. :)

I am an uncle! Trisha named the
twins Tyler and Bennett. Can you guess which one’s the boy and which one’s the
girl? :) It helps if I tell you the middle names: Tyler Adam and Bennett Rose.
I haven’t met them yet. I saw pictures. They were very pink and fat.

How are your classes? How was the
seminar in London? Tell me what you’ve been doing all this time. I miss talking
to you and knowing about your life.

We’re practicing six days a week,
and I have extra practice with the other quarterbacks. One of them will replace
me after next season. I think it’ll be Christiansen because he has the best
arm, but I wish his concentration was better. He acts like a kid sometimes. He’s
a freshman. I wonder if Terrence Duran thought I was the same way when I was a
freshman.

Coach Bowman has already left for
Los Angeles. He gave me his phone number and said to call if I ever needed
anything. I think he meant it, but I’m not going to bother him with stuff. I
have to work it all out for myself. And Coach Miller is a fantastic guy. I
think he’ll be a good head coach.

I think I told you Lowell is taking
extra classes this quarter. He’s nuts. He got the idea that he’s falling behind
on his credits for graduation, but he hasn’t. He’s killing himself for nothing
if you ask me. I guess he’s managing okay but he’s not getting enough sleep. At
practice he’s not as focused as he should be. Anson Dempsey is coming into his
own. It’s going to be a great group of tight ends next season. But Lowell needs
to sleep more. I’m going to make sure he doesn’t sign up for a ridiculous
number of classes next quarter.

Has anyone from the press contacted
you again? Let me know this time if it happens again. I’m so sorry about that.
I checked around and it seems like Yates (you remember him from Italy) blabbed
to someone but he didn’t know it was a TV guy. He’s really sorry. The season’s
over so it’ll be okay. I don’t think anyone’s paying attention to me now. But
if anyone contacts you, call me and I’ll take care of it. You don’t need to
deal with that crap.

Pumpkin, I really miss you.

Love,

Erick

Sundays were becoming Erick’s
favorite day. As long as he and Lowell busted ass on their studies all week,
they had Sunday for goofing off. Lowell would come over to the apartment early
Sunday morning with breakfast, they’d go for a run, come back and wind down and
have the rest of the day to be together.

It was a blustery, rainy March
Sunday. They’d messed around after getting soaked on their run, Erick trying
very earnestly to get better at oral. He didn’t feel like he was making much
progress -- still too awkward -- but Lowell reassured him it was all good. They
sprawled in bed, Erick reclining into Lowell’s embrace. Lowell lazily caressed
Erick’s arms.

“Dale’s boyfriend came over to the
dorm last night,” Lowell said.

“Oh?”

“Yes.” Lowell sighed disgustedly. “He
came by, they sat on the sofa together and watched some movie on Dale’s laptop,
and then he left. I’m not even sure if they made out. What is Dale’s problem?”

“I think Dale knows what he’s doing
this time. It sounds kind of nice,” Erick said, rubbing the back of his head
against Lowell’s shoulder. “They’ve been going out for, what, a month already?
Doesn’t sound like the guy’s ready to bolt.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Lowell grumbled.

Erick smiled and smoothed his hands
down Lowell’s legs. “Dale called you a gossipy old woman.”

“Gossipy?! I’m not gossipy. I’m
just a concerned citizen,” Lowell groused. “Gossipy. What the fuck.”

Erick raised his eyebrows. “‘Gossipy’
is the part of that description you’re upset about?” he asked.

Lowell chuckled and clasped his
hands over Erick’s chest. He nuzzled Erick’s hair, and Erick sighed, completely
relaxed. He skimmed his fingernails over Lowell’s thighs. “He also said you’d
want us to double date with him and Andy.”

Lowell didn’t immediately respond. “Hm.
That’d be nice, but. Not so sure that’s a great idea.”

“Why not?”

Lowell patted his chest. “I don’t
think Crocker’s star quarterback and the next Heisman winner should be seen
stepping out with his boyfriend, you know?”

“Oh.” Erick frowned, wondering why
such practicalities seldom occurred to him. “Well, what if we invite them over
here? No stepping out. Order a pizza, watch a movie. I’d like to meet Dale’s
friend.”

“That’d work.” Lowell didn’t
exactly sound thrilled, and Erick shifted to glance back at him.

“What’s wrong? Is it weird for you,
Dale having a boyfriend?”

Lowell squinted at him. “You
kidding? Aren’t I the one worried Dale’s gonna lose the guy if he doesn’t put
out? No, it’s not weird.” He hesitated. “It’s not that. It’s, well. This is our
place. I like having it to ourselves. Having you to myself.” He pouted, and
Erick laughed softly.

“Oh, bro, you’re getting as bad as
Dale said.” Erick turned to kiss him. “You have me to yourself. You know that,
right?”

Lowell wrapped his arms around
Erick’s waist and pulled him into a deeper kiss. “Yeah, but doesn’t hurt to
keep reminding me. Okay. I guess it’d be okay to invite them over sometime.”

Erick followed through with the
invitation at the end of the break between quarters. With no classes, he and
Lowell had spent the better part of the week at the apartment, and Lowell was
feeling generous enough to spare an evening. Lowell took care of the pizzas and
Erick checked out a DVD from the library.

Before they arrived, Lowell said, “Oh,
hey. I checked with Dale and he said Andy’s cool. He’ll be discreet.”

“Huh? About what?”

“About you, of course,” Lowell
said, ruffling Erick’s hair. “Duh.”

Andy was tall, attractive, quiet,
friendly. Erick liked him, and was amused to see Dale faintly embarrassed by
the attention Erick was giving the two of them.

When the pizzas arrived, Dale
started in on Lowell about his choice of toppings -- Erick was sure the
artichoke hearts were deliberate, just to rile Dale up -- and Andy said quietly
to Erick, “I watched the Orange Bowl. Amazing game.”

“Thanks.” Erick smiled. “Amazing
team.”

Andy looked at him for a moment. “When
Dale told me who Lowell was seeing, I have to admit...”

“Hard to believe?” Erick rubbed the
back of his neck. He watched Lowell divvying up the pizza onto paper plates. “I
know. It’s strange for me, and I’m living it.”

“Dale thinks Lowell has some sort
of seductive magic he uses on people,” Andy said with a smile.

Erick tried to imagine Lowell as
one of those movie vampires, putting his victims under a spell. He chuckled and
said, “If only it were that simple.”

Dale brought them their pizza
slices and sat down on the sofa with Andy. Lowell sat down on the floor by the
chair and used Erick’s leg as a backrest. Dale picked up the DVD box.

“Dude. You’ve never seen
We Are
Marshall
?”

Erick swallowed his bite of pizza. “No,
have you? Is it any good? It’s a football movie.”

Dale frowned at the box. “Well, yes
and no.”

Andy took the box from him. “Oh.
Matthew Fox,” he said. Dale looked at him, and Andy returned the look mildly.
Dale twitched an eyebrow. Andy smiled very subtly. Dale tossed the box to
Erick. “I guess that’s a yes vote.”

Erick made it through the movie
without crying, though he had a lump in his throat the size of a baseball for
about half of it. The thought of losing his team...all of the guys...all of his
friends... Dale. Lowell. He stroked Lowell’s hair.

Lowell wiped his eyes on his shirt.
“That’s a true story?”

“Yeah,” said Dale stoically. He’d
seen the movie before.

Andy blinked a few times but kept
it in. “Wow.”

Dale frowned at Erick. “Nice choice
of date movie, shithead.”

“I only knew it was about football,”
Erick said. “I should’ve read the reviews.”

Lowell patted Erick’s foot. “Next
time Dale can pick the movie.”

Dale launched into a detailed
listing of his favorite movies -- everything Jake Gyllenhaal had ever been in,
apparently -- and Andy told them about a basketball movie they’d seen recently,
and from there the evening wound down pleasantly with sports talk.

That night in bed Erick held Lowell
close, caressing his back. Lowell kissed his jaw and said, “So what did you
think of Andy?”

“Nice guy. He and Dale, I think
they’re good together.”

Lowell smiled and nuzzled Erick’s
neck. “I think they are, too. Dale better reel him in.”

Erick kissed him slowly, getting
aroused, and Lowell slid into place, angled perfectly for getting off together.
He rocked slowly, and before they went too far, Erick touched Lowell’s cheek
and murmured, “I got something for us.”

“Mm?”

Erick patted his back and got out
of bed. His backpack was sitting against the wall. He unzipped it, came back
and slid into bed, handing Lowell the lube. He held up the box of condoms.
Lowell lay back, holding the lube, staring at it.

“There’s actually ‘instructions for
use’ on this...” he said, frowning. He set it down and looked at Erick. “Erick.
Fuck.”

Erick smiled. “That was the idea,
yeah.”

Lowell’s steady gaze was serious. “Erick,
what the fuck? You went to a store around here and bought lube and condoms?
Tell me you didn’t go to the convenience store on campus. Please. Are you
asking to get busted or what?”

The exasperated anger in Lowell’s
voice was not at all the reaction Erick had been hoping for. He frowned and
sighed heavily. “I’m not stupid. I didn’t go to the campus store. I didn’t even
buy them at the same store. And I wore my blue hoodie with the hood up and...
why the hell are we even talking about this? It’s irrelevant.” Erick took a
deep breath to fight off his own anger. Hell, if Lowell didn’t want to fuck,
couldn’t he just say that?

“I think it’s pretty damn relevant,”
Lowell muttered. He picked up the lube, flipping it over a couple of times
before setting it down again. “Damn,” he said quietly. “God, Erick, you’re
always doing this to me.”

Erick propped up on one elbow and
rested his hand on Lowell’s chest. “Doing what?”

“Catching me off guard. Answering
my fantasies.” Lowell took Erick’s hand in his. “Surprising the hell out of me.”

Erick gazed into his eyes. “I like
to keep you on your toes, Menacker.” He brushed a kiss over Lowell’s lips. “You
haven’t said yes yet.”

“I’m thinking about it,” Lowell
said with blunt honesty.

Erick figured he’d have to help
Lowell make up his mind. He climbed over him, wrapping him between his legs,
and kissed him deeply. Lowell ran his hands down Erick’s back and held him
while they kissed again.

Erick, rubbing subtly against him,
looked at him and said, “Lowell. I want us to fuck.” He ran his fingers through
Lowell’s hair, fanning it over the pillow. Lowell swallowed hard, and Erick
touched his lips, rubbed the lower with his thumb. “I want you to fuck me, I
want you to make love to me. I want you.”

Lowell swallowed again. “Christ.
Erick.”

Erick caught his gaze and smiled. “Don’t
ask me if I’m sure. I’m sure. I want this. And the thing about me is -- if you
haven’t figured it out yet -- when there’s something I want this much, I’m determined
to get it.”

Lowell smoothed his palms up Erick’s
sides. “Yeah, I’m finding that out.” He licked his lips. “I’ve never done this
before.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I mean, not even with a girl. Not,
you know, like this.”

Erick murmured, “Neither have I,” and
Lowell grinned lopsidedly at him. “Mm, yeah, didn’t think so. Even as bizarre
as your love life has been, that would’ve been a shock and a half. What’s that
smile for?” Lowell asked.

“Y
ou
calling
my
love
life bizarre. Glass houses, bro. Glass houses.”

Lowell chuckled, and the rumble was
a pleasant friction against Erick’s body. “I make no claims. Just calling it
like I see it. But see...” he said, sobering, “...we could suck at it. We won’t
know what the hell we’re doing.”

Erick kissed his jaw. “The
mechanics of it, from what I understand, are fairly simple.”

“Dude. Not even funny.”

Erick looked at him and said, “Without
prior experience, if we suck at it, how will we know?”

Lowell arched an eyebrow. “I think
we’d know.”

“Oh. Well, maybe.” Erick tapped
Lowell’s chest. “I wasn’t any good at passing the ball at first, either. You
know how I got good at it?”

“How?” Lowell asked, smiling.

“Practice, practice, practice.”

Lowell kissed him. “I knew you were
going to say that.”

Lowell was tentative, careful.
Freaked out, Erick supposed, but handling it. Erick, who had thought about it
for a long time, organized their positions -- he wanted to be on his back for
this, he wanted to watch Lowell -- and Lowell, seeing how it would work,
commented, “I guess this is why you’re the engineering student.”

Erick laughed, releasing his
nervousness, and Lowell pressed against him in a long, thorough kiss. Before
Erick had caught his breath, Lowell pushed and was inside him. It didn’t hurt
in the way he’d expected it to, it was strange, it was unlike anything he’d
ever imagined. Lowell above him, watching him, and inside him, and Erick moved
because he wanted more. He writhed and rocked, and Lowell blew out a breathy, “Erick...”

Erick couldn’t stop moving. He held
onto Lowell’s shoulders and bucked, and with a soft groan Lowell thrust with
him. And Erick had thought they would go slow, because it was their first time
and they had no idea what they were doing. But they didn’t. He couldn’t slow
down if he tried. It felt more fantastic the faster he moved. Lowell kept
matching him, moaning from pleasure, until they were crashing together in a
relentless, mind-numbing frenzy and Erick came, strong and disoriented and
dizzy. Lowell left him, shuddering and panting, flopped onto his back and
pulled the condom off and dropped it on the mattress.

“Oh my God. Erick.”

Erick closed his eyes. The room was
spinning a little. He inhaled a deep breath, released it slowly.

“Erick?”

The back of Lowell’s hand touched
his arm. Erick’s skin, hot and skittish, reacted in goosebumps. The bed buoyed
beneath him like a small sailboat adrift.

Erick, eyes still closed, murmured,
“I don’t think we suck at it.”

Lowell touched his cheek, his neck,
covered him in kisses, whispering shakily, “Dude. You scared me. Erick. What
the hell
was
that?”

Erick opened his eyes to narrow
slits. “I think that’s us. That’s us together,” he said with a smile.

Erick cooled down, took a shower,
and stretched out across the bed while Lowell cleaned up. When Lowell came back
to bed, he curled into Erick’s embrace and they held each other silently for a
very long time until Erick finally fell asleep.

He woke up late in the morning and
sat up on the bed, rubbing his beard. Lowell stirred next to him and touched
his back. “Go for a run?” Lowell asked, voice sleepy.

“No.” Erick glanced back at him and
lay down. He grabbed Lowell’s hip and hooked his leg around Lowell’s thighs. “I
want to do it again.”

Lowell paused in the middle of
rubbing sleep from his eyes and blinked at him. “Oh God.”

Erick smiled and kissed him. “I
want it again, Lowell.”

Lowell swallowed and ran his hands
over Erick’s back. “Erick West, sex fiend. Who knew?”

“Well, now you know,” Erick said
with a grin, and Lowell fucked him again. Made love to him only slightly less
frantic than the first time, and the high was just as incredible.

-----

The video on his laptop stuttered,
blipped. Erick moved the desk lamp to kill the glare. Candace shifted on the
screen, looking at something off to the side. The room she was in was small,
light, with two neat bookshelves and a door in the back. He wondered if that
was the door to a closet or to another room.