Safety Net (32 page)

“Oh.”

Lowell sighed. “Erick,” he
murmured. “You kidding me? It was fantastic.” He kissed Erick tenderly. “I’m
just... I want to remember everything about this night. Every detail.”

“Oh,” Erick said, squeezing him in
his arms and kissing him back.

In the morning they woke up for
practice and stopped by Lowell’s room so Lowell could change clothes. Lowell
knocked on Dale’s door, and Andy opened it, dressed only in his underwear and
yawning. Behind him Dale was pulling his tee shirt on, saying, “I’m ready, I’m
ready.” He kissed Andy quickly and joined Lowell and Erick.

“How’re you doing?” Lowell asked
carefully.

Dale gave him a look. “I’m okay.
But I gotta see how it goes at practice. It’s weird to take in.”

“I probably shouldn’t have told you
like that,” Lowell said, glancing at Erick.

“Probably not,” Dale agreed. He
ruffled Lowell’s hair. “Too late now. We’ll get through it.”

During practice Erick always had
part of his attention on how everyone was doing. He had to be aware of team
dynamics, stay alert for a change in the overall mood. Whatever Dale did to get
through it, it must’ve worked, because there were no problems, no subtle shifts
to threaten the cohesion of the offense.

For the rest of the week Erick
endured a lot of teasing about the magazine article, and Dempsey made the most
of being quoted in it. On Friday Erick delivered the box of signed copies to
the PR office. He had another small media thing on Saturday morning after
practice -- giving away Crocker sweatshirts and tickets to the USC game to a
crowd of parents and kids from nearby elementary schools. On Dale’s advice --
don’t
frighten the children
-- Erick shaved.

Without a game on Saturday they
celebrated with take-out Chinese food, and Erick and Lowell went back to Erick’s
room early. Lowell wanted to be fucked again, was sexy and insistent about it,
and it was even better the second time, which was mind-blowing. On Sunday
morning they were lazy and made out and brought each other off, touching and
kissing, but by Sunday evening Erick was feeling greedy and selfish, and when
Lowell came by after studying, Erick got him into bed and straddled him, and
they worked out how to fuck this way. It didn’t feel quite as frenzied intense,
but it felt good, so damn good.

Afterwards Lowell held him and
Erick said, “Sorry if I got a bit bossy there,” though he wasn’t at all sorry.

Lowell nuzzled his temple. “As Dale
would say, fucking quarterback.”

“Literally,” Erick giggled against
Lowell’s neck. Lowell rubbed his ass appreciatively and said, “Mm-hm.”

Erick sighed drowsily and drifted
on a warm high. Lowell said quietly, “Hey. Guess what.”

“What?”

“We’re gonna win the USC game.”

Erick smiled a little and kissed
Lowell’s shoulder. “You’re sure of this?”

“Positive,” Lowell said firmly.

Erick brought Lowell into a slow,
deep kiss. “What makes you so sure?” he asked, amused.

“Because we can do anything,” Lowell
said seriously, and Erick’s whole body felt a rush of energy, almost trembled
from the power of loving him so much. His eyes were wet. He blinked the wetness
away before Lowell noticed.

Recovering, he kissed Lowell’s
cheek and murmured, “Well, we can certainly fuck. And play football. You may be
on to something.”

“Mark my words,” Lowell said,
kissing his neck and tickling his ass. “We’re gonna win.”

They did win, though not easily.
They racked up an appalling number of penalties, and seemingly overnight USC’s
defense had become as horrifying as Oregon’s had been, something all their film
reviews of USC’s season-to-date hadn’t revealed.

In a terrible moment in the second
quarter, Anson Dempsey took a full-impact crashing hit to the helmet and was
knocked down, completely immobile on the field for over five minutes while
everyone stood frozen. Erick would never forget staring at Anson’s feet, the
only part of him he could see clearly as the coaches and trainers bent over
him.

Anson had to be carried off the
field and taken to the hospital. From that moment on, Erick was determined to
win this damn game and he didn’t care who he killed to do it. He called plays
quickly, sometimes changing Coach Miller’s call -- something Coach Miller had
been letting him do all season. He read the field, stared at his opponents, and
guessed what their mistakes would be. He guessed right more often than wrong.

USC knew he liked his tight ends so
they stuck to them like glue. They knew if LeShawn Wells got free he could
sprint fifty yards before anyone could catch him, so they boxed him in. They
discounted Wotoa, ignored Dale, and Erick connected three touchdown passes to
his wide receivers, one a lovely twenty-eight yarder that Wotoa caught an inch
from the end zone and rolled in to score. After Anson left the field, there
were no incompletes, no fumbles, and the only interception was off USC’s Jared
Nelson, who was a decent quarterback in Erick’s estimation, but wasn’t tasting
blood. The final score was 48-40.

The USC win sent the annoying media
buzz into overdrive. One of the blog headlines the next day was
Erick West
the Wild Animal!
ESPN, not content with their after-game sound bite, wanted
an interview for
College Sportscard
. Heisman-this, Heisman-that,
first-round draft pick. Erick’s head was spinning so much he felt ill half the
time. He tried to block it out by focusing on his course work, but people
wouldn’t leave him alone. The PR coordinator apologetically insisted on meeting
with him daily so they could sort out his media schedule. Erick had the right
to refuse any engagement, a right he’d never exercised until now. He simply
couldn’t do them all.

Anson was off practice while the
doctors observed him. Erick visited him in the dorm and expected Anson to be
restless and resentful of the bed rest. Instead Anson sat quietly on the sofa
and said, “That wasn’t like any hit I’ve ever taken before, and I’ve taken some
hits. Erick, I’m not sure I’m gonna come back this season.” He looked
apologetic, and Erick shook his head.

“No, man, don’t even worry about
it. We just want you to get well. You need to do whatever’s best for you.”

They bumped fists, and when Erick
left his room, he was pretty rattled. He biked down to the creek and found an
empty area away from the bike path. He sat down beside some overgrown bushes
and called Candace.

She answered on the second ring
with, “Oh my God! Erick?”

“Hey.” He smiled at the sound of
her voice. “You said it was okay to call. It is okay? Is now a good time?”

“Yes, it’s okay,” she said with a
little laugh. “Now’s good. Now’s perfect. I was just this minute looking for
another way to procrastinate on my European Politics seminar paper. Your timing
is excellent. What’s going on?”

“I’ve been wanting to call you for
a while.” Erick plucked some dry, brittle grass from the ground. “But today...
Well, one of my guys got injured last week and I just came from seeing him--”

“Anson?”

Erick was brought up short. “You
know about that?”

Candace said, “I watched the game.
There’s a sports bar around here that gets the full package, and I made them
change the channel to your game. You would not believe the bitching they did
until they paid attention and saw what an exciting game it was.”

“Too exciting,” Erick said
ruefully.

“How’s Anson?”

“He’s not sure he’ll play again
this season.” Erick plucked more grass, scattering it over the ground. “This
was our eighth win, so there’s a good chance we’ll get a bowl game even if we
screw up the rest of the season. It would suck if he couldn’t be there. But he’s
gotta do what’s right for him. It was scary. He said he doesn’t remember
anything about the hit itself. He remembers half the play up until then, but
not running for the ball. The next thing he knew, he was being carried off the
field.”

“Oh, honey. I am so sorry. Poor
Anson.” She sighed. “It’s a dangerous sport.”

“All sports are dangerous,” said
Erick. “But yeah, this was pretty bad.” He paused and asked, “You went to a
sports bar? Seriously?”

Candace’s voice was light. “I got
so mad. All the clips of your Washington game got pulled before I got a chance
to watch them. And for the Arizona State game I could only find a three-minute
highlight video Crocker’s athletic department put up.”

Erick chuckled. “Three minutes was
about all that was interesting in that game. We beat them sixty-five to seven.”

“But I wanted to see all your
plays,” she pouted. “I don’t care what the other team did. Angelika’s boyfriend
told me about this sports bar. He said as long as the Red Sox aren’t playing,
they’re cool about changing the channels if someone wants to watch a game. So I
corralled my little posse because baby, I did not want to be the only black
woman in a Boston sports bar on a Saturday night, and we took over the joint.” She
laughed, a sound that trickled right through him like cold rain after a
drought.

“You should’ve been there. It was
priceless. I said, ‘Crocker University is playing USC and I would like to watch
the game, please,’ and batted my eyelashes at the bartender. He grumbled and
changed the channel, and a bunch of young frat dudes were giving me shit about
it. Some Harvard guys have very nasty opinions of Crocker, I must say. Do their
mothers know they use such language? They all shut up at the end. I think I may
have made you some new fans.” She laughed again.

Erick tapped at the dirt and said
after moment, “You’ve been watching my games.”

“Yes, Erick, I have.”

Erick licked his lips, tracing
circles in the dirt. “I didn’t think you were so into football.”

“I’m not.” She added with a laugh, “Don’t
ask me what the plays are, what the positions are, none of that. I watch for
touchdowns, I know what a field goal is. Before I met you, my favorite part was
the punt because I thought it was amazing to watch the ball go that far on a
kick.”

“Kickers are a special breed,” Erick
said, smiling.

“Now when I watch, I look for
Crocker’s colors, look for my little number eleven, and there you are. I watch
to see what you do. But downs and conversions and this stuff about the red
zone? Do not ask me about that.”

Erick said, “You could learn it
easily with the right teacher.”

“That teacher would be you, I
suppose?”

“I could explain it.” He hesitated.
“It’d be easier in person.”

Candace didn’t reply immediately,
and Erick pressed his forehead against his palm. “Shit, I’m sorry. That was
dumb. It’s been so damn good to talk to you. And I still miss you and all. I
still love you, Candace. But it’s okay, it really is. I’m okay now. You were
right about our lives, about figuring out where our lives are gonna go. I
understand all that.” He took a breath. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, I
want you in my life, even if it’s just this. Just friends calling each other.”

“Erick,” she said with a little
sigh. “Oh, baby. Don’t be sorry. To be honest, when you said that, I thought, could
I come out there? When’s that big game of yours?”

“The Hammer Game?” Erick’s stomach
knotted anxiously. “It’s two weeks from Saturday. The Saturday before
Thanksgiving.”

“Okay, let me see...” There was a
pause and he heard her typing in the background. “Oh my lord, the airfares.
This is crazy.”

Erick sat tensely, unable to
believe this was happening. He said, “Try surrounding airports. San Jose’s the
closest, but there’s San Francisco... Oakland in a pinch.”

Another pause. “You said Oakland? I
can get a -- well I can’t call it cheap but I won’t have to sell my car to pay
for it -- flight into there. Is that okay?”

“That’s perfect. Shit. Candace, are
you really doing this?” he asked, laughing.

More typing. “Of course I am.
There. Just did it. Oh, now wait a minute. Let me check... Did I get the dates
right? Oh. Oh, baby, wait. It says on the Crocker website that the Hammer Game
is sold out.”

Erick grinned, feeling giddy. “I
can get you a ticket. I’ve got connections, remember?”

Halfway up 880 on the way to the
airport Lowell thought Andy might pull over and toss Erick out of the car if
Erick said one more time, “We’re gonna be late.”

Lowell reached over from the
backseat and rubbed Erick’s shoulders. “She’ll wait for us. Where’s she gonna go?
We’re already a carpool, we’re going as fast as we can in this traffic.”

In the rearview mirror Andy flicked
Lowell a grateful look. Lowell rolled his eyes at the back of Erick’s head.

When they got to Oakland Airport,
Candace’s plane hadn’t taxied to the gate yet, a few minutes late. Lowell and
Erick got out of the car to watch for her while Andy drove around to find a
place to park. Lowell hadn’t seen Erick this boyishly giddy since they’d won
the Orange Bowl; it was adorable and also made him ache a little.

Lowell wasn’t sure what to make of
this latest Candace development. Were they broken up or weren’t they? He hadn’t
been jealous of Candace -- much -- when she and Erick were a couple, but after
Erick had recovered from the break-up, Lowell had felt a selfish relief. This
spur-of-the-moment visit was either sending the right message, and they were
going to get back together (and Lowell didn’t know how to feel about that), or
it was sending the wrong message, and Erick’s heart was going to get stomped
on, and Lowell wasn’t ready to go through that again.

While they waited, a guy on his way
to the gates slowed his steps and stared at Erick. Erick didn’t notice; he was
scanning the people emerging from security. Lowell expected the guy to come up
and say something. The guy’s eyes met his, he tilted his head at Erick, and
lifted his eyebrows in question. Lowell nodded. The guy nodded back and went
on, apparently satisfied to know he’d recognized Erick West.

Lowell spotted Candace before Erick
did. He’d never met her, had only seen a few photos of her, but he knew that
young woman in the bright pink V-neck tee shirt who was helping an elderly
woman navigate the crowd had to be Candace. She radiated... something. Not
happiness, that was too simple. Liveliness?

There was a family waiting for the
elderly woman, and as soon as Candace left them, she looked up, spotted Lowell
and Erick, and ran in baby steps in platform sandals toward Erick with her arms
out. Erick laughed and scooped her into a hug.

They crushed each other with
oh,
it is so good to see you
and
how are you
, but they didn’t kiss.
Erick let her go and stepped back. “This is Lowell.” Lowell smiled at her.
Candace beamed at him and gave him a quick, strong hug. “Yay, I finally get to
meet you,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m here.”

“Baggage claim?” Erick asked,
looking around at the signs.

Candace patted the giant square bag
she had slung over her shoulder behind her purse. “No, I’m good. I packed light.”

Lowell looked her over. She was
wearing shorts. Erick said, “I hope you packed something warmer than that. It’s
been cold and rainy all week.”

“I checked the weather,” she said
indignantly. “Cold. You don’t live in Boston. He thinks sixty degrees is cold,”
she said to Lowell.

Lowell smiled. “Well, he is from
Texas.” She grinned at him. She had dimples when she smiled. She was gorgeous.

They found Andy in the short-term
parking lot, standing by the Prius. “I’m Andy,” he introduced himself, shaking
hands with her. “I’m, um...” He glanced at Erick for his lead, but Erick was
putting her bag in the back. “I’m the guy with a car,” Andy said heartily.

“And Erick’s roommate,” Lowell put
in.

Erick opened the rear passenger
side door for Candace. “Andy is Dale’s boyfriend,” he said.

“Oh, okay,” said Candace with
pleasant interest, getting inside. Lowell got into the front passenger seat,
and Erick sat behind Andy. “Where is Dale? I wanna meet him, too.”

“He had physical therapy today,” said
Erick.

“Not that same injury?” Candace
asked with concern. “The knee?”

“No,” said Andy, and Lowell
explained, “He got banged up in the Utah game. Same knee, different injury. It’s
not as bad this time but they want to make sure he’s good for the Rockridge
game.”

“You’ll meet him,” Erick promised. “He
and Lowell are roommates. They’re just down the hall. So listen, when we get to
campus, Lowell and I have to go to evening practice. Andy’s gonna take you to
the dorm and show you around. Are you hungry? ‘Cause we can stop and get
something now. Otherwise it’s gonna be, like, eight o’clock before we get out
of practice.”

“Erick, slow down. Don’t worry. I
can fend for myself.”

“You said that in Madrid,” Erick
said teasingly.

Candace chuckled richly at the
shared memory, the in-joke. Lowell watched the rainy grey East Bay sprawl go
by, and the conversation shifted to Candace’s flight, the campus during Hammer
Week, and highlights of Crocker’s victories over Utah and Washington State.

They were near the Dumbarton Bridge
when Candace asked, “Who is this Aaron Neuhauser character and why are people
saying he should win the Heisman?”

“Aaron Neuhauser Junior,” Erick
corrected. “He’s a running back at Auburn.”

Lowell turned to look at her. “Auburn’s
the only other team undefeated this season. And they’re in the SEC. They get a
lot of press.”

“Is he that good? Is he better than
you?” Candace asked Erick, deeply skeptical.

“He’s supposed to be very good,” Erick
said. “I haven’t watched any of his games, so I don’t know. I think LeShawn is
the best running back in college football, but I’m biased.”

“But you have to win it this year,”
said Candace. “You should’ve won it last year. Isn’t it like the Oscars? Where
they give it to the wrong actor one year, but they make up for it the next year
by giving it to the actor who should’ve won?”

Erick laughed. “I don’t think it
works like that.”

By the time they got through the
rush hour traffic to campus, Erick and Lowell had just enough time to make it
to practice. Andy dropped them off by the stadium and drove on toward the dorms
with Candace.

“Well? What do you think?” asked
Erick.

“I like her,” Lowell said, watching
him. He wanted to say something more, ask Erick where this was all heading,
warn Erick about getting his heart broken again, but he couldn’t think of a way
to say those things without sounding like a jealous mistress.

Erick grinned at him. “I knew you
would.”

Practice was especially grueling
and afterwards, Lowell begged off going to dinner with Erick and Candace,
figuring they’d want some alone time, anyway. He grabbed a pita from the student
union and went back to the dorm, where Dale was stretched out on the sofa icing
his knee. Dale looked up and grinned.

“I love her,” he gushed. “I adore
her! How does Erick do it? What on earth does she see in him, I wonder.”

“Dale,” Lowell growled, sitting in
the desk chair and propping his feet on the sofa next to Dale’s ankles.

“Right, right. Erick has hidden
charms, whatever. Still. Wow. What a woman. She was telling me and Andy all
kinds of stories about when they were in Europe. Oh, man, I had no idea. You
gotta get her to tell you about Madrid. Our boy. Oh, my.”

Lowell picked at his fingernails.

Dale gave him a long look. “Oh my God.
You’re jealous.”

Lowell shifted uneasily. “It was
easier not to be when she was three thousand miles away. And, you know, when
they were broken up.”

Dale grimaced as he rubbed the ice
pack around his knee. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Menacker.”

“I don’t want to be. I don’t like
it.” Lowell pushed his fingers through his hair. “But, shit. She’s beautiful.
She’s gorgeous. Sexy as hell. And she’s funny and smart and they have all that
history together.”

“And she’s going home Monday
morning,” said Dale evenly.

Lowell picked at his fingernails
again.

“Lowell.”

Lowell met Dale’s gaze, and Dale
said quietly, “You’re beautiful, too, you know.”

“Aw, shit, Dale.” Lowell frowned at
him. “This is serious.”

“I am serious,” Dale sighed. “I don’t
know why everyone can see it except you. The point is, I think Erick knows how
lucky he is. I don’t know what’ll happen, but... Erick’s not the kind of guy
who throws away good fortune.”

Dale was right about that, and
though Lowell wanted to be comforted, he wasn’t. But he worked on not resenting
Candace too obviously, and went out on Friday with her and Erick for dinner at
a hole-in-the-wall sushi place near campus. She and Lowell squeezed into a
booth together, Erick sitting across from them, and they filled the table with
plates of sushi and sides of tempura.

“Dale said I’m supposed to ask you
about Madrid,” Lowell said to her, snagging a giant prawn tempura.

Erick groaned and bent his head
over his plate. Candace nudged Lowell. “This one,” she said, nodding at Erick,
“decided to walk everywhere, took us around and around in his stinky old
flip-flops. And of course we got lost. And of course he blamed me. It was so
hot that day, I was frying, so I got in his face, I can’t even remember where,
and told him I was done with the walking tour. He could go on by himself if he
wanted to, I was going back to the hotel. And what does he do? He stands there
like he’s the king of Spain and tells me to do whatever I want to, I’ll be
sorry.”

Erick made a strange half-whimper,
half-growling sound and stabbed an onion tempura with his chopsticks. Candace
looked at Lowell, cocking her eyebrow. “‘You’ll be sorry,’ he says. To
me
.
Oh, ho ho. So of course I told him to go screw himself and stormed off.”

Lowell tried to imagine it: Erick
and Candace, hot and cranky, arguing on the street, and Erick telling her she’d
be sorry. Erick telling anyone they’d be sorry. It boggled the imagination, but
then, Erick hadn’t quite been himself that summer.

“I guess that’s when you told him
you could fend for youself,” Lowell said with a smile, and Erick narrowed his
eyes at him.

Candace laughed lightly. “Yes, it
was. And I could. I made it back to the hotel by myself just fine, thank you
very much. And I cooled off and waited. And waited. And waited. No Erick. Then
it’s getting to be dinnertime, and I was hungry and tired of waiting for his
royal majesty here, so I went out again to find some food. In the meantime
Erick got back to the hotel.”

“You should’ve left a note,” Erick
said with the mild exasperation of a long-running argument.

“You should’ve asked the guy at the
desk if he’d seen me before you ran out looking for me,” Candace countered
reasonably.

“Oh, no,” said Lowell. “He didn’t.”

“Oh, yes, he did. I got dinner,
brought some of it back to the room, and sat around all night, wondering where
on earth he was, what had happened to him. He finally comes back around midnight,
limping in on those old flip-flops, and he didn’t even tell me the whole story
until the next day. How he walked all over Madrid trying to find me.” She shook
her head at him, but said with warm affection, “The idiot.”

Erick looked to Lowell for sympathy.
“I thought I’d have to saw my feet off, they hurt so much. I couldn’t walk for
a day. And did she pamper me? Bring me food and ice while I was immobile? No.
She laughed at me and told me she hoped I learned my lesson. I ask you.”

Lowell smiled. “Dude. I’m with
Candace on this one. You should’ve just waited in the hotel.”

Candace laughed and curled her arm
around Lowell’s. “See?”

Erick pouted at them and ate a tuna
sushi in one bite. “You can say that because you weren’t there,” he grumbled.

No, I wasn’t
, Lowell
thought, and inwardly sighed.

-----

“Crocker gets the ball... And lets
the clock run out. And Crocker University has regained the Golden Hammer from
California University Rockridge at the end of this dramatic game between rivals.”

“Let’s look back at tonight’s game.
Crocker failed to score in the first quarter, and the Rockridge Mountain Lions
led by seven. In the rainy second quarter, both teams got mired in the mud and
each only put three points on the board.”

“Dave, there’s going to be a lot of
talk about Crocker’s natural grass field after tonight. Lots of sliding and
falling, and injuries on both teams.”

“That’s right, Brian. At twenty-six
seconds before the half, Rockridge lost their quarterback, Renny Martinez.
Although he had to be helped off the field, we’ve received word that he’ll be
all right.”

“That’s good news for Rockridge,
who are six-and-four this season, and you can’t help liking their
determination. But in the second half, it was going to take more than
determination to win this game.”

“What it took was Crocker’s Erick
West back to true form, passing for a hundred and ninety-six yards. Before
halftime, based on his performance tonight, I’m sure many people were asking
themselves why West’s name has even been mentioned in connection with the
Heisman, but in the second half, I think he came out with the attitude,
I’ve
got to prove I’m Heisman material
.”

“Sure he did, but you know he’s
been thinking that all season, when he didn’t win it last year after Crocker’s
first eleven-and-one season since 1924.”

“By the way, their only loss last
year was to Rockridge, who finished last season five-and-seven. But while they
got to keep the Golden Hammer for another year, Crocker went on to the Orange
Bowl to beat WVU.”

“And one of the heroes of that
Orange Bowl game, tight end Lowell Menacker, caught two touchdowns tonight. He’s
been West’s go-to guy this season after Anson Dempsey was injured. Menacker has
really stepped up to the plate, and as you can see, in this third quarter play,
West predicts where Menacker’s going to be as he gets the pass off, and right
there, Menacker makes the catch.”