Safety Net (40 page)

“Well, yeah. I did. But that doesn’t
mean I wanted to hear about it.” Except, of course, for the part of him that
was wildly and inappropriately curious to know all the intimate details. “Lowell
sorta told me once that you guys were fucking.”

“Shit,” Erick laughed softly. “That’s
our Lowell.”

Dale, appalled at himself, asked, “Does
he like to bottom?”

“Huh?” Erick rose up on his elbows.

“Oh God, forget I asked. I can’t
believe I said that.” Dale grimaced. “Damn. You know, everything turned out the
way it was supposed to. You two got together and that was all okay. But then
one day Lowell sorta let it slip that you guys were fucking, and I couldn’t
help it. I kept picturing him... I bet he likes it. Lowell’s... What’s the word
I want? Sensual.”

“Oh. Um.” Erick lay back down and
cleared his throat. “Ye-ah,” he said slowly, “he likes that, too.” With
particular emphasis on
too
, opening up an entirely new avenue of thought
and fantasy Dale hadn’t considered before. Made him shiver, both hot and cold.

“Holy crap. Erick. I had no idea.”

After a pause Erick said, “Then I
guess we weren’t super obvious.” His voice was low, husky, and Dale licked his
lips and winced.

“To be honest, I was lying here
thinking of Andy when you said that about Lowell.” Dale sighed a little. “Last
time I was with Andy, we didn’t get much sleep. But we weren’t up talking.”

“Oh. Sorry.” A moment passed. Erick
said softly, “Shit.”

Dale swallowed hard. “I empathize.
Oh, believe me, homie. I empathize.”

“I don’t suppose...” Erick’s sigh
was strangled. “No. So, so wrong. Damn.”

Dale’s skin felt clammy against the
mattress and his dick throbbed. “I’m not attracted to you,” he said quietly. “I
never have been.”

“No. I know that.” Erick laughed a
little. “Lowell says you have crappy taste in men but from what I can tell, you
have excellent taste. Looks-wise, anyway.”

It was the laugh that did it. “Looks
aren’t everything,” Dale muttered, throwing the blankets off and rolling onto
his side. He reached over and brushed his hand against Erick’s thigh -- the
fuzz of hair below a warm stretch of undershorts. He followed the smooth,
stretched curve to the heavy bulk of Erick’s balls. Erick made a low, throaty
sound as Dale cupped and rubbed them through the fabric, playing with them
before he ran his palm up the hard shaft of Erick’s cock, straining in his
underwear.

Erick’s breath caught. Dale reached
inside the fabric to touch the hot tip of Erick’s cock. Erick released his
breath with a shudder. He was so hard and ready, and Dale had always privately
conceded that Erick had a great cock. He could do this -- it was just another
cock. He could pump it and bring it off. Bring
Erick
off.

Erick.

Dale pulled his hand away, groaning
apologetically, “Oh God, I am so sorry. This feels incestuous. I don’t think I
can...”

Erick panted harshly. “No. It’s
okay. It’s okay.” He took a deep, gasping breath. “Thing is...”

Dale, whose hard-on was almost
painfully throbbing, flopped onto his back and gritted out, “No, no, go for it.
I understand. Totally.”

Erick sort of whimpered. Dale shut
his eyes tightly, pushed his underwear down, and grabbed his own dick and
worked it quickly. Tried to hear his own breath, the sound of his own flesh,
but couldn’t stop listening to Erick’s breathing and the sounds as Erick jacked
off furiously and grunted quietly when he came. Come pulsed over Dale’s fingers
and fever spread rapidly across his skin until the high dissipated and he
started to cool.

“I’m sorry,” Erick whispered.

“Shhhh. Homeboy, please.” Dale
sighed. “Just a sec, okay?”

Dale got out of bed, cleaned up in
the bathroom, brought a warm washcloth and towel back with him. He sat on the
bed and handed Erick the washcloth. Erick took it and wiped off.

“Asking you to stay was one of my
terrible ideas.” Erick blew out a breath. “What was I thinking?”

Dale handed him the towel and said,
“No worse than me agreeing to stay.”

Erick muttered, “Then I go and talk
about Lowell. Like things aren’t crazy enough already. Like I don’t know what
thinking about Lowell does to me.”

Dale stretched out on the bed and
clasped his hands behind his head. “Plenty of blame to go around. You don’t
have a monopoly on it.” He hesitated for a long beat. “Erick. I sort of love
you, you know. Not in that way. Not in the ‘I want to fuck your brains out’
way. Honestly. It’s more like a brother. Except.” He hesitated again. “Except
for the part where it isn’t. Because of course I’ve checked you out. And you
have a nice dick. And I could get to know that dick, I could do fun things with
that dick. Wouldn’t take much temptation. And you have a great ass, but oh my God,
am I so not going there. For one thing, Lowell would murder me.”

After a silence that stretched on
too long for Dale’s nerves, Erick said mildly, “Lowell is pretty solicitous
about my ass, true.”

Dale barked out a laugh, releasing
all of his tension. “Solicitous. I’ll bet.” He sighed. “I bet he’s a great
fuck. Damn him.”

“Dale,” Erick said warningly, but
with a touch of soft amusement. After a moment, he added, “He’s an awesome
fuck. Not that I have much to compare against. But.”

“Yeah.” Dale sighed again. “Though
I gotta tell ya, he can’t be better than Andy. Andy is the awesomest of awesome
fucks, you don’t even know.”

“I knew you and Andy were good
together,” Erick said smugly. “I could tell.”

“How so?”

“You were always so relaxed around
him. Happy.” Into a silence Dale filled with memories of Andy, Erick asked, “Do
you love him?”

“Yeah. I do. You know what’s sad
about it? I didn’t think I did. All that time we were together at Crocker, I
didn’t think I loved him. I was crazy about him, I was horny for him, but I
didn’t know I loved him. It wasn’t until I was out here and he was getting
ready to go to Africa, and I thought, ‘how can I let him go? how can I be
without him?’ And then I thought, I gotta let him go. That’s when I knew.”

“Do you think that’s why...” Erick
started to say, then stopped.

“Why what?”

“Well, why he went to Africa.
Because you didn’t think you loved him,” Erick said slowly. Gentle and careful.

Dale felt the same emptiness he
always felt after he and Andy ended their calls. “Yeah,” he said, and left it
at that.

Erick didn’t say anything for a
long time and Dale figured he’d gone to sleep. He closed his eyes and got
comfortable on his side. Erick said, his voice low and drowsy, “Hey, what you
were saying about that sorta like brothers and sorta not like brothers stuff? It’s
the same for me. Not that I checked you out, much. And earlier was mostly me
being selfish ‘cause I wanted to get off. But also, I wanted to get you off.
That’s something I like to do.”

Dale felt a twinge he immediately
let fade away. “Oh, Erick,” he said quietly.

Erick shifted and draped his arm
around Dale. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah, it’s okay. Except... You
didn’t put your undies back on, did you?”

“Uh, no. Is it creepy?” Erick
murmured, “Is it too much temptation?”

Dale said drily, “I’ll restrain
myself.” He relaxed again and Erick relaxed with him, and Dale said, “Actually,
it feels kinda nice to have a naked cock to sleep with. One I don’t have to
worry about. Uh. That sounded wrong.”

Erick chuckled softly. “It’s okay.
I understand, I think. G’night, Dale.”

Dale patted Erick’s arm. “Good
night.”

Erick stayed until Monday. They
spent most of Saturday passing the ball around at one of the larger
neighborhood parks, and Dale hadn’t felt this alive and free and happy since
leaving Crocker. Dale stayed in Erick’s hotel room again and they talked,
mostly about Andy and Candace and the sobering job market. It wasn’t weird, and
it was nice to curl up in bed with Erick asleep beside him. Dale had hated
cuddling before Lowell had made him see the error of his ways. He smiled,
fondly remembering holding Lowell in a tight, uncomfortable dorm bed.

Erick asked about Brent, whom he’d
never met, and on Sunday they met up with Brent and some friends for brunch.
Craig was there, which Dale kicked himself for not anticipating, and Brent’s
boyfriend Lyle said as he shook hands with Erick, “You’re Erick West.”

Erick smiled. “Yeah.”

“How do you know him?” Brent asked
Lyle, softly surprised, as they all took their seats around the table.

“Number one draft pick last year.
Crocker’s star quarterback.” Lyle looked at Erick the way the Crocker fangirls
had, and Dale grinned.

“Football fan,” Erick said to Lyle
approvingly. He clapped Dale on the shoulder. “Dale and I were on the team
together.”

Brent stared at Dale, eyebrows
raised. “You played football for Crocker?”

“Sure did,” Erick said heartily. “Our
best wide receiver.”

Lyle looked at Dale with new
interest. Brent said musingly, “So that’s why your schedule was so bizarre. I
never made the connection.”

Dale opened his menu, slightly
embarrassed that he’d never told Brent about football. Sitting on the other
side of Erick was Craig and one of Lyle’s friends. Erick said to Craig, “Dale
told me you play rugby.”

Dale peered past Erick and noticed
Craig checking Erick out. He’d never seen anyone except Lowell look at Erick
that way, and with Lowell at least there’d been more to it than lust. Dale
glanced at Erick, tried to see him not as Erick but as a hunky young stud.
Couldn’t quite manage it.

Craig and Erick talked rugby for a
while, comparing it to football. Lyle got involved in the conversation, and
Erick roped Dale in by recounting Orange Bowl highlights and some of Dale’s
best plays. Dale elbowed Erick and said, “NFL quarterback and that’s all you’ve
got to say?” In bits and pieces they managed to get some New Haven talk out of
Erick, though he was very careful about what he said.

Lyle’s friend said, “I’m surprised
an NFL player would be seen in public with this group,” though he didn’t say it
sharply.

Erick frowned, very still. “Why
wouldn’t I? Dale’s one of my best friends.”

“New Haven might not see it as so
harmless,” Lyle said. He looked worried.

“Then that’s my problem,” Erick
said evenly.

Craig’s lusty gaze mingled with
admiration as he commented, “You’ve got a pair, I’ll say that.” Dale choked on
his water.
Yes, he does. I’ve felt them.

As they left brunch, Dale said, “Craig
was completely cruising you.”

“I know.” Erick looked smug. “It
was fun.”

Dale stared at him. “Who are you
and what have you done with Erick West?”

Erick grinned. “It’s not like I was
gonna do anything about it. Though he’s handsome.” He nudged Dale. “You’ve got
an eye for the hotties.”

They went back to the park to toss
the ball for a few hours before having dinner. In Erick’s hotel room
afterwards, Dale slumped in a chair and propped his feet on the bed and said, “I
don’t want to say Lyle’s friend is right, but aren’t you at all concerned about
the negative attention? You know there’s some comments about you being gay floating
around.” Or so Lowell had once told Dale, but Dale hadn’t managed to find any
of them.

“Comments,” Erick muttered
derisively, and stretched out on the bed. “If they’re gonna end my career
because of comments or who my friends are, then they can go to hell,” he said
with a shrug.

“Bro,” Dale said in soft surprise.

Erick looked at him. “Seriously? It’s
not exactly like I thought it would be. I knew it was a business, but I guess I
was a naive kid. I didn’t think the business part would affect me. I thought
the team would be outside of the business but the team
is
the business.”
He picked at the blanket. “Everything’s about the organization, what’s best for
the organization. Trades are for the organization, nothing personal... Don’t
get me wrong. I love it. I love playing more than anything, and getting onto
the field, facing all these guys who’ve been playing at the highest level for
years. What a rush, man.”

“Trades?” Dale asked. “They haven’t
talked about trading you, have they?”

Erick didn’t answer.

“Fuck, why? They didn’t even let
you play. Two games? One of which was a win.”

Erick looked uncomfortable. “You
won’t say anything to anyone, right? Shane Benjamin doesn’t want to retire.” Benjamin
was the Hawks’ thirty-six-year-old quarterback who’d been with the team since
he’d been a first-round draft pick at age twenty-one. He’d been unstoppable
back in the day, but the day had been a decade ago. He’d had hip surgery at
twenty-nine, and a series of neck surgeries over the past three years.

“And it’s complicated,” Erick said.
“It’s all about contracts, and Benjamin’s current contract isn’t up until next
year.”

“How the hell did he manage to get
a contract that lasts until he’s thirty-seven?” asked Dale.

“I don’t know, he must have the
best contract guy in the business. And the thing is, he’s pals with everybody.
I mean, he’s a great guy. I was his fan, too. So people love him and no one
wants to boot him out. But then there’s the team, who haven’t had a winning
season in three years. And the new offensive coordinator and new coaches who
came in, there’s friction there.” Erick ran his hand over his hair.

“And you got dropped into the
middle of it.” Dale sighed. “Shit. That sucks. Do you want to be traded?”

“No. I just got there. That’d be
like giving up.”

“Did they mention where you might
go if they did trade you?” Dale was thinking of Portland.

Erick flashed him a look. “It
wouldn’t be Portland. They’ve got a good thing with Kellen Forrester. But one
of the places -- apparently they asked about me -- was Cleveland.”