Divisions (Dev and Lee) (9 page)

I glance at the clock. Ten after eight. “Mom said nine-thirty, so I could get on the road by quarter to eleven. If we’re out of here at nine, that’s plenty of time.”

“Mmm.” He reaches behind him, trails fingers up my erection. “Up for a little bonding time before we go?”

“I am if you are.” I wriggle around until my tip is just beneath his tail.

“Mmmf. Go get your lube and condoms. I’ll call my father again.”

I give a playful thrust and then roll out of the bed. “Such sexy talk, you charmer.”

He snorts and stretches a long foxy arm to the nightstand for his phone. As I dig in my coat pocket for the bag with the lube and condoms, he talks, so I guess his father answered.

“Yes, good morning. Thank you for finally picking up.” Pause. “I guessed that, but it actually worried me more that you just disappeared.”

I open the box of condoms and take out two. “Well, you’ve never gotten divorced before,” Lee says, “so I’m not sure what to expect.”

I’m not sure whether to go back to the bed or not. Lee says, “Right, Dev says we should leave here around nine.” Pause. “Yes, but he wouldn’t have if you hadn’t disappeared, so…” He takes a breath. “So we’ll meet you in the lobby then.”

He clicks the phone off and drops it back on the nightstand, then looks over his shoulder back at me. “Well,” he says, “we’ve got forty-five minutes.”

I climb back into bed and drop the tube into his paw. A moment of pressing my nose into his shoulder fur and situating myself under his tail again gets me hard enough to put my condom on, and by the time he reaches back with a slick paw, he’s hard enough for me to put his on, too.

And then we’re together, really together, locked tight and moving on the same track, and I know he’s not worried about his father because I’m not worried about anything else, just that wonderful motion, the closeness, the feel and the warmth and the smell of him, and I’m thinking, how lucky am I that I get to live with him now?

We make growling, panting, yelping sounds, tension and delight and straining together, and the end seems to come fast, but take a good long time. It’s been four days—technically five, maybe—since the hotel in Port City, and I’ve missed him. And he’s missed me.

“Mmmmf.” I bury my nose between his ears and hold him tight, hanging on to the closeness. In three hours I’ll be on a plane; in eight hours I’ll be hitting people on a practice field. In eight hours he’ll be in a car driving to Chevali. But for now, we’re together, where we belong.

***

Clean and showered, we head to the lobby, where Lee’s father is reading the paper. He puts it down and stands. “I’m sorry if I worried you,” he says. “I just wanted to be alone.” His eyes flick up to me. “And I thought you probably did too.”

Lee opens his mouth, then shuts it, and takes a breath. I take the opportunity to dive in. “Thanks, Mr. Farrel,” I say. “I mean, I know we’d have been happy to sit and talk with you. But if you wanted to be alone, then…”

“Yeah.” Lee’s tail swishes. “I was mostly worried about you.”

“You needn’t be.” His father adjusts his glasses, looking up at the clock. “Shall we be going?”

He takes a step toward the door. Lee hesitates, then reaches out for his father’s sleeve. “Father,” he says. “You can talk to me. Not…now. I mean, whenever. This thing Mother’s doing, it affects me, too. I’d rather not lose you both.”

His father pauses, then takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. He steps back and puts an arm around his son. “You’re not going to lose me, Wiley.”

“Mmkay.” Lee hugs him back. “You want to have dinner tonight?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be on the road to Chevali?”

I was going to ask that too, but his father beats me to it, with an eye turned toward me.

Lee grins, disengaging from the hug. “I can be a little bit late. You just gave me a night with Dev, so we sort of owe you anyway.” He tilts his head, ears perking. “Want to come with me to Chevali?”

His father raises an eyebrow. “I can’t take the time off work. But I will take you up on the dinner, if you’re sure it won’t make you late.” He turns my way. “And if Dev doesn’t mind.”

“I don’t.” I rest a paw on Lee’s shoulder. “And you should come visit us in Chevali sometime. You like burgers? I know a great burger place.”

“We don’t get good Sonoran food up here,” his father says. “Maybe when I’m in the mood for that, I’ll fly down.”

The Sonoran restaurant we know best is the one where my dad tried to disown me while I got drunk. It was in the tabloids, sort of. Lee and I exchange glances, but I guess he hadn’t read the story or anything, so he’s not being funny. “Um, yeah, I’m sure I can dig up a place.”

“And,” Lee says, “if you want to be alone, tell me you want to be alone. Don’t just sneak off somewhere like, uh.” His ears fold down, and he looks kind of adorable as he picks at his claws. “Like I did in college.”

His father does crack a smile, then. “I guess we both can learn from our mistakes.”

“In my defense,” Lee says, “I was twenty years younger than you were when I made them.”

“All right, all right.” His father checks the clock again. “Let’s go, or we’ll be late for breakfast. I don’t want Dev to get in trouble.”

Lee happens to be looking at me, so I meet his eyes and smile. “If I didn’t want to get in trouble, I shouldn’t have gone home with this fox years and years ago.”

“Only two and a half,” Lee says, but his tail swings behind him and his eyes have a bit of a sparkle.

“Two and a half years is a good long time,” his father says. “I hope you have many more.”

We walk outside, bundled up against the cold. The sun is out and the day is crystal clear, one of those days when all the world’s edges are sharp. You can see your breath, and it feels like nothing’s hiding, like everything is right there in front of you. I want to freeze things right now, even though Lee isn’t completely happy and his father’s still dealing with shit. Because in this moment, we all really understand each other.

Also, I just had a pretty nice morning with Lee. I’m sure that has something to do with it.

I can’t say I’ll miss the winters in Hilltown. I don’t mind the cold; my fur grows out for it, so I stay pretty warm. But the slush and the ice, the wind and the sleet, all that drives you back indoors, and if you don’t have someone to share it with, then it isn’t fun at all.

At least Dev’s plane isn’t delayed. He’s flying first class, but on a commercial flight, so he has to go through security and all, not like when we flew on the owner’s private jet. So after breakfast, we get him to the airport, and then Father and I avoid the crowds of Black Friday shoppers and hole up in a sports bar. There’s nothing on except basketball, but the Bikers are trying to defend their title and it’s at least a pretty interesting background.

We don’t have much to talk about anyway. He asks more about my plans, I don’t ask him about Mother. The only time we come close to that is when he says, “Are you sure you want to come up to get your stuff? I could just get your things. How much is there?”

“A few books.” I think back to my last Christmas visit. “High school yearbooks, and scrapbooks. Old DVDs I don’t watch anymore. Some of my FLAG stuff from college. Clothes I don’t wear anymore. Oh, my jean jacket, the blue denim with all the patches on it.”

He wrinkles his muzzle. “I’d forgotten about that.”

Freshman year, I bought that jacket at a Goodwill store and sewed pride patches all over it. I wore it to Christmas, and Mother and Father tried to make me take it off. That was the first time Mother really yelled at me over my gay pride activity. She said if I wanted to parade around campus ‘like that,’ it was my business, but I wasn’t to dress ‘like that’ in front of family. “Maybe there’s other stuff. I don’t know, you’ve probably been in there more recently than I have.”

“Your plush Hilltown Dragon.”

I put a paw to my nose and laugh. “Hothead.”

“I could just put all that in a couple boxes. It’s no trouble.”

It’s tempting. The flight up is going to be a pain. “I think I’d rather be there. I kinda want to take the stuff myself. I mean…there might be some things I don’t care about anymore.”

“I think you always care.” He tilts the beer into his muzzle. “Sometimes you just don’t want to be reminded of it.”

That phrase keeps echoing as I drive away from Hilltown, down through the cold towards the warmth of Chevali. It’s snowing lightly, the flakes bright white in my headlights against the black night. Not many cars on the road once I get away from the city. But the roads are pretty clear still; we haven’t had any accumulation yet this year.

It really is true that you can choose the things that matter to you and focus on them. For instance, everything I need to bring with me to Chevali is crammed into the back seat and trunk of my little car: books, clothes, movies, computer. But like the couple boxes of things left at my parents’ house, I know that I have things in the back of my head that have never really gone away, no matter how much I ignore them. Like, I’m done with Brian. We were best friends, but then he ran away, and when I went to see him, he came on to me even knowing I was with Dev, not to mention his outing Dev to the media. Yeah, that ended up okay—for now—but he didn’t mean it to, and it’s the intention that matters, right?

But I’m heading to take up residence in his city, and we probably won’t be able to avoid each other. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. If I really want to avoid Brian, I won’t go to the places I’m pretty sure he’ll go: gay clubs, LGBT group meetings, perhaps football practices. But if I do that, I’ll be letting him back into my life, letting him carve out negative spaces where I assume his presence. If I just do what I want, then when I do run into him, it’ll be natural, and I can deal with him.

The problem is that I’m not sure what I want. I don’t want to just sit at home cleaning the house and waiting for my boyfriend. Sure, that sounds nice for a while, but after you’ve read all the books and played all the games, then what? I can watch football and take notes, and I know I can still contribute to a team somewhere. If someone gives me a chance.

Morty’s going to give me a good recommendation—besides the guy Emmanuel in Yerba, he said he’ll give me a recommendation anywhere I want to apply. He’s still head of scouting for the Dragons, which means he might be looking for work after the season too, the way the Dragons are headed this year. There were rumors the ownership was looking to clean house, and not just the coaching staff. Morty said if he catches on somewhere else, he’ll bring me with him.

And that would mean leaving Dev again, going back to seeing him only on weekends when I can arrange a flight. If I get a job in Yerba, at least it’s a little closer than Hilltown was; if I get a job with one of the schools down in Chevali, I wouldn’t have to leave at all. But I don’t really want a college job. I like working in the pros. It feels more real.

The road is lonely, even with my music. I try an audio book, but it just makes me even more sleepy. I have a headset, so I can call Dev, but he’s got a couple intense days of practice and then a Monday night game, so I don’t want to bother him unless I really need to. I try Salim, the only college friend I’m really still in touch with, but he’s too busy for more than a minute of clipped conversation. There are a couple guys from the Dragons I could call, like Alex, my former officemate, but I think those calls might just depress me.

Two days of driving through snow and wind, sun and clouds, of eating at cheap burger stands and soggy sandwich shops, get me near enough to Chevali that I can tune in one of their AM stations Monday night when the game starts. I listen to the first half, frustrated that I can’t watch what Dev is doing on plays where the action doesn’t go to him. He’s doing well enough that the announcers mention “that great linebacking corps the Firebirds have developed,” and then of course they have to say, “Miski’s surprise announcement of his sexuality—the first openly gay player in the UFL or in any major sport—seems to really have energized this team and brought them together.”

Of course that’s how they look tonight. The Pelagia Manticores are a terrible team, last in the division, and they sound completely bewildered to be playing on Monday night, like the team thought they had a bye week or something. Chevali goes up 21-0 by halftime, even though Aston is still having trouble completing long passes. Doesn’t matter; Pelagia can’t stop Jaws, whether the wolverine runs up the middle or around the end. He’s got almost a hundred yards at the half.

Dev doesn’t have any sacks or interceptions, but Pelagia only has one first down, so the defense overall is doing great. I stop at a suburb outside of Chevali and get into a sports bar in time to see the second half.

Pelagia manages a field goal to avoid the shutout. That’s how you can tell they’ve got a losing mentality: on the Chevali twenty-yard line, with only three yards to go on fourth down, they kick instead of going for the touchdown. The coach just wants to avoid being shut out; he’s given up on winning the game. The players sense that kind of thing and they respond to it, consciously or not.

Chevali has no such issue. Early in the fourth quarter, Pike sacks the quarterback, who fumbles the ball. Brick picks it up and lumbers to the goal line, shaking off tacklers and diving in for a score which turns out to be the last of the game. The Firebirds kill seven minutes on a drive and then Aston throws a pass to the end zone which is tipped and intercepted. Doesn’t matter; Pelagia goes three and out and Chevali runs out the clock.

I cheer with the others in the bar, but it’s a muted kind of cheering, like if we’d won a race against a guy on crutches. I settle up and run out to the car.

At Dev’s place, an hour and a half later, I let myself in with the spare key. He’s still out celebrating, his text message says, but he’ll be home soon, and I am so excited my tail is wagging into doors and walls and I can’t sit still on the couch. I debate getting naked to welcome him home, but then I think he might want to talk before jumping in bed. Then I think, hell with it, and I strip.

So I’m sitting on the couch naked drinking one of his beers (a good local brew) when I hear the elevator clatter to this floor. I grin at the door, remaining on the couch, and that’s what he sees when he walks in.

“I owe myself a hundred bucks,” he says, closing the door. “Bet myself you’d be naked.”

“That’s a bet everybody wins.” I put down the beer and get up to go hug him. He smells of tiger and shampoo and beer and liquor and he hugs back tightly enough to pop my spine.

“You get to see the game?” He presses his nose down into my ears.

“Second half. You looked pretty good. Didn’t let up on them at all.”

He murmurs, “Uh-uh,” and sways me back and forth. I swish my tail in time and untuck his shirt so I can slide my paws under it, against the short fur and hard muscles of his lower back. He mouths my ear and I shiver, and he says, “Let me get these things off.”

So I say, “No, let me get those things off,” and we stumble to the bedroom as I unfasten and undo his clothing, shedding it all the way to the bed. By the time we get there, he’s as naked as I am, and if we’re both not quite ready, we’re not far. He pushes me to the bed, falls on me face to face, and holds me tight.

“Welcome home,” he purrs in my ear, paw reaching around to squeeze my rear, under my tail. His arousal rubs against mine.

I press my muzzle to his, kiss deeply. We’ve made love in his apartment before, but as I sink into the bedsheets—his bedsheets, our bedsheets—I remember that this is our bed now, that my paws running down his sides will happen every night, that this is where I live.

Instead of turning me over, he lifts my legs, and when he slides inside me, his golden eyes meet mine. We watch each other, gasping together, and press close to kiss when our climaxes come, arms tight around each other, locked and squirming with our shared pleasure.

I collapse back onto the pillow, close my eyes, and I am home.

***

In the morning, we get my boxes from the car. He has the day off because the team won, so we plan to go out to lunch, maybe see a movie, then grab a takeout dinner that we can eat here at the apartment. Our apartment.

The first thing I unpack is a picture of me and Dev that I have from our spring vacation, back when he was closeted and—and I guess I was, too. I had it up in my apartment, but in my bedroom so I didn’t have to worry about visitors seeing it (though I never really had visitors). With Dev’s approval, I put it in his bedroom—our bedroom—not because we’re worried about people seeing it (though he never really has visitors either), but because we want it there to look at.

Then I pull out another picture, one I had done as a surprise for him, and I put that up next to it, on his chest of drawers. It’s sort of hidden behind the door when the door is open, which I guess is a bonus. I look at it for a second and then take it down again. I’ll put it up while he’s away and he can discover it when he gets back. It’ll be a little surprise, maybe stop our days from becoming routine too fast.

I don’t have much else in the way of decorations, just a few knick-knacks that Dev doesn’t really have a place for. So I leave them in a box and put the box in the part of his closet that he set aside for me, along with a Dragons poster and a Firebirds poster. There’s wall space in the living room, but I want to make it a little classier: right now it’s just a couch and chair, a coffee table, and an entertainment unit. Behind the couch is a small computer desk with Dev’s computer on it, which reminds me to unpack mine.

Dev just has wired internet, so I’ll have to get a router, or, better yet, a wireless router. I unplug his computer and set my laptop to checking e-mail in the living room. He doesn’t have bookshelves, and I didn’t bring mine—too big and unwieldy—so I shove the box of my books into the closet and then open up the boxes of clothes.

Half the dresser is set aside for my clothes. Dev says I can have half the closet, which is great, because I have a lot of shirts to hang up. Not that I needed to worry: his closet is three times the size of the one I used to have, and all he has in it is three suits, four shirts (still in their bag from the dry cleaner), and one wire hanger on the otherwise bare wooden rod on his side. “I’m gonna start a shopping list,” I say.

“What?” Dev pokes his head around the bedroom door. “You’re bringing a ton of stuff in here, what else do you need to buy?”

“Hangers, to start with. Then probably some stuff for the fridge. You don’t eat in a lot and I want to start cooking. And some stuff for the bathroom. Also, do you have a vacuum?”

He shakes his head. “I keep meaning to get one…”

“It’s winter, and my coat’s going to grow out. So there’ll be a lot of fur around.”

Behind him, his tail flicks. “More fox to love.” He winks.

“Uh-huh. You think it’s cute now, but by December when you’re picking fur out of your Szechuan takeout, you’ll be happy for a vacuum.”

“Heh. I’m gonna unpack the rest of your kitchen stuff and put it away. How much longer you have in here?”

I scan the list of eighty-eight e-mails and glance at the remaining clothes in the box. “Half an hour to get through the most urgent e-mails, half an hour to finish the rest of the clothes, I guess.”

“Cool. Lunch at twelve-thirty, then.”

“Great.” I sit down as he disappears back to the kitchen, but I don’t look at the e-mails right away. “Urgent,” in my current situation, is an exaggeration, making myself feel important.

First I check out the coverage of the previous night’s game. All the major sites have stories along the lines of “the Firebirds have arrived,” and “they’re winning the games they should, and a few they shouldn’t.” None of them mention Dev specifically in relation to that; they talk about the lock-down defense in general, Gerrard’s leadership, and Coach Samuelson having the team playing together. They compare Chevali’s linebackers to Crystal City’s, also led by a coyote, and widely considered tops in the league, so that’s pretty cool. Where they do mention Dev, it’s to speculate whether the media attention around his coming out brought the team together, and talking about how the solidity of the team is one reason it hasn’t been more controversial. They have quotes from a couple of the Pelagia players, who sound mostly annoyed that the media is asking them what it’s like to play against a gay opponent. “I don’t care who he [sleeps with], I just wish he was a half-step slower,” their tight end says. The quarterback, a little more media-savvy, says, “Gay or straight or bi, they’re playing at a really high level and it’s a challenge to get anything by them.”