Out of Position (16 page)

“’A Christmas Parable’? We saw that.” My eyes want to drift shut, but I force them open, to keep drinking in the sight of him. “Don’t want to go to class tomorrow.”

“What are you taking?”

I rattle off the classes: a senior English thesis, an 18
^th
century lit review, a creative writing class, and a movie class I’m taking to fill out the time. “Should be no sweat to get through them to graduate. The senior thesis is gonna be easy once I decide what to do. Only the lit review is kind of a pain. Eighteenth century authors, ugh. At least Oliver Goldsmith is kind of amusing. You’re just taking that economic theory application seminar, right?”

“Economic Theory Application to City Planning, yeah, and, um,” his ears flick, “21
^st
Century Gender Studies.”

I can’t help giggling. “What?”

He pokes my stomach. “I needed one more credit, and it was a Tuesday-Thursday like the other one.”

“That was the only Tuesday-Thursday seminar?” I giggle more the more he pokes me.

“I needed to keep my four-day weekends,” he says, “to practice for the combine.”

I sigh. “Weren’t you supposed to have heard by now? It’s only a month and a half away.”

“I got a call from an agent,” he says. “Rod something.”

“They can’t even wait ’til you get your official invitation? Damn sharks.”

“I think he said he’s a bobcat,” Dev says, but I see the twitch to his whiskers.

“Wait a minute.” I push my nose right up against his. “You already got your invitation!” The grin spreads across his muzzle. “Oh, you…” I reach out to tickle him, but he takes my paws and rolls over on top of me, pinning me.

“I got the letter after you called, the day after Christmas,” he says, pressing me down into the bed, eyes sparkling. “I wanted to see how long I could keep it secret.”

I squirm under him, grinning back. “You’re going to the combine!”

He purrs, and looks smug. “So are you.”

“Oh, yeah.” My ears perk up. “I should call Morty.”

He noses down my muzzle, to my throat. “Right now?”

I shiver. “No,” I breathe. “Not right now.”

 
I can’t watch Dev’s practices, of course. Coach is excited enough to have a kid going to the combine that he sets up personal sessions and calls in favors from some D-I friends of his. I hang around one of the practices — in my regular clothes, not my drag outfit — but I stand out because there’s nobody else watching. Eventually the coach yells at me to get out. Dev doesn’t look at me as I slink away.

So I take to scouring the Internet for stats and video of the top players at his position and giving him tips over lunch, dinner, and sex. I like watching his reaction when I’m teasing him, holding his hardness in my paw. He’ll be starting to get all worked up, and I’ll say something like, “Control your breathing, you need to work on your stamina.” Usually he takes a moment to process that, and then he glares at me and says something about keeping my mind on what I’m doing, and I ask him if that means he thinks I need practice, and we go on, with a little more heat.

These are good days, all bright and full of expectation, even though Dev gets more and more worried as the weekend draws closer. He has now gotten several official letters from the UFL about the schedule and policies and strict behavior guidelines. It’s not that he thinks he won’t be able to follow them; he’s worried about what the other guys will do. I’m not talking the obvious ones like “no guns allowed,” I’m talking the ones like “no interfering with other players’ interviews.” Dev asks why they would need to spell that out, and I tell him that these guys will do anything to get an UFL contract. By his delayed response, I see him wondering how far
he
would go.

It’s the week before the combine when we have that conversation, walking through the campus mall side by side, just like two pals talking about the future. He’s got that behavior policy letter crumpled in one fist, jammed into his pocket, while I have my paws clasped behind my back, tail swinging demurely behind me. Other students mill around us, which would’ve bothered Dev once upon a time. “Don’t worry about it,” I tell him. “Just be aware all the time.”

“I’m going to be worrying about football.”

“Football is 50% mental. Look at it this way: usually when you line up for drills, you have to figure out what the opposing team is doing. Well, the athletic part this time is easy, it’s all laid out for you. What you need to figure out is what every other guy in your position is doing, and do it better.”

“Great,” he says sourly. “I’ll just do that, then.”

“I’ll be there to help,” I shoot at him. Morty remembered me. He wants to get together the night before Dev’s scheduled to arrive, to talk about how I’m going to help him out. “I’m gonna be learning to be a scout.”

“You don’t scout what other prospects do behind closed doors.”

I grin until he looks at me. “C’mon,” I say. “This is me, remember?”

“What does that mean, doc?”

He’s anxious and frustrated already, and I’m half-deliberately goading him. “My blessed parents instilled in me the gift of gab, and I have been honing it lo these many years at this august institution,” I say. “If there is a snippet of information at the combine that might be of a help to my favorite cornerback, do you think I’ll stop until I’ve nosed it out of its hiding place, however reclusive?”

He shakes his head, and then his expression gets all serious, the way it does when he has an idea. “Would you…”

“How far would I go?” I slip into my husky voice. “How far do you think, stud?”

“Don’t,” he says.

I stay in character. “Even if it means the difference between an UFL contract and a job at your father’s garage?”

He looks straight ahead of him. “Just don’t,” he says.

It’s a nice moment, that jealousy in his expression. “I can’t tell what I might have to do,” I say.

“Lee,” he says, “you might get hurt.”

That shuts me up, and good. Damn him for coming up with just the right thing to say to turn my little game of making him jealous into something more serious. I wait a few for the warmth and lump in my throat to subside, as we walk on under the rustling of the leaves in the trees, and then I say, in my normal voice, “Where you want to go for dinner? Mitchell Hall, or the Goose?”

We have variants on this conversation a few times over the next week, Dev worrying about his athletic performance (and getting increasingly picky about what he eats) and his interview performance, and me trying to coach him on the latter and reassure him on the former. From what I can see, he’ll do fine as long as he stays honest and doesn’t try to blow them away with something he’s not prepared to do. His times are good for his position—not great, but good enough, and combined with his smarts, there’s no reason he can’t play professionally. Except that he’s not sure he can.

 
I spend the last night before we leave with Dev, trying to take his mind off the impending poking, prodding, measuring, and questioning he’s going to endure. Of course, I do this in my own vulpine way.

“Six point eight… come on, you can get to seven, I know you can.” I’m pressing a ruler against his erection while my paw teases his balls. He growls and pants, trying not to laugh or swat me. “You think Shamus Livingston settled for six point eight? You think Seito’s going to settle for six point eight?”

“He’s a wolf,” Dev growls, pushing his hips against the ruler as if that will help.

“Six point nine…”

He sits up on the bed then and grabs the ruler from me. “Give me that.” He places it against himself, sees that he’s well past seven, and glares at me.

I give him a sweet smile. “You were so cute, I didn’t want you to stop.”

“I’ll give you something to stop,” he growls, pinning me down to the bed.

My paw flails at the bedside table. “Wait, wait!” He pauses, nose inches from mine. “What?”

I grin and hold up the stopwatch. “We need to see if you can improve on your time.”

A moment later, the stopwatch is lying against the wall, I’m lying on my stomach, and all seven inches are jammed under my tail, thrusting back and forth as I give some theatrical yelps (the surprise is fake, the pleasure isn’t). Dev’s purr-growls get louder and the exquisite tightness of his muscles holds me like iron wrapped in velvet. His immense paws grip my chest, claws out just enough to tickle skin through my thick chest ruff.

With a throaty growl, his paws and body tighten. I know him as well as myself now, bracing myself back against him for the slam of climax into me, winding my tail around his hips as far as it’ll go. And it comes right on schedule, that passionate flurry of motion, and in this position, the passion and thrusting are almost enough to get me off even without the help of his paw, which comes a moment later.

Panting, he lies on top of me, forcing me down into the sticky pool I just created. Panting, I’m too warm and gooey to complain. It’s a little power game he likes from time to time, and I have to say that I don’t mind it terribly. Not when he’s nuzzling my ears and chewing on my neck ruff and making all those nice little noises, and squirming in a delightful way under my tail.

Eventually, sadly, we have to get up and shower. But it’s not long before we’re curled up together again, for the last night in a while. At least, I’m thinking that even if he isn’t. And I’m sure he isn’t, because he seems very distracted as I spoon back against him, pulling his arm over my chest. “Dev,” I say. He responds the second time I say it.

“Hm?”

I wriggle back against him. “If you have trouble with the managers and scouts when they interview you, just picture them naked.”

For a second, he doesn’t know if I’m serious. Then his arm tightens around me and he chuckles. “Okay.”

I’m almost asleep when he says, “Wait. You want me to picture other guys naked?”

It’s my turn to chuckle. I nuzzle his arm and don’t reply.

 
One of the issues with going to the combine, for me, is skipping classes. I haven’t made a habit of it in three and a half years at Forester, but this semester, with Dev’s workouts and the excitement of the draft, I’ve slipped a bit from my lofty standards. It’s not a big deal for a couple of the classes, but it does prickle my fur if I think about it too much. I’d like to not think about it at all, but I have to keep dodging questions from my TA about the lit review. I tell him I’ve got a family thing this week and won’t be in class (ignoring the extra flush at the back of my neck that comes with the thought of using my parents as an excuse to ditch), but I promise to read
Charlotte Temple
and be ready for next week’s session. He asks me to do a writeup on the themes we’re discussing this week, if I’m going to miss the class. We both know that’s just busy work, but what the hell, he’s letting me miss a participation-graded class, so I agree to do it. To my parents, I don’t say anything. They’ll call my cell, I’ll answer bland questions about my classes. Hopefully they won’t call in the middle of an interview, or a tryout, or something.

I’ve only been to Boliat once before, the “city on the edge of a thousand cornfields,” my father called it. That’s about how many I count on the drive down. When we came here as a family, it was a stop on the way to our relatives out east in Port City. We stayed at a Quality Rest on the freeway and never saw the city itself. This time, I navigate through decaying factories and weed-infested industrial parks, following Morty’s directions to a bar named Kelly’s. It turns out to be exactly the sort of place you would expect on the outskirts of downtown Boliat, outside and in: faded sign, old neon, Boliat Boxers pennants in the window, wood as old as the Hilltown Bricklayers, graffiti carved into every post, dimly lit, reeking of stale booze and stale people. The bartender, a gruff old polecat, checks my ID twice and sniffs it three times before pouring me a beer. I take a seat at a table that’s canted so far to one side that I can’t let go of my beer, and keep an eye on the door.

Morty slouches in a few minutes late, with a “hey, Kelly,” to the polecat and a wave to a raccoon at the bar. He’s wearing a nice brown sport coat with matching pants over which his ropelike tail waves lazily. Not in bad shape, and lucky enough to be a cougar, so his gut doesn’t look as bad on him as it would, say, on me (not like
that).
He gets his beer and casts around the room before noticing me. He squints; I nod.

“Wasn’t sure I’d remember what’cha look like,” he says, approaching the table. “Didn’t have to.”

“Only fox in the place,” I agree. We shake paws. His is heavy, hammy, squeezing too tightly and then letting go fast. “Good to see you again.”

“Same here,” he says without meaning it. He takes a drink of his beer as he sits. “Shit, it’s been a long day already. Four more to go. So, you wanna be a scout.”

“Seems as good a thing to do as any.”

He shrugs. “It’s a life. Lots of travel, late nights. You gotta love it.”

And he does. I can see that in the shine of his eyes that he tries to hide behind his cougar’s sneer of cynicism. “I love breaking down the games,” I tell him. “And I like talking to the players.”

“You don’t do much of that,” he says. “Just the prospects. Just places like this. And there’s not much to like.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” he points a stubby finger at me, “you tell a team to pick the wrong kid, you could lose your job. I got fired from Freestone because I told them to take Jerry Taga over Mick Collinsworth.”

“I thought Collinsworth was like a sixth round pick.”

Morty nods. “He was. Peco swooped in on Collinsworth when we passed. Taga came to practice and folded like a rabbit at a poker table.” He looks around the bar, maybe looking for rabbits. “Collinsworth was starting by week eight. That’s when Sam Bishop calls me into his office and says they’re cutting back on the scouting team.”

“For a sixth-round pick?”

“Big mistake. Then again, I told the Dragons to pass on Shamus Livingston, and I’m still workin’ for them.”

“Really?” Livingston set a record for tackles by a rookie last year.

“Yeah. He seemed bored.” He gulps another drink and then grins. “Ah, it ain’t as bad as I make it out to be, kid,” he says. “There was other stuff going on at Freestone. This place is like a big dysfunctional family. You get fired from one gig, there’s another waiting.”