Out of Position (44 page)

“How’s my respect doing?” I ask.

Carson grins. Gerrard’s grin unfolds more slowly, stretching back to the corners of his muzzle and showing some teeth. “Getting there,” he says.

The steak is as good as advertised. Conversation pretty much comes to a dead stop once it arrives, and once it’s gone, we’re too full to talk much. Gerrard says, making a point, that it’s because they focus on steak and nothing else. I have to admit, walking out feeling ten pounds heavier, that I see his perspective.

The next day is even more frustrating. For the first time, I catch a pointed remark about “normal” people, whispered just loud enough for me to overhear as I walk by. It takes a lot of restraint to ignore it. If it came out in the normal locker room way, boisterous teasing and over-the-top remarks — in other words, from Charm — it’d be no sweat to deal with. When I catch another remark about perversion, at the end of the day, I ask Coach if I can have a word in his office.

He starts the conversation. “Thought about what I said?”

I nod and take a breath. “Gerrard thinks I should just meet with the team and deny the rumors.”

“You going to?”

“I guess so. I can’t think of what else to do. I can’t take — this is getting bad for the team. They’re talking behind my back and saying stuff so I can hear it, now.”

He raises an eyebrow. “No fighting.”

“No, I haven’t started anything.” I wonder then if he was commenting that there hadn’t been fighting rather than telling me not to. “Uh, I’m just trying to ignore ’em.”

He leans forward. “You shouldn’t be talking to the team. I should. Now, you tell me this isn’t true, and I believe you. But I want you and Fisher to go out tonight and think about how you’re gonna handle this moving forward.”

I blink. “Why Fisher?”

“Cause he’s been around a long time and because you two are friends.” When I don’t respond to that, he adds, “and because I said so.”

“I’m supposed to have dinner with Caroll tonight,” I say. She’s already called, in fact, and is waiting for me at the Xeric Lounge.

Coach barks a short laugh. “Bring her along tomorrow.”

I scowl, not quite sure if he’s joking. “She’s only in town for the night.”

He picks up a pencil that’s almost been chewed in half. “Yeah, yeah. Get the hell out of my office. I got a game to prepare for.”

To my surprise, Fisher doesn’t put up any resistance to the idea. We walk out to the parking lot in an uneasy silence, until I head toward my car and say, “See you after dinner.”

“Can you keep the dinner short?” Fisher says.

“Why don’t you just come along?” I beep my car open and turn to look at him. “Not like we’ve got anything intimate to discuss.”

He tilts his head. “She knows too?”

I nod. “Well, kinda. I was gonna tell her everything tonight.”

He takes out his cell phone. “Let me call Gena.”

“Tell her you’re meeting a young, hot panther for dinner.”

He snorts, but gives me the faintest ghost of a grin. I pull the door open and get into the car, starting up as Fisher walks across the lot to his car. I wait ’til he gives me the thumbs-up to pull out.

At the restaurant, Caroll’s in the bar, nursing something dark and bubbly with a cherry in it. “Double your pleasure,” she says. “Who’s the other hunk?”

“Fisher Kingston.” He extends a paw, which she takes daintily. “Heard a lot about ya.”

She flicks an ear and looks at me. “Dev talks about me?”

“Star Today,” he says, looking down. “Uh, the wife gets it.”

Caroll laughs. “Was that the issue with my temper tantrum on the
Bad Medicine 3
set, or my affair with Jake on
Panther House
?”

Fisher mumbles something I don’t hear, but it makes Caroll laugh again. “Come on,” she says. “They’re holding a table for us.”

“For two or for three?” I ask.

“Doesn’t matter,” she calls back airily, putting on a winning smile for the host.

Five minutes later, seated around a secluded table for four, I look around nervously. She’s staring at me and Fisher is looking anywhere but. I’d thought it would be easier with him there, but he’s actually making it harder. “So, ah, this S.O. of mine, you remember?” She nods. I take a breath. “Well, the reason Ogleby didn’t think she’d be suitable for me to be seen with,” and I try not to emphasize Ogleby’s name too hard as I look at Fisher, “is that she’s, uh, a fox.”

Caroll nods. “And what else?”

“And she’s… not a she.”

“Not usually,” Fisher mumbles under his breath.

We both stare at him, and then Caroll gives me a questioning look. I say, “Oh, there was an incident…”

She shakes her head. “Tell me later.” One paw rubs her whiskers. “Actually, I sort of suspected.”

I fold my arms. “Oh?”

She shrugs. “You don’t swish or anything. But remember when I said about how all those other guys would give their left nut to be set up on a date with me, and you were all like, ’whatever’? And even Colin, Colin of ‘Colin and Penny sittin’ in a tree’ ever since high school, Colin who looked so disapproving that his teammates hired escorts, even
he
was flirting with me. You just seemed to have zero interest.”

“And with her,” Fisher puts in, “that’d be a dead giveaway.”

“I bet you haven’t been talking about how hot I am with your teammates, either.” She’s chiding me, like I forgot to hold a door for her or something.

I feel all hot and my fur gets prickly. “I should do that, huh?”

“Hell, yes,” Fisher snorts. “You should talk about her like you’ve done her. Take a page from Charm.”

“Yeah,” Caroll nods. “Talk about my tits.” She leans back so her chest sticks out over the table. “They’re pretty nice, I’m told.”

“Not bad,” Fisher says.

“You’re married,” I remind him.

“And straight,” he says. “I notice tits. You should too, from now on.”

“So now I have to be Charm,” I growl.

Fisher takes a swig of beer and burps. “Ever hear anyone doubt that he’s straight?”

I roll my eyes. “Fine.”

Caroll tugs at the top of her dress. “You wanna see ’em? I think you should.”

“What, now?” I look around the restaurant. Nobody’s looking our way, but if she takes her dress down, they sure as hell will.

“Nah, back in the restrooms.” She puts her paws back on the table and scowls. “I’m not that desperate for attention.”

“Is our reporter still outside?”

“My flea called him. I hope so.”

“Hey,” Fisher says. “You should get caught groping her in the restroom. Like that actor guy with the prostitute.”

“Ha ha.” I look at Caroll for confirmation that it’s a ridiculous idea. She’s looking thoughtful. “No,” I say. “Flat out no.”

Fisher shrugs and leans back. “Thought you were committed.”

“I don’t know if that’d be right for my image, though,” Caroll says. “I mean, I want to be desirable, not tawdry. Bathroom groping is one step away from frolicking nude in hot tubs, and then before you know it you’re being linked to, like, hockey players.”

“See? She doesn’t want to do it.”

Fisher spreads his paws. “Just an idea,” he says. “You don’t have to listen to my ideas.”

I sink back in my chair. “So what am I gonna say to the guys?”

We kick around a lot of ideas, before, during, and after the dinner. When we’ve got the text settled out, Caroll brings up another point. “What are you going to tell your fox? Last thing we need is for him to get pissed off and run to the papers too. I bet he has better pictures.”

My phone is a warm weight in my pocket. “He already knows I need to do something like that. I’ll talk to him later tonight, or tomorrow. He’s got something to tell me, too.”

Caroll has a little habit of dragging one fingerpad down her lower lip when she’s thinking. It registers with me that it’s kind of sexy, but Fisher’s eyes go slightly wide and he looks away quickly when she does it. “Hey,” she says, “what if he was the one who wrote that story? Maybe he’s tired of sneaking around.”

I laugh. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Well, either way, he wins.” She brushes her whiskers back with the damp finger, grooming. Fisher, who’d just looked back at her, coughs and holds up the dessert menu to block his view of her. I think she’s teasing him. “If you get kicked out of the league, no more sneaking around. If you’re out and accepted, no more sneaking around. The only way he doesn’t win is if you deny everything and the story goes away.”

“He didn’t have anything to do with it,” I say. “It’s this other guy, Brian, who has it out for me because he hates all football players now.”

“Oh, well. It’d be a great movie plot, though,” she says. “You should write it up. I’ll show it to my agent.”

“It was your idea,” I point out.

Fisher lowers the menu cautiously, then all the way when he sees Caroll isn’t licking her fingers any more. “Whoever did it, Dev, the only thing you can do is deny it.”

It’s the right thing to do, I tell myself on the way home. I send Lee a quick text to see if he’s still up, but he doesn’t respond, so I sort through things on my own. I feel a sense of relief that if I can just get through the meeting tomorrow, Coach and Fisher and Gerrard will back me up and we can get back to the business of winning football games. Because the funny thing is, my play on the field is the one place where I am getting more and more confident. If all this off-field stuff would just go away (not Lee; I mean Brian), I’d be in a great place.

At noon, Coach gets everyone together in the locker room before lunch, because there’s always a couple reporters hanging out on the field. We’re all panting and winded from practice. Most guys are gulping drinks. Coach surveys the team, and raises his paws for quiet. I feel my stomach churn. I’d always felt like a part of this team until the last few days, and this meeting just makes that separation more stark.

“There’s been some stuff floating around lately about one of our players.” Coach dives right in. “I know most of you know better than to listen to anything in the media. Those guys would make up stories about their mothers to sell papers, and the Internet ain’t any better. They’re just lookin’ for attention now, selling themselves. So I want to make sure you guys all know that if you hear anything about anyone on the team, you come talk to me or talk to them.”

I’m feeling really flush. I think for a minute maybe it was the practice, but I realize it’s Coach’s words that are doing it. It’s just like one of my dreams, because I know everyone’s looking at me even if I can’t catch anyone doing it. They know Coach is lying on my behalf, only he’s not lying, he’s telling what he thinks is the truth because I lied to him. I feel my paws clench again as the muzzle of a spotted skunk appears in my mind. I miss the rest of Coach’s talk, until he finishes up with a curt, “Everyone got that?”

The offensive line is looking at nothing in particular, definitely not me. Coach barks, louder, “Got that?”

“Yes, Coach,” everyone murmurs.

“All right, then.”

It’s in the showers after that day’s practice that I realize that Coach’s speech only helped a little bit. None of the offensive line guys showered with us, and neither did some other players, including Colin. When I come out, they’re all hanging out in front of their lockers, chatting as though they just got caught up in conversation. They don’t look at me or anything, but I’ve only been at my locker for a couple minutes before they all head in.

Fisher, behind me, says, “There’s always gonna be a few.”

“That how it started with Tony?”

He doesn’t answer right away. I pull on my shirt, he pulls on a pair of pants. “About that…”

“It’s okay, Fish,” I start, but he waves me quiet.

“You got a right to know. I was a dumb kid, comin’ outta college. Tony was a big doof. The other guys picked on him and I wanted t’get in good with ’em, so I did too. I ain’t prouda that.” He looks at me, steady. “It wasn’t about him. I promise you that. It coulda been anyone or anything. I just wanted to fit in, so I rode the guy who was different same as everyone else did.”

“Jeez, Fish.” I sit down to pull on my pants.

“I told you, I ain’t proud. But I…” He grimaces. “Guys aren’t s’posed to talk about this shit.”

“Once in a while don’t hurt.”

“Heh.” He leans against the locker. “Well, seein’ you and him, and ’specially how you talk about him… made me think about Tony again. Made me wish I could call him up, say I’m sorry.”

I nod. “I didn’t know he’d died.”

“He ain’t dead. I just don’t know where he is, and he sure’s hell wouldn’t take my call. So you want me to talk to the team?”

I shake my head. “If Coach couldn’t change ’em, what are you gonna do?”

“I know how to shake ’em up like he ain’t allowed to.”

I lean against the locker and watch him pull his shirt on. “I don’t want to shake anyone up.”

“I told ya, I’ll do it.”

“I don’t want anyone shook up. Look, all they’re doing is avoiding me in the shower. I can live with that.”

Fisher gives me a steady look. “What if it gets worse?”

Colin’s just coming out of the shower. I don’t look at him. “I’ll deal with it then.”

I feel all brave when I say it, less so when I get home with a large pizza. Because of course, I’ve forgotten that things will always get worse. Lee’s the one who tells me. He’s the only one I’ve stayed in touch with over the last few days, because I don’t feel up to Ogleby or my parents. And when I get on the phone with him, the tone of his voice makes me stop chewing.

“You haven’t seen it, have you? Nobody at the team said anything?”

“No.” I think back to when Fisher and I left. “Coach had someone in his office, a raccoon from the front office, I think. But he has people down there every now and then. And he saw me go.” I put down the slice of pizza. “What’d he do now?”

Lee takes a breath. “The story lost steam yesterday. He must not have been getting enough attention. I guess he’s been thinking about this a lot.”

“Of course he has. It’s his fifteen seconds of fame.”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Whatever. What did he do?”

He’s tapping the table again. “Another blog entry. He says that you contacted him after the last one.”