Safety Net (51 page)

“For what it’s worth, my feelings
aren’t the same as they were two years ago. They’re stronger than that, and I’ll
do anything I can to prove it to you.”

“Dale,” Andy whispered and kissed
him softly.

“Is that a yes vote?” Dale
murmured.

Andy kissed him again. “Yes, it is.”

The morning drained away and it was
afternoon when Dale woke up from a doze in Andy’s arms to the sound of a phone
ringing. It was Erick’s house phone and it rang and rang until Dale, worried,
slipped from the bed and wandered off to investigate.

Erick wasn’t in his bedroom. Dale
cursed softly and picked up the phone next to the bed.

“Hello?”

“Doll baby? This is Mama.”

“Oh, hi, Mrs. West,” Dale said,
wincing. “Um, this is Dale. Dale Lennart, from Crocker. We met that time after
the Rose Bowl.”

There was a pause. “Oh, yes. Dale.
How are you? Is Erick there?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find
out,” Dale said, leaving the bedroom to hunt around the upstairs. “I drove up
here yesterday and spent the night. He was here this morning. Sleeping. But I,
um, dozed off and now I’m not sure where he is.”

He went downstairs, searching the
big, empty rooms. In the daylight, the decor was even more un-Erick-like than
it had looked last night.

“Well,” he said, frowning. “I’m out
on the deck now and I have no idea where he is.”

“Is his car still there?” Mrs. West
asked, clearly keeping panic out of her voice. Dale checked the garage.

“Car’s still here.” Dale picked up
a damp towel that was slung over the weight rack. “Hmm. I think he must’ve had
a workout. Maybe he went for a run.”

“Oh, yes, my Erick likes to run
when he’s feeling poorly,” Mrs. West said, relieved. “I’ll bet you that’s it.” She
hesitated. “Well, I only called because he called last night and left the
strangest message. We got back from Dallas today and got the message, and I can’t
understand what it’s about. Was Erick drunk?”

Dale was checking out Erick’s home
gym, somewhat blown away by the top-of-the-line equipment he had. He inwardly
sighed at the gulf between an NFL pro and a plebe like him. He ran his hand
admiringly over the treadmill.

“Yeah, he was pretty drunk when we
got here last night.” He couldn’t see a reason to sugarcoat it for Mrs. West.

“Oh, is Lowell there, too?” Mrs.
West sounded hopeful.

Dale fiddled with the controls on
the treadmill. “No, he couldn’t leave Portland. Training camp starts Monday. I
came up here with Andy.”

“Andy... Oh. Oh, yes, of course.
How is Andy?” she asked politely.

“He’s fine. We’re both fine. Um,
Mrs. West, do you know what happened? Why Erick was drunk?”

Dale left the garage and went back
to the deck. It was a gorgeous afternoon with a mild breeze.

“Well, no, that’s why I was calling.”
Her voice quickly changed to one of sharp worry. “What’s wrong?”

“Candace broke up with him. Ended
the relationship. This time it’s final.”

Mrs. West muttered something Dale
couldn’t hear and was glad he couldn’t; he adored Candace and wouldn’t tolerate
any trash talk about her, Erick’s mother or not. Fortunately, Mrs. West kept
her opinions to herself and said, “Oh, my poor Erick. No wonder. I’m so glad
you’re there with him. He needs his friends right now. When he gets in, tell
him to call his mama. Just so I know he’s all right, okay?”

“Yeah, I will,” Dale said. As he
hung up the phone, he tried to imagine his own mother ever expressing concern
over his romantic life. She had no idea he even had a romantic life.

While Dale was poking around Erick’s
kitchen for food, Andy came downstairs, dressed, still looking tired. Dale
pulled an egg carton out of the fridge and checked the expiration date. “Eggs?”

Andy slid one arm around Dale’s
waist, kissed his neck, and looked in the fridge over Dale’s shoulder. “And
toast,” he said, snagging a loaf of bread.

They were sitting at the kitchen
island, eating and talking about Mrs. West, when Erick came home. He had been
out running and was dripping with sweat to prove it. He grabbed a water bottle
from the fridge and downed it.

“I’m gonna get cleaned up,” he
said, heading for the stairs.

“Yes, you should,” Dale said
archly. “By the way, your mother called.”

Erick slapped the stair railing and
groaned, “Oh. That’s right. I called her last night.”

“Indeed you did, homeboy.”

Erick jogged up the stairs and Andy
raised his eyebrows at Dale. “He drunk dials his mother?”

Dale tried not to smile at Erick’s
misery. “That’s our Erick.”

When Erick reappeared, clean,
shaven, and dressed in shorts and a New Haven Hawks tee shirt, he was on the
phone to his mother, obviously trying to wrap up the conversation. He cradled
the phone against his ear and made toast and fried a couple of eggs. When the
phone call ended, he joined Dale and Andy at the island and dumped hot sauce
over the eggs. He scooped them between the slices of toast, smearing everything
together into a drippy egg sandwich. Dale watched with appalled fascination as
Erick chowed down the whole thing.

Erick mopped up hot sauce and bits
of egg with the last piece of toast. Dale said, “You called Menacker yet?”

Erick’s chewing slowed. He
swallowed and said, “Not yet.” At Dale’s look, he promised, “I will.” He sat
back, sipping another water, and looked from Dale to Andy and back. He smiled
slowly. “So. Princeton. D.C. It’s not too far. A few hours’ drive from one
another.”

Andy shook his head, smiling, and Dale
said, “Whoa, hold on there. We’re here to piece together
your
life, not
mine.”

Erick frowned, eating the last bite
of toast. “I don’t wanna talk about it. Not now. Later, okay?”

Dale wasn’t going to back down but
Andy said gently, “Okay.”

They spent the day watching
football highlights on DVD, Erick wanting to show Andy the best Hawks plays
from last season and a bunch of Lowell’s plays. Dale didn’t know why he was
surprised that Erick kept a library of Lowell’s games. Lowell probably had
recordings of all of Erick’s games, too. Crazy kids.

Although he missed playing football
for Crocker practically every day, until now Dale had never felt envious of
Erick and Lowell going pro. Watching the highlights and hearing Erick recount
the action and analyze the Knights’ plays, Dale caught the excitement, could
imagine the thrill: every single game being like the Orange Bowl. He watched
Erick slo-mo through Lowell’s TD reception in a game against Cleveland and his
hands ached to grab the ball, his legs were restless, wanting to run down the
field. Andy reached over and rested his hand on Dale’s arm, rubbing it slowly.

While Erick was scanning through
the Hawks’ divisional playoff, Dale leafed through more of his DVD collection,
tidily kept in giant drawers built into the TV room wall. He pulled some out,
saying, “Duran? Breitenstein? You have DVDs of all these guys?”

“Not all their games,” Erick said
apologetically. “It was hard to find some of Breitenstein’s.”

Dale held one up. “Babcock? Arena
football. Dude.”

“He was one of our guys,” Erick
said reasonably, pausing on the play he wanted to show them.

Dale stared at him. “I thought
Lowell was the stalker, but I guess I was wrong.”

Erick glanced at him. “What
stalking? I was proud of our team. What’s wrong with following the careers of
the guys I played with?” He tapped the remote control against his palm. “First
of all, one day they could become teammates again. It could happen. Second of
all, it’s informative to see how they’ve moved from Crocker to the pros. What’s
different. What’s the same. It tells me a lot about how players change over
time, how different teams mold their players.”

Andy said, “Plus, you just like
watching them play.”

Erick grinned. “Yeah.”

Dale felt kind of overwhelmed by
how much he hero-worshipped Erick right then.

For dinner Erick grilled steaks and
vegetables and they ate outside on the deck, watching late summer sun slant through
the trees at the bottom of Erick’s property. Andy cleared the plates and patted
Dale’s shoulder, saying, “The jet lag’s coming back. I’m gonna crash for a
while.” He left them alone, and Dale and Erick sat in silence with their feet
propped on the deck railing. Dale drank one of the exotic beers from Erick’s
binge collection and Erick sipped water.

“I wanted to keep her,” Erick said
after a while. “I wanted to keep her to myself and be completely selfish.”

“You love her,” said Dale and took
a swig of beer.

“Yeah, I do. But...” Erick glanced
at him. “I wasn’t being fair to her, because I didn’t want to admit to myself
that this time, I couldn’t have everything.”

Dale said, “I remember once, Andy
asked me if you were too used to winning. I hadn’t thought of it that way
before. No one gets everything they want, Texas.”

Erick’s smile was slightly sour. “I’m
not too used to winning now. No, seriously. I know that. I learned it at the
Rose Bowl, to be honest. Really and truly. That was the first time I was sure I
did everything right and still didn’t get what I wanted.”

Dale looked at Erick and asked
curiously, “What about the Heisman?”

Erick gave him a sidelong look and
took a sip of water. “The Heisman was something everyone else wanted for me.
Me? I didn’t care about it all that much.” Erick paused to take another drink. “The
only reason I wanted to win the Heisman was for Crocker. Give Crocker another
Heisman. And the first year I didn’t get it, I was pretty crushed about it, to
be honest. By the second year I was more focused on getting us to a Rose Bowl
win by then.”

“Huh. I always wondered,” Dale said.

Erick picked at the label on his
water bottle and said, “I gotta be honest. God, this hurts,” he sighed. “Losing
Candace... It’s not just that I couldn’t have everything. I didn’t want to
admit that maybe this time, I didn’t
want
everything.” He leaned back in
his adirondack chair and let his feet fall from the railing to the deck. “When
I had two weeks to go to Hawaii, it wasn’t Candace I took with me.” He glanced
over. “She’ll be finishing grad school soon. I kept thinking, she’ll want to
get married, I have to ask her to marry me. And... I didn’t ask. I don’t
think...” He winced, swallowing hard. “I don’t think I wanted her to say yes.”

The slowly sinking sun stretched
brilliant rays through the trees. Light glinted off tears running down Erick’s
cheeks. Dale wished Lowell was here; Lowell dealt with this stuff better than
he could.

Dale frowned and said, “I think she
knew that.”

“Yeah,” Erick said, taking a deep,
shaky breath. He wiped his face on his tee shirt. “I do love her, though. The
thought of not seeing her... I can’t stand it so I’m trying not to think about
it. But how selfish am I? I want her when I want her so she has to wait around
until I call her? I can’t believe she gave me this long.”

“Because she loves you, too,” Dale
said. “It must’ve been hard for her to realize that she couldn’t get everything
she wants, either.”

Erick looked at him and after a
moment said, “Yeah. I guess that’s true.” He stood up and said, “I think I have
to call Lowell now. You okay? You need another beer?”

Dale waved him off with his
half-empty bottle and said, “Don’t worry about me. I’m good. Call Lowell.”

Dale stayed outside to watch the
last of the sunset and finish his beer. When he went inside, the downstairs was
dark and Dale made sure everything was locked up. In the guest bedroom, Andy
was sitting in a chair under a floor lamp, reading today’s newspaper. Dale
closed the door behind him and Andy said, “Crisis mode over?”

“He’s talking to Lowell, so yeah.
But it’s rough. He loves her. And she was really good for him.” Dale paced over
to the window and watched night creep across the front lawn.

“Good for him in ways Lowell isn’t?”
Andy asked very lightly and Dale glanced back at him, furrowing his brow.

“No... I don’t know...”

Andy folded the newspaper over his
lap. “Candace got him through a time when Erick wasn’t sure who he was. She
helped him become the person he is. I don’t know why it hasn’t occurred to
anyone that the person he is is the Erick who loves Lowell more than anything
else in the world. Except football. And I’m not one hundred percent sure about
that, either.”

Dale stared at him. “You’re so
smart. God, I missed you,” he said finally.

Andy smirked. “I don’t think it’s
my brilliance so much as the fact that it’s easier to see the forest from the
trees when you’ve been living in the desert for a while.” He tossed the
newspaper aside. “And I missed you, too.”

Dale went over to him and Andy
rose, pulling him into an embrace. They kissed, making out for a long time, and
to Dale it was an almost perfect moment. He drew back and murmured, “I wish we
were home right now, at my place.”

Andy’s look was warm. He skimmed
his fingertips up Dale’s back. “I don’t care where we are. I’m just glad I’m
here. With you.”

“Now it’s time to pick our NFC game
of the week. Some strong match-ups this week, but I think the hands down
shocker has to be New Haven’s win over last year’s Super Bowl champs, Green Bay.
James Warren joins us in the studio for our analysis. James, what struck you
about this game?”

“Well, first, I want to address a
few of the explanations I’ve seen out there: that Green Bay fielded a
second-string starting eleven, and relied on their rookies too much, and that
the safety in the first quarter hurt them and put them on the wrong footing.
Those were all factors, but let’s get real. If you watched that game, you
watched New Haven come together as a team, work together perfectly in ways we just
haven’t seen in five or six seasons.”

“Ho, ho, don’t exaggerate, James. I
know you’ve got a soft spot for New Haven, but Green Bay lost two of their key
defensive players only the week before. You know that hurt them.”

“Yes, it left a gap New Haven was
able to take advantage of, Bill. And that’s my point right there, so thanks for
bringing it up. Anyone who’s been questioning Erick West’s ability to play at
this level, who’s been wondering if he can bring this team together... I think
you got your answer. New Haven’s still got some holes to fill, especially on
defense, but I haven’t seen their offense this strong in years. New Haven fans
have gotta be happy about that.”

“I’ll give you that. I saw some
fans holding signs during the game that said, ‘Shane who?’ It looks like New
Haven is finally rallying around their young quarterback. What do you think? Is
the bad blood forgotten?”

“You know, I want to say something
about that. I’ve met Erick West, I interviewed him for
NFL Weekly
, and I
got the opportunity to watch the Hawks training camp this year. This kid... What
you see is what you get. Bill, this is one good kid. He’s smart. He knows the
game. He respects the game. He loves it. No, he’s not Shane Benjamin, but he’s
a damn good quarterback.”

“All along I’ve said signing him
was the smartest thing New Haven has done in the last ten years. But has the
team really turned around this time? Back into a winning franchise? We’re only
in week four, and they’re two-and-two. Was the win over Green Bay a fluke or the
start of something exciting? The jury’s still out on that one. Next week West
will face one of the strongest defenses in the country in Chicago. Let’s see if
he can keep the momentum going.”

-----

“There’s the road to the beach
where the surfing lessons are,” Lowell said, twisting around in the passenger
seat. He pointed ahead. “And there’s where I got your ring. I can’t believe we’re
here again already.” He flashed a cocky grin at Erick. “Time flew after we beat
your butts in October.”

Erick said smugly, “Divisional
champions, thank you very much. Where were the Knights in the postseason? Oh
yeah, nowhere.”

“Fuck you, arrogant shithead,” Lowell
chuckled. He looked out the window. “Oh, wait. I think that was the
intersection where we turn for the hotel.” He pulled out the map they’d picked
up at the rental car counter.

Erick smiled and kept his eyes on
the road. “We’re not going to the hotel.”

Lowell sat back. “Oh. Okay, cool.” After
a few minutes he said, “Where are we going? For food?”

Erick reached over and rubbed
Lowell’s hand. They’d hit a bare patch of road, but the views on either side
were stunning. “Relax. Enjoy the ride. We’re almost there.”

Lowell’s smile wavered. “Erick.
What the hell?”

“Be patient.”

“Okay, okay.” Lowell frowned at the
map and scanned the road.

Erick reached the turn and followed
the winding road down toward the beach, at last pulling off into a dirt
driveway past a giant rhododendron bush. He parked in front of the small house
and grinned when he got out of the car. Good, the sign had been put up over the
door.

 Lowell got out of the car,
looking around, puzzled. He took off his baseball cap, ran a hand through his
hair, and put the cap on backwards.

“What are we doing here?”

Erick looked at him. “This is where
we’re staying.”

“Oh. You got a rental?” Lowell
looked around again critically, then smiled. “It is more private. I’ll miss
being right on the beach, though.”

Erick wondered if he could explode
from smugness. “It’s not a rental,” he said. He stepped onto the verandah and
pointed to the sign above the door.

Lowell looked up. The sign read:
The
Shack
.

Lowell raised an eyebrow at him. “Erick...?”

Erick opened the door and stepped
back to let him in. “I had to order a new sofa from the mainland. They didn’t
have the one I wanted. It should get here later this week. The TV’s here,
though.” Erick patted the flat screen mounted on the wall. He walked through
the living room to the kitchen and checked the fridge. “Good. The groceries got
here.”

Lowell stopped and stood in the living
room and folded his arms over his chest. “Right. Okay. You’re a master of
deception and totally fooled me. Now would you mind telling me exactly what the
hell you’ve done?” he said sharply, frowning.

Erick turned around and grinned at
him, unable to keep up the cool act any longer. “This is our place. I bought
it. For us. We can come here whenever we like. We can stay as long as we like.
Hell, we can retire here if we want to.”

Lowell stared at him blankly. Erick
came over and took Lowell’s hand. “C’mon. See the rest.” He nodded to the side.
“There’s the guest room. I put a queen-size in there. A king wouldn’t fit. Dale
and Andy can live with a queen-size. Oh. Right. I invited Dale and Andy to
visit. They’re arriving next week. It was part of the surprise.” He glanced at
Lowell and asked, “Is that okay?”

Lowell opened his mouth, shut it,
and nodded. Erick dragged him to the next room. “There’s only one bathroom,
which kind of sucks, but the real estate agent said I could get an add-on off
the master bedroom and gave me the names of some contractors. But the thing
is... Well, you’ll see it in a second.”

He tugged Lowell’s hand and paused
before the door to the master bedroom. “And this is our room,” he said, and
opened the door.

The decorator had done it perfectly,
exactly as he’d asked. The ceiling fan was on low and the slatted windows were
open, bringing in a sea breeze. The king bed was a simple style, the frame and
headboard made of beautiful island wood. The linens were a light grey with
single stripes of Crocker red. But the pièce de résistance were the French
doors across from the bed.

Erick opened the doors. Outside was
a little deck.

“A hot tub?” Lowell said with a
laugh, dipping his hand into the water.

Erick tugged him along. “Of course.
And this.” He pointed off the patio. A red dirt track led away from the house,
an overgrown field on one side and an old fence on the other. A strong smell of
the sea blew up the path. “It goes down to the beach. It’s a ten-minute walk if
you go slow. I timed it.” He patted the fence. “We’ve got one neighbor on this
side. He’s a cool old guy. He surfs. He’s been living here for fifty years. You’ll
like him. On the other side, there’s sort of a drop-off or something. They can’t
build there. The old guy next door says a few times a year they come and hack
down some of the growth, but other than that, it just goes wild.” He looked at
Lowell. “What do you think?”

Lowell sank down onto the built-in
bench on the patio. “What do I think? Erick, fuck. I can’t even think at all.
You bought this place? How... When... What.the.fuck.”

Erick sat down next to him and
wrapped his arms around Lowell’s shoulders. He giggled. “I knew you’d be
surprised.”

“Shocked is more like it,” Lowell
said, sounding more down-to-earth. “How could you even afford a place like
this? These things don’t come cheap.”

“Daddy helped me with some
investments, and yeah, it wasn’t cheap, but the real estate slump helped a lot.
Plus the bonus I got for making the playoffs.” He brushed a strand of Lowell’s
hair back from his face. “I’m not exactly poor, you know.”

“Yeah, but still.” Lowell looked
around. “You bought a house in Hawaii,” he said wonderingly.

“I bought
our
house in
Hawaii,” Erick said and kissed him. He drew back. “You still haven’t told me
what you think. Do you like it?”

Lowell gazed into his eyes. “It’s
perfect. And I think...” He held Erick’s cheek and kissed him softly. “I think
I love you very much, Texas.”

Erick kissed him back and smiled. “Glad
to hear it, all-Indiana tight end.”

Lowell murmured, “Nineteen-fourteen,”
and kissed his neck. The score by which the Knights had beaten the Hawks.

“You got lucky,” Erick sniffed. He
took Lowell’s hands in his and stood up, bringing Lowell with him. He rubbed
his thumb along Lowell’s bracelet and walked backwards into the bedroom until
his calves hit the bed.

“I certainly did,” Lowell said as
they fell onto the bed together.