by Kyell Gold
I’m not thrilled, but he’s cooled down enough, and I can’t keep him from talking to his brother forever, so I go into the other room to sit by the window with my laptop and wait for my fur to completely dry. He closes the bedroom door, but after thirty seconds I can hear his raised voice, so I flip my ears away and focus really hard on the computer.
And when I open my mail program, it becomes a lot easier to shut him out. I’m staring at the e-mail from Peter Emmanuel, GM of the Yerba Whalers, offering me a position in their scouting organization. Actually, he’s asking for Dev’s address so he can have the job offer couriered over, but basically I’ve got the job.
The glow from that e-mail gives me enough confidence to open the second one I should read, from Brian. Because of course he can’t shut up, even when I buy him off with a bottle of wine and a good-bye that (I thought) leaves no room for rapprochement. “My dear Tip,” he writes, “An there were two such, we should shortly have none, for one would kill the other. We hope of course that Polecki and your tiger will not come to that, but I do suspect that we shall be left with one. Now that there’s a championship-winning gay football star, your tiger will be free to recede into the background and, how did you so charmingly put it, focus on football. You can stop agonizing about getting him to work with Equality Now, or any other organization, because Polecki will happily reach out to all the young gay athletes. Your tiger will be first, and I suspect that’s enough for him and you.
“I suppose you’ll expect me to apologize for hounding him on Media Day, and you’ll likely think that his outburst about wishing he’d never come out was solely my doing. But of course, Tip, thou art deceived. And yet, and yet, if that be your lot, if you are shot through the ear with a love-song, the very pin of your heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft, then well, there’s no more for me to say on the matter. Or at least, I can’t think of any more of Mercutio’s lines to say. Our show starts next week, if you’d like to come see me without having to talk to me; of course, anyone that can write may answer a letter. Ah, look at that, I found one more.
“My work here is done, Tip. I would like to say I still hold out hope for a reconciliation, but I do not expect one. Fare well, dear friend.”
Dev yells, “Fine!” from the bedroom and then there’s a thud like a tiger’s fist hitting drywall. I close the e-mail and try to put Brian out of my head, to prepare myself to be the sympathetic guy my tiger’s going to need.
He comes out of the bedroom quiet and sullen, so rather than ask him about it (I’ll do that later), I call him over to read the e-mail from the Whalers. It works: the anger and stress vanish from his face and muscles, and he gives me a powerful hug and a kiss that almost distracts us both, never mind the three times we’ve had sex in the last twenty-four hours. “So proud of you,” he murmurs.
“And you too,” I say, though I leave it there. Probably he’s still not ready to hear how amazing it is that he came within a point of being a world champion, when the loss is so fresh.
“The year’s turned good.” He mouths my ear, and I twist away and grin.
“If you keep that up, we’ll never get anything done. We’ll just stay in the apartment and fuck until my job starts.”
He purrs, keeping hold of my wrist. “And the problem with that is…?”
My tail is only damp now, easier to wag. “At some point we’ll run out of lube and have to go out to get some.”
His hold doesn’t lessen. “Maybe if you stretched more, you wouldn’t need so much.”
I laugh and step in toward him, kissing the underside of his chin. “You’d be more convincing if you’d bottomed even once.”
His purr gets stronger, and so does his hold on my wrist. “I’ll come to Yerba with you next week. Like I said a while ago, I hope you still think of this as your home too. Maybe it’ll be like we have two homes.”
“Yeah.” I rub into his chest fur, feeling his sheath just above mine, neither of us getting hard. Pressing close, just being together is nice. But I think of some of the things Hal said, and the idea of having two homes with Dev, and my ears flick around against his muzzle.
“What’cha thinking about?” He slides paws down my sides.
I hold him. “Well, not that the last, uh,” I check the clock, “fourteen hours haven’t been amazing. But you know, we keep fighting and making up, and…I think we need to really, seriously talk about our future.”
His tail flicks, and he bends his head to meet my gaze. He doesn’t relax his arms or his paws, doesn’t let me fall away from him. “Wow, I’ve been wondering for two years when we were going to have the ‘where is this going’ talk.”
I smile and put a paw on his side. “I mean it. I want us to do it together, but…I was telling Hal that I don’t think we’d have to go through anything as stressful as the last few months—I mean, your family, my family, the Vince King suicide and the trial and Gregory and…”
“I remember,” he says lightly.
I want to ask him about what Brian said, whether he’s still going to resist helping with the gay rights movement, but the fact that Brian said it makes it a lot harder for me to bring up. And anyway, it’s about us first and foremost. “Yeah. But Hal said not to underestimate the ability of life to throw shit at you. So I don’t think we can ignore it and just keep going. If we’re going to really do it, really go through life together, then we need to be ready. This fighting and making up makes for great sex, but it’s exhausting, and we both—again—have careers that mean a lot to us, where a couple weeks of emotional stress at the wrong time could wreck a once in a lifetime opportunity.” Which is way more true for him than for me, but then, I’m really editing this to make it seem like it’s about both of us, when it’s really about whether he can stand to live with someone who might ruin his football career with an ill-timed outburst.
He doesn’t say anything, so I reach out and grasp his paw. “I want this to work, I really do,” I say, meeting his eyes. “I love you, tiger, and I’ve never been happier than when I’m with you.” He nods and squeezes my paw; I see the echo and affirmation in his eyes without him having to say a word. “But I don’t know if I could live with myself if our relationship ends up holding you back.”
“Why isn’t that my decision to make?” He rubs the back of my paw with two fingers. “What if I wouldn’t be as happy being a lonely great football player as being a pretty good one with a boyfriend?”
It’s a good point. “You have such a passion for football, though.”
“And a passion for you.”
I take a breath. “But have you really sat down to think about whether we can have both? I’m not saying we break up and go figure it out separately. I want to figure it out together.”
His serious expression curves up into a smile. “You’re the smart one. Can’t you just figure it out for me?”
“Cut it out.” I lean forward to kiss him. “Look, even if we decide we want to focus on our careers, we can still be really good friends.”
He considers that, and lets go of my paw to rub my ear. “Really good friends who fuck once in a while?”
“Or more frequently.” I squirm a little against him. “But you know, if one of us meets someone else…down the road…maybe you’ll find a boyfriend who doesn’t carry drama with him like fleas.”
“Hah.” His purr comes back as he crushes me against him. “What fun would that be?”
“Urgh.” I try to hug back as tightly, but it’s like hugging a pillar of iron.
Then he lets me go, and reaches down to cup my sheath in a paw. “Well,” he says, “since you don’t want to fuck all day, let’s go get some breakfast so you’re at least ready again tonight.”
My tail is drier now, and wags still harder.
Over breakfast at a diner, Dev mumbles around a mouthful of steak and eggs, “So how do we have this talk? You’re the only real relationship I’ve ever had.”
I swab up maple syrup with a bit of pancake. “
Peter said they want me to start March 1. Well, officially in the office. I guess after I sign the job offer, there’s a bunch of paperwork they have to file, and then Jocko’s on vacation until mid-February, and we might talk on the phone when he gets back, but anyway. Yeah. So I start March 1, and you can stay with me in Yerba for a couple months if you want.”
“Got workouts with Gerrard,” he says.
“Right, so maybe split your time. Anyway, you think maybe we can figure this out in a month?”
He muses, rubbing the last piece of steak around his plate. “So until then, what are we?”
I reach across and rest my paw on the table, halfway between us. “Just what we have been. Boyfriends. Partners. Just because we’re thinking about the future doesn’t mean we stop being what we are. After all, I mean…” I lick the sweet taste of maple syrup from my lips. “We both want—I mean, one possible outcome is—”
He laughs at my discomfiture. “Right now, doc, yeah, I know which way I want us to decide. But…” He lifts the fork, eats the steak delicately off it, and chews, looking thoughtful. When he swallows, he reaches out and rests his paw on mine. “You’re right. The last couple weeks were…yeah. I think we should really talk about it. Not just assume things are going to be okay from here on out.”
“Okay, then.” I realize that he hasn’t looked around the restaurant at all to see if our public affection will be noticed, and that makes me the one to do it. Nobody’s looking our way. Wait, scratch that: one teenager is, a chubby mouse who’s tugging at his father’s shirt, trying to get his attention. He sees me looking at him and looks down at the table, at which point I turn away.
Dev’s followed my gaze, and then comes back to me. “Don’t worry,” he says. “If they try to pour maple syrup down your back, I’ll protect you.”
I try to grin at his joke and manage it for about a second before the memory comes flooding back: the lukewarm beer splashing down my back and rear, the wolf’s paw grabbing my tail, the slow flush of shame sitting in the Boliat arena’s security office. I’m sure that me not telling Dev about that fight right away—even though it wasn’t my fault, even though I was just humiliated, not hurt—was part of the atmosphere of mistrust that led to us splitting for two weeks.
Dev sees my ears flatten and his smile goes the same way. “Aw, sorry,” he says. “Man, I’m getting our month off to a great start.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I should be able to joke about it, but…”
He tightens his paw over mine. “That kid at the airport, the kangaroo rat…I keep thinking about him. His dad beat him up, he said, but they were there together and it looked like things were getting better. And he said I did that. Maybe…” he searches my eyes. “Maybe he’s my Vince King?”
I nod, slowly. “I want you to tell me about that, too.” We’ve only brushed over the highlights of our two weeks apart, but they sound pretty eventful. “I’m glad your Vince King survived.”
“Me too.”
We pay (he pays), but before we can leave, the mouse kit runs over to Dev with big eyes and asks if he’s Devlin Miski, and Dev says he is, and the kit produces a scrap of paper and a pen. His paws are shaking so much he drops the pen, and Dev picks it up and signs the paper for him. Meanwhile, the parents come over to me where I’m standing a little apart.
“You must be…Lee, was it?” The father catches me by surprise.
“That’s right.” I curl my tail away from them, but they seem pleasant, and there’s no hostility in their scent. Anyway, who could be upset in a diner that smells of pastries and fried eggs?
“We’re pleased to meet you,” the mother says as the kid is gushing to Dev about the championship game. “You must be very proud of him.”
“I am.” I incline my head and smile. “And thank you.”
“We read the profile on you,” the father says. “Sounds like you had a pretty rough time.”
“I’ve got a new job,” I tell them. “I’ll be working with the Yerba Whalers.”
“Congratulations.” The mother gives me a toothy smile. “Though we’ve been Firebirds fans since the team started, so we won’t wish you luck.”
I return the smile. “Only if we’re not playing you.”
By then, their kit is back with his paper and Dev’s standing up, so we say our good-byes. They thank Dev for taking the time and he tells them it’s no problem, and we walk out.
“When do you want to go to Yerba?” he asks as we walk back to his truck through a warm Chevali morning. His tail flicks at the back of my leg.
“I need to stay here to get the official offer, so why don’t you give Fisher a call and see if we can come visit tonight or tomorrow?”
“You actually talked to Gena. Maybe you should call her.”
I squint into the sun, waiting for him to unlock the truck doors, and then clamber in when he does, tucking my tail behind me. “Sure, I can do that. And Hal wants to do lunch or dinner with us. Maybe I can get him to bring his girlfriend along.”
“Girlfriend?” Dev asks, so I tell him about the coyote Hal’s dating, and how I don’t really know much about her except that she doesn’t take Hal’s bullshit and threatened to break up with him when he spent one of their dinner dates on a phone interview for his story.
“Supports his passion but won’t let it get in the way of their relationship,” Dev says. “Sounds like my kind of girl.”
“We’re not even an hour into our month of figuring things out.” I glance forward and see a high-end shopping mall. “Give me a chance. Oh, and can we stop here?”
“You’re a fox,” he says, then turns obligingly and looks ahead at the huge complex of stores. “How much time do you need?”
“Tigers are complicated.” I grin. “Or did you mean at the mall?”
He huffs and reaches over to grab my thigh while making a turn with one big paw on the steering wheel. “What’s complicated about wanting to live with a fox and play football for a living?”
“You can keep both paws on the wheel.” I grip the door handle with one paw and his wrist with the other as the truck careens around a corner. “Also careful of cops.”
“I just played in the first championship game in over twenty years for this town.” He does slow, though, and finds us a parking spot. “No cop will give me a ticket for at least a month.”
“Yeah, but don’t press it.” I let go of the door as the truck rolls to a stop.
“What are we here for, anyway?” He turns the engine off and we both get out.
I point to the big iconic logo. “I want to get one of those new iPhones for Hal. As a thank-you for putting me up. And putting up with me.”
“Oh, cool. I can see if they can fix my screen.”
“At this point you should get a warranty plan,” I tell him, and he growls but doesn’t gainsay me.
We pick up a phone for Hal (Dev offers to pay for it, but now that I have a job, I feel better about using some of my savings), and the store manager authorizes a new one for Dev even though he doesn’t have the receipt. I think it’s because they recognize him, but then one of the employees asks for his autograph as we’re leaving, and the manager looks surprised. Anyway, it’s a nice visit and puts me in the mood to do some clothes shopping, so I indulge myself.
We walk back through the parking lot in the warm sunshine. Dev swings bags off his fingers like he’s a carousel ride. “You’re just going to have to buy a bunch of Whalers gear when you start your new job.”
“I’m not going to wear Whalers gear when I go out for a nice dinner. Which I’m going to do with you.” I heft one of the bags over my shoulder and look up at him. “A lot.”
He stares back. “As long as the portions are big.”
“Order two entrees, then.”
“Hey, I’m still only drawing a rookie salary.”
“Yeah, but you have a million in beer money coming.”
He gets quiet and I’m worried for a minute that he’s thinking back to the
PSAs. But as we toss the bags in the back of the truck, he says, “Shit. I forgot, I fired Ogleby.”
I stop, the iPhone bag still hanging from my paw. “What?”
“Over the phone, Sunday night. But I’m not sure—I mean, he pretended not to hear me, and he hasn’t called me since then. He was going to line up some deals, but—shit, he was going on about Polecki stealing my endorsements or something, and I was fried from the game, and I just blew up.”
We get into the truck, and I hold the phone bag in my lap. “I’m not going to pretend I think that was a bad move. The guy was holding you back.”
“I know.” He grips the steering wheel but doesn’t turn the key. “I just feel weird about it.”
My turn to put a paw on his thigh. “I know you might view your explosion as an overreaction, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong. I mean, you’ve exploded at me, too, and you weren’t necessarily wrong those times. I really think you can do better, and you owe it to yourself to do better. You’ve got a contract negotiation coming up…” I trail off for a moment, remembering the veiled hints from Peter that Yerba might be interested in trading for Dev. “…anyway, negotiating commercials is one thing. Do you really want Ogleby determining how much you get paid for the next five years?”
He lets out a long, slow breath. “No. When you put it like that, fuck no. I don’t want him anywhere near my next contract.”
“So.”
“Yeah.” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“No, but you have to do it. Another reason to call Fisher—his agent was one of the ones who called you. Damian, I think his name was.”
“I know.” He sighs. “What did you think of him?”
“From the phone message, he sounded stable. What did Fisher say about him?”
“I don’t know. Never mentioned him all that much.”
“That’s a good sign, then.”
We do call Fisher that afternoon, but Gena answers and says he’s asleep. “At three in the afternoon?” I hear Dev say into the phone, and then, “Uh-huh,” and then he hands me the phone.
