Over Time

by Kyell Gold

  The mule deer leans his head back. “I’m just being stupid, I know.”

  “Yeah, you are. It’s okay, we’ve all been there.” The coyote nuzzles him again.

  I’m enjoying watching them. It’s funny, but I haven’t really hung out with another gay couple. Seeing him say “I love you” to the deer feels a little weird to me, until I think about how it feels when I say it to Lee. So that’s how it looks to other people, and the more I hear it, the more I get used to it, the more it’ll feel as normal to hear it as it does to say it.

  “So your family’s coming up?” I ask Cornwall. He nods. “I guess you’re out to them?”

  Another nod, a bit more hesitant. “He is.” Polecki scruffles his boyfriend’s head where the antlers probably just dropped, and Cornwall squirms away from it. “It wasn’t as dramatic as with you guys—they didn’t learn about it from TV, obviously.” He gives me a look.

  “Oh, you told him about that?” Lee shakes his head. “Did he tell you his dad broke my thumb?”

  They both stare, and Polecki shakes his head. “Well, that didn’t happen either. No, he came out to them in college, but they didn’t really believe him, and then it was hard when he was dating me because he couldn’t tell them it was me.”

  “We know that routine.” I look down at my fox.

  “But they’d met him is the thing.” Cornwall picks up the story. “Last off-season, he came up and spent a week, and I thought that would make it easier to tell them.”

  “Or that they’d figure it out without you having to.” The coyote laughs. “But they didn’t, or at least they didn’t say anything. They’re definitely not coyotes.”

  “Jenny figured it out. She asked and I told her.”

  “But when I came out at the championship…” Polecki pauses for effect and holds up a finger. “Then they figured it out.”

  “So they did learn it from TV. Sort of.” I’m a little over-anxious not to be alone in this, and I take another drink of the white wine.

  Cornwall’s ears flick down. “I was watching with them and we talked about it right then.”

  “Anyway,” Lee says, “deer aren’t tigers, either. Is your family generally mellow?”

  “We’re quiet,” the mule deer says, “and we don’t talk about stuff a lot.”

  “Wow.” Lee turns to me. “I wonder what that’s like. Hey, where’s the restroom?”

  They point him to it, and when he’s gone, Polecki leans in to me. “So I guess you guys worked things out.”

  “Yeah, sort of.” I look after Lee, and then bury my nose in the wine glass again, finishing it. “We’re trying to figure out if we can be together without driving each other crazy.”

  The wine bartender reaches for my glass with a look to me. I nod, and he pours a red wine into it and hands it back.

  “Sometimes you need a little crazy,” Cornwall chimes in as I sniff the wine and take a sip.

  I look up at the deer and he turns fondly to Polecki. “I mean, for Stag’s sake, I ran into this guy in a bar. We have sex in supply closets at halftime. I would never have done that on my own.”

  “Oh,” the coyote says, and gives his glass to the wine deer for a refill, “but sex under the bleachers in college, that’s okay.”

  “It’s college!” Cornwall leans into Polecki. “That’s different. This is, like, our professional careers.”

  “That’s what makes it exciting.” He gives me a big coyote grin that reminds me of Zillo, because Gerrard doesn’t grin like that, but Polecki has more of Gerrard’s intensity than Zillo does. “What are they going to do, fire us for having sex in the stadium?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Anyway.” Polecki turns back to me. “I hope you guys work it out. He seems like a really cool guy. You know, for a fox.”

  “Seriously, foxes.” Cornwall rolls his eyes.

  “I know.” I laugh. “But he’s mine, you know? He kinda puts all that—all that foxishness into us, and I love that.” I pause. “I love him.”

  “Awww.” Polecki takes his glass back and mock-dabs at his eyes with his free paw.

  “Oh, come on.” I wave my glass at the two of them. “You guys were all lovey before.”

  He chuckles, and then Lee comes back, and Polecki leans in conspiratorially. “Hey,” he says, “did you know that Miski loves you?”

  Lee’s ears perk and he gives me a look. “He tells me that from time to time.”

  “When you’ve been good,” I say.

  “I cause trouble,” Lee says like he’s explaining something to our friends.

  They laugh, and I take another drink of my wine, almost finishing it. “So,” Polecki says, “Jay’s family will be getting here pretty soon. You guys want to stay for the dinner? You’re welcome, honestly.”

  Cornwall nods and adds, “Definitely. My family’s mellow.” Then he takes a drink of his wine and half-turns toward his boyfriend.

  Lee defers to me. I consider it, but I don’t really want to intrude on this dinner. I’m sure it would be okay with them, but celebrating Polecki’s championship—am I up for that already?

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  The mule deer wipes his mouth. “I’d actually appreciate it. I mean, you guys are a really nice couple, and it’d be good for my family to see another example…especially another football player, you know?”

  “If you’re okay with it,” I say to Lee.

  “Yeah, I think so.” His tail swishes. “I’ll try to be at my most charming.”

  We try another one of the wines and chat, and then I feel the weight of the phone in my pocket. “Oh, Zillo called,” I say. “Mind if I call him back?”

  I’m excused, so I head outside. The sun is setting on the mountains across from the road we drove up on, turning the sky into a red and gold painting, and the air is cool with a slight breeze that smells of earth and vegetation. There’s a little bit of auto exhaust, too, and I can hear some cars, but most everything around is quiet.

  The first thing Zillo says when he picks up is, “Christ, poor Gerrard, huh?”

  A million thoughts flash across my mind in a second: shit, did he get cut? Was he using what Fisher was using? Was he in an accident? “What happened?” I ask.

  Zillo whistles. “Angela kicked him out. He’s crashing at a hotel for a couple days and he asked me to go back and pick up some of his stuff.”

  First thought: thank God he’s okay. Second thought: wait, Angela kicked him out? “He called you?”

  “Yeah.” He draws it out. “I guess his real friends were out of town so he called me next because I was going to come to workouts. He said he wasn’t going to bother you or Carson when you were out of town and I said you at least would want to know, and he said he’d call you, but I guess he hasn’t yet.”

  “He sent me a text. I got distracted, hadn’t gotten around to calling him back. What the hell happened?”

  “Ah, yeah. Well, uh.” I picture Zillo scratching his ears. “He didn’t tell me, but I got a pretty good guess.”

  He hesitates so long that I say, “Do I get to hear the guess?”

  “Yeah. Okay, look, you know how we were talking the other day about having girls on the road and shit and how it doesn’t mean anything?”

  He pauses again, so I say, “Uh-huh?” to prompt him.

  “I was in Hellentown last year with the team. I was a rook, and the guys made me carry their bags in from the van. So I was carrying them in and I stopped in the lobby to rest.”

  I have no idea where this story is going. “Right?”

  “Anyway, Gerrard has these old beat-up bags, you know, the old Firebirds duffel bags from whenever, the 90s or something, and that was the first one I picked up. And suddenly this little cub comes tearing across the hotel and wraps herself around my legs and says, ‘Daddy!’”

  And now I know where the story is going, where it already has gone, and I’m way ahead of him. “Shit. Angela found out?”

  “Yeah, uh.” He fi
nishes the story quickly and lamely. “Uh, the cub’s mom came and took her away and said she was making a mistake, but then I saw the mom later with Gerrard—you get it already. So yeah, I guess Angela probably found out.”

  “Of all the stupid-ass things to do.” I glance over at Polecki and think about all the secrets football players can have on the road. And how my “almost getting a blow job from a groupie” is pretty boring compared to a secret boyfriend and a secret family. “So is he going to Hellentown?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, Carson’s up in Peachtree, which is only like, what, six hours away from there, but I think Gerrard’s planning to stay around Chevali. He can afford the hotel. I just hope the news doesn’t get hold of it.”

  “Yeah. Shit. Should I call him?”

  “Up to you, but, uh. I thought he was going to call you. So maybe wait? Or I dunno, give him a call. You know him better than I do. I never really talked to him much.”

  “I’ll figure it out. Thanks for letting me know.”

  “Sure,” he says. “So how’s Yerba? What are you guys doing there?”

  “Lee’s looking for an apartment. Or maybe a house.”

  “Cool,” Zillo says. “Say hi for me and I guess I’ll see you in a week or so. I mean, if we’re still doing workouts. I dunno where we’ll do them now.”

  “Gerrard can probably get us into the stadium,” I say. “Wait, so you’re around? Aren’t you on an island somewhere?”

  “Oh.” He pauses. “No, I’m back in Chevali.”

  “What happened?”

  “Ah…I’ll tell you more in person. Long story short, we get to the island, I go for a swim, come back, girlfriend’s fucking this otter, I slept at the airport and got the first flight back.”

  “Jesus.”

  “On the bright side, y’know, I didn’t have time to get jetlagged.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll talk to you when you get back. How’s Yerba?”

  “Great.” I tell him where I am and that I’m hanging out with Polecki, and he says a couple profanities, but amiably, and then a car comes rumbling down the drive, so I sign off.

  When I go back in, the other guys have moved to the dining room, so I warn them that the family is coming. Cornwall’s parents walk in a few minutes later with his siblings; Lee and I are introduced and then mostly sit quietly while the older mule deer talk to their son, and his brother and sister talk to each other. Then more relatives arrive and we’re introduced again, and Lee starts talking to Jenny Cornwall. The other brother, Josh, joins in, and the four of us have a pleasant dinner while Jay talks to his older relatives and Polecki basks in the compliments over his championship.

  Okay, to be perfectly fair, after the first one, he gestures down to me and says, “Let’s have a little consideration for my friend Miski down there.” And then they just congratulate him and me on coming out. Everyone seems really friendly and even Jay’s brother and sister only have nice things to say about him.

  Josh is a professional surfer, it sounds like? I’m not really clear; I ask him what he does and he says, “I surf,” and he talks about competitions. Jenny is studying for her MBA (advanced business degree, she clarifies for me), and though I like Jay, she’s definitely the brains of that generation of the family. I ask indirectly how they feel about their brother’s career in the public spotlight, and they’re both super-supportive of him, which makes me think about Gregory. Why did I have to have a competitive asshole lawyer for a brother? Why couldn’t I have had a surfer? I guess not living near the ocean, but still, there was one guy in my class who just skied all the time. That would’ve been nice, to have Gregory be a ski bum.

  We wrap up after a pretty terrific dinner, just standing around and drinking wine, until a boar in a deep blue jacket and a gold “RP” nametag reading “Corinne Stiles, Manager” comes up to Polecki and tells him they have fifteen minutes left. “Keep it open another hour,” he says, but the elder Cornwalls tell him they need to be leaving soon anyway, and the party breaks up.

  Polecki and Cornwall bid us good-bye, exchanging phone numbers and promising to stay in touch. Lee and I maneuver the car around the other parked cars and get back on the road.

  “So what was the call from Zillo about?” Lee asks as we get back onto the main road.

  I push my thoughts back through the evening to the other coyote, and summarize the conversation for Lee. Briefly I wonder whether I should filter any of the news, whether it’d be considered private by the Firebirds now that he’s working for the Whalers, but it’s late and I’m tired and he hasn’t officially started.

  He listens, and when I run out of words, he sighs and exhales. “Sorry to hear about Zillo,” he says. “That sucks. For Gerrard too, but…another family? He had to know that would catch up to him sooner or later.”

  “Probably he was figuring he’d have until his football career was over. Or maybe he just thought he could keep it going forever. Or…” I shake my head. “You know what, I don’t know. I have no clue. Gerrard is all about football. I can barely picture him as a father anyway, you know?”

  “Yeah.” He slides me a look and taps his paws on the wheel. “I can see you as a father, though. If there’s some cute tigress in Port City or something, you’d tell me, right?”

  I sputter. “First of all, you were with me all the time in Port City. We went out with your aunt. And second of all, I couldn’t even let another fox blow me. You think I could have an affair and a cub?” But I don’t know what was going through Gerrard’s mind, either. Maybe he considered sex before games as part of his preparation, something necessary for football, and he didn’t discriminate about where to get it. Maybe he and Angela had been fighting and he slept with a coyote who reminded him of her.

  “Easy, easy.” He reaches over to rest a paw on my leg. “I’m just saying, you could tell me and we’d work through it. And I’m sure Gerrard didn’t plan for it. Maybe he just picked her up one night and then a few months later she decided to keep the cub and he didn’t have a choice.”

  “I should call him.” I take out my phone, but I just stare at it. “Shouldn’t I?”

  “Your call,” Lee says. “You know him better.”

  “Well, what would you do?”

  His paw tightens on my thigh. “You’re asking my advice in a touchy personal situation?”

  I poke his shoulder. “I’m not asking Lee of four months ago. I’m asking Lee now.”

  “Fair enough.” He nods. “Wait for him to call you. He probably knows Zillo would call you, but maybe he didn’t, so give it another day or so. If he hasn’t called by the time we’re back in Chevali, then you’ll have to call him anyway to see about the workouts.”

  “Right.” I put my phone away. “Besides, there’s better ways to spend the rest of my evening. Once we get home.”

  He doesn’t change expression, but his foot presses down harder on the accelerator, and the car speeds up.

  In the morning, Lee checks his e-mail, which reminds me that I have an e-mail account that Gerrard might have sent something to. It’s a longshot, but if he didn’t want to contact me by phone, he might have tried my e-mail, the private one I hardly use. Not the Firebirds one—none of us use those because they get flooded with fan mail.

  So while Lee’s showering, I log in and check it. Not many messages, mostly spam and a couple from the Forester alumni association. There is one from Caroll saying I looked good in the championship game and can she meet my fox next time I’m in Crystal City? And then, scrolling back, there’s one from Gregory, dated a week ago. He must have sent it right after the game. With some trepidation, I open it.

  Dev,

  Tough breaks. Good game though. Marta and I are real proud of you.

  It’s not signed. It just makes me mad; I wonder if he was working on that Families United case while he typed this, defending the people who want to tear me and Lee apart with one paw and typing out his grudging praise with the other.
What a fucking piece of shit.

  I start a reply with lots of colorful language in it. I’m on the second paragraph when Lee comes back to the bed, brushing his tail out, and looks over my shoulder.

  “Whoa,” he says. “You didn’t accidentally re-hire Ogleby, did you?”

  “This is to my brother,” I say. “He sent me a message after the game.”

  “Huh.” Lee reads more of the message. “You sure you want to send that?”

  “No.” I type a little more. My anger’s running out, so I call up his message. “Look what he e-mailed me.”

  He reads it. “He’s real proud of you?”

  “He’s a fucking hypocrite! Sends me this message and then goes out and talks about traditional families a week later? I bet Marta made him type this out, that’s why he didn’t put his name after it. She probably even typed it for him. No, seriously, I’ve had it with him. He can stay home. I’m done with him.” I smack the laptop screen.

  Lee rests a paw on my wrist. “Not arguing that he’s an asshole, though you know him lots better than I do. But you’re going up there to talk to your parents. You don’t have to send your brother a message that includes more ‘fucks’ than I’ve seen in most Internet comment threads.”

  He’s right, of course. I get up and wave at the screen. “Go ahead and delete it.” While he does that, I stalk over to the window and stare out at the parking lot.

  Lee finishes, shuts the laptop, and comes to stand beside me. He rests a paw at the base of my lashing tail. “Look,” he says. “When you say you’re done with him…”

  I gesture, swiping the air and imagining it’s Gregory. “Don’t worry, doc, I’m not going to cut out part of my family, even if he thinks I’m trying to bribe him.”

  “I was going to say—what?”

  So then I tell him about the phone conversation that I somehow screwed up, Gregory’s cold attitude. “But I didn’t start yelling. Mom said I would start yelling.”

  “I dunno.” He scratches behind an ear and then slides that arm around my waist. “Sounds like maybe you should have. He was being a grade-A dick.”

  “I’ve had a lot of practice in keeping my temper the last few months.” It comes out a little sharper than I mean it to, so I drape an arm over his shoulder. “Which I’m grateful for.”