Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (5 page)

When we’re finally done with our lines, Keith and Iva come in from either side (without their robes, and yes, Keith is wearing shorts underneath, and they’re in the Firebirds colors, no less) and we put our arms around them and I do my best to look natural. It’s funny, standing there for about fifteen minutes with my arm around Keith as we try various poses that make us look “casual but intimate,” as the director says, or “like we’re totally going to fuck later,” as Keith whispers to get me to laugh. I spent the last two years worrying about what would happen if I just hugged Lee in public, and here I am, shirtless, holding a half-naked guy close against me with all sorts of lights and cameras on us, and his fingers are buried in my short stomach fur and everyone is just acting like it’s normal.

Even so, I’m acutely aware that he’s straight, and they’re all professionals. And it’s not “normal,” because the whole point is that it’s a guy and not a girl. But it’s still a strangely warm, reassuring feeling. By the end of the shoot, it barely seems weird to me, although I can’t quite forget that I’m only in this commercial because I have a boyfriend. Keith’s in this commercial because he can act gay, pretending to be like me, and not in the same way as my football fans who want to run like me, or tackle like me, or pick off passes like me. Maybe there are fans who want to be like me in the way that I love Lee, and that feels very personal and strange if I think about it too much. So I don’t.

The director says they’ll add a lot of voiceover later, and he’s going to review the footage and see if we need to do any pickups (“pickups,” Keith tells me, are re-takes of shots that didn’t come out quite right). Meanwhile, Charisse comes back and hands me my phone with about a dozen pictures on it, of me in makeup and me during the filming, and one of me looking lost as the director is telling me to do it again.

“You did great,” she says with a perky smile. “Ready for lunch?”

I kind of expect Keith and Iva to come along, but as we’re getting ready to go, Keith shakes my paw and says he’s enjoyed meeting me. Iva just disappears.

DeLoup’s does do a burger, it turns out, with avocado and bean sprouts and heirloom tomatoes on it and some kind of garlicky spread that is terrific with the rich beef. Charisse prompts us to talk about football history, and Strike and I are happy to discuss championship teams we all grew up watching. I’m especially happy because it takes me out of thinking about my sexuality for once. She and Strike are closer to each other in age than either of them is to me; Strike’s 29 and she’s 31. I would’ve thought that would lead naturally to more flirting, but Strike holds back over lunch. Maybe he really loves football enough that when he discusses it, he’s not thinking about anything else.

Even though I don’t specifically remember a few of the teams they’re talking about, I’ve watched enough of the old UFL Films shows to be able to chat about them. Charisse says her boyfriend thinks this year’s Sabretooths are among the great teams, and Strike and I say that’s just hometown rooting going on. Strike says that now the Firebirds are good enough to win a championship, and Charisse kind of nods with a long smile, her tail twitching, and says that of course we will. “Just not this year.”

She picks up the tab and takes us back to the studio, where the director says thanks for coming back but he’s got everything he needs, and then we’re on our way to the airport in the limo. I want to call Lee and tell him about the shoot, but I don’t want to do it in front of Charisse and Strike. So I wait until we’re at the airport and then I tell them I need to go to the bathroom, and I slip into one of the phone cubicles there.

“It was weird,” I say when he asks about it. “I had to have my arm around this black wolf.”

“Was he cute?”

“Yeah, he was. But he’s straight.”

Lee laughs. “Good. Was it a good commercial?”

I think about that. “Yeah. I mean, they went with me on defense, him on offense, and, like, ‘no matter what side of the ball you’re on, drink Strongwell’ was how it ends.”

He laughs harder. “Oh my goodness. I can’t believe they’re really going to air it. That’s amazing. So did you have your paw on his butt?”

“No, just around his waist. We were kinda close, but just hugging.” I clear my throat. “And shirtless.”

“Both of you?”

“Yeah.”

He chuckles. “Can’t wait to see it.”

“I took pictures for you.”

“Cool. And Strike has a girl? Were they shirtless?”

“He was. She wore a bikini. And he was hitting on her all morning.” I lower my voice to a whisper for that.

“I guess maybe even his tantric meditation has limits.” Lee snorts. “Well, sounds like you survived it. So back to football now.”

“Yeah. I’ve got the playbook with me to study on the flight and about six hours of tunes.” I try to frame what I was thinking about during the prep and during the commercial. “It was kind of cool, you know. That I’ll be up there in a beer commercial with my arm around another guy and that, you know, kids and sports fans will see it.”

“It’s a good first step,” he says.

I sigh. Of course that wouldn’t be enough for him. “It’s all I’ve got time for,” I say.

After that, he gets kind of quiet. When I push, he says he has a call scheduled with David Rodriguez for later in the week, so at least he’s still considering doing community outreach with the Firebirds. I don’t ask him whether he’s already told his ex-friend Brian that I’m not going to be doing the gay rights spots for Equality Now.

I hang up thinking that not much has really changed with him moving in. We see each other a little more, but it doesn’t feel like that much more, especially since I just got done talking to him on the phone like I used to every week. I’m traveling most of the time, and he could come with me, but I’ve also got my team, which is like my other family, and he can’t be a part of that. But we just have to get through to the off-season. A couple months of solid time together (or less, depending on how the playoffs go) before I have to go back to training camp in March will help reaffirm our relationship. Last year we took a short vacation because of his job; maybe this year, if he doesn’t have anything lined up right away, we could take a longer trip somewhere. And as much as I resist all of his equality stuff, I have to admit that it feels good to know that we wouldn’t have to worry about being seen together in public anymore. Especially after this whole day, which was cool but also weird: “You’re gay, so we want to take pictures of you.” Being treated differently and well is still being treated differently, which I think is part of what Lee wants me to understand, but it’s a lot easier to just push that aside than to think about it.

Thinking about Lee is a lot more pleasant, especially if I imagine sitting on the couch with my arm around him when the beer commercial comes on, and seeing his expression when I have my arm around Keith, and what I might have to do to reassure him. I do that for the first half hour on the plane, then open up the team playbook, going through my responsibilities for that week, and I’m a football player again. Strike and I sit across a small table from each other, but while I open the playbook on the table, he just listens to his music, eyes closed, fingers tapping on the table surface. It’s a little irritating, but not too bad.

The flight attendant, a short bobcat, serves us what I guess is dinner at seven o’clock West Coast time, ten o’clock Hellentown time, and that’s when Strike turns off his music and starts talking. He asks how I liked the commercial shoot and I said it seemed really complicated for as simple as it turned out to be.

He gestures at the playbook I set on the seat beside me and says, “Everything’s like that. It just depends on your field.”

“Guess so.”

“So that wolf was pretty good-looking.” He spears pieces of lettuce on his fork. “Did you get his number?”

“Who, what? Keith?” I look up from the lobster pasta, which is not too bad. “No. Why? I thought you weren’t into…”

“Not for
me
.” He waves his phone. “I got Iva’s number. She said to ring her up next time I’m in town. I come out there pretty often, you know. My agent’s trying to get me a movie deal in the off-season.”

“I don’t think my agent has anyone’s number in Crystal City.” I half-laugh, but in the middle of the laugh it occurs to me that it’s not such a funny joke, so I just take another bite of the pasta.

“Okay, well.” Strike sets his phone down and takes another bite himself. “Guess he wasn’t your type?”

“Keith?” I set down my fork. “You met Lee, right? You know I have a boyfriend?”

He gives me a mild glance. “Isn’t it part of the deal with being gay that you get to just sleep with any gay guy you want? I mean, it’s nice you’ve got a guy who’ll wait at home for you, but if you get the chance…it’s not like you have to be careful about it. You’re not married or anything. No unexpected cubs.”

Annoyance is blossoming into full-on anger. “Okay, first of all, Keith’s not gay.”

Strike grins at me. “When did he tell you that?”

“What?” His self-confidence derails my anger. “I don’t know. We were at the catering table and I was asking whether he had a boyfriend, I think?”

“Right. Probably after he’d come on to you and you hadn’t responded. Or you mentioned your boyfriend or something. Classic move. He anticipated you rejecting him so he rejected you first by saying he wasn’t gay.”

I feel like I’m getting coached in a bizarre sport by a lunatic. “No, I’m pretty sure he’s straight.”

He laughs. “When you’ve been around those movie types a little longer, you’ll start to learn that nothing they tell you is true. Come on, he volunteered to be hugged by a gay football player in a commercial. Probably fought for that part. I’m telling you, he’s queer all the way through. Did he seem at all nervous about having a guy touch his hips?”

“No, but—”

“Did he try to get you to rest a paw on his butt?”

“Um.” I don’t think he did, but there were a couple times—no. “No. He’s straight. He wanted this part because all the good awards are going to gay roles. Something like that. He’s a masseur when he’s not an actor, that’s why he was comfortable with the touching.”

“Oh, he’s an actor all right, if he was acting straight.”

I take in a breath. “Okay, listen. You can’t possibly know what he is. Hell, most of the team thought I was straight until I came out.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Well, I wasn’t on the team then.”

“You think you woulda been able to tell?”

He shrugs and crams another bite of salad into his mouth, chews, takes his time. “I got a sense of these things.”

“Okay, then.” I lean back. “Is anyone else on the team gay?”

“This team?” He glances down at the playbook. “I haven’t met everyone, but nah.”

“Port City? Hellentown?”

He holds up two fingers. “Two guys on Port City. One at Hellentown.”

I lean forward. “Who?”

He gives me a skeptical look. “Would you have wanted me telling people you were gay before you came out? Have a little bit of respect for individual privacy.”

“You’re full of shit,” I say.

“Look, don’t get worked up over nothing. That wolf was gay, you didn’t want to hook up with him, it’s cool. It’s not a thing.” He takes another bite of his salad and looks at my pasta. “Probably it’s that heavy cream sauce affecting you. Just sits like a weight in your stomach, doesn’t it?”

The bobcat, coming back in to refill our wine, looks alarmed. “Is there something wrong with the pasta, sir?”

“The pasta’s fine,” I snap, and take a big bite of it, glaring at Strike. The cheetah just shakes his blue-and-gold dyed head and eats more weeds.

As soon as dinner’s over, I take out my iPod and put in the earphones. I look back at the playbook, focus on being a football player, and I don’t talk for the rest of the flight.

Chapter 2 – Standing Out (Dev)

Hellentown is even warmer than Chevali and so humid that the first day of practice we end up panting, sweating, and uncomfortable. The second day we’re more used to it, and by the third day it only feels mildly disturbing. Still, happy December, huh? I feel like we’re back at the beginning of the season, because this would be a cool late summer day in Hilltown, but of course I’m a lot more beat up than I would be in September. Also, I didn’t get to bed until about two a.m. local time and we were up at seven, so I’m dragging.

The other thing flashing me back to the beginning of the season is that Fisher’s back in practice. Pike returns gracefully to his backup role—good team player—but they keep him working with the first team. He’ll take some of the plays until they’re sure Fisher’s leg is going to hold up. I watch Fisher’s practice when I can, hoping for the best. There are no new plays for this week; of course, he’s missed half the season, so there are a bunch of plays that are new to him, and he looks like he’s struggling.

I go over on a five-minute break because I haven’t seen him since Christmas. As I walk over, the defensive line is practicing a strong-side running play, and Fisher misses his assignment and runs into Brick. He shakes his head, the coach talks to him, and then they take their break. “Hey! Good to see another set of stripes back on the field,” I call, walking up to him.

“Yeah, same here,” he says, tail lashing. “Where the hell you been?”

My ears fold back. “Filming a commercial. I told you at the dinner.”

He blinks and looks past me. “Right. Right.”

He’s helped me so much this season that I want to give a little back. “That running play—they changed it a few weeks ago. You have to—”

“No shit,” he growls. “I got it.”

He’s not looking at me, just staring at the coach, paws on his hips, panting. “Okay,” I say. “Um, is your leg…”

“It’s fine,” he snaps. “Lion Christ, the doc cleared me, okay? Do I need a fucking sign? Let’s just play.”

And he sure seems to be fine. He can cut and get a good push on the second-team offense when they’re out, and after that morning, I don’t see him look lost on a play. After the first day I stop worrying so much about him. Physically, at least.

In the locker room, he’s not quite the same. He still jokes with the guys, but the jokes are forced, as though he’s trying to prove he still belongs. I try to chalk it up to being gone for three months, and maybe that’s all it is. But he’s also not the leader he used to be. There’s an awkward moment when Fisher suggests we all go to dinner Tuesday night for New Year’s Eve, and the guys look at Gerrard for confirmation. Fisher pretends not to notice, but on our way out he scowls and says under his breath to me, “Like I don’t know how to get a team out to dinner anymore.”

“It’s the playoffs,” I say. “Just tell the guys what to expect. Most of us haven’t been here before.”

“You nervous?” He gives me a sideways glance.

“No.” I exhale and then take a breath. The evening is dark overhead, but Hellentown is full of artificial light, neon and incandescent, and it’s still seventy and humid, like I’m standing in the shower room. “Yeah. A little.”

“Good.” He grins. “Nervous is good. Means you’re feeling the pressure. I’m not going to give you some bullshit speech about the field being the same dimensions. You know all that. I’m going to say that you’re a professional, and this is the same game you’ve always played. You know it inside and out.”

“I was in the playoffs in college.”

He nods. “Same deal, kind of.” His whiskers slide back as he grins. “But more. Lots more. Crowd’s going to be a factor, loud and pumped up. You need to be able to shut them out and focus on the game. Once you get into the game, it gets easier, more familiar.”

“And hey, you’ll be out on the field.”

He flexes his paws and growls deep in his chest. “Finally.”

We walk past our hotel, getting some attention from the locals there. A pair of armadillos, wearing party hats with “2009” written on them, yell, “Get ready to get your tails handed to you!” Other people yell less polite variations along our two-block walk to the restaurant opposite the strip mall.

In the steakhouse, the staff are very polite, even after they find out who we are. “I promise not to spit in the beer,” the raccoon waiter says with an exaggerated drawl and a grin. He’s wearing a Pilots pin on his vest, and when Vonni asks if that’s part of the uniform, he says, “This week it is.”

I encourage Fisher to tell us stories about playoff games. He needs little encouragement before launching into the time he had a case of nerves once and threw up on the sideline, then going on about what it’s like once you get into the groove of things, about how good it feels to be standing up on that podium, touching the championship trophy. About how for a week after the championship—both times he won—he barely slept, just lay in bed staring at the ceiling and reminding himself that it was real.

About how those memories fade and they’re like drugs, how the most important thing in your life becomes getting back there.

My phone rings in the middle of that, and it’s Dad, so I let him leave a message for later. The call makes me think of family, and combined with Fisher talking about championships like they’re the best thing in the world…I wonder how Fisher feels about Gena and the boys. If I asked him whether he’d leave his family if it meant he could have one more year playing at a high level, what would he say?

The waiter catches part of Fisher’s speech and says that even for fans, the championship is a pretty big deal. “I’m looking forward to our victory parade,” he says.

“Sure you’ll still be alive when that happens?” Pace says, and the waiter laughs.

At midnight, we watch the ball drop on the bar TVs and get a champagne toast, inviting the waiter to join us. Lee calls me at five ’til, and I keep him on the phone so I can hear him say, “Happy New Year!” I tell him I’ll call him later, since I’m the only one with a phone to my ear and I don’t want to be rude.

The waiter brings us another round of champagne on the house, but we can’t stay much past 12:30. No curfew tonight, but practice at 9 am, and we all need to get sleep. We do leave a pretty big tip when we go. Got to appreciate fans, even if they’re not yours.

At quarter to one, as I’m walking through the hotel lobby, my parents call to wish me Happy New Year. Mom is in good spirits and even Dad is a little tipsy. I tell them about the commercial and Mom says, “Oh, Gregory will be so jealous,” and she laughs. Privately, I think she’s right, and that it’s not funny, but I don’t know what to say about that. Thank God Gregory isn’t actually there for them to insist he talk to me. I’m just buzzed enough that if he started mouthing off about Lee, I’d probably start needling him about his shitty law practice.

I call Lee from the hotel room, since Charm’s out still, probably at that topless bar he loves. My fox is kind of quiet, listening to me talk about practice. He offers a few tips, but doesn’t talk about what he’s been doing. “How’re you spending your New Years?” I finally say. If he mentions his mom, I’m ready to listen.

“Watching college bowl games.”

His voice is just a little slurred, a little off. I presume he’s been drinking, but hey, so have I. “Any of your players do well?”

“Some. Some had bad games. I’d change the ratings on them.”

“I think you should get out more. Maybe Hal wants to watch some of the games with you?”

“I’m seeing him tomorrow.” In the background, I hear the TV going. Sounds like a sports news show.

And then I ask about Equality Now, because they wanted a decision by January first and that’s tomorrow. And it’s all tangled up because the guy he’s talking to is Brian, and there’s so much history there—the end of their friendship back at the college we all went to, Brian coming on to him (and Lee giving in, but that was just once and it’s in the past and I’ve forgiven him), Brian more or less outing me, threatening me with pictures, then pressuring Lee to get me to do more gay rights activism—that it’s impossible to be objective about it. So I do the next best thing and just stay quiet, and wait for him to tell me.

“I told him you’re not going to do it,” he says finally.

A lot of tension drains from me. I lean back against the headboard, stretch my legs out on the bed, and exhale across the phone. I wish I could hug him right there. “Thanks, fox.”

“Well, you weren’t. It wasn’t like I could lie to him.” Of course, because he’s Lee, he has to be a little foxy-snippy about it.

I try to not mind, to not snipe back. I don’t quite succeed. “No, but…you could’ve kept bugging me about it.”

“I know better than that. You were right. I told you to focus on football and that’s what you should do. No matter whether there’s people out there who need to be recognized. That’s their problem.”

He’s definitely a little drunk. I say, “Doc,” and he apologizes, and I try to talk sexy with him, and it sort of works. At least, it gets me missing him, and that gets us through to the countdown. There’s a brief hiccup where he won’t tell me what he wants to do with my playoff check, some forty grand. I don’t care; I’ve already put it out of my mind. He wants to give it to Equality Now, great. I just want to start this new year fresh.

I kiss him through the phone when it hits midnight, and he kisses me back.

“New year,” I say.

“Playoffs,” he says. “You ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“Good.” He takes a breath. “Love you. I’ll see you Friday. Practice hard.”

“I always do.”

And I do, every day of the brand new year. The coaches do their best to make the week feel like a normal practice, but there are more and more media around every day, and it’s impossible to escape the feeling of having your every move scrutinized. The week kicks off another round of “The UFL’s First Gay Player” articles, which means reporters keep me busy for hours after practice every day while my fellow linebackers are relaxing in a spa or getting a massage.

I don’t watch TV or read the media much, so I don’t know when these articles actually come out. Without Lee to tell me about the things being written and said, the first indication I have of it is during Thursday practice when Colin starts being a dick again. Well, that fox never really stops being a dick, but Thursday he starts doing it louder. “Chevali Flaming-Birds, they’re calling us now,” he snaps while we’re eating. It’s to a bunch of his buddies, not to me, but as I look up, he’s looking my way, clearly hoping I heard. “Heck with that,” he goes on. “Look, I told my agent to make sure anyone who calls him knows that there’s only one on this team.”

He’s holding a phone, but I don’t know if he was reading something someone sent him, or talking to his agent or what. Zillo, next to me, folds his big coyote ears down as I look past him at Colin. He mumbles, “He’s not a bad guy.”

“You’ve said that,” I say. “But he keeps acting like one.”

Zillo is Colin’s roommate, like I’m Charm’s, and they used to be close. He looks over at the fox now, but Colin turns back to his friends, a few special-teamers. “Yeah,” the coyote says, “I mean, put yourself in his place. What if, like…suddenly everyone wasn’t cool with you being gay?”

“You mean like my entire life before three months ago?”

I didn’t think his ears could go down farther, but they do. “Yeah, but—no. I mean…”

“It’s not the same.” I feel Lee talking through me. I allow him a little leeway. “For one thing, I’m not telling him how to live his life.”

“I know.” Zillo doesn’t look at me.

“I just want to have
him
not tell
me
how to live
my
life.”

“I know! Jesus—” He stops, and we look at each other, and then we both just start laughing.

“Jesus, all right,” I say. “Look, I know it’s got nothing to do with you.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m Christian too, you know. Not all of us are judgmental, ah…” He trails off, maybe unwilling to say “assholes” about his former buddy and still-roommate.

It isn’t until that night, when I talk to Lee, that I find out that not only did the sports reporters write their articles, but three different websites—two gay rights ones and one “lifestyle” one—and one TV show I’ve never heard of recycled old stories about “the first openly gay player.” I tell him that none of them talked to me and he isn’t surprised. He says it looks like they just dusted off quotes from a few months ago and added a bit about me going to the playoffs. “If you win—when you win—”

“Damn right,” I growl.

“—then there’ll be more interviews and stuff. Probably. But you can just put it off, too. The important thing is winning.”

He doesn’t sound sarcastic when he says it, so I take it at face value. I’m glad. I don’t want to immediately start fighting when I see him in person tomorrow.

Friday is a full-pads practice, everybody going all out, so I don’t have a lot of energy to spare to think about Lee coming in that night. I do anyway, a little, while we’re stretching afterwards. I take a long shower and opt for the massage rather than the trainer, where a lot of my teammates are going for treatments. It’s not that I don’t hurt; it’s that I don’t hurt that much. Nothing I can’t walk off. The ribs from a month ago are pretty much healed, and I’m banged up by the game, but that’s football.

Only when I’m dressed do I pick up my phone. There’s three messages from Ogleby asking how the commercial went—he should upgrade his calendar—and telling me about the articles Thursday and how he’s getting more endorsement opportunities. I call back and ask him if any groups have been asking me to do equality PSAs and he says yeah, but he’s not responding to those because they’re free.

“Schedule them for after the playoffs,” I say. “Along with the commercials. No more commercials, no more anything until after the playoffs are over.”

“Okay, but Dev, I gotta tell you, some of these guys are really hot to go.”

I’m not the only one on a phone as guys get dressed and take off, but Gerrard is looking at me and Zillo’s right nearby too. I don’t want to talk about commitments to my time with Gerrard around. “I said no more until after the playoffs.”