Over Time

by Kyell Gold

  At the coffee shop, Lee combs through his tail, his fur as sticky from the humidity as mine is. The place is small but crowded; we’re lucky enough to walk up just as another couple was leaving a sidewalk table. Those are less popular because it’s still chilly outside, but our breath steams with the heat of the club and we don’t mind at all. Lee has longer fur and I’ve got a jacket on, so we sit with our backs to the café’s glass and watch the people walk by along the street.

  “So,” he says finally, “that was a surprise.”

  “Don’t know if ‘surprise’ is a big enough word.” I shake my head. Now that I’ve sat and talked with him, of course it feels less surprising, but that moment when I saw him kiss the wolf…on the lips…

  “You think they’re telling the truth about it being casual?”

  “Huh?” That was one question I hadn’t even considered. “Why would they not?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know either of them well. I was just curious is all. It could be casual just like they say.”

  “You know what? I’m going to assume people tell me the truth until I find out they’re not. Ty said his parents are lining up vixens for him to marry, so I’m guessing he was telling the truth.”

  We order coffees and our talk turns to the next day. Lee wants to look at more houses and also to go into his office to meet up with his new boss and his boss’s boss, the fox. I probably shouldn’t go, but I figure I’ll call Damian and ask if meeting another team’s executives socially is considered tampering. In the process, maybe I can get more information on how Fisher’s doing.

  “And we should call Gena,” Lee says, as if reading my mind.

  “And then dinner with Polecki.” I lean back and extend my legs out. “And here I thought this trip was going to be like a little vacation.”

  “Hah.” Lee grins. “I’m gonna run you all over this city. But right now I’m going to get you a coffee.”

  “If you’re all worn out from dancing,” I say as he gets up, “I can go.”

  He sticks his tongue out at me again and walks around the table and into the café.

  So Ty has a boyfriend. Maybe not a serious one, but enough that he came to Yerba to see him. I’m glad I’m already friends with him, because otherwise he might be afraid to hang out together a lot when the season starts up again. Hell, we all went to a gay club together and nobody thinks any of us but me is gay. So he’ll be fine, and maybe we can all go dancing every so often.

  He and the wolf walk up while Lee’s still in the café, and cram in around our little table. I ask what they want and text it to Lee, and I notice there’s a text message from Gerrard. This new phone, I think as I call it up. Either he texted sometime during the day and I didn’t notice, or it didn’t beep when the message came in.

  I can’t deal with this bullshit, is all it says.

  I guess maybe he heard about Fisher. I check the time, but it’s way too late to call him. I’ll figure it out tomorrow.

  But it reminds me to tell Ty about Fisher retiring and to keep it quiet until Tuesday. “Sure,” he says. “Was it the concussions? I thought he had at least another year or two left.”

  “His kids are finishing up high school,” Lee says smoothly, putting down four drinks: black coffee for me and Arch, a cappuccino for Ty, and a latte for himself. “He wants to spend some time with them before they go off to college.”

  “Wow, kids.” Ty shakes his head. “We got Pike, so I guess we’ll be okay.” He grins at me. “Maybe we’ll pick up another tiger in the offseason.”

  “Hey,” Lee says, sitting down, “if he’s a rookie, you could mentor him.”

  “Yeah, I was sort of bummed when they traded Ford.” Ty sits back, then turns to Arch. “Ford was the other wideout who’s a fox. Now if I want to hang out with the foxes, they’re all cornerbacks.”

  “Is that a big difference?” Arch looks around at the three of us.

  “Well, it’s the reason I’m hanging out with Dev here,” Ty says. “I mean, I never really hung out with the defense too much in college, but—”

  “Cornerbacks are defenders,” I say, “like me. Wideouts are offensive players.”

  Lee turns to the wolf and says, “Enough football. Arch, what do you do?” and we hear about his data entry-slash-customer service job for a small tech firm.

  “Just a mile that way,” he says. “The owners and my boss are gay, and it’s a really friendly workplace.”

  I nudge Lee. “Maybe you should be looking for a place a couple miles from your office so you have to walk every day. Build up your endurance.”

  “Oh,” Arch says, “you’re moving up here?”

  “Not to the city.” Lee gestures vaguely southward. “Down by the Whalers office.”

  The wolf grins. “I don’t know where that is.”

  “Down the peninsula, maybe forty minutes?”

  “Ah, gotcha. Well, too bad. If you ever want to go dancing, just give me a ring. I’ll be glad to show you around.” The wolf sips his coffee and then looks around at the quiet table. “Just dancing,” he says.

  “Oh, seriously.” Lee snorts at my expression. “If I were going to fool around with another guy, dear, I would invite you, too.”

  I grin, and then that image pops into my head and the grin wavers, and then I think about Ty coming to terms with his interest so easily and wonder if I really would be into that, and then I shake my head. “I wasn’t thinking that,” I say, mostly truthfully. “I was thinking that if you go dancing with him, you better bring a couple energy drinks along.”

  He gives me a baleful look, and Arch says, “Hey, I can tone it down to whatever you’re comfortable with,” and that earns him the same look.

  “I’ll train up for next time,” Lee says finally, and sips his latte so that when he exhales, his warm breath shows white through his teeth.

  “Ah, you weren’t that bad,” Ty says. “Foxes can’t look bad on the dance floor.”

  “Did you see Vonni?” I ask, not because Vonni was that bad a dancer, but because you make fun of guys behind their backs, and also to make Lee feel better if he really is feeling bad, which I’m not quite sure of.

  It works; we all laugh, and Ty makes a comment about foxes from the northeast being an exception. Arch asks for a demonstration, and Ty and Lee both try to imitate Vonni’s jerky arm movements while seated. We all laugh, and then Lee asks Arch about the Korsat neighborhood and we finish our coffees over some of his stories of things that have happened here.

  There are more people standing around waiting for a table, and Lee and I at least have a half-hour drive back to our hotel, so we stand up and shake paws. “Hey,” Ty says as I clasp his paw in mine—he’s a fox, but he’s got the biggest paws of any fox I’ve ever met—“I’m glad you ran into us here. It’s cool, right? We’re cool?”

  “Yeah,” I say, because you can’t be mad at Ty for too long. He’s not quite got Charm’s slippery good-natured humor, but he has an infectious grin and he doesn’t let anything rattle him. “We’re cool. And hey, have fun. He seems like a cool guy.”

  He winks at me. “Thanks. Hey, when I get back to Chevali, I’ll call you.”

  We wave and head our separate directions. In the car on the way back, Lee chuckles and shakes his head. “So it worked after all. Wonder if we should check up on Pike. Maybe he hooked up that night too.”

  “Ty didn’t hook up that night,” I point out. “He just met a guy he liked and got to know him better.”

  “I know, I know.” Lee leans back with an expression as satisfied as when we’d finished that sushi, keeping one paw casually on the wheel. “I’m taking some credit for this, though, and you can’t stop me.”

  “I wouldn’t.” I open the window on my side, enjoying the warm, humid air that casts a haze around the glowing names atop the buildings. “No, it’s totally cool. Because he’s happy, because he’s having fun, because Arch doesn’t seem to mind.”

  “Hope it works out.” Lee squints ahead
. “Do you remember what exit our hotel was off of?”

  I pull out my phone, which has a map program on it. “I think it’s working out about as well as it’s going to. I mean, they don’t want much more than what they’re doing now, right?”

  “Sure, but I mean, eventually they’re going to get more serious or stop seeing each other, aren’t they?”

  “What was our hotel’s name?” He tells me and I put it in. “I don’t know. I think they’re both getting something they want.”

  “They can’t keep it casual forever.”

  “Okay, take exit 440b. And why not?”

  “How far is that? People change, you know. You get older, you want different things.”

  “How old is Arch? It’s in nineteen miles.”

  “Twenty-six.” Lee grips the wheel and grins. “He was the oldest guy in our group.”

  “Acted like it, too. Stayed quiet, didn’t try to push himself into the conversation. Ty was the one all chatty.”

  “Arch is a nice guy. If anyone was going to be Ty’s first gay experience, I’m glad it was someone like him.”

  I turn and grin. “Not me?”

  He just laughs. “Jesus Fox, can you even imagine feeling up one of your teammates? How awkward that would be?”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Anyway, you’re cuter than Ty.”

  His tail swishes. “Well, thanks for that. I don’t know if Arch would really be interested in me if you decided to go off with Ty.”

  Staring down at my phone, I remember Gerrard’s message, and I call it up again. “I guess Gerrard heard about Fisher. I should call him tomorrow.”

  I show Lee the text, and he frowns. “ ‘Bullshit’ is kind of a strong word to talk about a friend retiring.”

  “That’s Gerrard.” I shrug. “It doesn’t have to do with football, therefore it’s bullshit.”

  “Give him a call tomorrow maybe.”

  “I was thinking that.” I put my head back and close my eyes.

  I half doze off in the car, so I’m groggy when we pull up outside the hotel, and I think we probably will just go to bed, but when we do get up to the room, maybe the coffee kicks in or something, because when Lee strips to his boxers and gets into bed, I climb in and crawl on top of him. He squirms, but I press him to the mattress, purring down against him.

  “What?” He grins up at me, and I know he can feel what, pressing against his leg. I can feel him getting harder against my stomach too. But I just lean down and kiss his nose, and then his lips.

  “Thanks for taking me out dancing,” I say, and slide my arms around behind his shoulders.

  “Aw,” he says, “you don’t have to thank me. But thanks for coming.”

  I squeeze him and press my nose into his fur, breathing into it and inhaling his scent. “You’ll be saying that again in about fifteen minutes.”

  He works one of his paws between us, manages to bring fingers to my erection. “Oh, you think it’ll take that long?”

  My length stiffens further under that touch. “Well,” I breathe next to his ear, “I’m counting the time it’ll take you to go get the lube out of our luggage.”

  He pushes me up very slightly, enough to get his other paw down onto the other side. His fingers stroke up and down. “You think we need lube? I think you might be ready just like this.”

  “Uhhh.” I can’t argue too much, especially when his paw curls around me and starts to stroke. “You sure…you want your fur all sticky?”

  He chuckles throatily. “It’ll get sticky one way or another. Just depends where. Hmm.”

  His paw tugs forward more, and his left paw reaches back behind my thigh to pull me forward. I scoot up and end up kneeling astride his shoulders, gripping the bed’s headboard as his tongue meets the end of my shaft, which somehow along the way got worked free of my underwear.

  Then I just stay there, trembling and restraining the shudders as he opens his whole muzzle around me and I drive forward, panting. His right paw stays around my base, while his left pushes my boxers even farther down and then trails back up under my tail.

  It’s nothing he hasn’t done before, sort of playing with my rear. Once when we were messing around with lube, he asked if he could push a finger in, and I let him. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t too bad. Now I’m thinking about what Ty said and whether it means I’m a bad boyfriend that I haven’t even been curious about that.

  Tonight, though, Lee doesn’t insist on anything. He just teases the fur around there, which is nice and arousing, and he plays around my cock with his expert tongue, his fingers reaching down to brush my sac. Meanwhile, I thrust gently against his muzzle and then I thrust a little harder, and then my hips start to shake and I gasp out some incoherent moans. He answers below me and pushes me deeper into his muzzle, and when I come, it’s all the way in, against the back of his throat, and I feel him swallow around my cock, which just makes the orgasm more intense. I end up panting against the headboard, my cock so deep in his muzzle that his lips are actually around the tip of my sheath and his nose is buried in my stomach fur.

  “Mmmmmf.” I rest there, and he doesn’t seem to mind. I feel the warmth from his breath as it ruffles my fur.

  He breaks the moment before I do, twisting his head to let my cock out from his lips, though he presses his muzzle into my stomach. “Sorry,” he says, muffled. “I need to breathe.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I murmur down, and let myself fall to one side, scooting down on the bed so I land facing him on the pillow.

  Our muzzles meet, and then our lips, and then our tongues, and there’s not much taste of me in his muzzle. Must’ve been all the way in him. I reach down and find his erection, the smooth, hard skin, and he squirms as I stroke it.

  Ty might be further along than me in thinking about letting his boyfriend (or whatever) fuck him, but at least I have more experience in blow jobs. I roll onto my back and pull Lee on top of me, pushing his underwear all the way off and then pulling him up my chest. He lets me move him around without objection, and arches his back when I bring my soft paws to either side of his shaft. “Your turn,” I murmur, even though my eyelids are heavy and I want to sleep.

  I can close my eyes once his tip is against my lips, though. I inhale his scent and lick at his cock, my paws steadying his hips and at the same time feeling the waves of tension that travel through him each time I slide my muzzle down or curl my tongue around him. Sometimes I like to push him into my muzzle, but tonight I just hold him and let him find his own rhythm, as his long tail swishes over my legs and his paws press down on my shoulders.

  Such a light body, such a warm touch, and it’s so nice to give him this pleasure, bucking against my tongue. His fingers curl into my shoulders and his blunt claws press against my skin, but he can’t hurt me. I can’t quite take him as deeply as he takes me, but it’s deep enough.

  As he did, I tease the fur under his tail, but I go farther than he did, pressing against his opening with a finger. He moans and tightens up, and as I rub, he gasps. It’s not long after that that his body jerks and he thrusts his cock against my tongue. His muscles shake in my paws, and then I feel warmth spurt into my mouth. I hold it while he comes, then purse my lips and swallow, making him squirm as I lick his sensitive shaft.

  “H-hey,” he gasps, but my paws hold him tightly, and he can’t get away, until finally he does, wrenching out of my grip and falling atop me with a silly grin. He kisses me again, and we exchange the taste of each other, arms circling one another’s bodies.

  “I don’t need a month, fox,” I murmur. “I want to be with you. I know we can make it work. We just need to keep talking to each other, right?”

  “Mmm. Right now that sounds awesome,” he says. He rubs his paws over my ears. “But if it’s so certain, you’ll still feel that way in three more weeks, right?”

  “Don’t you feel that way?” I turn so I can see his eyes.

  “Right now I do.” He licks my nose. “But what happens when we’re
not naked? Or when we’re naked and arguing?”

  “Our naked arguments usually all end the same way.” I reach down and squeeze his still-hard shaft.

  “Nnnf. Yeah. But…you see what I mean? We haven’t really talked about it.”

  I want to tell him that I don’t think we need to talk that much. But now I’m remembering him shrinking in on himself back in my apartment, afraid to talk to me, trapped between me and the shit the universe likes to dump on him. I think about Fisher barricading himself in his den, yelling at his wife about how much football means to him and to me. My certainty wavers.

  “Okay. But now, you feel like that now, right?”

  He meets my eyes and smiles. “Well, yeah.”

  “That’s good enough for me.” I pull his body against mine, every curve of sleek ivory, every muscle rippling below fluffy russet fur, every little sound of breath and contentment, every scent of fox and come and shampoo, and every movement of his arms and hips and tail, and for this moment, all my wants and needs sing in sweet harmony.

  It doesn’t last, of course. It never does. The chirp of a cell phone ring wakes us when it’s still dark out Saturday morning, and Lee shifts in the bed and then mumbles, “Yours.”

  “Fuck it,” I say, looking at the number, which I don’t recognize, and the time, which is 6:37 a.m. I decline the call and set the phone back on the nightstand. A moment later it chirps with a voicemail, then chirps again with a text, and Lee places it on my paw.

  I blink at the number and then at the small preview of the text message: “This is Dax from AltSports.com. Do…”

  I swipe the message and it comes up in full. What Dax from AltSports.com is asking is whether I have any comment on the statement made by my brother. “Fuck,” I mumble.

  “Mmmrr?” Lee burrows his muzzle into my shoulder.

  “My asshole brother said something.”

  While he levers his head off the pillow, eyes shining at me, I listen to the voicemail. “Hi, Devlin, this is Vince from the Firebirds. I just wanted to ask if you were aware of your brother’s statement about this case he’s involved in, and if you have any comments. I know it’s early there but give me a call so I can get ahead of this if there’s any blowback. It’s pretty low-profile at the moment, but we’re in the off-season so you never know. Call me back.” And he leaves his number.