by Kyell Gold
He snorts and points up at the screens. “We do have porn in the room sometimes. That gonna bother you?”
I shrug. “You guys jerk off to it? Just getting a handle on my work environment here.”
The bear laughs, and Peter mock-groans. “Seriously,” the fox says, “if anything this guy does feels harassing to you, don’t hesitate to report him. He has a crush on the harassment seminar leader.”
“Right.” I grin and shake his paw, and then turn to shake Jocko’s.
“Don’t worry,” Jocko says to Peter, “we’re cool. I’m just gonna show him lots of T & A pictures. Figure he probably hasn’t seen enough in his life.”
“Perfect,” I say. “Since we’ll be spending the weekend looking at athletic guys in skintight suits. Fair’s fair.”
Peter shakes his head. “I guess I shouldn’t ever have worried whether you can handle Jocko.”
“You should’ve worried that I can handle him,” the bear rumbles. “I’m just a straight-forward guy.”
“All right, all right. You guys can work on your puns over the next three weeks.” Peter sighs and rubs his ears. “Lee, we’ll be in touch about travel arrangements for the combine. If you’ve moved in here by then, we can fly out of Yerba, but we can also fly you out of Chevali if you prefer. Now…you hungry?”
There’s a gourmet brew pub called Brown’s in walking distance, where the hostess recognizes Peter and takes him to a booth with a bunch of pictures of famous Whalers around it. We have a pretty good meal, and then they say good-bye and send me on my way feeling pretty good about how my life is going.
Dev’s waiting in the hotel lobby for me, so we don’t even go up to the room. On the way to the car, he tells me about his talk with Damian. I recap the lunch for him, leaving out the part where they let slip that they know about Damian, and end with Jocko’s sister in law. “So we have a connection if you still want to buy a house. I mean, if you really want to do it.”
Part of me is hoping that he’ll back off, because there’s that additional element of commitment to me living in a house he owns, and we haven’t, after all, figured out our relationship yet. But he looks me in the eyes and says, without hesitating, “I want to do it.”
“All right, then.” I squeeze his paw and firm up my inner resolve, telling myself that this isn’t really deciding anything. “I’m on board.”
13
Ups and Downs (Dev)
We go to meet Lee’s boss’s sister-in-law, a black bear named Clara who’s almost as tall as me. The house she’s showing is big and a bit out of my price range at a million two hundred thousand, but she points us to a few listings that might be good, and we visit one of them on the way home.
I’m pretty excited as we walk around the place, a townhouse near a main street with lots of restaurants and shopping. I like the idea of buying a place up here that he could live in and I could come visit, and after Ogleby’s percentage and taxes out of the Strongwell check, I could pretty much pay cash for this one. The townhouse might not be anything special, but as I’m looking around, it’s special in my mind because it’s the place we live, and it’s got his paintings and my posters on the walls, it’s got our food in the kitchen, it’s got our scent in the air. I stand on the staircase and look up toward the bedrooms and think about how apartments feel temporary and houses feel permanent and settled, and the thought of a place like this being home, with Lee, is a warm, happy thought.
Lee doesn’t seem quite as excited. When I say, “This place looks pretty cool,” he just rubs his feet through the carpet.
“I don’t know about ‘cool,’” he says. “It looks like a place where people sleep and keep their stuff.”
“That’s what a ‘house’ is, doc,” I say. “I was imagining it as our house.”
“Okay,” he says, and then his smile brightens.
Polecki gave us an address that Lee’s map on his phone says is a little over an hour away. It doesn’t seem to be in any city, a ways northwest of Yerba proper, but we check the address twice and the directions come up the same both times. The countryside is really pretty once we get out of the suburbs, and we get to take a bridge across the bay and catch a glimpse of the ocean, which for a couple Midwestern guys is pretty cool.
I think about owning a house here, maybe retiring here, with Lee. In the best case scenario, nothing goes wrong in my life and I have a couple rings and Lee is a head of scouting or even more maybe, and I can talk to him about his job and we can drive down to the ocean on weekends.
And on the other side of the Bay we run into traffic, and I’m reminded that nothing ever follows the best case scenario. Except maybe me hooking up with Lee. I look over at his orange fur and chocolate-brown ears silhouetted against the blue sky and light clouds. I’d be an idiot to throw that away, I know that. But what if Lee ends up like Gena, taking care of a sullen, resentful Dev who never got to a championship game, maybe becoming forgetful and violent in his late thirties? Could I do that to him?
To stop that line of thought, I ask him about the movies that are out and which ones he might want to see before we head back to Chevali. I don’t talk about Fisher or Gregory or his mom. Or—dammit, I forgot to call Gerrard. Well…after this dinner maybe.
As we get out of the suburbs, the gentle green hills give way to low mountains and then fields full of low wooden racks on which leafy vines curl and cling. “Vineyards,” Lee says. “This must be some fancy restaurant.”
“You couldn’t tell that from the name?” I read it off again. “Royaume Perdue?”
He snorts. “Not the kind of place I’d expect a couple football players to go.”
“Hey…” I try to think of a counterexample. “I’d go. If you took me. Maybe Polecki’s boyfriend…”
“Who is also a football player.”
“All right, all right.” I check the map again. “Another three miles and then a right turn, it looks like.”
And two minutes later, we see a sign for Royaume Perdue. “It’s a winery,” Lee says.
“Maybe they also serve food?”
He flicks his ears. “Did he say ‘dinner’ or just that we’d get together tonight?”
I check my phone. “We just said getting together.”
Lee makes the turn down a gravel drive and then stops. “This is the turn,” I say. “The sign was back there.”
He points to the other side. A large sign reads, “Closed for a private party.”
“Oh. Well…” I pick up my phone and call Polecki.
“Hey!” He sounds cheerful. “Are you guys on the way?”
“We’re here. But it says it’s closed for a private event?”
“Yeah, that’s us! Come on back!”
“All right. Be there in a minute.”
Lee looks at me. I point ahead. “We’re the private event,” I say.
He just shakes his head and drives forward. “Football players. He rented out an entire winery just to hang out with us for an evening? How much…”
“Don’t ask.”
“Yeah.” He laughs and rests a paw on my thigh. “I can’t wait until a few more years when you get a new contract.”
I drape my arm over his shoulders and lean in. “I’ll rent out any winery you want when I win a championship.”
The winery itself is a gorgeous old mansion, green moss on the shingles and old maroon and black stones in the walls. It’s bigger than Gerrard’s house even, and there are two buildings farther down the driveway, one of which looks to be a four-car garage and the other of which is a big barn-shaped thing.
We park next to a shiny black truck—football player truck for sure, I think, looking at the extras on it—and walk up a smooth stone walkway to the stone patio out front of the house itself, past a flower garden around a fountain and a stained wooden sign with the name “Royaume Perdue” lettered in gold. The “RP” monogram is there in gold again on the keystone over the door, which Lee hesitates at. The large wooden doors are closed, with
elaborate iron handles, and there’s no door knocker or doorbell visible.
So I try the handle and the door opens, letting onto a cool, dark foyer that smells strongly of wine and wood. There’s light and faint noise from an open doorway ahead of us, and also from one to our left, and in the light from the doorways we can see framed pictures all over the walls.
Lee lifts his nose and turns toward the left. “I think this way?” he says, and just then a large-eared canid silhouette appears in that doorway.
“Hey, Miski!” Polecki’s cheerful voice echoes in the dark room. “C’mon in here, we’ve got some wine pouring.” He stops in front of Lee and extends a paw. “Hey, you must be Wiley.”
“Lee,” my fox says, shaking the offered paw. I can’t help but notice the glint of a ring on his finger. He can’t have gotten the championship rings already—no, that’s right, he has one from his rookie year.
“Aran Polecki, but you know that.” His smile is bright in the room, and when he comes over to hug me, I can smell the wine on his breath. “Dev, it’s great to see you again. Thanks for coming all the way up here.”
I hug back. His tail wags enough that I can feel it in his body against me, and for a moment I forget the jealousy over the championship ring. “Did you rent out a whole winery just for dinner?”
“Ha!” He punches my arm. “When you get out of that rookie contract, you won’t be so surprised. Place like this for an evening…twenty grand, including the wine we’re buying for everyone. I earned that in the first five minutes of the championship game.”
The jealousy spikes and then I stifle it. I made a million dollars on a commercial and Damian’s going to make me sixty million over the rest of my career. “You’re buying wine?”
He grabs my arm to steer me into the next room. “Jay’s parents love this place. They used to bring him here, and he started bringing me here. So we’re celebrating the championship with a dinner and I’m buying everyone a case of their wine. It’s only his parents, his brother and sister, one aunt and uncle, and a cousin. You two are welcome to stay if you want.”
We get through the doorway, Lee trailing behind, and the coyote turns to him. “Sorry! Jay’s my boyfriend. He’s right here.”
The room he guides us into is a large room with French doors that open onto a terrace, and beyond the terrace is a vineyard and a hill glowing with the last light of the day. I stare out at the view and think about Polecki renting out this whole winery for a dinner. Not just for a dinner—to celebrate a championship. My claws flex out and back in, and I rub one paw over the other. I want that ring. I want the feeling of being on top of the world, of knowing that I am, for at least a few months, the best in the game.
The voice of my fox pulls my attention back to a long wine bar, behind which a tuxedoed white-tailed deer stands at attention. Lee is in front of it shaking paws with a mule deer and introducing himself.
“So,” Polecki says as I turn to them, “this is Jay Cornwall.”
Yerba player, mule deer…“I know you.” I stick my paw out. “Tackled you a couple times.”
“Missed me a couple times too.” His hand clasps my paw, strong and sure, and we trade smiles.
“Yeah, well, we went to the playoffs.” Then I turn to Polecki, who’s just watching the two of us with his ears perked up, a smirk building on his muzzle. “And I know how that came out, so I’ll stop talking about that now.”
Lee smiles and wags his tail and says, “Thanks for inviting us up here. The place is gorgeous.”
The coyote and deer exchange looks and smiles, and Polecki puts his arm around Jay’s waist. “We like it a lot. We talked about maybe buying a vineyard down the road.”
“And thanks for coming up all this way,” Jay adds. “I’m glad to meet you two finally. Well…” He ducks his head shyly. “You know, meeting you with Aran.”
Lee glances at the wine bartender (is that what they’re called? I’ll have to ask him) and Polecki sees his look. “Don’t worry. The staff here knows us. They’re cool.”
So I go and put my arm around my fox and I say, “I didn’t realize you guys had all this planned.”
“Oh, we didn’t.” Polecki laughs. “It’s been non-stop. Interviews, travel, all that shit. When I got your message I thought it was a great chance to finally turn my phone off and get away from people.”
“And to see Jay?” I ask.
“Oh, I was down there with him.” The deer elbows Polecki. “Someone has to cook or else he’ll talk on the phone until eleven at night and then order some shitty takeout pizza.”
“Hey,” Polecki says, “our pizza beats the shit out of your pizza.”
“We have Solitaire Pizza up here, too. We just don’t eat it.”
“I only ordered that once.”
I squeeze Lee. “He cooks for me, too. I go out all the time when he’s not around.”
“But,” Lee says, “his place is downtown so he’s got a good Etruscan place and a burger place, a sandwich shop, and so on. So he’s not ordering crappy takeout.”
“Oh, sure,” Polecki says. “Take his side. Look, I’m classy.” He turns to the attentive white-tailed deer. “Can you start a tasting for these two, and then pour us another each of the cab sauvignon?”
“I won’t have any.” Lee holds up a paw as the bartender guy takes four glasses out from under the counter. “I’m driving. Unless you have a chardonnay.”
“That is our first wine.” The deer holds the bottle over the first glass, eyes on Lee.
“Oh, all right.” He nods, and then looks at me. “I’ll just have a mouthful, and we’ll be here for a little while.”
“Where did you go to school?” I ask Cornwall while the deer is pouring.
“Hoffridge. Total party school, but the football team was pretty good.”
Polecki elbows him. “You got some action there, you said.”
The mule deer grins and ducks his head. “Yeah, there were a couple guys who’d make out under the bleachers.”
“Dev and I never tried under the bleachers at Forester.” My fox leans against me.
“Well, it was winter. I wouldn’t want to risk frostbite…down there.”
Polecki laughs. “I went to U of Crystal City, warm weather too.”
“Hey,” I say, “I just talked to my agent about maybe doing an outreach event at my college. Maybe U of CC would want you to do something?”
The coyote nods slowly. “Maybe. I can have my flea give ’em a call. If not, you think your school would want me to come along too?”
“I don’t see why not.” The offer takes me by surprise.
“Two’s better than one, right?” His muzzle slides up into a grin and he turns to Lee. “You coming, too?”
Lee nods. “I’ll be there, though I don’t know whether I’ll be a speaker or anything.”
“Lee is about to start a job with Yerba,” I tell them both, especially Cornwall.
The mule deer perks up at that. “Awesome.”
“Yeah,” Lee says. “I’ll keep in touch. Maybe we can grab lunch a couple times.”
“Maybe.” Cornwall shuts up as the white-tail pushes our wine glasses across the bar.
Just then my phone rings, but I don’t do more than glance at the number to make sure it’s not Fisher or Gena. It’s Zillo, which is a little odd, because he’s supposed to be on an island with his girlfriend now.
Polecki toasts the first meeting of the “UFL Gay Alliance,” which makes Lee wag at being included, and Cornwall look kind of abashed. Polecki sees it, and after we drink (the chardonnay is pretty good, I think, and Lee’s smile and closed eyes confirm that he likes it too), he puts his arm around the deer.
“Hey,” he says, “you don’t have to come out at all. It’s cool.”
“Yeah, but you guys are all out, you’re talking about doing these cool programs, and I’m…I’m not.”
He stares down at the table. I look at Lee, and we keep quiet as Polecki keeps his arm there. “You
don’t have to be. You’ll figure it out when you’re ready. I know how you feel about the team, and about your friends and all, and believe me, we were all there. I wouldn’t have come out if Miski here hadn’t.”
They both look up at me, and I turn to Lee. “Well, I wouldn’t have even figured out I was gay if not for him. And I wouldn’t have come out if not for his friend leaking things on a blog and my idiot agent telling everyone about it.”
“Ex-friend,” Lee reminds me. He rests his paws on the table next to his glass. “We all have to make the best of whatever situation we get ourselves into. I didn’t come out at work, either. I got outed by his father.” He nods toward me.
Cornwall raises his head and looks between the two of us. “Do you guys actually live in a soap opera or does it just sound that way?”
Lee laughs. “We’re trying to get out of it.”
“Although,” I remind him, “we did just run into a teammate of mine in a gay club who said he’s been messing around with a guy.”
Polecki grins and leans forward. “Who was it? Was it Omba?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Carson? No, it—well, he doesn’t want to come out either. He’s worried about his family and he says it’s not serious, and…you know, the point is, there are a bunch of other gay guys in the league who haven’t come out. I got pressured into it, he,” I punch Polecki’s shoulder, “won a championship…”
“Right place, right time,” Lee says. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Yeah,” Polecki says, and nuzzles the deer. “I love you anyway, ya big lug.”
“Get off.” Cornwall pushes his muzzle back against the coyote’s, but he’s smiling now.
“All right, if you promise to perk up. Come on, eventually someone will take a pic of us together and then you’ll be outed, so don’t worry about it.”
Cornwall shakes his head. “I guess so.” He sighs. “Then there’ll be all the jokes about getting tackled and how I let you grab me…”
“Yeah?” Polecki chuckles. “And they’re all true. So?”