Over Time

by Kyell Gold

  I’m waiting to feel his calm assurance again. That might be enough to overcome my objections, especially since I’m not sure what’s holding me back. Weirdly, it feels easier to buy a house than to tell Dev I want to be with him.

  But Dev doesn’t say anything, not right away. He sits on the bed opposite me and looks over the laptop screen, and after a while he says, “I guess we can still buy the house.”

  In the same way that his confidence would have boosted mine, his doubts reinforce my own. I focus on the e-mail. “Let me ask you this,” I say. “Would you be okay renting your investment house in Yerba to a friend?”

  He rubs his chin. “Can I tell my friend not to have sex with other friends in the house?”

  “If we’re just friends,” I point out, “you don’t care about that.”

  He hmmms. “Can I charge my friend a scent-cleaning surcharge for stinking up my furniture and getting fur all over it?”

  Even if we’re not going to be boyfriends, our banter feels reassuring, and brings a little smile to my muzzle. “If we’re friends, I wouldn’t have sex with other people in the house if you didn’t want me to. That seems like a reasonable friend thing to ask, I guess, and anyone I’m interested in would have their own place. I mean, unless I hook up with this super-hot homeless guy.”

  “Then you can afford a hotel room. He’d probably appreciate it,” Dev says. He smiles and pushes his foot at mine. “Go ahead. Let’s do it.”

  I nod and type away. “You want to read the e-mail before I send it?”

  He comes over to sit on my bed and reads it over. “Sounds good. You want to do five-fifty?”

  The proximity to his parents and Gregory makes that question weighty. I don’t answer right away. Dev points to the screen. “She says five-seventy-five to be sure, and we can afford that.”

  I try to figure out how to give voice to my hesitations. “If…”

  “Don’t bring up Alexi.”

  “Okay, well…how much do you have in the bank? Right now?”

  “Um.” He scratches his head. “Forty thousand maybe? I dunno.”

  “You don’t get paid again for months, you know. That’s going to have to pay rent, first class tickets…”

  “I’m getting a check for making it to the championship, too.”

  “Okay, so another fifty, something like that?”

  “I’ll have enough, fox.”

  I’ve already got my backup plan, and it’s not worth arguing about. At the end of the day, Dev’s finances are his own, and this is going to be his house. So I tell the agent that we’ll put in a bid for five-seventy-five, and send the e-mail.

  Once it goes, he pushes the laptop aside, takes my paws, and kisses me. And I know he wants me to make my decision now. I just can’t help thinking about sneaking out of his apartment in the middle of the night because I didn’t trust myself around him. What’s changed since then? The championship is over, but football season will come around again as surely as autumn, and leaves will change and players will charge each other over a green field and Dev will have only one thing on his mind. Is it cheating to commit now, when we’re both free of distractions, or is it the best time to commit, when we’re both free of distractions?

  I kiss him back and because I have to say something, I say, “I love you, tiger. No matter whether we’re friends or more, I love you. I just…”

  He holds me against him. “Never mind. We’ll figure it out.”

  “Yeah.” I rub a paw over his ears. “You ready to see your parents?”

  “No.” He sighs. “Can we just stay here tonight?”

  I rub his knee. “We can do anything we want. But I’d recommend visiting your parents.”

  “It’s going to be all shouty and messy.” He shakes his head.

  “Not if you don’t lose your temper.” I try to be optimistic. He gives me a look and I add, “And your father doesn’t lose his temper. Hey, there’s a chance it’ll just be quiet and tense and awkward, right?”

  “Thanks,” he grumbles, but gets up and pulls me with him.

  The sun has long since set by the time we pull up in front of his parents’ house. The maple tree in their yard is a cluster of bare branches against the streetlight, and our paws crunch the snow on the street as we make our way to the sidewalk and the path to the porch. The bite of cold on my pads, the way the snow clings to the fur between my toes, all that reminds me of the last time I was up here in the snow: to see my mother and get my things from her house. This time, I hope, things will go more smoothly.

  When we get to the front porch, I stay a step back and watch him ring the doorbell, watch him open the door and greet his mother with a smile. Then any unease is driven out of my mind as Duscha reaches out and hugs me, too, and kisses between my ears. “Lee, how have you been? Come in out of the cold.”

  We’re bustled into the foyer, where we wipe our feet, and then we follow Duscha into the living room. They haven’t changed it much, although I do notice that where the photo of Dev previously was the one from his draft, they’ve changed that to a picture of him from the championship game. It must be before, because he’s happy and full of hope. Anyway, it looks a lot better next to his brother’s law school graduation picture.

  Dev and I sit together on the teflon-upholstered couch. Mikhail, Dev’s father, joins us a moment later. He offers us both beers and we accept, and then he sits in his large armchair.

  We talk guardedly for a little while. When they ask whether I was at the championship game, Dev opens up about our fight and reconciliation, though he doesn’t tell them everything. “Lee thought I should do more to help gay people,” he says, “and I thought I should just play football.”

  “You should play football,” Mikhail says.

  “We’re compromising.” Dev smiles at me. “I’m going to do some things during the off-season, and I’ll try to stay active.”

  “It helps to have another player out,” I say.

  “And Polecki’s a really nice guy,” Dev adds. “We met him and his boyfriend in Yerba. His boyfriend plays in the league.”

  I’m a little worried about being indiscreet, but neither of his parents ask anything further about his identity. Duscha says, “I am glad you’re happy,” and Mikhail nods, and then Duscha talks about the weather the previous week and how lucky we are that we didn’t visit when it was below zero for three straight days and the Minkles’ pipes froze so they had to go stay in a hotel until they were fixed.

  “Good time for the auto shop, though,” Dev says.

  “Very busy,” Mikhail nods. “Frozen locks, one frozen engine.” He waves a paw. “Careless people.”

  Small talk carries us through dinner, another steak and boiled vegetables meal that Dev devours with relish. Comfort food for him, but not for me; my parents didn’t serve steak all that often. After dinner, we retire with wine to the living room, where I remind Dev that he has to drive to the hotel later and he takes mineral water instead.

  And then, at a lull in the conversation, Mikhail clears his throat. “We wished to talk about Gregory.”

  Dev tenses visibly. I try not to show how much I feel his tension, although my ears lie flat and I can’t really help that. “Yeah?” he says, and his voice is cold.

  Mikhail’s voice is flat, without judgment. “Your brother was only doing what the company assigned him to do.”

  “The company assigned him to make a statement about supporting ‘traditional families’?” Dev sets down his mineral water, leaning slightly forward, tail tip flicking.

  His parents look at each other. I can see from their expressions that they have doubts, and Dev reads it the same way. I keep still and silent. I don’t think Gregory was pressured by his company to take the case, but I certainly don’t know him as well as his family, so I’m going to keep my muzzle shut.

  “You are free to express your opinions about the world,” Mikhail rumbles. “Why should Gregory not be as well?”

  “Hang on,” De
v says. “My opinion is that Lee and I are just as much a family as Gregory and Marta.”

  “And Alexi,” his mother puts in.

  He waves a paw in acknowledgment. “Gregory’s opinion is that Lee and I aren’t a family. You don’t see a difference between those opinions?”

  I’m proud of him, making it easy for me to stay quiet. Duscha wavers. “He should not be speaking out against you,” she says.

  Mikhail turns to her. “If he supports his brother, perhaps he does not get this job,” he says. “Who will feed Alexi if Gregory is fired for speaking up about a matter of no importance?”

  Dev gets more intent, his words deeper and slower. “No importance?”

  His father waves a paw. “If he does not argue for this case, someone else will. If it is not a good case, the courts decide.”

  Duscha watches her husband, and seems about to say something, but then Dev speaks up. “But Gregory doesn’t have to be the one out there siding with those assholes.”

  “Representing is not the same as ‘siding with,’” Mikhail grumbles.

  “Saying ‘I support traditional families’ is.”

  “He has a job and he must sometimes say things in the course of that job—”

  Dev pounces on that. “So you think he lied? Is that better?”

  His father’s voice rises. “I do not believe he hates you. But he was working with these people for many weeks. Perhaps they questioned his dedication because they have heard of you.”

  Dev and his father are bristling; Duscha and I sit back, shifting uncomfortably at the tension in the room. I wait for someone else to say something, but nobody does, so I point out, “But he made the statement after the case was settled.”

  Duscha meets my eye and though she doesn’t smile, I feel her approval and it drives away some of the worry I felt about speaking.

  Mikhail keeps staring at Dev through my remark, but his fur smooths down and he lowers his head. “He cannot speak publicly during a case.” He sounds tired; perhaps our objections are wearing him down.

  “So,” Dev says, elbows on his knees, pressing forward toward his father, “you think Gregory said something he doesn’t believe in order to please a bunch of assholes? You approve of this?”

  We all watch Mikhail, and he doesn’t look at any of us, hunched over, fingers tapping each other as his paws rest between his knees. Finally he looks up. “Gregory must work. He is not always allowed to choose the people he is paid to represent. Everyone deserves to be heard in court, and someone must hear even the ‘assholes.’ If he represents them, he cannot speak against them.”

  The tension comes back into Dev’s posture. “Dad,” he says, “they bullied a kid into killing himself because he was gay. Lee talked to the kid.”

  My ears warm and my smile breaks out despite my efforts to stay stoic. To hear Dev defending Vince makes me want to hug him right there in front of his parents.

  “Gregory did not know that.”

  “Oh, you’ve talked to him about it?”

  Duscha does break in then. “He has agreed to come over tomorrow morning so you might speak to him. He was very upset after Thanksgiving.”

  “Yeah, well, so was I,” Dev says.

  “You left immediately,” Mikhail points out.

  “I have a job to do, too.” Dev points to his picture, where he beams in his white away jersey.

  “You will talk with your brother,” Mikhail instructs. “We talk to each other in this family.”

  That is a shot aimed right at Dev’s heart, a reference to him not telling his parents he was gay before he came out on TV, and he recognizes it for what it is. He shuts his muzzle and looks sulky, and then I risk a little movement, just a lean in his direction so he can feel my warmth and my weight. His tail flicks behind me, acknowledging it.

  “Misha,” Duscha says, “Devlin is right. Gregory did not have to take the case. It was free.”

  “He should not be working for free,” Mikhail agrees, “but he told us the company instructed him to take it.”

  “What difference would it make if someone else represented those people?” Duscha, sitting in her chair on the other side of the coffee table from her husband, commands his full attention now, as though we are only spectators at the family argument.

  “What difference does it make if Gregory does? It is a job.”

  “It is a principle,” Duscha says.

  “Dad,” Dev says, “What if someone brought in a car to your shop that you knew was stolen. Would you work on it?”

  His father’s eyes crease. “How do I know it is stolen?”

  “It—it doesn’t matter. Would you do your job? If you don’t do it, someone else will.”

  Mikhail shakes his head. “But if I know it is stolen, I will report it to the police.”

  “What he means,” Duscha says, “is that if someone brought you a car you did not approve of…”

  “Why do I not approve of it? Car is a car.”

  “A foreign car.” Dev holds up a finger. “One of those ones you always say is terrible and nobody should drive it.”

  Mikhail shakes his head. “Of course I fix. We fix foreign cars all the time.” He looks, frankly, a little bewildered.

  The desire to keep quiet and unnoticed is overwhelmed by the pain of watching ineffective rhetoric. “What if someone had painted on their car,” I say, “that all football players are murderers?”

  Mikhail frowns, and Dev turns to me with a question on his muzzle. I go on regardless. “And this guy got in an accident and his door is dented and the paint is scratched,” I say. “Would you repaint his door? That says that your son is a murderer?”

  “Why would…”

  I raise a paw to politely interrupt. “Never mind why he does it. He’s crazy. People write crazy things on their cars all the time.”

  He shakes his head. “I would fix door. I would not repaint.”

  “You wouldn’t go out of your way to show you approved of his crazy message,” I rephrase, to explain the point.

  “You see,” Duscha says. “That’s what Devlin is saying about Gregory.”

  The living room is quiet for a bit. I stare ahead at the blank TV, then down at the half-emptied glasses of wine on the table. I’m not sure if I helped, but Dev does reach over and brush my paw with his, so I think that at least he appreciated what I was trying to do.

  Mikhail exhales and leans back in his chair. “We will ask Gregory about this statement tomorrow. We do not need to argue any longer tonight,” he says. “When you and Gregory have apologized to each other, we will talk further if we need to.”

  “Apologize?” Dev straightens on the couch and leans forward, resting one paw on the coffee table. “Apologize for what?”

  “For quarrel, for not talking.” Mikhail stares at his son. “For arguments in the family.”

  Duscha clears her throat. “I don’t think either of them needs to apologize,” she says.

  “Gregory does.” I mutter it softly enough that only Dev hears me.

  “They fought at Thanksgiving.” Mikhail reaches forward and picks up his wine glass. “They have not talked since.”

  “Thanksgiving was Gregory’s fault too,” Dev says.

  “They talked on the phone,” I say, trying to help, but everyone talks over me.

  “Devlin—” Duscha starts, but he keeps talking.

  “No, I’m perfectly willing to come back here and talk to him if he wants to talk to me, but if you expect me to apologize for anything—to him—then you’re going to be disappointed and I might as well not come back.”

  I expect Mikhail to explode, but he just drinks his wine and puts it down on the coffee table. “You will come here tomorrow and talk,” he says.

  Dev stares at him and then leans back on the couch. “Yes,” he says. “All right. Talk.”

  I can see the tension wound up in him, can feel it in the restless flicking of his tail behind my back, and I can even smell it over the wine when I put
the wine down. His scent is sharper, the way it gets when he’s agitated, and it stays that way through the rest of the evening and into the car on the way to the hotel.

  “You okay to drive?” I ask, because I’m still pleasantly buzzed, if only slightly.

  “Fine,” he says. “It’s a mile.”

  We head off, and I turn the heat up. “If you want, I’ll stay at the hotel tomorrow morning. Maybe it should just be you and your brother.”

  He thinks about that, and for the first time in a while, he relaxes. “Gregory would probably prefer that. So I think you should come along.”

  His teeth bare in a grin. I hold my paws in front of the vents, waiting for them to warm. “I don’t want to be a pièce de annoyance for your brother.”

  “Nah,” he says. “You should be there, because otherwise I might punch Gregory, and that’ll make things worse.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Peacemaker I can accept.”

  That makes him laugh. “Fox, you are a lot of things, but I’ve never known you to be interested in making peace. I do think you’ll help me win my argument. You said some smart things tonight.”

  I smile and lean back in the seat, feeling warm in my chest again. “I do that sometimes.”

  “Sometimes,” he says, and then raises an eyebrow at me. “Even if you did break your promise about being quiet.”

  “Do you really expect me to change?” I ask. I’m a little annoyed at myself, though I can’t tell whether it’s because I promised to be quiet or because I broke my promise.

  Dev picked the hotel, so it’s a big luxury one with fluffy pillows and a fluffy comforter and a completely Neutra-Scented room. When we checked in, they added a surcharge because I’m a fox, for descenting the room and whatever. The cheaper hotels don’t bother with that, but when you pay twice as much for a room, I guess they figure you’ll pay any old extra charge. So I make a point of going and sitting in all the chairs, leaving my scent and floating puffs of fur everywhere in the room, until Dev tells me to sit still.

  By this point I’ve closed the curtains because the window looks out onto an industrial park, and I’ve got my shirt and pants off, so I wag my tail at him and tell him to come make me sit still. He advances on me, grabs my wrist as I try to dart away, and pulls me against him, toppling us both to the bed.