Divisions (Dev and Lee) (31 page)

He sniffs the air and trails fingers out the window. “I can see why.” He lifts his nose. “Eucalyptus?”

“And sage, I think,” Lee says from the back.

“It just smells nice and herbal to me.” I never bothered to sort out which smells are which, really, though I guess now that Lee’s living with me, I’ll have more of a chance to hear him do it.

When we pull into the front of Gerrard’s house, with his impressive front lawn, Brenly’s ears go up. “Now this is what I expected,” he says.

“I’m only on my second year,” I say. “Next year I’ll be playing for a big contract.”

“Hope they can afford to keep you here,” Brenly says. “I mean, unless you want to come back to the Dragons. Which would be great, but they need too many other pieces. You’d have to be pretty patient.” He trails his paw out the window again. “Also you’d have to rediscover winter.”

“We played in Hilltown,” I say. “Also Aventira.”

“That’s different from living there.”

“I lived there, too.”

“And would you go back?”

I think about the cold winds, the snow under my paws, snowball fights, and driving in slush. “I’ll go wherever I have to. Wherever Ogleby gets the best deal.”

Lee snorts at that. Brenly’s ears flick back. “Ah, yes, Lee’s mentioned your agent. Things going well with him?”

“He got me the beer commercial.”

“With our help.” Lee leans forward.

His father turns. “Why don’t you be his agent?”

Lee barks a laugh. “Me?”

“Sure. Lots of athletes have relatives or family members as agents. I’m surprised you haven’t already thought of it.”

Lee’s quiet a moment, his ears flicking at the edge of my peripheral vision. “I thought about it a little,” he says. “But I don’t think I have the experience. Also, you know, I’m going to work for another team. I think they would flag that as a conflict of interest.”

“Well, I was talking hypothetically, or if you decide you don’t want to go back to scouting. You’ve got common sense. And I have a little financial experience, and I know lawyers we could talk to for contract negotiations.”

“What about the other stuff? Finding marketing opportunities, working out trades, dealing with the team?” Lee leans forward a little farther now.

“You have experience dealing with football teams. I wouldn’t worry about that. And the marketing—those deals come to you, don’t they?”

Lee’s claws tap on the center armrest. “That’s the thing. I don’t know. I don’t know how much Ogleby goes out and looks for that stuff and how much it just comes to him. I wouldn’t want to screw up Dev’s future because I didn’t know how to find commercials.”

“I’m pretty sure they just call him,” I say, “but it’s a moot point because I’m not firing him.”

“Even to replace him with me?” Lee pushes his nose forward so I can see his smile.

“You do read my e-mail already,” I say, “and you just said you wouldn’t know how to act as my agent. So would you advise me to fire Ogleby?”

“I’ve been saying you should fire him for months.” He retreats. “But if you’re not going to hire me, which I’m not saying you should do, then at least you should get a competent agent.”

“He’s competent.” I stop the truck in the driveway behind a truck I think is Pike’s. “Look, at least if I’m going to get a big contract next year, I should keep him that long.”

“It’s your decision,” Lee says, and sits back to open the rear door.

I get out too, staying ahead of the two foxes as we head on up to Gerrard’s. What would it be like with Lee handling all my affairs? I mean, we’ve moved in together. I’m pretty much paying all his bills anyway. Wouldn’t he like to have a chance to work for our money?

He’s independent, though, and he’s practically got the job at Yerba already. So what’s the point in even discussing this? Would he like being my agent better? He’d still be around football, and he wouldn’t have to worry about what he said around me. But no, I don’t think he’d want that.

Then again, he seemed prickly earlier on the subject of where he would and would not work. I should talk to him about that. After Christmas.

The outside of Gerrard’s house is decorated—professionally, I’m guessing—with hundreds of Christmas lights in brilliant cascades of different colors, with Christmas trees on the lawn, angels around them, and coyotes in Santa outfits that I’m sure glow at night. Lights run around the edge of the garden, too, and in the windows, snowflake ornaments sparkle in the sunlight above corners dusted with fake snow. On the roof of the house, above the lights, perches a sleigh drawn by eight plastic four-footed reindeer.

We pull up next to one of five trucks; two smaller cars are parked to the side. Looks like the party’s started. I let Dev knock at the door and stand behind him with Father.

Just like last time, Angela’s the one who meets us. She smiles wider this time, says it’s nice to see me again, and welcomes my father when I introduce him. “I appreciate you letting us share Christmas with you,” he says, and she says it’s their pleasure.

As soon as the door opened, I heard the screams of cubs, and when we enter the house, we hear them even more clearly. They’re yelling about WonderWolf beating up Destructo. “Christmas toys?” I ask Angela.

She smiles, tight with tension. “Action figures. There’s a little too much action, if you ask me.”

I grin. “I like superheroes too.”

“I remember. Well, if you feel up to playing with them, I’m sure they would love it.”

“Maybe later.” I hand her a bag with two wrapped presents in it. “We got something for you and Gerrard. Thanks for hosting.”

“Oh, how lovely.” She takes it, and looks around. I can see her starting to say that they didn’t get us anything, so I cut it off.

“We really appreciate you having us over,” I say. “That’s a great Christmas present.” The foyer here is decked out with ornaments and garlands of holly—not as professional as the outside decorations, but I like them better. Over the doorway to the living room, there’s another coyote angel, and it’s only here that I make the connection between angels and the name Angela. “Did you do the decorating in here? It’s lovely.”

She relaxes and beams. “Thank you so much. I really love Christmas and since we don’t get to go visit my big family, I tell Gerrard to bring his big family over. Such a shame Carson doesn’t celebrate Christmas, but well, we have enough people here who do.” Her ears lower in what looks like disapproval that anyone could ignore Christmas. It reminds me, I realize with a twitch of unease, of Mother’s devotion to Christmas and her disdain for my few Jewish friends.

As Angela leads us into the house, Dev whispers to me, “What’d we get them?”

He’s not as quiet a whisperer as he thinks he is. Angela’s ears flick back, then forward again politely. “Liquor for Gerrard—a Macallen 18—and a nice white wine for Angela.” Hopefully those are good enough generic presents.

“So,” Angela says at the threshold of the living room, “Fisher and Gena and their boys are here. And Vonni and his wife.”

“I remember his wife.” I’m glad other foxes are here. Hopefully that’ll put Father more at ease.

And just then a tall fox pokes his head out of the living room, wearing a Santa hat. “Dev!” he calls, and then spots me. “Lee!” That brings him out of the room and over to us, paw extended. “Hey, Merry Christmas, guys!”

“Hi, Vonni.” Dev half-hugs him. I settle for a clasped paw and then gesture behind me. “This is my father.”

“Brenly,” Father says, stepping forward.

Vonni’s tail flicks, his smile still in place. He slaps his paw into Father’s. “Good to meet you, Brenly,” he says. “Welcome, Merry Christmas.”

Angela takes us all into the next room. If anything, this room is understated compared to the others. There’s only a Christmas tree in the corner with fake snow beneath it. It’s small enough that I guess their main tree must be elsewhere. Sitting in front of the big screen TV, Gena and Fisher are watching the basketball game with a vixen—Vonni’s wife, whose name I forget—while two adolescent tigers sit on the floor in front of them and play with handheld game units. Gena gets up and comes to hug me, and Fisher slaps Dev on the back. I introduce my father to everyone. Gena and Fisher introduce their boys: Bradley, the older one, and Fisher Jr., the younger. Both of them flick their ears and mumble, “Hi,” and “Merry Christmas,” without taking much attention from their games.

Despite my father’s worries, he doesn’t go all wide-eyed or embarrassed around Fisher, just asks when he’ll be back on the field.

“Back for the playoffs, I hope,” Fisher says in his deep rumble. He’s not on crutches any more, but he’s still favoring the leg that was gashed open by a Millenport boar over two months ago. “Leg’s all healed, I’m just building up strength for it again. I could play this week if I had to.”

“Let’s hope you get another week of rest,” Gena says.

“Bah.” He waves a paw. “Don’t need rest. I need to get out there and play. How many games you think I have left in me?”

Dev pats his shoulder and says, “We’d love to have you back out there,” which he can say because Pike isn’t around. Though heck, he’d probably say it in front of Pike, too.

The players lapse pretty quickly into talking football. Father seems happy to listen to them, while the wives listen with patient amusement. I go to get a cup of eggnog, and find myself near Vonni’s wife, who smiles at me. Feeling slightly guilty about having gotten her husband a hookup on the road, I introduce myself again. Maybe I’ll be able to figure out if she found out, or if she’s okay with it, or something.

“I remember you,” she says. “From the bye week.”

“Right. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name then.”

“Daria.”

I smile widely. “Pretty name. So how are you liking married life?”

She looks a little wary, as though the question is somehow loaded. “We’ve only been married six months.”

“So…how do you like it?”

“Well.” She examines her claws. “I had to move down here. He’s gone most of the time during the season. And Christmas isn’t right without snow, is it?”

“I’m from Hilltown myself,” I say, trying to establish a rapport.

“I’m from Freestone.” She sniffs.

Okay, so she’s one of those East Coast people who think there’s no worthwhile place in the country that isn’t touching water. I can work with this. “My mother’s family is from Freestone. They moved to Port City, but her father was brought up there on the shipyards.”

“Oh.” She looks a little warmer. “Do you have family there still?”

I shake my head. “Not since my grandfather passed away.” That seems like the right euphemism to use with her, and indeed, it gets her ears to flatten and her eyes to soften.

“Where’s your mother’s family now?”

“They moved to Port City.” I smile at her grimace. “I know, how could they? Freestone’s so much nicer. I spent a lot of time there as a scout.”

And that pretty much does it. She talks about the restaurants she misses there, the culture, the ocean. I try to ask what she likes to do around here, but all she can do is compare Chevali to Freestone. We talk about how terrible the shopping is here, and I’m just thinking how Hal would be disgusted with me, talking shopping with a vixen, when Vonni comes over.

“Hi, sweetie,” he says, and then I catch a trace of that East Coast accent in his speech as well. “Hey, Lee. Your father knows a lot of old-time football.”

I hadn’t even seen them talking. “He’s the one who got me interested in it.”

“So, um.” Vonni lowers his voice. “Where’s your mom?”

I flatten my ears just enough to be proper. “Oh. They just got divorced. Like a month ago.”

“Ouch.” He looks across the room at my father. His wife lifts her nose just a little bit. Divorce, how crass, I read in her expression. Vonni doesn’t notice. “So it’s not just Dev keeping ya here.”

I shake my head. “I’m glad we could come to this. You know, he doesn’t really know anyone, but it’s a big group and there’s kids and it’ll be a lot of distraction.”

“Yeah. You guys used to big family Christmases?” He slides an arm around his wife.

I lift a paw to rub back my whiskers. “Usually it was just the three of us. But there was some stuff the last couple years…”

“Oh,” Daria says. “Because of the…because you…” She gestures to Dev.

“Because I’m gay, yes.”

She doesn’t flinch, though her ears do flick back briefly. “I’m sorry.”

I can’t tell whether she means about the family troubles or about her hesitation in saying the word, so I give her the benefit of the doubt. “It’s okay. Things kind of came to a head this year.”

“But your father’s here. So that’s good.”

I watch him sipping an apple cider, his dark brown ears perked to the conversation between Dev, Fisher, and Gerrard. “It is.” And then, because I don’t want to talk about my family anymore, “Did you get a chance to talk to your family today?”

“Oh, yes!” And she goes on about her family, while Vonni’s ears settle lazily to the side and he eventually drifts off to join his teammates. “Actually,” she says, “I have a cousin who’s gay. But I guess if you haven’t lived in Freestone for a while, you wouldn’t know him.”

“No. Probably not.” I try not to smile. “How was his experience?”

“Oh, my, I never talk to him about—I mean—” Her ears go back and she gets flustered.

“I mean, how did the family react to him coming out?”

“Oh. Oh!” She shakes her head. Her ears come up and she smiles. “Well, I think it was all fine. I mean, he’s found a nice fox to date who’s a resident at Freestone Memorial, so Aunt Margaret’s just pleased there’ll be a doctor in the family.”

“Are they getting married? We can, in Freestone.”

“I don’t know, I haven’t talked to him in a while. He mentioned maybe adopting a cub. Mother was going to set him up with an agency.” She tilts her muzzle. “Are you and Devlin going to get married?”

I look at Dev across the room and I grin. “Not for a while, if ever. God, can you imagine? I mean, with him on the road half the time.” I watch her eyes.

They just sparkle brightly. There’s no shadow behind them. “To tell the truth,” she says, lowering her voice, “I enjoy the time to myself. I barely see him when he’s with the team anyway, and when we do go out, half the time it’s impossible to get anything done, with the people asking for autographs. I’m sure it’s not as bad as with Devlin.”

“You’d be surprised. There aren’t a lot of tigers in Chevali—young ones, anyway—but mostly people leave him alone.”

“Well, when you’re out at more public events, you know…we are trying to get him involved in charity work.”

“Oh?” I perk my ears. “Dev?”

“No, no. Vonni. Only when he’s not working. Last spring he came to a benefit I threw for homeless children in Xenia.”

“Xenia,” I say. “I didn’t realize homeless children were a problem there.”

“Oh, yes,” she says. “Evelyn Norton did a whole article about it in the Port City Review. She said they need help. So we organized a benefit for it. We like to—”

“Hey, everyone!” The booming voice is Pike, and behind him is Kodi. Everyone turns; Dev goes over to greet the big polar bear, and Fisher stands up too. Kodi gets some greetings, but it seems to be largely the overflow from Pike’s rather than anyone seeking him out.

Pike does come over to me specifically to say Merry Christmas. “Forgot you’d had a cast on your paw ‘til I saw you here. You didn’t have it in Yerba, right? Paw all better?”

I flex it. “More or less. Still sore.”

He laughs. “All the guys in this room would give their left nut to have nothing more’n a sore paw.”

Daria turns her muzzle slightly away, and after a second, says, “I’m going to just go look for…” She wanders away without finishing the sentence.

“That’s Vonni’s wife, right?” Pike looks after her.

“Yeah. She’s nice.”

He snorts. “She’s pretty, and she’s well-connected, and he wants his kids to be able to go to a private school.”

I raise my eyebrows. “She seems nice. And they seem happy together.”

“Ah, maybe.” Pike shrugs. “You prob’ly talked to her more in the last hour than I ever did. Hey,” he says, lowering his voice, “you didn’t say nothin’ about…”

Sometimes people who haven’t spent a lot of time around foxes forget that we have these big hyperbolic antennae for ears, and we are constantly flicking them around. Fortunately, Daria seems engaged in talking to Gena and her ears don’t flick our way. “Yerba?” I whisper. “No. I’m not stupid.”

His muzzle relaxes in relief. “Kay. I’m gonna grab some eggnog. You doin’ okay? People being good?”

The concern surprises me a little. “Yeah, thanks.”

Pike turns to Kodi, behind him. “You want some ‘nog?” The black bear nods, so Pike gives him a thumbs up and lumbers off to the drink table.

I haven’t ever talked much to Kodi, but it’s just him and me, so I lift my glass of eggnog and say, “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” He says it automatically, but with a smile.

“Where’s your family?”

He looks toward the TV, watching basketball for a moment. “Northwest,” he says. “Between Pelagia and Yerba, small town on the coast called Laurel.”

“There’s a university near there, right?”

“Yeah.” He brightens a little. “That’s where I went. Twin Dolphin College.”

“I think we scouted players from there. My region was the northeast, so I didn’t get out there much.”

“My team was the first to go to a bowl game in over a decade,” Kodi says with a little more animation and pride. “Didn’t win, but…” His smile is shy and cute, and right about then I get a weird vibe from him. Like, if I were just in a public place and I didn’t know him, I might want to hit on him. And I’d suspect he might be interested.

Clearly, he’s not hitting on me. I mean, he has more respect for Dev than that. And maybe I’m just projecting. Football teams are full of kids taken from their homes, from their families, and Christmas is an emotional time for a lot of them. So maybe Kodi just misses his family. Maybe he’s just a sensitive guy.

But wow, I can’t recall ever getting such a strong impression from someone and not having it immediately followed up by a touch or a word. I want to ask him a more direct question, but Dev would kill me if I did anything like, say, accusing one of his teammates of being gay. What if he’s not, and it all bounces back on Dev—being the ‘gay player’ and all? If I hadn’t just endured stays in jail and the hospital in the last couple months because of my sharp tongue, I might go ahead anyway. As it is, I put a lid on my need-to-know.