Safety Net (9 page)

Then there’d been the day when he’d
overheard Mrs. Zhang arguing with Javier and had caught her saying, “... the
way you brought
your boy
into our house...” and felt sick because that’s
how she saw him: he was “Javier’s boy.”

That night in bed he’d goaded
Javier into a stupid argument, and in the heat of it, he’d pinned Javier to the
mattress and sucked him off, using his strength to control the situation until
Javier gave in. It had been the most satisfying sex he’d ever had with Javier.
The next morning, Javier had broken up with him and given him two weeks to find
another place and move out.

That was the shame Dale hid from
Betsy and Jule and what little he’d told Lowell: he hadn’t been the one to end
it, even though he should have been. He’d been so needy for attention and sex
that he would’ve stayed. He knew they all thought he’d been the one to break up
and walk out; he let them go on thinking it. He hated himself for not being
that strong, not being the person they thought he was, even after he’d revealed
the truest part of himself to them.

-----

The day Candace and Erick went to
Montmartre started off drearily, with grey drizzling rain. They got soaked
walking around Sacre Coeur and waiting for a table in a cafe filled with
tourists. By the time they’d had coffee and shared a pastry, the sun was
breaking through the clouds. They walked down steep streets and narrow
stairways in a burgeoning, glorious day. And for the first time since coming to
Europe, Erick missed football.

It came over him suddenly, like
catching a bad chill, as soon as he stepped outside of the café and felt the
warm, bright air. His hands ached to hold the ball, his body missed the weight
of pads and helmet, his arms and legs clamored to get into position, find the
sweet spot, find who’s open, release the pass. He missed it body and soul, and
a heavy shock settled over him as he realized he hadn’t held a ball, hadn’t
practiced, in two months.

Erick didn’t say anything about it
to Candace. She knew he was a football player; he’d told her early on, in a
detached way, as if describing another person to her, a person she didn’t know.
There was nothing she could do about it, and nothing he could do about it here,
thousands of miles away from a football and halfway around the world from
Crocker.

He and Candace ended up spending
the afternoon in a park, finding a spot on the grass the sun had mostly dried.
They’d stayed in cheap tourist hotels in Italy and Spain and enjoyed the
privacy, but they were both running out of money when they reached Paris so
they’d gone back to hostels. Their first night they’d lucked out and had the
room to themselves, but since then they’d been sharing with three Swedish
brothers and an older German couple.

They made out in the park, Erick
letting go of what he’d always thought of as natural American inhibitions
before he’d met Candace. But he drew the line when Candace reached for his fly,
despite how hard he was, how he ached to fuck her.

“We’re in a park. I can’t,” he
said, rolling onto his back and holding her over him. Which didn’t help the
ache at all, but there were no good options left.

“We’re in a park in Paris,” Candace
said, her eyes sparkling. “We’re probably the only ones not screwing. I wore a
skirt for a reason today.”

Erick groaned softly, but. He
couldn’t. What he could do was hold her and kiss her and slide his hands under
her skirt and into her panties -- oh God, so wet already -- and get her off
with his fingers. When she stopped bucking against his hand and her heart
stopped racing, she wriggled in her skirt and pulled her panties off, folding
them into a small square and tucking them into a zipper pocket in her little
backpack.

“You’re going to walk around
without underwear?” Erick’s dick throbbed.

Candace grinned and curled around
him. “This makes me a real Parisienne.” She kissed his jaw and giggled, “Just
remind me to cross my legs when I sit down anywhere, okay, babe?”

Erick kissed her slowly and held
her close. “Just give me a while, then we can go somewhere.”

“I’m in no hurry,” she said, tucked
against him.

The sun dappled through the trees,
and there were city sounds around them and the occasional screech of a playing
child somewhere across the park. Candace dozed in his arms, and Erick watched
the leaves moving in the trees and thought of football. They were flying home
in two days, and next week training camp started. He hadn’t practiced all
summer. His arm was going to be weak, his passes were going to die on the
field, and he was Crocker’s new QB. What the hell had been happening to him?

He rubbed Candace’s back. It wasn’t
down to Candace, as much as he loved her. She hadn’t robbed him of his
responsibilities; he’d gone to her to find a reason to avoid them. And why? he
wondered. Hadn’t his goal from day one last year been to become Crocker’s next
QB?

As soon as Hutchinson was gone, as
soon as QB1 was all his, that was when he’d started looking for an escape. Like
a classic case of the overconfident asshole who stops working the minute he gets
the position he wants. That wasn’t what Erick had thought he’d been doing, but
from a distance it sure looked the same. He felt sick to his stomach.

As soon as Candace woke, he’d be
ready to move on. The only thing he was aching for right now was to be himself,
the Erick who wanted to quarterback for Crocker more than anything else.

Erick dropped his baggage onto one
of the beds in his new dorm room in Hopkins Hall. There were two moving boxes
and a big black suitcase on one of the other beds, but the room was empty.
Erick sat down on his bed and pulled out his phone. There was a text from
Candace, and she sent a photo of a flower in her parents’ back yard. Erick
snapped a photo of the dorm room and was sending it to her when a tall guy walked
in and opened the moving boxes. He looked Erick over.

“Erick West, right?”

Erick put his phone away. “Yeah.
Are you...?” He had only glanced at his roommate assignments this year -- he’d
been so out of it in the spring that he hadn’t arranged to room with anyone he
knew.

“Anson Dempsey. Tight end. Freshman.”

Erick grinned and bumped fists with
him. “Quarterback. Sophomore. You know anything about our other roommate?”

Anson made a face. “Men’s water
polo, if you can believe it. I’m not going to hold it against him, though. He’s
from Canada.” Anson started unpacking, then paused and pointed to the bed his
stuff was on. “Okay if I take this one? No one was here when I got in...”

“Nah, it’s fine. First come, first
served. Water Polo will have to deal.”

“You’re a sophomore, how come you’re
stuck in a triple?”

Erick shook his head a little. “Because
I got a little stupid the end of freshman year. Let me be a warning to you.”

Anson chuckled and said, “This
place is sick, though. Looks like the whole team’s living here.”

“Practically. There’s a bunch in
Harris Hall, too. It’s a newer dorm, the rooms are nicer, but it’s farther from
the practice fields.” Erick unzipped his bags and pulled his clothes out. “Actually,
one of my friends is a tight end, he was there last year, might be there this
year.” Erick muffled the empty feeling in the pit of his stomach over not
knowing where Lowell was rooming this year. For all he knew, Lowell had moved
off campus with Kelly; only freshmen were required to live on campus.

He glanced at Anson and said, “Maybe
later we can head down to Harris, I can introduce you to a bunch of the guys,
and if Lowell’s there, you can meet him. You guys will be practicing together.”

“Lowell Menacker?” Anson said, as
if mentioning a celebrity.

“Yeah. You know him?”

Anson smiled goofily, stuffing
clothes into a dresser. “I sorta memorized last year’s Crocker roster when I
knew I was coming here. All-Indiana tight end. You think he’ll get on the field
this season?”

“I’m sure of it,” Erick said. “Where
are you from?”

“New York.”

“No way. Really?”

Anson grinned. “Yeah. Little town
you never heard of, north of the city, total suburbia. My dad’s a high school
football coach. He coaches at the public school, I went to the Catholic high.
We beat their asses four years running, so I give him grief about it.”

“You Catholic?”

Anson’s grin widened. “No, but my
family’s a little bit of everything. My mom was born in Haiti but was adopted
by a Jewish family, so we got a little bit of that even though my mom’s not
religious. My dad was raised Southern Baptist. And my oldest brother married a
Catholic Filipino girl. Little bit of everything.”

Erick laughed. “True melting pot
you got there. I’m from Texas, and my family is just as boringly normal Texan
as you can imagine.”

“You ever come to my house when the
whole family’s there, you’ll appreciate boringly normal,” Anson said.

Erick liked Anson already. He left
the unpacking and wandered through the hall, looking for Dale. He ran into
Boylan, the little kicker, and three of Crocker’s D-line seniors, but no Dale.
When he came back to the room, he said, “Damn, I wanted you to meet Dale. Wide
receiver. He’s a fun guy, lived on my floor last year.”

“If you go to the lounge, the RA
has a list of everyone in the hall. Maybe he’s on a different floor.”

Erick went to check the list. Dale
wasn’t on it at all. His disappointment muted by the time he returned to the
room; maybe Dale and Lowell were rooming together in Harris. The nicer rooms
were over there, anyway. He wanted it to be true even if he felt left out --
and whose fault was that, he snarled at himself. Anson finished unpacking, they
walked over to Harris, and Erick pointed out various landmarks along the way.

Harris Hall move-in was as chaotic
as Hopkins. Erick spotted Ken Wotoa carrying a large box inside.

“Hey, Ken.”

Ken stopped and smiled at him over
the heavy box. “Erick. Hey, I was following your posts. What happened after
Madrid?”

Erick faltered. Europe was the last
thing on his mind right now. But of course, people were going to ask about it.
He dimly wondered where Kinney and Yates were, if they were back in Hopkins. He
should stop by and see them.

“Hiked around Spain for a while,
then went to Paris, ran out of money, and came home.”

Ken smiled. “Sounds chill. Good to
see you, Erick.”

“Oh, Ken. This is Anson Dempsey.
New tight end, freshman. I was looking for Lowell. Is he here this year? You
seen Dale?”

“I haven’t seen Dale, but Menacker’s
here. He’s on the fourth floor, rooming with Kryzinski in one of the quad suites.
I’m not sure who else is in there, if it’s our guys.”

“Great, thanks.”

Erick and Anson found Lowell’s
suite -- two double rooms connected by a small common room and a shared
bathroom -- but only Kryzinski and one of the other roommates, a guy from the
track team, were there. They hung around talking to Kryzinski for a while, but
Lowell never showed. As they were leaving Harris, in the disorder of the first
floor, Erick heard someone say, “And there is Erick West, I don’t believe it.
Dude, how the hell have you been?” right before he was crushed in a bear hug
from behind and lifted an inch off the floor.

He turned around and there was
Lowell, his hair mowed into a military buzz-cut, grinning at him. A whoosh of
emotions swept through him; Erick hadn’t been sure of the greeting he’d get --
he’d been kind of a jerk to Lowell right before summer. He gave Lowell a
touchdown hug in return, and they started talking over each other, trying to
catch up, before Erick remembered Anson was standing and waiting to be
introduced.

As Erick expected, Lowell was glad
to meet a new tight end. They went to dinner in Harris Hall’s dining commons,
and instead of catching up, talked offensive line with Anson, who had done more
than memorize the roster, he’d read up on every Crocker game from last season.

“This Dale you’re looking for,” Anson
said. “That’s Dale Lennart, the freshman wide receiver?”

“Sophomore now,” Erick said. He
looked at Lowell. “Dale’s not in Hopkins this year. Did he move to Harris?”

Lowell got an odd look on his face.
“He’s living off campus now.” He seemed about to say something else but
stopped.

“Oh,” said Erick, puzzled. When
they left to return to Hopkins, Lowell hung back with Erick and said quietly, “I’ll
tell you about it later, okay? If you got time tonight, come over and we’ll go
see Dale.”

Back at Hopkins, Erick introduced
Anson to some more guys, then Anson said he had to call his parents before it
was too late back east. Erick had promised to call Candace, but this was the
perfect time to meet up with Lowell and find out what the hell had happened
with Dale, so he walked back to Harris. He could call Candace later.

Lowell met him on the first floor
and they started walking toward Crocker Avenue. “I called Dale, he said to come
on over. He’s living on Skelton in an apartment.”

“Why’s he living off campus?” Erick
asked.

“He had to find a place when he
moved in with that guy--” Lowell stopped and looked at Erick. “Did you know he
was dating that asshole?” Part question, part accusation.

Erick stared at him, and Lowell
said, “Oh, right. Yeah. I know Dale’s gay. He told me. It’s okay. Did you know
he was dating that guy in the spring?”

Dale was dating someone in the
spring? It explained why Dale was never around. Erick felt like he was treading
water just to keep up with all this new information. Dale had finally told
someone else. And Erick didn’t know why his initial reaction was,
why did it
have to be Lowell?

“No, I didn’t know, so back up.
Dale was dating some guy?”

“Yeah, some grad student asswipe,” Lowell
said darkly. “He asked Dale to move in with him for the summer, but it didn’t
work out and they broke up, so Dale had to find a place. He’s living on Skelton
with this lesbian couple. They’re okay and stuff, but they might give you a
hard time. They thought I was Dale’s boyfriend. They like to tease me and call
me the “little straight boy,” stuff like that.” Lowell looked Erick over. “I
don’t know what they’ll make of you. Oh, and Betsy, she’s the one who looks
sorta hippie. She’s trying to set Dale up with one of her students, but I think
it’s a bad idea. So if she tries to get you in on this scheme of hers, better
stay out of it. She means well, but it’s like, how could one of her students be
“perfect” for Dale? She teaches English at the community college.”

Erick walked on in silence for a
moment, digesting all of this as best he could. Something he’d noticed about
Lowell before was how ninety-nine percent of the time he was a quiet man of few
words, and the other one percent he’d burst out babbling. There was something
crazy cute about it.

“What’s going on with you? What’d
you do all summer? How’s Kelly?” Erick again felt that empty pit in his
stomach, remembering how he’d lost touch with the people he cared about and
ignored football for most of the summer. He didn’t know how he could’ve become
that person.

“Oh, Kelly and I split up.” Lowell
said it matter-of-factly. He didn’t sound devastated.

“What happened? Why?”

Lowell laughed drily, shaking his
head. “I’m not even sure. I was sort of living with her last month while she
was doing this science camp counseling gig. It should’ve been sweet, y’know?
But instead of us getting closer, we drove each other crazy and got farther
apart. The last week before Harris opened, I was sleeping on the floor and she
had the bed.” They walked in silence for a few moments. “I don’t think I’m good
at relationships.”

Depends on the relationship
,
Erick thought.

“Or I’m not good at women,” Lowell
said gloomily, and Erick sighed, “Bro, who is?”

-----

Dale wanted to give Erick a big
hug, then beat the crap out of him for falling off the face of the earth all
summer. He settled for a hearty fist-bump and a “Cribmate. How the hell are ya?”

Erick grabbed him up in a quick hug
then said companionably, “Screw you. We’re not cribmates anymore. You abandoned
me, shithead.”

Lowell made himself at home on the
sofa with John the cat. “Where are Betsy and Jule? I’m dying to see what they’ll
think of Erick.” Dale narrowed his eyes at the back of Lowell’s head. Lowell
wanted to see if they’d think Erick was his boyfriend. Too fucking bad, he’d
already told them about Erick.

“They went out tonight. Thank God.”
He looked at Erick. “You have two older sisters. How the hell did you survive
it?”

Erick chuckled without sympathy and
sat down on the sofa. “Welcome to my world.” He reached for John and John
recoiled, slithering over to the other side of Lowell and bunching himself up
against the arm rest.

“Aw, they’re cool,” said Lowell,
petting John soothingly. The damn cat relaxed, but gave Erick the evil eye over
Lowell’s lap. “What’s wrong with them?”

Dale sank down in the chair. “You
have a sister, too, I guess you’re used to it. At my parents’ house, in the
bathroom there was my mother’s cabinet, and there was the cabinet for me and my
father, and no mixing the two. No opening the cabinet and finding a bunch of
tampons. No opening a drawer -- like today -- and finding, I swear to God, a
dildo and a jar of something called ‘Sex Sauce.’ What the hell? And no coming
in for a shower and finding bras hanging all over the bathtub drying. Oh my God,
living with women, it’s like a constant bombardment of TMI.”

Lowell raised an eyebrow. “Oh,
dude. Living with my sister was nothing like that. Gross.”

Erick sat back. “I don’t know,” he
said easily. “My sisters used to complain about living with me. Jockstraps,
B.O., dirty sheets. Janine used to ask Mama daily when they could kick me out
of the house.”

Dale blinked at him and grinned. “God,
Erick, it’s so good to have you back. Where
were
you?”

Erick told them a bit about Europe,
but Dale knew Erick had known what the real question was. He didn’t know if the
lack of an answer was because Erick didn’t have one. Erick was telling them
about Barcelona, and Dale said, “Yates came into Phil’s a few days ago. He told
me you met a girl over there.”

“You did? That’s great,” said
Lowell, smiling. “What’s she like?”

Erick shifted and looked faintly
embarrassed, but he pulled out his phone and brought up a picture. He passed it
to Lowell first. “Her name’s Candace. She goes to Tufts.”

“Is she into football?” Lowell
asked, handing Dale the phone. In the photo was a beautiful girl with a wide,
cheeky smile. Something about the look in her eyes... She seemed like a
handful. Someone who would’ve gotten Erick out of his funk. He passed the phone
back to Erick.

“We didn’t talk about it much, but
yeah, I think she likes it. She’s going to try to come out for Thanksgiving,
see the Hammer Game and the Oregon State game.”

“That’s awesome,” said Lowell. “She’s
gorgeous, too. Dude, you are so lucky.”

Dale wondered how it was lucky to
have a girlfriend on the other side of the country, but didn’t want to be a
downer. “How did you manage to get any practicing in while you were over there?”
he asked Erick.