Free Isolation Play (Dev and Lee) by Kyell Gold Page B

I’m sure Paul would’ve said “kicker” if that hadn’t been Alex’s position.
    Alex looks mildly back at him. “No, the center. He’s working at a sports equipment store now. Nice guy.”
    Paul snorts, and gives his antlers another rub. “Well, I never played with one.”
    “ Shame,” I say. “They mighta taught you that jerking off works better on your dick than on your antlers.”
    He snaps his arm down and glares at me, while Alex snickers and the bears chuckle. Paul points at Alex. “Gimme your list.”
    After the meeting, Morty takes me aside. “Take it easy on Paul,” he says. “He’s old school, like me.”
    “ You changed,” I point out. “When I first met you, you were tossing around ‘queer’ and ‘faggot’ like they were cuss words.”
    He grins. Even though he’s a cougar and about thirty years older, his feline grin, with its touch of earnestness, reminds me of Dev. “They were, then.” The grin fades, and he gives me a searching look. “Hey. Come into the office a sec.”
    My fur prickles. He knows. I take a breath, smoothing it down, but my treacherous heart speeds up. I take my time walking in, trying to get a lid on my reactions. This is it. I’m gonna come out. Just like Dev did.
    Morty closes the door behind me with a slam and waves me to the guest chair while he parks his butt on the corner of his desk. I sit and look up at him. “When I met you,” he says slowly. “You were pretty good friends with Miski.”
    My heart’s pounding. I’m sure he can see the tremors in my ears. I take a breath, will myself to be calm. “Yes. I knew he was gay.”
    “ Uh-huh.” He smiles, but his tail is lashing. “Anything you want to tell me?”
    He’s tense. I take a breath. “Yeah,” I say. “I—”
    “ Keeping in mind,” he interrupts, “that if there was a relationship between a player and a guy working for a team, and that player got drafted by that team, and that guy had something to do with it, that that’d be something pretty serious.” He looks steadily at me. “Could get the guy fired. Maybe the guy who hired him, too. Don’t know if you know that.”
    I’m having trouble getting air into my throat. I just nod.
    “ So,” he says, leaning back. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
    Slowly, I shake my head. I force my throat to open long enough to say, “No.”
    He relaxes. “You still talk to Miski?” I nod, once. “What made him come out?”
    I tell him the story of Brian’s blog and the media attention, of the increasing pressure and Dev’s hatred of lies and hiding. I tell him how the team reacted, about Fisher’s crucial support, about Coach’s acknowledgment. He listens without interrupting. “Well, it’s a hell of a thing,” he says.
    “ Hope there’ll be more soon.” I still feel all hopped up. Can’t stop my tail from swinging back and forth.
    “ Dunno.” He shakes his head. “Easier now, but still hard. Any other gay players are gonna wait and see what happens to him. Even then, everybody’s got their own lives, right? Got to make their own choices.”
    The thing about staying closeted, though, the thing I knew but didn’t feel until I experienced it here at the Dragons, is that once you fall into that pattern, it’s hard to break out. If you’re doing well at your job, things are smooth, and you’ve earned respect from your team, so what if you can’t be out? What business is your personal life of theirs, anyway? I sure as hell don’t need to know that Vic’s wife is cheating on him, but Paul heard about it from one of his friends. Now we all know it—all except Vic. “Until a few more guys come out, I’m gonna keep giving Paul a hard time.”
    Morty starts to say something, and then laughs, a laugh that turns into a cough. “I know better’n to try to talk you out of it. Fuck, I need to take a walk.”
    “ Rough meeting this morning?”
    He fishes a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. “I’ll see you this