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

We had okay times, but I changed and they didn’t change with me.” His shrug seems melancholy to me. “I don’t care. I’ve got you.”
    “ I wish I didn’t care.”
    He puts his arm around my shoulders, with difficulty. I relax them, to make it easier. “You don’t wish that.”
    “ No.” I hug him back. I know it must hurt him to have lost his family, on some level. “Come home with me.”
    “ What?” His blue eyes stare into mine, his mouth partly open.
    “ Seriously. When they get to know you, they’ll like you. They’ll have to.” It all makes perfect sense. All they know is me, from my childhood and adolescence. In order to really know me as an adult, or at least a more mature adolescent, they have to know Lee. He’s part of my life now.
    “ Shouldn’t they get to know you again first?” he says slowly.
    “ It won’t be like with your mom,” I say. I won’t let it be like that. “Mom will love you, and you can talk football with Dad.”
    He snorts. “I’m sure that’ll just make him forget all about the fact that I’m your boyfriend.”
    “ Not right away. But you’re good with people.” He looks doubtful. “Seriously. You can talk football with him better than I ever could. I memorized some names, but he knows games and drafts. He’ll be impressed you’re a scout. He’s a huge Dragons fan.”
    He grins and scoots back, stretching his long foxy body out on the bed. His shaft is partway back into its sheath, but he doesn’t make any motion toward it. He slides himself gracefully under the covers and pats the bed beside him. “Let’s get some sleep. We can talk about it in the morning.”
    I crawl in beside him. He turns his back to me as I press up against him and drape an arm over his chest, my body surrounding his. He turns his muzzle back for a good-night kiss, and our breath mingles for a moment. Then I reach out for the switch and turn off the light, and bury my nose between his ears, his tail squirming against my stomach.
    ?
    In the morning, we talk briefly on the way to the airport. He’s still not convinced, and I confess I’m starting to have second thoughts. Even so, I don’t see a reason he shouldn’t come home with me. “Look,” I say, as I’m pulling around the curve to the airport, dodging shuttle busses, “sooner or later you’re going to have to meet them, right?”
    “ Right,” he says, and I pounce on that.
    “ So why not now? Get it over with quickly, right?”
    “ I’m just not sure...” He trails off.
    “ You’ll be fine.” Stopped at a light, I look at his muzzle. “You’re not hyper-activist guy all the time.”
    He turns and raises an eyebrow. “I was going to say, I’m not sure we have to do this that early.”
    “ Really?”
    The eyebrow lowers. He laughs. “Well, I was worried about my activist side, too. But like you said, I don’t have to be ‘on’ all the time.” He grins just a little, just enough to relax me.
    The light changes. I turn and roll forward. “I don’t want to hide you. If you’re there, they won’t be worried about who I’m dating.”
    “ No, they’ll know they hate me.”
    I force a laugh. “They won’t hate you.”
    “ They won’t think I’m some evil fox who corrupted you?” I can see the flicking of his ears out of the corner of my eye. My chuckle trails off as I realize that it might not be that farfetched for Dad. Lee goes on. “I guess they might not be as upset with you then, huh?”
    “ We just haven’t really talked in a while,” I say. “Phone and stuff, but no serious talks. Once we sit down, it’ll work itself out. We’re family, right?”
    “ Family doesn’t always mean you get along,” he says.
    “ It doesn’t always mean you don’t.”
    He doesn’t answer, but his ears stay down, and I know he’s thinking about his family. I leave him to those thoughts, talking myself into my plan in my head. It’ll just take us sitting down as a family, and maybe they won’t want