Safety Net (27 page)

“Baby,” she said, “you’re not
saying much.”

“I don’t know what else to say but
that I miss you. I miss you so much.” Erick touched her nose on the screen. “We’ve
been apart more than we’ve been together, but I still miss you every day.”

Candace frowned a little. “Oh,
Erick.” She looked at him, her eyes sad, and he hated that. Candace shouldn’t
be sad, ever. Candace should be laughing. “Baby. I don’t want to hurt you, you
know I don’t. I miss you, too. And I’m not saying there
is
anyone else
-- there isn’t. But if there was somebody else. For either of us. I don’t want
you to hold back because of me.”

But I already have the two
people I love most in the world
, Erick thought.
I don’t need anybody
else
.

“If you don’t meet anyone else,
then, you’ll still be my girlfriend?” he asked.

Candace looked at him seriously. “Don’t
ask me for promises, Erick. Don’t put that on me. We have to live our lives. We
have to see where our lives take us. They may take us right back to each other.
They may not. We have to find that out.”

“But why now?” Erick said quietly.
She couldn’t hear it, so he had to repeat it. “Why now? Why didn’t you say this
to me when you first got there, if this is what you being in that goddamned
country was going to lead to?”

Candace always let his anger bounce
right off of her. “I didn’t know then, did I? This is my point. My life is
changing. So’s yours.”

“You’re telling me to move on,” Erick
said. He rubbed a hand over his face. He felt ill.

“I’m telling you to live your life.
If that means moving on, forgetting about me, then that’s what you do.” Candace
pressed her palm to her screen. “But, honey, listen to me. I don’t want you to
forget about me. I’m always going to love you.”

Erick put his hand on the screen to
meet hers. “I love you, too. Forever. And I mean that.”

“Will you be okay?” Candace asked,
looking worried.

“I’ll live,” he said flatly. “I’ll...have
to get used to it, I guess. Will you let me know how you’re doing? Let me know
when you get back to the U.S.?”

“Of course I will.” Candace smiled
softly. “I think about you so much. I see things over here and I say, oh, Erick
would just love that, or Erick would think that’s the craziest thing ever.
Baby, I want you to be happy, okay? Please.”

Her smile, Erick thought, could
very nearly kill him. He nodded, taking a deep breath. “Okay. I want you to be
happy, too.” He attempted a grin. “Don’t get into too much trouble over there.”

Her smile didn’t change. “I won’t.”

“I’ll close first,” Erick said,
placing his hand on the edge of the laptop screen.

“Okay.” Same smile, killing him. “Erick...”

“It’s okay, pumpkin. It’s okay.”

He closed the laptop.

Anson found him sitting in the same
position at his desk sometime later. It was afternoon already.

“Erick? You okay?”

“Huh?” Erick stirred and looked
around as if he’d dropped down from the sky into a foreign land he didn’t
recognize.

Anson’s smile was uncertain. “I’ve
been talking to you for about five minutes, asking if you wanted to go get
burritos with me and Kryzinski.”

“Oh, sorry.” Erick stared at his
laptop. Afraid to open it. Afraid the webcam screen would be there, frozen on
her smile. “Um.” He forced himself to open it. The webcam was gone. The screen
was filled with his wallpaper of the Crocker football team of his freshman year
holding the Golden Hammer in triumph. “What did you ask, again?”

“Erick.” Anson pulled the other
desk chair over and sat down, staring at him in concern. Oh,
that
look,
Erick thought. The blood-all-over-your-face look. He hadn’t known it had spread
from Dale and Lowell to Anson.

Erick shrugged. “Sorry. I just had
the ‘I think we should see other people’ talk with Candace.”

Anson winced. “Oh, no. I am so
sorry. Oh, that sucks. Hey, you wanna sit here alone, that’s okay. But I think
you should come out with us. Get your mind off of it for a while. We’ll get
some burritos. Lee mentioned something about playing pool. I’ve never played,
have you?”

Erick shook his head. “No, I haven’t.”

He followed Anson from the dorm,
relying on Anson to give him his cues. When they were to smile and talk to
people, when they were to bump fists with their teammates in the hall, when
they were to stop and wait for Kryzinski to join them. Anson sent a wordless
cue to Kryzinski that wasn’t caught, and Erick, watching, said heartily, “He’s
trying to tell you I’m messed up right now. My girlfriend just dumped me.”

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry to hear that,
man,” Kryzinski said. He lightly punched Erick’s shoulder. “Then we should meet
up with Lee for sure. I think this calls for more than burritos.”

Kryzinski had a car, and they
caught up with Lee at a brewpub in Mountain View that had pool tables in the
back. It was early, not crowded, a mix of Silicon Valley types and Crocker
students hanging out. Anson hadn’t turned twenty-one yet and stuck with iced
tea, becoming the designated driver. Lee wasn’t twenty-one, either, but had one
of his older brother’s IDs and the resemblence was enough to pass. Lee
explained pool to them and Kryzinski ordered beers.

Erick wasn’t a big beer drinker. He’d
usually order one to be social and nurse it half the night. Kryzinski was
enthusiastic about these beers, though. “They’re brewed locally,” he said. “All
kinds of wild flavors.” He made Erick taste the oatmeal blend. It tasted
nothing like oatmeal but it was nice. The color reminded him of Lowell’s body
hair. He ordered a pint of it when he’d finished the half-pint Kryzinski gave
him.

Pool. Lee was explaining pool, and
Erick watched the table. It was exactly like a diagram. But after he tried a
few shots, he saw that the problem was that the balls were not predictable like
people... No, people were not predictable. He didn’t predict Candace would let
him go like that...

Pool. So. The balls didn’t react
the way a D line would react. But he had more control over the balls, because
they weren’t going to move unless he made them move.

The more oatmeal beer he drank, the
better his pool game got. Kryzinski couldn’t stop laughing about it, and Anson
kept slapping him on the back. Lee shot video of it on his phone.

-----

LOWELL MENACKR!

what?

Need 2 c u NOW. Shack!

on my way

LOWELL! LOWELL! LOL! HAHAHA.

erick????

Where r u? Guess what I am good at pool

r u ok?

I am okay! REALLY okay not Erick okay LOL LOWELL

When Erick opened the door to the
apartment, he was shirtless and grinning. He grabbed Lowell by the shoulders
and kissed him hard. He drew back, saying, “I want you to fuck me now. C’mon c’mon
c’mon,” and reached for Lowell’s fly.

Lowell stared at him. “You’re
drunk? What the fuck?”

Erick giggled, fumbling
ineffectually with Lowell’s fly. “The fuck is me. You’n’me.” He kissed Lowell
sloppily and Lowell caught his wrists.

“Oh, dude. Come with me.” Lowell
wrapped his arms around Erick, turning him around, and walked him to the
bedroom. Erick relaxed against him, rubbing against Lowell’s chest. Lowell got
him to lay down on the bed and left him concentrating on stripping out of his
pants while Lowell went to grab a couple of bottles of water from the fridge.

Erick had managed to get his jeans
off. He was sitting on the bed in his undershorts. As Lowell sat down next to
him, he asked, looking confused, “Are you mad at me?”

Lowell ran his hand over Erick’s
hair. “No. I’m wondering why you’re drunk. Here, drink this.”

Erick dutifully drank half a bottle
of water and belched. “I went out with Anson and we were gonna get burritos but
Lee wanted to show us pool so we went to a Google bar and the beer was really
good. And I’m good at pool.” He giggled. “But only when I drink.”

“Drink up,” Lowell said, nudging
his hand holding the water bottle. Erick drank the rest of it and Lowell opened
the second bottle. “Oh, Erick,” he said, sighing. He rubbed Erick’s hair. “You’re
gonna feel so awful in the morning.”

“Make me feel good now. Fuck me.” Erick
hooked his arm around Lowell’s neck in an attempt to drag him down, but Lowell
held him up and shoved the water into his hand.

“I’m not going to do that,” Lowell said
evenly. “Sorry, bro.”

Erick drank the second bottle more
slowly. Lowell rubbed his back, watching him. He looked pale but not like he
was going to hurl. Not yet, anyway. Lowell wondered how in the hell Anson had
managed to get him drunk. Anson wasn’t even legal age.

Erick was nursing the last third of
the water when Lowell’s phone blipped a text message alert. He checked it and
read Dale’s message:
This video. What the hell?

Lowell opened the video and saw a
shaky phonecam of Erick in a bar shooting pool. Kryzinski was holding two pints
of beer and whooping as Erick dropped three striped balls into two corner
pockets.

is this online?

Not yet. Lee sent it to bunch of us. W/Erick?

yes

Stinking drunk?

oh yes

WTF!!

no kidding

Want help?

under control but thx

Tomorrow’s gonna be fun, bro.

wish me luck

An hour and a third bottle of water
later, Erick was sobering a bit, sedate. His look of embarrassed remorse made
Lowell’s heart ache. Lowell moved to sit behind him and massaged his shoulders
soothingly.

“You sleepy yet?” he asked. Erick
nodded. “Okay, then. C’mere.” Lowell rested his arm across Erick’s shoulders
and eased him back against the bed. Erick curled against him. “Do you feel
sick? No? Well, let me know if you feel sick.”

He caressed Erick’s back and waited
until Erick was asleep before gently shifting him. Lowell got up to turn off
the lights and lock up the apartment. He stripped to his underwear and joined
Erick in bed, pulling a blanket around them. He held Erick, staring into the
dark, wondering why Erick had gone drinking.

Except he could guess why, couldn’t
he? Didn’t the timing pretty much tell him? It was only four days since they had
fucked.

It was hard for Lowell to handle,
too. He’d loved it, it was incredible, but it was also frightening. Frightening
how much strength they could expend on each other and how good it felt.
Frightening how much Erick wanted. How certain Erick was about wanting it. Or
so it had seemed until now.

They had practice in the morning,
and Lowell, though he hated it, had to be merciless. Coach Miller didn’t say
anything if you showed up hung over as long as you showed up on time. Lowell
pulled Erick up while Erick tried to curl away, stubbornly refusing to open his
eyes.

“Dude, c’mon. Practice,” Lowell
said, hauling him to sit upright.

Erick squinted and grimaced. “Oh,
shit.” He rubbed his face.

“Oh shit is right,” Lowell said
with an empathetic laugh.

Erick was nominally more human
after showering, but his complexion was kind of rotten egg color. He didn’t
bother shaving, which didn’t help, and the rings under his eyes might as well
have spelled out
I was drunk last night
. Lowell gave him a reassuring
clap on the back and they biked hard to reach the practice field on time.

Lee looked worse than Erick, Lowell
was satisfied to see, and Kryzinski was barely functional. Wotoa, Kryzinski’s
roommate, said Kryzinski had puked his guts out half the night.

“What the hell were they thinking?”
Lowell crabbed to no one in particular.

By the end of practice, word was
out: there was a video of it online. Lowell huddled around Wotoa’s phone to
watch. It wasn’t the video Lee had shot, which was a surprising relief; Lowell
had hoped none of their guys would be so dumb, but he hadn’t had tons of faith.
This video, entitled
Is Erick West good at everything?
, was shot from
further back and focused more on the pool table. And Erick was genuinely good,
which was pretty funny when you knew he was wasted, Lowell silently allowed.
Lee and Kryzinski were background revellers, jolly and laughing, but aside from
the very strange grin Erick had, there weren’t many clues he was drunk. The
video lasted about a minute. It had over two thousand hits already and the top
comment was
Erick West is cool but Crocker sucks
.

Lowell sought out Dale, but Dale had
cornered Anson and from the looks of it, the conversation was not going well.
Lowell considered bailing Anson out, but he was kind of pissed at Anson for
being involved, and he had to get to class. He checked on Erick, found him
running laps with Christiansen and Battista at a steady, mindless pace. He
looked less like a zombie. He left him to his recovery and dreaded the
aftermath -- Erick would apologize for screwing up, would apologize for
changing his mind about fucking, would shoulder the blame, and Lowell would
have to argue with him to convince him it was all right, he wasn’t disappointed
or mad.

Erick was missing the rest of the
day, though he texted Lowell once to ask if Lowell had seen one of his
textbooks at the shack; Lowell hadn’t. He texted back to suggest they meet up
for dinner at Hopkins, but Erick had a quarterbacks’ meeting. Lowell went to
dinner at Hopkins on his own, intending to hunt down Anson.

Anson was sitting with Boylan and
Benton and spotted Lowell the moment he walked in.

“Oh, crap,” Anson said.