Safety Net (52 page)

Five years later

“Bean, no. That’s not yours.”

Lowell quickly glanced over his
shoulder, saw that the coast was clear, and snuck a piece of bacon to Bean.

“You’re spoiling him again,” Erick
called from the bathroom, tapping his razor against the sink.

Lowell crouched down to pet Bean
and rub behind his ears. “Don’t listen to Uncle Erick. You’re not spoiled, are
you?”

Erick limped in, and Lowell closely
watched Erick’s knee as he headed for the bedroom. “You better be hitting the
hot tub again,” he called.

“You better believe I am,” Erick
called back.

Lowell brought a plate of bacon and
fresh mango slices and sat on the bench, munching his breakfast and ignoring
Bean’s shameless begging. Erick looked longingly at the mango; it was harder to
ignore Erick’s begging, so Lowell fed him a slice.

Erick leaned back, looking serene,
and bent his knees in an easy, steady rhythm. “What time is it?”

Lowell said around bacon, “Just
enough time to take Bean for a walk then I’ll go to the airport and pick them
up.” He looked at the sky. “It’ll be raining by then but maybe they’ll get to
see a full rainbow when they land like we did that time.”

“Wish I’d taken a picture of that.”

“You can never get pictures of the
best stuff,” said Lowell. He had one mango slice left and fed it to Erick. Bean
looked betrayed until Lowell said, “C’mon, Bean.” They took the path to the
beach, meeting their neighbor Mr. Ishikawa on the way and stopping to chat.

Mr. Ishikawa was the coolest, had
moved from Honolulu “when it got too busy” to Kauai over fifty years ago and
knew everything about the islands. Lowell always got sucked into a fascinating
conversation whenever they ran into each other. Mr. Ishikawa was telling him
about a hurricane he’d ridden out once when Lowell remembered he had to get to
the airport. He politely made his regrets, explaining they were expecting
guests and he had to go pick them up.

“Oh, is it that cutie pie?” Mr.
Ishikawa, seventy-five if he was a day, asked with a glint in his eyes.

The cutie pie was Kaylee and Lowell
said, “No, not this time.” He couldn’t wait to tease her about her wannabe
Hawaiian sugar daddy.

“If it’s the twins, let me give you
some more mangoes. I’ve got a ton of them.”

“Not the twins,” Lowell said,
hurrying up the path. “But we’ll take some mangoes off your hands. Erick’s in
the hot tub. You can leave some with him.”

He waved and whistled for Bean and
jogged back to the house, where Erick snarked that he was going to be late.

Lowell made it to the airport just
in time, parking the Range Rover and hopping out to check the arrivals
information. While he read down the list of flights he heard, “Lowell!” and
Candace came rushing toward him, her arms outstretched. She hugged him tightly
and he held her close.

“You look fantastic,” he said. “Was
the flight good? Where is he?”

“Getting the bags,” Candace said,
standing back and looking him over. “Oh, it is so good to see you.” She pinched
his cheek and beamed at him.

A tall skinny guy with chin-length
brown hair came up behind her, pulling two roller bags. He had striking dark
eyes and a friendly mouth. Candace wrapped her arm around his and said, “Chris,
this is Lowell.” Candace squeezed Chris’s arm. “Lowell, here he is,” she said,
grinning.

Chris extended his hand. “I’m
Christophe,” he said pleasantly with a slight accent, and Lowell shook hands
with him. Chris glanced around. “Is Erick here?”

Lowell looked at Candace
apologetically. “His knee,” he said. “I left him in the hot tub.”

“How bad is it?” Candace asked
worriedly and Lowell shook his head.

“It’s not bad, honestly. Typical
banged up knee. Takes a while for the stiffness to go away. Been there, done
that. It’s a great excuse to be lazy.”

Chris asked Candace something in
French and she replied in French, then asked Lowell, “Will he be okay for the
wedding?”

“He said he wouldn’t miss it for
the world,” Lowell assured her, smiling. He looked around the arrivals hall. “Ah,
looks like their flight’s arrived, too.”

Dale and Andy emerged from the
crowd and Lowell made the introductions. He took Candace’s bag and led them to
the car. While he was stuffing luggage into the back, Dale grabbed his hand.

“Is this it? Andy, come see.”

Andy came over and Lowell stood
there patiently while Dale showed off Lowell’s Super Bowl ring. Candace and
Chris, intrigued, came to examine it, Candace explaining it to Chris in French.
When they got in the car, Dale leaned over to Lowell’s seat and said, “You so
totally wore that to show off, you asshole. Erick told me you’ve never worn it.”

Lowell started the car and grinned.
“Erick talks too much.”

“A bad habit he picked up from you,
Menacker,” Dale said, sitting back.

Andy said to Chris, “We saw a full
rainbow when we landed. Did you see it, too?” And they talked about the
beautiful views landing on Kauai while Lowell drove to the hotel to drop
Candace and Chris off.

Candace hugged him again and said, “Dinner’s
tomorrow night, right? Should we bring anything?”

“We have everything. Mahi mahi steaks
are okay?”

“Ooo, sounds yummy. We’ll bring
some wine. Chris isn’t much of a beer drinker,” she said with a wink. “That
French thing, I guess.”

Andy moved to the front seat for
the rest of the drive and Dale sat in the middle in the back, quizzing Lowell
on Erick’s knee injury and wanting all the details, “not Erick’s ‘I’m okay’
bullshit.” Lowell once again explained that it wasn’t bad, nothing some rest
and healing wouldn’t take care of.

“It’s, like, almost exactly the
kind of hit I had two years ago, and my knee’s better than ever. Hasn’t slowed
me down,” Lowell said and held up his hand to wiggle his Super Bowl ring in
front of Dale.

“Asshole,” Dale muttered
affectionately. He said to Andy, “How much do you think we’d get for this on
eBay?”

Andy made a show of looking over
Lowell’s ring and said, “With or without the finger attached?”

Lowell gave Andy a sidelong look. “And
Lennart calls
me
a bad influence.”

When they got to The Shack, Erick
was out of the tub and reclining on the sofa with his feet propped on the
coffee table, playing old-sock with Bean. There was commotion while everyone
said hello, Bean greeted and sniffed everyone, and Lowell brought the bags in.

Dale sat down to interrogate Erick
about his knee, but Erick hijacked the conversation with, “When does your new
job at the development bank start?”

“Last month,” Dale said.

“He has his own office,” Andy said,
proudly looking at Dale.

Lowell fetched waters from the fridge
and passed them around, saying to Dale, “I can’t believe you’re a banker.”

Dale shook his head. “I can’t,
either. But I actually really love this job. So far, anyway.”

“What about you?” Erick asked Andy.
“How’s the dissertation going?”

Andy sat back and grimaced. “Oh,
don’t ask. I told myself I’d finish the next chapter before we got here, but--”

“But a couple of teams made it to
the playoffs and we got distracted,” Dale said pointedly. “And then, as if that
weren’t bad enough, someone goes and wins a Super Bowl. And what with my move
and all, that was, what, three months lost right there. Like, honestly, guys.
Wasn’t one Super Bowl ring in the family enough?”

Lowell squinted at Dale. “Your
jealousy is showing, Lennart.”

“Jealousy shmealousy. I’m just pointing
out, you weren’t both supposed to end up on good teams. At least Erick had the
courtesy to lose to San Francisco and give us some breathing space.” Dale
patted Erick’s leg. “Thanks, Erick.”

“You’re welcome,” Erick said drily.

Andy smirked. “Don’t mind him. He’s
been dining out for weeks on the fact that you’re his buddies from college.”

After dinner, Erick and Dale got
into the hot tub, and Lowell went into the kitchen to grab some beers. Andy
came out of the guest room, handing him an opened magazine. “I didn’t know if
you or Erick had seen this article,” he said.

Lowell took it out to the deck, set
it aside while he passed around the beers, and got swept up in the
conversation. He didn’t remember the magazine until that night, when he was
getting ready for bed, taking off his Super Bowl ring and setting it on the
dresser next to Erick’s Super Bowl ring from last year. He lumbered out onto
the deck to get the magazine, came back, shooed Bean off the bed, and climbed
in next to Erick, who was massaging ointment over his knee.

“Oh. Oh, Erick,” he said softly,
reading.

Erick lay back, careful with his
knee. “What is it?”

Lowell turned the magazine over to
see the cover, then finished reading. “It’s in
College Sportsman
. Wow.” He
showed Erick the photo. “This kid. He’s the starting quarterback at CU
Rockridge. He’s a junior and led them to the Rose Bowl in January.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of him,” said
Erick. “Heard he’s good. They didn’t win, though.”

Lowell tapped at the page. “He’s
openly gay. Totally out.”

“Really?” Erick took the magazine
and read. “Huh. Has Dale seen this?”

“Probably. It was Andy who gave it
to me.” Lowell looked at the magazine again. “Rockridge. And it says here the
team supports him entirely, trusts him on the field no matter what.” He quoted
the article, “‘It’s a nonissue,’ says Tyler Fallone, inside linebacker. ‘He’s
our quarterback.’”

Erick lightly kissed Lowell’s
cheek. “Could’ve just as easily been Crocker,” he said confidently.

Lowell glanced at him. “You think
so?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Erick touched
the new scar on Lowell’s jaw. “Can you see Coach Miller putting up with
shithead attitudes about something that has nothing to do with playing on the
field? ’Cause I can’t.”

Lowell thumbed the edge of the
magazine. “Well, no, if you put it that way, I can’t. But on the other hand, if
Coach Miller thought it reflected badly on Crocker... I mean, look at what
happened to Lee while we were there, and that was just one stupid night out
drinking.”

Erick was quiet for a moment. “There
was more to the Lee situation than Coach Miller let on,” he said slowly.

“Oh?”

Erick scratched his chin and
frowned. “Yeah. Me and Lee and Dempsey being caught on video like that. The bar
we went to was going to get in trouble for serving Lee so they were raising a stink
with the university. But the main thing was Lee’s RA had caught him drunk a few
times and had covered it up so Lee wouldn’t get suspended from the team. But
when that stupid video got out and there was a fuss around it, Coach Miller
talked to the RA. If it had only been the video... But Coach Miller was pretty
disturbed by the other incidents.”

Lowell was disturbed, too. He had
trained closely with Lee for three years and had had no idea of any of this.

“You knew this at the time?”

“Yeah.” Erick looked at him. “Lee
had some problems. He got a wake-up call and got help. I didn’t think it would
be good for Lee to get even more attention, to have the guys distracted by it.”

Lowell set the magazine aside and
switched off the light, sliding down to get comfortable. Erick settled on his
side and Lowell shifted to hold him from behind. “What do you think will happen
with this Rockridge kid? If he’s as good as they say, he should be in the NFL
draft next year. Do you think he will be?”

Erick rubbed Lowell’s hand. “If he’s
not, the whole system is screwed up. All those guys who’ve retired in the past
couple of years? I can name at least five teams who need new quarterbacks, and
that’s not counting the ones whose QBs are probably gonna retire this year. If
Rockridge gets another PWAC championship under Thomas, they’d be idiots not to
draft him.”

“I hope you’re right,” Lowell
sighed. He kissed Erick’s shoulder.

After a moment Erick said quietly, “Of
course, it would be easier for this kid if there were players in the NFL
already known to be gay. Or bi.”

Lowell didn’t respond to the bait.
Erick toyed with Lowell’s bracelet and murmured, “I told Candace it could be a
double wedding.”

Lowell said crisply, “And I told
Candace not to encourage any of your bad ideas.”

“I don’t see why it’s a bad idea,” Erick
said reasonably. “I’m going to be with you for the rest of my life. Might as
well get a few benefits to go with it. Even Mama agrees with me. Sort of. Daddy’s
not thrilled with the idea, but if Mama’s on board...”

Lowell gently tightened his
embrace. “Erick. Are you planning to retire this year?”

“Of course not.”

“Then it’s end of discussion,” said
Lowell, and kissed his cheek.

“But I’ve already told you, I don’t
care what anyone says,” Erick said stubbornly. “What they might do or think
they can do.”

“And I do care,” said Lowell. “All
it takes is one pass rusher with an extra reason to hate you or one O-man who
decides you’re not worth protecting. And after all that effort to get your O-line
working? Please. Don’t even give me heart attacks by talking about it.”

Erick blew out a breath in
frustration. “And your attitude is why things won’t change. Don’t you see that?”

Lowell frowned and squeezed him
close. “Yes, I do. And it’s horrible and selfish of me, I know. But I’m not
ready to live with that yet. I promise you, the year you decide to retire, you
can announce whatever you want to. Hell, I’ll marry you during Super Bowl
halftime if you want. But until then, please, Erick. Please.” He rocked him
slightly. “And look at it this way. There’s an out quarterback in college now.
He’s played in the Rose Bowl. Maybe by the time you retire, no one’s gonna
care. Maybe a bunch of pros will come out after this. Maybe it’ll be like, oh,
ho hum, not another one.” He paused and added lightly, “Maybe they’ll bitch
more because you’re seeing someone in the AFC, not because it’s a dude.”