Waterways (13 page)

“I wear lots of white and I stay indoors.” Samaki brushed ruefully at the long fur on his arm. “Actually, it’s not so bad once it gets short, long as I keep my tail moving. That fur doesn’t molt. Stays long all year round.”

“So I see.” Kory swung his own tail over to brush the fox’s playfully as they walked. Samaki brushed back, and they played tail-tag all the way to the theater.

Samaki had never seen
Forbidden Planet,
a fifties adventure in which a spaceship of adventuring wolves discover a planet where an old rabbit scientist and his daughter live, apparently alone. At night, the wolves are attacked by a huge monster crackling with energy, and they must discover its secret. Kory had seen it years ago, and was happy to find that Samaki loved it as much as he had.

Some parts of the movie were genuinely creepy, and as their arms were adjacent on the armrest, Kory found his paw entwined in Samaki’s about halfway through the movie. That seemed comfortable enough, and they happily squeezed each other’s paws during the creepy parts.

“Great movie,” Samaki said, panting as they stepped back out into the barely-cool evening. “Wow.”

“I’d forgotten a lot of it,” Kory said. “Whew! Glad you liked it.”

Samaki looked up at the marquee as if fixing the name in his mind. “I see why it’s a classic, all right. When did you see it before?”

“Seven years ago. With my father.”

“Oh.” They walked on for a few steps, and then Samaki said, “How about Leslie Wolfson? A serious role, too.”

“He was good, too!”

“No kidding.” Samaki’s tail brushed Kory’s and Kory swung his tail back. They chatted all the way home about the movie, and when they got back, Kory’s mom made them banana splits and they told her about the movie all over again.

“I’m going to bed,” she said finally. “Samaki, I made up the air mattress in Kory’s room. Do you need anything else?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Hedley,” Samaki said. “Oh, just a towel?”

“Kory knows where the spares are. You’re going to swim?”

They both nodded. “Samaki wanted to try the pool,” Kory said. “Just a short swim.”

She glanced at the clock. “Wait another twenty minutes, all right? Good night, boys. God bless.” She disappeared down the hallway.

“Your mom’s really nice,” Samaki said.

“I guess.” Kory scratched his ears. “She didn’t have to tell us to wait twenty minutes. I know that.”

“She just cares about you.”

“Your
mom is cool.”

Samaki laughed. “You should have seen her when I broke the living room window. Oh, I thought my ears were gonna fall off.”

“How did you break the living room window?”

The fox looked sheepish. “Just horsing around. Kande was outside and I wanted to get her attention. I poked the glass a little too hard.”

Kory snorted. “You need to make that a better story. Like you were practicing karate too close to the window and put your fist through it.”

The fox stroked his muzzle. “How about…  I threw my little brother through it?”

“Now you’re talking.” Kory grinned. His paw found its way to rest on the fox’s tail again, almost without his guiding it.

Twenty minutes later, they walked around to Kory’s bedroom. Samaki changed in the bathroom while Kory changed into his swimsuit in the bedroom. He didn’t usually wear his suit in the home pool, but with Samaki there he felt he should. He wasn’t sure he was quite ready to swim around with the fox in just underwear, and definitely not anything less.

When Samaki came back in his swimsuit, his ears were half down and he wore a silly grin. “This feels funny. I never swam in someone’s house before.”

Kory felt funny, too, but it wasn’t from being in his swimsuit. He took in the black fox’s body, the slender runner’s muscles, the fluffy tail, the white patch on the chest and the other one spilling out of his swimsuit. All familiar, but here in the privacy of his room rather than the public pool, his thoughts felt more intimate. “Let’s, ah, go ahead,” he said, and slid into the water.

Kory led Samaki outside first, where they bobbed side by side and looked out at the dark yard. “Cool,” the fox breathed into the warm night. “Don’t you worry about people getting in through this?”

Kory shook his head. “The yard’s pretty secure, and that doorway there?” He waved down into the water behind them. “There’s a gate that slides down. I’ll close it before we go to sleep.”

“Nice.” Samaki looked up at the moon and the stars. “Pretty night.”

“Yeah,” Kory said.

“Somewhere up there is a
Forbidden Planet,
” Samaki murmured.

“Hm?”

“You ever think that? Somewhere out there is everything we’ve dreamed about and invented.”

“Yeah,” Kory said. “In an infinite universe.

“Everything exists somewhere.” He paused. “Like the search for the Second Foundation, that just led back to themselves.”

“But there really was a Second Foundation out there,” Kory said. Their eyes met for a moment, bridged by moonlight. Then Kory said, “Come on. I’ll show you the basement. Take a deep breath.”

They surfaced in a dark chamber. Kory turned on the light to reveal piles of sealed boxes and bags. He swallowed to pop his ears and saw the fox’s flick as he did the same.

Samaki looked around. “There’s no other way out?”

“Nope. Just through the water.”

“How does it not flood?”

Kory waved a paw through the air. “Pressurized. We have it checked once a year.”

“Wow. You have such a cool house. What do you use this room for?”

“Sal and I used to play secret base with it when we were X-Force. Those boxes were our fort, and we’d retreat here to plan our attacks on the enemy.”

Samaki grinned. “Who was the enemy?”

“Jeff Barnes, across the street and down one.” Kory chuckled. “Dunno what happened to him. He went off to some military academy or prep school or something.”

“Nice.” Samaki rested on the edge of the floor, his body still in the water, and looked around. “Kinda chilly down here,” he said after a moment, and sank back into the water.

Kory nodded. “We don’t heat it. Back to my room?”

“Sure.” But when Kory swam back, the fox split off from him, headed for Nick’s room, and Kory had to grab his foot to stop him. When they surfaced under the bridge leading to his mother’s room, Samaki shook the water from his head and looked sheepish.

“Sorry,” he said before Kory could say anything. “I was curious.”

“That’s my brother’s room.” Kory pointed. “That’s my mom’s room.”

Samaki nodded. “I like these bridges, too. Perfect for hiding stuff under.”

“Your house must be full of little hiding places.” Kory remembered all the levels and stairs and angles.

“Oh, definitely. Got to be able to hide things from the others, and Mom and Dad.” Samaki grinned.

Kory wanted to ask what kinds of things, but he knew what was in certain files on his computer, and hidden in a small file behind some boxes in his closet. He suspected he knew what sorts of things Samaki had, too, and grinned a conspiratorial grin. “So…  ready to dry off yet?”

“Yeah.” Samaki shook his head, spraying Kory with water.

“Oh, don’t even think about trying that…” But the fox had already plunged back under the water. Kory followed him, catching him easily and yanking on his tail, then spinning around as the fox tried to turn and intercept him, grabbing the fox’s sides from behind, and whirling him around and around before letting him go. Samaki flailed in the water, and it occurred to Kory that, unused to the water, the fox might not be used to the kind of playing he and his brother did. He backed off and watched, but Samaki righted himself quickly and surfaced in Kory’s room.

“Whew,” he said with a grin and another shake. “Remind me never to fight with you underwater!”

“You okay?” Kory hung next to him in the water.

“Yeah, just a bit dizzy. Can you teach me that move? That was cool.”

Kory laughed. “I dunno if it’s a move or what. Just something me and my brother do when playing around in the water.”

“I see.” Samaki flicked his ears. “I guess I’ll have to come over here to play more often, then.”

Kory wasn’t sure what to say to that, but his heart jumped when he heard it. “Uh… we don’t really have dryers, but we have nice towels… I think you can get mostly dry.”

Samaki laughed. “Should’ve known otters wouldn’t have dryers. That’s okay.” He got out of the pool and stood there dripping, blue bathing suit clinging tightly to his body. Kory didn’t remember it being so revealing. He wasn’t as shy about looking as he’d been at the pool, but he still didn’t want to stare. He did get a good look, though, and it was enough to keep him hanging in the water for a bit longer.

“Can I shake in the bathroom?” the fox asked.

“Sure.” Kory grinned and pointed. “Out there and to the right. The towels are in the cupboard just outside the bathroom.”

“Will I have any trouble finding it?” Samaki looked down at him.

Kory shifted in the water, not quite ready to get out. “Nah, it’s right there.”

“Okay.” The fox padded out with his tail arched, giving Kory a nice view that he could appreciate, since the fox couldn’t see him. Fluttery echoes of the worry he used to feel danced around, but he told himself there was nothing wrong with looking. The black-furred legs with the white patch right up where they met were as nice as any girl’s he’d eyed.

He got out of the pool himself and lay on the drying mat, stomach down. He closed his eyes and felt the mat slowly leach the water from his fur. After a few minutes of thinking about the fox and trying to make himself relax, he turned his thoughts away and tried to just blank out his mind until he felt comfortable enough to turn over.

Samaki came back several minutes later, still in his swimsuit, fur sticking up every which way. He was trying to smooth it down with his paws, and when Kory grinned up at him, he said, “Don’t laugh. I tried to use one of your brushes, but it kept catching in my fur and I couldn’t get it to work.”

“You didn’t use my mom’s brush, did you?”

“Heck no. I can tell yours by the scent. I tried to clean it out, but there’s probably still some fox fur in there.”

“No problem,” Kory said. He looked up and watched the fox watching him, and liked imagining that Samaki was eying his swimsuit, and then imagining that made him feel tingly, and he got up abruptly. “So, want to, um, play on the computer a bit?”

“Nah, I’m okay…” Samaki yawned. “Ready to lie down, actually.”

“Okay.” Kory turned down the sheets on the air mattress, then padded to the doorway as Samaki got into the bed. He turned out the lights and found his way to his own bed.

His fur was still damp. He listened to the fox breathing in the next bed, and all his tensions tetutned. Looking was all well and good, but now they wete lying a few feet away again. He was more determined than ever to initiate some contact, but rather than giving him courage, his resolve just made him more nervous.

“Thanks for having me over,” Samaki said, and Kory heard him yawn again.

“Oh, I’m glad to. I had fun. Hope you did too.”

“Definitely. I like your mom and Nick. They’re nice.”

Kory smiled. “They seem to like you, too.”

There was silence in the room. Kory stared up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.

“Kory?” Samaki said into the darkness.

“Yeah?” He wondered if the fox could hear his heart pounding.

“What happened to your dad?”

The otter exhaled. “Oh. He left.”

Samaki sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry. You talk to him at all?”

“Nah. He lives out on the west coast.” That was already as much as Sal knew, and more than he told most people.

“How old were you?”

“Nine.”

The room was quiet for several minutes. “When was the last time you talked with him? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be asking all these questions.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind.” And he didn’t; the usual sharp corners of those thoughts now padded by gentle black fur. “I talked to him when I was fourteen. Tracked him down and called him. I’d just gotten my cell phone.”

More silence, then the fox, softly. “Didn’t go well?”

Kory shrugged. “It was okay. Awkward, you know? I wanted to tell him all about the stuff I’d been doing, and he… didn’t really care, I know now. I tried calling him back later and he never picked up. So I stopped trying.”

He’d never told Sal, or Nick, or anyone else about that.

“I’m sorry, Kory,” Samaki said again, and Kory felt fingertips brush his shoulder. He reached his paw down and the fox grasped it gently.

Kory remembered the dark street they’d walked down, the warmth of Samaki’s paw then. It was just as warm and comforting now. He sighed. “It’s okay. I’m over it, I really am.”

“Still.” The fox seemed to be groping for words. “It just sucks.”

“Thanks,” Kory said.

“Your mom seems okay.”

“Yeah, the church really helped her.” There was a time when he would have felt teenaged scorn, saying that. Now he understood it, and not only meant it, but felt an odd sympathy.

“Glad you guys are okay.” The fox gave his paw a squeeze. “You take care of Nick?”

“He pretty much takes care of himself,” Kory said. “But I used to, early on.” He remembered painful conversations when he’d been too young to understand how and why to cushion the truth for his little brother, nights when Nicky had fallen asleep crying in Kory’s bed, sullen evenings that stretched into weeks.

“Glad he had someone to look after him.” For a long time, Samaki’s paw remained wrapped around Kory’s, the touch enough communication in the silence. Then Samaki spoke again, and Kory was surprised to hear anger in his voice. “Your dad is a jerk.”

Kory didn’t move. The fox went on. “Look what he’s missing, what a great son he has and he doesn’t even care. He’s…” He went quiet, his breathing harsh.

Go, you idiot.

Kory slid easily down to the floor, crawled up next to the fox, and pulled the fox’s arm around him, then gently pulled his paw free and placed it right in the center of the white patch of fur on Samaki’s chest. The fur was still damp. He smoothed it down, letting his claws trail through it. “Thanks,” he said.