Page 27 of Poolside

It was a relief to pull up to Chuck’s house. Golden light filtered through the blue curtains, and it looked like a home. Arealhome.

“Honey, I’m home!” Tommy shouted as he stashed his shoes and jacket and pulled off his tie.

He carried the bag of groceries and box of cookies into the kitchen, finding Chuck sitting at his long, wooden dining room table with his laptop in front of him.

“Hey,” Chuck said, not looking up from the screen.

“What’re you working on?” Tommy grabbed a beer from the fridge, turned on the oven to preheat, and got out a cutting board and knife to slice the sweet potatoes. He took a long swig from the beer bottle and then got to work chopping.

“Work. I’ve got a few recruiting trips coming up to check out some of the bigger high school meets. Trying to get my flights locked in.”

Tommy finished prepping the potatoes, sprinkling them with his favorite spicy Cajun seasoning and spreading them out on a baking sheet. Sliding them into the hot oven, he went over and plopped down next to Chuck.

“Want me to get the grill going?”

Chuck cursed under his breath. “Shit. Sorry. If you could, that'd be amazing.”

Tommy looked at him, at how tired his blue eyes looked. He reached out on instinct, giving Chuck’s freckled arm a squeeze. Chuck’s eyes darted down to where Tommy touched him, before looking back up, a question in his gaze.

“I got you. Do what you need to do and then chill. I’ll do dinner.”

“You sure?”

Tommy squeezed one more time, registering the warmth of Chuck’s skin under his palm before letting go and pushing up to stand. “Like I said, man. I got you.”

Flipping burgers on the grill in Chuck’s backyard was exactly what Tommy needed. He stashed his phone in his pocket and let himself slowly relax in the quiet of the evening. Crickets and cicadas were loud at that time of year. The tall trees blocked most of the light from the street, and it felt a little bit like Chuck’s yard was someplace removed from the rest of the world.

A rustling sound pulled his attention from the grill. Tommy’s gaze shot to the shrubs on the edge of the patio. Grabbing his phone from his back pocket, he turned on the flashlight and shone it toward the bushes.

There. There it was.

Glittering dark eyes. A pointed pink nose at the tip of a white snout, and little gray ears.

“Ah, fuck,” he muttered, watching as the creature scuttled away from the light, disappearing under the deck. He shuddered as the long, hairless tail slithered out of view.

Turns out Leonard, as Chuck had named the creature living under his house, wasn’t a raccoon. He was a fuckingpossum.

“Dude,” Tommy said as he carried their plates into the living room. Chuck was already sprawled out on the couch with his pale forearm flung over his face. One of his long legs was stretched out on the floor while the other rested on top of the couch. “I saw Leonard.”

Chuck lifted his head. “Seriously?”

“Yep. And he’s not a raccoon.”

“What?” Chuck pushed himself into an upright position, his hair sticking up in the back where he’d been laying on the couch. Tommy had to admit that he liked it like that. “Then what the fuck is he?”

“A possum.” Tommy set their plates down on the table and took the empty side of the couch.

“You mean anopossum?”

Tommy shrugged. “What’s the difference?”

“Possumsare native to Australia andopossumsare the ones we have here in North America.”

“Why the fuck do you know that?”

“A research project back in middle school.”

“Well,” Tommy said, popping a fry into his mouth. “I don’t care what’s correct, because I’ve never, in my whole life, heard anyone call that animal anopossum.”

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