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In the oppressive heat of August, Kory felt uncomfortable any time he wasn't swimming. While he loved to be in the water, he didn't particularly like having it dropped onto him, nor did he like the thunder and lightning that accompanied summer storms. In previous summers, he'd worked as a lifeguard in the pool to earn spending money, but this August, he'd found something besides swimming that relaxed him no matter how hot the air was.

This morning, that something was lying on his bedroom floor, the first rays of the morning sun illuminating the black of his chest fur and the white patch at his throat. He'd turned onto his side so that one of his large black ears was folded under his head, a problem Kory's small round ears never gave him. Below the fox's slender stomach, a loose white sheet covered his hips and legs. His long black tail lay straight out behind him, as far away from his body as possible, the faint luminescence of the white tip seeming almost detached from its owner.

Thirty or forty sleepovers, nearly an entire summer, hadn't diminished the magic of waking up in the same room with the black fox. He rolled over onto his stomach and turned his head to one side so he could still see Samaki's stomach rise and fall, and slowly dropped one arm to the floor. His paw came to rest on the fox's outstretched paw, where it would remain until Samaki woke up in a few minutes.

On this morning, their routine was broken by a loud splash and a soft chirp. "You guys decent?"

Samaki woke with a jump. Kory rolled back onto his side and propped himself up on an elbow, looking at the corner of his room that was open to the house pool. His brother Nick bobbed there, eyes squeezed shut. "Of course," Kory said, suppressing the shiver he'd felt at the intrusion, even though his mother never swam and Nick knew about him and Samaki. "What are you doing up?"

He could see Nick's eyeshine in the dusk. "I wanted to catch you guys before you took off. You want a ride downtown today? Me'n'Mickey are going to the card show before the game to get autographs and his dad's driving us. They've got a Durango so I'm sure he has room."

Kory peered down at the fox, who was rubbing his eyes. "Can you stand to ride in an SUV?"

"As long as we don't go to the gas station." Samaki yawned, showing off a grin of perfect white teeth and a long pink tongue. "When are you leaving, Nick?"

"Quarter to eight. The show opens at nine but Digger Clawson is gonna be there so there's gonna be a line. I'm gonna go shower then you guys can go." He vanished under the water with barely a ripple.

"Hang on," Samaki said, then turned to grin at Kory. "Should know better than to try to keep up with an otter in the water." He rhymed 'otter' and 'water,' making Kory smile.

"What did you want?"

"My dad's a big Clawson fan. I was going to ask if Nick would get me an autograph."

Kory trailed his paw up Samaki's arm and back down. "You have enough money?"

"Money?" The fox cupped his ears forward. "They charge money for autographs?"

"Sometimes."

Samaki wriggled his fingers. "I have ten dollars. I hope that's enough."

Kory leaned over the bed. Samaki met his muzzle in a short kiss. "I'm sure it'll be fine," the otter said.

The hiss of the shower started up. "Hmm," Samaki said. "I guess we have about ten minutes." He closed his paw around Kory's arm. "What can we do in ten minutes, I wonder?"

Kory giggled. "We can't. What if my mom walks in?"

"Aw, she never does, though." Samaki's fingers teased right in the crook of Kory's elbow.

The otter squirmed, already hard from waking up and feeling the familiar tingle in his groin. "We just did it last night!"

"Well, I can't stay over tonight," Samaki said. "Consider it an advance payment."

Kory laughed, hesitating. He knew it was a bad idea, but his body was already urging him on. Come on, it'll only take a few minutes. Samaki's finger trailed up his arm, two claws parting his fur and just teasing the skin beneath. "I, uh..."

The fox withdrew his finger with a grin. "All right. You're probably right, I think it's a bad idea."

"You were just getting me worked up!" Kory got up on his paws and knees, glaring at the fox, who was already scooting back and away from him with a big grin.

"I wasn't! But now we don't have time any more, so I stopped." His protest of innocence was severely undermined by his self-satisfied tail twitching, the motion of the white tip clearly visible.

Kory didn't say another word, just launched himself off the bed. Samaki ducked to one side with a yelp, only partially rolling out of Kory's way. The otter caught his arm and scrambled into the water, pulling the fox behind him. Samaki yelped theatrically as he was tugged into the pool, his yelp coming to an abrupt halt a moment before Kory pushed his head underwater.

The fox had gotten much better at playing in the water. He squirmed out of Kory's hold and rolled on top of the otter, sending him underwater as well. No matter how good Samaki got, though, he was lighter than Kory, and even in summer when his coat was thin, his thick, bushy tail was a liability. Kory grabbed at it, careful not to pull too hard, and Samaki clutched one of his hindpaws in revenge, nibbling at the sensitive pads.

In the thrashing around, tails and paws weren't the only things that got grabbed. By the time they finally surfaced in Kory's room again, giggling and gasping for breath, neither made a move to get out of the water even though the shower had stopped. Arms resting on the floor, Kory returned Samaki's grin, conscious of the warm weight between his legs, his paw still tingling with the memory of the fox's. "Got to get decent for the shower," Kory said.

"Uh-huh," Samaki said. "Think of baseball players?"

"That never works."

"Think of girls?"

Kory giggled. "That doesn't work either."

"Does for me." The fox chuckled. "Wrap a towel around yourself?"

Kory eyed the pile of towels on his floor. "Maybe."

"Wait here while I go first?" Samaki rubbed his wet muzzle against Kory's.

"That works. I get a show that way anyway."

The fox clambered out of the water, grinning, and turned his profile to Kory before lifting his arms over his head and stretching. Taut muscles under black fur drew Kory's eye as much as the well-defined bulge in front of his swimsuit. Since he'd molted, muscles had seemed to pop out of the fox's body, hills and valleys revealed by the melting black snows. Though Samaki would protest he wasn't an athlete, his lithe body always looked barely able to restrain the energy within, as if it would take no more than a touch to send him into motion. In chemistry class that spring, Kory's professor had explained unstable equilibrium to them with a diagram of a marble poised at the top of a hill, unmoving, but needing only a touch in any direction to plunge down the slope. That was how Kory thought of Samaki: balancing expertly on a summit, just waiting to choose his direction.

Samaki grinned, flicked a large ear, and then cocked his head, remembering. "Oh. My mom understands why I'm over here all the time, because of the pool and all, but she wants you to come over for dinner again sometime soon. And Ajani wants to show you his latest comic book."

"Another League of Canids?"

The black fox picked up a towel. "It's a Red Lightning solo story. He's read it, I would guess, something like five hundred times since he bought it. He quotes lines from it at the dinner table. I even know some of them by now. 'If you didn't want trouble, you shouldn't have messed with my family.'"

Kory laughed at the imitation of Ajani's squeaky voice. "I like his comics."

"I know. I don't hold it against you."

Small streams of water trickled from Kory's elbows to Samaki's feet, meeting and puddling on his bedroom floor. "You can hold other things against me," he said softly.

Samaki glanced around the room, and at the door. He blew Kory a kiss and then padded to the shower.

Kory ducked under the water and swam quickly to Nick's room, surfacing with his eyes closed. "One, two, three," he counted, and when Nick didn't tell him not to, he opened his eyes.

"Hey," Nick said. He'd tossed on a pair of jeans with patched knees, which their mother hated. She'd bought him three new pairs last month for the summer.

"Hey, about the autograph," Kory said, "Samaki's gonna give you ten dollars for it. Just tell him that was enough. I'll make up the difference."

Nick pulled down a t-shirt with the Dragons logo on it and squeezed his torso into it. Like Samaki, Nick would protest that he wasn't an athlete. He claimed he just liked swimming and was on the team to meet girls, but in the last year, his frame had grown enough that his t-shirts could barely contain it. He liked the look, and the girls did too, from what Kory could tell. "I dunno if I have enough."

"How much is it going to be?"

Nick shrugged. "I'm bringing forty."

"I'll give you another forty in the car," Kory said.

His brother flashed him a smile and a thumbs-up. "Cool."

As he blinked water out of his eyes, back in his room, he saw a shape at his desk and thought for a moment that Samaki had gotten back early from his shower. Then he smelled his mother and his nerves flashed a quick burst of panic. He wiped his eyes hurriedly, ready to leap out of the water, but she was only looking at the pile of college brochures. Was there anything else on his desk, anything he'd left there? He didn't think so. He rested his elbows on his floor, his body in the water, and tried to slow the racing of his heart. He hoped Samaki's strong scent would cover the scent from last night. He and Samaki were careful, always cleaning up and de-scenting, but he didn't know how keen his mother's nose was. Not as sharp as Samaki's, he was pretty sure.

"Two more college brochures came today," she said, tapping her paw on his desk. "I thought you might want to look at them before you went off to your homeless shelter."

"Thanks," Kory said, his mind racing to figure out a way to get her out of his room before Samaki came back. "I'll take a look."

"Bruin College is a possibility. I don't think much of Havertown, but I brought the brochure in anyway." She looked disdainfully down at it.

"Okay, Mom. What's for breakfast?"

She looked startled. "I didn't make anything. Do you want me to?"

"I dunno. I think we have to leave pretty quickly. What do we have?"

She turned her head in the general direction of the kitchen, and started walking toward the door. "I'll check."

He slid out of the water when she'd left and walked over to his desk. She didn't come into his room uninvited, usually, but she seemed to be doing it more and more when Samaki was over, as though she sensed that something was wrong without knowing quite what it was. If she caught them together...

He drove that thought from his mind, and pawed through the ever-growing pile of college brochures. Some of them knew enough to send laminated brochures to an otter household; Forester University was one of those. He picked up their brochure again, dripping water on the less well-prepared Bruin College. Much as he hated to think about it, he was going to have to start applying to colleges and making a decision soon.

Samaki was almost certain to attend State, where his father worked and his older sister Kande was attending. They hadn't talked about it much, but State was conspicuously absent from the pile of brochures his mother had organized for him, even though he knew they had sent more than one brochure to the house. How they knew there was a high school senior living there, he hadn't figured out yet. Colleges just had an instinct for that, he guessed. He sighed and put down the plastic, having not really even seen the pictures of old brick buildings and lushly colored maple groves.

By the time Samaki returned, just as wet, but smelling of soap more than just fox, Kory had moved on to checking his e-mail, and the sounds of his mother and Nick moving around in the house filtered through his walls to him, a soft chorus that nevertheless set the unromantic mood as effectively as anything he might have chosen from his stereo. Samaki didn't say anything as he sat on the bed in his underwear and attacked his fur with his brush, and Kory flashed a chaste and friendly smile on his way across the floor to take his own shower. Already his room wasn't 'safe' any more; the memory of his mother's presence there made sure of that.

After his shower, they scarfed down bowls of cold cereal in the kitchen with Nick, during which his mother emerged wearing a simple white robe. "Why did you ask me what we have if you were just going to have cereal, Kory?" she said. "We have toast, and oatmeal, and eggs." She took some slices of bread out of the breadbox as she spoke.

"Can't eat oatmeal in summer, mom," Nick mumbled.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," she said. "Well, we'll have Sunday breakfast tomorrow. Samaki, will you be here tomorrow morning?"

The fox swallowed, shaking his head. "No, Mrs. Hedley. Not Sunday."

Kory thought his mother didn't really look like she cared that she'd forgotten, even though Samaki had told her every weekend he was over that he spent Saturday nights and Sundays at home. She went right on preparing her breakfast, getting the butter and jam out of the fridge while the bread toasted. "Oh, right. How is your family?"

"They're fine, thank you."

"I'm sorry your mother couldn't make it to our church social."

"She wanted to, but Mariatu had an upset stomach. You know how it is." Kory knew that was a lie.

"I certainly do." His mother smiled. "Kory had all kinds of stomach problems when he was four. There was a two-week stretch where he had the worst diarrhea I'd ever seen."

"Mom!"

Samaki had the grace to look away, and Nick, snickering, came to the rescue. "We gotta get ready. Mickey's gonna be here any minute now."

"Don't bolt your food!" their mother cried, but it was impossible to know whom she was talking to, so they all ignored her. By the time she'd gotten Nick's name out, all three were done.

Kory knew Mickey vaguely, a short, muscular, chattery otter. His father, built similarly, proved that "the oysters don't stray from the bed," greeting Kory and Samaki with a hearty slap on the back. Kory could almost look him directly in the eye, and Samaki had to look down. He ushered them into his large SUV with obvious pride.

"Nice truck," Samaki murmured to Kory as they clambered up into the spacious back seat. Kory giggled and nudged the fox, but he'd kept his voice low enough that the older otter hadn't heard. He started chattering about the players he'd admired growing up as he started the vehicle with a roar that made Samaki flatten his ears dramatically. Kory grinned, and nudged him again.

While Mickey's father talked cheerfully about baseball, Kory leaned back and responded occasionally. Samaki looked out the window, but his paw crept over to seek out Kory's. Still jittery with echoes of his mother's visit that morning, Kory moved his paw into his lap and stared straight ahead. The fox didn't react, just left his own on the seat until they reached Badger Square. "Where you guys headed from here?" Mr. Donovan asked.

"The library," Kory blurted out. "Working on some summer projects."

"Pretty smart. You keep that up, you'll get into a good college. You see that, Mickey?"

Mickey looked considerably less enthusiastic. "Yeah, come on, Dad, let's get to the show."

"Thanks for the ride, Mr. Donovan," Samaki said, getting out.

"Yeah, thanks," Kory said. He waited until Samaki was out, and then pressed two twenties into Nick's paw. "See you tonight," he said.

"Seeya." Nick made the money disappear into his pocket in a smooth motion.

Samaki walked quietly beside Kory to the thrift shop they usually made their first stop. It wasn't open this early, but they stopped to look in the window anyway. "Library?" the black fox said.

"What? Oh. Well, they don't need to know."

"You could've said you work with homeless kids. You didn't have to say gay homeless kids."

The feeling that Samaki was disappointed in him was a new one. Kory's stomach fluttered. "I dunno. It was just easier to say the library."

"Easier?"

Kory looked at the black fox's bemused expression. "I didn't want to get into a whole discussion."

Samaki nodded. "I didn't mean you should've said 'gay homeless kids.' I just wondered why you went to 'library'."

"It was the first thing that came into my head." Kory curled his tail down as he walked.

"I guess it doesn't matter." The black fox looked around , his ears perking up as he looked across the square. "Hey, Starbucks is open."

Kory's mood improved almost immediately. Ever since their first cup of coffee in the Starbucks by the pool, the little green coffee chain felt special to him. He could walk into any one and remember how the sun had hit Samaki's black fur and violet eyes that afternoon. It never failed to cheer him up.

By the time they had gotten their coffee and pawed through the dusty racks of the thrift store, where Samaki found a pair of pants for him and a shirt for his brother Kasim, the comment and Kory's queasy worry, as well as the jitters about his mother's morning visit, were long gone. The walk to the Rainbow Center, a short six blocks, was always nice even in the warm summer morning, and though Kory would always rather be swimming, walking through Hilltown early in the morning was a close second, especially with Samaki at his side.

Holly Street led away from the bohemian Badger Square along older houses and shops, relics of an older time. Faded paint and cracked wood showed the age of the buildings, but no fast food containers littered the street, no old clothes hung over the bare wooden railings, and the windows were kept clean and free of dust. Between the tightly packed rows of houses, they passed a hamburger joint, a taco stand that was their favorite lunch place (two tacos for a dollar!), a laundromat, and a few book and clothing stores that had yet to open. Left down the narrow Badger Lane brought them to a converted three-story house that had once been two row homes. Alone on the block, it sported a fresh coat of neutral ivory paint and a rainbow banner hanging from the porch just over the wide double door. The words "Rainbow Center" were engraved on the wooden plaque to the right of the door, and beneath that, a quotation: "Beneath my roof, let all gather without fear or hate; for if we are to banish them from the world, we must first begin at home."

Kory had looked up "R. Carmine," the attributed author, on the Internet with Samaki one night and had enjoyed reading about the life of the arctic fox, poet and ardent gay rights activist. She'd died twelve years before, but it was thanks to a foundation she'd helped create that the Rainbow Center continued to exist. Only one book of her poetry had been published, and it was on back order everywhere he looked. The Rainbow Center library had a copy, of course, but he wanted to spend his time at the house helping, not reading, so he only stole a look at the book on his breaks.

Usually, he loved to look at the plaque as they walked in, but today it brought back the memory of him saying 'library'." Was it wrong to not want to tell Mickey's dad their whole life story? Maybe not. But how would Carmine have handled it?

Even though it wasn't quite nine, the house was bustling. Summer was a busy time for runaways, with school out of session, and the kids were used to getting up at seven or eight even in summer. The house had DVDs to keep them busy for a few hours, but Margo, the black squirrel who ran Rainbow Center, didn't like the kids to sit and watch TV all day, so she organized work projects, some more fun than others. Samaki, in his second summer helping out, was allowed to lead projects unsupervised, but Kory had to be with Samaki or one of the other experienced volunteers, which didn't bother him at all, truth be told.

True to its name, the inside of the Rainbow Center was a hodgepodge of different building styles. In places like the school or public library, the interiors were deliberately minimalist so as not to favor any one species over another. Even though the Rainbow Center received some public funding, the equal-access laws known as the Orwell Act only applied to the common areas of the building, and then only to specify that the area be equally welcoming to all. Margo interpreted that to mean "as welcoming as possible to all," a passion which showed in the ceiling rungs, for squirrels and other climbers, the hard salt licks in the walls, the shallow trough of water running along one side of each of the ground-floor rooms, the sheltered corner with the thick triangular shade stretched over it to block out the light, and dozens of other small touches. Kory, used to the simple one- or two-species houses of his friends and the bare public school and library, had been first overwhelmed and then delighted by the feeling that he was entering a space that was not just communal, but an intersection of several different private spaces. It contributed to the feeling of home, and in fact, when he'd suggested adding a loft-type structure to the common room, inspired by Ajani's suspended bed in the Roden boys' bedroom, Margo had not only taken enthusiastically to his idea, but had let him design and oversee the building of it.

"Good morning, boys!" Margo said as they walked into the common room. Two boys a little younger than Kory sat in front of the TV: a skunk and a porcupine. Up on the loft, another boy, a weasel, hung half off the frame, watching with the others. Below him, slouched against the wooden frame, a fruit bat surveyed the room with folded arms and over-affected boredom. Piercings glittered in both her large ears, echoed in the silver studs down the side of the black leather jacket that hung over her bony frame.

Coming in here and remembering what these kids were going through made Kory's problems seem trivial. He put them aside and waved to the bat. "Hi, Malaya." She snorted, but nodded to him before turning back to the TV. The boys continued watching, oblivious. Kory leaned against the "dark corner," after checking that nobody was curled up inside it.

"Did Marty get his placement?" Samaki asked after a quick scan of the room.

Margo nodded. "He left yesterday evening. I have his address if you want to send a card along."

"Yeah, please." The young fox had been Kory and Samaki's favorite all summer, a boisterous bundle of energy who'd been the first to help out with every project despite his broken arm. The only thing he wasn't eager to talk about was how his arm had been broken. Kory only knew that his father had been somehow responsible and that his mother hadn't done anything to stop it.

"All right. I'm just going to get some more e-mails sent out. It looks like Jeremy's situation might get ugly." She dropped her voice, glancing sideways at the skunk. "Don't say anything to him, though. Now, go get started on the back yard. I'll come out and join you later."

"Bye, Margo," they chorused, grinning at each other. Samaki reached for Kory's paw as they walked across the room, and here in the only other place that felt safe, Kory took it. He saw Malaya roll her eyes at them, and gave her a big smile. With that grasp, their argument of the morning faded completely.

A little over an hour into the backyard project, Kory noticed that Malaya was gone. The boys were working hard cutting the fence posts, Samaki was collecting the old pieces of the fence, and Malaya was supposed to be on the other side of the portion of the fence that was still standing, digging at the foundation to loosen it while Kory did the same on his side. Only he hadn't heard her digging in a while, and when he peeked around the wooden slats, there was nobody opposite him.

"She's probably up in her room," Samaki said. "Want to go get her? If you can't find her or if she won't come, then get Margo to help."

"Sure." Kory started to go in the back door, then reconsidered and walked around the fence, down the narrow space between the houses. At the side of the front porch he paused, looking out into the bright summer street, and then the acrid tickle of cigarette smoke stroked his nostrils. He looked down and saw the fruit bat sitting with her wings closed around her knees beneath the porch.

As soon as his eyes met hers, the lit tip of a cigarette came back into view. She puffed on it and exhaled a cloud of smoke. "Damn," she said dryly. "You won't tell on me, will you? Because then they'd kick me out and that would be terrible."

There was just enough room next to her for Kory to squeeze in, leaving his left shoulder and leg out in the sunlight. He could see why Malaya liked it here. The shelter felt safe. Nobody could see you. It was almost like swimming. "If you don't like it here, you could just leave."

"And go where? They won't let me go home yet. I'd rather be here than living in a box somewhere."

"It's not so bad here."

She blew a puff of smoke into the dark space under the porch. "You don't have to live here."

He sighed. "What don't you like?"

"What, going to go tell Margo to fix it? Don't bother. It's shorter to tell you what I do like." She took another drag, and scratched at her wing with her left hand. "Talking to you. That's about it."

"Me?" He'd known they had a rapport, but he hadn't thought it was that unusual for her.

She shrugged. "You're the only one who doesn't live in some pie-in-the-sky fantasy world. Margo says I'll be placed with my grandmother, as if I want to go live in a swamp. The boys all think their troubles are over now they're in Lotusland here. And your boyfriend, no offense, makes Polyanna look like a realist."

It still took a few seconds for the glow of having Samaki referred to as his boyfriend to sink in and dissipate. "He's..."

"Relax." Her laugh was too deep for her age. "You guys prob'ly balance each other out well. You know what the real world is like. You know that your mom isn't going to pick up some PFLAG brochure and read it and suddenly say, Oh, I've been wrong about faggots all this time. You know that placing you in custody with your grandmother in some other state is going to mess you up worse than dealing with your asshole parents."

Kory wasn't sure he knew any of those things. He just hated to contradict people. "Sure," he said. "But that doesn't mean you can't hope for things to get better."

Malaya looked at him. "You know what hope is?" She took a drag and opened her short mouth into an 'O,' puffing out a small cloud of smoke. "That's hope," she said. "It burns and it stings, and when you try to grab it," she waved a hand through it, "it's gone."

Kory watched the tendrils of smoke dissipate in the darkness. "But you keep taking another puff," he said, his voice quiet. "Why is that?"

Their eyes met for a moment. Then Malaya ground out the cigarette in the dirt and bumped his shoulder. "All right, let's get back to it," she said. "Man, it's gonna suck around here when school starts."

"Aren't you going back?" He got to his feet and extended a paw down to her, which she ignored.

"Sure, but I'll be coming back here at night with Frau Margo and I won't have you to bitch to because you're going back to school too."

"You're in Samaki's school. And don't any of those guys go to the same school?"

"I can't hang out with them at school. They're losers." She grinned at him. "Not your boyfriend. But he's gonna be a senior and I'm a junior. Doesn't work too well."

"You can still have lunch, can't you?"

Malaya paused at the fence. "Do I have smoke on my breath?"

They worked through the afternoon, breaking to get tacos for the whole crew at lunch, until they had to leave. Samaki released Kory's paw as they left the Rainbow Center and walked to the bus stop. "I hope Jeremy will be okay," he said.

"I hope Malaya will," Kory responded.

"Once they work out her travel to Millenport, she'll be fine," Samaki said. "She just needs to get to a better home."

"I don't think she wants to go to Millenport," Kory said. "She wants to stay here."

"That's silly," Samaki said. "It'd better for her to go to Millenport. Did you hear what her father did?"

Kory shrugged as his bus rounded the corner. "This is her home. Why should she leave?"

"If she doesn't want to leave, she's crazy."

Kory looked at the vehement violet eyes. "Maybe sometimes people want things that aren't good for them."

The fox's intensity melted away. His first response was lost in the squeal of brakes from Kory's bus stopping. "Fortunately," he said as the doors opened, "the things I want are very good for me." Cool air washed over them both. "See you Monday."

"See you Monday," Kory said at the bus stop as Samaki's bus pulled up.

"Bye, foxy." Kory smiled. They touched noses briefly, which was as much affection as he was comfortable showing in public, and then he stepped reluctantly onto the bus. Samaki waved one more time as the doors hissed closed, and then the bus pulled away, leaving Kory with only the lingering smell of fox on his nose.

*

Kory was one of the few kids he knew who enjoyed going to church. That was only since Father Joe, the tall Dall sheep, had taken over the services, because his sermons were bright, lively things that kept Kory amused. Nick didn't love them, but didn't hate them, either; "trying too hard to be cool," is how he viewed Father Joe's efforts.

Kory also hadn't forgotten the help Father Joe had offered back when he'd first been coming to terms with his attraction to Samaki, and every week, the tall sheep caught his eye at least once and gave him an encouraging smile. This particular Sunday, Nick's swimming practice was starting up again, so their mother left with him immediately after the Mass was over to drop him off. Kory was in no hurry to walk home.

"Glad to see you smiling more, Kory," Father Joe said, shaking the paw of Mrs. Jefferson and wishing her a good day.

"It's been a good summer," Kory said.

"Want to help me pick up the hymnals?"

Kory grinned. "Sure." He walked through the now-empty church on the opposite side from the priest, collecting the books in his arms.

"Your mother tells me you're doing quite a lot of charity work this summer."

"Yeah, there's a shelter on the north side of downtown that helps homeless kids. I go over there once a week and hang out with them, help paint the house, whatever."

"That's wonderful to hear." The priest chuckled. "You know, if you have any leftover energy sometime, the church could use a coat of paint as well."

"School starts next week," Kory said. "I don't know if I'd have time."

"I was kidding." Father Joe looked over at him and winked. "Mostly. So how did you find this shelter?"

Kory didn't answer immediately. "Oh, a friend of mine told me about it," he said finally, glancing outside at the empty doorway. His mother had moved on to talk to some other friends of hers.

"Someone in this church?"

"No," Kory said. "You don't know him."

When they reached the front of the church, Father Joe leaned against one of the pews. Kory looked up at him. "A few months ago," the sheep said in a low voice, "you were having some trouble. Did you get that all worked out?" Kory nodded. "Did you call the people I told you about?"

"No," Kory said. "I pretty much worked it out on my own."

The sheep waited, but Kory didn't volunteer any other information. "All right," Father Joe said. "I'm glad to hear it's worked out. But I think it's also important that you be able to talk about it. It doesn't have to be with me, but I hope there's someone you can talk to."

"There is," Kory nodded, saying it more to end the conversation than because he meant it. "Thanks."

He started to leave, but Father Joe put one hand on his shoulder. "These kinds of questions, Kory," he said, "they touch on how we think of ourselves as a person. They mingle with species and gender and age and class and all those other things the people these days call 'Orwell Act stuff.' But who we are as a person," he tapped his chest, "that's in here. That's what God looks at, and what He's talking about in all that stuff I read every week up there. You know those lectures about the Pharisees?"

"I know," Kory said.

"All right." Father Joe stood. "Forgive me for taking a little more of your time, but it's my job to think about things like that." He smiled. "Good luck in school this year."

Kory raised a paw. "Thanks." He grinned. "See you next week, Father."

On the way home, he thought about it. Of course, he could talk to Samaki about any problems, couldn't he? Or Margo, in a pinch? But Samaki was personally involved, and Kory was already worried the fox thought less of him for not being more forthright about their relationship. Margo was so energetic and well-meaning that Kory wasn't sure he could even bring up the subject with her. She would just tell him everything was fine, just as Malaya always accused her of doing. And there was Malaya, but she would go too far to the other extreme.

"Hey, Kory, change the music, wouldja?"

He grinned back at his brother. "I like this song." Of course, he thought, there was Nick. He could always talk to Nick.

*

The first week of school was always disorienting. It seemed that the last school year ended right when Kory got the hang of things, and none of that helped in the fall when he was starting with new classes. At least his friends were the same as they'd been in the spring. Jason and Dev had both spent most of the summer playing World of Warcraft, of course. Kory wandered over to say hi to them and felt glad to get a hello sandwiched between descriptions of campaigns and strategies and artifacts. He listened long enough to get a feel for the game and a brief twinge of regret that his days of immersive gameplay were behind him, and then took his seat next to his best friend Sal.

"Funny," Sal said as he sat down. "It feels like I didn't see you all summer."

Kory played with one of his brand new pencils. "Sorry I didn't come by your dad's office more often."

"You would've been way better than Teddy. I still can't believe you didn't take the position."

Geoff Hill, a raccoon who sat behind Sal, snickered. "Assume the position!" he said. "Get a room, you two."

Kory ignored him and shrugged to cover the squirming inside. "I told you, my Mom wanted me to do something spiritual. Charity work."

This was partly true. His mother wouldn't have been averse to Kory taking the well-paid internship with Sal's father's company, but she was worried that he and Sal would goof off all day, and she'd seemed relieved when he'd mentioned the charity work with Samaki. Had he told her the truth about Rainbow Center, he suspected she wouldn't have been as enthusiastic, but she was happy enough that he was doing the Lord's work that she didn't press.

"So you were hanging out with Sammy all summer?"

"Samaki, yeah." Kory cast about for a subject to change to. "Hey, is Deb in any of your classes?"

He could tell right away that things had changed with Sal and Deb. His friend shrugged. "I dunno."

Kory didn't say anything right away, and after a moment, Sal looked at him. "I got tired of her whining, you know? She was always tryin' to drag me out to hang out with her friends."

"Like Sarah and..."

"Jenny, yeah."

"She's dating Yaro now," Geoff Hill put in. "They were lockin' lips at a party I was at in July." Clearly he wanted them to be impressed that he'd been to a party where Yaro, the star of the swim team, had been, or else to be jealous that they hadn't been invited.

Kory felt neither of those. He remembered the nine months he'd dated Jenny as vaguely as though it were a dream. She'd been big on hanging out with her friends, too, but they hadn't broken up because of that. She'd dumped him for someone else (someone who wasn't Yaro, so that hadn't lasted long), but now that he thought about it, the actual moment of the breakup had probably been diffused over a period of a few months. And he'd never felt as close to her as he did to Samaki.

"You're still doing the vo-tech thing this year, right?"

Sal snorted. "Course. My dad can pay me to spend the summer shuffling papers, but I told him I still want to fix computers. He said just decide at the end of the summer." His face stretched into the wide grin that Kory always found infectious. "A couple times a week I hung out with Dan. He's the IT guy at Dad's office, a weasel, and he knows everything. I told him what I'd been studying and he showed me a whole ton of stuff. He's got it so good there. Nothing gets done if he doesn't want it to, and he reads everyone's e-mail. He showed me one e-mail a guy sent where he was talking about boning his secretary. It was cool."

Kory grinned back. "Sorry I missed it."

"I'm telling ya," Sal said, "you're missin' the boat with this college thing. Why spend a hundred grand to get a degree when you could be out there working full time in two years. Dan makes fifty thousand a year!"

"I dunno. I just...I gotta go to college."

Sal nodded. "I'll buy you a dinner sometime while you're paying off your college loans."

"And fix my computer?"

"Well, sure." Sal chuckled just as the homeroom bell rang.

With Sal gone for half the day at his vo-tech classes, Kory chatted with a few other acquaintances in Physics, Calculus, and English. English class promised to be interesting; they were actually slated to do a unit on poetry in the fall, and Mrs. Digginson, the young rat, confirmed that she was planning another one in the spring when he asked her, after class.

Walking out of her classroom toward the bus, he noticed that a skinny wolf had hung back to listen, pretending to fidget with the unbuttoned collar of his shirt and pushing his glasses up on his muzzle every other minute. Kory remembered after a moment that his name was Perry, and he usually hung out with the hackers, a group unusual in the high school in that apparently only one member of each species was allowed to join. Besides Perry, they included an otter, a rat, a raccoon, a grey fox, and one of the only two coyotes in the school. Most of them attended the standard English class, but Perry had been in the advanced class with Kory the year before, and Kory had noted without noticing that he was there again this year.

"I'm glad we're doing more poetry," Perry said without preamble.

"Uh-huh." Kory didn't encourage or discourage conversation.

"We're probably the only two excited about it, huh?"

"Probably."

The wolf stayed a half step behind him, silent for a few more paces, until he said, "Uh, I really liked that poem you did last year."

Kory's stride broke, but only for a half-hitch before he started walking again, a little faster. "Thanks," he mumbled, his mind wrenched away from thoughts of calling Samaki, back to the present.

"No, really." Perry hurried to keep up with him. "You have a great vocabulary and you used meter and imagery really effectively."

"Thanks," Kory said again, canting his ears back to listen. The last thing he wanted was for that poem to be brought up again on the first day of the new school year, but for it to be complimented on its merits was something new.

"I wanted to say something to you last year about it, but, you know, those guys...and you looked so uncomfortable. I tried, the one time, but you just ran away. I think you didn't hear me."

He didn't remember that, but he said, "Probably not."

"And I thought it really sucked that they picked on you like that."

"Thanks." Now he slowed. "Do you write any?"

Perry hurried to catch up to him, ducking his muzzle. "Oh, uh, no, not really."

Kory grinned at the wolf's flicking ears, stopping in front of his bus. "Hey, you saw something of mine."

"No, I don't...I mean, I'm not that good." He saw Kory's look, then, and rubbed one ear. "Well, maybe."

"I'd like to see it. This is my bus," Kory said, waving up to the driver, who was beckoning to him. "Nice talking to you."

"Yeah, I'll, uh, see you tomorrow," Perry said. "Oh, are you in that college prep group?"

Kory tilted his head. "What group?"

"My mom signed me up for it. It's every Thursday after school for an hour. We go over college applications and stuff." He shrugged. "If I want to get into N.I.T., I guess I'll need it. You should be in it. I mean, not that you need help, I'm sure you'll get into a good school, but..."

Kory paused on the step. "Yeah, good luck," he said, and waved as he climbed into the bus.

On the bus, he sat alone and looked out the window. There was really nobody on the bus that he knew well; most of the other seniors in his area proudly drove their cars to school just because they could. The juniors and sophomores he knew, but not well, and of course, Nick was a freshman this year, but he had his own group of friends and wouldn't have wanted to sit with Kory.

Halfway home, Kory used his phone to send an e-mail to Samaki, wishing the black fox had a phone that accepted text messages. Maybe for Christmas, he thought, but he knew it was a stretch for the fox to have a phone at all. His plan didn't allow for many calls, so they used e-mail most of the time, but Kory didn't want to wait until he got home. His school day had immersed him in the other world, the one which had receded all summer, and he wanted to re-establish contact with Samaki, to find out what the fox had been doing and what his first day at Hilltown P.S. had been like.

Nick talked about his homework as they walked to their house from the bus stop, past neat lawns that Kory had thought of as small until he saw the yards in Samaki's neighborhood. He hadn't taken this particular walk in three months, but he still knew it by heart: The Jeffersons' maple tree and warm lupine smell, Mrs. Liata's profusion of rosebushes overwhelming even the odor of a skunk family, the white house with maroon trim that glowed in the sunset light later in the fall, the old three-story blue house that looked like a modern-day castle, and all the other familiar landmarks cemented his return to school and the world of his normal life, the world where he was just Kory Hedley, Nick's brother and Celia's son, high school senior.

That world was comfortable, with patterns that were easy to slip into. He knew what was expected of him and had no trouble conforming. Over the summer, he'd come to regard the Kory who was Samaki's boyfriend as a different Kory, one who flushed guiltily during some of the church sermons now, who obsessively watched everything he did around his mother or left in his room, who had thought of the old Kory as nothing more than a shell he wore, a chrysalis to be discarded when the time was right.

Now, with the warm fall air ruffling his fur and the familiar sights and scents, the smell of school still in his nostrils and that creeping anticipation that the evening was only a break from the never-ending procession of classes, he felt like more than a shell. It wasn't until he slipped into the sanctuary of his room, with Samaki's scent faintly lingering despite his mother's attempts to dispel it, that he remembered the Kory of the summer. Relaxing into his chair, he found a reply from Samaki, and the warmth of summer infused him as he read it.

They'd set up an arranged time to talk each night, when Kory's phone minutes were free and Samaki would make sure to be somewhere private. Even if they could only talk for five minutes, it was worth it. Reading about Samaki's first day back at school, Kory wanted to call the fox that minute, not wait until after dinner. He contented himself with writing a long reply. He told Samaki about Perry, about the extra poetry unit, and about Sal's summer.

Dinner was salmon, one of Kory's favorites, even though his mother had paired it with bland lima beans. He took seconds while Nick told them about his first day at school, and then he told his mother more or less what he'd told Samaki, shading it with nuances she'd favor, leaving out most of what Sal had said and telling her more about his science class. Briefly, he mentioned Perry, and the college prep class, and his mother flicked her ears back.

"I never got that paperwork," she said. "I wonder why."

"I don't really need it," Kory said. "I have all the brochures, and there's plenty of stuff online to tell me how to register."

"But it certainly wouldn't hurt," his mother said. "And what else will you be doing with your Thursday afternoons?"

"Homework?" Kory said, but he knew that wouldn't fly.

"You do well enough in your studies that you can spare one afternoon a week to prepare for your future. Thanks to your charity work, you're reasonably well-rounded, but these classes help you gain that extra edge. If you want to get into Whitford or Gulliston, you'll need that edge. Nick, finish your beans."

Nick grumbled, taking one lima bean at a time and chewing forever, a strategy he'd developed to try to outlast his mother at the dinner table. So far, it hadn't worked. Usually Kory would give him an encouraging grin, but tonight his attention was elsewhere. "Mom, I..."

"If you have time to do your charity work on weekends, you have time to spare one afternoon a week for this." He didn't respond to that, not wanting to jeopardize the weekend visits to Rainbow Center, and she nodded her head. "I'll call the school tomorrow."

And that was the end of that. It wasn't worth his time to argue, and the only thing he could think of to say was that he wasn't interested in going to Whitford, nor to Grick, nor to anyplace that was going to take him that far from Samaki. But this was not the time for that argument. That argument was going to take careful planning. That argument was going to last a long time.

After dinner, he helped clean up and worked on homework in his room until eight twenty-four. He opened his phone and closed it, fingers skittering impatiently across the buttons as he waited for eight-thirty.

At eight-thirty and two seconds, he dialed. Samaki picked up on the first ring.

Kory felt himself relaxing just at the sound of the fox's voice. He listened to Samaki tell him about his classes, things he'd mentioned in the e-mail already, but it was nice to have the news in person. Kory told the fox about his classes too, and about his mom signing him up for the college prep course.

"You're lucky," Samaki said. "I already know I'm going to State."

"You're lucky," Kory said. "You already know you're going to State."

Samaki laughed. "You don't want to go to State. You have to go to Whitford so you can send me your coursework."

"And you can come visit me on weekends."

"On the weekends that you're not visiting me."

"Or at home."

The fox chuckled. "Kande comes home once a month. I'll probably come with her."

"I don't really want to go to Whitford, though."

"They had a really good-looking brochure."

Kory paused. They hadn't really talked much about colleges, apart from looking at the brochures Kory's mother had set out for him. But something was crystallizing now, something he'd missed in all the casual glances at the brochures. The "school Kory" was the one looking at them to make a decision about his future, what he wanted to be.

What if he didn't want to be "school Kory" any more? What if he stopped trying to decide which would be the best school, and just picked the one he wanted to attend? If he said, 'I want to go to State with you,' Samaki would say...would say...

What?

"I want to go to State with you," he said.

He heard an exhalation on the other end, and then silence. "I mean it," he said.

"Your mom won't let you," Samaki said. "Anyway, you can go anywhere. Why would you go to State?"

*

"Because you'll be there," Kory told him that Saturday morning, as they were finishing up the work on the fence at Rainbow Center. There was homework to do, and weekend chores, but Friday night and Saturday were for Samaki.

Malaya had elected to paint with them rather than go with Greg and the boys up to a baseball game, a rare treat for the kids. "Never liked baseball," she claimed. She painted apart from them, still wearing her black leather, the acrid scent of cigarette smoke concealed by the rich paint smells unless Kory stood right next to her, which rarely happened.

"You think I'm going to forget about you if we go to different schools?" Samaki grinned at him, paws working evenly to apply the white paint, up and down. Kory thought of how those paws had been moving just the previous night, and of the bright white patch of fur he loved to explore with his own paws, and shivered, getting hard.

"No," he said, focusing back on his own painting work. "That's just where I want to go."

"What if I got into Whitford?"

"Could you?" Kory looked up, hopeful.

Samaki chuckled and shook his head. "On a full scholarship, maybe, but do you know how smart I'd have to be to get one of those?"

"Too smart to be wasting your weekend here," Malaya chimed in. She was painting the boards between the posts with a broad brush dipped in white paint, which spattered her everywhere.

"See?" Samaki said. "No chance. My dad's working hard to put us through State. Kande'll be done by the time Ajani's ready to go, and I'll be done when it's Kasim's turn. He's allowed two kids at a time."

"But what if you could get a full scholarship to Whitford? I mean, I'm going to need some financial aid, too. We could research scholarships, see what's out there."

"If you want to," Samaki said. "But it'll be a lot easier for you to get into State. Which you shouldn't," he added quickly.

"Whitford's too far away."

"Forester, then." Samaki dipped his roller in the tray. "That's pretty close."

"It's not as good as Whitford and not as cheap as State."

"No, but it is close." Kory touched up the post Samaki had just painted, filling in the spots of brown with white until it was all uniform.

"Isn't that where that gay kid got beat up by the football player?"

Samaki nodded. "That could happen anywhere, though. And it might have turned out to be a good thing, in the long run. The players got kicked off the team, and it raised awareness on the campus."

Malaya shook her wings out. Drops of paint adorned them, white speckles like part of her coat. "I don't know why you two are so obsessed with college. Just move in somewhere, some cheap place in the city, and get jobs. It's not that hard."

Violet vulpine eyes peered around Kory at her. "Doing what?"

"Whatever you want." She shrugged. "My old man's dumber'n a pile of bricks and he makes enough to afford a house."

"What does he do?" Kory asked.

"Construction. Any idiot can stack bricks on top of each other."

Samaki grinned, rolling the paintbrush up and down the next post.. "I don't see me on a construction site."

"Except maybe to stare at the guys," Kory said.

The fox laughed. "Why would I stare at other guys if you're around?"

"Oh, God." Malaya snorted.

"This friend of Nick's," Kory said, "his dad runs a painting business and he offered Nick a job next summer, when he's older."

"Good money in that," Malaya put in, waving the broad brush. "Not here, but..."

Samaki nodded. "I don't think I want to just be a painter, though. I want to be a reporter. You kind of have to go to school for that."

Malaya didn't answer. After a moment, Kory said, "Well, I can apply to State, anyway. I don't have to make a decision yet. But you should apply to some other places too, just to see."

"Sure." The fox smiled at him. "It'll be fun filling out those applications."

"Oh, God," the bat said again, turning pointedly away from them as Kory laughed and leaned over to kiss the fox on his muzzle, a bold gesture, but safe in the confines of Rainbow Center, even if they did both end up with smears of white on their muzzles.

They kissed again in the foyer, just before leaving. "Think of me when you brush tonight," the fox said with a sly grin.

"And you think of me," Kory said.

"I don't know if I'll need to brush for a couple days, after last night."

He spoke in a low voice, but Kory still looked around to make sure nobody was listening before he giggled. "I could brush again right now."

Samaki licked his nose. "If my bus weren't coming in four minutes, I'd take you up on that."

"Mmm." Kory felt himself getting hard again, so when he hugged the fox, he pressed his groin against Samaki's hip. The fox didn't comment, but the hips he pressed back against Kory were just as full of desire. They separated, and with a glint of regret in the violet eyes, Samaki tugged him out to the bus stop, where he had to stand and wave good-bye for another whole week.

He wandered back to Rainbow Center, up the stairs and onto the porch, but the sharp tickle of cigarette smoke pulled him to the side of the house before he could walk inside.

He leaned over the railing, where the smell was strongest. "Malaya?"

"Shit," she said, "I thought you were gone."

"I'm taking a later bus."

"Spending more time with your boyfriend?" She didn't wait for his answer. "That's sweet."

"I don't get to see him much, with school and all." He heard a noncommittal sound from her. "You ever have a girlfriend?"

A cloud of smoke floated up from under the porch. "Not really," she said.

It didn't look like she was going to come out, so Kory sat on the wood porch and rested his back against the house, mirroring the position he thought she was sitting in below. He ran his fingers over the paint of the porch and wondered which kids had painted it. It looked recent. Maybe Samaki had helped, last year. "But sort of?"

"There was this one girl." Indrawn smoke. Slow hiss of exhalation. "She was a bitch, though."

"Sorry," Kory said.

"Not your fault she was a bitch," Malaya said.

The fact that he couldn't see her made it feel like a confessional. "What'd she do to you?"

"Just about everything two girls can do to each other." She puffed again. "Including talk behind my back and fuck me over."

Kory didn't really know what to say to that. After a moment, Malaya continued. "She wasn't really in love with me. At least, that's what she said. She just thought I was cool, at first. I guess I'm not."

"Were you in love with her?"

The bat didn't answer right away. "Sure, why not?" she said finally.

"Are you still?"

"Yeah. Don't you have to have someone new before you can forget someone old?"

Kory looked out at the crisp, blue sky, and at the trees, whose leaves were still bright and green. "I don't know," he said.

She was quiet for two more puffs of the cigarette. The smell disappeared into the warm fall air after that, but she didn't come out from under the porch. "Did you tell your mom yet?"

"No," he said. "My mom's pretty religious. She'd flip out." Of course, that wasn't all there was to it, was there? He was religious too. He went to church regularly because he wanted to, because he believed there were good people there and that it reinforced the moral guidelines by which he wanted to live his life. So why did he feel it was all right to be with Samaki, when his mother didn't? Fortunately, Malaya didn't give him time to dwell on the question.

"No dad?"

"Nah." He didn't want to say more than that, but felt he owed her more. "He took off."

He didn't expect the response he got. "Lucky."

When he didn't know what to say, he didn't say anything. Malaya started up again, filling the silence. "My mom died when I was two. I never knew her."

"Does your dad know?" Kory asked.

"That my mom died?" She laughed a dry laugh. "I know what you mean. Yeah, he knows. Why d'you think I ended up here?"

"I don't know why you're here."

Her wings rustled. "My dad caught me with Jen. He chased her out of the house, took my door off its hinges, and said if he caught me breaking God's rules again, he'd break my legs. So I ran away. Stayed in a couple shelters, heard some kids laughing about the 'sissy shelter,' and ended up here."

"Jeez," Kory said. The matter-of-factness with which she accepted the threat of violence in her life made him terribly sad.

"He might've killed my mom," she said, with the same tone, as if she were telling Kory about a house her father had built, or a car he drove.

That concept was too much for Kory. He knew he was supposed to help the kids here and support them, but Malaya was only two years younger than he was, and he didn't have the words or the experience to help her. He wanted to ask how she'd lived in her home for fifteen years, how she hadn't run away before now, but he didn't know how to ask without insulting her and he didn't know what else he could say. So he got to his feet, brushed the seat of his pants off, and said, "My bus'll be here soon."

"Okay," Malaya said. "See you next weekend."

Her slender hand, leathery wing trailing down from it, reached above the porch to wave to him. He knew it was just the way bats' hands were, but without the context of the rest of her body, her long, narrow fingers looked skeletal in the bright afternoon sun.

*

"This is the most important decision you'll have to make in your life."

Kory had to try not to roll his eyes at the lanky red fox at the front of the classroom. Perry had told him that Mr. Pena was "a bit dramatic." The wolf, it turned out, was understating things.

"You are all standing on the cusp of adulthood. College is where you will make that transition. The college you choose will determine what kind of an adult you become. Go to Pemberton and you'll emerge a leader. Go to Race and you will be equipped with all the tools to make important scientific discoveries. Attend Whitford, and you may become one of the luminaries of our time in any field. So it's worth spending not just this hour, but many more hours at home, making sure that your applications are in order. There's still time to join extracurricular activities to make sure you're well-rounded enough to get into the best schools. Last year, Carter High sent six students to Whitford, Race, and Pemberton." He looked around for effect. "All six of those students took this college prep course."

Kory looked around the classroom at the fourteen other students there. He recognized most of them from his advanced English class, and knew that most of them were also in the advanced math and science classes he hadn't made it into. Of course, he thought, if any of Carter's kids were going to get into the top three schools in the country, it would be those kids anyway, and of course they were so studious that the thought of skipping the college prep course had probably never occurred to them. But he paid attention to Mr. Pena anyway, because his mother was sure to ask him what they'd talked about in the class.

"All right," he said after his opening remarks. "Let's go around the room and introduce ourselves. Tell us what schools you're applying to. Next week you'll bring in the applications and we'll start working on those."

"My name's Ryan. Whitford, Race, and Western Tech is my safety school."

"I'm Jelena. Whitford and Pemberton."

Kory watched the other kids with growing unease. Each of these kids already had his list of schools determined. Even Perry got up and said, "Uh, Pemberton, Gulliston, and Northeast College is my safety school." Kory had skimmed his brochures, and he knew the names of the schools his mother wanted him to go to, but watching nervous Perry's confident demeanor as he rattled off school names made Kory feel unprepared, as if he were really a junior and these kids were all a year ahead of him.

"I'm Kory," he said. "Whitford, I guess, and...Gulliston. And State."

Mr. Pena gave a short, nervous laugh. "State? We can find you a better safety school than that, Kory." He flicked his large ears while Kory folded his small ones back. The rustling of the other students sounded like laughter at his back, though nobody followed Mr. Pena's lead in laughing outright. Kory sank down in his seat. At least they hadn't asked him why he'd picked State. He wouldn't know what to answer.

"Now, the earliest thing you're going to want to do is make sure you're well-rounded enough," the fox said when all the kids had introduced themselves. "Colleges like to see applicants with a variety of interests. Some charity work is always good, sports if you have it, yearbook, newspaper, and so on. Math Club, Computer Club are good if you're going for a science major. And use those clubs as leverage to get into national events and competitions. There are plenty of smart kids out there, but if you can show how smart you are on a wider stage, you'll stand out."

Kory saw nodding out of the corner of his eye. All the other kids were looking as though this were just confirmation, not news. Where did they all learn how to apply to colleges? Probably on the Internet somewhere. He'd have to spend some time this weekend looking. "Now, you're going to have a lot of friends bent on enjoying their last year of high school. I'm here to tell you that that's not what your senior year is for. The college you attend will shape the rest of your life. Employers will be much more impressed if you graduated from Gulliston than," his eyes settled on Kory. "State. More kids from this class will go to State than anywhere else, those that go to college at all. That's not impressive. That doesn't tell someone that you're going to be worth hiring."

Of course he would have to pick on Kory, mentioning State. Kory added Mr. Pena to the list of people he would upset by attending State with Samaki. The prospect didn't bother him at all. In fact, imagining the older fox's reaction if Kory announced his enrollment at State had him smiling as he and Perry walked out, so that the wolf asked him what was so funny.

"Oh, nothing," Kory said. "So, it sounded like everyone already knew a lot of that stuff in there, right? Are you all prepared, too?"

"I don't know if I have enough extracurriculars," Perry said. He stood next to Kory on the curb, waiting for the bus. "I wish I were good at a sport. My dad played baseball in college. I just hate gym."

"Even kickball?"

Perry looked back at Kory mournfully. "I always just kick it right back to the pitcher, and everyone snickers at me."

Kory liked kickball, but he found most sports fairly boring. "I don't think they really want English majors to have sport."

"They like them to be well-rounded." Perry paced while Kory watched.

"You're in, what, the hacker club, and you're on the yearbook. That's plenty," Kory said.

"I can't list the hacker stuff on a college app. I should do some non-profit work," Perry said. "Help at the senior home or something."

"Does it count if you're only doing it to get into school?"

The wolf stopped at that, and looked miserably downcast. "I don't know," he confessed. "What are you doing besides having poems published?"

Kory's fur prickled. "I'm trying not to do that again. But I do some charity work on weekends."

"You should get another poem published! You heard what he said about the national stage. Just don't tell the teachers this time. What work are you doing? You mean you already started something?"

He hadn't thought about the words before saying them, and now regretted having mentioned it. "Just a project with a friend of mine. Working with homeless kids."

Perry's eyes widened. "Homeless kids? Like runaways?" Kory hesitated a moment, then nodded. Perry's ears perked up. "Where? Would it be okay if...I mean, maybe I could come along? They always need extra help, right?" Without waiting for Kory's answer, he started talking to himself. "Homeless kids. That's terrible. I really do want to help them. I just didn't know how. Can I come along when you go next time?"

"Um, you know, I don't know," Kory said. He looked down the front of the school, wishing his bus would get here already.

"Oh," Perry said, his ears dipping. "I'm sorry. It's because I'm just doing it to get into college, isn't it? I really..." He sighed. "Never mind. Sorry."

Kory felt like a heel, but really, what else was he supposed to do? Bring along this guy he barely knew to work with gay kids? Introduce him to (his boyfriend) Samaki? He might as well tie a pink ribbon to his tail and walk around school with a "FAG" sign on his back.

He told Samaki about Perry's request that night, indignant. "He just wants charity work so he can get into college." He pushed away the memory of Perry's earnest expression.

Samaki paused. "Well," he said, "does it matter why he wanted to help? The work would still get done."

"He wouldn't be able to understand the kids, though."

"There's things to do that he wouldn't have to interact with the kids."

A little puzzled by the fox's attitude, Kory responded cautiously. "I guess so, but then, what's the point? And I didn't know if he was," he lowered his voice, "you know, homophobic or something."

"That's a good point," Samaki admitted. "Does he seem like it?"

"I don't know," Kory said. "Maybe. I barely know him."

"He liked your poetry, though. He's right, you should get something else published."

Kory shifted in his chair, looking at his computer screen. He typed in another search for college entrance requirements and scanned the results. "He says he did."

The fox laughed. "Why would he lie about that?"

That was a question Kory didn't have the answer to. When the silence had stretched out long enough, Samaki started telling him about his day at school. At Hilltown P.S., they didn't have anything like college prep courses. Getting motivated to attend college was all on the kid's shoulders. "There's a good site here about college," Kory said as Samaki was complaining about it. "I'll forward it to you."

"Thanks." Samaki sighed. "I should get going and get started on my homework. Oh, I've got a surprise for you for tomorrow night."

"Oooh. Will I like it?"

"Of course you will, silly."

"All right, then. I'll see you tomorrow. Think of me when you brush," Kory said.

"I will. You too."

"I will." He heard the fox's soft kiss, returned it, and hung up.

He grinned and got to his homework, looking forward to 'brushing' even though Samaki wouldn't be there to share it with him.

*

Dinner at the Roden household was as much of an adventure as always, but one Kory relished. Mrs. Roden, aware now of Kory's tastes, made him a less spicy side of the vegetable stew. He devoured it with the soft flatbread she made, grinning at the flavors he never got to taste at home and at the rapid-fire conversation, as Ajani and Samaki and Kasim all told one or the other of their parents what their day had been like. Mr. Roden, normally not home on Friday nights, had switched a shift with someone to make tonight's dinner and had started by thanking Kory for the signed baseball card and talking about the old days of the Dragons, and the World Series game he'd snuck out of school to go see.

"I wanna get dessert!" Kasim said, springing from his chair and taking his plate to the kitchen.

"Not yet," his mother called after him.

The cub looked at Kory and grinned. "But I wanna show Kory what we're having."

"You can show him later." His mother laughed, getting up and taking her own dishes to the kitchen. "Come on, you and Ajani can help with the dishes, and the sooner they're done, the sooner dessert will be on the table."

Ajani lingered over his stew, sopping it up with the flatbread and chewing the bread deliberately. From the captain's chair, Mr. Roden grinned at him and then turned to Kory. "So, Samaki tells me you're taking a college prep class."

"That's right," Kory said. "It's pretty useless mostly."

"Oh, come on," Samaki said, "you met a fan of your poetry there."

"I met him in English," Kory said, shooting a mock-angry look at the black fox, who widened his eyes innocently in response.

"So what colleges are you looking at?" Mr. Roden said.

Kory opened his mouth to say, "Whitford," then remembered that Mr. Roden worked at the state college and was sending his children there. Whitford was beyond their ability and he didn't want to embarrass Mr. Roden by pointing out, however obliquely, that his prospects were better than Samaki's. "Uh, I haven't really decided yet," he mumbled.

"He's looking at Whitford," Samaki said.

"Very good school," Mr. Roden said. "Tough to get in, but I'm sure you'll have no trouble. Ajani, there's no more stew there. Go help your mother in the kitchen."

The cub sighed heavily, put down the bowl he'd been licking, and left it on the table as he slid from his chair. "Take your bowl," his father reminded him, and he trudged back to the table, retrieved it, and carried it dangling from one paw into the kitchen.

"I might be going to State," Kory said.

Mr. Roden raised an eyebrow. "From Whitford to State? That's a wide range. I'm sure you can do better than State."

"It's not that bad a school," Kory said.

The older fox leaned over the table and smiled. "Kory, if I could send my children to Whitford, I'd do it. I know Sammy would do well there. But just for him and Kande to be going to college at all is great. Maybe his children will go to Whitford." He sat back, looked at the two of them, and flicked his ears, but his discomfort lasted only a moment. "If you two choose to have kids," he said, grinning slyly.

"Dad!" Samaki protested. Kory felt his ears get very warm as he stared fixedly down at his plate.

"Well, it's not likely to happen by accident, is it?" his father said.

"Dad!"

Mariatu, who had been pushing her stew around in her bowl with a piece of flatbread, announced, "Two boys can't have a baby."

They all turned to stare at her. "They have to get a mommy, and then they take turns kissing the mommy and whichever one she likes better she gives that one a baby but they have to promise the mommy that she can see the baby because otherwise she cries and she takes the baby away."

Kory and Samaki looked at each other, caught between blushing and giggling. Mr. Roden just smiled. "Where did you hear that, Mari?"

"In school," she said. "Billy Tooman said he wanted to kiss me and have a baby and I said he should kiss Vincent and he said two boys can't kiss and have a baby. He said his daddy Allen and his daddy Forrest had to kiss his mommy but he lives with his daddies and not with his mommy because she lives out in, um, Mars."

Mr. Roden turned to Kory and Samaki and shook his head. "A month ago she didn't want to go to kindergarten. Now she's kissing boys and making babies. I hope Billy Tooman is a fox, at least."

"He is," Mariatu said. "Vincent is a porcapine."

"Por-cue-pine," her father corrected her.

"Porcupine," she said, and lowered her ears. "May I please be excused?"

"Yes, go ahead," her father said. "Take your bowl to your mother."

She slid away from the table and scampered into the kitchen with her bowl. Kory watched the small flip of her tail as she walked, marveling at her acceptance of his relationship with Samaki. This was like another world, populated by alien foxes who knew and approved of their son and brother dating another boy.

"Now, we were talking about colleges?" Mr. Roden leaned back in his chair, his tail twitching.

"I'm going to apply to Whitford," Kory said, relieved to have the topic move away from his relationship with Samaki, "but I don't really think I'll get in."

"You've got as good a chance as anyone," Samaki said. "You got a poem published."

"It was a good poem," the older fox said. "You've definitely got talent."

He'd been expecting Samaki's father to ask about the poem, not already have seen it. He felt another flush as he looked up at Samaki. "You showed it to your parents?"

"Well, yeah."

"Oh, jeez." Kory covered his face with a paw.

Samaki put a paw on his shoulder. "It was published in the newspaper, you know. Millions of people read it."

"But not people I know!"

The black fox giggled. "Silly. It was good, admit it."

Kory groaned. Mr. Roden said, "If it'll make you feel better, Kory, you can read the article Samaki had in the newspaper when he was ten."

"Dad!"

Kory peeked through his fingers. "You had an article in the paper?"

"There was a cub reporter competition," Mr. Roden said, "and they published the top five articles."

"What was it about?"

"I don't remember," Samaki said.

Mr. Roden grinned. "It was a fashion article. It was quite good."

Samaki grabbed Kory's plate and his own. "Hey, Dad, Kory and I were just going to go for a walk before dessert. Can I take the car?"

"Sure." His father handed the keys over. "Back before ten, right?"

Samaki nodded. "Sure thing."

Kory helped take some dishes to the kitchen, staring at the black fox as he did. Kasim tried to get his attention in the kitchen to show him the pie Mrs. Roden had baked, but Kory kept trying to get the grinning Samaki to meet his eye (though the pie did smell delicious, all cinnamon and apples and a couple less familiar spices). Finally, in the foyer, he nudged the fox and said, "You can drive by yourself?"

Samaki grinned. "Surprise. I haven't passed the official test yet, but my dad said I passed his test, so as long as I stay under the speed limit and get back by ten, I can take the car." He opened the door, letting Kory precede him outside.

"Does that mean we can drive to the Rainbow Center?"

"'Fraid not. My dad still needs to go to work and my mom needs to run errands. I'm only allowed when they're both home."

Mrs. Roden's car, the older of the two, smelled strongly of fox, the different Rodens' scents mingling in Kory's nose as he slid into the passenger seat. He always remembered his first ride in the car, and his mother's reaction to the scent of fox, whenever he smelled it strongly. By now, the flash of resentment towards her came and went easily, gone by the time Samaki turned the key in the ignition and the car sputtered to life.

Kory grinned, and Samaki's tail thumped the seat. "I've only taken the car out once on my own. You're my first passenger. So buckle up."

"Don't worry, I always do." His mom had drilled that into his head.

"All right. Here we go."

The car lurched only a little on its way out of the driveway. By the time they were on the streets, Samaki was driving smoothly, both paws on the wheel, only the flicking of his ears betraying any nervousness. "Where are we going?" Kory asked him.

"A little place down by the river," Samaki said. "With the moon and all, it should be pretty tonight."

"Where on the river? Is it near Tom's Landing?"

"I don't think so. It's on the south side of the city."

Kory settled back and watched the city go by as they drove. As he always did when visiting Samaki, he thought about how Hilltown was really five or six different cities. He only knew the one he'd grown up in. Samaki had grown up here, where the houses leaned up against each other, streets and sidewalks were narrower, and the scents mixed on air currents and jumbled together so that it was harder to tell where one property stopped and the next started. Samaki's more sensitive nose had less trouble, able to pull nuances of scent out of the air that Kory couldn't catch. But on the other paw, Kory thought, he still wasn't as good a swimmer.

"What are you grinning at?" Samaki said, looking over.

"Nothing." Kory grinned wider. "Keep your eyes on the road."

"I know how to drive," Samaki said, flipping his tail over to rest on Kory's leg. The otter smiled and stroked one paw along the soft, thick fur as Samaki navigated them along the dark streets of the city. The privacy of the car was unexpectedly secure, a small world in which the two of them might go anywhere without worrying about college or family or any of that. Even the ever-present worry about his mother poking her nose into his life receded to the point that he only noticed it by its absence. He looked out the window up at the stars, imagining that they could keep driving on past the river and out into the night.

"Is this area safe?" he asked as Samaki pulled into a dark parking lot. Behind them, the lights of the city cast long, faint glimmers into the darkness ahead. He waited for his eyes to adjust.

"I wouldn't bring you here if it weren't." The fox turned the car off. In the silence, Kory could hear the water of the river lapping nearby.

"I'll hold your paw even if it's not dark, you know," he said.

"I know." Samaki leaned over in the car and kissed him, and when Kory turned his head they kissed for real.

Kissing was awkward between them, with the fox's longer muzzle and Kory's short, stubby one. The only other person Kory had ever kissed--the real, tongue kiss that started at the mouth and ran all the way down the spine to the sheath--had been Jenny, another otter, back when they were dating the previous year, before he'd met Samaki. Two like muzzles came together more easily than the fox and otter did, but Samaki and Kory had by unspoken agreement embraced the challenge. At least, Samaki kept wanting to try, and Kory liked it more and more each time they did it.

He turned his muzzle to the side and parted it, meeting the fox's turned and parted muzzle over the middle of the seat. Their tongues brushed in the open space between the muzzles, teasing even though they couldn't seal their mouths together. Kory closed his eyes, the musky maleness of the fox now familiar and exciting, the kiss a passionate reminder of their bond. Even without holding or groping each other as they kissed, he felt his sheath harden as if they were, responding to the light, loving brushes of the fox's tongue along his muzzle and the cherished lines his own tongue covered in return. The kiss suspended them in a bubble of time, where outside the world slowed to a crawl while they said with licks and soft chirps what they rarely put into words.

"Mmm." Samaki leaned his head back and grinned, the violet of his eyes nearly as black as the night. "Come on. I didn't bring you here just to park."

"Aw." Kory grinned, getting out of the car as Samaki did and locking his door. The night did not seem nearly as intimidating now. "Why did you bring me here?"

He saw the white flash of the fox's tail tip circle the front of the car. Samaki took his paw and led him toward the sound of lapping water. "To get away."

They made their way down a short path to the riverbank, through a small copse of trees. The bank itself was grassy and clear, the river a dark plain beyond it that shimmered with movement in the thin moonlight. Ahead of them, a concrete arch spanned the water, and now that they were in the open air, Kory could hear the soft rumble of a car passing over it. Above the bridge, the quarter moon gleamed, dropping its reflections down onto the ripples of the water. "You come here a lot?" he asked, keeping his voice almost to a whisper.

Samaki shook his head. "Dad used to bring us down here for picnics in the daytime. Lots of families from our neighborhood did. I only snuck down here at night with a friend once, but I remembered how pretty and isolated it was." He turned his head. "It'd be nicer with the full moon."

"It's beautiful," Kory said. "The moon reminds me of the tip of your tail. It looks like there's a fox in the sky."

He took Samaki's paw as the fox chuckled. "Not one in the river?"

"A whole host of foxes in the stream," Kory said, pointing out the gleaming reflections in the ripples. "There, and there..."

"And where are the otters in the stream?"

Kory grinned. "Under the water."

"Under the foxes?"

"Sure. Foxes can't dive."

Samaki laughed softly and kissed him again, and this time they wrapped their arms around each other as they did, pressed close, sheaths rubbing through the fabric of their clothing. Kory's fur prickled with the nervous exhilaration of kissing outside, under the open air. He felt the swish of the fox's tail, curling around , and wondered how far Samaki intended to go. They wouldn't be able to do anything at his house tonight, so maybe he had brought Kory here to make love outdoors, in a more private place than his house.

But was it more private? There was the bridge; anyone walking across it might see a couple silhouettes kissing on the riverbank below. Someone might come across the parked car and wonder who was down by the river.

Samaki's intentions became clearer as his paw slipped past the waistband of his pants, slender fingers brushing Kory's sheath and then pressing against it, cupping and rubbing it. Passion dulled Kory's worries; he moaned softly and slid his paw down over the fox's rear.

Samaki's tail curled up to brush his wrist, the fox's paw still rubbing warmly. Kory shifted as Samaki's other paw came around to undo his pants, breaking the kiss to press his muzzle into the fox's shoulder. "Oh," he moaned softly. Passion surged through him, forcing him to brace his knees. Samaki's chuckle rang in his ears and the slender fingers tightened around him.

"Like that?"

"Mm-hmm." Kory grinned, rubbing up against the warmth between the fox's legs. In a moment, he thought, he'd have to reach down there himself, but not quite yet. He opened his eyes, looking down the river and sighing as the tingling between his legs rippled and glowed just like the water's surface.

Then his ears snapped back and he lifted his head, staring at the woods. "What was that?"

"Just an animal," Samaki said, but his paw hesitated. "Nobody ever comes down here. We'd have heard the car."

Exhilaration fled Kory. He took a half-step back, acutely aware that he was standing out in plain sight with a fox's paw down his pants. Samaki kept a grip on him, until Kory reached over to grasp his wrist. Slowly, he released the otter, his ears sliding downward as he watched Kory fasten his pants. "Sorry," Kory said. "I just..." He looked up into Samaki's dark eyes.

"It's okay," Samaki said. "I guess I should've warned you. Or maybe we could've done something in the trees instead of out here. I just like this spot. It's always so quiet."

"Some other time, maybe." Kory looked up at the bridge again. "Sorry."

"Hey. Don't be sorry." Samaki leaned forward and gathered Kory into a hug again, a chaste one this time. Kory slid his arms around the fox, feeling guilty for being so insecure, and at the same time relieved that they'd stopped. The magical and frightening quality of the night receded as if it had been borne away on the river, and he was just a guy out walking at night with a friend. Nobody coming upon them now or looking down from the bridge would notice anything out of the ordinary.

"So is there anything else down here?" he said, aware of how lame the words sounded but needing to break the silence and start a conversation.

"Not really." Samaki followed Kory's gaze up to the bridge. "I like being here under the bridge, though. It smells bad if we get too much closer, but there's a nice place with a couple benches a little further up. I didn't go there because that's where people would be if they'd be here."

His smile, in the moonlight, was a ghostly shadow on his black muzzle, his ears half-lowered as if apologizing. Guilt made Kory reach down and grasp the fox's paw. "Let's walk up there, then."

Samaki smiled, his tail swishing, and squeezed Kory's paw as they set off under the moon. The sounds of the river accompanied them, burbling along quietly while Kory took in the wet, earthy smell of the riverbank, the wild, woody smell of the looming trees. The scent of fox was familiar and comforting, and the brush of Samaki's tail against his, the paw closed warmly around his own, made him feel safe.

"This college thing is crazy," he said abruptly, in a low voice so as not to disturb the silence too much.

"What do you mean?" Samaki responded equally quietly.

Kory sighed and squeezed the fox's paw. "Everyone knows where they want to go, what they want to be. They've got lists and applications and application strategies and recommendations. Even you know where you're going."

Samaki didn't respond immediately. "If you're really set on State," he said finally, "I won't argue with you."

Kory shot a quick glance up at the fox, whose eyes were set ahead of him, gleaming with moonlight. "Really?"

Now Samaki did turn to look at him, ears up, smiling. "Sure. I mean, you can make your own decisions, right? Nobody else knows what's best for you."

Warmth suffused him, flowing outward from his heart. He returned the smile. "You're the only one who seems to understand that. Thanks."

"That's part of my job now." The fox rested a paw on his shoulder. "Though I admit to being swayed by the thought of seeing you more than just a couple times a month. Maybe we could room together."

"Maybe." The thought sent a giddy flash of joy to Kory's stomach, then a lurch as he imagined what the other people at school would think. Samaki wasn't exactly shy about their relationship, and he'd resent any attempt Kory would make to hide it. The otter shook his head and pushed those thoughts away. Certainly, he would much rather be near Samaki than not. They could handle the details in time. "I mean, yeah. Of course we would."

They walked on until they came to the benches, and it was there, sitting by the river with his shoulder against Samaki's chest, that Kory felt the knot inside him loosen. He didn't have to make a decision yet, after all; perhaps Whitford and all the other schools would reject him, and then he would have to go to State. In the moonlight, with the water lapping the shore by his feet, the rest of the world didn't matter; it was remote and insignificant compared to this reality, that he was here with Samaki (his boyfriend), who believed in him. He leaned his head against Samaki's shoulder, breathed in the scent of fox as well as the river and trees, and reminded himself that here were the important things.

He didn't say anything, but Samaki turned to look at him, and then it felt right to lift his head and kiss the fox's muzzle. Samaki hesitated at first, then pressed forward, resting one paw on Kory's leg, but going no further than that. And that was a nice place to stay for a few minutes, muzzles together, tongues touching, the slight chill in the air offset by the warmth between them.

"We shouldn't sit here too long," Samaki said when they broke from the kiss. "We need to walk back and get home soon."

Kory swung his tail behind the bench. "Just a little longer," he said. "It's nice and peaceful here."

The fox swung his tail back, curling it around Kory's hips. "All right, then." He paused. "I had something I wanted to ask you."

"What's that?" Kory turned to smile, but Samaki wasn't looking at him. The fox fidgeted.

"My school does a dance in the spring. Like a prom. They were asking for volunteers to help work on it this week."

The otter grinned. "You want me to help work on your dance?"

Samaki shook his head. "I...want you to be my date for the dance."

Kory didn't process the words right away. In the space that followed, he focused on the river and how calm it sounded. When Samaki said his name, gently, he said, "Is that allowed?"

"I don't see why not. Nothing says that I have to bring a girl."

"Has anyone else done it?"

"Does that matter?"

"I guess not." But it did, even though Kory knew it shouldn't. "So it'd be like a protest?"

"No." Samaki's tail slid away from the otter's hips. "I just want to go to the dance, and I want to bring you."

"I didn't mean it like that," Kory said. As strange as he'd felt when Samaki asked him, he felt worse seeing the fox's ears down. "I didn't say no. It's just strange. Maybe it's too soon."

To his relief, Samaki's ears came up, slowly. "It's a long way away," he said.

"That's true." Kory put a paw on the fox's leg. "We don't have to make a decision yet."

The fox's ears came all the way up at the 'we'. "All right. Just keep it in mind. I think it would be okay."

Kory nodded. "I will." He looked up, smiled, and met the fox's lips again.

Soon enough, they were driving back in the car, and the smells of fox had replaced the river's wet, wild aroma. Now that they were safe in the car, Kory regretted having stopped Samaki earlier. His arousal blurred the memory of why he'd been so upset, and here in the closed car, he was half-tempted to take the fox's paw and put it in his lap. He shifted in his seat as he aroused himself further just thinking about it. Of course, Samaki was keeping both paws tightly on the wheel and seemed nervous about driving at night, so probably it wasn't the best of ideas.

All the same, it was going to be hard not to do more than a few gropes this weekend. Ironic that at Samaki's house, where his parents knew about their relationship and were happy with it, they had to sleep in separate rooms, while at Kory's house, they could both stay in his room and fool around as much as they wanted. Maybe they shouldn't have told Samaki's parents, Kory thought, though he hadn't been party to that decision, and he suspected they would have figured it out anyway. Samaki wasn't the sort to keep things secret.

They did have a few minutes alone in the basement, where Mrs. Roden had set up a bed on the couch for Kory. There, when Samaki slid a paw into his pants, Kory returned the grope, glad to feel the fox's matching arousal against his paw for the first time in a week. He couldn't give it his full attention, but it was still better than nothing. Too soon, his ears caught Mrs. Roden on her way down the stairs to announce bedtime, giving them time to extract their paws and assume a reasonably innocent position.

Once, Samaki had snuck down early in the morning, but they'd been faced with the problem that the only bathroom in the house was on the upper floor, making it difficult to clean up. Logistical issues like this were part of the reason Samaki stayed at Kory's house more often than the other way around. Which would only last, Kory reflected as he drifted off to sleep, as long as his mother remained ignorant of their relationship. Just another year, he told himself. Then off to college. That brought back his worries about rooming together. Should he say something to Samaki? No, the fox would be disappointed in him. He was right; the fact that they were together should be more important than anything else. But Malaya's view of the world seemed closer to his experience than Samaki's, and that thought made him toss and turn until he finally fell asleep, nose pressed into the fox-scented fabric of the couch.