Playing for Keeps (Glasgow Lads Book 2) (19 page)

“It’s only a matter of time. Look at Robbie Rogers with the LA Galaxy.”

“That just proves my point,” Fergus said. “He felt he couldn’t come out while he was playing football in the UK. Soccer in America doesn’t have the macho image it does here.”

“Then what about that gay NFL player Michael Sam?”

“A hundred quid says he’ll never start a regular-season game.”

“I’ll take that bet. As for here, once Scotland has gay marriage come December, things will change faster. Equality is a thing now.” John nudged Fergus’s calf with his foot. “And you’ve still not told me what you’re worried about.”

“I’m worried we’ll fail!” Fergus fought to keep his voice in a normal register. “That Warriors will lose badly, and everyone will say, ‘See? Gays can’t play football.’”

“But you did brilliantly last season.”

“When no one was looking.”
And when we had Evan.
“If we go all in on this charity event, promote it as some sort of gay-pride thing, the whole world will be watching.”

“Then you’ll just have to win.”

He scoffed at John’s childlike confidence. “You’ve no idea how much work there is to do.”

“Well, I’m here to help, whatever you need.”

Softened by gratitude, Fergus tilted his head to kiss John’s hair. “You did find me a new fullback in Katie.”

“And I’ll be your scout when I visit the Magnificence practice session to sort the match details.” John skied his finger up along Fergus’s collarbone. “I’ll pretend I’m ignorant of football, which they’ll believe, because after all, I’m gay.” He traced Fergus’s earlobe. “But I will be watching them, taking secret mental notes to bring home to my man.”

Fergus felt the final barrier collapse inside him. “I’m your man?” he asked, his voice cracking with the weight of awe.

“Aye, you are.” John lifted his chin to kiss him softly. The brush of his lips and dart of his tongue filled Fergus with resurgent desire. He wanted John inside him again. Soon.

But first he wanted to hear the words one more time. “And are you mine?”

John laughed, as if it were the most ridiculous question in the world. “Fergus Taylor, ya big numpty.” He reached under the covers and slid his hand down, down, down, over skin that was no longer ticklish. “I’ve been yours since the day we met.”

“I
LEFT
U
GANDA
five years ago,” Beatrice said, “when my girlfriend was murdered.”

Fergus’s murmur of sympathy was echoed by the rest of the Warriors, gathered on the practice-pitch bleachers to hear the asylum seeker’s story. It was one thing to understand persecution in the abstract, but to hear it in a victim’s voice made it all too real.

John’s mate Brodie, another New Shores volunteer, sat at the other end of the bench from Beatrice, providing support but letting her have the stage. “Who murdered her?” Brodie asked gently.

“It was a lot of people. They came to her house in the middle of the night.” Beatrice took a deep breath and pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. “I was there. Nantale—my girlfriend—she woke me in time to push me out the back door. She told me to run.”

John tensed beside Fergus, his throat rippling in a hard swallow. Clearly he’d heard this story before—if not from Beatrice, then from others like her. Fergus wondered how he could remain such a blithe optimist when he was bombarded with daily evidence of inhumanity.

Beatrice continued. “I recognized a few voices in the mob. Neighbors, people we thought were our friends—even members of her family.”

The players’ murmurs grew louder. “Her own family wanted her dead?” Katie asked in an astonished near-whisper.

“Nantale had shamed them by refusing an arranged marriage. We weren’t open about our relationship—almost no one is out in Uganda—but one of her coworkers reported us.” She looked at John. “It’s the law now, I hear. Anyone can go to prison for not reporting homosexuals.”

“Aye.” John turned to speak to the team. “Governments like the one who enacted that law in Uganda are gaining strength in Africa—and all over the world. Places like Iran, Brunei, and of course we’re all familiar with the mess in Russia.” The team gave a collective grumble of assent. “Their leaders win votes by blaming their economic problems on the ‘moral degradation of Western influences,’ especially LGBT rights.”

“What if you don’t get asylum?” Robert asked Beatrice. “What’ll happen if the UK sends you home?”

“I’d go to prison.” She folded her hands on her lap, where Fergus saw them tremble. “But because I’ve refused to stay quiet about my experience, I’m now a notorious homosexual. It’s likely I would be murdered in custody while the law looks the other way. So in fact, sending me back to Uganda would be a death sentence.”

She paused to let that declaration sink in. On Fergus’s other side, Heather was rubbing her own arms as if chilled, despite the warm, humid evening air. Her own father was a Sudanese immigrant, so between racism and transphobia, the keeper dealt with a double dose of prejudice. Right now, though, she was no doubt feeling lucky to be born Scottish.

Brodie’s boyfriend, Warriors’ striker Duncan Harris, asked the next question. “Then how could our government send you home? It seems a crime against humanity to even consider it.”

Colin snorted. “UK government knows fuck-all about humanity.”

“I guess what I’m asking is,” Duncan said, “how do they decide who to let stay and who to send home? And how can you make sure you stay?”

“It’s a long, intimidating process,” Beatrice replied. “That’s where New Shores helps. I signed in with them before going to the Home Office’s reporting center to apply for asylum. So when the border officers detained me, someone on the outside knew where I was and fought to get me released. John and Brodie’s boss, Gillian, helped me find a solicitor for my asylum hearing, one who actually knew what he was doing.” Beatrice reached over and squeezed Brodie’s arm. “If it weren’t for New Shores, I think I would be back in Uganda right now. I would be dead.”

Fergus spoke up. “Do you ever miss home?”

She gave a gentle laugh. “You all keep using this word ‘home’ to mean Uganda, but it no longer deserves that honor. Home isn’t home when you cannot be who you are, when you are surrounded by hate.” She met each of the Warriors’ eyes. “Better to make a new home. Only then can you find peace.”

John fell suddenly still. Fergus turned to him but couldn’t catch his gaze, which was now fixed on the wind-swayed trees across the pitch.

Beatrice answered a few more questions for the team as a group, then Charlotte gave them ten minutes to mingle before warm-ups were to begin.

John seemed to wake from a daze. “Brodie and I need to talk website stuff with Robert.” He stood and moved away, briefly brushing Fergus’s elbow with his fingertips.

Wondering what had made John suddenly distant, Fergus went over to greet Beatrice. “Thank you again for coming to speak,” he told her. “I know it can’t be easy to tell your story.”

She nodded but said, “It gets easier each time. In Uganda I had enough hiding the truth to last a lifetime.” She spread her arms to encompass the muddy pitch. “What you’re doing with this team leaves no room for shame and fear.”

“I don’t know, most days sport feels like nothing
but
shame and fear.”

Beatrice chuckled. “And yet you still play. That is courage, my friend.”

Fergus noticed Heather hanging back a bit, looking like she wanted to say hello but felt too shy to approach. Quickly he introduced her to Beatrice, then left them alone to talk.

He found John and Brodie standing beside the front bleacher chatting to Robert, the Warriors’ webmaster and half of the starting central-defense unit.

“How many hits can your site handle now?” Brodie asked Robert.

“Not sure. It’s hosted on a shared server.”

John winced. “Och, you’ll need to upgrade. Once the buzz starts next week, you’ll be getting loads of new traffic. The moment the world comes clicking, your site’ll go down faster than Ashley Young in a stiff breeze.”

Robert laughed, and Fergus smiled at John’s reference to the Manchester United winger with a reputation for diving. John always seemed to know how to win folk over.

“There’s money in the budget to upgrade,” Fergus told Robert. “Do whatever’s needed.”

“I could subscribe us to a content delivery network,” Robert said. “With that, see, the servers are distributed along multiple backbones and points of presence so that each content request is totally optimized.” He scanned their blank faces. “It makes pages load faster.”

“Ah, brilliant. Cheers.” John nudged Robert’s arm. “Also, I wanted to apologize for saying you look like that American porn star.”

“He totally does, though,” said Duncan as he came up behind Brodie and curled his arms around his boyfriend’s waist.

“Which porn star?” Brodie asked Duncan.

“You don’t know him.”

Brodie gave a sly backward glance. “You still think me such an innocent?”

Fergus and John exchanged smug smiles. Shortly after they’d started dating, they’d each discovered that the other had played a role in getting Brodie and Duncan together. And if it weren’t for these two lads, Fergus and John would never have met at all.

John turned to Robert now. “You probably hear this question a lot, but what’s it like being the only straight person on this team? Is it like a Bizarro universe sort of thing?”

“Aye, and that’s why none of these yins’ banter bothers me. Cos I know out there”—He pointed his thumb toward the Ruchill Park exit—“I never have to worry. I can kiss my girlfriend on any street corner I want. It’s a privilege, and I did fuck all to earn that privilege except be born straight.”

“This is why we love Robert,” Duncan told John. “He gets it.”

“That, and I’m a tremendous center back,” Robert added.

John laughed. “Well, thanks for being cool about my lack of decorum when we first met.”

“Nae bother.” Robert offered his heartbreaker of a smile as he stood. “You gave me one fascinating night of web surfing.”

When Robert was out of earshot, John whispered, “Notice he said a ‘night’ of web surfing, not ‘a few minutes.’”

“Curiouser and curiouser.” Fergus eyed Brodie and Duncan, wishing they’d disappear so he could ask John what was bothering him.

“You two staying to watch practice?” Duncan asked.

“Sorry,” Brodie said, “we need to get Beatrice back to the office.”

“And I need to get myself home to help Mum with Dad.” John popped to his feet, all traces of brooding gone. “Wish me luck?” he asked Fergus as he stepped into his arms.

“Good luck, but I’m sure they’re fine.”

“Ah, you don’t know my parents.” John lifted his chin for a kiss, his eyes gleaming.

As Fergus kissed him goodbye, he thought,
No, I don’t know them. But I’d like to.

So much of what lay inside John’s mind was still a mystery to Fergus. But it was clear he’d been a fool last night to think their relationship nothing but transitory good times. With each passing hour, he was falling for John harder than ever.

= = =

After the first hour of practice session, the previous night’s lack of sleep began to catch up with Fergus. When Charlotte sent in substitutes for him and Liam midway through a 5v5 possession drill, he staggered off the pitch with relief and headed straight for the energy-drink dispenser.

Liam joined him. “Katie’s fucking brilliant, mate,” he said as Fergus gulped the bright-yellow liquid. “She’s aggressive, she’s got fantastic pace, and unlike most of these dobbers, she actually communicates on the pitch.”

“Now if we can just get Jamie up to her level, our defense will be invincible.”

“Aye, it’ll be nice to feel like a back four again instead of a back two. Of course, it helps you playing directly in front of us instead of up in the attacking role.”

“And you doubted Charlotte and me for putting Colin in the number ten spot.” Fergus sat on the ground to stretch his stiffening legs.

“It was a proper genius move. I’ve not seen the team this coordinated since—” Liam stopped himself.

“Since we were abandoned by Evan.”

“Oi!” Liam jumped back, spilling his drink in exaggerated shock. “We’re saying Voldemort’s name again? Mate, what happened?”

“I got over him, that’s what.”

“Because of John?”

“Not only, but aye, he’s played a role.” Fergus rubbed the back of his thigh. “Hamstring’s pure tight today. Keeps cramping.”

“Ah,
now
I know what happened. Tight hams? That’s from too much time on your hands and knees after a long period of celibacy.”

“Oh, shut it.”

“Are you denying you got well and truly fucked last night?”

“I’ll not deny it. Should’ve done some stretching after, though.”

“You need some of this.” Liam patted his elbow, then the bench. “On your stomach, Skipper.”

Fergus obeyed. It was always best to listen to Liam, the Warriors’ unofficial massage therapist.

Liam knelt beside the bench and ran his hands briskly over Fergus’s right thigh to warm the muscle. “Gonnae no worry, this’ll only hurt a lot.”

Fergus gritted his teeth as Liam jammed his elbow into his hamstring, then worked it up and down to smooth out the knot that had formed.

“So how was it?” Liam asked. “Or is it none of my business?”

“You’re my best gay friend. By law that means my sex life
is
your business. Ow!” Fergus let out a breath to relax. “We did it while wearing our kilts.”

Liam’s elbow halted. “Fuck’s sake. Please tell me there’s video.”

“Tragically, no. I would’ve given anything for a well-placed mirror.”

“Hmm. Well, if I’m ever in the same situation, I’ll remember that.” He began massaging again, with deep, circular strokes. “I like John. He’s funny and he’s got baws, that’s for sure. Fairly good-looking, too, for an Ibrox man.”

Fergus forced a chuckle. John himself had told Liam where he was from, but Liam didn’t know about John’s brother beating a Celtic fan half to death.

Fergus’s phone went off beneath the bench, inside his kit bag.