Playing for Keeps (Glasgow Lads Book 2) (26 page)

But in fact, the video and its accompanying hullabaloo were a much-needed distraction from the Orange Walk, now only three days away.

“Thanks for all your help with the event planner,” Gillian said. “I wouldn’t have known the answers to half of her questions about the charity match.”

“I’m glad we’ve called in a professional to handle all the details. It means I might actually sleep between now and kickoff.” John’s eyes had nearly popped out of his head when he’d seen the cost of a top-notch event planner. But if the match were a success, the planner would be worth every penny.

“And we might even be able to enjoy the game.” Gillian stopped the car in front of his house. “Assuming the Warriors win.”

“Oh, they’ll win,” he told her as he waved goodbye. “Or die trying.”

The moment he opened his front door, his nephew, Harry, darted in from the living room.

“Uncle John!” The five-year-old collided with John’s legs. “Do aeroplane! Pleeeeeeease?”

“Not one for small talk, aye? Good, me neither.” Crouching down, he scooped Harry up and held him out flat in front of him. The lad spread his arms like wings. “Clear the runway, mates. Air Harry’s ready for takeoff!”

“Perhaps not now?” Mum called from the dining room. “He’s just had a large snack.”

John set the boy on his feet. “Sorry, wee man, you’re grounded. Your gran’ll be ragin’ if I make you boak on her clean floors.”

“Uncle John, you missed
Bing
.”

“And I’m pure sad about that,” John lied. “Tell me what happened.”

While John made himself a sandwich, ate it, then had another, Harry blethered nonstop about his favorite animated program. From what John had seen, Bing was a rabbit whose life consisted of one exceedingly benign event after another. Each seven-minute episode was a mind-numbing eternity to John, who’d been raised on the madcap spectacle of
Teletubbies
.

Luckily, it was a sunny day, so Harry agreed to play football with John instead of watching more TV. As they kicked the ball about on the rear garden’s patchy grass, his parents sat at the patio table, drinking tea and watching them play.

“C’mon,” Dad shouted, “you kick like a lass!”

“Leave him be,” Mum said. “He’s only five.”

“I wasn’t talking to Harry.”

“Thanks, Dad.” John knew his father was joking, a discernment his mother had never acquired. Though he welcomed more time with Mum, in some ways he couldn’t wait for her to leave. His parents seemed to relish every opportunity to snipe at each other, and the constant tension was driving John mad.

“Hiya!” came a singsong voice behind John. He turned to see Keith’s girlfriend, Nicole, arriving through the back gate.

“Mummy!” Harry dashed toward her with the football and promptly fell. Instead of crying, he bounced to his feet and kept going, which told John the boy would never play professionally.

“There’s my laddie!” Nicole hugged Harry and gave him a kiss on the nose and each cheek, making him giggle. “Naebody answered the front door, so I thought I’d come round the back and find youse.”

Mum checked her watch, raising an eyebrow. “We weren’t expecting you so soon. Is everything all right?”

“The call center let me off early, once I’d made quota. Why, did you assume I’d been sacked?”

“Of course not, dear,” Mum said unconvincingly.

It would’ve been a fair assumption. Nicki’s forays off the dole usually turned into a rapid return ticket. But she kept trying, and John admired her determination to work for a living.

His phone buzzed inside his pocket. He pulled it out to see a one-word text from Robert, sent to both him and Fergus:

VIRAL

His heart hammering, John switched to the video app, where the “Football Crazy” page showed the roughly five thousand views it had collected as of an hour ago. He hit refresh, then used his hand to block the sun’s glare on the screen.

The page appeared. John blinked at the new total number of views. Perhaps a speck of dust had blown into his eye, a speck of dust shaped like the number 23,478.

He spun around and gestured with the phone to his family. “It—the—our—the thing—it’s…
OCH!
”

“John?” His mother leapt from her chair and strode toward him, her hands in a palms-down calming posture. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! It’s—” He started to dance, incapable of anything else. “Viral!”

“What’s he on about?” Dad asked Mum. “Is someone ill?”

“Have you been living in a cave?” she snapped. “Viral means something’s got popular on the Internet.” She turned back to John. “Take a deep breath, all right?”

He couldn’t stop jumping up and down long enough to breathe, so he pushed the phone into her hands. “Look, look, look! It was at five thousand an hour ago.” John picked up his nephew and lifted him above his head. “Harry, they’re famous! My mates are famous!”

“Are they on
Yo Gabba Gabba
?”

John laughed, picturing Colin and Liam dancing beside indie-rock stars on the kids’ music program. “Maybe someday.”

Harry kicked his legs. “Aeroplane now, Uncle John?”

“Anything for you, wee man.” John lowered him into the proper configuration, holding him with both arms, then spun around, swooping and diving until they were both dizzy. Or maybe it was just his own excitement making his stomach lurch and his head spin.

When he slowed Air Harry to a halt, he noticed Nicole was now holding his phone. “John, you’d better come see this,” she said.

He tucked Harry under one arm, the lad still making plane noises. “What is it?”

“Good news and bad. I refreshed again and you’ve got more than a hundred fifty views in the last minute.”

“My God, that means it’ll be nearly a quarter million views in one day.” He’d already run the calculations ahead of time based on the number of minutes in twenty-four hours. “What’s the bad news?”

“There’s some evil comments.” Nicole offered him the phone. “You want to see?”

He’d seen plenty already, from people who hated either gays or Scots or both, and he’d cautioned Fergus to avoid the comments section. “No thanks,” he told Nicole. “I already know the Internet is made of dickheads.”

“John,” Mum said, “watch your language around the wean.”

The wean in question, who’d no doubt heard worse language in his own home, reached for the phone. “I wantae see the video!”

“This screen’s too small.” John put him down. “It’ll look better on my computer. That’s up in my bedroom.” He took a step toward the door.

“He cannae go to your room with you!”

John stopped, then slowly turned to Nicole, who was covering her mouth after her outburst. “I know,” he said quietly. “I was gonnae get the laptop and bring it down.”

“Oh.” Her ears turned bright red against her pale blond hair. “Aye, sorry.”

As he climbed the creaky stairs to his room, John couldn’t help thinking of Izzy, how Malcolm and Lainie had trusted him with their wee daughter when they’d only just met him.

He quickly returned Robert’s text, which Fergus hadn’t yet responded to, probably because he was in meetings with clients all afternoon. Tonight the Warriors had a practice session, followed by a live online chat hosted by a prominent LGBT-athlete-alliance organization. Tomorrow Fergus’s firm was sending him on an all-day site visit in Troon—which would at least distract him from the fact that match tickets were going on sale at ten a.m.

Tomorrow night, John would finally finally
finally
have a few hours alone with his boyfriend. He’d promised to bring Fergus his favorite Indian takeaway and a scouting report on the Morningside Magnificence. In return, Fergus had promised more of what he’d given him last Saturday in that Perthshire glade. John’s insides melted at the mere thought.

He went back downstairs with the laptop—after checking there were no porn Tumblrs open in his browser—to find his family in the living room, Harry and Dad on the sofa and his mum in the armchair with Milk curled in her lap. John set the computer on the coffee table and brought up the video, which now had an additional two hundred views.

While the video played, Nicole beckoned John aside into the dining room. “I’m sorry for what I said before. It’s not got anything to do with you being…you know. I’d have the same rule if Harry were a lass.”

“It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not.” Nicky swiped her hands up over her face, smoothing the wisps of hair stuck to her temples. “I really want you to be part of Harry’s life, John. He needs someone decent.”

“You’re decent.”

“A man, I mean. At my house…” She stared into the living room, where Harry was perched on his grandfather’s lap, laughing at the video. “Seems my mum’s always got a new boyfriend. Each one’s worse than the last. If it’s not drugs, it’s fighting, or bringing their mates over late at night to get steamin’ drunk. Sometimes they pass out on the floor, and I have to step over them on my way to work. And sometimes they try to—” Her jaw clenched, and she wrapped her arms around her waist.

“I’m sorry, Nic,” John said. “That’s no life for a kid. Or for you.”

“It’s the only life we’ve got.” She smiled at the sound of Harry’s giggles. “But when he’s here, I feel he’s safe. When
I’m
here, I feel safe.”

“And we’ve seen so little of you two since Keith…went away. I feel terrible about that.”

“Don’t. You’ve got university, and your dad’s got his job and the Orange Lodge. Which reminds me.” She moved into the living room. “Mr. Burns, what time should Harry and I be at the parade Saturday?”

“Nine’s good. They’ll have seats for old folk and all near the corner of Brand and Whitefield, so you can join me there.”

“You must be joking,” Mum said. “Bringing a five-year-old to an Orange Walk?”

“I was that age when you took me,” John said.

Their eyes met for a white-hot instant before she looked away. “That was a different era. And it was obviously a mistake. Weans don’t belong at a march.”

“You know better than to call it that,” Dad said. “Armies
march
, we
parade
.”

Mum ignored him. “John, do you really want the boy to see you like that?”

“I asked Nicole to bring Harry,” John told his mother, then lowered his voice. “I can explain.”
Sort of.

“What’s to explain?” His father ruffled Harry’s light-brown hair. “The lad should learn to celebrate his heritage. I’ll treat us all to breakfast after. Any place you’d like, Janet.”

“I’m not going to the Walk. I won’t watch you fill another young man’s head with lies.” Mum got up, set the cat on the floor, and stalked toward the stairs. “In fact, I’m leaving Friday night for the weekend.”

“Mum, no!” John followed his mother, who finally turned to him at top of the staircase. “Please come,” he said. “For me?”

“Why?” Mum whispered. “You hate this as much as I do.”

“Aye, and more. But I need you there for—” He couldn’t tell her his plans for Saturday. She’d try to dissuade him, perhaps even tell Dad, and then it would all be ruined. “For moral support.”

“Which morals of yours am I to support? Your cowardice? Your deception?”

““Come to the Walk and you’ll see,” he whispered with an aching throat. “You’ll be proud of me, I promise.” He put his hand over hers on the banister. “Just trust me?”

Mum sighed and closed her eyes, as if in surrender. But when she opened them again, they were as determined as ever. “I’m sorry, John. You must do what you feel is right.” She pulled her hand from his. “And so must I.”

= = =

Fergus’s life had changed overnight.

Once the Warriors’ video went viral, his inbox was besieged with messages: requests for interviews, offers of support, even a handful of marriage proposals (from men
and
women). “Football Crazy” had become something of an Internet meme, with homage versions cropping up around the world. Fergus’s assistant, Gavin, proclaimed it “this year’s ‘Gangnam Style.’”

Last night, Fergus had finally agreed to let Charlotte start him in Colin’s position of attacking midfielder. There was no one better suited, but the situation reminded him far too well of last season’s end. Every intercepted pass and stymied breakaway brought back memories of Evan’s abandonment.

In the midst of this chaos, Fergus craved John more than ever. All week he’d fantasized what they’d do with a few hours alone. He wanted inside him again, this time face to face so he could look into John’s eyes and witness his wonder at this new pleasure. He wanted to feel John’s thighs tighten around his hips—and his arse around his cock—as he came beneath him.

Then they’d start over, with roles reversed, so Fergus could take John deep, make room in his body for that breath-stopping thickness that could send him over the moon. Then they’d fall into a dead sleep in each other’s arms, a sleep without dreams of fame and failure and football.

Unfortunately, when John arrived Thursday night with takeaway and a scouting report, Fergus’s flatmate was home and awake. So they were forced to focus on football for a wee while.

“The match is forty-five-point-two percent sold out.” Fergus gestured to his open laptop as they set up the takeaway at the coffee table. “As of ten minutes ago.”

“I knew you’d be constantly refreshing your browser.” John joined him on the couch and peered at the ticket vendor’s seating diagram of Firhill Stadium. For hours, Fergus had watched the blue open-seat icons steadily transform into gray sold seats.

“Not constantly,” Fergus said. “I only let myself check every fifteen minutes. See the timer there in the corner of the screen?”

While they ate (and periodically refreshed the browser window), Fergus and John discussed what they’d each learned about the Warriors’ charity-match opponents.

“Morningside’s tough to beat when they score first,” Fergus said, “but when they give up an early goal, they fall to pieces. Charlotte says they’ve got as much resilience as wet tissue paper.”

“But you cannae depend on scoring first.” John dipped a samosa into the wee container of mint sauce. “Your main problem is a mismatch on your right side. Their winger, a chap named Reece Sinclair, has got great pace and a killer left foot. He’ll leave your fullback in the dust.”