Playing for Keeps (Glasgow Lads Book 2) (41 page)

“John invited me. We’re mates at University of Glasgow. So—forgive me, your name again?” he asked, stepping forward to halve the distance between them.

Colin wanted to back away, but it would look ridiculous. Andrew matched his six-foot-one height, but he looked pure slim in that expensive tan blazer. Not intimidating at all. “This party is for people who helped John move into Fergus’s flat today. Lovely of you to show up after all the work’s done.”

“I wanted to help, but unfortunately I’d an event to attend.”

“The annual meeting of the Useless Friends Society?”

Andrew shook his head sadly. “No, I canceled my membership after our last gala, when everyone ‘forgot’ to bring a covered dish.” He posed with inverted-finger-commas up, as if awaiting applause.

“Colin MacDuff.” He bit down on the words. “Is my name.”
It’s in your phone’s contacts, or at least it was.

Andrew snapped his fingers. “Yes! Colin. You were on the tip of my tongue. Your name, I mean,” he added with a flirtatious flick of his brown lashes.

I was on more than the tip
, Colin thought, his mouth watering at the memory of a darkened warehouse corner. Of techno music pumping, warm hands roaming. Then a hotel-room key slipped into his pocket, a fragile promise breathed into his ear:
See you soon.

“I didn’t catch your surname, however,” Andrew continued. “I would’ve remembered that. The MacDuffs were once Earls of Fife, until the fourteenth century, when the male line failed and the title passed to a Stewart, I believe.”

Colin felt his eyes glaze over. Not from boredom at the history lesson—in fact, he was relieved Andrew didn’t quote
Macbeth
to him, like most people did when they learned his surname. His focus was blurred by the scent of Andrew’s cologne, and the memory of how it had lingered on Colin’s collar for two days.

“Have you ever visited MacDuff Castle?” Andrew asked, running his fingers down, then up, the pearlesque buttons on his white dress shirt in what seemed a nervous gesture.

“Doubt they’d let me in,” Colin said, wondering whether each of those buttons was worth more than his own wardrobe.

“Oh, anyone can go. It’s in ruins. Completely fallen to pieces.”

“Sounds like my sort of castle.”

Andrew laughed, a loud and inelegant chortle for one so sophisticated. He turned and opened two of the three beers he’d fetched from the fridge, then handed one to Colin. “To falling castles.”

“Aye.” Colin tapped his bottle against Andrew’s, then examined his face as he sipped. Aside from the lack of glasses and stubble, it was exactly how he’d remembered it. High, swooping cheekbones, razor-straight nose, and soft, firm lips. All perfectly proportioned and symmetrical, right down to the shape of his nostrils and earlobes. The only flaw, a beauty mark in the center of that left dimple, infuriatingly underscored his face’s perfection.

“How’s your knee?” Andrew asked. “You’ll be back on the pitch soon, I hope?”

Colin hesitated, reluctant to let down his guard by talking about the injury. Football was the one thing that gave him a shred of power in this world, and it had been stolen from him in an instant. “It’s much better. Lucky for me it happened in June, so I’ve not missed any league matches.”
Just last week’s charity friendly match that turned the Warriors into international gay icons.
“Charlotte, our manager, hopes I’ll be playing by the start of the season in September.”

“I hope so too. Rehab is dreadfully dull, isn’t it?”

Colin felt himself soften at the sympathy. “It’s the worst. I want to set fire to that fucking stationery bike.”

Andrew laughed again, making Colin’s stomach flip. He averted his eyes, glancing at a sunset-streaked Glasgow through the window over the sink.
Keep the head
, he told himself.
Gonnae no look at the dimples.

“I look forward to seeing you return,” Andrew said. “God knows the Warriors need some goal-scoring. They were playing on the back foot during that entire match with Morningside. It was painful.”

Colin finally gave in to the urge to step away. “I thought your sort preferred rugby or cricket to football.”

“I’m a huge fan of
le beau jeu
. Infamously so, I’m afraid.” He gave a suggestive chuckle, no doubt referring to his rumored liaisons with several pro footballers, then sidled closer, nearly whispering. “And I think you’ll find I’m not any sort of person.”

There, it was happening again. That velvet voice, rippling under Colin’s skin, up his arms, over his shoulders, to the back of his neck.

Run
, every instinct told him. But Colin wasn’t a coward, despite his initial panic upon seeing Andrew again. Perhaps tonight would offer a chance to get even. He could have his revenge and maybe a little fun to boot. If he could just keep his cool.

Colin held his ground and eased into small talk. “So you met John at uni. What do you study there?”

“Economic and Social History is my course. Like John, I plan on a life in politics, though obviously not in the same party. I’m a Tory, of course,” he said, as if it were a good thing, “and John’s—well, I don’t know what he is this week. Labour, Liberal Democrat, Scottish Nationalist Party, Green? I can’t keep up.”

“National,” Colin said with emphasis. “It’s the Scottish
National
Party, not Nationalist.”

“Right.” Andrew flipped his hand as if shooing away the pesky party who currently held power in Scotland—what little power the United Kingdom afforded them, that is. “Who knows, perhaps one day John and I will compete to be this country’s first gay Prime Minister. First openly gay Prime Minister, that is.”

John himself had just entered the kitchen, but Andrew kept his eyes on Colin. Instead of joining them, John gave Colin an encouraging bob of the eyebrows, then left with a pair of beers from the fridge.

Colin smirked at Andrew. “So you’re gonnae work for a living? What about your gentlemanly duties?”
Stealing land, oppressing peasants, keeping this country in the Middle Ages…

“You mean running the estate? No, I’m the second son, so when my father dies, I get nothing. Which means I’m free to do whatever I want with my life, as long as I don’t sully the family name.” A muscle beneath his eye twitched for a microsecond. “What about you, with university? Forgive me if you already told me, you know, before.”

“I’m at Caley, studying business.”

“Caley?” Andrew tilted his head sharply, like a puppy hearing a mobile phone ring for the first time. “What’s that?”

“Glasgow Caledonian University.”

“Ah yes! I’ve heard their radio adverts. Is that a real university, where you attend lectures and such, or is it all online?”

Colin’s fist clamped on the bottle. Andrew couldn’t have lived in Glasgow for a year and not known GCU. He was clearly just being a dick. “Aye, it’s a real university, whose graduates have the highest rate of employment of any Scottish institution.”

“That’s fabulous,” Andrew replied, in a tone usually reserved for praising a four-year-old’s finger paintings. “I mean, if that’s what you’re looking for in higher education.”

“What else would anyone look for?”

“Oh, I don’t know, intellectual challenge? Growth as a human being? Contributing to the world’s body of knowledge?”

The smug tone shattered Colin’s restraint. “How about finding a fucking job so I can feed my fucking family? So I don’t feel so fucking helpless the next time you fucking Tories cut fucking benefits in the name of fucking austerity?”

Andrew looked unfazed. “Ah, see, this is a sign that we fucking Tories are getting it right. Our policies have made you resolve to be self-reliant.” He squeezed Colin’s forearm. “Now you’ll be a productive member of society, rather than continue your parents’ toxic welfare habits.”

Colin felt his jaw drop and his eyes bulge like a wounded deer’s. Andrew’s face blurred, and in its place appeared a memory of Colin’s father, weeping openly on the Number 60 bus after their last visit to Mum’s bedside.

Then the rage came, yanking him out of paralysis. He seized Andrew by the front of his shirt and shoved him against the worktop.

“Don’t you dare talk about my parents,” he snarled, their faces an inch apart. “You know nothing about me, and you sure as fuck know nothing about them.”

= = =

Hands up in surrender, Andrew stared into Colin’s wolflike eyes, their pale-green irises ringed by a mesmerizing dark circle. In the sink, the beer Colin had flung aside was dribbling out, fizzing against the stainless steel.

“I’m sorry,” Andrew whispered, quite sincerely. The raw hurt in Colin’s curled, crooked lips said the insult had cut deep. “You’re right,” Andrew added when Colin didn’t let go. “I shouldn’t have assumed. I don’t know you.”

But he
wanted
to know Colin, despite—or perhaps because of—the fact the footballer had just manhandled him. Nobody touched someone of Andrew’s station uninvited. He rather fancied it.

Besides, making things right with this lad was the primary reason he’d come to this party in the first place.

“All right, mate?” Robert MacKenzie, the Warriors’ tall, talented, and tragically heterosexual center-back, stood on the kitchen’s threshold. He directed his question to Colin, as if Andrew were the aggressor. Which he probably was.

“Aye, good.” Colin took a step back. He let go of Andrew’s shirt, then lifted his hand as if to straighten it, but seemed to change his mind. Andrew felt a bitter dismay at the loss of his touch.

“Gonnae come back out,” Robert told Colin. “Danielle wants to see your Simon Cowell impersonation.”

Colin hesitated. “In a minute. I promised Fergus I’d do some washing up.”

Robert looked confused but gave a quick nod, then disappeared.

“Why didn’t you go with him?” Andrew asked. “Perfect excuse to get away from me.”

“And leave you here thinking I’m a lowlife thug?” Colin took his nearly empty beer from the sink, downed the rest in one gulp, then tossed the bottle into the recycling bin in the corner of the kitchen.

Andrew flinched at the crash of glass. “Why do you care what I think of you?”

“I don’t care what you think of
me
. I care what you think of people
like
me.” He reached into the sink for the remaining bowl, which was a lovely green-and-black pattern—Fergus had excellent taste for someone of the middle classes. “You think the poor are a bunch of lazy skivers suckling from the taxpayers’ tits.”

“And you think the rich are what? Industrious, selfless paragons of morality who deserve everything we have?”

Colin flashed a glare that lit up Andrew’s spine from top to bottom. “It’s not the same.”

“I think it is.”

“Okay, then, here’s my story.” He looked out the window as he spoke, the evening’s waning light accentuating the contrast between his fair skin and ink-black hair. “My mother was the family breadwinner, despite the fact she suffered from bipolar disorder her entire life. It was managed, we were happy, even though we lived in social housing because her wages couldn’t support two kids. Then her wee brother was sent to Iraq, where he was blown to bits. After that, Mum could barely get out of bed in the morning, much less work. Mostly now she lives at Springburn Hospital to stop her blowing her own self to bits, possibly us with her.” A muscle trembled in Colin’s strong, square jaw. “My family survives completely on benefits, which your party keeps slashing. We do the best we can, but some weeks it’s either the food bank or starvation.”

Colin looked down then, rinsing the bowl, though it was thoroughly free of soap. His lips parted as if to say something more, but then they pressed together into a tight, straight line.

Andrew took another sip of lager to collect himself. No one had ever deposited their life story into his lap like that, not even people he’d known for years. This aggressive honesty…well, it just Wasn’t Done. He rubbed his thumb against his breastbone, where he’d the distinct sensation of a chisel trying to pry him open.

“Where’s your father been during all this?” he asked. “Do you know?”

Colin whirled on him, and Andrew was suddenly glad it was a bowl and not a knife in his hand. “Aye, I know where my fucking father’s been! At home, raising two children because it was ‘all too much’ for my mum. Not to mention looking after his ill wife and now his sixty-year-old mother-in-law.”

Andrew raised his hands again. “Sorry! I didn’t know. That’s why I asked.”

“Now you know.” Colin set the bowl in the drying rack, then moved past Andrew to grab a half-full beer bottle sitting beside the toaster. “Your turn.”

Andrew blinked, distracted by the thought of Colin drinking someone else’s abandoned beer. Was he so poor, his first instinct was to scavenge? “My turn for what?”

“Tell me your story.” He put a hand on the faux-marble worktop beside Andrew, angling his shoulders in a posture that was both threatening and seductive. “Tell me all your wee rich-lad problems.”

Staring at the soft indentation beneath Colin’s lower lip, a spot that begged to be touched and tongued, Andrew contemplated his own confession. In twenty years of life, he’d never felt truly known, not by his family, nor his mates, nor his dozens of lovers or million social-media followers. His meticulously constructed persona kept his true self—if such a creature still existed—safe and secure.

Being
out
in this world was dangerous enough. Being
real
was downright suicidal.

“I’m afraid you’d find my problems shallow and inconsequential.”

“Because they are shallow and inconsequential.” Colin slowly raised his hand, then swept the back of his fingertips along Andrew’s jaw. “Just like yourself.”

Andrew shivered inside, at the combination of harsh words and tender touch. Colin looked as though he couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss him or bite him. Andrew would’ve welcomed either,
both
, but more than anything, he wanted Colin to understand him. He shouldn’t give a toss for this riffraff’s opinion, and yet…in this world of fakers and caricatures, perhaps he’d finally met someone utterly unpredictable, utterly raw.

So he said what was in his heart, for once not calculating his words’ effect. “I’m sorry I never came to our room the night we met.”