Playing to Win (2 page)

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

“The worst.” Colin felt himself soften at the sympathy. “I wanted to set fire to that fucking exercise bike. Pedaling and pedaling for hours, going nowhere.”

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 instinct 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, over his shoulders, down his back, and straight to his cock.

Run
, every instinct urged 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. 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 is—well, I don’t know what he is this week. Labour, Scottish Nationalist Party, Green? I can’t keep up.”

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

“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.”

John himself had just entered the kitchen, but Andrew kept his focus 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?”

“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 uni, whose graduates have one of highest rates of employment in the UK.”

“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. He slammed his beer bottle on the worktop. “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. 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. “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. He could hear beer fizzing up over the rim of Colin’s bottle where he’d slammed it down.

“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 McKenzie, 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.

“Aye, good.” Colin took a step back, letting go of Andrew and wiping his hands on his own faded-black vintage T-shirt. 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.”

“In a minute.” Colin snatched a paper towel from the spindle over the sink. “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, creeping closer despite the vehemence with which Colin was wiping up his spilled beer. “Perfect excuse to get away from me.”

“And leave you here thinking I’m a lowlife thug?” Colin hurled the wet paper towel across the kitchen, where it landed bang-on in the open rubbish bin.

“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 serving 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 pillars of society who deserve everything we’ve got?”

Colin flashed a glare that curled Andrew’s toes. “It’s not the same.”

“I think it is.”

“Okay, then, here’s my story.” Colin 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 Stobhill Hospital to keep her from 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 it felt like a chisel was 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 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 bottle of IPA sitting beside the toaster. “Your turn.”

Andrew hesitated, 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 hordes of 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,” Andrew said.

“Because they are shallow and inconsequential.” Colin slowly raised his hand, then swept the backs 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 anyone’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.”

Colin’s brows spasmed, darting together and apart in an instant. He dropped his hand but didn’t move away. “I felt a fucking fool waiting all night alone in that posh hotel room, afraid to have so much as a glass of water in case I’d be arrested for stealing.”

“You should have ordered room service. I would’ve been happy to pay for it.”

“I didnae want food. I wanted—” Colin cut himself off and turned away, rubbing the back of his reddening neck, then sweeping his hand up to make the spiky black waves of hair stand even more on end. “What happened to you?”

Out in the living room, the volume of voices swelled. Clearly something momentous was taking place. But Andrew kept his focus on Colin, hoping to make amends for his callous behavior in January—or at least explain it. “My bodyguard, Wallace, he wouldn’t let me go.”

“Wouldn’t ‘let’ you? You’re an adult, right?”

“Yes, but at the time I wasn’t insisting I be treated like one.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I wasn’t out yet. I needed help keeping my secret. Wallace didn’t think you could be trusted. I’d met you at a rave, after all.” Feeling the heat of the evening and Colin’s hostility, Andrew tugged the lapel of his blazer, wishing he’d removed it before coming to the party. “You weren’t the first lad I had to ditch like that, but you were the last. I sacked Wallace the following day, after he’d let slip one too many homophobic comments.”

I’m saving you from yourself, Lord Andrew. Your appetite for peasant cock will be the death of you.

“You should’ve phoned me,” Colin said. “Instead of leaving me to think you’d found someone better, or that I’d been pranked.”

“I wanted to explain, but how could I, without giving away my real identity?”

“You were a fucking coward that night. I saw your big coming-out on your YouTube channel in February. Everyone said you were so brave, but I knew the truth. I knew you’d been slumming it in disguise.”

“You’re right, I
was
a coward. It
was
dishonorable.” Andrew yearned to erase the hurt and anger from that face, but sensed that words would only make it worse. “I deeply regret my actions that night. All but one.”

Colin bristled as though expecting an insult. “Which one?”

“This.” Andrew stepped forward and kissed him. Not hard, not long, not demanding, and with no hands whatsoever. Just one mouth against one mouth, solid, soft, and sure.

Applause erupted. Colin lurched away from Andrew and spun to face the kitchen door. But no one was there.

“What’s going on?” Andrew took a step toward the living room, his heart pounding from their too-brief contact.

A chorus of
Awwwww
s answered him, followed by catcalls and a woman shouting, “Kiss the bride, Fergus!”

Andrew and Colin gaped at each other, then raced to the living room.

The party was gathered around Fergus and John, who were draped in a large fleece football blanket. Colin nudged Liam and asked, “What happened? Are they engaged?”

The big ginger shook his head. “Just a joke. Besides, it won’t be long before Fergus chucks John off the balcony for failing to use a coaster. Threatened to do that to me once, and I don’t even live here.”

Andrew watched as Fergus and John kissed, holding each other so tight it seemed they’d never let go. The sight made him ache. What was it like to be truly known, as these two knew each other, and somehow still loved?

He turned to speak to Colin, but he’d already left Andrew’s side. A quick search of the party, which was now breaking up due to lack of beer, revealed him near the television, chatting to Robert’s girlfriend. Danielle was letting him read something off her phone screen. Colin copied the information into his own phone, then looked straight at Andrew.