Playing to Win (6 page)

“Those poor sods in the van won’t get the officer-in-charge called into their superior’s office Monday morning to explain why they put a member of one of Scotland’s oldest families behind bars for—” Andrew rubbed his lower lip with the side of his finger. “—for such a trivial act.”

It didn’t feel trivial to me.
“Why should anyone give a fuck who your family is?”

“
We
don’t matter. What matters is our financial support of law-enforcement personnel.”

Of course. “You mean bribes?”

“Not at all.” Andrew looked offended. “We donate to perfectly legal charitable funds. Some of them supplement police pensions, whilst others assist families of fallen heroes.”

Colin shook his head. “I always knew there were two systems of justice, one for the poor and one for the rich.”

“Then be grateful you’ve found yourself in the right system tonight.”

Have I?
Colin still wasn’t sure Reggie wouldn’t throw him under the proverbial bus, perhaps by telling the officer-in-charge that the hooligan Colin had led the innocent Andrew astray.

Colin’s phone rang. He answered Katie’s call. “You okay, lass?”

“Yes, it’s a miracle!” she said. “Did you get caught? Sorry I suck as a lookout.”

“Not your fault. I still consider your debt repaid.” He felt bad now for taking advantage of her pledge to do anything—“anything, I swear”—to make up for injuring his knee last month.

“Where are you guys?”

“Possibly being arrested.”

“What?!? Oh my God. Do you need, like, bail money or something?”

“Hang on.” Colin watched as Andrew’s bodyguard returned Constable Lawrence’s radio to him with a winning smile. The police officer shook his head and started toward their car. “I’ll phone you back,” Colin told Katie.

Without a word, Lawrence got in, drove them exactly one street over, then got out and opened the back door. “Go on,” the officer said. “I never want to see your faces again.”

“Thank you!” Colin said as he slid out of the car behind Andrew. “I’m so sorry.”

“Right.” Constable Lawrence lifted his chin. “There’s your man now.”

Colin turned to see Reggie’s black sedan pulling up to the curb. The officer drove off with no further acknowledgment.

Reggie got out of his car and strode over. “See? Told you I’d sort it,” he said to Andrew, then extended his hand to Colin and introduced himself.

Colin hesitated, surprised at the friendly gesture. Then he cleared his throat and shook the man’s hand. “Thanks for helping us.”

“It’s what I do.” Reggie’s grip was strong as a python’s. Colin tried not to grimace or shake his finger ligaments back into place after the bodyguard had released his hand. “Sir,” Reggie said to Andrew, “we’d best be getting you back to the flat now.”

“Yes.” Andrew gave Colin a look of regret. “I know I said earlier you could come home with me, but…it’s not a good idea. I’m sorry.”

Colin felt his own face turn to stone. “Nae bother.” He managed a shrug through superhuman effort. “Like I said, my mates and I come and go together.” He lifted his phone. “So I should, erm, find them now.”

“Okay.” Andrew looked as though he wanted to add something, but didn’t. Colin decided to spare them both the awkwardness.

“Later,” he said simply, and turned away.

Colin walked up the street, his back to the black car, though he’d no idea if he was heading in the right direction to find his mates. All that mattered was that this time, he’d been the one to say goodbye.

If only every step away from Andrew didn’t feel like a walk through quicksand. If only he could let himself turn back for one last glimpse, to see if Andrew were watching him walk away. If only it were easy.

= = =

The yoga was a bloody farce.

To be sure, the scorpion pose was stretching the kinks out of Andrew’s back after last night’s rave adventures. And with its inverted nature, legs bent up and back to form the scorpion’s tail over his forearm stand, the
vrschikasana
was awakening him with a rush of blood to the brain. But it was doing fuck-all for his mental clarity.

He tapped the top of his head with his heels, hoping to literally kick some sense into himself. Neck extended, he peered outside and saw the sunrise reflected in distant windows facing his block of flats. Focusing on his breath, he imagined the bright orange rays searing through his confusion, answering questions that had plagued his restless sleep. But his thoughts were as hazy as the humid summer morning draping itself over Glasgow.

Finally he did a slow, controlled descent to the yoga mat, then put his forehead to the floor in child’s pose, letting his breath bring him into harmony with the earth’s vibrations. (Or at least that was the idea. It rarely worked most days, and today even less than usual.)

Frustrated, Andrew softly banged his head against the mat. What good was all this discipline, the yoga and the meditation and the
365 Days of Serenity
calendar, if it didn’t grant him peace of mind? He wasn’t asking to reach Nirvana. He just wanted to stop
wanting
, if only for a few minutes a day.

A soft ding to his right told him his ginseng tea was ready. He sat back quickly, folding his legs into the lotus position. The mug was within easy reach—as was the battery-operated kettle, the wooden box containing the teabags, and everything else in his flat’s small mezzanine loft, his sanctuary within a sanctuary.

Before removing the teabag from the mug, he pulled off the tag offering today’s nugget of “yogi wisdom.” Sometimes the message was inscrutable (
Recognize that you are the truth
), sometimes laughable (
The art of happiness is to serve all
), sometimes nauseatingly twee (
Every smile is a direct achievement
)—but he always read it.

Today’s said,
Where there is love, there is no question.

“Piss off.” Andrew shoved the tag into his Answer Fish, a blue-and-white Chinese teapot where he kept these collected bits of so-called wisdom, none of which had ever helped him. Then he rubbed his temples, trying to eradicate the memory of Colin’s face, how it had glowed with triumph the moment before he launched himself into the crowd. How it had frozen with fear at the sight of the police.

His number is still in your phone
, said a voice inside him, originating from the part of his brain ruled by his cock. Andrew closed his eyes, remembering the adrenaline rush of the dive and its aftermath, when Colin’s arms had wrapped around him so tight he couldn’t breathe. He imagined those same arms clutching him close, bare chest to bare chest, as Colin moved deep inside him.

His phone rang, and his eyes slammed open. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He hurried with his tea down the spiral wooden staircase, back onto his flat’s main floor.

On the glass coffee table, his mobile continued to bleat. To ensure sufficient peace for his daily yoga and meditation—not to mention sleep—his phone was programmed to stay quiet between the hours of midnight and seven. Calls and messages made no sound unless they were from select VIP contacts. One VIP contact, to be precise.

“Good morning, Mum.”

“Where were you last night?” she asked.

His heart skipped. Had Reggie broken his promise not to tell Andrew’s parents about the rave? “What do you mean?”

“The Duchess said you left her garden party after an hour. You didn’t even stay for dinner.”

He let himself breathe again. “I needed to get back to Glasgow.” He took his tea into the dining area to check on his fish. “One of my mates was having a housewarming. I had to make an appearance, bring him a bottle of Nyetimber.”

“Which one?”

“The 2003 Classic Cuvee, naturally.”

“I meant, which friend?

“You don’t know him. He’s in my course at uni.” Andrew switched on the light atop the seventy-gallon saltwater aquarium. “And yes, he’s just a mate. Moved into his boyfriend’s flat in Woodside.” He kept chattering, hoping to distract her from his misdeed. “It’s an historic building, with the most lovely hardwood floors. Nicer than mine, even.”

“I still think you owe the Duchess an apology for leaving so early. Send her a gift. She loves orchids, if that helps.”

“It does help, thank you.” Good God, not only a sunrise phone call, but an appeasement suggestion. His departure from the garden party must have caused quite the scandal amongst those with nothing better to be outraged about.

“What’s on your calendar for today?” she asked.

Lying on the couch, fantasizing about Colin.
“Meeting Marcus Wynn-Garvey and a few other mates at Ibrox for the rugby sevens. Why?”

“That’s lovely.” She sounded relieved, no doubt because his plans included prominent young men like himself. “Could you take a few minutes and make a list of those you’d like to invite to our ball? Invitations go in the post in two weeks, which means the names and addresses need to be at the engravers’ in ten days.”

“Of course.” He sipped his tea and searched the coral reef polyps for his newest acquisition, a dwarf flame angelfish. They could be rather shy at first.

“Please, do try to keep interlopers to a minimal number and optimal standard.”

“I’ll try, Mum, if you promise not to ring me again so early when it’s not a crisis situation.”

“I’m trying to keep your social standing from
becoming
a crisis situation. Has my advice ever steered you wrong?”

“No, and that’s why I still take your five-thirty a.m. calls. Don’t abuse that privilege by giving me advice I don’t need.” Ah, there was the angelfish, hiding in a nook between two rocks, its tangerine scales blazing against the dark stone.

“You’re in uncharted territory, Andrew, now you’ve come out. We all are. Your behavior reflects not only upon your family, but upon all society.”

“Mm-hm.” He knew by
society
she meant the upper classes, not the world as a whole, which largely didn’t concern her.

“Not to mention reflecting upon homosexuals in general.”

“Mum, no one says ‘homosexuals’ anymore unless they’re screaming about us from a pulpit.” With the lightest of touches on the glass, he mirrored the path of his favorite fish, a copperband butterfly who’d nearly died from refusing to eat when it had first arrived.

“If you say so, darling. Just keep your eyes on the prize, and all will be well.”

Andrew sighed as they signed off. He didn’t need to ask what the prize was—it was sitting on his coffee table as a daily reminder.

Tatler
’s annual Little Black Book listed two hundred of Britain’s most desirable singles. Prince Harry was at the top of the list, of course, along with Princess Di’s nieces and Kate Middleton’s siblings, but the LBB wasn’t limited to royalty and their satellites. Celebrities such as actress Emma Watson and Olympic diver Tom Daley had made the list in recent years—though the latter’s honor took place before his coming out as bisexual.

The Little Black Book’s autumn publication was highly anticipated by the upper classes and highly ridiculed by everyone else. The LBB was insipid. It was inane. It was everything wrong with society.

And it was Andrew’s dream. Not to be
in
it so much as to not be
left out
of it. For a young, beautiful, unattached Brit, being omitted from the Little Black Book meant you were nobody. And if you were nobody…well, then good luck getting elected to a powerless community council, much less Parliament.

He went to the coffee table and picked up the slim black magazine supplement, its pages crinkled from months of perusal. He’d combed the LBB’s every entry, decoding the keys to glory, wondering if he had what it took to be accepted.

As Andrew’s family was always reminding him, his greatest asset was his fame, and his greatest claim to fame—besides being fabulous—was his sexuality. Were he straight, he’d be just another insufferable toff. But being gay made him a lightning rod for attention. It brought him masses of fans and haters. It brought risk. It brought power.

And now it had brought him Colin MacDuff. If there were ever a lad who didn’t fit into Andrew’s master plan, it was him. He was poor, he was coarse—and quite likely a supporter of Scottish independence, if his rants against the Westminster government were any indication.

Colin had nothing to offer but a bit of filthy sex, something Andrew could find anywhere, any time. He wasn’t worth the bother.

Andrew sat on the couch with the LBB and his tea, then unlocked his phone, intending to delete Colin from his contacts. But the social-networking icons on his home screen soon distracted him. Andrew wished for the willpower to awaken his phone without checking to see how many people had tweeted at him, tagged him, and liked or favorited his posts.

He went to Instagram first, to see if anyone had tagged him at yesterday’s parties. Of course they had. Andrew scrolled through the photos, ensuring none was awful.

Then a thought occurred to him. He searched for photos uploaded in Glasgow in the last twelve hours. A flood of Commonwealth Games pics met his eyes, but then he found what he was looking for. What he was dreading:

A short video in a darkened warehouse, with the caption
Best Crowd Dive Ever
. Andrew hit play, then the speaker icon to turn on the sound.

There he was as “Adam Smith,” perched atop that storage container, legs slowly ascending.
What fantastic form
, he thought, making a mental note to share the video to his private email.

Off camera, a familiar voice screamed, “Andrew, no! Gonnae no do it!”

The camera swung to face the shouter, revealing Colin’s upturned face, pale with fear. “Mate,” said the guy holding the camera, “Looks like you’ve met your match.”

Then the view swooped back up to show “Adam” in full vertical position, ready to dive.

Offscreen, Colin’s voice was raw and tight. “Please! I’m sorry. Oh God, I’m so sorry. Please don’t…” He was nearly sobbing. “If he dies, I’ll fucking kill myself.”

Andrew’s fingers spasmed on the phone, and he barely noticed his onscreen body leaping, spinning, falling, then disappearing into the crowd.

The video restarted automatically. Andrew flung the phone to the other end of the couch, as if it were a spider he’d found crawling on his leg. As Colin pleaded with him from the tiny speaker, Andrew pulled the Little Black Book to his chest and dug his fingers into the back cover, crumpling the Cartier ad printed there.