Page 134 of Playing to Win

“Oh my God, Colin!” Katie ran to his side. “Are you okay?”

“My knee. My fucking knee.” He took the arm she offered and stood on his right foot. “Where’s Andrew?”

“I thought he was with you. Maybe he’s with Liam and Robert. They’re trying to break things up.”

Tentatively, Colin put weight on his left foot. It was painful but not agonizing. Not like the last time. But there was no way he’d start tomorrow. He’d be lucky to be a substitute even next week. Right now he needed ice and rest, pronto.

Liam and Robert emerged from the melee, which was migrating toward the street. “Police want Yessers to leave the square,” Liam said.

“Why only us?” Katie asked.

“They want to separate the two sides,” Robert said. “Keep the peace.”

“Where the fuck is Andrew?” Colin looked around, straining to pick out his boyfriend among the crowds in the fading evening light.

Then he spotted him, crossing over to Frederick Street, accompanied by a familiar big bald man.

“That’s Reggie, his security guy.” Colin shouted Andrew’s name, but he didn’t turn. “Why would he leave without telling us?”

“He must be safe, though, if he’s with his bodyguard,” Katie said.

The tightness of Andrew’s posture set off Colin’s internal alarm. “I don’t like this.” He took off, reaching a full sprint within a few paces.

“Your knee!” Katie shouted. “Be careful!”

When have I ever been careful?Dodging pedestrians, Colin darted down the pavement toward the intersection. “Andrew!” he called again at the top of his voice.

Still his boyfriend didn’t turn. He had to have heard him this time. Was he walking out on Colin? Was he going back to his old life? Would he rather live in a gilded cage than face a murky future where he had to scrabble for survival?

Not a chance.

Colin took a sharp right, dashing across the middle of the street to avoid the crowded intersection, slaloming between crawling, honking cars. At each pivot, his knee spiked with pain, but his gut told him,Gonnae no stop, gonnae no ask for help. There’s no fucking time.

Rounding the corner of Frederick Street, Colin sped up. His knee gave a fiery warning throb that grew with each step.

He spied Andrew again a hundred feet away, standing on the curb across the street. He was arguing with Reggie, who was opening the rear door of a black car.

You won’t take him.Darting through the stopped traffic, Colin urged his legs faster than they’d ever run on the pitch. This goal mattered more than any. If he missed it, nothing else would ever matter again.

Colin reached the pavement and pivoted, pushing off on his bad leg. He gave a loud grunt of pain.

Ten feet away, Andrew saw him. His face contorted in terror. “Colin, no!”

Reggie turned, a flash of silver in his hand. Colin was going too fast to stop, too fast to slow, too fast to turn.

Not that he would have if he could.

Colin hurled himself against the bodyguard, knocking him away from Andrew. Fire exploded in his belly, and still he clung, staring up into Reggie’s horrified face. With a great shove, he knocked the big man against the side of the black car. He raised his fists to fend off another punch to the stomach, but Reggie held up his hands.

“Mate…I’m so sorry.” The bodyguard dropped what was in his hand. A knife clattered to the pavement between them.

Colin looked down. It was a peculiar sort of knife, with a blade colored red instead of—oh.

He’d not been punched after all.

From what seemed a great distance, Andrew called his name. From an even greater distance, a woman screamed. Then another, then another, until Colin wasn’t sure if they were new screams or just echoes of the first.

Colin dropped to his knees—which, he realized, no longer hurt. His gut, however, had become a volcano.

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