Page 137 of Playing to Win

Mostly, though, Andrew had prattled on about the London Fashion Show, along with his theories on who killed Lucy Beale onEastEndersand who deserved to win the Great British Bake Off.

At first, Colin had considered shuffling off his mortal coil to escape Andrew’s endless chatter. But after a while, it began to soothe him, like a white-noise machine. More importantly, it anchored him to this world more than any of the medical contraptions attached to his body.

He’d saved Andrew’s life, and now Andrew was saving his.

“You probably don’t want to hear about politics,” Andrew was saying now, “but there’s sensational news on that front at last.”

Colin fought to stay conscious. His mind felt draped in a heavy gray blanket.

“There’s a group online calling themselves ‘the forty-five percent,’ after the Yes proportion of the vote. Seems a silly label to me, drawing attention to the fact we lost, but it’s given people something to rally around, so I suppose it’s healthy in the short term.”

Colin imagined Andrew’s voice dismantling the gray blanket.

“It’s totally taken over Twitter. Everyone’s got 45s on their profile pics where Yes badges used to be. Not me, of course. Isettrends, I don’t follow them. Talking of followers, you’ve got ten thousand now. Including me.”

Thread by thread, word by word, the blanket unraveled.

“And you’ll love this. In George Square, there’s now a peace flag hanging beside a Saltire, on the fence by the war memorial. People have been leaving hundreds of bags of food-bank donations all weekend. Yes, I know, if you were conscious, you’d be saying food banks shouldn’t need to exist at all. But the point is, George Square is a place of hope again, and after Friday night’s riots—oh, you missed that, didn’t you? Forget I said anything. There were no riots.”

Riots?

“Seemed like it at the time, though,” Andrew muttered. “Erm…what else? Oh, the Scottish Nationalist Party’s membership has increased by fifty percent since Thursday’s referendum. They’re getting hundreds of new applications every hour. Soon they’ll be the third largest party in all of the UK.

“But what this all adds up to, of course, is me being right. I said Scotland wouldn’t be put back in its box. People like you have found your voice and now you all won’t shut up. You won’tgiveup.” He squeezed Colin’s hand harder. “Right?” he whispered. “Don’t die just to prove me wrong. That’d be so bloody…typical of you.” Andrew’s voice broke, and his next breath was a sob. “I’m sorry.” Warm lips, much wetter than usual, pressed against the back of Colin’s hand. “I’m so, so, so sorry.”

Using every bit of his strength, Colin parted his lips with a dry pop. “National,” he whispered. God, his throat was killing him.

Andrew jerked. “Colin? Was that you?”

Colin swallowed, which hurt even more than speaking. “ScottishNationalParty.” He opened his eyes and laid his hazy gaze upon Andrew’s face. “Not ‘Nationalist,’ ya knob.”

Andrew laughed and wiped his eyes. “I knew that. I was only trying to get a rise out of your miserable self. And it worked. I’ve resurrected you.” He kissed Colin’s palm and held it against his own cheek. “My brave warrior has returned to me.”

“Shhhhhut up.” Colin’s lashes fluttered shut, then open again. “I love you, Lord Andrew.”

At long last, his boyfriend was speechless.

The door opened, and a blurry figure in blue scrubs entered. “Mr. MacDuff, welcome back.” He recognized the friendly female voice as one of his nurses.

“Thanks,” he whispered, though such a small word could never convey the gratitude he felt toward her and her colleagues. “Water?”

“Not for a few days,” she said. “We need to be sure your plumbing’s in working order. You needed quite a lot of repairs down there.”

His fingers found the top of his sheet, and he started to lift it to look. The nurse gently pushed it back down.

“Trust me,” she said. “You’d rather not see at the moment.”

Fine, I’ll wait until you’ve left the room.

He held still while the nurse—Rita, according to her laminated name badge—gave his lips and the inside of his mouth a generous swab of something more thirst-quenching than water. The relief was immeasurable. “What about my knee?”

Rita blinked at him. “Knee?”

“I hurt it. Before I got stabbed. Did I tear a ligament again? When can I play football?”

She shared a look with Andrew that filled Colin with dread.

“Oh no,” he said. “Was it my ACL this time?” An anterior cruciate ligament tear would mean months of recovery, maybe even surgery.

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