Page 39 of Playing to Win

Face flaming, Colin shifted away, bringing his pillow with him. “Yeah. Seems a waste of space.”

You’re a waste of space, he told himself. He’d ignored Andrew’s obvious leave-me-be signals.

For hours, Colin stared up at the vaulted ceiling, faintly visible in the light from their phone chargers. He’d been a fool, thinking they’d forged a real connection. However equal this man had made Colin feel, it was clear that that equality was confined to one room, for one night.

Tomorrow, the man lying beside him would become Lord Andrew again, and Colin would be left with nothing but memories. Memories he should feel lucky to have.

CHAPTERELEVEN

ITWASAright battle not to sing in the shower this morning.

Usually after a night like last night, Andrew woke with a sense of dread and the urge to flee, an urge he was too well-mannered to follow. He would sit through an excruciating though sumptuous hotel breakfast with his now-former lover, counting the minutes until they could part forever with an amicable wave of the hand. Good times, good memories, good riddance.

But today, he couldn’t wait to get back under the covers with Colin. He planned to wake the lad with a strategically placed tongue, get him hard while he was still asleep, so that by the time he opened his eyes, he’d be ready for a pre-breakfast quickie. No games or gymnastics, just a bit of sweet pleasure and fun before they headed home.

And then what?Andrew asked himself as he applied his ginger-and-brown-sugar scrub, sloughing away the dead skin cells accumulated in the last twenty-four hours.What happens when we’re in Glasgow?

The moment Colin had passed out in the plague room yesterday, he’d pried open Andrew’s heart. Then he’d dug deep inside, dredging up Andrew’s secret demons. They’d exposed each other’s wounds, then attempted to heal them with that endless kiss that seemed to sayall is forgiven.

Finally, after laying Andrew bare, at the end of the night Colin had wanted to hold him. Tosnuggle, for God’s sake, like a married couple. Ugh.

Yet Andrew had lain awake for hours afterward, wishing he could have that moment back. Wondering what it would feel like to have another body fit around his as he fell asleep. To waste so much king-size space together.

Out of the shower, he quickly toweled off, drew a handful of mousse through his hair, then slipped into one of the white-terry hotel dressing gowns, keeping the sash loose about his waist. Then he eased open the bathroom door and tiptoed around the corner to their bed.

Which was now empty.

“Colin?” He covered his mouth at the forlornness of his voice, then glanced around, expecting—hoping—to be ambushed from behind a chair and dragged back into bed. But the room was silent and dark, the curtains still drawn.

Andrew yanked open the wardrobe doors to find only his own shirts and trousers draped on the silk-padded hangers, only his own shoes arranged on the top shelf. He slid out the wardrobe’s top drawer, where he’d seen Colin put his stuff.

It banged against his knee, empty. As empty as their bed, as empty as his gut, which gnawed at itself with more than hunger.

He searched the room for a note, for any explanation other than the obvious: Colin had left him.

So this is what it feels like.Andrew sank onto the bed, instinctively detaching himself from the situation. Surely this misfortune could inspire a witty tweet. He crossed his legs into the lotus position and tried to steady his breath.

Serenity seemed a million miles away. All he could think about were the hours he’d planned this morning with Colin. He felt robbed.

“You bastard.” Andrew pulled his pillow into his lap, bunching it between his fists to shed his anger.

Was this Colin’s revenge for being ditched in January? On the surface it seemed fitting, but after all they’d done yesterday—entirely at Andrew’s expense—Colin at least owed him the courtesy of a proper goodbye. The brute was probably right now laughing all the way back to Glasgow and would soon be gloating to his mates how he’d taken advantage of a smitten toff’s generosity.

Andrew closed his eyes, trying to reconcile this absconder with the man who’d gazed at him last night with such wonder, who’d kissed him with such tenderness, who’d licked his face with such affection.ThatColin couldn’t have been plotting a cowardly escape. That Colin had wanted to see him again and was brave enough to say so. What had changed? What had drained Colin’s heart of all feeling for Andrew?

He rested his chin on his pillow and immediately noticed something odd. He examined the pillow, then its companions—the one Colin had slept upon and the two spares tossed to the side. The other three pillows were still enrobed in their Egyptian-cotton cases.

Andrew’s pillowcase, and Andrew’s alone, was gone.

= = =

“You left before breakfast? Are you daft, mate?”

Liam and Robert frowned down at Colin in their usual configuration of disapproval—crossed arms, jutting jaws, stormy gazes.

Sitting on the practice-pitch bench retying his football boots, Colin answered Liam. “Hotel breakfast is expensive, and I didnae want any more of his charity.”

“Isn’t breakfast included in the price of the room?” Robert asked.

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