Page 4 of Playing to Win

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 hewantedto 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 ofme. I care what you think of peoplelikeme.” 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.

Beingoutin this world was dangerous enough. Beingrealwas downright suicidal.

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