Page 15 of Playing to Win

Colin wished he were witnessing this scene from afar. Not just so he could avoid arrest, but so he could relish Andrew’s comeuppance. It almost made this worth it.

As they headed toward the police van, passing a pair of glassy-eyed rave girls still dancing to the music in their heads, a black car with tinted windows pulled up to the curb across the narrow street.

Andrew stopped short at the sight of it. “Oh thank God.”

Out of the black car emerged a tall, muscle-bound man with a shaved head. He swaggered across the street toward them like a lion taking over a new pride.

“Who’s that?” Colin asked Andrew.

“Our savior, that’s who.”

The man approached Constable Lawrence, pulling a card from the inside pocket of his dark blazer.

Please let that be a get-out-of-jail-free card, Colin thought.

The big guy nodded to Andrew, then spoke to Lawrence as he handed over his card. “Evening. I’d like to speak with the officer-in-charge, please.”

The constable gritted his teeth. “Just a moment.” He beckoned to one of his fellow officers, and together, they led Colin and Andrew to a nearby police car.

“What’s going on?” Colin asked Andrew after they were left inside the back of the vehicle. “Did Reggie just make it worse?”

“They put us here so they can release us quietly, away from the others.” Andrew waved a dismissive hand at the police van, into which several of their fellow ravers were already being loaded. “It causes resentment and gossip if those people see us getting special treatment.”

“How do you know all this?”

Andrew gave a harsh sigh. “How do youthinkI know?”

Great. Colin wasn’t the first man Andrew had sucked off in public, which meant he probably wouldn’t be the last.

Silence fell, broken only by the occasional squawking of the police radio and the thumping of Colin’s pulse in his ears.

Finally Andrew cleared his throat. “Would it be obnoxious to mention that, had you accepted my original invitation, you would at this moment be lying naked beneath my sheets, and that I would be lying naked beneathyou?”

“Shut up.” Colin rubbed the thick scar beneath his left arm’s tattoo as he watched Reggie speak into Constable Lawrence’s radio. “What’s he doing?”

“Talking to the officer-in-charge, remember? No doubt they’re mates from back in the day when Reggie was a detective with Strathclyde Police.” Andrew crossed his legs and laid his arm across the back of the seat. “Reggie’s probably convincing him or her that we’re not worth the hassle.”

“What hassle? Won’t those yins in the van need the same of paperwork as us?”

“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?”

“Wedon’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.”

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