Page 22 of Playing to Win

A soft knock came on the bathroom door. “Almost ready?”

“Just a second.” Colin grabbed the edge of the black-marble sink and hauled himself to his feet. Then he splashed cold water on his face, trying to ignore how smoothly the tap turned, with no squeaks or resistance, and how easily it shut off, not needing to be jiggled to stop it leaking.

He reached for a clean towel. It was already warm and toasty.

“Fuck.” He slammed his palm against the button to shut off the heat, then buried his face in the towel and tried to steady his breath. Throughout his life’s trials, even in all the high-pressure football matches he’d played, he’d never come close to a panic attack. He was not about to start now. Not over a fucking towel warmer.

Out in their room, Colin found Andrew—where else?—in front of the mirror. He’d gone with a “modified Adam Smith” for the occasion: Black-framed glasses and straighter hair, but wearing gray khakis and a short-sleeved, button-down chambray shirt that was all the colors of a stormy sky. He looked classy but accessible, in a way that would normally have made Colin want to devour him.

“Everything to your satisfaction?” Andrew asked, studying his own hair with the intensity of a microbiologist peering at a potential cure for cancer.

“Yeah.” Colin examined one of the complimentary sleep kits, which included a velvet black eye mask, earplugs, and a tiny bottle of lavender oil. “The room is, erm…”completely crisis-inducing“…nice.”

“I was devastated there were no suites available. But on short notice we were fortunate to get anything, much less a castle view.” He motioned to the window, where the curtains were now open.

“Oh.” Colin crossed the enormous room, moving past the cushioned bench-type thing at the foot of the king-size bed. Outside, the giant medieval castle loomed over the city atop a high, sheer cliff. “It’s so unreal.”

“Isn’t it just? All the years I lived here during school, I could never grow accustomed to it. It’s like an alien spacecraft.”

Resting his knee on the window seat, Colin pressed his forehead to the glass. It was nearly ten years to the day since he’d last seen Edinburgh Castle. The memory made the back of his tongue all twisty with emotion. He was glad they were giving it a miss today in favor of Real Mary King’s Close, a tour of medieval underground Edinburgh. Colin wanted to keep the castle for his eight-year-old self, forever.

“I assume you had breakfast?” Andrew asked. “I thought we’d eat after we finish at the Close, about two o’clock? It’ll be between normal meal times, so the cafés shouldn’t be completely jammed.”

“Fine,” Colin said. He’d skipped breakfast, his stomach too fluttery for food. Last night’s sleep had been fractured into fifteen-minute dozings surrounded by hour-long bouts of staring at the ceiling in wondrous terror.

A light hand swept his back. “You all right?”

On reflex, Colin stepped away. “Aye, fine. Why? Do I look—do I not look okay?” Shattered as he was, he couldn’t show weakness to this man.

“You look wonderful.” Andrew dropped his hand, but then moved closer, cautiously, as if expecting him to bolt again. Then he pressed his lips to Colin’s in that same firm, soft kiss he’d given last weekend in Fergus’s kitchen. A kiss that tamed.

Colin felt his limbs unknot as his lungs slowly emptied. Andrew’s fingers found his, but didn’t grasp, only pressed for a long moment, steady and sure. Colin marveled that this man, who was so dangerous to his sanity, could make him feel so safe.

Perhaps that was Andrew’s most dangerous quality of all.

= = =

Katie Heath: Hope you’re having a good time. Edinburgh is soooo romantic!

Liam Carroll: I hope he’s spending bags of money on you. I hope you fuck him senseless. I hope you live to tell about it.

Robert McKenzie: What Liam said. PS: please take pics.

Colin slipped his phone into his pocket without replying to his mates’ texts. Waiting in the Real Mary King’s Close gift shop while Andrew fetched their tickets, he watched the tourists jostle one another through the narrow aisles. They spoke a mind-boggling array of languages, and most carried bags from the Royal Mile souvenir shops trafficking in cringe-worthy Scottish clichés. Through the open door, Colin could hear a bagpiper on the street outside, playing an incessant, indecipherable tune. The hubbub, along with his lack of breakfast and sleep, was giving him a skull-gripping headache.

“What a madhouse!” Andrew slipped into the tour queue in front of Colin, curling his lip at a pair of jimmy-hat-wearing tourists. “I should’ve taken you farther away. Seems all Scotland’s been invaded by Commonwealth Games visitors.”

“Whydidyou bring me to Edinburgh? Not that I’m complaining,” he hurried to add. Despite his unease, Colin was still marveling at Andrew’s generosity.

“I wanted to show you my home city.” Andrew slid one of the tour tickets into Colin’s T-shirt pocket, a gesture that felt strangely intimate.

“Home city? I thought you’d a castle in the countryside.”

“My family’s estate is in Fife, yes. But I came to Edinburgh for boarding school when I was seven, so I consider it my home.”

Colin gaped at him, imagining the terror of leaving home at such an age. “Seven years old? That’s mad, sending weans off to fend for themselves.”

“Fettes Prep wasn’t exactly the Outback. Besides, it builds character.”

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