Page 39 of Play Hard

“I would do it.” Robert reconsidered. “Maybe a half day. And I’d feel pure guilty after. Probably work overtime to make it up. Not that ‘overtime’ has any meaning when you don’t get paid by the hour.”

His foot hit a discarded cigarette packet on the pavement. He picked it up and moved to chuck it into the rubbish bin outside the bookies shop, where a window advert shouted, Treble Odds. Out of old habit, his fingers pressed the packet to see whether it was truly empty.

They turned onto Shettleston Road, and Liam spoke in a low voice. “You said yesterday you were scared too.”

“I’ll always worry about money,” Robert said. “Too many memories of living in these parts. But in the short term, my finances are okay.”

Robert looked ahead as they approached the Shettleston Giraffe, a mural painted on the gable end of a four-story tenement, conceived a few years ago by pupils at his and Liam’s secondary school, Eastbank Academy. The grand and cheeky piece of public art was now the first thing people saw upon entering Shettleston, having replaced a tumbledown derelict building Robert had always been ashamed of.

“What about long term?” Liam asked.

“If I think about long term, I get paralyzed. Most businesses fail, I’m always aware of that in the back of my head. But day to day I have to operate as though I’m successful.”

“Mate, listen.” Liam took his arm and brought them to a stop beside the giraffe. “No matter what happens, you’re a success to me.” He squeezed Robert’s elbow. “I know my belief’s not enough, but I hope it’s not nothing.”

Robert’s chest hurt at the idea that Liam thought so little of his own importance. “Your belief in me is everything.” When Liam raised a skeptical brow, Robert added, “Not ‘everything’ as in the only thing. It’s ‘everything’ as in, without it, nothing else matters.”

Liam’s eyes softened. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I cannae be happy if you’re unhappy.” Robert wished he could take Liam in his arms, but it wasn’t safe on this street and probably never would be. “If you need more of me, if you truly feel my work is coming between us, then I’ll do something else.”

Liam frowned, twisting the zip of his jacket. “You can’t abandon Be Less Shite. People are depending on you.”

“I wouldn’t abandon the project. But once Glasgow Effect is done, I could hand it over to others who can manage it. I could use the experience I’ve gained to find a regular job in an office.” He tried not to let his lip curl as he uttered the O word. “A job I can leave behind at the end of the day and just forget about. Forget about everything but you.”

A swarm of emotions battled it out on Liam’s face: sadness, frustration, hope, and a hundred indefinable others.

“Robert,” he said, using the full name he never, ever called him by. “This world is shite. This city is even more shite. But I love it anyway, and I want someone to make it better.” He slowly raised his hand and poked his first two fingers against the center of Robert’s chest. “I want you to make it better, cos I know you’re one of the few people who won’t make it more shite by trying.”

“How do you know that?” Robert whispered, his voice barely working. “How do you know I won’t fail?”

“Cos I know this thing here.” Liam poked him again, this time slightly to the left of his breastbone. “I know it better than anyone in the world does. I’ve known it for sixteen years, since that day at the swing park when for some bizarre reason you wanted to be my friend even though I’d just got sent to the headmaster for being a wee twat. This thing here”—he pressed harder against Robert’s heart—“is so much purer than anything that grew out of these streets has a right to hope to be. And it’s too fierce to be chained to a desk serving someone else’s ideas. I cannae tell you exactly how you’ll succeed, cos I don’t do computer stuff, but you’ll figure out a way to make things better. You cannae help it, because of this.” He gave one final, gentle poke.

Robert tried to swallow past the tightness in his throat. “But what about you?”

“I’ll, erm…” Liam pulled his hand back and fidgeted with the cuff of his glove. “I’ll follow your example. You’re doing the thing which makes you feel most alive. I need to find the thing which makes me feel most alive.” He shrugged. “Apart from shoving solid objects up my bum, as I’m not hot enough to do that for a living.”

“Once again, I beg to differ.”

Liam turned toward his flat. “That’s not all you’ll be begging to do when we—” He stopped short, wide-eyed. “Aw no.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I think…” Liam took another step, then stopped again. “Yep. That’s it fallen right out of me.”

“You mean the—”

“Aye.”

“Oh my God.” Robert put his hands to his cheeks. “I must’ve added too much lube back at the pub. I wanted you to be comfortable.”

Liam shifted his weight. “Well, this is not comfortable.”

“Sorry. Does it hurt?”

“No,” Liam said, drawing out the syllable for a few seconds. “Not exactly.”

“Can I do anything?”

Liam shook his head. “This is one of those keep-calm-and-carry-on situations I’ve heard talk about.” He started walking again, taking shorter steps, his face twisting into a comical grimace. “It’s a good job I wear briefs instead of boxers, or my new toy would be lying on the pavement just now.”

Robert followed, his jaw aching with the effort not to laugh.

Ten minutes later, they arrived at Liam’s flat. He locked the door behind them and said, “Want to switch on the heating while I tidy myself up? Feels like a double serving of Jelly Jubilee in my pants.” He stopped on the threshold to the bathroom. “Wait for me on the couch. And be ready.”

“By ‘ready’ you mean…”

Liam grinned at him. “I mean ready.”

---