Page 14 of Men in Shorts

Duncan froze, then turned toward the touchline where Charlotte had just called to him. He gave her a wave of acknowledgment, a knot forming in his stomach.

“I’ll get the rest.” Colin picked up two more balls and brought them to the bag. “Any final wishes I should tell your next of kin?”

“Tell them to line my coffin with yellow cards. And I want my funeral dirge played on referee’s whistles instead of bagpipes.”

Duncan headed toward Charlotte, frowning as he saw Fergus standing near her, arms crossed, looking a lot like the captain he lacked the balls to become.

“All right?” Duncan asked his manager, ignoring Fergus.

“I could put the same question to you.” Hands on her hips, Charlotte shook her head at him, her light brown ponytail brushing the hood of her jacket. “I’m worried about you, lad.”

Duncan took a step back. He’d been prepared for her wrath, not her concern. The look in her eyes made him feel like a broken-legged racehorse about to be put down.

“Harris,” she continued, “you’re everything a manager dreams of in a striker. You’re bold, instinctive, and fast as fuck. Most of all, you’re not stupid.”

Though she’d paused, Duncan sensed that wasn’t the end of her speech. “Thanks.”

“I’m not finished,” Charlotte said.

“I’d a feeling.”

“Wheesht!” She held up a hand to hush him. “Your behavior lately has been appalling. It won’t have gone unnoticed by our opponents. All they’ve got to do is look at match stats and think, ‘Hmm, this striker who rarely gets a yellow card suddenly got one in each of his last two starts. He must be on edge. Let’s exploit that.’”

Fuck me, I’m a liability.“Are you going to drop me for Saturday’s match?” he asked her.

“It’s been suggested.” Charlotte kept her gaze on Duncan, but from the corner of his eye, he saw Fergus shift his weight, which told him where this “suggestion” had originated. Fergus wanted him gone.

Duncan crossed his arms to hide the fact his hands were clenching into fists. “And?”

“And I don’t want to do that,” his manager said. “More than anything right now, we need goals, which no one delivers like you. But be careful out there Saturday against Shettleston. Anything those players say to you, donottake it personally. They want you to react. They know you’ve suddenly got a hair-trigger temper.”

Behind her, Fergus muttered something about officials.

“Sorry?” Charlotte asked him.

He looked up from the grass he was toeing. “I said the refs know it too,” Fergus told Duncan. “They’ll be watching you.”

Duncan curled his lips under his teeth to keep from lashing out. Then he nodded, his neck tight with tension.

“I know you’re angry,” Charlotte told Duncan softly. “We all are.”

“You sure about that?” He sneered at Fergus. “Because on some of us, anger looks a lot like giving up.”

“Go home now, Harris,” Charlotte said in a low, steely voice. “And when we see you Saturday, be sure to have grown up a wee bit, okay?”

“Aye. Whatever.”

As Duncan stalked down the path toward the Ruchill Park exit gate, it took all his self-control not to break into a run. He wanted to feel his feet pound against the pavement, feel the earth pushing back on him. He didn’t want to die inside like Fergus.

Is that what love does?Duncan vowed that if his heart were ever broken, he wouldn’t let himself waste away like that. He wouldn’t be weak. He’d go down swinging, even if it meant losing it all.

* * *

Brodie satin the empty launderette, trying to review his statistics notes while waiting for his sheets and favorite T-shirt to dry. But the vinyl, mushroom-shaped seats seemed to be designed for anything but human arses. Soon he was too tired to think of anything but being too tired to think.

He stretched out on his back across two of the flat yellow seats and pulled out his phone to do some investigative work. The first call went to his friend John.

“All right, mate?” John answered. “Good holiday?”

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