Page 198 of Men in Shorts

“Okay.” Curl now, talk to Brodie later. Duncan took the broom, which looked more like a mop, what with its flat orange head at the end of a long metal handle. “I forget: How do I know when to do that?”

“Your mum’s the skip, so she’ll tell you. If she saysyesorsweep—basically anything other thanno—you sweep the ice ahead of the stone. If she sayshard, you sweep like your life depends on it.” Luca looked past him and smiled. “Seems someone’s rather fond of your pal.”

His father had yet to get into the hack to throw his stone, because he was doing what Duncan longed to do: giving Brodie a big hug. “Did you know this lad was gonnae be here?” Dad asked Duncan, his arm around the waist of the much taller Brodie. “We should all have a drink together after this match, have a proper catch-up.”

Brodie’s mouth was inscrutable behind his thick new beard, but his eyes held that rabbit-in-the-headlights expression.

“Traditionally we broomstack with our opponents,” Luca said, “but I’m sure there’ll be time for everyone to socialize.” He nudged a red rock in front of the hack with his foot. “Your throw, Alan.”

Broomstacking—i.e., drinking—nowthatwas a curling term Duncan remembered from last weekend’s training session. After seeing Brodie, he could use a few glasses of courage.

Duncan took his broom onto the ice to stand on the blue border separating his sheet from Brodie’s. Across from him, Ellie waited with her own broom, concentration etched onto her ruddy face (at least the part he could see under her hat and scarf).

Whistling an off-key “Deck the Halls,” Dad adjusted his glasses, then tugged his Santa hat down over what was left of his auburn hair as he prepared to throw his stone. Both he and Mum had taken to curling with the zeal of converts, and were planning to join a league here at Shawlands. Duncan, however, planned never to set foot on the ice again.

Still, as he watched Brodie from the corner of his eye, he was glad to be here now.

Brodie slid out of the hack with an astonishing grace. Duncan could only stare in wonder as he glided by without a single waver of balance. Even his halo barely stirred. Gone was the gangly lad Duncan had fallen in love with two and a half years ago.

“Duncaaaan!” Mum bellowed. “Sweeeeep!”

“Shit.” He hurried down the sheet to catch up to the rock Dad had just released. Ellie was already brushing the ice in front of the slow-moving stone. He joined her effort, shoving all his strength and weight into every stroke, his lungs yanking in the cold air and puffing out clouds of steam.

Good way to work out frustration, this.

Mum yelled with rising gusto. “Hard! Haaaaaaaard!”

The stone narrowly missed their opponent’s yellow rock and came to rest on the line several feet in front of the house—which apparently was where Mum wanted it. Only the stones inside the house counted for points, but maybe the ones in front of the house could form a blockade?

“Good throw, Alan!” Mum beamed at Duncan and Ellie as she stuffed stray wisps of brown hair back under her Santa hat. “Great sweep, you two!”

Panting from the high-intensity workout, Duncan saluted her with his broom. Then he checked the adjacent sheet. Brodie had put his stone in a similar location to Dad’s, so it must have been the thing to do early in the first end. Or maybe every end?

Whatever. Duncan didn’t have the headspace for curling strategy just now. His reunion with Brodie had started off extra cringey, but the rest of the day was still ahead of them. This could be their best chance to heal their bond, to find their way back to each other now that geography was no longer an obstacle.

Otherwise, this Christmas would be the coldest, loneliest, bluest ever.

Chapter2

Brodie stood alonein front of the easel which held the poster-size draw sheet showing all the teams’ results and next opponents. Even after studying this spiderweb of brackets, he couldn’t figure out how a bonspiel worked.

All that mattered was Hard the Herald Angels Sing were not playing Duncan’s team, All Through the House. In fact, during the next game, they would be four sheets apart—on nearly opposite sides of the six-sheet rink. Far enough to avoid another chaotic encounter.

Behind him, the curlers and volunteers created a cheery hum of laughter and chat. A bouncy version of “Santa Baby” floated throughout the “warm room,” the curling term for the rink-side lounge where everyone gathered to eat, drink, and be even merrier than they were on the ice.

Brodie took another sip of tea, though he hardly needed the caffeine, as seeing Duncan was enough of an adrenaline rush. He should’ve been hungry after missing breakfast, especially now with the scent of a catered buffet wafting in the air. But his stomach felt like origami paper in the hands of a toddler, folded and crushed every which way.

A round of applause went up as Duncan’s team and their opponents entered the warm room from the rink. The members of We Four Kings sat down at their sheet’s designated table, while Duncan and his teammates stayed on their feet, no doubt taking the Kings’ drink orders.Winners buy first roundwas another example of curling’s extreme sportsmanship that Brodie found so endearing.

His heart pounded faster as Duncan approached the bar, his head swiveling back and forth, scanning the warm room for?—

Their eyes met, and the crowd between them seemed to thin. Duncan said something to his mum, who nodded and patted him on the back. Then he came straight for Brodie.

Duncan stopped a few feet away, a twitchy smile playing over his more-kissable-than-ever lips. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Brodie fidgeted with the moon-shaped pendant beneath his shirt. “Congrats on winning your game.”

“Thanks, you, too.” Duncan stepped aside for a volunteer lugging a case of Irn Bru to the bar. “At least, I assume you won, based on how happy John and Heather looked. I still don’t understand how to read a curling scoreboard. Hanging numbers on a hook under other numbers…”

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