Page 54 of Men in Shorts

Though he wasn’t a fan of the steady rain, he welcomed the autumn chill. It gave his limbs the energy to last ninety minutes on the football pitch, or thirty minutes running through the city, with the rumbling River Kelvin keeping pace beside him.

Running on his other side, not quite keeping pace, was his best mate, Liam Carroll.

“Slow down now?” Liam said, puffing out one word with each heaving breath.

“Not my call.” Fergus savored the burn of his legs and lungs, the rapid slap of his shoes against the wet tarmac, and the orange blur of the Kelvin Walkway streetlights whizzing by, glowing against the falling rain.

Ten seconds later, the running app beeped in his ear, and a female computer voice chirped, “Final sprint is complete. Begin cool down now.” Fergus eased his pace to a light jog.

“YAS!” Liam swept past, raising his arms in mock victory. Then he returned to run circles around Fergus—literally. “Done already, mate? I’m just getting started.” He bounced on his toes a few times, then let his shoulders sag as he came to a complete stop. “God, I’m so fucking knackered.”

Fergus slowed to a brisk walk and took out his earphones, feeling a tug of sympathy. Liam had never been a morning person. But ever since Fergus’s boyfriend, John, had moved in, and ever since Liam had picked up more shifts at the pub, they rarely saw each other one-on-one. Liam had Wednesday nights off, so this Thursday dawn run together had become their new tradition.

“I’m tired too.” Fergus frowned at the sky, which was only now lightening in the east—sunrise wasn’t until after eight o’clock these days. “At least you can go home and sleep the rest of the morning.”

“Aw, ya poor lad, stuck in your dead-end job as a junior partner at Glasgow’s top architectural firm.”

“Fair point.” Fergus had precisely zero complaints about his life at the moment.

“Also, I know I’m not the only one back in bed after this run. Thursday’s John’s early day, aye?

“It is,” Fergus said with a grin. His boyfriend had a nine o’clock lecture at University of Glasgow, which meant he would just be waking when Fergus returned home for a shower. And since their flatmate, Abebi, didn’t get back from her night shift at the hospital until nine, the morning held very promising possibilities.

“Same start every Thursday,” Liam said. “Run, shower, fuck John. Don’t you ever get bored?”

“It’s not the exact same. Sometimes we shower after. And sometimes there’s only time for oral.”

“Ah, well, in that case…”

Fergus smiled again as they passed under the subway station bridge, whose curved green iron struts reminded him of a dragon’s rib cage. Life with John was anything but boring. They had different schedules, different lifestyles, different…well, standards of housekeeping. But they made it work.

On the other side of the bridge, Fergus and Liam climbed the stairs to Great Western Road, where morning traffic was already near a standstill. As they reached the top, Fergus felt a tug on his hood.

“It’s stopped raining for two minutes,” Liam said. “Gonnae let’s enjoy it.”

Fergus pushed back his hood, prompting a coo from a trio of passing university-age girls. “Look, Mara,” said the tall one. “There’s your ginger sandwich.” The other two laughed, one of them hiding her face behind her bag.

“Sorry, doll, we’re taken.” Liam slung an arm around Fergus’s shoulders, ruffling his hair. “With each other.” He pressed his own fair-skinned, freckled face against Fergus’s, then gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek.

The lasses laughed again, one of them uttering, “Tragic,” on their way into the coffee shop.

The Number 6 Bus approached with a wheeze of its engine. “There’s my chariot.” Liam patted Fergus on the arse. “See you Saturday.”

“Thanks for the protection!” Fergus called after him. He wasn’t joking—it was dangerous for a solitary person (even a man) to run through Glasgow (even the West End) when it was dark out.

Ten minutes later, Fergus opened his flat’s front door and paused just inside to listen. Sure enough, the shower was running.

On his way to the kitchen for a quick drink, Fergus was dismayed to see John’s laptop, notebooks, and coffee mug on the floor at the far end of the L-shaped sofa, where he’d apparently sat tucked up against the wall in his latest attempt to find refuge.

He sighed, knowing John was still struggling to study comfortably in this flat. When he’d lived at home with his father, John had had his own room, with a door to shut out distractions. Though Fergus did his best to give John the peace and privacy he needed to focus, there was only so much he could do without disappearing entirely.

After checking they were in fact alone in the flat, Fergus knocked on the bathroom door.

“Who is it?” sang John’s deep, sonorous voice, slightly garbled by water.

Fergus slid inside the bathroom, blinking at the onrush of steam. “Good morning.”

John pushed open the shower stall door. “It will be.”

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