Page 130 of Good Losers (Lochkelvin Academy)

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One of the most heart-stopping moments of the gig is when Conor refers to the “royalty row”. It seems to be something that’s been downplayed across the pond, perhaps with the kind of hearty, republican amusement that being American typically brings to the topic of the British monarchy. It’s the kind of blasé attitude I carried when I arrived here, before I met Luke and the chiefs, before I saw with my own eyes how serious, how tribal, things could become in under a year.

“I’m telling you, I did not expect that,” Conor remarks in a tone of wonder. “It’d’ve been less surprising if they’d turned out to be lizards, right?”

Everyone laughs, but it feels too close to home, too personal, to join in with anything more than a mere smile. Poor Luke. The enormity of it all falls on me suddenly, the weight of knowing that I’m the only person in this massive, thousand-seater auditorium who’s witnessed his abdication video. The pains it took for him to record it.

At the end of the show, everyone’s on their feet, whooping and cheering and wolf-whistling, as if one of them will be loud enough to make Conor stop, turn around, and agree to marry the whistler on the spot.

“No’ bad,” Finlay says grudgingly, in an attempt to play it cool. I roll my eyes with a smile.

He plays it much cooler than the girls behind us, who breathlessly exclaim and gasp, “Oh my God,” while sounding as though they need a large fan and a long, cold drink of water. “His girlfriend’ssofucking lucky, I swear to God. I’msojealous.” After a beat, she adds, “That lassie must have some magical fucking vagina to be shagging them all.”

Behind me, Finlay almost chokes.

“D’you think she has them one a night?” one of the girls asks with deep philosophical pondering as she tries to work out the logistics of another’s relationship. “Or do you think,” she asks, daring to mention the thought currently flitting through everyone’s head, “they’re, like,alltogether?”

Finlay raises an eyebrow at me, suddenly looking more interested than he has all evening.

“I dunno. They’ve been together for years. They must have some kind of arrangement.”

“Poor Adam,” another sighs mournfully, and I can’t help but roll my eyes. “She’s such a cow for what she did to him, breaking his wee heart like that.”

“I know, it’s a pure shame, so it is. Mad bitch will take them all but not him? What the fuck is her problem — I mean, is she fuckingblind?”

It takes effort to refrain from pointing out that just moments ago they’d been implying Conor’s girlfriend was some kind of slut, and then rapidly altering it to bitch the instant she refused to center a man’s feelings in her life. Clearly the ghost of feminist T-shirts still possesses me.

Eventually, they file away into the massive crowd. When Finlay and I reach the outside world, the sky is coal-black with pinpricks of the brightest stars and planets, the cloud of the city’s pollution concealing the dimmest twinkles.

Finlay thrusts his hands into his pockets with a meditative frown. “I played wi’ Adam,” he informs me, and the idea of it, something about this particular phrasing, makes me blink hard several times.

“What?”

“Adam. Adam Tyndall. Played wi’ him — okay, was his warm-up act — at the Barrowlands.” And I remember this nugget as though it were yesterday. This surprising throwaway line, divulged when Baxter had been about to laser me with scorching hatred on the night of Operation Strike First, when everything,everything, fell apart. It’d been a shred of information that had alienated me from Finlay in a heartbeat, a cavern stretching widely between us. That I’d been merely a fangirl, a cheerleader, admiring a singer from afar, but Finlay, through his connections and privilege, had received instant, personal access.

Finlay pauses, reminiscing. “Good gig. Nice guy. He didnae speak tae me much,” he adds with an honesty that would never have happened a year ago, when he’d done nothing to change the assumption that he’d been BFFs with Adam freaking Tyndall. “Got the impression he didnae like the others. Said his bandmates were all smug, stuck-up jackasses.” He waits a beat before mentioning, with a touch of humor, “Was drunk aff his tits, though.”

“I think it depends whose side of the story you believe.” I say this in the most neutral tone I can manage, trying to act like before Lochkelvin I hadn’t perused frothy gossip blogs on all the Royal Element fall-out with wide, hungry eyes. I can’t help it. I grew up with their music, and the band’s break-up broke up part of me. But the tone of their public break-up had remained stubbornly acrimonious from Adam and utterly nonexistent from the other side; no matter how much mud he slung, they would never, ever retaliate.

“So this guy Conor’s girlfriend,” Finlay says, almost hesitantly, “she’s like in a relationship wi’… everyone in the band?”

“Yeah.” I pause and then add quickly, to disguise my almost longing tone, “Mad, right?”

But Finlay doesn’t say anything, his expression contemplative as he walks beside me. He’s like that the whole way back, barely even giving the bulging Antiro crowd a second glance as they thrust their crowbars in the air with a cheer.

As we approach the sandstone blocks that indicate our street, Finlay finally murmurs, so quiet I barely hear it, “No,” adding, in an even quieter voice, “I didnae think it’s mad at all.”

* * *

When I enter the living room, Danny’s hard at work filling his oversized backpack and mumbling to himself, a hand tugging his light brown hair as he does a swift scan of the room to track down items. On the sofa, looking like he hasn’t moved at all since we last saw him, is Rory, earphones in and turning a page of his book.

“Searching for something?”

Danny gives me a weak smile when he notices me. Rory glances up at me in the doorway and then, seeing me in conversation with Danny, returns resolutely to his book.

“Just packing for Lochkelvin.” He sounds grim about it. “I have so much junk in my bag… I don’t know how I’m ever gonna fit all my books and uniform.”

I haven’t really thought about it, returning to Lochkelvin, but all of a sudden I’m filled with wave after wave of something akin to grief. I don’t want this summer to end — this tentative shared thing I’ve developed with the chiefs and Danny, that we’ve developed among ourselves. It’s domestic and cozy and for once in my life, without bullies or gremlins holding me back, I’ve been free to just be me.

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