Playing for Keeps (Glasgow Lads Book 2) (34 page)

John updated him on the situation at home between their parents. Then they spent the rest of the forty-five-minute visit discussing Brazil’s colossal 7-1 collapse against Germany in the World Cup semifinals, along with Rangers’ dismal prospects for the upcoming season.

When the guard at the door called “Two minutes!”, pointing at the dusty clock on the wall, Keith gave John a grim smile.

“Feels like you just got here,” he said. “You know, if you and this Fergus lad ever get back together, you should bring him along some time. I’d like to meet him.”

John felt an ache in his chest that had nothing to do with his broken rib. “I’d like that too.”

A few minutes later, John walked out into the rain-drenched prison car park. Hunching his shoulders against the downpour, he reached into his pocket to power up his phone. When it chirped with a voice-mail notification, he stopped in his tracks.

Gonnae no get your hopes up,
he told himself.
It’s probably just Mum reminding you to buy cat food.

John pulled out the phone to see a missed call from Fergus. Heart pounding, he retrieved the message, raising the volume above the hammering rain.

“It’s me,” Fergus said. “Obviously. So…Andrew brought me the shirt.” He let out a deep breath, the sound of which twisted John’s gut. “If it’s not too late, I’d like to talk.”

F
ERGUS
PAUSED
OUTSIDE
the low, wrought-iron gate a few feet from John’s front door. Though it had no lock and therefore no actual deterrent properties, he found it strangely forbidding. Or perhaps he was simply terrified to see John in his natural habitat.

Something moved in the corner of his left eye, the swish of a curtain behind a bay window.

Brilliant.
Had John seen him standing there, afraid to even knock? Fergus hurried through the gate, whose piercing creak seemed to echo in his own spine.

John swung open the front door. “Hi.” His left eye bore a fading green bruise, and his lower lip was slightly swollen.

The sight of John’s injuries sent a spike of regret through Fergus’s chest. His mouth opened, but no words managed to get out.

John ushered him in. “Dad’s not here, thank God,” he said in a low voice. “Off to the pub to celebrate the Twelfth.”

The Twelfth, right. The highest holiday for Irish Protestants and their Scottish allies.
 

Fergus stepped inside, pausing to let his eyes adjust from the bright sunlight. In front of him, the staircase jutted into the foyer’s cramped space, and when he looked up, the odd slant of the high ceiling made his balance waver, like he was seeing the house from inside a goldfish bowl.

Searching for something to compliment, he noticed an old-fashioned portrait of a young woman, set in a gilded frame, holding a place of honor on the foyer wall. “Is that your gran?” he asked, stepping closer to examine it. “She’s lovel—oh.”

It was, in fact, the Queen of England.

“Welcome to Proddyland.” John nudged the corner of Her Majesty’s frame. “We’re living the cliché.”

“Fergus, how lovely to see you again!” John’s mother appeared from the living room wearing a periwinkle sundress. “I was just about to put the kettle on. Would you lads care for tea?”

“Thanks, Mum, but it’s definitely beer weather today.” John looked up at Fergus. “Aye?”

“Sure, thanks.”

“I’ll fetch them. You go on up. My room’s at the top of the stairs beside the loo.”

Fergus gave John’s mother an awkward smile, then climbed the groaning wooden steps, wondering why John had sent him up alone.

As soon as he stepped into the bedroom, he understood. John couldn’t bear to see Fergus’s reaction.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

Covering John’s bed was a Glasgow Rangers fleece blanket. It was just like his own Celtic one, but older, its edges frayed, its colors faded. The threads near the center were pulled up in tufts, probably by the claws of a kneading cat.

Above the desk hung a Rangers wall calendar, and over the chest of drawers, a framed photo of the 2011 team posing with the Scottish League Cup. Fergus frowned at the scoreline displayed at the bottom: Celtic 1, Rangers 2. He still remembered Jelavic’s off-the-post, surreally spinning extra-time goal like it was yesterday.

The top of the chest held mostly pocket detritus—scattered pens, coins, and crumpled receipts—but at the center sat a tri-fold silver picture frame. The photos it contained broke his heart. All were of John and his family at Orange Walks.

In one, he was just a boy, skipping alongside the marchers, wearing a dark-blue T-shirt and a tiny three-pointed hat. In another, he was a chubby, nervous-looking preteen, wearing some sort of scouty-looking uniform, dark blue with red trim.

The center photo could have been from a year or two ago. In it, John the grown man wore the full marcher’s regalia Fergus had seen a week ago—dark-blue suit, white gloves, and orange sash—and his eyes held no emotion at all.

“Not a pretty picture, is it?”

Fergus turned to see John lingering at the doorway, seemingly afraid to step into his own room. “You could’ve hidden all this before I came.”

“Don’t think I wasn’t tempted. But I wanted you to see the real me, warts and all.” John shut the door, then handed Fergus a bottle of Tennent’s, holding it by the neck so their hands wouldn’t brush. He moved to the other side of the chest of drawers and slid a finger along the top edge of the tri-fold frame. It came up covered in dust. “As you can see, I don’t reevaluate my decor on a regular basis.”

“What about this?” Fergus pointed to the wall calendar. “Or that blanket?”

“That’s different.” John sat on the bed. “I love Rangers very, very much. Feels good to be able to own it.” He caressed the fleece in a way that made Fergus ache. He longed to feel those fingers against his skin again.

But anger flared up inside him now, remembering what John had told him that night in his bedroom.
I’m not much of a football fan.
The first of so many lies.

John lifted his bottle to take a sip, then winced and put a hand to his left side.

“What’s wrong?” Fergus asked him.

“Just this broken rib. It goes hours without hurting and then—”

“You broke a rib?!”

“Technically, someone else broke it. I think the big yin kicked me after I fell on the subway platform. It was all a bit of a blur by that point.”

A wave of shame washed over Fergus. “I can’t believe I left you there.”

John shrugged. “If you’d stayed, we’d both have been hurt. Besides, I can handle myself. Streetfighting’s like football—when you’re outmatched, a draw’s as good as a win.” He lifted his beer again, more slowly this time, and took a sip. “Talking of football, I heard the prodigal midfielder has returned.”

“Ah. Yes. Evan.” Fergus slid his free hand into the front pocket of his jeans, then pulled it out when he realized how fake-casual it looked. “He has.”

“And how’s that going?”

“Even more poorly than one might expect.”

John brightened. “Really?” Then he glanced away. “I mean, sorry to hear that.” He rocked his feet against the scuffed hardwood floor. “So you and him…you’re not…”

“Together again? God, no. He wanted to, but I’m—”
Still completely in love with you.
“I’m too busy for drama just now.”

John gave him a quizzical look, which he deserved. Fergus was quickly losing the ability to make sense, or the ability to pull his gaze from John’s swollen lower lip. He wanted to kiss it, heal it—and heal the rift between them. But first he needed answers.

“So, the Orange Order?”

John sighed and shook his head. “I quit Sunday, like I told you in my messages. But aye, I joined when I was eighteen.” He got up, set his beer on the floor, then took a framed photo from his wall and showed it to Fergus. “Don’t I look pure thrilled?”

In the picture, a somber-eyed John was flanked by two older men. “Is one of them your dad?”

“On the left. The other gent is our lodge’s Worshipful Master, Ian Graham.”

Ian of the secret phone call that started it all. Of course.

“What was that like?” he asked John. “Your initiation.”

“I cannae tell you much, because it’s a secret, and also you’d die of boredom.” He set the photo face-down on his desk instead of rehanging it. “I took vows I knew I’d never keep. Like not to use obscenities. Who never uses fucking obscenities? Then there were the religious bits. I don’t go to church any more often than you go to Mass. I’m not sure what I believe, but whatever it is cannae be found inside four walls and a two-thousand-year-old book.”

“Then why do it? Did your father and brother force you?”

“I’d love to blame them, or at least say I did it to please them. Which, of course, was part of it.” John gathered the dusty photos from atop his chest of drawers, then set them beside the one on his desk. “But ultimately, I did it for myself.”

“Because you hate the Pope?”

John snorted. “I don’t hate the Pope, especially not this one. He seems rather a nice fellow.” He lifted his gaze to the window, through which Fergus could see weedy gardens and a rubbish-strewn vacant lot. “I joined the Order because I knew I’d never be afraid to walk these streets again. There were a hundred brothers looking out for me—and me for them. If I was an Orangeman, no one would dare punch me or kick me, or shove me into the pavement and call me a bufty. Because I was important. I belonged.”

Fergus’s chest burned with rage, at a world that made John feel he had to join a hate group like the Orange Order just to feel safe. Like it was some sort of street gang or even the Mafia.

“Of course I didn’t truly belong in the Order,” John said, “since I didn’t support what they stood for. Problem was, I never knew where I
did
belong.” John turned to Fergus. “Until I met you.”

Fergus took a step nearer, swallowing the lump rising in his throat. He wanted to reach out and pull John so close that he’d never again doubt where he belonged.

“And that day,” John continued, his eyes filling with tears, “when I saw you in the crowd at the march, when I saw the hate and the hurt on your face and knew that I’d put that pain there…I wanted to die. I wanted to throw my own self in front of that subway train, to wipe the memory from my mind.” He raised his trembling hands to his head and dug his fingers into his hair. “It’s still there, Fergus. I don’t know how to erase it. Tell me how to erase it!”

Fergus could think of only one answer, one way to purge the agony from John’s voice and face. He stepped forward and kissed him.

John yelped and jerked away, touching his swollen lip.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” Fergus put his hands up. “I forgot about your—”

“I don’t care.” John grasped Fergus’s shirt and pulled him into a kiss, harder than the one before. Then he drew them back until they tumbled onto the bed together. John hissed in pain at the impact but tugged Fergus closer so they were lying chest to chest.

“Doesn’t this hurt?” Fergus asked, though he didn’t pull away.

“A little, but the doctor said I should lie on my injured side. Easier to breathe that way.” He slid his palm up Fergus’s chest. “Not that it’s ever easy to breathe in your arms.”

“I really don’t want to hurt you.”

“Shh.” John pressed his fingers to Fergus’s lips. “The only thing that can hurt me now is you leaving.”

With a moan, Fergus sank into the next kiss, letting it obliterate his doubts. He kept his own mouth soft to avoid causing pain, astonished at the trust John was showing by putting his bruised, battered self into Fergus’s hands.

If only they could trust each other with more than their bodies.

He stopped thinking then, and simply felt John’s muscular back beneath his palm, simply tasted John’s tongue sweeping against his, simply listened to John’s sighs and the rustle of cotton as their clothes shifted together.
How have I lived without this?

John’s mouth moved to his neck, nipping in a way that made Fergus shiver. Through slitted eyes he gazed at the bedroom wall. Slowly his vision focused on the empty nail protruding from the peeling, old-fashioned white-and-gold wallpaper. The nail that had once held the photo of John’s Orange Order initiation.

Fergus turned his head away, and John moved to kiss the other side of his neck. Now Fergus could see the dust motes floating in the sunlight between the bed and the window. Dust that had once lain atop the photos of John’s Orange Walks.

Suddenly Fergus was eight years old again, standing outside his church after Sunday Mass, watching Father Donahue comfort his parishioners even as his own wrinkled, careworn face flooded with tears. The news had just come over from Northern Ireland about the three Quinn boys—eight, nine, and ten years old—who’d burned to death in their own home. When Fergus had asked his da why the Quinns’ house had been set afire, he’d said,
Because the Prods were angry they couldn’t march down Catholic streets.

It was exactly sixteen years ago today, on the “Glorious Twelfth,” as John’s people called it.

“What’s wrong?”

Fergus tore his gaze from the dancing dust and looked at John. “Hm?”

“You’ve gone all cold and tense. Is it the fact my mum’s downstairs? We could go to yours. Whatever you want.” He looked so eager, so happy.

“No.” Fergus dropped his hands from John. “I don’t know what I want.”

John shifted away, wincing, then gave a short, cough-like laugh. “Was it the Rangers blanket turned you off? Are we even now?”

“No!” Fergus rolled off the bed, nearly stumbling into the wall. “It’s not that.” He straightened his shirt, wiping his neck dry of John’s kisses. “I’m not like that. I’m not—”

“Like me?” John asked, his voice suddenly sharp. “Not a bigot, you mean? Not ‘Proddy scum’?”

Fergus covered his burning face. “I’m sorry I called you that.”

“Is that how you see me? Tell the truth.”

“Of course not, I—”

“Look at me when you say it!”