Playing to Win (22 page)

Seeing John and Colin together made Andrew realize how similar and different they were, and why he liked the one but craved the other. They both had that magnetic charisma that drew people to them automatically. They were both fueled by a burning desire to change the world. But John, like Andrew, had a politician’s sixth sense of when to pull back, when to turn on the charm to avoid insult. Colin simply pushed, and pushed, and pushed. It drove Andrew mad in every possible way.

Colin brought this intensity to their daily workouts at Andrew’s gym, where they shared fitness tips and competed in all areas (except swimming, which Colin inexplicably claimed was bad for his knee). Colin won on leg, shoulder, and arm strength, as well as overall stamina, while Andrew annihilated him in flexibility, balance, and ab strength. But Colin gamely attempted every yoga position Andrew taught him, even the advanced ones, and he never gave up until he succeeded.

Of course, they always saved energy for the bedroom—and the living room, and the kitchen. They fucked on every horizontal surface in Andrew’s flat, as well as several of the vertical ones. And they always left the living-room blinds open, in contempt of Andrew’s rock-hurling stalker (who’d been silent since that night).

Yet they never cuddled, not while watching a film on the couch, nor lying together in bed before Colin went home to his family each night. Andrew began to long for the soothing simplicity of a casual caress. But every time they touched, that unquenchable fire would spark to life again, and the only thing to do was let it burn itself out, in sweat and cum and screams.

“I’m so excited,” Colin said now, for the forty-seventh time. “So. Fucking. Excited.”

“I know.” Andrew marked the Skymall catalog’s page with his finger and flipped to the next section. From the corner of his eye he saw Colin’s face plastered against the 757’s window, watching the North Atlantic drift by beneath scattered clouds.

“I’ve never been in an aeroplane before.”

“Really?” This grabbed Andrew’s attention from the selection of cheesy novelty items. “Were you frightened at takeoff?”

“No.” Colin’s eyes widened. “Should I have been?”

“Most people are nervous their first time. They fixate on airline disasters.”

“That’s daft. Statistically speaking, planes almost never crash. You’re more likely to be killed in a dog attack during an earthquake while simultaneously being struck by lightning.”

Andrew smiled as he turned back to the catalog. He adored Colin’s geeky fascination and adeptness with numbers, juxtaposed with his muscles and tattoos. Also, he was thrilled to make Colin’s air-travel debut a worthy one—in the first-class section, of course.

“What’s that magazine you’re so obsessed with?” Colin asked.

“The Skymall catalog is the only upside to flying an American airline. I choose the most outrageously tasteless item and have it sent to my m—to my parents.” Since the departure of Colin’s mum, Andrew avoided mentioning his somewhat close, mostly harmonious relationship with his own mother. “I once bought them this.” He showed Colin the “King Tut’s Egyptian Throne,” costing $999.00. “But they wouldn’t be amused by that sort of spending these days. So I’m trying to decide between the ‘Macedonian Battle Helmet’…” He displayed the page he’d marked.

“Looks authentic.”

“Mm-hm. Or this.” He flipped forward to the garden section.

Colin tilted his head. “A Chewbacca statue?”

“It’s a yeti, you philistine. A representation of Bigfoot is precisely what Dunleven’s carefully groomed rose garden requires.”

“Seems a bargain at a hundred twenty-five dollars.” For once, Colin’s voice held no discernible edge when he spoke of money. Perhaps he was going to rein in his anxieties and resentments for one weekend.

“That’s sorted, then.” Andrew tucked the catalog into his rucksack beneath the seat in front of him. “By the way, I fetched your kilt from the tailor yesterday. It’s in my wardrobe bag, along with my own.”

“We’re wearing them in New York?”

“Of course. Americans love kilts. We’ll have that city eating out of our hands in seconds flat.”

Colin leaned his elbow on their shared arm rest and put his chin on his hand. “Can we fuck in our kilts?” he asked in a low, sonorous voice.

Andrew’s cock stirred at the thought. “Anything you want.” He kissed the tip of Colin’s nose. “It’s your birthday.”

“Yaldy!” Colin tapped the insteps of his feet together like hands clapping. Then he started singing will.i.am and Cody Wise’s “It’s My Birthday,” loudly enough that the couple across the aisle looked their way.

Andrew shrugged at them. “It’s his birthday.”

“Wait,” Colin said. “I’ll do the whole song, but pure quiet.” He put in his earphones, thumbed through his phone’s MP3 player, then tapped the screen. A moment later, his face went hyperanimated, and he began dancing in his seat, shoulders shimmying, fingers spread in hip-hop configuration.

When Colin lip-synched the lyrics in an exaggerated fashion, mouth wide and eyebrows popping, Andrew started laughing and couldn’t stop. But Colin kept a straight face, waving a dollar bill and throwing his hands in the air at the appropriate moments.

After the first chorus, Colin grabbed Andrew’s hand, and they danced together in their seats. Colin’s silent serenade and the freedom in his eyes told Andrew they were going to have the time of their lives tonight. Like the song said, the world didn’t matter. Their problems didn’t matter. Colin was going to live his fantasy.

= = =

“That was fucking immense!” Colin’s voice got lost in the bustle of Broadway. “The music, the choreography, the story, everything.” He spread his arms at Times Square’s bright-as-day radiance. “This
place
is immense!”

Stepping off the curb to hail a taxi, Andrew looked smug as ever. “Aren’t you glad you said yes?” he asked Colin.

“Oh aye.” Mouth hanging open like an eejit, Colin devoured his surroundings with all his senses, hoping the city’s blare and shine and reek would distract him from his emotions.

As they climbed into a taxi—a real New York City yellow cab!—songs from
American Idiot
were still pumping through Colin’s mind. There’d been a few moments during the musical when he thought he’d lose it, thinking of Uncle James, who’d signed his last letter from Iraq “Saint Jimmy,” after the character in the
American Idiot
album. James would have loved this show.

Now here Colin was, in the heart of the country that had started the war, pretending to have the night of his life. Andrew had been so generous in bringing him, Colin couldn’t ruin it by having a massive greet in the middle of Manhattan.
No tears
, he told himself.
No fucking tears.

It really was that easy to stop himself crying. Years of practice.

“Whoa…” He gaped at the wee TV attached to the barrier between the taxi’s front and back seats. Its screen was currently dark, but it came alive when he pushed the power button. “Oh my God!”

“What’s wrong?” Andrew glanced up from his phone, which was illuminating his face with a soft glow.

“It’s a television.” Colin petted the screen. “In a taxi.”

Andrew looked like he was trying not to laugh. “Pretty cool, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Colin watched as the NBC news clip switched to an advert. “And look, here’s a credit-card machine on the side. You use that to pay fares?”

“Yes, or even to buy the stuff in the ads as they come on.”

“Oh.” Colin shut off the TV and sat back on the black vinyl seat. “That’s a bit creepy.”

Through the window he watched the city whiz by—or crawl by, when traffic was heavy. Colin still couldn’t believe he was actually here. He’d thought for sure he’d do something to fuck this up, that Andrew would to come to his senses and see that this was too generous a gift.

Colin remembered his extravagant birthday presents of the past—the bicycle, the roller blades, the X-box 360—all bought by his mother in a state of mania. Each one got returned the next day, when Mum would realize the family couldn’t afford it. “Look what you made me do!” she’d shriek at Colin, tears flooding her cheeks. “Now we can’t pay the electric!”

Traffic brought them to another standstill beside a small grassy area with trees and a wee fountain. Sitting on a bench near the edge of the park was a thirty-ish woman with long scraggly blond hair. Though the night was hot and humid, she wore fingerless gloves on her hands, which were currently wrapped around an empty vodka bottle. A worn army-green rucksack rested on the bench beside her.

Colin watched the apparently homeless woman tap the lip of the open bottle against her chin in a quick, steady rhythm as her knees bobbed up and down in double time. Even from within the taxi, he could feel restless energy streaming off of her. Perhaps the vodka had temporarily tamed it, kept what looked like a manic episode from boiling over. For now.

He turned his face forward as the cab inched ahead, and he didn’t glance back. Though the woman looked nothing like his mother, he couldn’t help thinking of last Saturday, when in his panic he’d pictured Mum wandering the streets of North Glasgow, lost and alone.

“How’s the kilt now?” Andrew asked him. “You comfortable?”

Colin looked over at Andrew’s serene face, then down at his bare knees. The sight of those beautiful legs beneath his kilt snapped him back to the present. He lifted his chin and answered Andrew’s question with a brilliant smile.

This
is my birthday now, and it’ll more than make up for last week’s shite one.

He reminded himself to keep a vigilant watch out for anyone who seemed to be following them or overly interested in Andrew for any reason besides the obvious (that he was gorgeous). Reggie the bodyguard had briefed Colin on what to look for as he’d driven them to the airport this morning. Andrew swore that he felt safer here than back in the UK—“No one in the States cares about the independence referendum”—and that any stalker obsessed enough to follow him to New York was too formidable to be stopped by a mere footballer, “strapping and intense though he may be” (Andrew’s words).

It unnerved Colin that Reggie still didn’t know about the FASCIST FAGGOT rock. If Andrew’s safety were compromised on his account, Colin would never forgive himself.

They finally reached the Tribeca district in Lower Manhattan, where the cab dropped them off at Andrew’s current favorite club. The bouncer greeted him like an old friend and unhooked the red velvet rope to let them by. As Andrew and the bouncer chatted for a moment outside the entrance, Colin looked over his shoulder at the enormous queue of men waiting to enter.

He expected glares and pelters from the resentful crowd, but instead he saw gazes of naked hunger sweeping down his body, lingering on the hem of his kilt.

“Hiya,” he said to them. “Sorry about, ye know…” He gestured to Andrew. “I dinnae mind queuing mysel’, but this yin’s not keen to wait for any’hing.”

They grinned at him, eyes glazing over, like those of that woman at the hotel’s front desk. And the woman who sold him sweets at the theater. And the—oh.

Fucking hell, it’s the accent.

American tourists who visited Glasgow never ventured out to Drumchapel, or to amateur football matches. The one Yank woman Colin knew, Katie, was a lesbian, and he’d never met a gay American man.

So no one had ever looked at him like these lads were now, like he was a mind-blowing, magical creature. Like he was a unicorn.

He smiled back, and an audible sigh ran through the crowd.

Andrew spoke low in his ear. “Plenty more of that inside.”

“Bye for now!” Colin waved at the lads as he backed away, admiring their admiration of him.

The club was enormous, and pulsing with so much energy Colin thought he’d pop out of his skin.

“Come here.” Andrew led him to the railing overlooking the main dance floor. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

“Yeah, they’re so…tan.” Colin watched the masses of sweaty young men, their bodies undulating and grinding with abandon. He loved the gay clubs in Glasgow for their lack of pretension, but for one night, it was exhilarating being surrounded by the prettiest of the pretty.

Colin sidled close to Andrew and ran a hand up over his nape into his hair. “Not as beautiful as you, though.” He couldn’t wait to drag this man onto the dance floor, plaster their bodies together with sweat and rhythm, then take him back to their hotel room for a blistering, double-kilted fuckfest.

“You may be right,” Andrew said with a laugh. “But you can have me any time.”

“I don’t follow.”

“You saw how those lads outside looked at you, right?” When Colin nodded, Andrew said, “I’ll wager that any of them would cut off an arm to spend one night with us.”

Waves of heat and cold swept over Colin’s head, then down his back. Was Andrew suggesting they each find new…companions? Was he already bored?

Colin chose his words carefully. “When you say ‘us’—”

“I mean us together, not separately.” Andrew reached out and straightened Colin’s shirt at the shoulder. “I’m not daft enough to let you out of my sight with someone else.”

Colin felt only slightly relieved. “So you mean a threesome?”

“Probably.”

“Probably?”

“Three is easier to manage.” Andrew leaned close to be heard over the music. “Foursomes tend to degenerate into a pair of twosomes, which defeats the whole purpose, really.”

Colin pulled back and stared at him, wondering if Andrew were having him on. If so, and he said yes, would he hurt Andrew’s feelings? But if he said no and Andrew wasn’t kidding, Colin would look a prude—or worse, a coward.

“That night in Edinburgh you told me it was a fantasy of yours,” Andrew said. “As it’s your birthday, and we’re in a city of strangers we’ll never see again…” He tilted his head and gave that soft, irresistible smile.

It was true Colin had always dreamed of having two men at once. He’d seen enough porn to know that three mouths, three cocks, three arses, and six hands made for endlessly hot possibilities. And though he’d never admit it to Andrew, Colin rather missed being topped, letting someone else do all the work while he just lay back and enjoyed the ride.