Playing With Fire (Glasgow Lads Book 3) (2 page)

A buzzer sounded again. “Sorry.” John held up the card. “It says here Robert’s greatest fear is scoring an own-goal.”

Liam nudged his mate, ignoring his edict to stop interrupting the video. “Good answer. Wish I’d thought of it.”

In fact, Liam’s biggest fear—the great mole rat notwithstanding—was that Robert would someday outgrow him as he found more clever and sophisticated friends. Yet despite making loads of new mates during his first three and a half years at Glasgow Uni in the city’s posh West End, Robert still found time every week to see Liam—aside from football. He often even ventured back to their home district of Shettleston to visit Liam’s big, loud family.

John posed the next question. “Liam, what would Robert say is your most annoying habit?”

The video froze, a gray circle rotating in the center.

“I thought that might happen.” Robert switched his coffee cup to his phone hand. “Too many people around us uploading photos and all.” He thrust his other hand inside his battered black-leather jacket, then quickly pulled it out again. “Och, I’m still reaching for cigarettes that aren’t there.”

“Hard to quit a seven-year habit in two months.”

“Not for some people,” Robert said bitterly.

“Just cos I’m not moaning about it on an hourly basis doesn’t mean I don’t miss smoking.” Liam bounced on his toes to the dance music blaring from the park’s speakers. “But you’re right, I don’t really do addictions. Aside from your video games, of course—especially the one you made for me.” When Robert continued to scowl, Liam yanked out his own earphone. “Okay, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Robert replied, with a swiftness that said he’d anticipated the question. “I’m just tired, is all. Late nights studying this week.”

“I’ve seen you tired, and this isn’t it.” Liam took a step forward, trapping Robert between himself and the topiary Clyde. “I wanted to wait until our camping trip at the weekend to have this out. But you’ll probably cancel that, seeing as you don’t even want to be near me.”

Robert gaped at him. “Not want to—where are you getting that?”

“From you, ya big knob. I’ve known you fifteen years. I can read you like a picture book. And right now your book reads ‘Fuck Off’ in giant pop-up letters.”

Robert gave a heavy sigh. “Right. I’m sorry.” He shut off his phone and put it away, letting the earphone wires dangle from his pocket. “I just…” He twisted his coffee cup’s cardboard sleeve back and forth, his brows lowered, jaw twitching.

Knowing Robert’s silence often meant he was searching for the right words, Liam kept his own gob shut and tucked into the chips and gravy again. They’d grown cold and gooey, but he couldn’t afford to waste food. As he ate, he stared up at Clyde’s giant cartoon eyes, which gleamed spooky-white in the park’s floodlights.

Finally Robert said, “It’s not you. It’s me.” He gave a frustrated head shake. “No, it
is
you, sort of, but not in a bad way. It’s nothing you’ve done wrong.” He lifted his eyes to meet Liam’s.

And there it was, that same warmth between them, the warmth that sustained them through good times and bad. But now that warmth felt strangely like…heat. It sent a shiver straight to the base of Liam’s spine. For a moment he was paralyzed by Robert’s earnest, midnight-blue gaze as it sparked inexplicable feelings inside him.

“Oi, lads!” came John’s voice, this time in real life. “Thought we’d never get here.”

Liam ripped his eyes from Robert and turned to greet John and his boyfriend—Warriors captain and Liam’s close friend, Fergus Taylor.

“Sorry we’re late,” Fergus said as they all moved out of the circle onto the grass. “Traffic was awful. It would’ve been quicker to walk than take the bus.”

“Speak for yourself, stamina man.” John held up a pair of plastic shopping bags. “I brought gifts for you big beautiful center-backs. Warriors calendars, hot off the press.”

“Yaaas!” Liam grabbed them and handed one to Robert. “Let’s see what month we’re in.” Since everyone considered them an inseparable unit, they’d been photographed together instead of singly.

“You two are April,” Fergus said. “I think you’ll fancy it. I know the fans will.”

Liam set down his chips and gravy, then flipped the calendar pages until he found the right month. “Wow.” He blinked at the photo of him and Robert standing back to back, arms crossed, biceps bulging. Shirtless and mud-spattered, they gave the camera a pair of beastly glares.

“‘Wow’ is right,” John said. “It’s a shipper’s wet dream. We’ll sell a million calendars for that pic alone.”

Liam’s gaze lingered on the place where the bare skin of his shoulder met Robert’s. “What’s a shipper?” he asked John.

“A fan who imagines a romance between two characters—or in your case, real people—who don’t actually have one. They ‘ship’ you guys.”

“Stop the bus! Really?” Liam turned to grin at Robert. “Rab, did you hear tha—” His smile faded when he saw his best mate staring at the calendar page, face twisted like the sight was making him sick. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Robert flipped through the calendar. “I never realized how naked we’d all be.”

“
Half
-naked.” Liam paged back to January. “Look, here’s Fergus with his top on. Just like the women.”

“Some of my shots were shirtless.” Fergus gave a self-effacing smirk. “I’m a little hurt they didn’t choose one of those.”

“You’re the captain,” John said. “You need to look authoritative. Besides, you don’t need to go taps aff to be gorgeous.” He shot a quick glance at Liam and Robert. “Not that you two do.”

“I need all the help I can get,” Liam said. “Maybe this calendar’ll get me a few dates.”

Robert snorted. “As if you’re ever lacking in that department.”

“You’re just jealous of my low standards.” Liam turned back to Fergus, shoving his curiosity about Robert to the back of his mind. “Probably best you’ve kept your shirt on, seeing as you’re unavailable.”

“Aye.” Fergus looked at John. “Now more than ever.”

Liam admired Fergus’s calendar photo, which had captured the tall, lean ginger in action, delivering his signature deadly volley. Then he rewound his friend’s words in his head. “What do you mean, ‘now more than ever’?”

“You want to tell them?” Fergus asked John.

“You said you’d tell them.”

“I know, but I’m offering to let you.”

“There’s no need, just—”

“Are you engaged?” Robert blurted.

Liam burst into laughter at the ridiculous notion. “Aye, right. That’d be—” He stopped himself just in time, as he realized no one was laughing with him.

“It’s true,” Fergus said. “We’re getting married.”

“Congratulations!” Robert gave a broad smile for the first time all night.

As his three friends shared hugs and back pats, Liam stood stunned, feeling like he’d just fallen down the rabbit hole. John and Fergus had met in June—what, five months ago? In what possible universe could this be a good idea?

As Fergus turned to him for a hug, Liam managed to paste on a smile. “Congrats, mate,” he said. “This is…huh.”

“We want to marry on the thirty-first of December,” John said. “Are you both free?”

“On Hogmanay?” Liam asked. “Bartenders always work that night.”

“We plan to do it directly after midnight on the thirty-first,” Fergus said, “so it’ll be more like Tuesday night, which you usually have off.” His hopeful eyes met Liam’s. “Also, would you consider being my best lad?”

“Your what?”

“It’s a best man who’s single, like a maid-of-honor versus a matron-of-honor. My brother’s my best man, obviously, but I wanted you to have a place of…significance.” Fergus tugged on the fingers of his gloves. “What do you think?”

I think you’ll regret this. I think I need to throw up.

When Liam saw Robert and John watching them closely, he stammered out an, “I’d be honored.”

“Thank you.” Fergus beamed with what looked like relief.

“That’s the date, then.” John put his phone to his ear. “Mum’ll want to know we’ve confirmed it so she can start planning.”

“Mine too.” Fergus pulled out his phone. “Sorry,” he said to Liam and Robert. “We’ll just be a second.”

As the happy couple began chattering to their mothers, Robert shifted close to Liam and spoke in a low voice. “What the fuck’s wrong with your face?”

= = =

Robert hated to lay into his best mate like this, but sometimes Liam needed help finding the brake pedal on his mouth.

Liam touched his own reddening cheek. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve seen less phony smiles on beauty-pageant contestants,” Robert whispered. “Can’t you at least pretend to be happy for them?”

“Fergus is only twenty-five. John’s twenty-two.”

“Can you imagine either of them with anyone else?”

“That’s my point. They’re a great couple. Why ruin it by getting married?” Liam seemed to choke on the
M
-word.

Robert knew why his mate hated the idea, what with his dad running off when Liam was only four years old, leaving Mrs. Carroll with another baby on the way. “Happy marriages do exist. My parents had one.”

“I know they did, but—” Liam clamped his lips shut, making Robert wonder if he’d been about to suggest the McKenzies hadn’t lived long enough to hate each other.

“Mum, just ring his mother and ask her yourself,” John said. “Okay, bye for now!” He slipped his phone back into his pocket. “She’s freaking out about finding a dress in time. Says she’s petrified of wearing the same color as Fergus’s mum. That’s the word she used—
petrified
—like it’s a zombie wedding.”

“Why midnight on New Year’s Eve?” Robert asked John. “Why not on a weekend?”

“You’re kidding, right?” asked Liam before John could answer. “Even I know that’s the first day gay marriage will be legal in Scotland.”

“Right.” Robert felt a pang of guilt for forgetting the historic occasion. “That’s me being a poor ally,” he joked, even as an uneasy voice inside him said,
You’re not an ally at all.

“Not to quibble, but it’s
same-sex
marriage,” John told Liam, “not gay marriage.”

“What’s the difference?”

“For one thing, they’re not all gay,” John said. “Some are lesbian or trans. And some are bisexual.”

Robert’s neck tingled at the sound of the word, like the syllables were trying to crawl beneath his skin and make themselves at home. He wished like mad for a cigarette, anything to do with his hands to hide his reaction.

Liam opened the remains of their chips and gravy. “But if a lad marries a lad, then that’s it—he’s gay. Or straight, if he marries a woman.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” John said. “Being bisexual’s not something you grow out of.”

“It should be.” Liam swiped the last pair of chips through the congealed gravy. “Obviously I get the whole experimentation-when-you’re-young thing, but at some point it’s like, just find the balls to admit you’re gay.” He shoved the chips in his mouth. “Stop messing with people’s heads.”

A hot wave of dread washed over Robert’s insides. He knew his friend’s prejudice grew more from heartbreaking experience than ignorance, but at moments like this, they felt miles apart.

“Bye, Ma. Love you too.” Fergus tapped his phone screen and looked at Liam. “Did you just say what I think you said? How can you be so biphobic?”

Liam rolled his eyes. “I’m not biphobic, I’m biskeptical. And I just said it’s fine at our age. Do what you want, with whoever you want.” He squeezed shut the polystyrene container, making it squeak. “But then make up your fuckin’ mind.”

Robert turned away, crumpling his empty coffee cup. He wanted to blurt out the truth—
needed
to—but to do it now would be the height of melodrama. This was Fergus and John’s moment, not his. Yet he couldn’t just stand here and listen to Liam rant.

He was on the verge of excusing himself to find the loo when the music in the speakers faded, replaced by the DJ’s voice. “Ladies and gents, it’s time for the countdown!” he shouted. “Are you ready?” A raucous cheer rose from the park in response.

“Fireworks! Fireworks! Fireworks!” chanted a wee lad to their right. He jumped up and down, his green LED shoelaces flashing in the dark. Despite his tension over Liam’s words, Robert felt that familiar shiver of anticipation, accompanied by a nostalgic throat-lump at the memory of Guy Fawkes Nights with Mum and Dad.

The crowd counted down from ten with the DJ. When they reached two, Robert heard a low boom as a trio of rockets shot up into the night sky, trailing smoke from their faintly glowing heads. Right on cue, they burst into fiery showers of blue, red, and white sparkles.

Robert looked over at John and Fergus, their faces seeming to glow with more than fireworks. They were too careful to stand with their arms around each other in public—Glasgow was a gay-friendly city in some ways, but there were still loads of hostile bigots who needed no excuse to prey upon unwary LGBT folk.

At first glance, the two men seemed totally different. John’s head came only to Fergus’s shoulder, and his rollicking Glaswegian patter was a counterpoint to Fergus’s lilting Highland brogue. But they were like one of those salt-and-pepper shaker sets Robert’s gran used to collect, in which the pieces didn’t match but obviously belonged together because they just…fit.

Fergus had taken serious damage when his previous boyfriend, former Warriors captain Evan Hollister, had left him and (temporarily) the team when they needed him most. John himself had broken Fergus’s fragile trust, though his betrayal was more a case of good intentions gone horribly wrong. But they’d overcome these challenges—including the poisonous, sectarian-based rivalry of their favorite football teams, Celtic and Rangers—to be stronger than ever.

If this were a video game, Robert would have cast a protective spell upon Fergus and John, granting them long lives in which to enjoy each other. He would make sure they never left a child alone.

He turned his eyes skyward again as purple and red sparks descended in swirling spirals. As each firework burst, its light reflected off the smoke from its predecessor, providing a background glow like dry ice on a concert stage.

“Och,” Liam said beside him. “So gorgeous.”