Page 4

Chapter 4

Brodie’s soothing effect vanished the moment Duncan stepped onto the Warriors’ practice pitch at Ruchill Park. The team had been stuck in a downward spiral since Evan’s abandonment, their once-solid bond unraveling as their form slid into mediocrity. With each sloppy pass from his teammates, Duncan’s fury grew, until he thought his head would burst into flames.

No one made Duncan rage more than Evan’s ex-boyfriend Fergus. The Warriors vice-captain had become a phantom of himself. His skin’s pallor and the dark circles beneath his eyes showed he was barely eating or sleeping. Tonight Fergus wore what looked like several days’ worth of ginger stubble, which meant he’d not bothered to shave since Saturday’s loss to Drumchapel.

Because of his skills and experience, Fergus had been moved up into Evan’s attacking midfielder position, which Duncan thought a huge mistake. As the Warriors defending midfielder, Fergus’s calm, analytical nature had made the team hard to beat. No one read an oncoming attack like Fergus. With precisely timed interceptions and tackles, he’d disrupt plays before opponents could even dream of shooting for goal. He’d kept the team so organized on the pitch, they seemed to share one collective brain.

Fergus was the one their adversaries had feared most, the one they’d fought to neutralize. In many ways, he’d been the team’s true leader.

But no longer. He refused to become the new Warriors captain, despite the urgings of their manager. He’d stopped offering his wise insights at team meetings. To Duncan, Fergus seemed to be fading away from football, and perhaps from the rest of the world as well.

Sprinting down the pitch near the end of practice—toward what should have been an easy score—Duncan pulled up short, stymied by yet another half-hearted pass from Fergus that went far behind him and out of play.

As the other side prepared to throw in the ball, Duncan darted over to the midfielder, utterly fed up. “What the hell’s your problem, mate?”

Fergus turned away, rubbing his eye. “No problem,” he said in his soft Highland lilt. “I passed it to you. You weren’t there.”

“You don’t pass to where I am , you pass to where I’m going .” Duncan followed him, gesturing at the goal. “That way I can keep running proper fast, which is my job, then score, which is my other job. Fuck’s sake, we’re taught this when we’re five years old. Have you gone off your head?”

Fergus whipped around, towering over Duncan, his haunted gaze chilling the air between them. “What do you think?” he whispered.

The whistle blew then, signaling the end of practice. Fergus turned away with a hollow scoff.

Duncan glanced at the touchline to see their manager, Charlotte Atchison, glaring at him, her face scrunched up against the low-angled evening sun. Hoping to avoid a lecture, he hustled to the other end of the pitch to gather equipment from their training drills.

He knew he was on thin ice as it was. His recent short temper had made him commit careless fouls, enough to earn a yellow-card caution in each of the Warriors’ two league matches since that fateful Cup quarterfinal. If he wasn’t careful, Charlotte would drop him for the next match, and maybe more.

As he collected the scattered footballs into their large net storage bag, he saw his fellow starting forward, Colin MacDuff, trotting toward him.

“Here, I’ll gi’e you a hand. Or a foot. Catch!” Colin lobbed one of the footballs at Duncan, who spread the bag wide open to let it sail in. “Result!” Colin raised his arms in triumph.

“Quality, mate. Do it again.”

Colin sent him another shot, but this one sailed a bit wide, to Duncan’s right side. He stopped it with his thigh, then tapped it up and over with his instep, straight into the bag.

“Get in!” Colin mimed a long-distance high-five, then walked toward the closest football. “So what’s got you round the twist, man?”

Duncan started to protest that he was fine, then stopped himself. He appreciated the spiky-haired, multi-tattooed North Glaswegian’s brutal honesty. As the two youngest Warriors, they’d had a friendly rivalry from day one. By working on their shooting skills together outside of practice, they’d clawed their way into the starting eleven. They were a team within a team. If there was anyone Duncan could talk to, it was Colin.

“Pissed off about Evan, I guess.”

“We all are. What makes you so special?”

“I didn’t say?—”

“Look, I’m the hellraiser on this squad.” Colin fired a bullet of a shot that smacked Duncan’s knees. “ I’m the loose cannon, the powder keg, the bampot.” He kicked another ball, this one at Duncan’s chest.

“Ow! Knock it?—”

“You’re the cool yin, Mister Fuckin’ Reliable. Naebody rattles you.”

“But I don’t?—”

“You cannae out-daft me, so gonnae no try it, ya dick.” Colin kicked the last ball straight at Duncan’s face.

Instinctively Duncan bent his neck to head the ball straight back at Colin, who caught it in his arms.

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay, I’ll chill.” Duncan opened the ball bag. “You are the bam, after all.”

“Sorry? Cannae hear you.”

“You’re the bam!” he shouted.

“Fuckin’ right.” Colin hurled the ball into the bag, then began leaping about like a chimpanzee on Adderall. “ I’m the bam! I’m the bam!”

“Harris! A word?”

Duncan froze, then turned toward the touchline where Charlotte had just called to him. He gave her a wave of acknowledgment, a knot forming in his stomach.

“I’ll get the rest.” Colin picked up two more balls and brought them to the bag. “Any final wishes I should tell your next of kin?”

“Tell them to line my coffin with yellow cards. And I want my funeral dirge played on referee’s whistles instead of bagpipes.”

Duncan headed toward Charlotte, frowning as he saw Fergus standing near her, arms crossed, looking a lot like the captain he lacked the balls to become.

“All right?” Duncan asked his manager, ignoring Fergus.

“I could put the same question to you.” Hands on her hips, Charlotte shook her head at him, her light brown ponytail brushing the hood of her jacket. “I’m worried about you, lad.”

Duncan took a step back. He’d been prepared for her wrath, not her concern. The look in her eyes made him feel like a broken-legged racehorse about to be put down.

“Harris,” she continued, “you’re everything a manager dreams of in a striker. You’re bold, instinctive, and fast as fuck. Most of all, you’re not stupid.”

Though she’d paused, Duncan sensed that wasn’t the end of her speech. “Thanks.”

“I’m not finished,” Charlotte said.

“I’d a feeling.”

“Wheesht!” She held up a hand to hush him. “Your behavior lately has been appalling. It won’t have gone unnoticed by our opponents. All they’ve got to do is look at match stats and think, ‘Hmm, this striker who rarely gets a yellow card suddenly got one in each of his last two starts. He must be on edge. Let’s exploit that.’”

Fuck me, I’m a liability. “Are you going to drop me for Saturday’s match?” he asked her.

“It’s been suggested.” Charlotte kept her gaze on Duncan, but from the corner of his eye, he saw Fergus shift his weight, which told him where this “suggestion” had originated. Fergus wanted him gone.

Duncan crossed his arms to hide the fact his hands were clenching into fists. “And?”

“And I don’t want to do that,” his manager said. “More than anything right now, we need goals, which no one delivers like you. But be careful out there Saturday against Shettleston. Anything those players say to you, do not take it personally. They want you to react. They know you’ve suddenly got a hair-trigger temper.”

Behind her, Fergus muttered something about officials.

“Sorry?” Charlotte asked him.

He looked up from the grass he was toeing. “I said the refs know it too,” Fergus told Duncan. “They’ll be watching you.”

Duncan curled his lips under his teeth to keep from lashing out. Then he nodded, his neck tight with tension.

“I know you’re angry,” Charlotte told Duncan softly. “We all are.”

“You sure about that?” He sneered at Fergus. “Because on some of us, anger looks a lot like giving up.”

“Go home now, Harris,” Charlotte said in a low, steely voice. “And when we see you Saturday, be sure to have grown up a wee bit, okay?”

“Aye. Whatever.”

As Duncan stalked down the path toward the Ruchill Park exit gate, it took all his self-control not to break into a run. He wanted to feel his feet pound against the pavement, feel the earth pushing back on him. He didn’t want to die inside like Fergus.

Is that what love does? Duncan vowed that if his heart were ever broken, he wouldn’t let himself waste away like that. He wouldn’t be weak. He’d go down swinging, even if it meant losing it all.

* * *

Brodie sat in the empty launderette, trying to review his statistics notes while waiting for his sheets and favorite T-shirt to dry. But the vinyl, mushroom-shaped seats seemed to be designed for anything but human arses. Soon he was too tired to think of anything but being too tired to think.

He stretched out on his back across two of the flat yellow seats and pulled out his phone to do some investigative work. The first call went to his friend John.

“All right, mate?” John answered. “Good holiday?”

“Not exactly.” Brodie told him about his illness and the mystery of its source.

“Aw, ya poor lad,” John said. “Well, you didnae get it from me. I had it five years ago when I was sixteen.”

“Did you kiss anyone else that night we snogged?”

John gasped. “Brodie! What sort of slut do you take me for?” He paused. “Aye, I did, actually. But it was later, after you. So are you still at home?”

“No, I came back to uni. Still ill, though.”

“You need anything? Soup, tea, a naked man or two?”

“Only if you can spare them.” Brodie rubbed his aching forehead, feeling stymied. “I must’ve got this virus off someone’s cup or fork or something. Knowing my flatmates, they probably just lick the cutlery clean before putting it back in the drawers.”

“No other kissing candidates, then?”

The launderette door opened to two girls with matching neon pink laundry baskets. Brodie got up quickly, making the blood rush from his brain, and crossed to the far side of the room by the ironing board. “There was another lad,” he said into the phone, “but it happened the night before vacation. Incubation period is a month or two, so it couldn’t have been him. But he thinks it is, and he’s been bringing me breakfast and tea and all, out of guilt.”

“Brodie, ya wicked bastard.” John’s tone was admiring, not condemning. “When you gonnae tell him the truth?”

“Soon. I mean, I should do, right?”

“Do you fancy him?”

“Aye, but we’re just pals.” Brodie traced a burn mark on the ironing-board cover and thought of Duncan’s sponge-bath offer. “Pals with potential.”

“Then you should totally tell him. But—maybe not quite yet. Maybe it should slip your mind for a wee while. You must be pure glaikit, what with the fever and all.”

Brodie smiled. John was always one to play the angles. “My brain is pretty foggy.”

“And it’s about to be distracted by news of my summer internship.”

“With who?”

“A charity helping asylum seekers get humane treatment from our inhumane government. I’ll work with LGBTQ folk who’ve had to flee their home nations’ anti-gay laws.”

“That sounds amazing.” Though John was studying Economic and Social History, his new position seemed applicable to Brodie’s psychology degree. “Have they got any other openings?” he asked as he went to the dryer to check the time left on his load.

“I think so,” John said, “but they cannae pay. This charity’s pure skint. I can only afford to work for free because I’ve money saved from my gap years.”

Brodie frowned at his tumbling sheets and T-shirt through the dryer window. “I need a paying job, but maybe I can volunteer some hours.”

“That’d be brilliant. You could help me fundraise. My goal is twenty-five thousand pounds by the end of summer.”

“Wow. You’ll need more than a cake sale, then.” Brodie’s phone beeped. He pulled it away from his ear to look at the screen, hoping it would be Duncan. “My mum’s on the other line. If I don’t answer, she’ll think I’m dead.”

“See you at our dance party a week on Friday?”

“If I can walk, I’ll dance.” Brodie hung up, then switched lines. “Hi, Ma.”

“Brodie! Fit like?”

“Good, ta. You?”

“You sound trachled,” she said.

“A wee bit, but that’s normal.” He moved his laundry bag from the end seat and sat down again. The two girls had finished sorting their loads and seemed to be using top-up cards and laundry apps to pay for it, which probably meant they’d leave and await the email announcing when their washing was finished. Brodie would have done the same if he could have managed the walk across the student village and back again.

“I’ve been worried,” Ma said, “thinking maybe I shouldn’t have let you away to uni so soon.”

“There’s nae lectures this week, just revision period, so I can rest.”

“I ken there’s nae lectures, which is why you should’ve bided here until exams start next week. Are you eating?”

“Aye, my mate Dun—erm, my mates have me sorted.”

“Your mates?” Her voice took on an edge. “Quines, I hope, not loons.”

Brodie bristled. “I’ve male and female friends, Ma. Fit’s the difference who looks after me?”

One of the girls glanced over at him. She gave him a shy smile, then went back to tapping the washer control buttons with a long, pink fingernail.

“Everybody kens, women make the best nurses,” Ma said with a laugh. “Talking of work, I spoke to Mr. Kendrick yesterday, and he says he’s got a summer job for you at the inn.”

Brodie hesitated. He was far too tired to have this conversation, but it wasn’t fair to commit to a position he’d no intention of taking, especially when others desperately needed the work.

“Ma, I’m keen on staying in Glasgow. I’ve applied for student accommodation and a few jobs.” He rushed to continue before she could protest. “If I’m to work in psychology one day, I need experience in my field. Most of the other first-year students are staying to work the summer.” This was technically true, but only because many of them, like Lorna and Paul and Duncan, lived in Glasgow to begin with. “Tell Mr. Kendrick thanks, though, okay?” When she didn’t respond, he said, “Ma, you still there?”

“I am.” She released an aching sigh that made him nervous. “Fit about me? I miss you. I worry for you.”

“Dinna fash, I’m fine. And I’ll come and visit.” His fingers were cramping from tension, so he shifted the phone to his other hand. “But this is my home now, ken?”

“Oh, I ken.” She said the last word with a sharp hack. “I ken exactly fit you’re doing there, with those other loons.”

A chill snaked over the back of his neck. Oh God. She knows. “I-I don’t?—”

“Something was off, I could feel it, the way you and that farmer boy were having a bicker when he was here last week. He was greetin’ like a bairn on the way out the door.”

Geoffrey was crying after their fight? Brodie’s chest went tight with fear and regret. “Has he said something?”

“He’s come out at uni, says Mrs. Baines. Her niece knows him there.” His mother’s voice broke. “Tell me it’s not true, Brodie.”

Eyes and throat burning, he turned away from the girls at the washing machines. “Dinna cry, Ma. Please. Aye, it’s true, but it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay!” she screeched. “You’re up to filthy things in a filthy city, and it breaks my heart.”

He pressed his lips together, knowing if he said one word, he’d explode into tears like a burst water balloon.

“There’s treatments could fix you,” Ma said. “Mind that American preacher who visited last year? He’s coming again Sunday.” She sniffled hard. “He used to be—he used to have your problem, but he’s cured now.”

Brodie’s fury at this dangerous lie gave him the strength to steady his voice. “It can’t be changed. And even if I could change it, I wouldn’t.”

“But why, when you could be so much happier? This is why those bullies in school hurt you, isn’t it? They knew.”

“I wasn’t out then, so they couldn’t know for certain.”

“But they sensed it,” she hissed. “They sensed there was something wrong. They wanted to beat that wrongness out of you.”

Brodie gasped, his stomach crumpling like he’d taken a kick in the gut. She didn’t say that. She didn’t mean that.

He pulled the phone from his ear and stared at it. The photo of his mother from his contacts file smiled up at him as her vicious words streamed from the speaker, words he could hear even over the churn of the washing machines.

With a trembling finger, Brodie hung up. He quickly selected Add to reject list from the menu, confirmed the blocked number, then set the phone on the floor beside him. He didn’t trust himself not to hurl it against the wall.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the girls leave the launderette, shutting the door softly. Waves of dizziness swept over him then, like someone had lifted one end of the linoleum floor and was flapping the entire room up and down. Brodie lay back across the hard plastic seats again, fixing his eyes on the sprinkler in the ceiling, the one stationary point he could see.

For years he’d dreaded the moment his mother found out for certain he was gay, but he’d often wondered if it would be a relief. He’d expected her disappointment, her pleas for him to change, even her grieving for his soul. All of those he could have handled (probably).

But she’d spoken of his tormentors like she understood them. Like she agreed with them. The woman who’d nursed his wounds with bandages and ice packs, who’d demanded his school do more to ensure his safety—she wished his bullies’ mission had succeeded.

They wanted to beat that wrongness out of you.

A single tear slipped from each eye. Only his exhaustion was keeping him from a complete meltdown. His murky mind didn’t know which emotion to latch onto: fear, grief, or rage. All three twisted together in a desperate, sea-gray whirlwind.

His phone buzzed with a text, then a moment later buzzed again, which usually meant a long message had been split into two parts by his message app. It couldn’t be his mother—he’d blocked her number, and anyway, she didn’t text. Perhaps it was Geoffrey warning him their secret was out.

Brodie slowly reached down and picked up his phone.

Duncan

Can’t pop by tonight, but never fear! Ordered a takeaway for you. Put some fucking clothes on and meet the dude from the curry place in our lobby in 20 min

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