Page 45

Chapter 7

“You sure we’ll be alone?” Liam asked as Robert pulled out his keys for his flat’s front entrance.

“Aye, Ben’s spending the night at Evan’s.” His door opened smoothly, which Liam envied. His own door needed to be coaxed like a nervous lover, with a simultaneous knob-jiggle and key-turn.

Liam envied everything about this flat, except the fact it was shared. After growing up the oldest of six kids, he would rather have lived alone in a rubbish skip than share the grandest living space.

“Ben?” Robert called out, but there was no answer.

“Thank God. I cannae stand the suspense anymore.” Liam took Robert’s kit bag. “Show me, then. Pink or purple?”

“I’ve got a big reveal planned. Stay here.”

Liam watched Robert dash down the hall into his bedroom, where he shut the door.

Robert’s phone rang in the outer pocket of his kit bag. Liam ignored it. Half a minute later, a ding sounded, indicating a voice mail. He ignored that, too, as well as the ensuing text message bleep. The only person who truly needed Robert was Liam himself.

The next sound he heard was the opening strains of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” coming from the sound-system speaker beneath the television.

The bedroom door opened, casting soft daylight on the wall across the hall. Then Robert appeared, wearing his green-and-blue flannel dressing gown tied at the waist.

Liam couldn’t help applauding. “Yaaaass, bring it here, ya beauty!”

Robert strutted down the hall, adding a spin halfway, then stopped himself at the end with arms spread across the living room doorway. He locked eyes with Liam as his hips gyrated in sweeping circles and figures of eight. Then he let go of the wall and curled both index fingers, beckoning Liam forward.

“Oh aye.” Liam walked toward him in time with the music, and when they met, they swayed together for one luscious chorus.

Then Robert pulled Liam’s hands onto his warm thighs, just beneath the hem of his dressing gown. “Want to see?”

“Mm-hm.” Liam slid his palms up Robert’s legs, parting the robe.

Robert batted his hands away. “You can see from a distance.” He pushed past and sashayed to the center of the living room. Facing Liam, he spread his feet and began to undo the frayed tie of his dressing gown with tiny alternating tugs on each end. Just as it was about to fall open, he spun around to put his back to Liam.

“Aw, ya minx,” Liam growled.

Robert threw a flirtatious look over his shoulder, which became bare as the robe slowly slid off. His broad, muscular back appeared, inch by inch.

As the music crescendoed, Robert let his covering drop.

Liam yelped in delight. “It was the purple pair! Viva Los Warriors!”

Robert continued his satirically sensual dance, caressing first the high, black-lace waistband, then the purple silk covering his arse. He’d clearly dispensed with the jockstrap underneath, so the knickers clung to every angle and curve.

“Wait!” Liam rushed for his kit bag, pulled out his wallet, and retrieved the lone fiver inside. Then he got down on the floor and crawled up to Robert, who was now pelvis-thrusting like a pro.

”A wee token of my appreciation.” Liam rose up on his knees. Just as he stuffed the five-pound note into the knickers’ lace waistband, the music ended, and the front door opened.

“Sorry to—oh!”

Ben stood on the threshold, one hand gripping the doorknob and the other covering his mouth. His dark eyebrows had risen above the black frames of his glasses.

A deep voice came from behind him. “Ben, what is it?” Evan moved inside, taking a protective posture in front of his partner. “Oh.” He paused to examine the living room’s tableau. “Hmm.”

“Hiya.” Liam let go of Robert’s knickers with a snap of waistband, then realized he was kneeling atop the dressing gown. He moved off it and handed it up to Robert, but stayed on the floor, hoping this would be a brief interruption.

“I tried phoning you,” Ben told Robert as he edged into the living room. “And I texted, too.”

“My phone was still in my…” Robert looked at the kit bag on the floor, then at Liam sitting beside it.

“It did ring.” Liam couldn’t pretend to be sorry. “You were busy.”

“Anyway,” Ben said, “I wanted to let you know I was coming back for my PI exam notes so Evan could help me review tonight. Also, I got a brilliant idea while I was watching the match.” He turned and placed a loving hand on Evan’s chest. “Once you were subbed out, I lost interest.”

“A brilliant idea for what?” Robert asked, tying his dressing gown.

“About your project, what we were talking about the other day.”

Robert gasped. “What’s the idea?”

Ben glanced at Liam. “It can wait. Obviously now’s not a good time.”

Liam tried not to sigh too heavily. “On you go. Away and discuss it.”

“But tonight’s for us,” Robert told him.

“Mate, I saw the look in your eyes when Ben said he’d had an idea. And I’ve watched you jump out of bed in the middle of the night to jot down a breakthrough. I know these things can be elusive.” When Robert hesitated, Liam gave his bare calf a light smack. “Go! The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll finish.”

Robert crouched down and kissed Liam. “I’ll make it up to you,” he whispered. Then he hurried down the hall after Ben.

That left Evan, who, when he’d been Fergus’s boyfriend, had felt like a brother-in-law to Liam. Now that Liam knew the full circumstances of that breakup, he no longer hated Evan, but they’d never again be mates. Evan’s previous job as a spy made him a wee bit terrifying, and his current work as a private investigator was no less intimidating.

“Want a drink? Robert has good stuff.” Liam got up from the floor and beckoned Evan to follow him into the kitchen. “And as our boyfriends have abandoned us, we’re within our rights to steal a dram.” He opened a cupboard and took out the bottle of single-malt whisky.

“It’s not part of my usual post-match recovery regimen, but this is shaping up to be an unusual night.” Evan crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall, fatigue rimming his blue eyes and sweat still darkening the blond hair at his temples. Their Warriors kits were equally grimy, yet Evan somehow looked miles more put-together than Liam felt. “It’s good of you to give Robert time to confer with Ben.”

Liam made a noncommittal grunt as he poured the whisky. It hadn’t been a great sacrifice, as the mood had already been broken by the interruption.

“I’ve been on the other side,” Evan said. “I know what it’s like to have a job where you might save lives.”

“Robert’s not MI5. No one will die if he takes a day off.”

“But in his mind, every minute wasted could be a minute stolen from someone’s life.” Evan held up a hand. “It’s not a healthy perspective, but it explains his drive.”

“Believe me, I know.” They returned to the living room, where the descending sun was streaming through the wide balcony windows. The day had turned reasonably warm, so they went outside to look over the tree-lined, flagstoned St. Andrew’s Square. Along the edge of the balcony were half a dozen empty clay flower pots, artifacts of a summer that now felt far away.

Liam lifted his glass in a quick toast. “To our gamer boyfriends.”

Evan mirrored his movement. “May they never dump us for not sharing their obsession.”

Liam chuckled. “I kinda admire how they can sit still for so long. I’d go absolutely bonkers staring at a screen, even for a job.”

“Talking of work, when will you be starting massage college?”

Liam flinched. “Soon,” he said in a clipped voice he hoped conveyed his lack of desire to talk about it. When Evan stayed quiet, Liam added, “Applications open a week on Monday, and classes start in March, one Saturday a month for nine months.”

“So in a year, your life could be totally different.”

“Aye.” Liam heard his own dread. “I mean, aye! Cannae wait. Very excited.” He glanced at Evan to see a skeptical brow angling back at him. “Really.”

“Okay. Good.”

After a few moments of unbearable silence, Liam said, “I’ll miss the pub, though. Always a new challenge coming through the door at Hannigan’s.”

“Hmm.” Evan just sipped his whisky and watched a pair of pigeons strutting round the bare-branched tree below the balcony.

Liam sensed an aura of judgment. “What?” he snapped.

“Well…aren’t most of your customers regulars? They order the same thing every night?”

“Yeah, but they’ve got different problems all the time.”

“I’ve been to Hannigan’s,” Evan said. “The guys there just pleep about their wives and jobs—and sometimes football when Celtic are losing.”

Liam bristled. “Celtic are never losing. They may occasionally lose, but they’re never in a state of losing.”

“My point is, your job can’t be as stimulating as you need.” Evan stopped, as though realizing he was sounding a bit of a wank. “I mean, sure, when the pub’s very busy. Must be challenging to remember all the orders and keep everyone happy.”

“It’s not,” Liam blurted. Then he rubbed his eye. “It used to be, but now it’s easy. Which means you’re right, I’m bored. Happy?”

“I wasn’t trying to make you admit anything.”

“Seemed like it,” Liam said, “as you cannae have a normal conversation without rummaging through someone’s psyche.”

“But if you’re holding yourself back in life out of fear?—”

“Seriously fuck off.”

“Robert’s not going to change.”

Liam stared at him. “What?”

Evan winced before continuing, as though his words would hurt himself as well as Liam. “He may learn to delegate and find a slightly better balance between work and life, but he’ll always care deeply about what he does. He’ll never be satisfied with a Monday-to-Friday job he can walk away from at the end of a shift and just forget about.”

“I know.” Liam scuffed his shoe against one of the flower pots. “If he was that sort of person, he’d never have started his own business. He’d have signed on with the IT department of some ginormous bank and probably made loads more money.”

“And got paid time off,” Evan said, “plus a hundred other perks. All the things that make romantic life easier.”

“But I cannae see him working at an office, wearing a tie and all.” With a heavy sigh, Liam tilted back his head to look up at St. Andrew’s tall, thin clock tower. An hour and a half had passed since the end of the match, and he was now famished. “So what’s that mean for me? I’m to sit about waiting to enjoy his wee spots of time, like a dog begging for scraps?”

“It’ll be easier to tolerate Robert’s devotion to work—not just tolerate but understand it—if you also find work you love.”

“Och, what a load of middle-class pish. ‘Find your passion, follow your bliss.’ That’s a fucking luxury. Some of us, it’s all we can do to get by.”

“I know, but?—”

“And before you say Robert grew up just as poor as me, it’s not the same. My mum’s got four young weans. Who’s gonnae support her whilst I’m faffing about listening to my heart of hearts? Not my sister Marianne, earning ￡5.30 an hour—did you know that’s minimum wage for an eighteen-year-old?”

“I do, but?—”

“I have to hold onto what I’ve got,” Liam said, “cos if I let it go and try something new—and I fail at it—then it all comes crashing down.”

Fuck’s sake, how did Evan pull that truth out of him when Robert couldn’t do it? Secret spy tricks, no doubt. But Liam couldn’t remember what Evan had said or done to cause this cascade of candor.

Evan just gazed over at St. Andrew’s, watching through the tall windows of the former church as guests filled the upper floor for a late afternoon event. “I won’t say I understand, because I’ve never been in your shoes. On my family’s farm, money’s always been uncertain, but not in the same way it is in Shettleston.”

Liam nodded to acknowledge Evan’s acknowledgment.

“But if your massage school’s only part-time,” Evan continued, “you don’t need to quit the pub. So there’s no risk. If it turns out you’re crap at massage, you’ve still got your job to fall back on.”

“I’m not crap at massage. But I think…” Liam realized he was about to sound like the sort of bourgeois prima donna he’d just been banging on about. “I think I might hate it.”

“Why?”

“The slowness of it all. Dealing with just one person for an entire hour.”

“Okay. But what would you like about it?”

“Stopping people’s pain,” Liam said. “Learning how the body works and how to make it work better when it’s out of sorts.”

“Sounds kinda like physiotherapy.”

Liam scoffed. “Physios have got advanced degrees.”

“Their assistants don’t.”

Liam paused with his glass halfway to his mouth. “That’s a thing?”

“Of course. Physios make the rehab plan, but it’s their assistants who guide patients through the exercises, keep up their spirits and all.” Evan lifted his dram toward Liam. “You’d be ideal. And a physio’s practice would be a lot like a pub, with loads of different people coming and going.”

It did sound kind of fun. Plus, such a job would make Liam a better asset to the Warriors, maybe even a better footballer. “How would I do that?”

“Contrary to rumor, I haven’t got all the answers.” Evan drained his glass, then smiled. “But I know who might have this one.”

* * *

“So I was sitting there in the cold, cold stand, freezing my arse off…” Ben said as he paced near the foot of Robert’s bed.

“Okay.” Having washed his face and thrown on a few clothes, Robert went to his desktop computer to take notes.

“And I thought about why I come to watch Evan’s matches when I’m not keen on football. Like, what do I get out of it?” He flourished a hand in an upward spiral. “I mean, apart from seeing him in a really hot kit and then eating his amazing macaroni cheese recovery meal.”

Robert’s stomach growled at the mention of hot food. “Go on.”

“It’s the way he looks up at me from the pitch.” Ben pressed his palms to the front of his Warriors T-shirt. “I know he loves having me there. I love Evan, and I want to make him happy. I want that more than anything.”

“Right…” Robert waited for Ben to bring his point home.

“And that’s when I thought of your game. Not Glasgow Effect , but one of your old ones.” He perched on the edge of the bed and leaned forward. “Remember Rugby Armageddon ?”

“Aye, of course.” Robert also remembered how Liam had tormented him during the game’s development by incessantly singing the title to the tune of “Rock Me Amadeus.”

“I didn’t care for it at first,” Ben said, “because I don’t like sports apart from curling. But just as I decided to uninstall it, I discovered myself thinking about it when I wasn’t playing. I pictured all the people on my team facing Armageddon without my help. I’d never met any of them in real life—they probably lived all over the planet—but I cared about them and this world I’d become part of.” He slapped his palm atop Robert’s deep-blue duvet. “It ended up being my favorite of all your games!”

Robert nodded as Ben’s message got through. “Because of the social element.”

“Exactly. So why not add that to Glasgow Effect ? Let people’s characters interact with one another.”

“I love it.” Robert turned his desk chair around and started typing. “It’ll give players a sense of community and a reason to keep coming back—a reason to care .”

“Plus,” Ben said, “if people can see what others are doing, they’ll get all competitive and want to beat them.”

They brainstormed for a few minutes, and Robert outlined the email he planned to send to his university contacts tomorrow. He definitely needed the researchers onside before proposing such a massive upgrade to the funders on Monday.

Soon Ben left the flat with Evan, and Robert heard Liam coming down the hall. He spun to face the door. “I think I can fix things!”

Liam crossed his arms and leaned against the doorpost. “How?”

Robert summarized Ben’s insight about adding a social aspect, then blethered on about all the ways he might implement it. He knew he probably sounded like a hypercaffeinated hedgehog—he certainly felt like one—but he couldn’t stop the excitement bubbling over.

“That’s fucking brilliant, mate.” Liam finally came forward. “I just ordered us a pair of pizzas. They’ll be here in half an hour.”

“Oh thank God.” Robert pushed his keyboard drawer beneath the desk surface, ready to forget all about work. “That’s perfect timing.”

Liam sidled over and straddled Robert’s lap—to the extent he could, considering the arms of the office chair. “Are you still wearing you-know-what?”

“Of course.” Robert reached down into his tracksuit bottoms and pulled the fiver out of the knickers’ waistband. “Did you want this back, by the way?”

“Actually, yes.” Liam snatched the note. “I deserve a refund after waiting.” He seized Robert’s face and kissed him hungrily, stubble scraping his lips and sending a zing of heat down his spine.

As Liam’s mouth moved to his throat, Robert said, “You’ll not be taking my knickers off.”

“Sorry?”

“I thought perhaps we’d cut a wee slit in them so I could keep them on while we fuck.”

Liam sat back to gape at him. “A slit?” He glanced down and licked his lips. “In front or back?”

An easy choice. “In back. That way you can feel your cock sliding in and out of the silk.”

Liam gave a low growl, then took Robert’s mouth again, more roughly than before, pausing only to yank Robert’s shirt over his head.

Finally Liam got up from his lap. “Bend over the desk and I’ll see to your slit.”

Robert eagerly complied. The room was small and so was the desk, so the opposite edge came only to his chest, forcing him to press his cheek against the wall below the window.

Liam got the scissors from the side drawer. “That won’t do. Bend over it lengthways.”

Robert moved to the narrow end. “Here? But what about?—”

“We’ll just shift this.” Liam picked up the computer monitor and moved it to the floor at the opposite end of the desk.

Robert held his breath until it was safely positioned. “Seems a lot of effort for such minor tailoring work.”

“Shh.” Liam moved behind him and yanked down Robert’s tracksuit bottoms. “Hold still.”

Robert tried not to flinch when he heard the shing of parting scissor blades. “If there was ever a true test of my trust in you…”

“You know I’ve got steady hands.”

There was a slight tug on the knickers’ material, just below his tailbone. Then came two quick snips. Robert shivered as he felt the air against his newly exposed hole.

“Want to step out of your trousers so you can spread your legs,” Liam asked, “or just keep them round your ankles? I quite fancy either.”

“We’re not moving to the bed?”

“Not unless you make a really good argument for that option.” Liam went to the bedside table and got the lube. “I’ve never fucked you on that desk, see, and I’d quite like to fuck you on that desk.”

Propped up on his elbows, Robert hesitated for only a second before shoving all the papers, pens, and stress-relief toys—all the flotsam and jetsam of his work life—onto the floor.

“I thought so,” Liam said.

Robert stepped out of his tracksuit bottoms, kicking them aside, then spread his legs and bent his knees so his torso was flat against the desk.

He sighed when he felt Liam tug the knickers’ material apart, then apply a warm, slick finger over his crease, up, then down, traversing with sweeping strokes. The touches became shorter, more centered where he needed them most. Robert’s breath turned rapid, and he could feel his hole quiver in anticipation.

Liam didn’t tease him long before coaxing a fingertip inside, producing that hot zap of pain-pleasure that quickly morphed into all-pleasure, all the time.

He grasped Robert’s left cheek with his other hand. “Och, I didnae think your bum could feel more amazing.” He squeezed harder. “This silk lets me feel every muscle as you squirm.”

Robert shimmied his hips to please him. “Give me more.”

Liam urged his finger farther within, provoking a moan that felt like it came from the deepest region of Robert’s soul. He loved when Liam took care of him like this, saw to all his needs before he himself even knew what they were.

“Aren’t you sorry you made me wait so long just now?”

“Aye,” Robert replied with a whimper. “Very sorry. I probably need a reminder of how to behave.”

“This sort of reminder?” He gave Robert’s bottom a light whack. There was no sting the way there would have been on bare skin, but it sent a sweeping tingle up Robert’s cock. “Och, Rab, I can feel your arse tighten when I smack you. Shall I do it again?”

”Yesssss.” Robert’s cheek was pressed to the desk, his mouth open, and he was pretty certain he was starting to drool. The skin-tight constraint of the knickers around his erection was becoming the best sort of torture.

“Nah, I’ll wait till I’m fucking you.”

Robert laughed. Knowing his boyfriend’s sadistic streak was no match for their combined horniness, he said, “Fuck me now.”

“Now?” Liam added another finger. ”Why?”

“I need it.”

“Need what?”

“Need your cock.” He struggled to capture another breath. “Need it in me.”

“Okay, then.” Liam slid his fingers out and grabbed the lube bottle to prepare himself. Robert peered back to see his partner still wearing his mud-stained Warriors kit. For a moment, he wondered whether their fans fantasized about this exact scenario.

Well, maybe not this exact scenario, with the purple panties, but something akin.

“Lift up so I don’t kill my back.” Liam grasped Robert’s hips and raised them slightly. “We need one of those standing-optional desks, where you can adjust the height.”

“Maybe with my next wave of crowdfunding. It could count as an employee…morale…ahhhh fuck.” As Liam entered him, slowly, smoothly, Robert pressed his chest against the desk and reached out to grasp the edges to either side.

The fingertips of his left hand brushed his keyboard on its drawer. With an electric hum, the monitor came to life on the floor, woken by this wayward activity. Robert closed his eyes and turned his face away from the code on the glowing screen.

This time is for us. The whole world can fucking burn to the ground.

His mind always went to this place when Liam was inside him—a place where nothing mattered but the two of them, a place where time and reality lost all meaning. Any sort of sex between them was never just sex, but this , taking him in, making room for Liam to inhabit his body, left space for only one thought: more more more .

Liam gave it to him now, sliding deeper with each long, slow thrust. When the head of his cock reached that radiant place inside him, Robert let out a low moan.

“Yeah…” Liam eased back, then forward again. “I wish you could see how hot this looks.”

“Don’t need to see,” he slurred. “Can feel it.”

“Mm?” Liam’s tone turned rapturous. “What’s it feel like? Tell me.”

“Can’t…make words.”

“Aye, you can. They don’t need to be pretty. What’s the first word comes to mind when I do this?” He glided in, deeper than ever.

“Mmph.” Robert’s grip on the desk spasmed. “H-hard.”

“Excellent start.” Liam slid out, then in again, with emphasis. “How about now?”

“Ah! Good. It’s good, so good, so fucking?—”

“And now?” Liam thrust all the way inside and held himself there. “How about now?” he repeated in a shaky voice.

Robert blurted the first word—the only word—in his mind. “Love.”

“Oh.” Liam let out a long breath. “Say that again.” He ground his hips against Robert’s in a slow, swaying motion.

“I love you.” Robert hugged the desk like a life raft. “I love you, love you, love you.” Saying the words was like breathing—they seemed to keep him alive even as his throat tightened. “Liam, I fucking love you,” he said, to stop himself crying.

Liam bent forward and softly kissed the space between Robert’s shoulder blades. “You know, all this emotion pure ruins the office-porno vibe we’ve got going here.”

Robert’s laughter bellowed from deep in his lungs. Liam’s reaction was instant.

“Fuck.” He braced himself, pushing deeper. “When you laugh while I’m inside you…”

Robert knew well the sort of feeling such vibrations could produce. He wiggled his arse under Liam’s weight, just to torture him further. “Weren’t you meant to spank me again?”

“Oh my God, I totally forgot.” Liam straightened up. “Cheers for the reminder.”

“You’re thanking me?”

“Right. Sorry.” His tone turned mock-stern. “I meant, you’re a naughty lad for letting me forget.” He gave a solid whack to Robert’s left cheek.

“Oh!” Robert jerked in surprise.

“Too hard?”

“I expected the other side. Cos you’re right-handed. Usually?—”

A harder slap came from the right. “Better?” Liam asked sarcastically.

And then they were both cackling with the ridiculousness of it all, with Liam struggling just to stay inside him. The levity probably went against the spirit of their role-play, but Robert didn’t care. Nothing was more them than this sort of laughter, taking the piss out of a world that took itself too seriously, even when it came to sex. Especially when it came to sex.

“You think it’s so funny?” Liam asked, his voice curling higher. “Well, I’ve secretly had that five-pound note tucked into the waistband of your knickers this whole time.”

“You—” Robert reached back and found the fiver. “What, just for your own entertainment?”

“To remind myself you’re a cheap slag.” He started laughing before the end of the sentence.

“If I’m such a slag,” Robert said as he shoved his arse back against Liam, “then why aren’t you fucking me like one?”