Playing With Fire (Glasgow Lads Book 3) (4 page)

BOOK: Playing With Fire (Glasgow Lads Book 3)
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Now Robert’s thumbs poised over the keyboard, ready to type,
Yes. Where?
It was probably insane to meet up with someone after a two-minute chat, but he had a good feeling about this guy. He needed someone to clarify things. Someone he could talk to after they…whatever. Someone nice.

Unlike Robert’s, this lad’s profile displayed his exact location, in another Glasgow Uni student housing flat nearby. For a moment he worried IllusiveMan would be someone he knew, but given GU’s size, the chances of that were small.

His biggest fear was accidentally linking up with a teammate. Several of the Warriors were on Grindr, though none had mentioned it in months. Hookup apps seemed to be falling out of favor with men who had other options.

Robert did not have other options.

Just as his thumbs touched the phone screen, the open laptop in front of him gave a loud burble, jolting his hands and his heart. A Skype notification in the screen’s upper right corner said,
DaniDecimal is now online.
A moment later, a goofy photo of his ex-girlfriend appeared as his computer sang the incoming call melody.

In a panic, Robert tapped the “Go Offline” button on his Grindr app, then dropped his phone facedown, as if IllusiveMan could jump through the screen into his flat.

When he clicked the green video call icon, Dani’s face appeared, slightly pixelated. “Hey,” they said simultaneously, then shared a nervous laugh. It was always strange, seeing her now for purely academic reasons. They lived only a few streets apart, so meeting in person to discuss their statistical analysis project would have been no hassle. But it was easier this way.

“How’s it going?” she asked in that solicitous tone that said,
How are you surviving without me?

“Good. You?”

“Tired.”

“Aye, you look it.”

“Oh.” Dani blinked and frowned. “Thanks?”

“Sorry. It’s probably just the poor video quality.” In any case, seeing Danielle got easier each time they Skyped.

“So, what’s new?” she asked, taking a sip from the
My Statistics Can Beat Up Your Anecdotes
coffee mug Robert had given her.

He was tempted to blurt,
I’m hooking up with men and I think I like it.
Instead he said, “I saw Fergus and John last night. They’re engaged.”

She nearly spit out the coffee. “Are they mad? They’re too young.”

“That’s what Liam said.” Robert glanced at his phone, wondering if he’d offended IllusiveMan with his sudden departure. “But they’re obviously in love, and they’ve already been through a lot.”

“Hmm.” As Dani pondered this, she stroked the end of her long red ponytail in a way that used to make Robert so hot for her. Now it just made him think of other ginger hair he longed to run his fingers through. “You think maybe they’re doing it just because they can? I mean, for most of their lives, gay marriage was an unthinkable dream.”

“You’re saying it’s like a forbidden fruit thing?” he asked her.

“Maybe. Okay, example. When I was younger I had this Yorkshire terrier, Miranda. Every Wednesday when the bin lorry came around to collect the rubbish, Miranda would race up and down beside the fence, barking like mad. She wanted nothing more in life than to catch that truck. Then one day the bin lorry came by, and it turned out someone had left the gate open.” She shook her head sadly. “I was there. I saw everything.”

“What happened?” Robert asked with trepidation.

“Miranda ran up to the truck, yapping at the tires, all fierce and triumphant because she’d caught it at last. I went out to grab her before it pulled away and ran her over. But when I got there, she was just sitting on the pavement, looking disappointed, like, ‘Oh, is that all there is?’”

Robert blinked at her. “I don’t think marriage equality is anything like a dog chasing a bin lorry.”

“Same principle, though, yeah? People want things they’ve been denied.” She sipped her coffee again. “Anyway, it’s silly, them marrying now, especially with John still at uni. They already live together, so what’s the rush?”

“Maybe they just want to make things permanent. When two people are right for each other, it’s illogical not to commit just because they’ve yet to reach some arbitrary milestone.” He held up a hand. “I’m not talking about you and me. We had some good times, but I never saw you as The One.”

“Aw, thanks,” she said, green eyes rolling.

“Would you rather I be languishing away on your account?”

She tilted her head back and forth. “Mmm, I suppose not,” she said with a smirk.

Robert relaxed a little. Each time they joked about their relationship, a fraction of the tension between them melted away. Soon, he hoped, they’d be proper friends instead of exes who happened to work together.

They went on to discuss their project, which studied the Glasgow Effect, a phenomenon in which Glaswegians had shockingly short life spans—even shorter than residents of places with worse poverty and higher rates of addiction and heart disease. Something about this city was sending its people to an early grave.

Though this fourth-year independent project was just another hoop to jump through to get his combined degree in mathematics and digital media, lately it had captured more of Robert’s passion than the video games he designed. His own mum and dad had died young of “preventable causes,” so he held this daft hope that his and Dani’s work might help others avoid the same fate.

Why he thought the two of them could succeed where dozens of top scholars had failed—well, that was a mystery he preferred not to explore.

Finally Dani sat back and rubbed her neck. “After working with all this depressing data, you must be dying to escape Glasgow.”

“You mean before it kills me like it did my parents?”

Her face softened. “That’s not what I meant, but…yeah. You should get out for your own good. Save yourself.”

“Maybe.” Unlike Dani, who came from Edinburgh, Robert truly loved Glasgow. But the tech jobs in this city were mostly banking-related, a field he knew he loathed after the financial stats course he’d taken last year.

“Don’t feel guilty for wanting to make something of yourself,” Dani said. “You’ve come a long way from the streets of Shettleston, and it’s all down to your hard work and talent. You deserve more.”

He turned his head to look at his other pillow, where the Warriors calendar lay open to April. By the end of that month he’d know where following his dreams would take him—Edinburgh, Dundee, or somewhere much, much farther.

“I deserve more than what?” he asked Dani. “My mum and dad, they worked hard, cleaning houses and waiting at tables. We were still poor.”

“They weren’t as educated as you.”

Robert snorted. “You think a degree is all we need in this shit economy?”

“It helps.”

“Okay, let’s say I get a job and it pays decently. But then the company decides to downsize or shift focus or make one of a million decisions that I’ve got no control over but totally ruins my life.”

Dani shrugged. “Then you find another job.”

He shook his head at her middle-class naiveté. “Then because I’ve already been sacked, I’ll play it safe. I’ll be so feart of losing what I’ve got, I’ll be all, ‘yes-sir, no-sir,’ until I’m dead inside, until I’m just living for the weekend when I can drown my pain in whisky and football.”

Dani looked at him sideways. “That’s called ‘life,’ mate.”

“It’s a crap life. My parents thought they’d be safe if they kept their heads down and did what they were told. But it was a lie. They still lost their miserable jobs that made them want to drink and smoke themselves to death.” He paused to smooth out the catch in his voice. “The only way to be safe is to be independent. Be my own boss.”

“This again?” She shook her head. “Starting a business is the riskiest thing in the world.”

“Not these days,” Robert said. “Besides, I’ve already made hundreds of pounds from my wee mobile games. Think what I could do with a team of developers, or with a better artist than myself.”

“That would be cool. Someday.” Dani sat back in her chair. “Do you think me a coward for continuing for my master’s?”

“Of course not. You love academics.”

“I do.” She gave that mischievous smile Robert used to find so enticing. “I want to spend the rest of my life creating unsolvable problems.”

After he and Dani signed off, Robert lay back in bed and picked up the calendar to study the photo of him and Liam for the tenth time since he first saw it last night.

He slid his finger over Liam’s bare shoulder, noticing that someone had Photoshopped out most of his freckles. They’d also erased the scar on Liam’s right elbow, the one he got when they were eight years old, at the height of their brief, imaginary career as the East End’s premier skateboarding duo.

Thankfully, the calendar people had left Liam’s face untouched, though its expression was one seen rarely seen off the pitch. Nobody would guess, based on this threatening glare, that those amber eyes usually glowed with amusement. Or that those lips, twisted here in a snarl, nearly always curved upward in a toothy grin.

Had Liam examined this photo so intently? Had he lain in bed like this, eyes lingering on Robert’s chest, mouth watering at the thought of tasting Robert’s nipple, fingers tingling at the thought of tracing the line of hair below Robert’s navel, down inside his football shorts…

Robert shut the calendar and slapped it down onto the bed beside him. This was impossible. Even if he
could
hook up with Liam—whilst camping Saturday night, for instance—he definitely
shouldn’t
, considering he might move away in six months. It wouldn’t be fair to Liam to start something, then leave him behind.

Heart racing, Robert rolled over and grabbed his phone. He restarted Grindr and returned to IllusiveMan’s profile, then tapped the chat bubble, expecting to be blocked or at least chided for his rude departure.

IllusiveMan: There you are.

Robert let out a breath of relief, then typed,
Here I am.
After another breath, he added,
Wish you were too.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

I
T
TOOK
TEN
minutes to hide every object in Robert’s flat that gave a clue to his identity. He stuffed his course notes inside his desk, slid his laptop into its bag, then tucked his wallet and family photos into the drawer beside the refrigerator.

Finally he scanned the posters on his wall—of musicians, of footballers, of the Glasgow skyline. Nothing illuminating there.

Nothing but the Woodstoun Warriors pennant above his bed, the violet-and-white crest bearing their sword-and-ball logo. To hide that would be disloyal to everything Robert was.

“You stay,” he whispered to the pennant.

Just as he heard a knock, Robert spied the Warriors calendar on his bed. Quickly he shoved it under his pillow, then went to open the door.

Behind it was the face he’d been peeking at all week on his phone. Illusive gaped up at him in surprise, then jerked his head to look at the door number. “Three-twelve,” he said. “Yes, I’m here to see Flustrated?”

“That’s me.”

“Aye, right.” Illusive tried to peer around him. “Where’d he go? Did he chicken out?”

“Why don’t you think I’m Flustrated?”

“Usually when a profile doesn’t show a face, it means a man’s…” He gestured at Robert. “The opposite to what you are.”

“Sorry?”

Illusive gave an exasperated sigh. “Tell me you’re not one of those gorgeous lads who doesn’t know he’s gorgeous. It’s pure tedious.”

“Oh.” Robert felt out of his depth. “I thought you meant I looked wrong.”

“There’s no looking wrong unless you lie.” Illusive examined him with pursed lips as he removed his coat. “Like if you’d said you were a twink instead of a jock—not that I would’ve chatted you in that case. Can I come in?”

“Right. Of course.” Robert stepped out of the way to let Illusive pass, but left the door propped wide open.

The lad noticed. “Let me guess—your headmistress has very strict rules about gentlemen callers.”

Robert gave a nervous laugh. “No, I—I just thought—thought we could—”

“Relax, mate. Frankly, I was surprised you invited me here.” He spun Robert’s desk chair around and sank into it with emphasis, as if he now owned the place. “Usually guys want to meet somewhere public first.”

“Even guys who are—you know—”

“Closet cases? Aye, especially them.” He propped his ankle on his knee and waggled one bright-yellow high-top Converse, a stark contrast to his otherwise all-black outfit. “They think everyone on Grindr’s an ax murderer.”

Robert shrugged and attempted a joke. “The walls here are thin. Anyone could hear me scream.”

“True,” Illusive said with a chuckle. “Also, you’re so huge, only a rhinoceros could take you down.”

Robert nervously licked his dry lips, wondering if they’d still be dry when it came time to…use them. “Rhinoceros? Is that one of those gay tribes, like bears and otters?”

The lad’s laughter boomed against the walls. “I love it.” Propping his elbow on the arm of the chair, he leaned his head on his hand. “What sort of man would be a rhino? Proper old, of course, so he’d have that leathery skin.”

“But well hung,” Robert said, “to match the horn. Downs a constant diet of Viagra.”

Illusive’s cackle eased Robert’s nerves enough to let him take a single step—small on the outside but large on the inside—and shut his flat’s door.

“Ooh, alone at last,” Illusive said. “This is where you tell me
you’re
the ax murderer, aye?”

“No.” Robert crossed the room on shaky legs to sit on the edge of the bed. “This is where I stop talking and start sucking.”

“Oh my God, you’re adorable.” Illusive stayed put. “Not at all what I expected.”

Robert felt a wee bit knocked back by his companion’s demurring. “What did you expect?”

“Well, in our chat you said you’re not out yet, and you look like you could pass for straight anywhere on the planet. So I’m guessing you’re at the start of your journey.”

BOOK: Playing With Fire (Glasgow Lads Book 3)
7.98Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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