Play On: A Glasgow Lads Novella (4 page)

“He needs caring for. Why not me?”

“Mind, romance between flatmates is toxic.” She bumped the microwave door shut with her elbow. “Then again, the year’s almost over, so what have you got to lose?” She winked at him, then bopped out of the kitchen, ponytail swinging smugly behind her.

He pondered her point as he made Brodie’s tea. A month before summer vacation would be the perfect time to start something casual and fun, a diversion to sustain them through exams. But then Brodie would return to his home village until September. Duncan pure sucked at saying goodbye.

Returning to Brodie’s room, Duncan chuckled to himself at Shu-Fen’s glandular-fever accusation. Yesterday he’d Googled the virus’s incubation period and discovered he couldn’t have been the culprit.

But pretending he
was
the culprit gave him an excuse to be here.

= = =

Duncan had barely covered one page of chemistry when the door opened. Brodie stumbled across the floor, dropping a wet towel and dirty clothes in his wake, then crawled into bed, his hair still wet and his clean T-shirt and pajama trousers spotted with water.

“All right?” Duncan asked.

“Trachled,” Brodie murmured into his pillow.

Duncan smiled at the Doric word for “exhausted.” Brodie tried to minimize his northeast dialect so he could be understood in Glasgow, but when he was tired, drunk, or excited, he still let slip a “Fit like?” (“How are you?”) or called lads and lasses “loons” and “quines.” Other Glaswegians often mocked Brodie’s speech, but Duncan found it charming. Something about the contrast between the harsh, guttural accent and Brodie’s soft, sweet features really did it for him.

Ten minutes later, Duncan gave up studying and just stared through his notes as he listened to the noises from the bed behind him—not snores this time, but whimpers and sighs, accompanied by the shifting of sheets. He remembered those noises all too well, how Brodie’s breath had sounded and felt against his skin that night as they’d kissed and groped. He turned up his music again, but it couldn’t stop the memories that were filling his brain and swelling his cock.

“Am I annoying you?” Brodie asked suddenly, making Duncan jump.

He took out an earphone. “Sorry?” he asked, his voice cracking from the constriction of his jeans.

“I’m so tired I can’t sleep.” Brodie stared at the ceiling, arms spread, fingers draping melodramatically over the edge of the mattress. “I can’t read my notes. I can’t even think. I’m basically a useless person.”

I should go. But he needs me. But I should go.

Duncan set down his pen. “I know just what you need.”

“Death?”

“Mindless telly.” He brought up the BBC iPlayer on his tablet. “This calls for a binge of
River City
.”

“The soap opera? My mum used to watch that every Tuesday night. Seemed rubbish to me.”

“It was at first, but now it’s really good. When I was ill last year,
River City
was the only thing I could bear to watch.”

“How did you get BBC in America?”

“Virtual private network app. Makes it look like your IP address is in a different country to where you are. It’s how I stream American shows here.” Duncan pretended to search the room for a place to set the tablet so they could both see it. But he’d already thought of one. “Move over.”

“Why?”

“So we can watch the show together, ya dobber. Where’s your spare pillow?”

Brodie gaped up at him, not moving, making Duncan very nervous. Finally he nodded to the wardrobe. “In there.”

As Duncan retrieved the pillow, Brodie squeezed himself against the wall, leaving more than half of the bed available. When Duncan settled next to him atop the sky-blue duvet, keeping the thick layer of covers between their bodies, Brodie let out what sounded like a sigh of relief. If Duncan hadn’t showered this morning after his daily run, he would’ve wondered if
he
stank.

He pulled his knees up, then propped the tablet against his thighs.

“Must I stare at your crotch to watch this show?” Brodie asked.

“My crotch is the ultimate entertainment unit.”

Brodie snorted, then put a hand to his head. “Ow. Here.” He drew his own knees level with Duncan’s, then rested the tablet so that one end was on his own left thigh and the other on Duncan’s right. “Better?”

Now Duncan would have to hold his leg rigid to keep it from touching Brodie’s. “Erm…yeah.” He tapped the screen to play the show. The opening credits swept by, a dazzling montage of modern-day Glasgow. “This bit always made me homesick when I watched it in the States. Growing up here, I couldn’t wait to get out and see the world. And then I couldn’t wait to come home. Pathetic, isn’t it?”

Brodie grunted. “I don’t miss home at all.”

“Why not?”

“Shh, it’s starting.”

Duncan crossed his arms, tucking his hands into his armpits. His fingers itched to run through the dark, damp waves of hair flopping over Brodie’s temple. He tried to take shallow breaths so the smell of shampoo and soap wouldn’t weaken his resolve. He wanted to do more than
touch
that hair. He wanted to bury his face in it, right at Brodie’s nape, and behind his ear, and all the other places where his scent would be strongest: under his arms, behind his knees, between his thighs…

“Those two men are a couple?” Brodie asked. “That’s brilliant.”

“Told you this show got better.” Duncan paused the program to relate the tumultuous history of Robbie and Will. “I kinda hate that Robbie’s a hairdresser. I mean, stereotype much?”

“Some gays are hairdressers. Get over it. We can’t all be straight-acting footballers.”

“I don’t straight-act.”
Do I?

“Why do you assume I was talking about you?” Brodie gave him That Look again, the impish one that set Duncan’s skin on fire. Then he turned back to the screen. “I wish these characters had been in the show years ago. It would’ve been nice to see people like me on such a popular—oh.” Brodie’s lips suddenly twisted. “I just realized why my mum stopped watching
River City
.”

“What, because of the gay couple?”

“Probably.” He ran the edge of the sheet between his thumb and first two fingers. “She’s always saying, ‘Why do
those
people have to be all over the telly, shoving their lifestyle down our throats? Everywhere you look these days, there they are.’”

“There ‘they’ are? Does she not know you’re gay?”

Brodie’s dark gaze flicked over. “Would you come out to someone who says things like that?”

“I don’t know.” Duncan liked to think he would be honest no matter what. But his own coming-out had been…unusual, to say the least. “What about your dad?”

“He works at an oil rig, so he’s away most of the time. When he’s home, we do our best not to interact. It suits us both.”

Duncan felt dismayed at Brodie’s lack of support at home. It was an all-too-common story. “Did you have a boyfriend in your village?”

“A secret boyfriend, kind of. It wasn’t serious, and it was agreed that once we were away to university, that was it. By October he was posting pics of his girlfriend on Facebook.” Brodie’s bitter tone undermined his it-wasn’t-serious claim. “Geoffrey ignored me all year, even when we were both home for Christmas. Then last week he visited me out of the blue. Not because I was ill, but because he wanted advice on coming out. Apparently his girlfriend had just dumped him.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him to fuck right off.” He shot Duncan a guilty look. “It was prickish of me, I know.”

“Justifiable prickishness. Besides, you were ill.”

“That’s no excuse. I should’ve helped him. His university’s not as gay-friendly as ours.” Brodie steadied his end of Duncan’s tablet as he stretched his legs, then pulled his knees up again. “Let’s finish the show.”

They watched the rest of the episode without interruption, but Duncan struggled to focus on the story after these revelations. He’d known Brodie came from a small village, but never realized he’d been completely in the closet before coming to Glasgow Uni. Despite his occasional awkwardness, Brodie seemed pure comfortable in his own skin. Perhaps his self-possession was a carefully constructed facade.

As the closing credits flashed on the screen, Brodie said, “You were right. It’s not rubbish.”

“Is it not-rubbish enough to watch another episode?”

“Och, aye.”

Duncan laughed. “It’s pure addictive, right? Admit it.”

“They say admitting you’ve a problem is the first step to recovery, and I don’t want to recover.” Brodie slid down and pulled the sheet up over his nose like a mischievous wee lad. “What do you miss most about America?”

“Besides the suntanned boys? Iced tea.”

Brodie made a gagging noise.

“That’s what I thought too.” Duncan brought up the next episode on his tablet. “But then one day last summer, it was pure meltin’ outside, and there was no sort of ginger—no Coke or anything—in my aunt’s fridge. Nothing but ‘sun tea,’ she called it. You put a bunch of tea bags in a pitcher, set it outside in the sun, and let the heat brew it. Then you add ice and sugar and lemon.”

“Sounds gads.”

“It wasn’t. It was delicious.” His mouth watered at the memory of the amber liquid glistening in the sun. “The key is to see it as a soft drink, not as tea.”

“But it is tea. Or it was, before it got raped by ice.”

“Shut up and watch the show.”

Problem was, now that Brodie had shifted down, their knees no longer aligned. Duncan flipped the back of the tablet’s case to make a stand, but couldn’t find a level place to set it, as the duvet made Brodie’s torso higher than his.

Finally Brodie sighed and said, “Get under the covers.”

Duncan’s mouth went suddenly dry, and his cock suddenly hard. “You sure?”

“Just don’t try anything, as I’m too weak to fend you off.”

Duncan didn’t meet Brodie’s eyes as he lifted the covers and reclined beside him. The sudden warmth made him shiver. Every hair on his arms and legs seemed to stand up straight, yearning to brush against its counterpart on Brodie’s body.

They watched the second episode with the tablet on its stand, one end on each of their stomachs. It rose and fell with their synchronized breaths.

Earlier, atop the covers, Duncan had been at war with himself and his desire to get closer. But now that they lay shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, separated by nothing but clothes, the war within him ended. With each inhale, he gave himself over to this intoxicating nearness.

By the end of the episode, Brodie was clearly fading. “Sleep now,” he murmured at the closing credits, his long lashes fluttering shut.

“I’m away to football practice session anyhow.” Duncan tapped his tablet’s camera app. “First let me take a selfie.”

“Of us in bed? Are you daft? What’ll people say?”

“It’s just for us. Smile now!”

“I’m not—”

Click!

Duncan brought up the photo, of Brodie protesting and himself wearing a goofy grin. “Och, I look a maniac. Let’s take another, and this time, pretend you don’t hate me.”

Click!

The new picture stopped Duncan’s breath. In it, he was smiling at the camera while Brodie regarded him with a gaze of spontaneous tenderness, a gaze that said
How could you think I hate you?

“Delete it,” Brodie said. “I look stupid.”

“No, you look—”
So fucking kissable.
“You look fine.”

“My selfies are shite. Please delete it.”

It was the last thing in the world Duncan wanted to do (or maybe the second-to-last thing). “Only if you promise to let me take another.”

“Fine.”

Duncan deleted the second photo, then took a third. They both looked half decent in this picture, but the guardedness had returned to Brodie’s eyes.

After giving Duncan a quick nod of approval, he turned away to lie on his side. “Thank you for all you’ve done for me. It was very kind.”

His tone was formal, almost cold, but beneath it lay a note of vulnerability that twisted Duncan’s heart.

“Nae bother.” Duncan reluctantly slid out of bed. He held onto his tablet with both hands, to keep from reaching out and touching Brodie’s shoulder or cheek. “After practice I’ll probably meet our study group at the library, but I’ll pop in on you later, see if you need anything.”

Brodie uttered a faint, affirmative noise. Duncan gathered his things and left the room, before he could do something colossally, irrevocably stupid.

= = =

The moment the door shut, Brodie turned over in bed. He wasn’t sleepy at all—quite the opposite, in fact. Lying beside Duncan for two hours had given him a pounding pulse, tingling skin, and aching balls.

Pressing his face to the spare pillow, Brodie caught the faintest whiff of Duncan’s sweat. He sighed, remembering how it had tasted that night as he’d kissed his way down Duncan’s throat to his broad, muscular chest. How those hands had tightened in his hair as he’d tugged Duncan’s nipple, first with lips, then with teeth. It had all seemed so perfect until—

No, he wouldn’t think of how it had ended. Not now, when he needed relief. Instead, he’d think of how it
could
have ended.

Brodie began to stroke himself—tentatively at first, through the soft cotton of his pajama trousers, the way Duncan would if he were lying here. He’d cup Brodie’s shaft with his strong, wide palm, taking the measure of him. Then his thumb would sweep up, up, up to the sensitive ridge under the head. Finally his fingers would drift lower, feathering over Brodie’s balls, feeling their fullness.

Through it all he’d kiss him, swallowing Brodie’s pleas for more. Until he was ready to give it.

Brodie shoved his briefs and trousers down over his hips, urgently, like he wanted Duncan to do. He wanted Duncan’s hands to tremble with need. He wanted to be grasped too hard, too eagerly.

Turning back on his side to inhale Duncan’s scent, Brodie seized himself again. His fingers were cold, making him gasp with shock and pleasure. He started stroking with a tight, graceless grip, imagining Duncan trying to hold back, find a rhythm, make it last.

But he wouldn’t last a minute under Duncan’s touch. Not with that deep voice urging him on. Not with those slicing blue eyes watching for signs he was on the edge. Not with that warm hand enveloping his cock, sliding up and down and up and down and—