Page 75 of Playing to Win

“No. Take a deep breath.” Andrew pressed Colin’s hand to the iron fence behind them. “Feel how cool that is? Go on and put your face against it. Remember how it helped before, in Edinburgh?”

“Mmph.” Colin obeyed, shutting his eyes hard. After two full breaths he said, “This city smells wrong.”

“Of course it does. It’s not home. Here.” Andrew produced a folded handkerchief from his sporran and gave it to Colin, who pressed it to his nose and mouth.

“You just happened to have a handkerchief?”

“A gentleman always has a handkerchief. I put one in your sporran when I packed it.”

“Oh.” Colin’s breath began to slow. “I think I might not boak after all.”

“Excellent.”

“But only if I get an Irn Bru. Have they got that here?”

“In America? No. In New York? Yes.” Andrew pulled out his phone and tweetedWhere can one find Irn Bru in Lower Manhattan? Asking for a friend.

While waiting for replies, he checked his Twitter lists. A glance at Colin’s timeline made him laugh. “You tweeted ‘OMG I am supre drunk!’ Super spelled R-E.”

“Aye, it was a play on the British spelling of words like ‘theater’ and ‘center.’” Eyes still closed, Colin pressed his face harder to the iron fence. “Because we’re in America. Get it?”

“That is legendary. I wish I’d tweeted that.”

“You can retweet it.”

“Are you mad? My followers would see by your profile you’re a gay Glaswegian footballer. They’d put two and two together in no time.” He looked at Colin. “It’s not that I’m ashamed to be with you. It’s more that I don’t want to complicate your life by publicly entangling it with mine.”

Colin finally opened his eyes, but he didn’t look at Andrew. Instead he turned his head and stared across the street toward Ground Zero. “Funny how magical the truth seems when you’re drunk. Like if you just speak it, the world’ll be okay.” He sniffled. “Maybe I should always be drunk.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Colin sat up straight, rubbed his face, then rose unsteadily to his feet. “Can we go to theSeinfelddiner?”

= = =

By the time he and Andrew boarded their plane Saturday evening, Colin’s hangover was nearly gone. His temples still throbbed vaguely, but at least his eyelashes had stopped burning and his tongue could taste flavors again.

“I really liked Americans,” he told Andrew after takeoff as they eased back their first-class seats into bed-like lounges. “They were so friendly and open.”

“Yes, rather like Glaswegians, but more polite.” Andrew swallowed an Ambien with a swig from his water bottle.

“I just wish they could understand me.” Colin smoothed the airline blanket over his sock feet, hoping they didn’t stink. “You understand me, right?”

“About eighty percent of the time. A year ago it would’ve been more like eight percent.” Andrew gave him a lingering look, his lids already drooping with drowsiness. “Goodnight, Colin,” he whispered just above the hum of the plane’s engines. “Thank you for a lovely weekend.” Then Andrew pulled his sleep mask over his eyes, switched on his noise-reduction headphones, and tugged his blanket up over his chest.

The cabin lights dimmed, and the crew asked the passengers to lower their window shades. Colin closed his until the flight attendant had passed by, then lifted it again to look outside. A crescent moon was setting behind the plane, casting its ghostly light upon the thin clouds below. He checked the map on the monitor in front of him. They’d be off the coast of Greenland in less than an hour. He didn’t want to miss that.

He pressed his finger to the cold window and pondered Ground Zero. He’d thought it would make him feel better to see it, to try to understand the source of all that American fury. Instead it had only stoked his own.

Perhaps it was mere hangover fatigue, but Colin was starting to get really sick of being angry. For the first time in his life, he felt like that bottomless reservoir of rage might one day run dry. Or at least get a wee bit shallower.

After all, if he could spend so much time with the insufferable toff Lord Andrew without killing him in his sleep, Colin’s mind must be expanding. Either that or he was losing it entirely.

He turned to Andrew. “Hey,” he said softly.

Andrew’s face stayed smooth and undisturbed, even after a gentle nudge to his elbow.

From his rucksack, Colin retrieved a pen and the small notepad he used to jot down his football thoughts. He wrote a short message on one of the sheets, which he then tore off, folded, and tucked between Andrew’s slack, sleeping fingers.

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