Page 209 of Men in Shorts

“So?”

“So…” Would Brodie really make him say it? “You’re too good for me.”

Brodie opened his mouth to reply, then looked at the front window. “I don’t want to have this discussion in front of the entire Merchant City district.”

“Me neither.” He led Brodie to the kitchen section at the back of the shop, hidden from the front window by a ten-foot divider separating it from the dining area. Duncan pulled out two faux-leather slate bar stools (clearance at £89 each) from beneath the kitchen island and parked himself on the near one. “Och, feels good to get off my feet.”

Brodie gave a short grunt as he sat. “No one won our game, so who starts?”

“You start.” Duncan adjusted one of the plastic sale signs bearing the store’s motto (Quality. For Life.), pushing it closer to the set of mottled-glass, gold-rimmed wine glasses it was advertising for just £9 a pop.

“Okay.” Brodie put one glove in each coat pocket, then ran his hands down his thighs, smoothing his black trousers. “When I got the offer for the extended internship, I thought you’d be happy for me. I thought you knew how important it was.”

“I did know, and Iwashappy. I’m sorry I didn’t make that clear at the time. I think you’re amazing, and I was so proud that other people could see that too.”

Brodie met his eyes for a second, then dropped his gaze back to the floor. “But…”

“But I would’ve liked to have been asked. If you’d said, ‘Duncan, I’m thinking of doing this, how do you feel about it?’ I would never have begged you not to go to Russia. I would never have tried to make you feel guilty about staying away from me. I would never have said—” Oh God, the things he’d said, swept up in that whirlwind of fear and sadness. “I’m sorry I threw a strop.”

“If you weren’t such a hothead, I wouldn’t recognize you,” Brodie said. “Anyway, I wasn’t keeping the Russia offer a secret. It came out of the blue for me, too.”

“You could’ve shared that with me. We could’ve dealt with it together. What hurt was being left out of your decision. I felt like I didn’t matter.” Duncan’s words tumbled out. “But of course Idon’tmatter in the grand scheme of things, not next to your work, which is literally saving lives.”

“No. Please don’t say that.” Brodie half-turned away, then reached for the display bowl of fake fruit in the middle of the island. “I went abroad fancying myself some sort of savior, helping these poor people escape these awful places and the unenlightened eejits who hated them for who they were or who they loved.”

Because that’s what you escaped, Duncan didn’t need to say aloud. Brodie would never return to his Aberdeenshire village, would never again speak to his parents, not until they accepted him for being queer. In a way, he was as much in exile here in Glasgow as those asylum seekers were—only he didn’t have to fill in a hundred forms or answer intrusive questions to prove to Immigration Enforcement he was gay, or that his life was in danger because of it. To escape his hell, he needed only to go to university.

“I was so fucking arrogant.” Brodie stared at the fake apple as he spun it on the gleaming marble worktop. “Those places aren’t awful. Nigeria and Russia, they’re wonderful countries full of wonderful people. And to the asylum-seekers, those places are home. They’re not coming here so they can upgrade their lives the way we might buy a better car or move into a bigger house. They’re coming here because the homes they love are killing them.”

Duncan pressed the soles of his feet against the stool’s rung to ground himself. He was alive here and now—and lucky for it, lucky to have family and friends who not only accepted but celebrated who he was.

“So I’m not better than you,” Brodie said. “We’re both studying psychology because we want to help people. We just feel called to do it in different ways.”

“That’s kind of you to say, but I’ll never stop believing you’re the best person I’ve ever met.” He nudged Brodie’s leg with his toe, risking a bit of flirtation. “Don’t forget, you were the one wearing a halo all day.”

Brodie ran a hand through his hair, ruffling the dark-brown waves. “That headband was too tight. I can still feel it pinching my brain, like a phantom accessory.”

“It was pure cute, though.” He started fidgeting with the price sign again. “Talking of brains, have you looked into any graduate psych degrees?”

“I plan to stay at Glasgow Uni. What about you?”

“I would do, but they’ve got no sport psychology course.”

Brodie straightened up, looking uneasy. “Okay…”

“The premier institution for that is University of Loughborough.”

Brodie stared at him. “In Leicestershire? That’s hours away. You’d be gone for years.”

“I know. But see, they don’t offer a doctorate, just a master’s. And I think I really want a PhD…” he bit back a smile “…like the one at Glasgow Caledonian University.”

Brodie let out a whoosh of breath, then put his hand to his chest. “I dunno, Duncan, can we handle our campuses being ten minutes apart? Hanging out in two different student unions?”

“We could take turns. Monday and Wednesday you come to Caley, Tuesday and Thursday I go to you.”

“And Friday?”

“We meet in the middle, maybe an overpriced café in Sauchiehall Street.”

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