Play On: A Glasgow Lads Novella Read Online Free PDF

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