Free Playing to Win by Avery Cockburn

breakfast?” Andrew asked. “I thought we’d eat after we finish at the Close, about two o’clock? It’ll be between normal meal times, so the cafés shouldn’t be completely jammed.”
    “Fine,” Colin said. He’d skipped breakfast, his stomach too fluttery for food. Last night’s sleep had been fractured into fifteen-minute dozings surrounded by hour-long bouts of staring at the ceiling in wondrous terror.
    A light hand swept his back. “You all right?”
    On reflex, Colin stepped away. “Aye, fine. Why? Do I look—do I not look okay?” Shattered as he was, he couldn’t show weakness to this man.
    “You look wonderful.” Andrew dropped his hand, but then moved closer, cautiously, as if expecting him to bolt again. Then he pressed his lips to Colin’s in that same firm, soft kiss he’d given last weekend in Fergus’s kitchen. A kiss that tamed.
    Colin felt his limbs unknot as his lungs slowly emptied. Andrew’s fingers found his, but didn’t grasp, only pressed for a long moment, steady and sure. Colin marveled that this man, who was so dangerous to his sanity, could make him feel so safe.
    Perhaps that was Andrew’s most dangerous quality of all.
    = = =
    Katie Heath: Hope you’re having a good time. Edinburgh is soooo romantic!
    Liam Carroll: I hope he’s spending bags of money on you. I hope you fuck him senseless. I hope you live to tell about it.
    Robert McKenzie: What Liam said. PS: please take pics.
    Colin slipped his phone into his pocket without replying to his mates’ texts. Waiting in the Real Mary King’s Close gift shop while Andrew fetched their tickets, he watched the tourists jostle one another through the narrow aisles. They spoke a mind-boggling array of languages, and most carried bags from the Royal Mile souvenir shops trafficking in cringe-worthy Scottish clichés. Through the open door, Colin could hear a bagpiper on the street outside, playing an incessant, indecipherable tune. The hubbub, along with his lack of breakfast and sleep, was giving him a skull-gripping headache.
    “What a madhouse!” Andrew slipped into the tour queue in front of Colin, curling his lip at a pair of jimmy-hat-wearing tourists. “I should’ve taken you farther away. Seems all Scotland’s been invaded by Commonwealth Games visitors.”
    “Why did you bring me to Edinburgh? Not that I’m complaining,” he hurried to add. Despite his unease, Colin was still marveling at Andrew’s generosity.
    “I wanted to show you my home city.” Andrew slid one of the tour tickets into Colin’s T-shirt pocket, a gesture that felt strangely intimate.
    “Home city? I thought you’d a castle in the countryside.”
    “My family’s estate is in Fife, yes. But I came to Edinburgh for boarding school when I was seven, so I consider it my home.”
    Colin gaped at him, imagining the terror of leaving home at such an age. “Seven years old? That’s mad, sending weans off to fend for themselves.”
    “Fettes Prep wasn’t exactly the Outback. Besides, it builds character.”
    “But what about—I mean, someone like you—”
    “Someone like me?” Andrew gave him a sharp look.
    Colin lowered his voice. “Someone so obviously gay.”
    Andrew lifted his chin imperiously. “I don’t take that as an insult, but you should know that in my circle, refinement and fashion sense are signs of good breeding, not orientation.”
    Did he actually use the phrase good breeding ? “I’m just saying, kids can be cruel.” Colin rubbed the insides of his forearms, where his tattoos lay, then stopped when he saw Andrew noticing the gesture. “At a boarding school there’d be no escape from bullies.”
    “Who says I was bullied?”
    He studied Andrew, who suddenly wouldn’t meet his eyes. Before Colin could respond, their tour guide arrived in front of their group.
    “Greetings, everyone!” Dressed in medieval garb, the guide introduced himself as William. First he apologized for his “heavy Scottish