Rule One: No Drama!
Fergus Taylor is damaged goods. Reeling from a brutal breakup, he’s determined to captain his LGBT soccer team out of scandal and into a winning season. For that, he needs strict rules and careful plans. He does NOT need a brash, muscle-bound lad messing with his head and setting his body afire.
John Burns has a rule of his own: Don’t get attached. Boyfriends are for guys with nothing to hide. Nobody—not his university mates, not the men he beds—knows his family’s shame, a shame that stains all Scotland. Now his double life is starting to unravel, thanks to a certain Highlander whose storm-riddled eyes turn John inside out, who wears a kilt like he was born in it.
Fergus is the first man John wants to share his secret with—but he’s the last man who could handle it. John knows the truth would shatter Fergus’s still-fragile heart. But how can he live a lie when he’s falling in love?
Glasgow Lads series
More Lads are on the way! The series features a recurring cast of teammates, but each novel contains its own stand-alone romance, so they can be read in any order.
Play On, Duncan & Brodie novella
Playing for Keeps, Fergus & John novel
Playing to Win, Colin & Andrew novel
Play It Safe, Fergus & John short story
Playing with Fire, Liam & Robert novel
Play Dead, Colin & Andrew novella
Playing in the Dark, Evan & Ben novel
Play Hard, Liam & Robert novella
All Through the House, Duncan & Brodie short story
Playing by Ear, Jamie & Perry novel, coming 2022
Glasgow Lads on Ice (spinoff/crossover series featuring curling):
Throwing Stones, Luca & Oliver novel
Must Love Christmas, Garen & Simon novel
CHAPTER ONE
“RULE ONE: NO drama!”
Fergus Taylor felt a rush like no other as his football teammates shouted the last two words with him. They gathered close as one body, hands stretching toward the center of their circle.
“Rule Two,” he began, and together they all yelled, “Play faster!”
Fergus inhaled the heady mixture of skin, grass, and mud, all baking under an unusually bright Scottish sun. A beautiful day for the Beautiful Game.
“Rule Three: Hunt rebounds!”
Pulse pounding, he clutched the round leather ball to his hip so hard he thought it would burst.
“Rule Four: Check your shoulder!”
The players’ voices overflowed with trust in their newly elected captain. Which, incredibly, was Fergus.
They clustered in, holding tight, releasing the final collective shout. “Rule Five: NO DRAMA!” Their fists shot together toward the cloudless sky.
Then Fergus stepped back, watching his teammates greet one another, exchanging hugs and high fives as if it had been two years instead of two weeks since they’d last practiced. Maybe it was the weather imparting a feeling of newness. Only an hour before, a ten-day spell of rain had finally ended, leaving the pitch beneath their feet and the mountains to their north a bright pistachio green.
The players lined up side by side facing Fergus, looking like a mural painted to show Glasgow’s diversity of races, genders, and orientations. The Woodstoun Warriors Amateur Football Club’s eleven starters and twelve substitutes also varied greatly in size, skills, and experience. They had but one thing in common: a completely insane amount of pride.
They needed it, after the way last season had ended.
Now that the inspirational bits were over, it was time to get to work. “All right, mates,” Fergus said. “Charlotte asked me to run a training exercise while she does some club business.” As he described their manager’s new drill, Fergus tossed the ball between his hands, hoping he didn’t look as nervous as he felt. His players seemed to be watching him closely for lingering symptoms of heartbreak. It was best for everyone if Fergus pretended he was fine.
For the exercise, he divided the Warriors into smaller groups, leaving out one of their forwards, Colin MacDuff. “Come with me,” he told Colin. “I need your insights.”
“Ooh!” Colin scampered after Fergus to the side of the pitch, leaving the others behind. “Does that mean I’m to be vice-captain?”
“No, I need you to be something more important.”
“A mascot! I’ll paint my face like Braveheart and go screaming up and down the pitch during matches.” He demonstrated with bulging eyes and protruding tongue, waving his tattooed arms until the black ink blurred with his pale skin. “Aye? Put the frighteners on our opponents.”
Fergus humored him with a smile. At eighteen, Colin was the Warriors’ youngest player and most prolific scorer. But it was his manic energy that Fergus valued most. There’d been days when the forward’s antics were all that salvaged the team’s spirits. “I appreciate the offer, but you’ll scare our opponents better as our new playmaker.”
Colin’s face fell slack as he gaped up at Fergus. “I’m to take…his place? You’re making me the attacking midfielder?”
“Technically, Charlotte’s making you attacking midfielder.”
“Yaaaaas!” Colin punched the air and spun around, then grabbed at his mass of spiky black hair. “Wait, why am I standing here? Shouldn’t I be out there practicing my new position?”
“If you’re to control the flow of our offense, you need to see what we’ve got. Learn our players’ strengths and weaknesses.” Fergus blew the whistle to begin the drill.
He and Colin watched in worried silence. Their teammates’ focus was still in the shambles left by their former captain. It made Fergus extra grateful that they’d been willing—eager, in fact—to begin preseason training in early June, a month sooner than usual. Several had just finished university exams and would have loved a few weeks’ holiday. But they’d returned. For him.
The best way to repay their devotion was to make them champions.
“I know you telt me to watch the players,” Colin said, “but who’s that lad with Charlotte?”
Fergus shaded his eyes and peered across the pitch to see their manager standing near the bench, chatting to a boy barely taller than herself. “Must be that first-year from the Glasgow Uni LGBT group. They want us to play a friendly preseason match for charity.”
“Oh, aye, Duncan mentioned it.” Colin gestured to the Warriors’ striker, who had just paused to wave to their visitor. “His boyfriend is pals with this guy. So what’s the charity?”
“New Shores. They help asylum seekers who were persecuted in their home countries for being gay. But I’m not sure we should play the match.”
“Fuck’s sake, why not? It’s a good cause, and it’d be good practice. God knows we need it after losing—”
Fergus blew the whistle before Colin could utter the name. “Start again, mates, and this time, faster! I want to see one touch only before you pass!” Then he told Colin, “I’m worried this charity match could turn us into a spectacle.” Again.
Colin snorted. “Our team’s made up of poofs, dykes, and trannies.”
“Plus Robert,” Fergus added, having long ago given up correcting Colin’s insensitive terminology.
“Plus Robert. My point is, we’re already a spectacle.”
“We’re not the only gay football club in Scotland.”
“We’re the only one with lasses—and lads who used to be lasses, and vice versa—and the only one playing in a straight league.” Colin shifted from foot to foot, discharging excess energy. “There’s naebody like us, so why not get some fuckin’ exposure and make the world a better fuckin’ place and all?”
Fergus suppressed a shudder at the word exposure. After recent events, it was the last thing he wanted, the last thing the team needed. “I’m sure that’s what that eager wee pup over there will say.” He shaded his eyes again to peer at their visitor. Wearing a white Oxford shirt with a dark tie and trousers, the lad looked out of place on this tattered pitch. Yet he held himself with an animated ease and confidence, as if to say, I belong anywhere I want to be. A smooth talker, for certain.
Colin elbowed Fergus’s side. “Charlotte wants you, ya blind bastard.”
Sure enough, their manager was waving at him. And the boy next to her had caught him staring.
As he jogged across the pitch to join them, Fergus realized: this was no boy. The stranger’s chest and shoulders were thick and broad, and the challenge in his dark gaze—combined with the disarming smile he unleashed as Fergus approached—were 100 percent grown man.
“Hiya,” he said, holding out a hand to shake. “I’m John Burns.”
That voice—deep and solid, yet strangely buoyant—made a dormant part of Fergus awaken and uncoil. His steps slowed as he concentrated on not stumbling.
“John. Yes.” What does that mean? “Yes” what? “Thanks for coming. Coming to the practice session, that is.” Dismayed at how this lad had already rattled him, Fergus stopped several feet away.
“Nae bother,” John said with a smirk.
“Sorry, I’d shake your hand, but I’m all sweaty.” Fergus put his hands behind his back to hide their dryness.
Charlotte gave him a what-the-fuck? look, then cleared her throat. “I’ll run the next drill while youse two discuss the charity match. Fergus, I’m up for it if you are.” She put her whistle in her mouth, then took it out again. “Oh, before I forget.”
From her pocket she produced a clear plastic bag. Fergus’s heart stuttered when he saw the strip of dark cloth within.
“Normally you’d wear it only during a match.” Charlotte pulled the captain’s armband from the bag and gave it to him. “But I think it’d mean a lot to your players if you wore it today.”
My players. Not his. None of us is his now. Fergus rubbed the rough black material between his thumb and forefinger. He remembered the times Evan had come to bed wearing nothing but the armband. How it had looked against his perpetually tanned skin. How it had felt under Fergus’s palm as they’d kissed and clutched and fucked.
The manager’s whistle snapped Fergus back to the present. He looked at John, worried he’d been caught out daydreaming, but their guest had already turned away to watch the players.
Fergus braced himself for a sales pitch. John would tell him what a brilliant opportunity the charity match was for his team, how they’d gain new supporters while helping those in need. He’d gloss over the bit where the Warriors would be put on display like circus animals.
Instead John kept his eyes on the field and said, “Tell me about your team, Fergus.”
This guy was good. By feigning interest in the Warriors, he’d gather information he could use to manipulate Fergus into agreeing to the match. It didn’t hurt that the sound of his own name rolling off John’s tongue had made Fergus’s jock strap feel suddenly tight.
He cleared his throat. “Right. Warriors belong to the Scottish Amateur Football Association. They were formed in 2005 by—”
“I know all that. Tell me about the players.” Lifting his chin, John tugged his maroon-and-blue-paisley tie to loosen the knot. “And yourself,” he added with a sideways glance as he undid his shirt’s top button.
Fergus rubbed the side of his neck, which had grown suddenly warm. He couldn’t assume John was gay; those LGBT organizations were full of straight allies. Gay or straight, John wouldn’t be above flirting to get Fergus’s cooperation.
“So, erm, I’m the captain and usually play deep midfield—that’s the part closest to the defense,” he added, unsure how much John knew about football. “Colin, the one standing on the far touchline, he’s our new attacking midfielder—what some call a ‘playmaker’ or ‘number ten.’”
“You’ve lasses on your squad?” John nodded toward the Warriors’ keeper, who was jogging toward the goal at the end of the pitch, her long bronze ponytail sweeping her back. “That’s rare.”
“Heather Wek is one of the team’s founding members. She was a lad at the time.”
“Well, strictly speaking, she was always a lass. She just happened to be born in a male body.”
Fergus rubbed his neck again at the way John said body. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”
“It’s the correct way of looking at it.” John cast a sly smile to soften his chiding, then turned back to the pitch. “Now who’s that lad with the shaggy brown hair? He looks familiar.”
John’s tone made Fergus oddly jealous. “Robert McKenzie, and he’s straight.”
“Oh?”
“We don’t discriminate. Besides, we had to take him if we wanted his best mate, Liam. They’ve played together their whole lives and seem to share a brain, which makes them a dream central-defending unit.” Am I babbling? It feels like I’m babbling. “Robert studies at GU, so perhaps you’ve seen him there?”
“Maybe. Och, it’s pure meltin’ today.” John undid another shirt button. “That’s better. So what about you, same as Robert?”
Fergus’s eyes locked onto the smattering of dark chest hairs revealed by John’s open collar. “No, I’m not straight.”
John laughed. “I meant, are you a Glasgow Uni student?”
“Oh!” Fergus’s face heated, which usually meant it was turning as red as his hair. “Yes—I mean, no. I just sat my final RIBA exam—that’s Royal Institute of British Architects. Seven years of uni, over at last.”
John’s eyes widened, accentuating their chocolate-brown irises. “Well done! It’s like you’re a real adult or something.”
“If only I felt like one.” Needing to focus on anything but John, Fergus scraped the sole of his right shoe against the toe of his left, dislodging mud from between the studs. “I still have that student’s nightmare. Where it’s exam day and you’ve never attended a single class?”
“Och, that’s the worst. Whenever I have that dream, I always seem to be naked.”
Fergus coughed, then adjusted the waistband of his shorts. “Well…” He flailed for a snappy comeback, sorely out of practice when it came to banter.
“Ah! I know who Robert looks like. This American actor Brandon, from the Dakota Wyatt films. You know the one I mean?”
Fergus gaped at John. “The porn star?”
“Aye. It’s the hair, and the body type, and the…you know.” John sculpted the air with his hands. “Everything. Oh, here he comes!” He gave Fergus’s arm a quick squeeze. “Look casual.”
The hulking, square-jawed defender was trotting over, lifting the hem of his shirt to wipe sweat from his cheek. “Fergus, Charlotte wants us to play a possession drill in five minutes, so we’ll need you on the pitch.” He nodded hello to John, then went to the bench and started counting out yellow and blue vests for the two sides.
On a whim, Fergus said, “Hey, Robert? John here thinks you’re the spitting image of this American actor he’s seen.”
Robert brightened. “Aye? Which one?”
“Braden Dakota Wyatt,” John said.
“Never heard of him.”
“He’s done mostly indie films.” John nodded vigorously. “Gonnae Google him, see for yourself?”
“I will. Cheers!” Hugging the vests to his chest with one arm, Robert hurried back onto the pitch.
Fergus covered his own mouth to muffle his laughter. “I hope his girlfriend’s not with him when he Googles.”
John shrugged. “He plays for an LGBT football club. If she’s not secure about his sexuality by now, a wee gander at gay porn shouldn’t make the difference.”
“She might even find it inspiring. After all, straight lads love watching fake lesbian action, so why wouldn’t it be the same for straight lasses and us?”
John’s smile vanished. He stared up at Fergus, whose stomach dropped in horror.
Oh God. What did I say?
“Are you implying—” John whispered with a trembling lower lip. “Are you telling me…porn’s not real?”
Keeping a straight face through his relief, Fergus laid a funereal hand on John’s shoulder. “Young man, I’m so sorry. The truth is a hard, hard thing.”
This set them off, cackling like schoolboys. Fergus couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so hard his cheeks hurt.
When Charlotte blew her whistle, Fergus straightened up and wiped his eyes. “Sorry, I must do football now.”
“Right, right. So, about the charity match?”
And there he is, trying to close the deal. Fergus’s mood sank again as he realized John was only flirting to get what he wanted. “I’ll talk to the team and get back to you.”
“Let me give you my card.”
“Sorry, I’ve nowhere to put it.” Fergus lifted his arms to display his lack of pockets.
“Aye, you do. Here.” Before Fergus could react, John went down on one knee before him. Placing a steadying hand behind Fergus’s left calf, he slipped the business card into the top of the long white sport sock. Then he looked up at Fergus through thick, dark lashes. “How’s that, then?”
Fergus swallowed, unable to speak. The picture before him was sending waves of electric desire to his now painfully confined cock. John’s fingers, poised inches from the sensitive bare skin behind his knee. John’s wide eyes, gazing intently at him from below. John’s full lips, parting and curving in a knowing smile.
How’s that, then? Fergus repeated in his head. It’s fucking paralyzing, that’s how it is.
John stood, brushing the dirt from his midnight-blue trousers, then lifted his hand into the narrow space between their bodies. “It was good to meet you, Fergus Taylor.”
Christ, the way he said that name…
Fergus grasped John’s hand, with breath for only one word. “Aye.”
= = = = = = =
John watched Fergus’s swift, graceful gait as he ran toward the center of the pitch for the kickoff. Halfway there he stopped. John hoped the tall, lean ginger would turn back with one last word or smile for him.
Instead, Fergus wrapped the captain’s armband around his upper left arm, then gave his biceps a quick flex to check the fit. Finally he laid an almost reverent palm over the white letter C, his expression inscrutable.
When Charlotte had first handed Fergus the armband, he’d stiffened suddenly, as if his back had spasmed. Then, as he and John chatted, Fergus had fidgeted with the piece of black cloth, stroking, stretching, and squeezing it like a stress toy. But once they’d laughed together, he’d seemed to forget he was holding it at all.
Kind of like how John had forgotten he was trying to persuade Fergus to play the charity match. What had started as a charm offensive had turned into genuine flirtation. His fingertips still tingled where they’d brushed the smooth skin behind Fergus’s knee.
As he sat down on the bench to wait for Charlotte, he pondered Fergus’s inexplicable—and rather annoying—reluctance. What did he think he was protecting his team from? Doing a good deed? Attracting hordes of new fans?
The wind drooped to a bare breeze, letting in the sounds of nearby traffic and accentuating the sun’s heat. John unbuttoned his cuffs so he could roll up the sleeves of his ghastly Oxford shirt, the sight of which brought to mind his afternoon in court. At least the Fergus Taylor Enigma was proving a distraction from that nightmare.
The manager blew her whistle to start play, then walked backward off the pitch, watching the team intently. “Well? What’d he say?” she asked John when she reached the bench.
“That he’ll let me know.”
“Riiiiight.” Charlotte sat beside him with a sigh, smoothing back pale-brown wisps of hair too short for her ponytail. “Listen, if Fergus refuses to do the charity match, it’s not because he doesn’t want to help or doesn’t care. It’s because he does care—about his players. He wants this club to be seen as a serious sporting organization, not a sideshow or a source of scandal.”
He watched Fergus slipping effortlessly among his players, directing their actions like a conductor with an orchestra, and marveled that he had such command on his first day as captain. “Why would this match cause a scandal?”
“A gay football team raising money for a gay charity? It calls attention to, you know, the gay.”
“And?”
“And it could lead to distracting drama. Personally, I think more attention is what we need.” Straightening up, she propped the end of her battered clipboard atop her thighs like a shield. “Attention means supporters, which means money. Can you guess my primary goal for this season?”
“Getting promoted to the top division?”
“That’d be nice. But no, my primary goal is not to lose a single player because they can’t afford proper shoes, much less membership fees. I want to provide those things.” Charlotte lifted her chin, which looked sharp enough to chisel ice. “This club’s a source of pride and hope for Glasgow’s working-class gays. It’s one thing growing up different in the West End, but in the poorer areas—”
“I know. I live in Ibrox.” Even the straight lads on John’s street had to earn one another’s respect with punches and kicks. Once he’d come out, he’d had to be twice as tough as the rest—and twice as good at finding allies—just to survive.
“Then you understand why this is important.” She lowered her voice. “Don’t tell Fergus, but I’ve already made a list of possible opponents. I’ve known most of the local managers since we played youth football together twenty years ago. The sooner we get this scheduled, the sooner you can start selling tickets.”
Charlotte clicked her ballpoint pen and returned her focus to the pitch. Before she could start scribbling, John asked, “What’s with the ‘Rule One, No Drama’ thing? Whose idea was it?”
“The rules are a new thing,” she said, sketching a formation with rapid, slashing strokes. “Doesn’t matter whose idea. Fergus and I are of one mind on that matter.”
Sensing he’d worn out his welcome, John stood and thanked Charlotte for her support. Then he added, “Just one more wee thing. About your captain—”
“Aye, he’s single.” Charlotte raised somber eyes to John. “But grievously wounded.”
The Glasgow Lads series contains dirty talk with a Scottish accent, naughty bits of a gay nature, and characters who call soccer “football.”
Each installment in the series can be read as a stand-alone.
Author Note on Goodreads: A few of the regular Glasgow Lads characters--including many readers' favorites Colin and Lord Andrew--make significant appearances in Throwing Stones. Chronologically, this takes place after Colin and Andrew's novella, Play Dead, and before Playing in the Dark (Evan and Ben's novel).
Hiya, I’m Avery Cockburn (rhymes with Savory Slow Churn). My days are filled with beautiful men who play beautiful games in the most beautiful place in the world. Being an author is pretty much the best job ever.
I live in the United States with one infinitely patient man and two infinitely impatient cats. Readers make my day, so email me at avery@averycockburn.com, or sign up for my readers group at newsletter to get a FREE book plus loads of exclusive Glasgow Lads bonus material. Cheers!
Playing for Keeps #1
