Page 131 of Playing By Ear

“I—”

“Because I’d choose you.” He pulled away to look Perry in the eyes. “I’d turn my back on them all, even Belinda, if that’s what it took to keep you.”

“Wait, I’m not⁠—”

“I never wanted to drag you into this. It’s why I tried to leave you after our first date, when I found out my dad was ill and he needed me.”

Perry’s heart twinged at the memory of that text message. I don’t want u. “Then why did you track me down? Why did you give us a second chance?”

“I was weak,” Jamie said. “I needed you. I still—och.” He covered his face with his hands. “I won’t ask you to forgive who I am. It’s too much.”

Perry closed his eyes. Part of him wanted to chuck his boyfriend into the street for hiding the truth. But Jamie was coming clean now, sharing even the grimmest of secrets. A secret that had haunted him, maybe even broken him.

“Look—” His phone bleeped in his shirt pocket, then squawked a reminder that it was time to start cooking the main course. “Already?”

“Shall we cancel our plans for tonight?” Jamie asked.

Was hosting a dinner party as though everything was normal the most or least sane thing to do? “Do you want to cancel? You’ve had a day from hell.”

“But you need to interview Fergus and Evan, and they won’t all be free again for weeks. Plus, we’ve bought a king’s ransom worth of salmon.”

“And prepped the sides and starters.” Perry pictured it all laid out in the fridge. “Then there’s the cake.”

What it came down to, really, was whether he could be in the same room with Jamie for another minute. If so, it would be a start.

“Honestly, it will take me some time and work to forgive.” Perry got to his feet. “But for tonight, I can simply forget.”

Chapter 25

Sitting round a dinner table with friends and a boyfriend, everyone getting on and having a marvelous time, felt to Jamie like an out-of-body experience, considering where his life had begun and where it had led today, to a confession so dark and sticky he still felt short of breath, as though the memories had clogged his lungs with the tar of a thousand cigarettes.

Yet here Perry sat, calm and charming as ever, as if his biggest care in the world was whether the salmon had overbaked or the asparagus was too asparagus-y.

Jamie’s guilt was double-edged: for keeping the secret and for telling it. Loose lips sank ships, and the MacKrays’ ship was already foundering. By squealing about Ritchie’s murder, Jamie had become the worst sort of person: a fucking grass.

Technically what made someone a grass was telling the authorities, which Jamie would never do. Would Perry? He’d looked so bewildered when he’d asked about reporting Ritchie’s murder. Perry no doubt had that middle-class white guy’s instinctive trust in cops. He probably believed Police Scotland’s motto: “Keeping people safe.” Aye, right.

If anyone in the firm learned Perry knew about Ritchie’s murder, Perry would be as good as dead. Why hadn’t Jamie said Ritchie was sent abroad, and I’ve never forgiven my father for breaking up the family? It would make sense to still be upset about that.

Upset, yes. A shivering, sweating, nauseated mess? Not so much.

And deep down, hadn’t Jamie needed to tell? The secret he’d kept for fifteen years, shared only with his half-believing sister, had devoured him. As feart as he was now, he felt lighter.

“You’ve scarcely eaten,” Ben observed in a low voice as he and Jamie cleared the plates for dessert while Perry started the interview with Fergus, Evan, and John. “You feeling all right?”

“Oh, aye.” Jamie hurried to scrape the evidence of his mental state into the rubbish bin. “It’s these NSAIDs I took for my ankle. Tearing my stomach up. Never had them before.”

Ben leveled a skeptical look. “How old are you? Twenty-six? And never taken a Nurofen?”

“Never been injured before.”

“Which lab were you made in?” Ben pinched Jamie’s biceps. “You’re a feat of bioengineering.”

The two of them served the cake, and Jamie took his seat beside Perry with the tiniest slice of all. He listened as his teammates and John discussed the charity friendly match against the Morningside Magnificence, and chimed in with an occasional aye to confirm a detail.

All four guests were thoughtful when it came to Perry’s blindness, using names when addressing one another and limiting nonverbal communication. The fact they were from different regions of Scotland—or in Ben and John’s case, different regions of Glasgow—no doubt helped Perry track who was speaking.

After the interview, Evan said, “To turn the tables, Perry, what’s the one thing referees wish players knew about them?”