Page 199 of Playing By Ear

“The big delay didn’t help.” She snickered. “Perry’s face when we told him there was a bomb threat? Priceless.”

He didn’t laugh with her. The thought of being blind amid an explosion must have been terrifying. “I think he was more disturbed by our ‘Well, of course there’s a bomb threat’ reaction.” He opened the bag of biscuits. “Between that and all the local celebrities showing up, it was a reminder he and I come from very different worlds.”

“You seem to make it work.”

“Miracles do happen.” Jamie savored his first bite of Empire biscuit before the hard talk began. “So. You and Stuart.”

“Right.” She stacked two chocolate biscuits and took a double-decker bite. “Firstly,” she said through a mouthful of crumbs, “I’m raging at Dad. He sorted all the business matters the way he wanted instead of letting me handle it. Not to mention tossing an emotional hand grenade into my marriage just to settle a petty grievance. If he was still alive, I’d kill him.”

“Dad should’ve clued you in. But this way the families see the changes as his wishes, so they’re less likely to challenge it.” Also, Martin no doubt wanted one last taste of the control the cancer had stolen from him. “He must have had a laugh at the thought of your in-laws’ reaction. Being cut out of the will cos Stuart couldn’t keep his gob shut.”

“Stuart.” She shook her head forcefully. “He betrayed me. But I betrayed him first.”

“How?” Jamie glanced at her left hand, which still bore her platinum wedding ring.

“I concocted a plan without telling him,” she said, “a plan for the business we were to run together. Now my husband has to choose between me and his family.”

“Stuart’s threatening to leave you?”

“It’s not a threat.” She sighed. “Trust is the one thing a marriage and a business can’t survive without.”

“But trust can be rebuilt.” He thought of how he’d managed to keep Perry after the big revelation. “It takes honesty and humility. I know that’s not very gangster.”

“I’m not very gangster either.” She inserted the rest of one biscuit into her mouth and shrugged. “Maybe I never was.”

“You absolutely were, and I don’t mean that as an insult, strangely.”

They sank into a satisfied silence, watching the loch. A pair of mute swans sailed by with six wee cygnets paddling between them. Jamie tensed as the father reached out for the slowest baby, but he merely nudged it back into place in the queue of cuteness.

“Nervous about the big match?” Belinda asked.

“Only when people ask if I’m nervous about it.”

“Sorry.”

“It doesn’t feel real yet. On the one hand, it’s only a game, but on the other hand, it’s everything. How can it be both at once?”

She thought for a moment, then turned to face him, her voice animated. “What if—hear me out—if you lose, it’s only a game. But if you win, it’s everything.”

“That’s some proper philosophical sorcery. But it might work.”

“Credit me if it does.” She leaned back against the arm of the bench. “I don’t want this match to give you another reason to grieve.”

“I think it will no matter what.” A few of the Warriors, like Ali and Heather, were in their thirties and thinking of switching to a less competitive league or maybe retiring altogether. Others, like Fergus and Shona, were devoting more time to their careers. Katie, Colin, and Duncan would graduate uni at the end of next season, and who knew where their lives would take them after?

All good things came to an end, Jamie knew. But he wanted the end to be spectacular.

Chapter 38

“Play the match, not the moment.”

Charlotte stood at the front of the Warriors’ bus as it slowed near the entrance to Hampden Park stadium. Their manager’s face was all stern business, demanding the team’s attention. Jamie fought to focus on her and ignore the crowds of fans lining the street outside.

“I know that’s a lot to ask,” Charlotte continued. “You worked hard to get here, some of you for more than a decade. Win or lose, nothing can take that effort from you. But you need to put it out of your mind. From the time you walk onto the pitch until the final whistle blows, it’s just another match. Say it with me.”

“Just another match,” Jamie said with the others, dubiously. Through the window to his right, he saw rainbow flags waving and purple and white flares burning. The coach slowed to a crawl through the otherworldly cloud of flare smoke.

“Warriors!” A fan in a rainbow wig leapt out of the fog and pounded the side of the bus below Jamie’s window. “Warrrrriorrrrrs!” A police officer in a yellow high-vis vest pulled the superfan back into the crowd.