Page 46 of Playing By Ear

If you only knew how good. Jamie gave a quick nod, then kept his face placid as he finally brought the Empire biscuit to his mouth.

The shock of sweet, buttery pleasure flooded his body and brain. It called to mind the previous night’s post-orgasmic haze, when he and Perry had curled up on the couch together, sharing dreamy kisses and murmuring non-words that could have meant almost anything.

Jamie took a quick sip of espresso, letting the bitterness swamp the sugar on his tongue and jerk him back to the present. He couldn’t afford to wool-gather in the presence of a MacKray.

“Och, here we go again,” Martin said under his breath. Then he lifted his voice. “All right, Gordon?”

A man a bit older than Jamie’s father stood on the pavement. He wore a ratty tan woolen flat cap and clutched a package to his chest. The package’s brown paper crinkled as he shifted his weight from foot to foot.

“Forgive me, Mr. MacKray. I just need a wee word with you. Gerry said it was okay.” He motioned to the bodyguard looming behind him.

“Nae bother.” Jamie got to his feet. “I need the loo, anyway.” He offered his chair to Gordon, then yanked open the door to make his escape.

Inside, he went to the back of the café and queued up behind the couple from the corner table, a middle-aged man in a Motherwell FC shirt and a brunette with inch-wide gray roots and a cigarette tucked behind one ear.

His phone buzzed with a text from Belinda:

Still alive? Both of you I mean

The toilet door swung open and Rita hurried out. Her eyes widened at the sight of Jamie.

“Wait.” She put out her arm to stop the brunette from entering the toilet. “Jimmy, you go next.”

“It’s not my turn,” Jamie told her. “I can wait.”

“No, they can wait,” she said.

“The fuck’s going on?” asked the woman Rita was blocking.

“He’s Martin MacKray’s lad, that’s what.” The shopkeeper darted a glance toward the front of the shop, then looked up at Jamie. “Please. I don’t want any trouble.”

“But there’s no⁠—”

“Fuck’s sake,” the Motherwell fan groaned, “stop your blethering and have a slash. We’ve not got all day.”

Jamie mumbled an apology as he slunk through the door to the toilet. He exited less than a minute later, unable to meet the other customers’ eyes. “Sorry again.”

He went to the front window and looked out. Martin and Gordon were still talking, their conversation inaudible under the soft jazz emanating from the shop ceiling. The flat brown-paper package was on the table now, but Gordon still stood several paces away with shoulders curving forward, hands crushing his cap.

Martin wore a serene smile, but his palm pressed the edge of the table, fingers drumming the surface as though practicing half of a C scale on the piano.

Jamie sat at a small table against the wall and phoned Belinda.

She picked up after one ring. “Everything okay?”

“So far. We walked to Rita’s.”

“And?”

“And it’s weird. People are acting like I never left, like I’m still…”

“The Prince of Provanpark?”

“Yeah.” He sneaked a glance at Rita, who was watching him round the edges of the Daily Record she was pretending to read. “Do you get the royal treatment around here?”

“Of course. I just don’t think it’s weird. I mean, it’s objectively weird, but not unusual. It was the same when we were kids.”

“Right.” Some things had been easy for him growing up. Most lads in their area had to join a “young team” street gang to survive, but for Jamie it had been forbidden. His membership could have complicated Martin’s relations with other criminals, such as the fathers, brothers, or uncles of Jamie’s potential comrades and enemies.