Single Daddy Scot (Hot Scots)

My responding smile is less melon and more grapefruit. Like I’m sucking the bitter fruit.

‘He’s got a point,’ Keir says as Will almost steps in a puddle at the edge of the field. ‘It’s obviously why you played like shite today.’

‘What, am I a professional athlete now? Of course, I can have sex the night before a match!’

‘What I’m saying is you’ve got a face like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle, so you must’ve been gutted at leaving her in bed this morning.’

‘Aye, well, you’re both wrong.’

Rhianna, as it turned out, left in the early hours of the morning, though not before giving me a glowing critique as she’d pulled her knickers back on.

“Excellent foreplay. Some men—apparently—think a couple of finger pokes covers it, but not you. Anal was excellent; not too rough, but not too tentative. And you should totally teach a class in oral. You’d make a fortune!”

It was . . . odd. It felt impersonal. Like I was a restaurant being reviewed on Yelp.

‘Yeah, right.’ Keir’s retort is disparaging as he gives me the CEO glare. ‘We all know you’d shag anything with a pulse lately.’

We reach the path leading to the changing rooms, our boots clacking on the concrete.

‘That’s a bit harsh. You’re not thinking of staging an intervention, are you? If you are, can you make it somewhere in the Caribbean?’ I keep my voice light even as his words sting. Since when has my sex life become a point of discussion?

‘There’s something up with you today. The question is what?’

‘Hey.’ I pull on his arm, slowing my pace until he turns to face me. But what can I say? Deny I’m numbing myself in pussy? Tell him he’s wrong . . . that I’m reliving my university days? But what would be the point of another lie? I’m only thankful Will hasn’t yet realised I seem to only bed one type of woman these days.

The blonde type. Because a love unrequited is the biggest bitch out.

Instead of denials, I address the deep gash above his eyebrow. ‘You need a couple of stitches in that.’ Experience tells me it’ll need a butterfly bandage or two.

‘Nah.’ His expression lightens. ‘If I had a pound for every scrape or bruise we’ve had between us since we started chucking ourselves around a field, I’d be . . .’

‘What? You’d be rich?’

‘Something like that,’ he answers wryly. Like the bastard isn’t already as wealthy as Tonald Drump. But I know what he means. I’ve been dragging my arse out of bed for matches since he and I met at uni over a decade ago, bonding over piss weak cider and cheap shots at the student union bar.

‘So you haven’t played like you’ve got two left feet today because of a girl?’

‘I didn’t say it wasn’t a girl.’ I sigh as we reach the changing room door, but before I pull it open, Keir props his foot against the bottom.

‘A girl or the girl?’ There’s another reason there’s no point lying. And that would be because he knows.

‘The girl.’ I yank the door open, my words now hard. ‘Fin got married on Friday.’

After we shower and dress, Keir and I head to the local pub, as is our home game tradition. It’s maybe not the kind of place you’d expect to find us in, or find our high-end motors parked outside, but we’ve been coming here for years.

‘Three of the usual?’ Tracey, the fifty-something blonde behind the bar asks over her shoulder, pulling pint glasses from a mirrored shelf.

‘Just two, today, hen.’ Will got a call as we were leaving, changing his mind on hanging out with us. Probably on a promise.

She turns to face us, her eyes tracking to the door we’ve just walked through. ‘No Will, then?’

He’s her favourite—he’s usually every woman’s favourite and charm its-fucking-self, when he has half a mind. He has some nerve to tease me about my sex life.

Keir, on the other hand, is still licking his divorce wounds. It wasn’t that long ago his wife left him for some ballbag, getting a wedge of his dough in exchange for leaving him their daughter. He may have called it the best deal of his life, but now he doesn’t have much of a life beyond work and home. No late Saturday nights for him, and no trawling clubs for pussy. A pint or two in this spit and sawdust establishment following a game is the most he allows himself.

‘You’re looking battered there, Keir, love.’

‘You should see the other fella,’ he says, grinning as he passes over a twenty to pay for our drinks.

‘I hope you got the better of ’im,’ she says in her nasally north London twang. Norf Landan, as the locals say.

Keir waves away his change, and she leaves us to our inspection of our drinks, either guessing we’re not in a bantering mood or not interested in our company without Mr Flirtatious himself.