Play It Safe Read Online Free Page A

“Erm…” He turned away from the stacks of cigarette cartons, smoothing his dark, windblown hair as he thought. “Several months, why?”
    “Before you broke up, were you, erm…”
    “Were we what?” Robert snapped.
    “Still using condoms?”
    “Oh.” Robert blinked rapidly, as though he’d expected a different question. “Aye, we were. I wanted to stop once we were exclusive, but she vetoed that idea.” He picked up a cardboard box containing the game Operation, then turned to John. “Huh. I wonder if it was because she’d no intention of being exclusive?”
    John’s face heated in embarrassment. “Sorry. I didn’t realize—”
    “Neither did I. Obviously.” Robert frowned down at the Operation game’s cover, where a pair of sadistic-looking surgeons were taking electrified scalpels to a man who looked only half-anesthetized. “So why’d you ask about condoms?”
    John spread his hands. “Why do you think?”
    “Ah.” Robert set down the game and returned to the rubber-ducky tub. “‘Fergus and John Bareback.’ Sounds like the new hit porno from Dakota Wyatt studios.”
    “Except production’s been scuttled on account of Fergus saying no.”
    Instead of voicing surprise like John had expected, Robert simply nodded. “I can understand that, considering what Evan did.”
    “But Fergus knows I’m not Evan. The fact I’m not tall, blond, and gorgeous should be a dead giveaway.”
    “Fergus knows it up here.” Robert pointed to his own head. “It’s his gut doesn’t know it yet.” He lifted his chin and looked past John. “Talking of gut feelings, our man there looks ready to do a runner.”
    John turned to see the tobacco seller standing in front of his table now, glancing back and forth toward the market’s entrances. “Probably never paid duties on those cigarettes.” A good portion of Barras merchandise was illegal in one way or another. Half the fun of being here was guessing which sellers would get raided by the police.
    He turned back to Robert, who was now transfixed by the pale pink flashy duck sitting on his outstretched palm. “Fergus’s gut is wrong,” John said. “I’d never cheat on him. I love him.”
    “Love is temporary.” Robert stared at the duck, the LED light reflecting in his eyes. “Fergus cannae tell himself Evan never loved him, cos that’d be a lie. They were good together when I first met them. But then…” He shook his head. “Things went bad, as things do.”
    John often felt like Scotland’s only optimist. “Sometimes things stay good if two people are meant to be together, if they work at it, if they don’t let anything keep them apart.”
    Robert’s eyes turned sadder still. “Sometimes apart is better.” He set the rubber ducky in the tub and walked on, leaving it flashing in his wake, unsold but unforgotten.
    = = =
    “Why do you need a softer headboard?” Liam asked Fergus as they browsed a fabric dealer’s stall. “Is this part of some new concussion protocol, like we’ve got in football?”
    Fergus smiled at the image of being taken away in a stretcher after particularly rambunctious sex. “We need a softer headboard because John sometimes sits up in bed working or studying.”
    “That’s a shame.”
    “Byproduct of living in a small flat.” Fergus ran his hand over a pair of faux-suede samples, searching for the perfect texture. “Sometimes bed is the only quiet place to be.”
    “In that case I take back what I said about your sparky sex life.” Liam peered at him, telescope-like, through a roll of scarlet muslin. “Can’t he just study in the living room?”
    “The TV is in there. Even with it off, it’s a distraction, he says, which I totally get. Plus he says he wants to be near me, especially now it’s so cold at night.”
    “That it is. Oh!” Liam dumped the muslin into the bin of fabric rolls. “I’ve got it. Instead of a padded headboard—which will make you look eighty years old—why not make up a