As soon as the words left his mouth, Ben wanted to take them back. But they were the bravest, truest words he’d said today.

“What do you mean?” Evan asked, though his sickened look said he knew exactly what Ben meant.

“You told me once that you would need to hide things from me, that there were parts of you I’d never truly understand. And I said I didn’t care. But I do care. I can’t be with someone so…unknowable.”

“You think you don’t know me?”

“Not the way I need to.” Ben crushed his palms together, wishing he could smother this truth. “I told myself I could handle it. The secrecy, the uncertainty, the doubt. But I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Obviously not!” He flapped his hand at the football pitch, where he’d just committed a crime against national security. “Not when people are insulting you to my fucking face.”

“Are you ashamed to be with me? Is that what makes it so hard, that my actions make you look bad to your mates?”

“No! It’s because I love you too much to let people hate you.”

“I know it’s not easy lying about something this important. It’s hard for all of us, but you learn to live with it.” Evan stepped closer. “You and I know the truth, and that’s all that matters.”

“It’s not all that matters.” Ben’s tears started to flow again. “I can’t keep a secret. Remember how I blew your cover at the Glasgow Greens match? Remember how I blurted out the truth about your mum and Magnus? I can’t promise this won’t happen again, and if you or our country ever got hurt because of me, I’d never forgive myself.”

Evan started pacing, no doubt reviewing this damning evidence. Then he stopped and took a deep breath. “You’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t trust you.” He looked at Ben. “But I’m going to do it anyway.”

Ben flung up his hands. “Then you’re an even bigger fool than I am.”

Evan gasped as though Ben had punched him in the stomach. “Why are you doing this? I’m the one who should be saying this won’t work. I’m the one who just got hurt by your carelessness. Now I’m meant to believe you’re leaving me for my own good? How is losing you good for me?”

“It’s obviously safer,” Ben said. “I’m not worthy of your trust.” I’m not worthy, full stop. “I’m sorry.”

Evan scoffed. “It’s easy to say you’re sorry on the way out. It’s harder to say you’re sorry and then stay to make things right.”

“We can’t ever be right, Evan. Not with—” Ben stopped himself mentioning MI5. He wouldn’t in a million years ask Evan to give up his calling. The world needed a clever, courageous man like him, a man who believed in the greater good.

A man who would let the one he loved walk away forever, if that’s what it took.

Evan watched Ben disappear through the park gates. He wanted to run after him, force him to stop and reconsider. But he was shackled by a hard truth: Ben was better off without him.

At least Evan had proven his father wrong about one thing: This time he was the heartbroken instead of the heartbreaker.

A voice called his name. Evan turned to see Fergus walking his way.

“I heard you need to tell me—” Fergus stopped when he saw Evan’s face. “What’s wrong?”

He lifted a hand toward the park exit, then let it fall. “Ben’s had enough.”

“Enough football?”

Evan didn’t have the strength to clarify. “Sorry, what did you want?”

“Oh. Erm.” Fergus folded his arms and stood with one foot crossed in front of the other, as though his limbs suddenly felt too long. “Liam said you had something important to tell me.”

“I have...what?” It felt like his ex was speaking from another universe.

“He said if you didn’t tell me, then he would do it after the match.” Fergus scratched his nose with his thumb. “Something about your job.”

“Hollister, warmups!” their manager called in a don’t-fuck-with-me tone. “Now!”

Fergus grimaced. “I guess we’ll talk later.”

Evan followed him back toward the pitch, his feet so numb he had to focus on not stumbling. On top of losing Ben, now he had to work out what he could legally tell Fergus about why he’d left last year. A new lie, perhaps, or maybe something between the full truth and that audacious “Belgian lover” story.

Lord Andrew met him at the bottom of the stand. “Where’s Ben?”

“Gone.” Evan’s throat tightened. “He’s left me.”

“Oh dear. Let me watch your things for you.” Andrew took the handle of Evan’s holdall. “Listen, this is terrible advice for the long-term, but for now, just try and pretend it didn’t happen. Pretend you’re okay until you believe it.”

Evan could do that. For ninety minutes, he could create a false reality, basically go undercover as a footballer in a happy relationship—or better yet, a footballer who had no relationship and didn’t care.

But as he joined in with warmups, he thought about last year’s quarterfinal match, when Fergus had had to take the pitch mere minutes after Evan had dumped him. Somewhere out there, the universe was snickering, its work of justice complete.

Half an hour later, Evan wasn’t the only one on the pitch pretending nothing was amiss. Robert and Liam—the latter wearing the captain’s armband—acted as though Evan was just another central midfielder, rather than a secret agent who might know every detail of their lives.

Through what seemed like sheer willpower, Warriors managed to hold Forthside goalless through the greater part of the first half. Offensively, Charlotte took advantage of Forthside’s defensive back three by rotating the positions of Duncan, Colin, and Shona. Evan himself was kept on high alert, tracking the three Warriors forwards as they moved this way and that, one of them drawing a defender to the side away from the goal so that another could scoot in behind the defense to take one of Evan’s passes. By the twenty-minute mark, Warriors had already had three shots on target.

Now, Colin was dodging a massive center back to try again. This shot was the closest yet, the keeper leaping up at the last second and fingertipping the ball behind the goal.

“Arrrrgh!” Colin stomped in frustration and gripped the ends of his spiky black hair. “Almost.” His scowl became a smile as the Rainbow Regiment started chanting his name, led of course by Andrew.

“Next time.” Evan clapped him on the shoulder as he jogged toward the corner of the pitch, where the referee was setting the ball for a corner kick.

A gust of wind came up, whipping Evan’s hair back from his face. He hoped the players would take a few moments to settle down, delaying the official’s whistle until the breeze calmed. To buy time, he turned his back and lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe his face, pretending he had something in his eye. When he turned back round, the referee was watching him with hands lifted in inquiry. Evan signaled he was ready.

The whistle blew. Evan sailed the ball up and over, but despite the delay, the wind still caught it, lifting it higher than he’d intended. Duncan was the first to get his head on it, but the ball just soared back up like it had been struck by a lever in a pinball machine. A defender headed the ball, again nearly straight up.

Evan darted forward to the edge of the eighteen-yard box, finding a spot where he had sight of the goal. The ball descended again, about to land a few feet in front of him. He stepped forward with his left foot, planting it firmly, and swung his right foot as high as a cricket bat. If he missed this volley, he’d end up on his arse.

As his foot slammed the ball, Evan immediately wished he’d missed. By the time his shot streaked past the goalkeeper into the net, he knew something had gone terribly wrong.

Then adrenaline took over, and he sprinted for the touchline to celebrate. His teammates soon swarmed him, whooping and hollering.

Colin scooped him up. “Yaaaaaassss, get in, ya dancer!” he shouted, followed by some Glaswegian words Evan couldn’t decipher. Over in the stand, the Rainbow Regiment was going bonkers, but Evan couldn’t look at them without seeing who was missing.

When his teammates finally released him, he turned to the center of the pitch for the kickoff, instinctively pivoting on his left leg because the right one was begging him not to use it.

I’m fine, Evan tried to convince himself. He would simply play the role of a footballer who didn’t have an injured hip. He reached back and pulled his right foot up to stretch his quad.

“All right, mate?” Jamie steadied Evan so he could stand on one foot without wobbling. “That was a bullet of a shot. If I’d done that, my leg bone would’ve popped straight out the joint.”

“Not sure that’s possible.” Still standing on his left foot, Evan went to pull his knee to his chest and was met with a stabbing pain he couldn’t hide.

“That’s you gettin’ help now.” Jamie steered him toward the touchline, where the physiotherapist was already waiting for him.

“I’m fine,” he told her as Jamie returned to the pitch and play kicked off again without Evan.

“We’ll see.” She had him jog up and down the touchline while she watched. He tried to lift both legs evenly, but the stomp-scuff-stomp-scuff of his gait spoke volumes. Then she had him lie on his back while she manipulated his right leg in all directions, watching for the pain on his face.

When Charlotte came over for an update, the physio told her, “Looks like a hip flexor strain from that volley he scored. Maybe not too severe, but it needs rest and ice, pronto.”

“I can still walk and run,” Evan protested. “It doesn’t even hurt.”

The physio crossed her arms. “Then get up and make like you’re kicking a ball. You know, as you occasionally do in this sport.”

Evan rose to his feet and pulled back his leg with ease. But as he drew it forward, he was sliced with the sharpest pain yet.

Speechless with dismay, he simply shook his head.

Evan’s first ice session ended just as halftime began. He unstrapped the pack and walked in figures-of-eight on the touchline beside the bench, as much to avoid his teammates’ tension as to test his injured hip. Forthside had equalized three minutes after his injury, but Warriors had held fast to keep the game even until the break.

Evan considered hopping into a taxi and following Ben home to beg him to change his mind. But even if he thought Ben would speak to him, he couldn’t abandon his teammates.

“Hey.” Fergus was at his side, looking expectant.

With the weight of an anvil on his head, Evan remembered Liam’s threat. “Let’s find a place to sit away from the crowd. I need to change out of my boots.”

He picked up his kit bag and led Fergus toward the opposite side of building to where he and Ben had broken up, wondering what he could reveal. Legally, the answer was nothing, but operationally? Evan’s stint in Northern Ireland was finished and the would-be attackers imprisoned.

And Fergus was neither careless nor vengeful. Despite his hatred for Evan, he’d welcomed him back to the Warriors because it had been best for the team. Of all people, Fergus had the integrity not to jeopardize national security. If only Evan could have convinced his bosses of that fact a year ago, their lives would be a lot different right now.

Evan came to a halt just past the corner of the building and opted for honesty. “I never left the country last year. I wasn’t in Belgium, I was in Belfast.”

Fergus gave him a long, blank look, then shrugged. “So you left me for a Northern Irishman. Minor detail, really.”

“I left you for no man.”

Now Fergus seemed confused. “Was it a woman?”

“It was no one. I left you because my job reassigned me.”

Fergus offered his signature harrumph. “If that was true, you could’ve told me. I could’ve gone with you. And what was so urgent in Belfast? What sort of architectural emergency…” His eyes widened as he lost his feigned indifference. “Tell me everything. Don’t make me ask more questions. Just tell. Me. Everything.”

Without looking back, Fergus headed toward a bench beneath a bare-branched oak on the far side of the car park.

“You may recall,” Evan said on their way there, “I wasn’t happy in my job at the firm. You may also recall I wasn’t a very good architect.” When Fergus didn’t dissent, Evan continued. “So I applied at MI5.”

Fergus stopped in his tracks and stared at him. “Wh-what?”

“Sorry, that part should’ve waited until you sat down.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

Here was Evan’s last chance. He could simply laugh and come up with a new lie. But Liam and Robert would hold him to the truth. “I’m not joking.”

Fergus put a hand to his chest and sank onto the bench. “My God…”

Evan sat at the other end. “I wanted to tell you, but I knew you hated the Service for what they’d done in Northern Ireland.”

Fergus just stared straight ahead for a long moment, then turned to him. “I never really knew you, did I?”

No one knew me, Evan wanted to say. Not until Ben, and look how that turned out.

“I was always myself with you,” he told Fergus, “and with the team, and with our families. But I lied about where I went every day, and where I went on business travel during my training.”

Fergus eyed him fearfully. “What sort of training?”

“You know, spy things.” All of this was public knowledge in one article or another, so he began to list. “Hand-to-hand combat, evasive driving, enhanced-interrogation resistance.”

“Fuck!” Fergus leapt off the bench. “I thought you were away learning HSE regulations. But no, you were being practice-tortured.”

“I know this is a lot to process.” Evan got up, his own nerves making him restless. “Take your time. I’ll answer any questions I can.”

Fergus paced, faster and faster, his gaze darting over the ground before him. Then he suddenly stopped. “So there was never another man? You never cheated on me?”

“I never cheated on you.” Evan emphasized each word, feeling the strangest urge to add, Sorry.

He saw the punch coming a mile off—Fergus pulled his arm back, telegraphing the blow—but he didn’t dodge or duck. It was what Fergus needed, and what Evan deserved.

He did, however, relax his body and pivot his hips to roll with the punch. So he was shocked to hear a crack when Fergus’s fist met his face.

“Aaaaaugh!” Fergus spun away, clutching his hand. “Fuck! Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck fuuuuuuuuck!”

Eyes watering, Evan touched his nose. It burned fiercely but didn’t feel broken. “Tell me you didn’t have your thumb inside your fist.”

“Fuck off!” Fergus was bent over, practically kneeling on the ground, his face scarlet with agony. “I fucking hate you. I don’t care if you never cheated on me. I believed you did.”

“I know, and I’m—”

“Did Charlotte tell you? Did she tell you how I fell apart when you left, how I literally collapsed in front of that quarterfinal crowd and cried my fucking eyes out?”

Evan swallowed. “Duncan told me.”

“Did he tell you how we were all dancing to ‘Copa de la Vida’ before the match? How we were all so full of hope before you kicked us in the crotch? I still can’t hear Ricky Martin without having a flashback.”

Evan’s eyes welled up. Duncan hadn’t told him that.

“You left me with nothing, Evan. No answers, no clues. I had to fill in all the blanks, and they got filled in with the worst…” Tears dripped from Fergus’s cheeks. “Night after night I imagined you and your Belgian lover naked, your hands and cocks everywhere. I imagined how amazing he must have been to make you give up your life here with me. How hot and sophisticated and hot and probably French-speaking and really fucking hot.” His voice cracked as he raged. “But he didn’t even exist! You ripped me apart for nothing. Yes, I’m happy now with John, but I was never the same. That hole you left—” He raised his uninjured hand to his chest. “It’s still there. It’ll always be there, and there’s still days when it chews at me and tells me I’m nothing. Four years together and I wasn’t worth a proper goodbye.”

Evan wanted to claw his own brain out at the memory of writing that letter and having it delivered it to last year’s quarterfinal match. The fact he could even concoct such a brutal breakup, no matter how necessary, said something dark and terrible about him. “I wanted to say goodbye, but I couldn’t give you a chance to ask questions. I couldn’t look you in the eye and convince you I didn’t love you.”

“Why not? I believed all your other lies.”

Evan felt a spark of old anger. “Why was that, Fergus? When I went away to training, why did you never ask me how it went or what I learned? Because you didn’t care. My alleged government architectural job was beneath your consideration. Making buildings safer wasn’t art. It wasn’t genius.”

“You’re blaming me for not interrogating you? I didn’t give you enough attention, so it’s okay to have a secret life from the man you claimed to love?”

“I’m not saying that, I just—”

“No!” Fergus tried to point with his right hand, grimacing at the pain. “This is not the time to justify what you did. This is the time for me to say all the things I wanted to say a year ago. So just shut it and listen.”

Evan pressed his lips together. He owed Fergus this much.

His ex sat gingerly on the bench, cradling his right hand. “While we’re spilling secrets…I never told John this, or even Liam.” His voice fell low and raspy. “But there were nights, lying on the floor of my new bedroom—the one meant to be ours—when I nearly ended it.”

“No…” Evan’s knees gave out, and he sank onto the other end of the bench. “Fergus…”

“Don’t ‘Fergus’ me, and don’t you dare fucking pity me. I wouldn’t have killed myself to escape the pain. I would’ve done it to hurt you. I pictured you finding out. I pictured how it would destroy your life and your mind and maybe even your new love.”

“It would’ve killed me.”

“Well, it’s a good job I didn’t know that, because after the one hundredth unanswered phone call—literally, I counted—I realized you didn’t care whether I lived or died. So I decided to keep living, because why not?” He sniffled. “Also, the team needed me.”

“They still do.” He reached out a trembling hand. “Let’s have a look at that thumb.”

Fergus shuddered, then held it up. “You think it’s broken?”

“Maybe.” Evan slid closer. “But even if it’s just a sprain, you should see a doctor today. And get that thing splinted right now.”

Fergus looked toward the pitch. “I don’t think the match physios are allowed to treat spectators unless it’s life-threatening.”

“Hang on, I’ve probably got something.” Evan unzipped his kit bag.

“A magic spy splint from Q?”

“Aye, it’s cleverly disguised as a first-aid kit and a pen.” He opened the plastic white-and-red container and pulled out the roll of gauze.

“You always were prepared for anything,” Fergus said. “Now I know why.”

“Not anything,” Evan murmured, thinking of the events of the last two hours. He handed Fergus the pen. “Put this lengthwise against your thumb.”

Fergus did as he was told, then hissed as Evan began to wrap the bandage. “So you joined MI5 because you were bored? Was I part of that boredom?”

“No. Look, that wasn’t the only reason. Do you remember a few years ago when that Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Breivik went on a killing spree?” Breivik was one of Jordan Lithgow’s idols, of course.

“I remember your gran knew the parents of one of the kids he shot at that summer camp.”

“In Utøya,” Evan said. “It broke her heart, and with her already so sick…anyway, the next morning I applied at MI5.”

“You could have told me. I wouldn’t have approved, but maybe in time I would’ve accepted it. You never even gave me the chance. Ow!” Fergus nearly pulled his hand away. “You were a fucking coward.”

“At the beginning. But then later, when I was ready to tell you, when we were going to move in together…I wasn’t permitted.”

“Why not?”

“Fergus.” Evan stopped bandaging for a moment and looked him in the eye. “If I tell you why not, you can never tell anyone. Not John, not the team, not your family.”

Fergus tensed. “Will it put me in danger?”

“Not if you keep your mouth shut. But I can assure you, the strength it takes to do that…some days it’s almost too much to live with.”

“If you tell me, I’ll understand why you did what you did?” When Evan nodded, Fergus bit his lip. “Go on, then.”

Evan returned to bandaging. “When an MI5 officer starts dating someone, the Service vets the potential partner.”

“Like a background check?”

“Aye. Just a basic one at first, but as the relationship progresses or if there are issues, the Service vets the partner’s close family members. Then, if there’s a deeper commitment, as in living together or perhaps marrying one day, they vet their extended family.”

Fergus jerked in a breath. “The Derry cousins.”

Evan gaped at him. He hadn’t planned to mention Fergus’s mum’s Northern Irish relatives.

Fergus continued. “The three of them are always banging on about the ‘Prods.’ They’ve not spoken to me since I got engaged to John. They don’t even know he used to be in the Orange Order.”

They probably do know. “Hold this bandage for a second.” Evan pulled out the scissors and tape from the first-aid kit.

“What are they involved in?” Fergus asked. “One of those IRA splinter groups?”

Evan didn’t want to discuss individuals, but if he said nothing, Fergus would assume the worst, that there were terrorists in his own family. “Not directly. They’re sympathizers.” He cut the bandage, then taped it in place, trying not to jostle Fergus’s thumb.

“This was why you were forbidden to tell me you were a spook?”

“Yes.”

Fergus thought for a moment. “Still, you could’ve quit, right? But you chose your job over me.”

“I chose my country over us.”

Fergus gave a gruff laugh. “Whatever makes you feel better.”

“I assure you, nothing can do that.”

Fergus examined his splinted thumb, then looked up. “What about the text you sent last year? You told me you missed me and you were thinking of coming home.”

Evan changed out of his football boots as he spoke. “Someone else sent that message. The people I was working against. On my personal mobile they found the texts you’d sent me after I left.”

“Och, those were so pathetic.”

Evan took his regular trainers out of his bag, remembering how each message had been a tiny stab in the heart. “They sent you that text about missing you, then they showed me your ‘go to hell’ response.”

It had been the worst of all the tortures that day. The cuts and contusions had healed, but knowing he’d hurt Fergus one last time…that wound would fester forever.

Fergus suddenly tensed. “Are we in danger by you telling me all this now?”

“The operation’s over. I don’t work with those people anymore.” Soon I won’t be working in Glasgow at all. “But you still can’t tell anyone.”

“I’m not an idiot. And I’ll see to it Liam and Robert never say a word.”

“They seemed pretty scared,” Evan said.

“They grew up with the same tales of MI5 jackbooted thugs as I did, but without the filter of middle-class skepticism.” Fergus gave a half chuckle, half grunt. “They probably think you can read their minds.”

A steady cheer rose from the direction of the pitch. “I guess halftime’s over,” Evan said. “And I’m probably due for a second dose of ice.”

They returned in silence to the stand, where everyone gaped at Evan’s aching face and Fergus’s bandaged thumb.

Evan went to the bench, took a fresh ice pack for himself, plus an extra for Fergus, then went to join him and John.

“I’ve been advised not to ask,” John said to Evan as they shifted down to make room, “and I’m gonnae take that advice.”

Over the next forty-five minutes, the Warriors played their hearts out, but Forthside scored two more goals before the final whistle to win 1-3. Once again, Warriors’ run at the Scottish Amateur Cup was ending at the quarterfinal stage.

Evan tried to take comfort in the fact he’d at least shown up and had made a difference. But if not for today’s long train ride and a truncated warmup session, maybe he would have lasted the whole game. Maybe his difference would have counted.

Despite the double heartbreak of losing Ben and the match, Evan felt somehow…lighter now. By telling Fergus the truth—more or less—he’d shed the heaviest burden of all. It wasn’t everything, but it was something.