Page 91 of That Defining Moment

He shouldered his way through the front door with the box held high above his head, because the hallway was an obstacle course of a disembowelled cardboard box trailing packing peanuts, and a subwoofer the size of a small suitcase that someone had abandoned mid-journey between the door and the living room.

“I’ve got the cake!” Cassian announced. “Nobody touch me, I’ve got the cake, and it’s perfect, and I nearly licked it but Ruari stopped me!”

The living room had been transformed. Diwa’s new sound system took up the entire far wall in a constellation of matte-black components that Cassian didn’t have names for, connected by cables that ran across the floor in tidy gaffer-taped channels.

Ryland was crouched behind the largest speaker with a spirit level resting on its top edge, adjusting something while Diwa leaned over his shoulder and pointed at an angle that required correction. Both of them were wearing the expression that Stephen had explained to Cassian last week, after Cassian had asked why Ryland and Diwa looked like they were experiencing a religious event while talking through the set-up.

“It’s a nerdgasm, Cass,” Stephen had said wearily. “It’s what happens when two people who care too much about the technical specifications of things encounter a piece of equipment that meets their standards. You just leave them to it and check back in half a day.”

Cassian had needed clarification on whether a nerdgasm was related to a regular orgasm, and Stephen had said, “Spiritually, yes. Physically, no. Although with Ryland, I genuinely can’t be sure.”

Colin sat in the armchair nearest the window with Tala propped in the crook of his arm, her fist curled around his collar. He was still thinner than he should have been, and the shadows beneath his eyes hadn’t quite gone, but he was downstairs and dressed. Hamish occupied the far end of the sofa with Max sprawled across his chest, one enormous hand spanning the baby’s entire back while Max slept with his mouth open against Hamish’s collarbone.

Lysander stood in the centre of it all with his mobile in one hand and the other clenched at his side.

“It goes live in forty minutes,” Lysander said to the room.

Cassian delivered the cake box to Colin. He lifted the lid, inspected the buttercream peaks, and closed it again with a satisfied nod.

“Beautiful, Cassian. Well chosen.”

Cassian stood beside the armchair for a moment, glowing, until Lysander’s voice cut through from across the room.

“Cass, stop hovering over the cake.”

“I’m not hovering over the cake. I’m standing near Colin. I’m being helpful. It’s my job now to be helpful to Colin.”

This was, in the strictest possible sense, true. His official title was Home Helper, printed on the paperwork Diwa had drawn up. Cassian would be staying on at Ledbury Road with Colin and Diwa, while Hamish and Lysander travelled around the UK chasing stories about weird British people.

He was being paid eighteen pounds an hour to assist with Tala and help with household tasks during Colin’s recovery, which sounded like a tremendous amount of responsibility until you factored in that Diwa already had a housekeeper named Mrs Brown who arrived at seven each morning and had run the house perfectly well for years before Cassian had come along. So in practice, Cassian had a job playing with Tala, which was the best job that had ever existed in the history of employment.

Cassian retreated to the sofa and wedged himself between Hamish and the armrest, tucking his feet beneath him. Max shifted against Hamish’s chest, made a small wet sound, and settled again.

Ryland finished whatever microscopic calibration he’d been performing and straightened up, pressing his hands into the small of his back. “The left channel is now within half a decibel of the right,” he said. “Which is, for the record, better than the manufacturer’s specification.”

“It’s beautiful work,” Diwa said.

Stephen caught Cassian’s eye across the room and mouthed nerdgasm, and Cassian grinned at him.

✦ ✧ ✦

The cake went to the kitchen, where Colin set it on the marble island. The lid came off, the peaks were inspected a final time, and then Colin declared, whilst locking eyes with Cassian, that the cake would be eaten after lunch, because Diwa had made pancit and there was a natural order to these things.

Cassian’s heart sank to below the soles of his trainers.

Everyone filtered out until only Cassian and Ryland were left in the kitchen.

Ryland stood at the island with his hands clasped behind his back, studying the cake. Then his gaze lifted to Cassian, who was doing his absolute best to project an air of casual disinterest that fooled neither of them.

Ryland opened the cutlery drawer and produced a long, thin knife. He also took out a wide metal spatula and a sheet of greaseproof paper, which he laid flat on the counter beside the cake.

“The structural integrity of a three-layer sponge,” Ryland said, “relies on the radial symmetry of the buttercream as a visual cue. The human eye registers disruption in circular patterns at approximately two degrees of arc variance. Below that threshold, the removal of a wedge is functionally invisible, provided the cut faces are pressed back together and the surface icing is redistributed.”

Cassian watched, his mouth slightly open, as Ryland inserted the knife at a precise angle and drew it through the cake in two clean strokes that produced a slice so narrow it was barely wider than Cassian’s thumb. The knife went in again, a matching cut on the opposite side, and a second sliver emerged. Ryland eased both pieces onto the greaseproof paper with the spatula, then pressed the remaining cake gently closed with both palms, rotating it a quarter-turn on the board. He ran the flat of the knife along the join, smoothing the buttercream back into a seamless curve, and stepped away.

The cake looked untouched.

Cassian leaned forward and stared. The join was invisible. The buttercream peaks sat as proud and perfect as they had when Raf set the box on the counter at Proving Ground, and the two slivers on the paper were the only evidence that anything had happened at all.