Page 11 of Cassian is Getting Out

Twelve loaves, and not a dud among them.

He’d been up since two, which was early even for him. He’d woken before his alarm and was up tying his boots instantly with none of the usual early-morning brain fog.

He shaped the first batch of croissants by five, laminated the dough for the second by five-fifteen, and was halfway through the day’s pastéis de nata as he whistled off key.

His hands were fast today. He could feel it in the way the dough moved under them. Every fold landed where it was supposed to, and his knife went through the scored tops of the boules nice and easy. On days like this, the entire bakery felt like an extension of his body. The ovens ran at the temperature he wanted before he checked the dial, and the laminating butter was at the right pliability the moment he pulled it from the fridge.

It wouldn’t last.

He recognised the shape of it now. Twenty years of moving through the same cycle had given him that much. Dr Hartwell had a word for it, a proper clinical word with Greek roots, for the days when he beat his alarms awake and his laughter came out too loud. Ruari’s word for it was simpler.

Good. He felt good.

He’d loved being like this when he was still signed with Villa. Loved it when the entire pitch had made sense in a way it never did when he was level. He’d known where Teague was going to pass before Teague’s hips had turned. He’d read the full-back’s weight shift a half-second before he committed, and he was already moving into the space the man hadn’t vacated yet, already receiving a ball that was still on Teague’s boot. The gaffer had pulled him aside after and said, “Whatever you’re on, don’t stop taking it,” and Ruari had laughed because he wasn’t on anything. He was just awake in a way that most people never got to be, tuned to a frequency where every movement on the pitch broadcast its intention right into his brain.

Fourteen goals in nine matches. The best run of his career. He’d played like the game had been slowed down for everyone else and left him running at normal speed, and the crowd noise had hit his bloodstream like a drug he’d spend the next decade trying to replace with drink.

A bread clip had fallen on the floor at some point. Ruari drew his right foot back and struck it clean across the tiles. It pinged off the base of the far shelving unit and skittered to a stop against the skirting board beneath the window.

“Get in,” he said, to nobody, and raised both arms above his head, like he’d just scored at Villa Park.

He should ring Hartwell and take the blister pack out of the bathroom cabinet to punch out the little white tablet he’d been skipping since Thursday. He should ring the surgery when it opened at eight, tell them he was sleeping two hours a night, and that he felt like he could run through a wall, even with his bum knee.

He lowered his arms and picked up the next tray of pastéis de nata instead.

Not today. Today the bread was perfect, and his hands were fast. He wasn’t ready to give that up yet. He’d ring Hartwell tomorrow.

He pulled the croissants at six-ten and lined them up in the display case. Raf came in at six-thirty and stopped in the kitchen doorway.

“You’ve done the nata already?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Ruari slid the last tray into the case and wiped down the counter in three long sweeps. “Figured I’d get ahead.”

“You’ve done two days’ worth of pastéis de nata.”

“Have I?” Ruari looked at the cooling racks. He had. Three trays where one would have done, each tartlet golden and textbook. “Right. Well. They’ll keep.”

Raf didn’t say anything else. He was a good lad, twenty-three, quiet, took instruction without asking why. He’d learned within his first month that there were days when Ruari talked and days when Ruari didn’t, and that the smart play was to match whichever Ruari he met that day.

“I’m going to do a cardamom and orange batch,” Ruari said. “For the weekend. Something new.”

“It’s Tuesday.”

“I know. I’m planning ahead.”

Raf picked up a tea towel and started on the bowls in the sink.

Ruari opened at seven. He unlocked the front door, flipped the sign, and the first stream of customers poured in. A woman he recognised from the block of flats above the dry cleaner’s was first inside, and he gave her a sourdough roll for free because she’d once told him his pain au chocolat was the best she’d had outside Paris.

By eight, he’d given away three pastries, upsized two coffees without charging, and told a man whose daughter had started secondary school that week to bring her in for a Chelsea bun on the house. This was how a proper bakery should run: product good enough that he could afford to give it away.

He was reorganising the display case for the third time when the bell over the doorway tinkled. Ruari wiped his hands on a tea towel and glanced up.

Cassian came in behind Colin. Every other morning, Cassian walked in ahead of everyone, ahead of his own sentences half the time, already mid-story as he reached the counter. Today he was tucked in close behind Colin’s shoulder, one hand curled around the strap of Tala’s carrier.

Ruari prepped himself for a Cassian onslaught. He checked that the pastéis de nata were stocked, and made sure there was nothing breakable within arm’s reach of the stool. Cassian had very expressive hands when he really got into a conversation.

Cassian slid onto the stool without launching into his usual report on whatever chaos the MOAN group chat had produced overnight. He folded his hands in his lap and smiled at Ruari.