Page 26 of Cassian is Getting Out

“I kissed him,” Cassian said. “At the bakery. I kissed Ruari, Colin, and I love him.”

Colin’s gaze stayed on Ruari, waiting for him to say something.

Ruari’s arm came around Cassian’s shoulders and hauled him tight to his side. His mouth landed on the side of Cassian’s neck in a smacking kiss that Cassian felt all the way down to his feet.

“It’s brilliant, isn’t it?” Ruari said, his face still pressed to Cassian’s throat. “We’re made for each other!”

Diwa squeezed Colin’s shoulder. “Ruari, it’s gone half ten, mate. We appreciate you walking him back. Let me see you out.”

“Yeah, of course.” Ruari let go of Cassian and backed towards the door, hands up, palms out, still grinning. “I’ve got an early start tomorrow anyway. I want to try a cardamom and blood-orange thing I’ve had in my head for a week. The trick is going to be getting the orange zest into the lamination without it—”

“Sounds great,” Diwa said, and opened the front door.

Cassian darted forward to give Ruari a farewell kiss. He meant it to be a quick peck, but instead Ruari caught his face in both hands, and he coaxed Cassian’s lips into parting for him with a nip of his teeth.

Diwa cleared his throat.

Ruari drew back and kissed the tip of Cassian’s nose. “Bye, gorgeous…” he murmured, before he walked out into the night. Diwa shut the door behind him.

Cassian floated past Colin and up the stairs. His lips were swollen. His neck was tingling where Ruari had kissed it, and his whole body felt carbonated, like someone had shaken him up and the fizz was looking for a way out.

Diwa’s voice drifted up from the lower floor, wishing him a good night, but Colin’s silence carried further, following Cassian up to his room.

Chapter Eleven

Felix’s house made Diwa’s look like a starter flat.

Cassian had thought Ledbury Road was the most beautiful home he’d ever set foot in, and it was, right up until Felix had sent a pin drop to the MOAN group chat with the message come to mine this week, but you’re not allowed to touch anything. Diwa had driven Cassian to a detached house in Belgravia set behind iron gates, and had whistled low through his teeth when the grounds opened up beyond them.

A woman in a black dress had answered the door and led Cassian through a marble entrance hall with a staircase that split into two separate flights halfway up. Cassian had stopped walking three times to stare at things that drew his eye, like a small bronze dog on a side table that he’d reached out to touch before she cleared her throat at him.

The conservatory was at the back of the property. It had floor-to-ceiling glass walls, white ironwork, and terracotta tiles warmed by a stripe of mid-morning sun that fell across a table laid with enough food to challenge its structural integrity.

Felix was already seated at the head of the table with his legs crossed and a pot of tea in front of him, a black and tan Pomeranian curled in his lap.

Cassian’s eyes locked immediately on the dog. “Fallon!” he cried out, recognising her from the many, many pictures that Felix sent through to the group chat.

Felix scratched along Fallon’s back. “She doesn’t like loud noises, sudden movements, or people who smell like you.”

Cassian dropped to his knees beside Felix’s chair anyway, and Fallon’s tail betrayed her owner, whipping into a blur the second his face got close. She launched herself off Felix’s lap and onto Cassian’s chest before Felix could stop her, her tongue lapping at his chin.

“She seems fine with the way I smell,” Cassian said, from the floor.

Cassian got to his feet and set Ruari’s pastry box on the table between a three-tiered stand of macarons and a platter of miniature fruit tarts. The box was still warm against his palms. Ruari had packed it himself that morning and told Cassian that the kouign-amann on the left were experimental and he needed honest feedback, which Cassian knew actually meant tell me they’re perfect or I’ll be sad.

Felix’s gaze landed on the box. His nostrils flared once.

“This is from Ruari,” Cassian said, lifting the lid.

The kouign-amann sat in two neat rows, their surfaces shattered into layers of caramelised sugar and golden pastry. Beside them, a cluster of pain au chocolat with seams of chocolate so dark they were nearly black, and four passionfruit tarts with their glazed tops catching the conservatory light.

Felix took a kouign-amann without comment.

Ivar had brought a flat ceramic dish covered in cling film. He peeled back the wrapping to reveal a dense, dark arrangement of sardines laid spine-to-spine over a bed of rye bread, dotted with capers and thin rings of raw onion.

“Smörgås,” Ivar said. “From Skalavik. You eat the bones. In Skalavik we have the story of Grímur the Bone-Eater, who ate so many sardine bones as a boy that he grew into a giant.” He placed a sardine dead centre on his rye bread. “But then sardines were too small to satisfy him, so he began eating misbehaving children. And when the children were not enough, he moved on to men who took other men’s wives to bed.”

Ivar bit into his smörgås and smiled pleasantly.