Page 55 of Cassian is Getting Out

“I wasn’t trying to distract you,” Cassian said, shrinking. “I was just trying to fix things.”

“I just told you I didn’t need you to do any fixing, Cass.”

The kiss was Cassian’s last move. He’d given Ruari sweetness and brightness, his body, his mouth, every tool he’d ever been given. There was nothing else to try.

He tugged his wrists free and Ruari let him go immediately.

“I have to leave now,” Cassian said. Ruari didn’t stop him.

Cassian picked his mobile up from the counter. He walked through the flat and took the stairs down to the bakery, one hand trailing along the wall. Raf and Lisa were behind the counter. Raf’s head came up as Cassian passed through, so Cassian held onto his smile.

Chapter Twenty-One

Cassian let himself into the Ledbury Road house, kicked off his trainers, and lay face down on the living room sofa with his arms hanging off both sides like something dead that had washed up on a beach.

Colin was in the kitchen with Tala. Cassian could hear a wooden spoon knocking against a saucepan and Tala’s babbling.

He reached for the remote and turned on the huge television. The screen loaded on a paused episode of My Brother’s Alpha Best Friend, season two, the one where Victor grew a beard and Lily pretended not to notice for three episodes before breaking down in a car park. Cassian hit play and pulled a cushion over his head.

Victor was always being a prick about something in season two. Every time Lily tried to talk to him about his feelings he’d say something cutting and storm off to his garage, where he’d work on a vintage motorcycle he never finished rebuilding through the entire run of the show. Cassian had once found this dynamic compelling. He’d taken notes and cross-referenced Victor’s garage exits against his own experiences with Ruari, eventually coming to the conclusion that alphas needed physical distance before they could process vulnerability.

Two episodes played out. The cushion migrated from his head to his chest, where he clutched it with both arms while Victor devastated her by stating outright that he didn’t need anyone. Lily absorbed this verbal blow with glistening eyes and a trembling lower lip, which sent Victor across the room in two strides to snog her.

Cassian watched the kiss, waited for the warm rush of second-hand joy that usually accompanied Victor’s romantic breakthroughs, and felt nothing.

What a load of shit.

His mobile buzzed against his hip. He fished it out and opened the MOAN group chat, where Felix had sent a photo of Fallon asleep in an expensive-looking bag, and Ivar had responded: It is unnatural that a dog should fit in a bag.

He typed, checking each word’s spelling twice. I think Ruari and I are broken up. I think.

Then he scrolled through the GIF search to find something that could accurately show his state of mind. A deflated panda sliding off a branch. A baby crying so hard its face had gone entirely red. A cartoon heart with an arrow through it, beating once, twice, and then cracking down the middle. He sent all three in quick succession. One GIF could not contain the scope of what had happened to him today.

Felix’s reply arrived in under ten seconds.

Go on the pull.

Cassian stared at the message. Going on the pull. He’d seen it done, in theory, across dozens of hours of British television. There was, as far as he could reconstruct from the available source material, an establishment that served alcohol. There was an outfit: something tight, possibly involving buttons left strategically undone. There was a period of standing near a bar looking approachable while music played too loudly for conversation, followed inevitably by someone crying in a smoking area at half past midnight, and then sex, maybe in the men’s toilets.

He hugged the cushion tighter to his chest and kept watching Victor kiss Lily on the screen above him, while the MOAN chat sat open on his mobile.

Cassian wasn’t sure if he wanted to go on the pull…but Felix was the worldly one in the group. He’d gone to school at Eton, and had boyfriends before the thing that had happened to him threw his life wildly off-track.

Ivar’s reply came through while Cassian was still hunting for a fourth GIF that could adequately convey the collapse of his romantic life. He wanted something with flames, or a giant avalanche consuming an icy mountainside.

Don’t do anything drastic. So you’ve broken up?

Cassian typed back: I think we have.

Three dots appeared and disappeared twice before Ivar’s message landed.

Your head has decided to perceive that you have. You also perceived a French bulldog that you met at the Serpentine with Colin to be your soulmate a couple of days ago. Think about this for a moment, before seeking other alpha cock.

Cassian read the message and scowled. The French bulldog named Mitts had been special. He’d licked Cassian’s hand with love, and kept looking back as his owner walked him away.

Felix’s next message landed while Cassian was still formulating a defence of either his emotional perception or his interspecies bond with Mitts.

Ignore the Scandinavian. Go on the pull. You’re fit enough to get at least a London alpha 6, you’re single, and moping on a sofa watching straight people kiss on telly is beneath you.