Page 90 of Cassian is Getting Out

The unit didn’t move a millimetre. His trainers skidded on the flour-dusted tile as his arms shook with the effort, and the shelf sat there solidly.

Ruari watched him struggle, then stepped around the counter, put one hand flat on the side of the unit, and pushed.

The entire shelving system went over with a sound that shook the windows. Bags of flour burst on impact, sending up a white cloud that coated every surface. A tub of glacé cherries hit the floor and rolled under the bench, trailing red syrup across the tile. Sugar crunched under Cassian’s trainers as he stumbled backwards, ears ringing, and stared at the wreckage.

Ruari brushed flour off his forearm.

Cassian stood in the middle of Ruari’s destroyed kitchen at four in the morning, and did not feel a single bit better.

“Why are you happy?” Cassian demanded. “When I’m not?”

Ruari laughed. “You’ve worked your own head out, then?”

“Yes, and I want you. Still.” Cassian thumped his chest with a closed fist.

“Cassian.” Ruari took the fist in his hand and ran his thumb across the knuckles, and Cassian shut his mouth. “I have to tell you something.”

Cassian leaned into him.

“I love you,” Ruari said. “I’ve loved you since you bit into a croissant in my shop and told me about a dream you had about bread, and I have spent every day since you walked out wanting to come to Ledbury Road, knock on Colin’s door, and carry you back here.”

“So why didn’t you?” Cassian demanded peevishly.

“Because you said it to me outright the last time we spoke, Cass. That you needed to be the one to make the choice about us. The last time you carried me, I nearly killed you. Before that, you spent weeks sitting on my bed, because I wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t move, wouldn’t take my meds. So you took it on yourself to try to bring me back.”

His hand tightened around Cassian’s fist.

“That’s not fair on you. So I got my people back,” Ruari said. “My mum. Gemma. Nic and the girls. I ring Hartwell when I’m supposed to, I take my tablets every morning, and I’ve got a pub full of lads who’ll tell me when I’m running too hot, because I asked them to. Raf’s been doing it for years already, but now he’s not doing it alone, and now I know to listen. Do you understand that, Cassian? That I fought everything in me that was telling me to walk through your door and get you back, because I never want to put you in the position of carrying me alone again.”

Cassian dropped his forehead to Ruari’s collarbone and breathed him in. “I know that now, Ror. I used to think if you were sad it meant I hadn’t loved you properly. That I’d done it wrong. But I don’t think that now. You’re allowed to be sad. I don’t have to fix it, and I don’t have to drown in it with you to prove I’m here for you.”

“Say that again.”

Cassian tipped his head back. Ruari’s eyes were red-rimmed and fixed on him.

“You’re allowed to be sad,” Cassian said.

Ruari’s breath went out of him all at once. He folded over until his face was buried in the crook of Cassian’s neck and his arms had wrapped round Cassian’s back.

“I still want to make you happy,” Cassian said. “I still want to make you laugh, and I still want to be the reason you’re laughing, because your laugh is one of the best sounds I’ve ever heard.” He put his hand on the back of Ruari’s head. “But I’m not going to make it my job, Ruari. I’ll do it because I want to. Can I please, Ror? Can I just want to?”

“What’ll you take for it, Cass?” Ruari asked, his voice gruff. “I can promise you a lifetime of pastries. Best croissants in London, reserved seat at the counter, first pick of everything that comes out of the oven before Mrs White gets her hands on it. But we need a fair exchange: what do you want from me?”

“Exactly that,” Cassian said, solemn. “Your pastries.” He let the pause stretch until Ruari’s eyebrow began its slow climb. “And your big alpha cock.”

Ruari’s laugh cracked through the kitchen, and Cassian grinned so hard his face ached, because those were the two things he’d learned to crave from this man and both of them delivered exactly what they promised. Sugar that hit the roof of his mouth and made his eyes water, and sex that rearranged every atom of his body. He wanted both. He wanted them from Ruari, and only from Ruari, and for the first time in his life the wanting was a choice he’d made with his eyes wide open, with the highs and lows both accounted for.

Ruari hoisted him off his feet in a single motion, hauling him up and over one enormous shoulder like a sack of flour. Cassian’s stomach folded over the hard ridge of muscle, the blood rushing to his head as Ruari turned towards the stairs.

“RAF!” Cassian bellowed, hanging upside down over Ruari’s back, the kitchen wreckage spinning beneath him. “CLEANUP!”

From somewhere behind the espresso machine, a sound of acknowledgement emerged.

Ruari took the stairs two at a time, his bad knee be damned, and Cassian’s laughter bounced off the narrow stairwell walls, tangled up with the rumble of Ruari’s.

Epilogue

“ROO!”