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2. i like watching you make bread

3. i like eating your bread

4. you laugh at things i say even when i’m not joking

He paused on the fifth one. His thumb tapped the edge of the screen while he decided whether this qualified as information Ruari needed, and concluded that it did.

5. i have told felix and ivar i like your cock and ivar says that is very important and a good cock is hard to find

Cassian ate another raspberry, the freeze-dried tartness dissolving on his tongue while he composed the sixth and final point.

6. i think i will be bad at pulling so i don’t want to

Cassian watched the blue ticks arrive under every message one by one, each pair confirming that Ruari had opened the chat and read what he’d written. Every second with no reply told him they were broken up.

He put the mobile face-down on the pillow and ate three raspberries in quick succession. On screen, Victor was in his garage, messing with a carburettor while Lily sat on the bonnet of her car in the driveway outside and pretended she hadn’t driven forty minutes to be there.

Cassian reached for the remote. He should switch to something that didn’t make him want to hurl the cushion at the television, something with cooking or property renovation.

Then his mobile vibrated on the pillow. He pounced on it and thumbed right to the message.

Ruari: Come outside

Cassian launched himself towards the bedroom door, and he made it three steps down the hallway before his brain caught up and reminded him that the house contained two sleeping adults and a baby, none of whom deserved to be woken at half one in the morning by him thundering down the stairs in his pants.

He crept forward more carefully.

Every stair in the Ledbury Road house made its own sound. Cassian had learned all of them during the weeks he’d spent sneaking down to the kitchen for midnight Tangfastics. Third step creaked on the left. Seventh step groaned in the middle. He took them at the edges, one hand on the banister, his bare feet finding the safe, silent spots.

The front door had a deadbolt that clicked when you turned it. He rotated the mechanism slowly, breathing with it, easing the bolt out until the lock released.

Ruari was standing on the front step in the warm circle of light from the porch lamp. His eyes were red-rimmed, and his hair stood up in every direction, but he was still the most beautiful alpha Cassian had ever seen.

Cassian started to speak, but Ruari’s hands were already under his thighs, lifting him clean off the doorstep. Cassian’s legs locked around Ruari’s waist on instinct, his arms going tight around the alpha’s neck, and Ruari kissed him with a force that pushed Cassian’s head back and made his spine arch, sending every thought he’d been carrying for the last six hours scattering like pigeons from a passing football.

Cassian’s fingers twisted into the hair at Ruari’s crown and pulled. When Ruari finally broke the kiss, Cassian spoke first.

“Say it,” Cassian said, tightening his legs so the alpha couldn’t put him down. “Say we’re not broken up, Ruari. I need you to say it.”

Ruari’s forehead pressed into his. “We’re not broken up, Cass.”

“Really?”

“We’re not broken up. I’m your alpha, you’re my omega, and we’re not broken up.” Ruari hitched him higher on his hips. “And for the record, you would be shit at pulling. But that’s okay. As far as I’m concerned, you’ll never have to go on the pull in your life.”

Cassian kissed him again, grinning so hard his teeth got in the way.

Ruari set him down eventually, but only because Cassian pulled away far enough to whisper, “We can’t stay here — Colin will murder us both if we wake him.”

Cassian lifted the garden key off its hook by the shoe rack. It opened the gate to the communal garden in the centre of the square. He spent a lot of time there with Colin and Tala during the day, but he’d never been there at night before. It would do for privacy, with an alpha whose hand was already down the back of his pants, tracing the cleft of his arse.

The gate opened silently. The garden lay behind it in shadow, lit only by the streetlamps through the railings and a few upstairs windows in the houses that ringed the square.

Ruari’s hand had not moved from inside his pants. His palm was enormous and kept kneading while they walked.

This was not, he decided, the moment to ask Ruari why he’d spent three weeks in bed unable to speak or eat or look at the person who loved him. Cassian would find the right words, and Ruari would answer him properly. Cassian was going to insist on it.

But right now Ruari’s thumb had dipped lower, and Cassian’s brain was not equipped to handle emotional confrontation and that at the same time.