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Ruari wiped the display case down for the third time, giving his hands something to do that wasn’t checking his mobile.

Cassian had texted him forty minutes ago: a photo of Tala with purée smeared across her forehead and both fists, captioned she looks like you after a shift, followed by three laughing emojis and a heart. Ruari had replied charming and a photo of the sourdough he’d pulled that morning, and Cassian had replied with a voice note that was eleven seconds of him praising Ruari’s kneading skills, before Colin’s voice cut in from somewhere off-mic telling him to put the mobile down and finish his tea.

Cassian had been home from the hospital for two days, and Ruari hadn’t seen him in person yet.

Colin hadn’t said stay away, but Colin walking past him in that hospital corridor without a glance had told Ruari where he stood with Cassian’s family.

At least the texts kept coming. Cassian sent them at odd hours, about anything and everything. The last one had included a blurry photo of his own feet on the Ledbury Road sofa with the caption my toes look like Colin’s and it’s freaking me out. Ruari replied to each one.

He wrung the cloth out over the sink in the kitchen and hung it on the hook by the oven. Raf had left an hour ago. The kitchen was clean, the proving drawers were set for the morning, and the till was cashed up. There was no reason to be here, except that going upstairs meant he’d be alone with his own thoughts.

The bell above the door chimed as Ruari was stowing kitchen roll in a drawer.

He didn’t turn around. “What’d you forget?” he called towards the front, already reaching for the light switch by the kitchen doorframe. Raf’s usual move was to leave his jacket on the office chair.

Cassian stood on the other side of the counter, holding a notebook. He hadn’t flung the door open, or shouted Ruari’s name, which worried him because it was so uncharacteristic. He smiled anyway.

“Cass,” Ruari greeted him. “You should’ve told me you were coming, I’d have—”

“I need to read you something.” Cassian opened his notebook. “I wrote it down because I wanted to get the words right, and I’m still not very good at getting words right while I’m looking at you, because your face does things to my brain that make the words go sideways.”

Ruari gripped the edge of the counter.

Cassian looked down at the page and read.

“I am working on knowing my own mind. Ruari makes me not want to think.” His eyes came up from the notebook and found Ruari’s. “That is dangerous.”

Ruari didn’t answer straight away. He was six-three and had made a career out of being a battering ram on the pitch. The omega facing him weighed nine stone with his pockets full, and had scars around both wrists from a man who’d habitually tied him to a bedpost. Of course he came off as dangerous to Cassian.

“Cass.” He came around the counter, and Cassian took a half-step back. “The drinking. I shouldn’t have pushed you into it, and I’m sorry. If I made you feel like you couldn’t say no to me because of — because I’m bigger than you, or louder, or whatever it is that I’m doing that’s making you feel unsafe—”

“Ruari—”

“I’ll sort it. Whatever you need. If you want me to back off, give you space, I can do that. If you need me to—”

“Ruari, that’s not—”

“Because the last thing I ever want is for you to feel like you can’t tell me to back off.” His voice had climbed to fill the shop. “I’d rather cut my own hands off than make you afraid of me, Cass, I swear to God…”

He heard himself then. His voice had rolled straight over Cassian, who’d been trying to get a full sentence out for thirty seconds.

Ruari closed his mouth. He stepped back until the counter was between them again and put his hands in his pockets. “I never want to frighten you, Cass. Not ever.”

“You don’t frighten me, Ruari,” Cassian said. “Charles frightened me. I know what frightened feels like in my body, and you’ve never once made me feel scared. You feel wonderful. That’s the problem. You feel so wonderful that I want to do every single thing you want me to, and that’s even more dangerous for me right now, I think. So I’m going to stay away until I can say no to you.”

Ruari made himself smile. “You wrote that yourself, Cass?”

“Yes.” Cassian closed the notebook and hugged it to his chest. “Nobody helped me. Except Diwa gave me some ideas about backlinking and personal knowledge management on the computer, but my mind said no to those, so I used a pen.”

“I’m proud of you, Cass,” Ruari said. “For knowing your own mind.”

“I don’t know it yet.” Cassian’s thumb worried the elastic band holding the notebook shut. “I’m still working on it.”

“Then I’m proud of you for working on it.” Ruari leaned on the counter, shifting his weight off the bad knee. “It’s more than I’ve managed. I’ve got to work at that myself.”

“No you don’t.” Cassian stepped forward as if to push the idea back out of the room. “You’re so Ruari. You’re all Ruari, all the time. Geoff loves you. Sandra loves you. Everyone loves you.”

Everyone loved the up. He worked hard to make sure the up was the only version that got as far as the shop floor. The rest of it happened above people’s heads, with the curtains drawn, and Cass was the only person he’d ever let up those stairs. His sisters and his mother, who rang every Sunday, only got told the bakery was doing brilliantly. In his dark moods, he cut them off completely.