Chapter One

It was him.

Charlie peeked around the corner of the restoration hub and almost squeaked, before oh so casually making his way back to his desk, and continuing to hand stitch buttons onto what had been a very sad looking waistcoat.

From across the room, Daniel arched an eyebrow. “All okay there, Charlie?”

“Yeah, of course.” Charlie made his words extra casual. From the way that Daniel was looking at him, he wasn’t quite sure that he’d pulled it off. “All good, nothing to see—”

And then the door to the restoration hub swung open and Isla walked in with Leon.

Leon.

Charlie hadn’t seen Leon in a year.

In fact, the last time Charlie had seen Leon had been after his top surgery. After both of their top surgeries. They’d been on the same recovery ward, and had bonded over the excitement, fear, and anxiety that had companied the procedure.

They’d clicked instantly and when Leon had been discharged before Charlie, he’d written his number down on a piece of paper and handed it to Charlie.

Charlie had put it on his table, intending on inputting it after lunch, and someone—in an attempt to be helpful—had thrown the scrap of paper in the bin.

That had been that.

No one would give Charlie Leon’s contact details—GDPR regulations forbade that, of course—and instead Charlie had spent the better part of a year berating himself for not just taking the five minutes it would have taken to find his phone from wherever it had fallen between his bedsheets whilst he’d been sleeping, and giving it to Leon so he could input his number directly.

But Leon was here. In Stuffie Hospital London. Carrying a remarkably large octopus under one arm and—oh shit, he was looking over.

There was an instant when their eyes met and Leon flushed a deep red and looked away, the red rising up to colour even the tips of his ears.

Charlie felt sick. Why didn’t Leon want to talk to him? Why didn’t he—oh.

“Leon!” he found himself calling out, feeling awkward as all fuck when the other man looked at him. “Leon, I—I lost your number.”

The whole room was alarmingly quiet, only the rhythmic sound of Jamie on a sewing machine breaking the lull that followed Charlie’s words.

He saw realisation hit Isla in an instant. She’d been there the day that he’d finally given up on ever finding Leon again, and had taken to the garden with a cider and multiple tissues.

She paused, and then said something quiet in Leon’s ear.

He nodded, a short, sharp movement that felt like it cut. And then he slowly started making his way over to where Charlie sat. “Charlie.”

Charlie bristled, feeling everyone’s eyes upon them both and he shot a glare round the room. “Haven’t you all got work to do?”

The resounding sound of throats being cleared, and impromptu conversations being started made him smile.

“Leon, I swear I tried to look for you. One of the nurses was tidying up and threw your number away. I was absolutely gutted. I had every intention of messaging you.”

Leon looked at him, cool grey eyes assessing. There was a long pause whilst Charlie felt like he was being put under a microscope, before Leon said, “I believe you, Charlieboy.”

And there it was, that imperceivable shiver that ran through him every time Leon called him Charlieboy. It might have been a year, but it wasn’t any less powerful.

It might have felt more so.

They didn’t say anything, the two of them just looking at each other, before Leon said, “I’m going to take Octopus here to someone else’s workstation, because I want to date you, and I don’t want there to be any kind of conflict of interest.”

“You want to—” Charlie felt the backs of his eyes burning. “Even after all this time.”

Leon leaned forward until his breath ghosted Charlie’s lips. “Even after all this time, Charlieboy, I know exactly what I’m going to do with you.”

It was as if the whole world had slowed down, and when Charlie blinked, he felt his eyelashes kiss his skin, once, twice, thrice.

And then he breathed his answer, just as he had done a year previous. “Yes, Daddy.”