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“Aye. Of course.”

Emmy is still busy at the till. I head into the back.

I call Ryan. It rings for a long time, then: “Hey, flower girl.” His voice is still thick with sleep. “All okay?”

“Everything is fine. Although…Ryan, your mum’s here. In the shop.”

Silence. Then the sound of rustling. When he speaks again, he sounds wide awake. “I’m coming down. I’m no having her turn up at your work. I’ll get her out.”

“Ryan, wait.” I make sure to keep my voice down. “If you don’t want to see her, you don’t need to come down at all. I’ll tell her you’re not available and see her out myself. But if you do come down, I’d prefer there isn’t a scene. Not in the shop.” I pause. “What do you want to do?”

He doesn’t answer.

“She seems a bit nervous,” I say, more gently. “I don’t want to tell you what to do, but maybe it’s worth hearing her out? Though if you’d really rather not, that’s fine.”

A long pause.

“Two minutes,” he says, then he hangs up.

I stay in the back till the bell goes again. I step out as Ryan comes in, in joggers and a hoodie. His face is completely closed off, guarded in a way I haven’t seen since the early days, when he was just the rude man upstairs.

“Maw.”

“Son.” Her eyes go over his face, the eyebrow, the taped fingers. Her hand lifts, as if to reach for him, then goes back to her handbag strap.

He stands with his arms folded and his feet planted. He doesn’t say a word.

Emmy’s customer leaves with her bouquet, and Emmy makes an excuse to go into the back.

“It’s a nice part of the city,” Michelle says. “You’ve done well for yourself.”

“What do you want, Maw?”

“I was…I was thinking maybe we could go for a wee walk. Just to talk.”

Ryan’s jaw works. His eyes flick to me, then to the door, then back to his mother. I’ve seen this man face down some of the most dangerous fighters in the world, but right now he looks completely out of his depth.

I scramble for something, anything, that might help.

“You could take Penny!” I say. They both look at me. “The dog,” I add, rather less enthusiastically.

Maybe it was a silly suggestion, but sometimes having a dog along gives you something to focus on when you don’t know what to say.

At the sound of her name, Penny—who’s been fast asleep in the back—comes trotting out to see what she’s missing. She heads straight for Ryan and gazes adoringly up at him.

His shoulders drop a fraction. “Aye,” he says. “Good idea. I’ll take the dug.”

And so Penny, Ryan, and his mum all head out of the shop to go for a walk.

“Holy shit, Briony,” Emmy says, sticking her head out from the back.

“I know.”

Forty minutes later, Ryan returns. It’s just him and Penny. Penny’s tail is wagging—she’s happy as always—but I can’t read Ryan’s face at all.

Emmy takes one look at him then murmurs to me, “I’ve got the shop. You two go talk.”

So I grab my jacket. “Coffee?” I suggest to Ryan.