14. Cass
CHAPTER 14
Cass
P orto Cervo, Monday, August 25th
It felt like the world had hit the pause button. Or maybe just my world—late evening, the villa peaceful in that way no city place ever truly managed. The night air hung heavy with the hum of cicadas, and I closed my eyes and listened, alone on the terrace for the moment.
“I drew you a lizard,” Emily said.
I blinked and turned to look at her. Already in her pajamas, hair damp from a bath, her eyes were drooping with tiredness. She was smiling, though, sleepy pride in how she shoved a sheet of paper at me.
“ Did you?” I asked, glancing at Levi who was hovering behind her. He must have fulfilled his bedtime reading obligations to her satisfaction.
“Look,” she said.
I crouched down to do so. Hmm. The drawing was… well. Abstract, so to speak. A brownish-green sausage with eyes and some stick legs. But it had a certain charm, and I was stupidly touched by how she’d tried to capture the tiny reptile we’d seen in the gorge. “That’s awesome,” I told her. “You got the tail just right.”
“You can keep it.” She said it like parting with the paper meant a great sacrifice, so when I thanked her, I made sure my tone reflected the gravity of her offer.
“I’ll find a nice spot at home for it.” I wasn’t even kidding, and maybe Levi could tell because he ducked his head, but not before I caught the smile washing across his face.
Emily nodded like this was the least I could do, and then she gave me a quick hug that took me by surprise, her arms looping awkwardly around my shoulders. I patted her back before she went off, pad-padding across the tiles back to Levi.
“Time for bed, little miss,” he said, voice thick with affection.
I waved and watched them disappear inside, and then it was just me again, propped back against the heavy stone table as I ran my thumb along the edge of Emily’s drawing before I carefully set it aside. Voices drifted out of the house—Emily’s high lilt, Levi’s lower murmur, Cecily and Geoff saying goodnight. It wasn’t that late, but Geoff liked to rise early, had just returned from a bakery run when I’d emerged from my room this morning.
This morning. Levi slipping into my bed, telling me it was just a bit of fun. ‘Nothing heavy.’ Well, yeah—too late for me. But I pretty much pretended for a living, so what was one more lie?
He returned some minutes later, bare feet quiet on the still-warm stone floor, pausing just out of reach to stare at me. Something about the set of his shoulders resonated oddly in my chest, and I tried to mask the quiet tug of anticipation with a smile. “She asleep, then?”
He took half a step closer. “Yeah.”
“Your parents?”
“Just turning in for the night.”
I inhaled and raised my chin by the slightest bit. “So. Just us, is it?”
“Just us.” His voice carried a strange note, but before I could wonder what it meant, he pushed right into my space, crowding me up against the table. Dim pool lights played across his face.
“Lee.” I exhaled and parted my thighs, his fingers grabbing at my ass. “Should we maybe?—?”
He flicked a look at the open doorway. With a sharp nod, he peeled himself away—but only to pull me over into the shadows, where a pizza oven sat under an arched roof. Darkness and a distant glitter of coastal lights.
Then he turned me around, pressed me up against the balustrade framing the space. The stone edge dug into my stomach as he shoved up against my back, and God, this was nothing like this morning. No kisses and slow touches, half-swallowed moans—this was his body hard against mine, his hand down the front of my shorts, bringing me off in rough, urgent pulls while he rutted against my ass. I dropped my head, caught between wanting to shove forward into his hand and arching backward against his weight. His teeth skimmed along the back of my neck. Jesus .
“Levi,” I managed, and he slapped a hand over my mouth so I’d be quiet. It felt like when we’d snuck around backstage, urgent and risky, his fingers in my mouth to muffle my sounds, his face pressed into my neck to stifle his own.
I gripped the balustrade, dragging harsh breaths through my nose, his hand rough and sure on me. He rocked against my ass, clothes whispering with each push. Arousal wound tight in my gut. Each jerk of his wrist sent sparks up my spine, and it was too fast, too good, too fucking much . I couldn’t—wasn’t gonna— love you, love you. I shaped the words against his palm and knew he wouldn’t hear them. Knew he didn’t want them.
My legs were shaking. I came with a choked groan.
He kept moving, hot little twitches of his hips against me. I pushed into it, a little sluggish now, spread my thighs a bit more so I could reach back and press my hand against the underside of his cock. I felt him shudder. A strangled hiss close to my ear, then he went still, pressed up behind me.
I exhaled and leaned back into him, his hand dropping from my mouth. We were a mess. Mostly dressed, yeah, but my shorts were damp and tacky, my T-shirt rucked up to my ribs, both of us breathing harshly in the still night air. He removed his hand from my shorts and wiped it, not too delicately, on the fabric.
I wrinkled my nose. “Seriously?”
He gave a faint snort. “Sorry,” he said, not at all sounding like he meant it.
“No, you’re not.” I breathed out and chuckled, soft and low so as not to disturb the quiet space. “Okay, so what brought this on? Not that I’m complaining.”
“Been wanting you all day. Bit pent-up, that’s all.” He stepped back, and I turned to watch him tug at the bottom of his shirt, fanning it a bit, before he grimaced down at himself. Yeah, he’d come in his pants too—like we were teenagers all over again, unable to keep our hands off each other. I wasn’t sure why it felt like a revelation.
He wanted me. And maybe it was mostly physical, but it was a start .
“Well, hey.” I curled my fingers around the curve of his hip. “Guess I should send my trainer a thank-you note. Anytime you want to grab me like this? Feel free.”
For some reason, that made him frown. “It’s not just, like—you’re hot, yeah. But you’re more than that.”
He’d used to tell me that a lot when we were younger. ‘You’re more, babe. You’re so much more than a pretty face.’ Always building me up, protecting me when I let some stupid headline get to me or scrolled through comments I should ignore. Years later, and he was still looking out for me.
Of course I loved him. How could I not?
“Thank you,” I said, and kissed him so I wouldn’t spill the rest of it, words tumbling around my head like the LEGO designs of an insane architect.
We moved inside some minutes later, turning off the pool lights and locking the terrace door. I pinned Emily’s drawing to the fridge before following Levi toward our side of the house. Everything felt like a secret. We paused in front of our doors, and I knew I shouldn’t push, knew he’d drawn a line just this morning. Casual .
Hand on the door to his bedroom, he seemed to watch me—green eyes dark in the dim light of the hallway, cheeks still faintly flushed. “‘Night, Cass.”
“Yeah. I, uh.” I could ask, right? I could ask, and he would say no, but at least I’d have put myself out there. “Hey, we could sleep in the same bed? Not like—nothing heavy. Just nice to share, right? I haven’t done that since…” You . “Not in a long time. Other than a couple nights ago, of course.”
And I’d just thoroughly dismantled my own argument, hadn’t I?
Levi rubbed the back of his neck, glancing away, and visibly hesitated before he spoke. “Last time I did that—before Friday, I mean—the guy made off with all the cash in my wallet.”
“Shit. That’s…” Christ, I didn’t even know. Jealousy swirled in my blood like heady wine. At the same time, I wanted to smooth the wrinkle between Levi’s brows with my thumb, undo whatever he must have felt that morning—waking up to find he’d been used.
“To be fair,” he said, a bitter note of self-deprecation running through his voice, “I was absolutely wasted that night. No clue what he even looked like, just grabbed some willing body. Might be I didn’t even get it up, can’t say I remember.”
Oh, fucking hell . I didn’t think, just closed the gap between us and touched his shoulder, waited for him to look at me. “Hey. Hey . None of that means you deserved it.”
He sucked in a breath, loud in the silent hallway. “I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol in years, Cass. Not since… Not since the second opinion we got for Jess.”
There was nothing I could say, so I folded my arms around him. He melted into me, our bodies flush from hip to shoulder, cheeks pressed together. We stood like that for seconds, maybe minutes.
When he drew away, he brushed a thumb under his left eye, then met my gaze. “Emily sometimes sneaks in,” he murmured, and I needed a moment to get it.
Oh. So… no, then. I nodded and stepped back. “Okay.”
“It’s rare, though.” He cleared his throat. “So, yeah. It’s probably okay if we share a bed.”
“Yeah?” I tried to temper my smile to something reasonable. Based on his quiet chuckle, I failed.
“Yeah,” he said, and maybe it meant nothing to him, just skin contact and the quiet rhythm of someone else’s breathing beside him.
But it felt like I’d won something.
* * *
Sardinia, late August
The days blurred like Emily’s watercolor attempts to paint distant sailboats, splashes of purple and yellow that melted into shades of blue.
We cycled through a wetlands park to watch large colonies of flamingos wading in the shallows, their pink feathers brilliant in the afternoon sun. A private boat tour took us into a vast marine cave with stalactites and stalagmites flickering in the low light, an underground saltwater lake shimmering in the dark. We drove inland to an agriturismo, a baby goat nibbling at Emily’s shoelaces while a shepherd explained how they produced pecorino cheese using age-old methods. There were lazy afternoons by the pool and board games that Levi and Emily had picked up in town while I waited in the car, baseball cap pulled low to shield my face.
Levi and I folded back into each other in a way I hadn’t dared to hope for. Stolen moments behind half-closed doors and slow pieces of night once it was just us, quiet mornings with sunshine and reality pressing in. Light and easy, he insisted, even when I dropped silent words into his mouth and slept with my head on his shoulder.
For the first time in years, I could breathe.
* * *
Porto Cervo, Thursday, August 28
“Your music is sad.”
I looked up at Emily, hands on her hips as she assessed me. The grave impression was somewhat lessened by her pink, frilly bathing suit. We’d bought it the day before in a tourist trap kind of shop, the three of us browsing for silly hats and outrageously patterned shirts, posing with feather boas and party glasses, until she decided that this was the bathing suit for her. I wasn’t sure she’d taken it off since.
“The song I’ve been working on?” I asked, tilting my face into the late afternoon sun. To me, it felt more hopeful than sad, but I could see how a kid would have a different interpretation of whatever snippets she might have caught.
“No, your music .” Her tone implied I was being willfully slow on the uptake, and, uh. Levi had let her listen to my music? Or Levi’s parents? Some of it wasn’t exactly... child-appropriate.
I glanced at Geoff, who was reading a garden magazine and taking notes, while Levi and his mum were in the kitchen, making pizza dough from scratch. Apparently, Levi had discovered his inner baker—something about the smashing success of triple chocolate muffins he’d done for Emily’s birthday.
“It depends,” I told Emily. A smear of flour on her cheek suggested she’d tried to help with the pizza preparations. “I’ve got quite a few happy songs, too.”
Especially on my first album, when I’d tried to carry on the Neon Circuit combination of mostly upbeat pop with an edge, hiding behind other people’s songwriting. The second had been more honest, more mine, and same for the third, but my singles still tended to be of the less personal variation.
“Not a lot,” she said with utter conviction. “I listened to it with my friend, because Lee did your concert.”
I set my phone aside—no need to review the plans for next year’s tour right this very moment. “Well,” I said. “You’re kind of right. I guess I was a bit sad when I wrote some of those songs. Because I made some mistakes, you know? It’s really important to think about your mistakes and learn from them.”
She pursed her lips and gave me a shrewd look. “Because you broke Lee’s heart?”
Wow, okay—talk about a punch to the gut.
Geoff had stopped flipping through the magazine, although he kept his head ducked over the page. I cleared my throat, breathing in the scent of rosemary blooming in the garden, and tried to choose my words with care—good chance Geoff would report back to Cecily, and I wouldn’t put it past Emily to share her version of this with Levi. So, no pressure.
“That’s a big part of it,” I told her. “I was scared, you see? So I broke both our hearts and made us sad.”
She digested this, green eyes the same shade as Levi’s. “And now you’re not scared anymore?”
“I’m still scared.” I shot her a tiny smile. “But I also think I’m a little braver now.”
“Because you learned from your mistakes?”
Man, kids were awesome—all linguistic laser focus, and if they liked something, they locked on and fired it back when you were least prepared. My assistant had a son, and whenever she brought him over, he’d pick the weirdest things to repeat, verbatim, with the earnest sincerity of a six-year-old.
“I really hope I did,” I told her.
“So does that mean…” She paused, clearly still working through the whole thing, her face scrunched up. “If you’re still scared, but you’re braver… Does that mean you won’t break Lee’s heart now?”
Yeah, that kind of hurt.
“Well, sweetheart. It’s, you know. It’s not that easy.” I forced a smile and didn’t dare look at Geoff. “Your Lee and I —we’re not together anymore. He doesn’t love me like that.”
“But he’s helping you.” She said it like that disproved my words. “Like, he’s gonna hold your hand and stuff, because you’re his friend. Don’t you love your friends?”
Child logic. It all seemed so simple, didn’t it?
“Yeah,” I said. “I love my friends a lot. But it’s different from the way I”— love —“loved Levi.”
Her nod conveyed all the wisdom in the world. “Because you want to kiss him.”
Movement on the edge of my vision made me glance over. Levi stood in the doorway, his dark blue T-shirt dusted with flour, head tilted at an angle that made me wonder how much he’d heard. I’d said nothing he didn’t already know—other than maybe the thing about my music because I suspected he’d steered clear of me, at least for a while. Not that I blamed him.
“Yeah,” I said softly, still looking at him. So what if his dad was listening too? I had nothing to lose. “Yeah, I do want to kiss him.”
Something eased around Levi’s eyes—an almost-smile. Without a word, he turned to head back inside while Emily pondered whether she would want to kiss any of her friends. The answer, apparently, was no, although she thought they were all beautiful because they were her friends so obviously .
When Geoff flipped to the next page, I leaned back in my chair and tried to forget that our days here were coming to an end.