Chapter 15
PIA
“Are you hurt?” Martin asks me again in the backroom of this bar, which I’ve already forgotten the name of.
“No, Jesus. I’m fine,” I lie. My hand is killing from that punch, but I keep it out of his sight.
“That was quite a swing you took at him,” Jon says from beside Martin.
Great. I’ve gone from no dad to two in one night.
“You didn’t hear what he said,” I mumble.
“No.” Jon sits down on the desk next to me. “What did he say?”
“Doesn’t matter.” I don’t look at him.
“You’re damn right it doesn’t matter,” Martin says, and all his concern for me has disappeared. “You can’t do shit like that, Pia.”
“Oh, but the boys can?” I gesture to the closed door, behind which God knows what state Geert and Jakob are in.
“No.” Martin pinches the bridge of his nose. “That’s not what I meant. But as a matter of fact, there is a difference between them getting in bar fights and you.”
“Oh, spare me, Martin,” I say. “Or I’ll swing for you next.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” he says, but one corner of his mouth twitches.
“Try me.” I lift my eyebrows.
“Fuck, this is better than porn,” Jon says, adjusting the crotch of his trousers.
Martin and I both turn to him with disgusted expressions.
“Well, what’s done is done.” Martin sighs. “You’re going to be front-page news now, whether we like it or not.”
“It will sell records,” I say half-heartedly. ‘What I Want’ is already doing better than I expected. Worryingly good, actually. Like, I can’t ignore it good, and that is fucking up my plan.
“It better,” Martin warns.
“Well, now that we’ve all made up, can we go and get a drink? I’m gasping!” Jon stands. “Also, I need a better look at Miss Cassie Tits-For-Days Everard.”
“A better look?” I ask, again without making eye contact. “Is she here already?”
“Oh, yeah. Did you not see her at the door? She saw you take Stephan out. She’s got this lovely salmon-pink number on tonight. Lots of cleavage. And hips.” Jon mimics an hour-glass shape with his hands.
I choose to ignore him because my hand isn’t strong enough to thump anyone else just yet.
“Fine. Let’s go get a drink.” I start to follow him out, rearranging my black leather mini dress. It’s sleeveless and ends just below my ass, which is a lot more skin than I usually like to show for a release party, but Cassie Everard has never been at any of my release parties before.
“Pia.” Martin stops me before we reach the door. I turn to face him.
“I want photos of you and Cassie together,” he says firmly. “No fucking excuses. I’ve let you bullshit your way out of a whole week of press, but this is where I draw the line.”
“Understood,” I say with a heavy sigh. I know I’ve pushed my luck much further than I should have been allowed to.
“And put some ice on those knuckles later,” he adds.
“My hand is just fine,” I say and to prove it, I walk out with my famous middle finger pointed up at him.
“Pia! Pia! Over here! Cassie, Cassie, my love, this way!!” Camera flashes make it impossible to see who’s shouting our names, and when Cassie moves her head in the opposite direction to me, I know I’m also not hearing where the voices are coming from correctly.
“Get closer together, girls!” someone demands, and unfortunately, I hear it loud and clear.
We’re standing side by side on the small stage at the back of the bar, and we’ve very deliberately adopted hands-on-hips poses that keep the other at a distance. I managed to get up on the stage without meeting Cassie’s eye contact or touching her, and I’m not about to start now.
“But we hate each other!” I call out in the vague direction I believe that order came from.
Cassie turns to me in a flash of golden hair, and I stupidly, so fucking stupidly, look at her face. She looks confused and hurt, and that makes me feel like someone’s just taken a swing at me.
There’s more flashing, and I dread to think what those photos reveal as we stare at each other like this is the first time we’ve ever seen each other.
To be honest, it may as well be. I feel like a whole lifetime has passed since we recorded this godforsaken record together two months ago.
A whole lifetime of trying to find joy in the shit I used to enjoy.
The partying, the song-writing and song-recording, the drinking, the fucking, the being rock’n’roll’s number one bitch.
But I don’t want to party anymore. I don’t drink to get drunk, only to numb myself, and I haven’t fucked anyone since Cassie, despite a few failed attempts with Jon and one with this Italian fashion designer called Francesca or Federica or something.
We’ve laid down five new demo tracks in a month, which is almost unheard of, but I didn’t enjoy it.
I’m still writing songs, but they’re all about Cassie.
I guess, at least after tonight, I’m still rock’n’roll’s number one bitch.
And I have no regrets for knocking Stephan Greene’s tooth out of his fucking ugly mouth. He shouldn’t be able to speak again after what he said … about Cassie…
“Closer, girls!” someone barks and snaps me out of my thoughts.
Suddenly, Cassie does the unthinkable. She closes the distance between us, and her hip brushes up against mine.
The floating material of her A-line dress brushes against my bare legs, and when I gaze down, I see nothing but her full breasts pushing up against the deep V at her neck.
Maybe I wasn’t the only one dressing to impress tonight. I half-hope someone gets a photo of me staring at her tits.
“Smile, Cassie! Show us that pretty smile!” someone demands. A man, of course.
“Don’t,” I say to Cassie through my gritted teeth.
“What?”
“Don’t smile.”
“Why? You want me to look bad in these photos?”
“You’ve never looked bad in a photo in your life,” I tell her. “I just don’t want you to smile on demand for these fuckers.”
There’s a pause, and I glance at her mouth. She’s not smiling, and I feel smugger than I should.
“So you want me to obey your demands instead?” Cassie says with another flick of big, blonde hair. This time I get a full inhale of her scent, still earthy sweet roses in bloom.
“Fuck,” I hiss as close to her ear as I want to risk getting. “You still smell the same.”
Cassie’s sass disappears, and her jaw drops. She begins to speak, but I can’t hear what she’s saying, and I’m distracted by Kevin jumping up in front of us, facing the press.
“That’s it, folks! All done!” He turns around to us. “Thank you, ladies.”
Without the flashing cameras, I’m able to finally see Cassie properly.
Her make–up is immaculate – baby blue eyeshadow that makes her eyes sparkle and a soft pink lipstick I’d love to smudge all over her pretty face – but there are also dark grey half-circles under her eyes, and her face looks more gaunt than usual. Has she lost weight?
“Thank you, Kevin,” she says as she stares back at me for one second, two. And then she’s gone. She rushes off the stage and disappears into the crowd, leaving me with nothing but her rose scent. It feels like someone has lassoed my internal organs and is pulling them out of my body.
“So, Pia, Martin tells me that—” Kevin begins, but I walk away from him, looking through the crowd for Cassie’s blonde hair.
She’s quicker than I expect, and I can’t find her anywhere.
I survey the entire bar once, twice, but when I don’t see her, I step outside.
She can’t have left already? I’ve barely been here twenty minutes…
“She’s in that car,” a deep voice says. I turn and see Clarence Oldman, Evergreene’s keyboard player. He’s smoking a thin cigar and uses it to point at a black saloon limo parked two vehicles down. “I’d hurry if I were you.”
I don’t waste time questioning his intuition, instead, I rush to the Chrysler he was pointing at and open the rear passenger door.
“What the…” Cassie twists in her seat, her face full of shock with a single tear smudging the blue mascara of her left eye. “Pia.”
“You ran away from me,” I say as I climb in and close the door with a slam.
Her jaw drops. “You have been avoiding me for over a month!”
“True. But I don’t like it when someone runs away from me.”
“And I don’t like being ignored!” she shouts, loudly.
I take her in. She’s rigid, facing straight ahead, fists balled at her side. Her chest rises and falls quickly, like she’s out of breath.
I feel whatever smugness I felt earlier melt away, and in its place … something else unfurls. Something ugly and awkward and very, very uncomfortable.
“It’s not just this last week,” Cassie says, chest still heaving but her voice quieter. “It’s not just about skipping all the press. It’s every day since … we were together. It’s the way you were completely fine to tell me to fuck off with that Polaroid and to not look back.”
I suck in a shallow breath. “You told me to fuck off with a Polaroid too.”
Very slowly, she turns to me. “You thought I was telling you to fuck off with that photo?”
“Weren’t you?”
“Were you?”
I sink back in the chair and fold my arms. For the first time since I sat my arse down in this seat, I peer through the glass divider in front of us. “Where’s your driver?”
“Getting tacos,” Cassie says, and she’s turned her face away from me again, this time staring out of the tinted windows.
“Good on him.”
“Her,” she says poignantly. “My driver’s name is Heather.”
“Well, good for Heather,” I say, and when I can’t follow it up with something else, it echoes pathetically in my ears. I know I should leave, but I don’t. I stay exactly where I am.
“What do you want, Pia?” Cassie finally asks, and she sounds as exhausted as I suddenly feel.
When I don’t reply, she turns my way again. As soon as I see her face, I have my answer.
“You,” I say, feeling everything inside me tighten. “Right now, I really want you.”
“But you hate me,” she says, but there’s softness in her voice and her pupils are growing.