Chapter 40
CASSIE
Jon Davies is a handsome man, and he knows it.
In this respect, he reminds me of Stephan.
But that is where the comparisons end. Jon has kind eyes.
Jon listens to others. Jon asks questions and seems interested in my answers.
Jon teases Pia with the perfect balance of camaraderie and affection.
Jon offers compliments and help and jokes in equal measure.
I relax in Jon’s company. I enjoy Jon’s company.
“Eleven years I’ve known you, Pia, and you’ve never once cooked for me,” he says as he places his knife and fork together. He reaches for his glass of water and finishes that too.
“What can I say?” Pia grabs his plate before standing. “I don’t love you as much as I love Cassie.”
My face becomes a furnace at the word love. Not because I’m embarrassed – oh, far from it – but because I’m still not used to hearing Pia say that she loves me. And that is ridiculous because she has been saying it on repeat for the last five days.
“Oh, you made her blush.” Jon nods at me but is smiling at Pia, who is now scooping up my plate.
“I know,” she says and then kisses the top of my head before scooping my plate up. “That’s why I said it.”
I try to cover up some of the pink in my face by taking a sip of white wine, a crisp Californian Pinot Gris. It paired perfectly with Pia’s baked salmon and Swedish potato salad.
“Oh, you’re all out of wine,” I say, noticing Jon’s empty glass. “Would you like some more?”
“Actually, no,” he says, covering it with his hand. “I’m going to have an evening surf later. Need to have my wits about me.”
“Wits? Ha!” Pia calls from the kitchen. “What wits?”
“The ones that regularly tear you to pieces!” he shouts back with a smile.
Pia shouts something back in Swedish that I doubt is complimentary, and both Jon and I laugh.
“Well, Cassie Everard,” he says, fixing his attention back on me. “You are not what I expected.”
“Oh?” I prompt, not entirely sure what he means.
“I mean, I knew you could sing. I knew you could write a good song or twenty. And you are just as easy on the eye in real life as you are on the pages of a magazine,” he explains, not quite catching my eye.
“But I didn’t know you had it in you to tame this one.
” He gestures with his thumb behind his head, towards the kitchen, at Pia.
“Pia doesn’t need taming,” I say, putting my elbows on the table. “Or at least, that’s not what I want to do. I love her just as she is.”
“Hmm,” he says and mirrors my posture. “But you know she’s changed, right? Since being with you.”
“Yes.” I chew on my lip for a second. “I can see how you would think that. But really, I think we’ve both just helped each other find our voices, find a way to ask for what we want and go after that.”
“I can definitely see that you’re doing that.” Jon nods and reaches for the carafe of water. He fills his own glass and mine. “But Pia…”
“You don’t think she’s doing what she wants to do with Femme Fatale?” I lower my voice.
“Oh, I don’t mean in that department. Pia is Femme Fatale, so whatever she wants goes with us lot. I’m the first to say that me and Geert and Jakob, we’re just along for the ride”–he smiles to himself–“and what a fun ride it’s been.”
“So if she wanted to also have a solo career…?”
“Then I’d support her in doing so, and I’d find something else to do, another way to live the very nice life I have.” He says it with an easy shrug.
“Oh, okay,” I say.
“What I’m more concerned about is what the future holds for Pia if … if you have to keep this love of yours a secret.”
I swallow. My throat is bone dry.
“Pia is not good at living a lie,” Jon explains, and I notice that his voice has also dropped.
“We’ve talked about it,” I say, truthfully. “We think in a couple of years, things will be very different for us both. I’ll be established as a solo artist. Pia will have more creative control over your albums. And the world is changing all the time. We just need it to be more … tolerated.”
“Tolerated?” Jon chokes on his water. “Fuck that.”
I baulk at his tone, my neck lengthening and my chin protruding.
“Sorry,” he offers, putting his glass down. “What I mean is, don’t aim for the bare minimum. Don’t sell yourselves short.”
I grind my teeth for a few seconds before I speak again. “So what do you think we should do?”
Jon leans back in his chair, looking handsome and cavalier and very irritating.
I can absolutely see why Pia says she has a love-hate relationship with this man.
“You should do whatever the fuck you want. Both of you. You’re both too successful, too popular and too powerful to bow down to anybody else.
” He leans close again, and his voice dips to a whisper.
“And even if you weren’t, I’d still say fuck them.
Fuck them all. It’s your life, Cassie, and Pia’s. Live it.”
I take a large mouthful of wine. “You sleep with men too, from what I’ve heard. Why don’t you stand up and say fuck them?”
Jon shrugs, that easy smile unbothered. “I could. But nobody gives a shit about me. I’m a washed-up punk-rock surfer from the East End of London. But you and Pia … Like it or not, you could change the world.”
I don’t like it, I want to tell him. I don’t like it at all that we have to carry this pressure, this burden on top of everything else. It’s absolutely one of the many, many reasons why keeping our love a secret feels like the easiest way forward.
Just at that moment, Pia walks through the archway carrying a trifle. It’s one of the many childhood dishes I’ve told her about that she has insisted on recreating for me.
“Dessert is served!” she announces and places the dish in the middle of the table.
She stands back and smiles, her hand on the back of Jon’s chair. Her dark hair is tied up in a knot on top of her head. She’s wearing jeans and one of my knitted jumpers. Her face is make-up free but the prettiest I’ve ever seen it. Her smile radiates warmth and pride and my future.
She is my future. She is my light. She is my love.
She is not my dirty secret. She is not something I want to hide. She is my hope and my happiness, and Jon’s absolutely right, I want to share that with the world.
“Fucking ’ell! Look at this!” Jon picks up his spoon and licks his lip. “Just like my nan used to make!”
“Looks delicious,” I say, looking at Pia. She flashes me a quick frown of confusion when she no doubt sees the intensity in my eyes, but it can wait.
Not forever, but it can wait for now.
“Thank you for cooking today,” I tell Pia as we dry the last of the dishes.
“Thank you for putting up with Jon,” she says. “I know he’s a bit of a wanker, but all in all, he’s been a good friend to me over the years.”
“I’m happy you had him as a friend,” I reply, and I take a deep breath. Now is as good a time as any. I reach for the casserole dish in her hand and her tea towel and place both on the countertop. “Pia, I think we should talk.”
“Oh?” She narrows her eyes. “Wait, did Jon ask you for a threesome? I swear to God if he did—”
“No! No, he didn’t do that. That’s not … that’s not what I want to talk about.”
“Then what?”
“What if … what if we didn’t wait?”
Pia’s frown deepens. “Wait for what?”
“To share our story with the world.”
“Our story?”
“Fine, our love. Our relationship.”
Pia crosses her arms. “How much wine did you drink today?”
“No, Pia, I’m not drunk. I’m serious.”
She shakes her head and then picks up the tea towel and dish again, even though it looks perfectly dry to me. “You’re not thinking straight,” she says, not meeting my gaze.
“I know what I want,” I tell her in a quiet but firm voice.
“And I know what I want,” she snaps, tea towel thrown down on the side again. “I want us to be safe and not hated, and for you to have all the success you want and deserve.”
“Who says I can’t have that?” I say slowly, carefully. “And have you.”
“You have me, Cassie.” Her tone has melted, and her hands land on my hips. “I’m yours.”
“But what if I want the world to know that, too?” I plead. “I thought that was what you wanted, too.”
She stares at me for a long time, and I would give up all my worldly possessions to know what she’s thinking, especially when her big brown eyes shutter into a vacant look.
“I want…” she begins, sighs, then tries again.
“I want to not talk about this. Cassie, we have only four more days together. And then I’m away again for two months.
Then it’s the Grammys. Recording your album.
Let’s just let things stay as they are a little longer.
When I’m back in LA and things are a bit calmer, then we can talk.
But now is not that time. Not when I only have you for four more fucking days.
I want to spend that time loving you, cooking for you, singing with you, listening to you sing to me and fucking you.
I want to fuck you so much in the next four days that you will need two months to recover. ”
Unease swims inside me. I know what she’s doing. She’s using sex to distract me, and while it is quite effective, I am not swept away completely.
“Pia,” I try again.
“Please, Cassie…” She grabs my hands and squeezes them. Her eyes shine with moisture. “If you love me, please. I don’t want to talk about this now. But we will, I promise you, we will.”
And I believe her. She’s never lied to me before, and maybe I’m just not used to that because all I feel the men in my life have done is lie.
I’m about to reply when she drops my hands. Pia brings her index finger to her lips and then flattens that hand and taps it on top of her left hand, which is balled into a fist.
She’s signing “I promise,” and I can’t help but smile.
We’ve spent many hours learning sign language over the last few days, and it thrills me more than it should to feel like we now have this almost secret language we can share.
In the same moment, it becomes so startlingly clear how much I don’t mind this kind of secret with Pia. But keeping our relationship a secret … that sends a shiver down my spine.
“Cassie,” Pia says, and then she signs “I promise” again.
I nod and slowly sign, “Okay.”
And then she pulls me into her body and hugs me so tightly that it’s hard to breathe.