Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CASS
Cass checked for notifications on her phone and winced. There weren’t any.
It had been years since she’d gone this long without hearing about a new gig. Terry should have been leaving their usual text bricks trying to cajole her into a new project by now. Their last message was a simple thanks! for filming the featurette. Nothing from Karl, or her wardrobe crew. Even Libby was being weird since she’d filmed her lines.
She was probably distracted with house hunting. Cramming Stephen into her studio apartment had a definite expiry date. Still, Libby looked happier than Cass had seen in years.
At least filming the featurette had paid well. Hours of her pasting on a bright smile and putting on a cheerful voice to talk about her costume design inspiration. Masking her disappointment when Stephen had told her Josh wasn’t filming himself, already working on some project back in Vancouver.
In Every Universe . That’s what it was called on IMDb. It had to be a Sirius Darker tie-in.
She wondered when she’d be brave enough to watch it.
A strident buzz jerked her head upright, and she scrambled for her phone. Her shoulders slumped. A delivery person peered into the fishbowl lens of her building’s front door camera.
At least her new fabric arrived. Something to keep her occupied. Never mind the half dozen projects she’d started over the last month but couldn’t keep her mind on long enough to finish.
“Package for Ms. St. Claire,” the courier droned, handing her a thick envelope that was definitely not the fabric she had ordered weeks ago.
“That’s me.” She scrawled her signature with the stubby stylus across the electronic screen and accepted the thick manilla envelope. She turned the package over, and her heart jolted in her throat as she read the sender.
Josh Graham.
He had been radio silent since she’d left him. No texts. No calls. No surreptitious messages via Stephen hinting to text him first.
What would he have sent her? The drawings she’d made of Tideways he’d borrowed from her months ago? Hardly worth a signed delivery. The envelope was far thicker than the small sheaf of papers she’d lent him. Then, she caught the envelope’s heading.
From the offices of Davis, Johnstone, and Mohammad Family Law.
Just as she was sliding a knife under the seal, her phone buzzed again with a new text. She glanced at the screen and dropped the package to the floor.
Have you opened it yet?
How had he … Electronic delivery signature. He received automatic notification she’d signed.
Cass picked up the envelope from the floor, the first pages peeking out from the open top. She slid the pages out of the legal envelope and pressed a hand over her mouth.
Emblazoned across the top in a formal serif font was a legal heading from the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and halfway down the page, in bold letters …
Certificate of Divorce. With signatures of Josh Graham and Vivian Long, side by side. Dated yesterday.
Blood rushed in her ears, and she pursed her lips to slow her breathing. Cass drew a shaking breath, unsure on what to feel. Of how to feel. She sunk onto her couch.
Yes
You are the first person I’ve told
I wanted you to be the first to know
Cass scrolled down to Josh Sexy Dimples and hit the FaceTime call.
Declined.
Not yet, baby
I’m sorry I kept the parts of myself I didn’t love hidden
When I was fifteen, I was such a nerd I was beat up by someone in band
I was grounded for buying a bag of weed that turned out to be stale oregano
I didn’t lose my virginity until I was 22
When I was 8 I fell into a lake in the winter and nearly got hypothermia. I’ve hated being cold ever since.
I had a goth phase
A photo followed, and Cass choked on a laugh. His skinny arms stuck out of a black tee shirt, and a shag of dark hair side-swept over one heavily kohl-lined eye. Besides the size of the arms and lack of eyeliner, his aesthetic hadn’t changed much.
I guess I didn’t really leave all the goth phase behind.
A splash hit her phone screen, and she scrubbed a hand over her cheek to catch the next teardrop.
Get ready
Libby’s coming to get you
On cue, a hard knock sounded at her door, and a key slid into her lock a second later. Libby busted open her door with a pained look between ecstatic and murderous on her face.
“Let’s go.”
Cass stared out the window of the passenger seat. The last of the thin afternoon sun glinted gold off the half melted ice coating the street. A jolt kicked through the seat back, and she turned a raised eyebrow behind her.
“Sorry,” Stephen muttered, trying to shift his stocky legs. “It’s a tight fit.”
Libby grinned into the rearview and angled her giant pick up into the tight spot between two cars. “I’d apologize for sticking you back there, but my passenger princess gets first dibs on riding shotgun.”
“Good to know where I stand,” he said. Libby twisted in her seat to pat his knee.
“What is happening?” Cass demanded for the fourth time.
“Priorities.”
A Closed for Private Event placard was propped in front of the tiny independent theatre’s box office. Bex waved from the front door, pointing urgently at her watch.
“Are we late for something?” Cass asked, feeling the start of a smile bloom .
“They’ll wait. You’re the main event.”
Everyone from the crew was there, and before she could say hi, they were shoving her butt into a seat and a bag of popcorn into her hands.
“What’s—”
“Shh!” Terry scolded from the seat behind her.
The curtains parted, the screen flickered to life, and Cass’s breath lodged in her chest.
Brynne sat in a director’s chair, long legs crossed, with a wand-like microphone clasped delicately between her fingers.
Josh sat at an angle, wearing a tight black tee shirt and a scowl. Her favourite scowl. The one that telegraphed him talking about something personal. And now he was about to do it in front of a literal audience.
Cass tilted her face to Libby, who made a twirling motion with her finger to indicate she should look back at the screen.
“So,” the towering projection of Brynne said, face drawn in overly serious lines, “ Sirius Darker has been a passion project of yours for some time.”
An obvious silence was edited short. Then, “Yes.”
“You need to do better than that.” Brynne’s smile was already threatening to break through. For such an incredible actor, she was going to make a terrible SNL host.
A muscle jumped in Josh’s cheek, and he huffed out his nose. “I am a fan of the book,” he said mechanically.
Brynne tipped the microphone closer to Josh. “Pretend you’re talking to Cass.”
“Fine.” He recrossed his arms and looked into the camera. “I read the book for the first time when I was thirteen years old. Every part drew me in. The characters, the message. Every time I reread it I get something new. Even back then, I saw shadows in my mind of the film it should be. Nothing bright, just”—he closed his eyes and tilted his face to the ceiling, searching for the words—“raw sketches. I started to write an adaptation when I was in university, but never finished. ”
“But you got there eventually,” Brynne said. “What changed?”
“You could say I met a wave of inspiration.” The corner of Josh’s mouth twisted up. “Also, Stephen told Melanie Westwood that I was working on a draft. If it wasn’t for him, none of this might have happened.”
Cass turned her eyes to Stephen, who smiled and squeezed her hand.
“This inspiration led to one of the most frenetic weeks of my life,” he continued. “A piece of work I had started a decade prior and mostly ignored for the better part of a year was suddenly finished in a week. And I knew exactly where it came from.”
“And where was that?” Brynne pressed, waving the mic around like it was a sparkler.
“I met Cassidy St. Claire, and she changed my life.”
The faded screen blurred in front of her eyes, and Libby passed her a tissue already in her hand.
Cass turned to her best friend. “You knew about this?” she asked thickly.
“Shh. You’ll miss the good part.”
His scowl had melted. “From the moment I laid eyes on her, I couldn’t get enough of her. She is bright and generous and has a way of getting through to me that no one else does?—”
“Like when you are screaming at the grips on set?”
“Hey, I stopped yelling after?—”
“After Cass told you to stop being a—” The last word was bleeped, but Josh shrugged.
“She was nicer about it than that, but yeah.” He paused. “She was so dedicated. She didn’t have to, but she read the book, and when she read my script, it was like she could see inside my head. She dug into internet archives and found fan art I had drawn years ago. And made it better. She knew my vision and made it better. She makes everything better.”
“What is happening?” Cass asked again, but she thought she was starting to know. She stood and twisted around to scan the few occupied seats in the theatre.
He stood in the doorway, arms crossed and face tight. The Josh on the screen was still talking, but Cass felt her feet moving until she stood in front of the man in real life.
“I’m trying to show you how much I love you, but you’re not watching,” he said, a nervous smile creeping up the corner of his mouth. “Will you watch?”
On-screen Brynne was walking through wardrobe with Cass’s assistant. The shot cut to Dawson, saying he’d never felt more comfortable away from home, that he had been able to sink into the role because he felt like he inhabited the skin that Cass had created for him …
“What is this?”
“Melanie was looking for an on-set love story, and it was us the whole time. I wanted to show you,” he said. “And if you like it, I want to release it as a special feature.”
“Josh—”
“I started an adaptation of Tideways years ago,” he blurted out. “I could never finish it. But when you showed me your designs, it came to life. You made me see what it could be. I finished it. All because of you.”
“But—” The screen flickered behind her, an image of Cass’s interview now dominating the screen, her own voice narrating the design journey. The shot jump-cut to a still image.
Again, it was her. Her open smile and wide eyes shone from the screen, lights from the dance studio gilding every curve. She looked so free, happy. She looked like she was in love. Josh’s voice narrated the image, conveniently leaving out that it was for the dating profile he was crafting for her, instead pointing out her dance background, her injury.
He’d remembered. Everything.
“So,” he asked, nervously, “do you like it?”
On screen, the camera switched to the field shoot. Both of them bundled in parkas, washed in the winter sun. He tugged her against him, wrapping her close. Her eyes fluttered closed, and he dipped his nose into her hair, his mittened hand gripping her waist. The steam rising from their breath made it look like they were incinerating.
Cass felt her cheeks redden. “Where did that come from?” she mumbled.
“Turns out the paps got more photos than just you and Big D.”
The movie switched to a split-screen, Karl and Stephen howling on one side, trying to narrate a shot of Josh not-so-subtly inching closer to Cass during a break in filming on the other.
“I’m free, and if you’ll have me, I’m yours. No secrets. Nothing hidden. I am so sorry I wasn’t open with you. But I want you to know me, and I want to spend as long as it takes to know everything about you.”
“Josh—”
“And I don’t fucking care about distance. We’ll find a way. I just don’t want to be apart from you anymore. And if you’ll be with me now, I am never letting you go again.”
The tight grip that had held her heart released. “Say it.”
Josh tipped his head back and yelled into the theatre. “I love Cassidy St. Claire, and I need everyone to know it!”
A whoop went up from her friends surrounding her. She traced the angle of his jaw that would clench whenever he was stressed. She ran her fingers over the ridge of his brow that would crease when he argued with someone and would soften when he saw her. Over the spot on his cheeks she knew would turn into divots any second.
A face she already knew so well, and still so much more to learn.
She curled a fist into his shirt to pull him closer. “You’re not bad either, Sexy Dimples.”
“You need to do better than that,” he said. He sealed the length of his body to hers, winding his hand into her hair to tug her head bac k and force her eyes to meet his, narrowed with a hungry gleam.“Say it.”
“I love you!” Cass giggled. “I’m yours. Only yours.”
He dipped his forehead to hers, eyes closed, thumbs swiping over her cheeks. “Excellent,” he breathed. “Now let’s go sit down and finish watching how beautiful you are. Back row. So I can put my hand up your shirt.”
“And then?” she asked, smiling so hard her cheeks hurt.
“And then we get the fuck out of here, and we do whatever you want as long as it’s with me.”