10. Cass
CASS
TWO WEEKS LATER
“You look good,” Dani says once we’re seated and eating, poking her fork at me from across the little two-top. “Is that a new serum?”
“It’s called ‘My Husband Hasn’t Hit Me In Two Weeks.’ It’s sold exclusively at Duane Reade, you wouldn’t know it.”
She is unpleased. “Cass.”
“What? You asked.”
Dani sets the fork down. “I hate when you do the joke thing.”
“I know. That’s why I do it.”
She sighs and goes back to her pancakes. The bruise on my cheek has simmered down to a faint yellow crescent, nothing a bit of concealer can’t hide. The stitches dissolved last week, right on schedule. I have a tiny scar, but that’s alright—I collect those for a living.
“He’s being good, though?” Dani asks, careful.
“Way too good,” I confirm. “He brought me flowers on Monday. Took me out to Il Mulino on Tuesday. He pulled out my chair for me and everything.”
My cousin shudders. “That’s creepy.”
“That’s Raymond for you.”
I pick up my coffee, take a sip, and almost spit it back into the cup. It tastes like someone wrung out a dirty sock into the French press. I set the mug down and push it gently to the far edge of the table, eyeing it warily like it might bite me if I glance away.
Dani watches the whole thing with a frown. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Coffee’s just off.”
“Mine’s fine.”
“Well, mine isn’t.”
Dani squints at me, then at the coffee, then back at me.
“What?” I say.
“Nothing.”
“No, what?”
“Nothing. Eat your eggs.”
I poke at the eggs. They also look wrong.
Too yellow, too wet. I look away from the plate and my stomach does the same nauseous little somersault it’s been doing all week, the one I keep blaming on the radiator in the bedroom, or on the Thai food from Sunday, or on general existential dread, which is always a convenient culprit for my problems.
I could also blame it on Matvei. Thoughts of that particular problem have been a royal pain in my ass over the last two weeks since that unplanned encounter in the ER.
It’s embarrassing how often I come back to the same circular ruminations. I’m a grown-ass woman, not a hormonal teenager with a crush. But every time my mind wanders even half an inch off its leash, there he is, waiting for me in the dark, eyes burning blue like the hottest part of the fire.
Yuck.
I mean, no, not yuck. Very much yum.
But also, yuck. In a big picture sense of the word.
Primary goal for today, though—aside from Do not dwell on Matvei— is “get through this brunch without Dani kidnapping me for my own good and/or calling the authorities to report Raymond for being the world’s biggest douche bag.
” Easier said than done, because she’s like a bloodhound when she’s got the scent of drama in her nose, and that wary look in her eyes says Sarabeth’s smells like Uh-oh, something’s going on.
“Anyway!” I deflect brightly. “My problems are boring. I want to hear about yours. Has The Big, Hot Fireman let you play with his firehose yet?”
Dani nearly sprays orange juice in my face as she guffaws. “Excuse you, missy!” she gasps, dabbing at her chin with a napkin. “I will not be discussing Chad’s firehose over pancakes.”
“His name is Chad?”
“… It might be.”
“Oh, Dani. Oh, honey. No.”
“Don’t oh Dani me! He’s beautiful and he saves kittens for a living. He could be named Dipshit and I’d still let him get me naked.”
I laugh, which feels weird, because laughing sends a little ripple down into my stomach that makes me regret the single bite of eggs I managed. I set my fork down and reach for my water instead.
Once again, Dani tracks the motion. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Ask me if I’m okay again and I’m gonna throw a baked good at you.” I tear off a piece of croissant and try to chew it slowly, like a cow with cud. This, at least, tastes normal. Buttery. Salty. Safe. I chew it slowly and try to ignore the way Dani is looking at me.
But, thankfully, she takes mercy on me, probably because I’m starting to look a little green in the face, and launches into a long, detailed story of her date with Fireman Chad last weekend.
Turns out he’s a six-foot-two redhead with a rescue dog he named Dog and a standing Sunday phone call with his mom.
For their fourth date, he cooked linguine at his (immaculate) apartment, spent the whole meal peppering her with thoughtful questions about herself, and even noticed when she got quiet halfway through dessert and asked, very gently, if she wanted to talk about her ex or skip the subject entirely.
It’s honestly touching to see her light up when she talks about him.
The affection is physical and obvious. Her cheeks are pink.
Her hands keep fluttering up to tuck hair behind her ear even though her hair is already tucked.
She’s glowing in that dumb, wonderful way people glow when they’ve finally met someone who doesn’t make them feel like garbage.
It’s nice. It’s so nice. So nice and normal.
I want to curl up against the warm sun of her happiness like a cold-blooded reptile basking in the sun.
Since Giana died, nothing in my life has resembled anything that anyone would call “normal.” Not my marriage or my grief. Not the ugly black rage I’ve been nursing in my chest for five years.
So yeah, I’m happy for her.
I’m also a little jealous.
“Timeout,” I say, scooting my chair back. “I need to pee before you get to the part where Fireman Chad lets you slide down his pole.”
“You know,” she sighs, “if you keep making bad puns about my sex life, I’m going to stop confiding in you.”
“Liar. I’m the first person you call when someone hot and new rails you.”
“He didn’t rail me!” she protests.
“Yet.”
“ Yet ,” Dani concedes, beaming. “But…”
“Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.” My smile fades as I weave between strollers and highchairs on wobbly legs and push into the little single-stall bathroom at the back of the restaurant. The lock snicks shut. I grab the edge of the sink with both hands and look up.
Lordy, I look awful. Like I fell out of an Ugly Tree and hit every branch on the way down. A little green around the edges, a little sweaty at the temples. I look like I smell bad. The concealer on my cheek has worn thin enough that the yellow underneath is peeking through.
“For God’s sake, get your shit together, Cassandra,” I whisper.
I turn on the tap, then pump a little glob of foamy pink soap into my palm. But the second the smell hits me—some cloying, fake-rose, fake-vanilla, fake-everything nightmare of a scent—my stomach flips inside out.
I gag into the sink.
I shove my hands under the faucet, scrub the soap off as fast as I can, and stumble back from the counter, breathing through my mouth. I press my forehead against the cool tile wall and close my eyes.
“Oh, fuck,” I whisper. “Oh, fuck me sideways.”
The handle of the bathroom door rattles. I don’t even bother to lift my forehead off the tile.
“Occupied,” I croak.
“It’s me, dummy. Open up.”
Of course it is. I should’ve known the second I scooted my chair back that Dani was already counting down the seconds until she came after me. She’s not stupid, that cousin of mine. Guess I got all the dumb genes in the family.
I shuffle over and flip the lock. Dani slips in, pulls the door shut behind her, and locks it again.
She takes one look at my face and her own falls. “Cass.”
“Don’t.”
“Cass.”
“ Don’t, Dani.”
She sets her purse down on the back of the toilet very slowly. Then she turns around, folds her arms, and looks at me. “How late are you?”
“Late enough that I can’t keep lying to myself.”
Dani presses both hands to her mouth. I can see her brain already decorating a nursery somewhere. “Oh my God,” she whispers through her interlaced fingers. “Oh my God, Cass. A baby. ”
“Dani…”
“Does Raymond know?”
And there it is. The assumption, neat and tidy, so convenient if only it were true. Of course it’s Raymond’s, I tell myself. Who else’s would it be? I’m his wife. That’s how it works in Dani’s world, where husbands and wives still share beds and toothpaste and actual human warmth.
She knows things aren’t exactly great in my marriage. But I haven’t told her just yet how bad things have gotten—or how much worse they’re going to get before the end. I have no intention of trauma-dumping the full, gory details right this second, either.
Instead, I hear myself say, “Not yet.”
She hugs me anyway. Over her shoulder, I do the math I’ve been refusing to do. Raymond hasn’t touched me since before Khaza. Not once. Not in months.
So…
Yeah.
Guess I’m pregnant with Matvei Satyrin’s baby.