“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 thatyou’redoing 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. PiaisFemme 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 doyouthink 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 theEast 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.
