“She’s one hell of a perfectionist when she’s sober,” Jon says, and he tucks himself on the end of his couch, placing Jakob’s feet on his lap.
“I’m not…” The words trail away. I am actually sober. My last drink was that swig of gin in the hotel room.Well, fuck.I gesture to the blunt. “Pass me that.”
Jakob hands it over to me. I’m sitting on the coffee table in the middle of the room. I take a long pull and close my eyes.
“I like sober Pia,” Jakob says. “She writes beautiful little love songs.”
“Don’t patronise me,” I hiss at him in Swedish as I exhale.
“I told you both, it turns me on when you both speak Swedish,” Jon says with the kind of smile the media has called a panty-dropper, and maybe I agreed once upon a time. “So don’t start something you can’t finish.”
“You’ll be lucky,” Jakob says. His long, slim body is wearing a white towelling robe that was almost certainly stolen from a hotel. It’s a little small on him, so his forearms and his calves stick out. “I’m still recovering from last night. Brazilians really know how to fuck.”
“I thought they were Argentinian?” Jon frowns at him. I’m only half-listening as I go back to strumming on Jon’s guitar.
“Nope. He was from Rio, and she was from … somewhere else. But definitely Brazil.”
“Nice,” Jon says.
“I did invite you to join in.”
Jon has a thoughtful look on his face as he leans back against the couch cushions. “I know, but I wasn’t feeling it.”
“What the fuck is happening here?” Jakob exclaims. “She’s sober and writing love songs”–he points at me–“and you’re not interested in group sex.”
“Don’t you get bored?” I snap, bored of this pointless chatter.
“Bored?” Jakob repeats, and Jon lifts his head to look at me with curiosity.
“Yeah, with all the … mindless fucking. All the different … bodies.”
Jakob and Jon look at each other and then both burst out laughing.
“Fine,” I say. I kick Jon’s feet off the coffee table as I storm past. “I’m going to bed.”
“But it’s only eleven,” Jon calls out, but I’m already halfway to the door, his guitar still in my hand.
“I’m tired,” I say and then walk further away so I can’t hear them.
Upstairs, I find one of the guest rooms that still looks neatly made up. I’m grateful to Jon’s small army of housekeepers and that his architect gave each guest room its own bathroom. I take a long shower, clean my teeth – with one of the clean toothbrushes he no doubt stocks for passing lovers – and then slip into bed naked. The guitar stands against the wall by the door, and I stare at its shadows before my eyes finally start to close.
I thought I’d feel something like closure after sending that message to Cassie. I thought I’d have pushed myself so far in one direction that I’d stop wanting to run in the other, just because I’d have no choice. I thought I was right to close a door, but now I wish I’d kept it open.
I tell myself it’s just today. I’ll only feel this way today. Tomorrow, I’ll feel better. Especially if Jon and I can finish the song. If I can exorcise whatever these feelings are and put them into a song, then I’ll stop feeling this way.
I should have had a drink, I think, as the nausea in my stomach has me curling up in a ball under the sheets. Jon and Jakob’s laughter bounces up from downstairs, and part of me considers going down there, drinking and smoking more with them. Maybe even falling into bed with one or both of them. Maybe that’s what I need to do to forget Cassie fucking Everard.
But my interest in doing so evaporates just as quickly as it appears.
I don’t know what I want, but I know I don’t want that.
Instead, I think about “Trying to Forget You,” and I come up with a brand-new verse that feels like the perfect end to the song. I replay it over and over in my mind, thinking about how Cassie doesthis – creates songs in that brain of hers. It makes me smile despite myself.
Even so, it’s a great relief when sleep finally comes and takes me.
I sleep for ten hours. The sun is high in a cloudless blue sky when I wake, and there’s clattering downstairs, which tells me Jon and Jakob’s night hasn’t finished, or maybe one of them is up surprisingly early. With my stomach growling with hunger, I decide to go and find out. Just as I walk out of bed, I see Jon’s guitar by the wall, and the song we worked on instantly fills my brain. The lyrics, the melody, the way it’s about Cassie Everard.
And then I remember the Polaroid I sent her.
