Chapter 11
CJ
Fucking hell. The nerve of that woman! The possessiveness, the naivety.
You have a boyfriend – leave some for the rest of us.
What was that? Who talks that way? CJ doesn’t even care what Ash thinks she knows, she is incensed, not least because CJ has now stooped to Ash’s level.
If Luis knew that she’d said game on to Ash, CJ would die.
Actually die. But then … well, what if Ash tells him she said that?
Hmmm. Better to approach the issue head on, use it to her advantage.
The woman who will look pathetic is the woman who gets told on, so CJ will have to ’fess up and make it sexy.
Which, of course, she can do: it’s Luis.
She knows him inside out and back to front. She can spin this.
CJ assesses the CoLab group and ascertains everyone is occupied: folks have gone off exploring the caves, up to the small café behind them for coffee and snacks, or are lounging contentedly on the sand reading or watching the boys play their frisbee.
When the frisbee sails towards CJ she is quick-thinking enough to leap up and catch it, her athleticism making it a smooth glide through the air and a powerful landing on the sand.
The boys cheer, CJ takes a bow, and she can feel Ash’s eyes on her as she chucks the thing back in Luis’s direction.
‘Come on, then!’ one of the South Africans, Jonno, yells. ‘Let’s see a bit more of that!’
CJ runs across the sand to play, all jean shorts and tiny bikini top, cap pulled backwards over her short hair.
‘I’m not going to go easy on you lads,’ she says, and Jonno laughs, ‘That’s what we’re hoping for!’
CJ can feel Ash’s fury burning even halfway across the beach.
She’s trying to hide behind a book and some sunglasses, but CJ can tell Ash is distracted by the whoops and hollas of the cat amongst the pigeons – CJ being the cat, of course.
CJ makes a show of high-fiving Luis, telling him good job, switching to Portuguese a little, too, because she’s 99.
9 per cent sure Ash doesn’t speak a word, and so screw her.
By the time they all stop for a break CJ is sweating as much as the guys.
As she hands Luis a can of sparkling water from the cooler she says, ‘Your girlfriend told me to back off, by the way.’
Luis takes the drink, pops the seal and glugs it down. CJ watches the bounce of his Adam’s apple, admires how he stands, one hip thrust forward, hand on his lower back, Matthew McConaughey eat your heart out.
‘I don’t believe you,’ he says.
‘She did! Apparently, she’s going to be the woman to tame you.’
Luis frowns, considers this. ‘I am ready to be tamed,’ he shrugs.
‘I’ve heard rumours that could be true,’ concedes CJ, playfully. ‘Although it would break my heart.’
Luis cocks an eyebrow and then looks over in the direction of Ash, who is doing a terrible job of pretending she isn’t spying on them and making mental notes on how to take CJ down. He lifts a hand and waves, and Ash grins, waving back. She motions him over, and Luis holds up a finger, one sec.
‘She likes you, you know,’ Luis tells CJ. ‘She’s interested in you. Asks a lot of questions.’
‘I don’t know what you’re telling her, then, because she thinks I have a boyfriend.’
‘And do you?’
CJ frowns. ‘What? No. I don’t even want a boyfriend, you know that. I don’t have a boyfriend, but you and me, this arrangement … it’s good, isn’t it? Best friends with benefits? I don’t want to lose it.’
Luis starts walking backwards in Ash’s direction, crushing the empty drink can in his hand and tossing it to CJ, who catches it easily, coolly.
‘It’s interesting, isn’t it, how much she gets under your skin?’
Luis tosses the observation out there lightly for a hand grenade.
CJ doesn’t know what to say: she shields herself from the blast by looking confused at the suggestion, and then rearranging herself to be less confused and more disgusted, with a side of you’re an idiot for saying something like that.
‘No,’ she says, the distaste in her mouth evident in her tone.
Luis pulls a face, raised eyebrows and half-smile implying he isn’t buying her faux outrage.
‘I think it is,’ he says. ‘I think it’s really interesting.’
‘Honestly,’ CJ explains to Miguel and Todd over dinner that night, ‘I caught on to what he was trying to do right away. I gave him the rope to hang me with, didn’t I, by letting him know Ash and me had been talking about him.
I reckon he thought it was me who was the jealous one.
He was sooooo toying with me by flirting with Ash, trying to get me all riled up. ’
CJ leans across the dining table to grab the wine bottle and refills her glass with the red. She holds the bottle out to the men, Todd shaking his head, Miguel pushing his glass towards her for more.
‘In a strange way,’ CJ continues, pouring, ‘it kind of worked, you know? Like, he’d lean into Ash when they were talking, but look up to make sure I was watching.
Seriously, when he flung an arm over her shoulder when they went off exploring the caves together, it was gross.
She slipped her hand into his back pocket as if they were a middle-aged couple at a French market, perusing bric-a-brac and considering boeuf Bourguignon for supper.
It was actually funny to me, Luis putting on a show. It’s like foreplay.’
Miguel sups his wine and regards her with narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow.
‘What?’ CJ asks, like butter wouldn’t melt.
She’s suddenly aware that she hasn’t paused for breath during the whole of dinner.
She’s monologued about Ash and Luis for almost twenty minutes, maybe even twenty-five.
‘It is like foreplay! He’s with her, but letting me know he’s thinking of me.
That’s at least a little bit hot. You know what I mean, don’t you, Todd? ’
Todd uses a small piece of bread to mop up the leftover juices on his plate. He pops it in his mouth with a flick of his finger, nodding his head from side to side as if considering the point.
‘What I don’t understand,’ he says, once he’s swallowed, ‘is that we all know Luis would wife you in a heartbeat. You keep him at arm’s length for … reasons. Whatever those reasons are.’
‘Because it would never actually work,’ CJ interjects, and Todd nods, because this is the point.
‘So you don’t want Luis, but … she can’t have him?’
‘No!’ counters CJ. ‘That’s not it at all!
I might not want to marry the man, but we have a good time, we’re best friends, really, best friends with benefits, and Luis can do whatever he wants – that’s the whole arrangement or whatever, I’m not here to limit him.
My issue is that she’s come in and pissed up the metaphorical lamp post, marking her territory, and she’s doing it over territory she’s not even going to be around for by the middle of summer.
It’s like, just the audacity of it! She’s very much that sort – I’ve told you this.
Waltzing in and deciding how she wants things to be, and woe betide anyone who gets in the way. ’
‘You made her cry, though, right?’ argues Miguel. ‘It doesn’t seem like ice runs through her veins …’
CJ throws down her napkin and looks out the window, jaw slack. ‘I can’t believe you two. You’re supposed to love who I love and hate who I hate. That’s family.’
‘And we do hate her,’ Todd says, quickly, catching CJ’s eye and suppressing a smile. ‘We hate her so much, she’s awful. Horrible. Terrible attitude.’
‘And no proper sense of style,’ supplies Miguel. ‘Awful shoes.’
‘Sloppy drunk,’ adds Todd.
Miguel nods theatrically. ‘I heard she cheated her way into university.’
‘Bullied a girl at school,’ says Todd.
‘There’s a Reddit thread about how she kicks cats,’ smiles Miguel, and by now CJ is grinning stupidly, nodding along at their silliness like yeah, yeah, OK, this is almost a good apology.
‘And kids,’ says Todd.
‘Awful woman.’
‘Vile.’
‘I’m personally surprised they let her in the country.’
CJ stands up to clear their plates. Cutlery clattering as she stacks them, she says, ‘I’m glad you boys finally understand the issue. Thank you.’
She busies herself with scraping leftovers into the trash, rinsing plates and stacking the dishwasher, before pulling out tiny little saucer-like bowls Miguel and Todd bought her two birthdays ago, specifically sized for a single scoop of after-dinner ice cream.
‘Maybe I should just let them get on with it,’ she says, once she’s had a beat to think about how crazy she actually must sound, no matter how kind Todd and Miguel have ultimately decided to be.
Miguel and Todd exchange a look.
‘I saw that,’ CJ says, waving a spoon between them.
‘It’s just weird,’ Miguel says, taking his dessert. ‘Nothing ever gets you mad like this. Like, why her? Why this? There’s got to be a deeper reason.’
‘Some people just make great enemies, don’t you think?’
‘That’s true, to be fair,’ says Todd. ‘I had a nemesis in high school, and then again in college. A guy on the team everyone adored and who acted all larger than life and fabulous, but I could see through it, somehow, knew it was all an act, and it got me so pissed nobody else saw what I did.’
‘So you just hated him from afar?’ Miguel asks, genuinely intrigued.
‘Until we got drunk in senior year and I blew him after we lost a big game. The ice kind of thawed after that.’
‘Understandably so,’ laughs Miguel. ‘So, CJ, apparently it’s blow jobs for everyone. How fun!’
After dessert is cleared and Jorge is sound asleep, Miguel puts on a crime series the trio have been bingeing on.
Miguel and Todd take up their usual spot in the corner part of the L-shaped sofa, and CJ gets the oversized armchair.
She cradles her phone beside her, umming and ahhing over texting Luis – but she doesn’t know what she’d say.
Half of her wants to booty-call him, because it turns out jealousy can be quite a potent aphrodisiac, and as she thinks about the way his arm languidly fell over Ash’s bare shoulders today, she feels a desire for him so deep one could almost, if one were a poetic dickhead, call it yearning.
She suspects, though, that he’s with Ash tonight – they sat together on the coach ride back to CoLab, disembarked from the bus together, and then flopped down on one of the CoLab sofas so closely entwined he may as well already have been inside her.
Maybe she’ll text Gustavo, although the past couple of times they’ve got together CJ hasn’t been feeling it.
Hmmmm. If she had fewer scruples she could call South African Jonno, one of the lads, but she’s made it a personal pledge never to do what Luis does and mix business with pleasure – she won’t cross that line, and it’s mostly because of Luis’s grandparents.
They wouldn’t like it, and she would hate to disappoint them or let them down.
Luis’s behaviour gets excused because he’s a man, anyway – as a woman CJ wouldn’t experience anyone turning a blind eye, she’d simply be judged.
CJ hasn’t had much experience of what good family is like, but Rodrigo and Maria mean the world to her, and keeping CoLab in shipshape condition is an act of devotion for her, she owes it to them.
Urgh. Is this what people mean when they say you have to sit with your feelings? How depressing.
‘Do you guys mind if I go take a walk?’ CJ asks, in between episodes. ‘I’m feeling antsy.’
Todd yawns, and Miguel shakes his head. ‘Go for it. Apparently, we’re not about to head out to any raves.’ He gestures to Todd with a gentle roll of the eyes.
‘Thanks,’ CJ says. ‘Don’t wait up.’