Chapter 13
CJ
‘I’m so mad,’ CJ tells Luis, from where they’re both working behind the main desk.
‘He was such a nice guy, handsome, I’ve seen him around here before, out at the bars, said hello or whatever, but …
’ Here CJ shakes her head, thoughts of last night making her cringe.
She’d headed out for a drink alone, knowing she’d bump into friends at one of her most frequented haunts, and she did.
And there Dinis was, and they’d flirted, and kissed, and CJ had been so full of this bizarre sexual energy that she simply needed to expel that of course she went home with him and, ‘It was terrible. I’ve never believed in bad sex before, but Luis … ’
She sighs, shakes her head. Luis is eating this up – they don’t often talk about who else they have been with when it’s good, but when it’s bad?
It’s a sort of game to them, because the sex they have is so mutually satisfying that it reaffirms their continued situationship to know you can’t get it that good everywhere.
It’s yet more evidence for keeping Luis around, a not-so-subtle reminder to Luis of what he and CJ have.
‘I think you are telling me perhaps I have ruined you for all other men,’ Luis says, with a wink. ‘That’s what it sounds like to me.’
CJ rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling, giving him his point.
‘You’re an idiot,’ she says, and Luis laughs.
‘I accept your compliments,’ he replies.
They work companionably for the rest of the day, the mood between them relaxed and happy.
Luis finalises the details of a fado night, and the next beach trip, and also spends some time musing on his fortieth birthday celebrations, ultimately confirming which bar he’d like his party at and liaising with a favoured restaurant to do him a favour and provide the food at a good rate.
‘Have you calmed down about turning forty yet?’ CJ asks later that afternoon. ‘Or are you still being ridiculous about it?’
They’re in the back office now, end of the day in sight, Luis on his laptop, CJ sorting through paperwork.
‘Hey,’ Luis says. He’s shaking his head. ‘Take my feelings seriously! It’s a big thing, becoming forty. I’ll be kind to you when it happens – and it is not that far away.’
CJ shrugs. ‘It doesn’t scare me,’ she says, plainly. ‘It’s just an age.’
‘I disagree,’ says Luis. ‘To me, it is not just an age. It is important to be aware of the passing of time. That’s why annual rituals are important – Christmas, Valentine’s, Republic Day, All Saints’ Day … birthdays are a way to acknowledge what has been and what is to come. They’re important.’
‘But that’s cause for celebration, no? Rather be a year older than the alternative.’
‘But how do we celebrate without also knowing what we commiserate? How do we see the light without understanding dark? Any birthday is a chance to think about the year gone and the year ahead, but for me, forty … it could be the age I am halfway through my life. I look at my grandparents, you know, and wonder how long they will be here for. Life is precious, CJ.’
‘OK, I see your point,’ she concedes. CJ is touched by his earnestness. ‘And so … turning forty is a way for you to mark time deliberately? Is there something especially ritualistic you’d like to do?’
‘This party,’ he says, ‘all the people in my life who I love, together in one room. That feels important. Eating, drinking, and I will give a short speech, I think, to thank everyone for being my friend, for loving me. I suppose if I had a wedding it would happen there, but I am not married and so my birthday will be the occasion I tell them this.’
‘For what it’s worth,’ CJ says, ‘you could have got married a million times. It’s not as if you’re short of offers. Almost every girl you’ve been with could have been your bride.’
‘It never felt right to me,’ Luis says, shaking his head. ‘I know you think I’m a player, as you’ve said before, but CJ, it’s like the fairy tales – the princess has to kiss the frogs before she finds the prince. I have been kissing frogs.’
‘You’ve been doing more than kissing them,’ points out CJ.
‘That’s slut-shaming,’ Luis counters, proud to know the English for such a thing.
‘You are correct. I apologise.’
‘Apology accepted.’
They’re at their best like this, CJ and Luis, talking, shooting the shit, half distracted by another task, all the better for revealing actual truths.
They don’t sit opposite one another at trattorias and make heavy eye contact as they open up their inner emotional lives.
They’re sideways-on together, so as not to get spooked.
Whether it’s a desire not to spook the other or not to spook themselves, it cannot be said, but either way, with their backs turned and with another job in front of them, that’s when they communicate in their rarest, but most open, form.
‘CJ,’ Luis says, and immediately CJ can hear the change in his tone. ‘Your ass in those shorts, I need to tell you: it’s been killing me all day. Have you done it for me to notice?’
‘Luis,’ CJ says. ‘How dare you. I am dressed for a workout so that I actually go and work out – I was going to go and do a kettlebell class at lunch but got waylaid with the double-booking drama. The fact that you have been looking at my arse all day has totally escaped my notice.’
She gifts him an over-the-shoulder look with half a smile, just ambiguous enough to mask if she’s kidding or not. Luis reaches out a hand and grabs her office chair, pulling her over to him with a manly, dominant sweep of his arm.
‘Whoa!’ CJ says, coming to a full stop beside him, and he looks at her seriously.
‘You like to play with me,’ he says.
CJ lowers her voice to reply. ‘Luis. You and I both understand full well that you enjoy being played with.’
Luis opens his mouth to say something but promptly shuts it, changing his mind.
‘What?’ CJ asks.
‘Last night,’ he says. ‘With this terrible fuck. Did you think of me?’
CJ pauses, assessing what it is he wants to hear. ‘You know I did,’ she says, honestly. ‘You know that whatever our bodies do together … works.’
‘Mmmmm,’ Luis murmurs. ‘Say more.’ He leans in, locking his head at an angle that means if CJ moved an inch his lips would graze her neck.
CJ takes the hint. ‘Nobody fucks me like you do,’ she tells him. ‘The way you fit inside me, the way you make me move …’
Luis looks pointedly down at his crotch, where CJ can now see he is proudly at attention.
She drops her voice and with half a smirk says, ‘Do you like me telling you that? Do you like me telling you nobody does it like you do? Do you like me telling you I was thinking of you as he went down on me, wishing it was you?’
Luis’s pupils dilate to saucers, his breath shortening audibly. CJ moves a hand to between his legs, caressing lightly over the fabric of his jeans.
‘I think you do like me saying that, don’t you?’ She works her hand harder, letting Luis’s sigh of contentment serve as affirmation that of course he bloody likes it.
‘Hello? Luis?’
A voice cuts through the sexual tension of the office.
‘Are you there?’
‘Ah merda,’ says Luis, quickly. ‘Ash.’
He pushes CJ’s hand off him and sits up straighter in his chair. He presses his legs together like he’s wishing his erection away, and CJ raises an eyebrow.
‘Really?’ she asks him, a mix of shocked and pissed off.
She cannot believe he’s just done that – jumped back from her touch like she’s radioactive, all because his little princess has appeared.
Luis looks at her sheepishly, cheeks flushed, breathing still uneven, and CJ says, ‘Oh, for god’s sake,’ and stands up, flings open the office door.
‘Luis will be out in a moment,’ she says as brightly as she can, and as mad as she is at Luis, she instantly recognises that it isn’t Ash’s fault.
Ash stands there in her navy cardigan and layered gold jewellery, long blonde hair fanned out over her shoulders.
Her bright eyes flicker to the gap in the office door where CJ turns, just in time to see Luis stick his hand in his trousers to rearrange himself.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Ash says. ‘Fucking seriously, Luis?’ She closes her eyes, sighs as if to counsel herself. Then she declares, ‘This is bullshit.’
Ash stands there like she needs a second to digest, shaking her head, disgust evident, and CJ can see that despite her acerbic words, the woman is hurt.
Tears well up in her eyes, and when Luis emerges and says, ‘Ash, we were just messing about. It’s not serious,’ Ash lifts a hand and says, ‘You two are sick. Whatever this is –’ she wags a finger between CJ and Luis, back and forth – ‘I want absolutely no part of it, OK? I am Taylor Swift. I would very much like to be excluded from the narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of. This place is toxic, and weird, and I’m going to leave. You’re welcome to each other.’
She storms away, heading up to her room, and Luis starts to go after her.
At the sound of his footsteps Ash stands still, and without turning around says, ‘If you come after me, Luis, I will scream. I will scream and scream until somebody calls the fucking police. Fuck off, OK? Fuck all the way off.’