Chapter 8
Ash
Ash wakes up with sunlight pouring through the windows, in her clothes, her mouth invaded by cotton wool.
Everything feels … swollen. Her eyes, her saliva glands, the brain inside of her skull.
She lies half-tangled in her sheets, willing her memory to catch up to her resolve for information.
She remembers the art gallery. Lunch. Mona.
And then getting home, the bus and – ah, fuck.
CJ. CJ was there, and Ash threw up, and they had to walk home, arm in arm, Ash incapable of walking unaided.
But CJ was … OK? Kind? She gave Ash her jumper to wear.
Ash looks down. She’s still in it. Instinctively she pulls a fistful to her nose, but the only odour she gets is vaguely vomity.
She feels disappointed by that. It’s weird, but she kinda wanted to know what CJ smells like.
Over the next few days, Ash manages to successfully avoid running into CJ, a feat achieved by being up and out of CoLab at the break of dawn and returning late, when any reasonable or sane manager must surely have gone home.
She just doesn’t know what to say, or how to behave.
She’s embarrassed, mostly. One morning, on her way out, she brings CJ’s freshly laundered jumper – thank goodness for the units available at CoLab – and leaves it folded neatly on the front desk with a note that says, simply, thank you x.
After a morning of walking and an afternoon at the Time Out food market, Ash comes home to a note slid under her door that says, just as unassumingly, you’re welcome. I hope you’re feeling better now x
Curious. Ash reads it and rereads it, as if doing so will unpick the real meaning behind those eight words.
Eight words and a kiss. Had Ash put a kiss on her note?
She can’t remember. She has no choice but to assume it’s a genuine bid for her well-being – and as drunk as she was, it’s fair that CJ might want a bit of reassurance.
Ash hadn’t considered that, hadn’t thought of it from CJ’s point of view.
And so, the next morning, Ash leaves another missive on the desk, because if CJ is genuinely concerned by how drunk Ash got at the weekend, Ash should probably let her know she’s not got alcohol poisoning, or a continued debilitating migraine imprisoning her in private pain upstairs in the building CJ is responsible for.
Willow once got so drunk and smoked so many cigarettes at a Midnight Whispers summer party that she took a full five days to get her hydration back up to functioning levels, an event that has since gone down in company legend.
CJ perhaps wants to know Ash is out and about, not hiding away under her covers mainlining electrolytes and paracetamol, and that is fair enough.
Physically feeling much better, thank you, Ash writes back. My ego might take a little longer, though. Sorry you had to deal with me like that. Won’t happen again. x
‘What won’t happen again?’
Ash gasps in fright. It’s Luis. He’s right by her shoulder, grinning.
‘Jesus, Luis!’ Ash says, rubbing the space over her heart, encouragement for it to keep beating. Her whole body has launched into flight mode – she’d thought she was alone. ‘You need a bell around your neck!’
He squints, running the statement through his mental translator and coming up blank.
Ash hasn’t seen him, either, these past few days, and it turns out a few days is long enough to forget how shockingly handsome he is.
His brooding eyes look left and right, searching for the sense behind her words.
Lips pressed together, he exhales just enough to blow air lightly in Ash’s direction, his mouth a perfect little ‘o’.
‘So I could hear you coming,’ Ash explains, trying to stay focused when confronted with the fact of Luis’s preposterously symmetrical features. She folds the note she’s just written and pushes it towards CJ’s computer. ‘You scared me half to death.’
‘I think you’re trying to tell me I make your heart race …?’ Luis suggests, and womp, there it is. Ash melts for him.
She sucks her cheeks, to repress too wide a smile, and blinks slowly, feigning defence at Luis’s lure. ‘You …’ she starts, but she doesn’t know how to finish. Instead, she shakes her head and gives a light chuckle. Surrender.
Luis is well trained enough to know the moment one must pounce, and so he goes for it. ‘What are you doing tonight?’ he interjects.
Ash shrugs. ‘I was just going to head up to my room,’ she explains. ‘Have a quiet one. Read, maybe. If that doesn’t sound too rock ’n’ roll.’
Luis blows a raspberry of disapproval. ‘It’s a good job I’m here,’ he says, slapping the desk with a hand. ‘We can keep each other company.’
‘In my room?’ Ash asks, confused.
It’s a nice space she has, more like a bedsit or small apartment, with the bed, a kitchen area, and a small lounge area in front of the double French doors.
But to have somebody else up there, it would be intimate.
It won’t be to play dominoes and watch the sun set, she thinks. Not with a bed right bloody there.
‘What an offer,’ Luis smirks. ‘But no. Let’s go somewhere, we can go on my moped. What about the park I mentioned? If we go now, take a bottle of wine maybe, we could still catch the sunset.’
‘For obvious reasons, I’m off the wine for now,’ Ash says. ‘But … the moped ride to the park sounds good.’
She settles into her decision – her Spring Fling with Life dictates she should, no?
She can’t nurse an emotional hangover forever.
And it’s Luis. Beautiful, fucking sexy Luis.
She hasn’t taken much convincing. Just like her impromptu afternoon with Mona – who she must text, actually – these ‘yes’ moments are adding up to mean Ash feels, lingering vomit-shame aside, more alive than she has in a long time.
And she has been flying solo since the weekend.
It’s time for another escapade with another person.
And if that person looks like a chiselled marble statue come to life, so much the better.
‘Why are you off the wine?’ Luis asks, adding quickly, ‘Not that it is important.’
Ash pauses. ‘CJ didn’t tell you?’
Luis pulls a face, shakes his head.
‘Oh. Well, I …’ Ash is impressed he doesn’t know, and relieved.
It’s interesting CJ hasn’t spilled the tea, had a little gossip.
Discreet of her. Discreet is … good. Discreet is very classy.
CJ earns another point on the ‘actually isn’t that bad’ scorecard Ash is apparently keeping in her mind.
Those points are adding up. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ash decides. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘Do you need to go and get anything?’ Luis asks. ‘Your bag, or …?’
‘Gimme five minutes,’ Ash nods. ‘I’ll need a cardigan.’
Ash takes the stairs two at a time and bursts into her room to quickly brush her teeth, spray some more deodorant, and for reasons she refuses to fully examine, straightens out her bedspread and leaves on a lamp.
She’s not planning on bringing anyone back up here!
But. You know. If anybody did end up back here, at least the mood lighting would be on point.
Also, purely as insurance, she goes to the loo and uses a wet wipe between her legs, for freshness, vaginal PH levels be damned.
She throws a jumper over her shoulders and touches up her make-up, then heads back down to Luis in record time – only to hear voices as she gets to the bottom step.
She registers them but doesn’t process it fast enough to linger around the corner to double-check who it is, and so she walks directly in on Luis and CJ laughing about something, and feels like she’s interrupting when they both turn to look and stop.
‘She lives!’ CJ says, eyebrows arched and tone dripping in sarcasm.
Ash can feel herself colour up, heat rising to the surface of her cheeks like red wine dripped onto a tablecloth.
‘I do live,’ she answers, and she feels inexplicably shy.
It’s mortifying she made a scene on Sunday, sure, but on balance everyone here is an adult.
A bit of banter is to be expected so that they can all move on. ‘You got your jumper back,’ she adds.
‘Yes. Thank you.’
‘Thank you.’
Luis chips in, ‘Does anyone want to thank me?’
CJ hits his shoulder. ‘You don’t get thanks, not when you almost forgot the confirmation sheets.’
‘Ouch!’ Luis cries, dramatically, rubbing the site of impact. ‘Look, I will do it now, OK? Ash, I will be two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’ He looks to CJ. ‘I said that correctly, didn’t I?’
‘You did,’ CJ concedes, and as Luis dashes off to do whatever it is he’s just been told off for forgetting, CJ and Ash are left alone.
Just Ash. And CJ. Nobody else in the mess.
Where is everyone? wonders Ash. It’s so quiet they can hear a funicular shuddering up the hill, one street over, the voices on the street outside, belonging to tourists gathering at the wine bars.
‘So—’ Ash says, not knowing how she’s going to finish that sentence, right as CJ says, ‘How are you—?’
Both women stop talking at the same time, gesturing for the other to go first, that CJ is sorry to have spoken over Ash, that Ash is sorry to have spoken over CJ, mirror images of each other’s flustered and overly pronounced good manners.
‘Sorry,’ CJ flushes – and Ash half wonders: Is she …
is she actually blushing? The other half of Ash’s brain is busy turning to certified mush.
CJ makes Ash’s tongue tie itself in knots, her heart beat in double time and not quite regular.
She hates that CJ has that kind of power – not that CJ is taking it.
Ash is bloody giving it away. She’s letting CJ be the cause of her feeling so … so … undone.
‘No, I’m sorry,’ Ash babbles. ‘After you. I don’t even know what I was going to say.’