Chapter 19
CJ
The women get their drinks – beer from the bottle for CJ, a sickly Malibu and Coke for Ash – and squeeze themselves onto a bench outside, side by side, legs kicked up on the edge of an oversized flowerpot.
‘I don’t believe you,’ Ash is saying, as CJ insists that no, she really doesn’t track what she eats, and truly has no idea what her body fat percentage is.
‘Why would I even care about all that stuff?’ CJ asks. ‘Who is genuinely bothered about their muscle-to-fat ratio or whatever? That’s so—’
‘Me,’ Ash says, interrupting. ‘Obviously. Because it’s data. And you can optimise data.’
‘So optimise being a human?’ CJ clarifies. ‘Be the best human you can be?’
‘Yeah!’ laughs Ash. ‘Consume 1.5 grams of protein per kilo of body weight, and you can make your body fat go down and your muscle mass go up. Especially working out like you do.’
‘What do you know about my workouts!’ CJ asks, also laughing. ‘Are you doing data analysis on me, without me even realising it?’
CJ meant it as a joke, clearly, but Ash pulls a bashful sort of face that piques CJ’s innate curiosity, on account of the fact she can leave no stone unturned and must always get to the ‘deep’ stuff.
‘Ash …’ CJ says. ‘Tell me why you look like that.’
Ash shrugs. Her face is flushed, her forehead shiny, and more hair has come loose from her bun, nudging her onto the cute side of artfully dishevelled.
She’s become more and more tactile as the night has worn on, disinhibited by the official declaration of giving no more fucks, but also that’s just the kind of evening it has been: chats getting deeper, voices around them getting louder, needing to lean into one another to really hear what they’re saying.
Ash is a very hand-on-the-arm girl, and also a very oh-you’ve-just-got-a-mark-on-your-face-let-me-help-you girl.
It’s invasive, a bit annoying, and CJ finds that she doesn’t mind at all.
It reminds her of Jorge, that childlike need for skin-to-skin contact, the physical reassurance of one another’s existence.
‘No,’ Ash says, ‘it’s nothing.’ And CJ can’t wait to hear this. What’s her next confession going to be? She’s full of them! ‘Urgh, stupid, stupid, stupid. I was just thinking like, you know, when you hated me—’
‘I didn’t hate you!’
Ash rolls her eyes. ‘Babe.’
CJ does not counter this last babe. She has been caught out, fair and square.
‘OK, yes, I hated you,’ CJ admits, and Ash squeals.
‘I knew it! Fuck!’
‘I hate everybody!’
‘You don’t hate Miguel and Todd and Jorge.’
‘I hate everybody except Miguel and Todd and Jorge.’
Ash sighs, tries to get the straw of her drink into her mouth but it swirls away from her, making her look silly. She looks up to see if CJ has noticed, and when she realises she has, makes a fish face and takes the piss out of herself.
‘Idiot,’ CJ says, when Ash finally manages to get the thing in her gob.
‘Don’t care,’ bats back Ash, spiritedly. She grins, proud of herself.
CJ grins back. ‘I’ve created a monster,’ she says.
‘Is it safe to approach?’ a voice comes then, and the women look up to see Luis stood holding three drinks, his coffee-coloured eyes heavy with contrition as he stares at Ash.
‘I told you,’ Ash says to him. ‘No hard feelings from me. Approach all you like. I’m your loss.’
‘I agree with you,’ Luis says, indicating the pair should move their feet so he can sit on the edge of the flowerpot. He holds out his wares so Ash can take the drink at the front, and then he hands CJ another beer. ‘Malibu and Coke, yes?’ he checks with Ash, who nods.
‘Appreciated,’ she says.
‘Thank you,’ adds CJ.
There’s a lull, a rearrangement of the air to make room for this third person in CJ and Ash’s back-and-forth.
‘I interrupted,’ says Luis, and Ash says, ‘Yes. You did. But what were we even saying, CJ? Oh. Wait. That you hate everybody and that includes me.’
CJ pulls a face. ‘Crucially, I do not hate you now,’ she says.
‘Ha!’ Ash hoots. ‘Made me bloody work for it, though, didn’t you? Luis.’ She turns to him. ‘How long did it take CJ to thaw out towards you?’
‘Thaw out?’ Luis says, not catching the meaning.
‘How long before I was nice to you,’ CJ clarifies, and Luis nods, biting down on his lower lip, trying not to laugh.
‘A while,’ he says. ‘But, I was her boss, so …’
‘You were her boss?’ says Ash, visibly delighted. ‘I cannot picture that. Do you mean at CoLab?’
Luis nods. ‘Until my grandparents suggested that CJ would make a better general manager, and perhaps I would be better as social manager.’
Ash points at CJ. ‘And then you let yourself like him, once order had been restored to the hierarchy?’
‘Exactly,’ CJ says, giving Luis a wink.
‘And then how long before you started sleeping together?’ Ash asks, like making such a personal enquiry is a normal and natural progression of the conversation. Which, CJ thinks, once you’ve surrendered your fucks probably is, actually, to be fair.
‘A week,’ says Luis, no hesitation. ‘I think a woman in power is a very sexy thing, no?’
CJ and Ash look at each other and then burst out laughing.
‘Luis, you are so very … Luis,’ CJ says. Luis seems like he’s not sure if that is compliment or criticism, and so CJ qualifies her observation with, ‘Only a good thing, friend. I promise,’ whilst reaching out a hand to his knee.
‘If I may be so bold,’ Ash says. ‘And I appreciate I am not entirely subjective on this matter, on account of having slept with Luis myself but … don’t you think you two should maybe stop hooking up?
CJ, I know you’re not necessarily looking for a happily-ever-after – well, actually, that’s presumptuous, let’s earmark that for further discussion – but certainly Luis, I really do believe you’re ready for a forever kind of love.
And I feel uniquely qualified to say, if you want that person to be a one-man kind of a woman, you’re going to have to line up what you say and what you do.
I say that from a place of love,’ she adds, hands in a prayer position, a bow of the head like namaste.
‘Urgh,’ CJ tuts. ‘I hate that you’re not wrong.’
Luis levels his gaze at her, cocks his head to one side. ‘You agree with her?’ he asks.
CJ bounces a shoulder up and down. ‘Reluctantly,’ she tells him.
‘I can see how us continuing to do what we do could get in the way of anything else. I’d just …
miss you. I know what we want isn’t aligned, and I’d miss you.
Those are my two truths. Oh. And my third is that, to be honest, I struggle to see you getting married or whatever, anyway. ’
‘Did she tell you I asked her?’ Luis says, to Ash.
‘What?’ Ash looks fifty per cent alarmed and fifty per cent thirsty as fuck for the gossip. ‘No. Really?’ She looks to CJ. ‘He proposed to you?’
‘Kind of,’ CJ says.
‘Not kind of,’ Luis counters. ‘I did. I had a ring, I took her to the best view in the city, just me and her …’
‘But you turned him down?’ This to CJ.
‘I’m not the marrying kind,’ CJ says. ‘I just think … you know. Somebody always ends up getting let down.’
‘That’s your stance?’ Ash asks. ‘Your view? Best not try because of a might not?’
CJ raises an eyebrow. ‘Don’t make it sound pathetic,’ she warns Ash. ‘It’s not pathetic. It’s practical.’
‘Have you ever been in love before?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who with?’
‘When that becomes any of your business, I’ll let you know.’
‘Ouch.’
CJ shrugs. Some subjects are best left unexplored, for everyone involved. She thinks back to the stupid video she saw of her ex. No. Forget, forget, forget.
‘She won’t talk to me about it either,’ Luis tells Ash. ‘There is a … what’s the word? A vault, up here.’ He taps his temple. ‘And nobody has the key.’
CJ drains her first beer, puts the bottle to the floor, and then picks up the one Luis got her and takes a long pull.
‘I motion for a subject change,’ she says, and she’s impressed with herself that she manages to keep her tone even, voice more or less neutral.
It’s not often she thinks of everything that happened before she came here, but when she does, fuck.
It makes her feel like her skin is on fire, her heart racing like she’s back there, like all that bad stuff is happening here, now, the toxicity of it, the ways she kept herself so small, all those years, until she took the leap and grew her wings.
‘I think Ash is right,’ says Luis, sadly. ‘We should stop …’ He trails off, letting a waggling finger between him and CJ fill in the blank. ‘Because I have to try to find my person. My happy ending.’
Ash sniggers, and Luis looks hurt. ‘Sorry,’ she says, quickly. ‘Happy ending can also mean …’ It’s her turn to trail off.
‘Cumming,’ supplies CJ. ‘Like, at the end of a …’ She makes a wanking motion.
Nobody says anything after that, presumably because they’re all thinking of Luis ejaculating.
CJ understands if he needs to take a step back, she does.
It’s just, he really is such an exceptional lover.
She’ll miss that. She’s sure they could operate as nothing more than the best of friends, and co-workers – but god, what a waste.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ laughs Ash.
‘Surprise me,’ CJ shoots back.
‘That you need to sleep with him once more before you pack it in forever.’
‘I was not thinking that!’
‘You were!’ Ash screeches. ‘Because I was too! He’s …’ Nobody is capable of finishing their trail of thought in this conversation. Instead, Ash looks at Luis dreamily and sighs.
‘I know,’ says CJ, looking at him too. Luis appears panicked, eyes flicking between them, back and forth, waiting for a fuller explanation of what, exactly, he is.
CJ shakes her head affably and breaks it down for him.
‘Luis, we both think you are a tremendously good shag, and I think we’re both drunk enough to admit to wanting to have one last fuck with you.
’ She laughs, and then catches how that sounds.
‘Not together, don’t look like that! Pervert. ’
‘Although,’ Ash says, head lolling side to side.
CJ shoots her a look of surprise. ‘I’m kidding!
’ Ash adds. And CJ can’t figure out if she’s relieved, or not.
For a tiny split second then, she really thought Ash was suggesting …
you know. A threesome. ‘Have you ever done that?’ Ash continues. ‘Group sex or whatever?’
‘No,’ says CJ. ‘It’s never been on my bucket list.’
Luis volunteers, ‘I haven’t either, actually. But it is on my bucket list.’
They look at Ash. Since Luis doesn’t ask, CJ finds that she does. ‘Have you?’ she says, voice hoarse.
Ash nods. ‘With a couple of exes, yeah,’ she says. ‘Trying to keep things exciting or whatever. It was … fun. No big deal, really. Just a thing that happened. Sex clubs, double-dating on the apps, that sort of thing.’
‘Huh,’ says CJ, tone flat.
‘Huh,’ says Luis, tone excited.
CJ levels her gaze at him. ‘No, Luis,’ she says.
He holds up his hands and laughs. ‘What! A man can dream, can’t he?’
CJ and Ash laugh, and then Ash sighs and puts her head on CJ’s shoulder, arms touching, backs of their hands grazing.
CJ freezes. Is Ash … testing the waters?
Nooo. Surely not. She’s surprised to learn Ash has this freaky side, though.
She never would have guessed. CJ can’t tell what she should do – move her arm to put it around Ash?
Stay where she is? Shift so that her ear finds the top of Ash’s head, a gesture of what, cosy female friendship?
Something more? CJ sits there, straight as a rod, waiting for a further clue, until time passes and eventually Ash yawns and says, ‘God. I’m sorry, you guys. I need to go to bed.’
She stands up, stretches. Luis and CJ watch.
‘I am very, very pissed,’ she announces. ‘Goodnight.’
And then she wanders down the lane, CoLab in sight, and Luis and CJ wait for her to use her key to get in the door, safe, before they look at one another.
‘I would like to have a threesome with the two of you,’ Luis says. ‘For the avoidance of doubt.’
‘For the avoidance of doubt,’ CJ repeats, not missing a beat. Her eyes are fixed on the door Ash just disappeared through. ‘Luis, a threesome with the two of us won’t ever, ever happen. Ever.’