Ash puts down her wine, too, and then uses a pinching motion to take her fucks from her heart, and deposits them into CJ’s open hands.
‘I’m one hundred and twenty per cent sure you’ve got more fucks than that to get rid of. Come on. Let’s have them.’
Ash smiles, and mimes pulling up a heavy bag of fucks from a space on the floor, exhaling dramatically as she pretends to hoist them up towards CJ, panting at the fake effort of it all.
‘There you go!’ laughs CJ. ‘That’s the spirit!’
‘What are you gonna do with them?’ asks Ash.
‘Nothing,’ says CJ. ‘Your fucks are useless. I’m just going to blow them away, like this.’ She purses her full, indecent lips and blows at the imaginary bag, a tickle of her breath caressing Ash’s neck in a way that causes the hair on her arms to stand to attention. ‘See?’ she says. ‘You are now fuck free. Go forth and live, Ash. There is no other way to be.’
The pair laugh then – at what, exactly, Ash isn’t entirely sure. Just … life? Being there? How stupid humans are?
‘I can’t wait to see your first order of business,’ CJ says, right as Ash catches Luis’s eye again.
The man should ask for a picture of her if he’s going to carry on this way, staring every time Ash makes a peep. She holds his eye, blinks, and then before she can talk herself out of it walks over to the table where he’s sat, leans over him, uses a finger to tip up his chin towards her and kisses him, deeply, passionately, so out of the blue that the other CoLab-ers around them launch into a cheer, whooping and hollering variations of ‘Oooooop, yeah!’ and ‘Get a room!’
Ash lets her mouth linger on his – easily done, since he has fully surrendered to what is happening – and then pulls away so she can whisper in his ear. When she’s done she stands back up and saunters back to her seat.
CJ has an eyebrow cocked in question. ‘OK, then,’ she says. ‘I suppose that’s Luis forgiven.’
‘Oh,’ says Ash. ‘Absolutely.’ She takes a sip of wine, enjoying her command of the moment. ‘But I also told him this is pussy he’s never going to get again. No hard feelings.’
‘You didnotsay that to him,’ CJ says, looking impressed but unconvinced. ‘Wait. Did you?’
‘Of course I fucking did,’ Ash says, triumphant. ‘The person I was mad at was me, for being a doormat. But that ends here. My days of doormat-ery ended as soon as I gave away my fucks.’
CJ gives her a tiny hand clap. ‘Well,’ she says. ‘I think my work here is done.’
Ash shakes her head, reaching out to push CJ’s hands into her lap.
‘Incorrect,’ Ash says. ‘Your work here is only just beginning.’
19
CJ
The night passes in a blur of delicious food, exquisite wines, mournful fado singing and then, eventually, at about 11 p.m., the mass moving on from the restaurant to a nearby bar, when Ash links her arm through CJ’s and they meander through the lamplit streets at a snail’s pace, partly from drink, but also partly because that’s Lisbon. There’s no need to hurry.
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.
