Chapter 249
“Hey, Lucy,” Gemma said. It made sense that she should be the one to greet her since they were roommates.
Lucy turned her ire towards Gemma, her eyes narrowing a little more and her grimace turning to a lip-pouting frustration. “Hi,” she said. Then she gave you another glance, looking you up and down and smirking a little as she looked at her date.
“What’s going on?” Mosche whispered to you.
“She’s my ex from high school,” you whispered back. “And, it turns out, Gemma’s roommate for the summer. She isn’t exactly happy to see me.”
“Oh,” Mosche said. “… Awkward.”
“You’re tellin’ me,” you sighed, then stepped forward and put as genuine a smile on your face as you could. “Hey, Lucy,” you said. “Nice to see you again. Who’s this?” You offered the guy your hand to shake.
“Arthur Bonfort,” the guy said, smiling and giving no hint that he’d picked up on how bitchy Lucy was being with her expressions. It was entirely possible that he hadn’t noticed yet. “I’m a friend of Tasha’s roommate Greg.”
“Cool,” you said. “I’m John, and these are my girlfriends Sabrina and Gemma, and Becks.” You realized immediately that it sounded like Becks was included in the girlfriend list rather than a separate person.
“Another one?” Lucy said in surprise.
“Well-”
“I’m trying it out,” Becks said, sliding up next to you and putting her arm around your waist. She offered her other hand to Arthur to shake. “So far it’s pretty fun.”
Arthur, for his part, had his eyebrows raised probably as far as they could get as he looked from you to the three women and back. You could also see several people out in the other room get confused or frustrated looks on their faces when they heard the girls were all taken. “Wow,” Arthur said. “I mean, I know lots of people who date multiple people at once but never all at the same time at the same party.”
You chuckled a little abashedly but Sabrina stepped up on your other side, getting your other arm around her shoulder. “Well, most guys can’t keep up with two or three women at the same time, but John is a pretty amazing guy.” She sealed the statement by going on her toes and giving you a kiss on the cheek.
“So how do you guys know each other?” Arthur asked.
“Gemma is my roommate for the summer,” Lucy said quickly, flashing you a look that she didn’t want to talk about your past relationship. On the one hand, you wanted to say it even though she didn’t just to spite her cold and bitchy actions over the last few weeks. On the other, it felt petty and you thought maybe this would be a good time to start building at least a little more positive rapport with her. “She’s from Australia.”
Arthur immediately wanted to know more, and Gemma shot you a glance that begged you to get her out of the inevitable conversation about Australia. You kissed Sabrina on the cheek, then Becks, and manoeuvred to join Gemma and Arthur’s developing conversation and leaving them and Tasha to deal with Lucy.
Mosche had joined the Gemma conversation, and Gemma grabbed your hand as you stood next to her, squeezing hard. Arthur, of course, started asking all the obvious and silly questions about deadly animals, and toilets swirling in the opposite direction. Mosche, unsurprisingly, was interested in hearing Gemma’s answers. Instead of pulling her out of it though, you decided to have a little fun and you started tossing in ridiculous, completely untrue facts. They started as little things that made Gemma look up at you with a raised eyebrow, then as you started adding in bigger and bigger fibs she caught on that you were doing it on purpose and added on.
After ten minutes, when Lucy came over to reclaim her date, Arthur and Mosche both believed that there was a Loch Ness-type lake in the middle of Australia that was rumoured to hold a fifty-foot shark that people believed was over a thousand years old.
“That’s crazy,” Mosche said as Lucy dragged Arthur away into another part of the party.
“Mosche, it’s complete BS,” Gemma said. “We were just having some fun.”
“Well, I think they’re just on like a first date or something,” Mosche said.
“Wait, what do you think is crazy?” you asked.
“Oh, that Arthur is dating that Asian girl,” Mosche said. “I’ve met him before. He’s completely broke, like more than me.”
Gemma stifled a guffaw, and you bit the inside of your lip to stop from laughing yourself. Lucy was not going to be happy when she found that out.
Sabrina came over with a beer in each hand for you and Gemma, giving you each a kiss on the cheek when she handed them over, and joined your conversation with Mosche who told you all about his cousin, Tasha’s old fuckbuddy. Becks, meanwhile, was talking with Tasha and a couple of other people who had come into the kitchen when Lucy and Arthur had left, though Becks glanced over at you and the girls occasionally and when your eyes met she winked and pursed her lips, then grinned at the play-acting of being one of your girlfriends.
“OK, so I have to ask,” Mosche eventually said. “How are you dating another hottie like that?”
“You think I’m hot, Mosche?” Sabrina asked teasingly.
Mosche got a little flustered. “Well, I mean, yeah, obviously. And you too, Gemma, I don’t just- well, I mean- Uh…”
“She’s just teasing you, Mosche,” Gemma sighed, nudging Sabrina with an elbow. “Becks works with us, so knew about our developing thing. This weekend is just some… experimentation.”
“So not really your girlfriend yet?” Mosche asked you.
“No,” you said with a smile and suppressing the urge to correct the ‘yet’ and letting the girls have their fun.
“How do I get a job at this place?” Mosche asked. “It sounds like it’s full of hotties. You two, Becks, and Tasha said someone else who works with you guys is invited tonight too.”
“Oh,” you said. “Who’s that? Eric? Andy?”
“Uh, no. A girl. Shit, what was her name?” Mosche wondered, then turned to Tasha. “Hey, Tash, who else is supposed to be coming that works with John, Sabrina and Gemma?”
“Oh, Greg invited this girl Joy,” Tasha said. “Apparently she’s like… rich or something?”
“Fuuuuck,” you groaned, immediately glancing to meet looks with Gemma and Sabrina. They were as unhappy about this news as you were. But of the four of you, when you glanced at Becks, you saw that she was the most upset by the news and had gone a little pale.
Chapter 250
“We need to go,” Becks said.
“Yes, we do,” Sabrina agreed.
“I dunno,” Gemma said, then drained the bottom half of her beer in one long draw. “I wouldn’t mind running into Joy. Repeatedly. With my fist.”
“Jesus,” Tasha said. “Who is this girl?”
“Bare bones, she tried to sexually assault me, blackmail me, and get me fired from my internship and she’d done it to other interns in the past,” you said.
“Oh,” Tasha said.
“Yeah,” Sabrina said. “And her mother is one of the partners at the firm, so even though we ‘won’ and she doesn’t work there anymore, if anything happens it’ll still be bad for us. So Tasha, it was fun and thanks for the invite, but we’re leaving.”
“OK, yeah, that makes sense,” Tasha said. “Um, sorry?”
“Not your fault,” Gemma assured her and gave her a hug. “Just do us a favour – don’t mention that we’re all dating? The last she and the office knew, John and I are the only ones in an official relationship.”
“Shit,” you grunted. “What about Lucy? Or Arthur.”
“God damn it,” Becks hissed.
“OK, I’ll talk to Greg,” Tasha said. “He’ll tell Arthur to get Lucy out of here, and hopefully they don’t cross paths.”
“Thank you,” you said earnestly.
“Hey, it’s my party. I’d rather it not blow up people’s lives,” Tasha smirked. “But you guys need to come out to the next Open Mic and laugh a lot at our jokes.”
“Done,” you said, and quickly gave her a hug then patted Mosche on the arm. “See you later.”
Sabrina, Gemma and Becks all gave Tasha a hug as well, and Sabrina threw one in for Mosche that made him blush a little, before you headed out and for the door. Arthur and Lucy were standing in the living room of the apartment talking, and Lucy immediately looked over at you with a soft scowl as you entered.
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