Chapter 198

Returning to the conference room with the others, when you walked in Joy looked up and seemed confused as you went and took your seat. She still had a smarmy little grin on as she tried to get a read on you, but when you told the others that what you’d been called away for wasn’t a big deal she got even more confused.

It honestly kind of felt good to be mind-fucking her like this, even if nothing was confirmed or solid at the moment. With Bellagamba in that room it felt just as likely that you were going to get turfed as that something would happen with Joy. And thinking like that brought you down a bit of a mental rabbit hole as you considered what would happen if you did end up getting fired.

The good news was that it wouldn’t actually affect your final year at college - well, unless the firm (or Bellagamba) contacted them to tell them you’d been fired for sexual harassment. But that was the absolute worst-case scenario. Outside of that, you weren’t counting on the internship to actually afford your final year. That’s what your student loans were for.

But you were counting on the internship to help pay for your summer expenses. Subletting a place wasn’t cheap, let alone other living expenses. Without the internship paychecks you would need to leave the city unless you found another job, and there was no fucking way you were leaving the city this summer because that would mean leaving Gemma.

You felt a little bad thinking of it like that, or really of excluding Sabrina from that equation, but the reality was that you and Sabrina could reunite back at school if one of you had to leave the internship and city. But Gemma was going back to Australia - leave now, and you would likely lose her forever.

Another wild option was that you could move in with one of the girls if whatever job you found couldn’t cover you having your own place, but despite wanting to spend every minute with both of them that felt too early and sort of cheap. Forcing a step like that made the idea of it less special. The scary part was that at this point Sabrina could basically just be your Sugar Mommy for real and would probably be happy to do so.

Just before noon, Gemma got called out of the office by Vega. You had no doubt they wanted to get her side of things before you both had the chance to talk privately.

Lunch was a subdued affair. You and Sabrina went down to the bodega and made sure to pick up one of Gemma’s usuals before going back to eat in the conference room. Eric took the run down to the sub place, wanting to stay away from Joy as much as possible. On your way in and out Becks had been busy at her desk both times, but had taken a moment to wave as you and Sabrina came back in and flashed you a thumbs up as if to say, ‘Hey, you’re not fired yet!’