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.