Chapter 455

You thankfully arrived at your place before Eric was supposed to get there. Imagining the awkwardness between Eric and Mosche if Eric had to wait for the three of you was almost painful and you couldn’t imagine the damage to the universe that would be caused. Would Mosche be convinced by Eric to join his slightly misogynistic red pill stuff, or would Eric think that doing standup would be a good idea?

Mosche was home when the three of you got in, but Iris wasn’t with him. He said she had ‘family stuff’ on Sundays and you didn’t ask about him going to said ‘family stuff’ if he was Iris’s boyfriend - either it was too early, or she didn’t want her family to know about him. Both options seemed pretty valid. Mosche did, however, ask if he could hang out with you guys after you told him you were having a final study and prep session for a big work thing.

“Um,” you said. “I ... don’t think so, my man. This is a really big deal for us and we need to stay focused.”

“Oh, OK,” he said and then let out a long sigh. You knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose - Mosche was just too simple to be manipulative on purpose, he’d only accomplish it through not thinking about what he was doing - and yet somehow you still felt a little guilty about him being lonely.

“I’ll tell you what,” you said. “We’ll probably order some dinner in, and what shows up you can join us for a bit to eat.”

“OK,” he said. “I guess I’ll do some joke writing, and then I can try them out on you guys.”

“ ... Sure,” you said, already regretting the offer. “That should be fun.”

Gemma and Sabrina had headed to your room rather than having a big interaction with Mosche. Even after the multiple times they’d interacted with him since the fallout with Tasha they were holding a bit of grudgey stance against him.

“OK, we need to talk about something,” you said as you entered the bedroom.

Gemma was sitting on the edge of the bed sorting files she’d pulled out of one of the bags you’d carried everything in, and Sabrina was at the desk doing the same. They both looked up at the tone of your voice, frowning slightly. “What’s wrong?” Sabrina asked.

“I need to get clarity on something here,” you said. “And it’s how we feel about holding onto grudges. Which isn’t healthy. I mean, it would be one thing if Mosche had actively hurt one of us, or was continuing to do so - a great example of which is Joy. But Mosche isn’t ... malevolent. He isn’t acting out. And I’m not saying you have to like him, or even go out of your way to interact with him, but you two barely grunted hello before you disappeared back here. So I need to know if, as we go through life, this is the sort of stuff I need to expect?”

“John, he hurt Tasha badly,” Gemma said.

“Did he do it on purpose?” you asked back.

Both of your girlfriends made slight faces at that.

“Seriously,” you said. “Do you think he did it on purpose, maliciously and with intent, or do you think he did it because he’s a gross cocktail of anxiety, self-deprecation, low confidence and weird sexual questions? Because if it was malicious I can see putting up some major walls, because that’s some evil shit. But if it wasn’t malicious, then I’m not saying we need to forgive and forget, but we should probably figure out a more mature way of handling it than what’s happening now because you two are the ones coming off as rude and catty.”