Chapter 48

Sabrina and her uncle quickly closed the distance between them and hugged. And during that hug, he looked at you over her shoulder. He didn’t smirk, or frown, or glare. He just sort of ... observed you. It was eerie.

“What are you doing here?” Sabrina asked.

“My company is being bought out, but there’s some conflict going on about assets that’s escalated,” he said. “I’m here for a deposition to try and clear it up.”

Fuckity-fuck! He was the guy you were supposed to distract for Garrisson.

“Oh,” Sabrina said, and she glanced back at you and you knew that she’d made the same connection. “Well, I’m sure it will go great.”

“I have no doubt it will,” Uncle Bill said and started working towards you and the front desk. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is John, we’re interning together, and he’s in the same program as me back at university,” Sabrina said.

“Ah, another lawyer-in-waiting,” Uncle Bill said, offering you his hand. “Bill Sodemeyer.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” you said, feeling him apply pressure in his grip and hoping you were matching it evenly. “Sabrina is a wonderful friend.”

“I’m sure she is,” Bill said. He spoke flat, with such little inflexion it was hard to tell if he was being honest, or threatening, or happy or anything at all.

“John has great instincts,” Sabrina said, slipping in to stand next to you as if she wanted to show that she was on your team. “If he wasn’t heading into law, I’m sure he’d be an entrepreneur like you.”

“Well, that or poetry,” you joked. “I’ve always thought I could turn a phrase.”

Sabrina rolled her eyes at the lame joke, and you were saved momentarily by Gemma coming around the corner. “Well, hello there,” she said, sweeping up on your right side opposite Sabrina on your left. “Gemma Anderson, I also work with Sabrina and John.” As she was offering her right hand for a shake, you felt Gemma slip something into your back pants pocket with her left and pat it.

Gemma, as usual, was able to direct the conversation as well as Sabrina and soon you were all in the elevator, headed up to the office. Garrisson met you at the elevator, saying something about Bill being early as usual, and giving you a side-eye. Garrisson led Bill one way, and you, Sabrina and Gemma went the other.

“Shit,” you said. “Shit-fuck-balls.”

“It’s fine, it’ll be fine,” Sabrina tried to calm you.

“No, it isn’t,” you said. “Either I’m going to go in there and disappoint Garrisson, or I go in there and succeed at distracting your Uncle and maybe make him lose a bunch of money. And that’s how he’ll remember me, as the annoying intern in the office who hits on his niece.”

“John,” Sabrina said, putting a hand on your chest to stop you from rambling. “Don’t worry about my Uncle’s opinion. He’s not actually that close to the rest of the family - you saw how he talks. That’s how he is all the time. He probably doesn’t even realize he was off-putting.”

“Plus, remember rule number one,” Gemma said. “Sabrina is your friend, not your girlfriend. You don’t need to worry about the long-term view of her extended family. You should be worrying about Garrisson writing you a good reference and if he’ll give you some leverage for law school.”

“OK,” you nodded, trying to get your mind back on track. “OK. It’s fine. I’d just prefer not to be taking shots at your family is all,” you said to Sabrina.

Sabrina looked to Gemma and said, under her breath, “It would be a lot easier to make him calm down if we could just kiss him.

“Yeah, that would probably shut him up,” Gemma agreed. “But not in the office.”

Eventually, you all ended up back in the intern conference room and you zoned out on Andy and Eric complaining about the girls being gone so long, or making constipation jokes in your general direction since you’d disappeared from work for a bit as well.

The problem wasn’t nerves or anxiety over your special assignment, it was the comment Gemma made about not needing to care about longevity. Sabrina was supposed to just be your friend with benefits, which would last for however long it would last. It wasn’t a commitment, it was an agreement. And it wasn’t a promise. But in the same mind where you were already starting to try and figure out what to do about Gemma moving back to Australia, you were also actually very concerned about the impression you were making on Sabrina’s family.

At three minutes after 2pm, you stood from the conference table, extra-clicky pen in one hand and notepad in the other, and you went to crash a deposition. All the while knowing that you’d just be thinking about your girls the entire time.