Chapter 559

Gemma’s next leg of her journey was the longest, a ten-hour flight across the Pacific to Sydney. You and Sabrina chatted with her over your WhatsApp group text for the next hour as she was on her Hawai’i layover and you were starting the work day, and then it was going to be silence for a while.

Becks had met you in the lobby, coming out from behind her desk again to hug you both and commiserate a bit before you headed up to the office. She’d asked about meeting up on the weekend and the answer had been ‘maybe,’ and Sabrina had explained her little sister was coming to visit but had kept back the why.

You were struck again by how much less full the conference room felt without Gemma there. One person missing could change the entire dynamic of the space - thankfully you, Sabrina and Eric didn’t start getting on each other’s nerves or anything, but it just felt a little weird. Garrison came by and called you out to his office in the morning, resuming the mentoring that had been put on pause for a little bit because of the mock trial and your team needing to catch up on work. He ran you through a couple of the cases he was on, explaining some of the pitfalls that he felt young lawyers would make but experienced ones saw coming from a mile away, and he talked to you a bit more about what you could expect out of the various types of law you’d be exposed to in law school and what day-to-day life looked like in different practices.

Sabrina got the same meeting in the afternoon (and no updates on her lawsuit from Joy and Bellagamba), and then Eric got called out as well - either Garrison had slowly taken a bigger liking to him, or it was a little more awkward to not give him the same treatment now that there were only three of you. Either way, you were thankful for Garrison doing it because Eric deserved the attention.

Then the end of the day came around, and the office slowly started to empty while the three of you kept working.

“Huh,” Eric said about an hour and a half later. You were expecting the Mystery Dinner any minute, and also hearing from Gemma within the hour.

“Huh, what?” you asked.

Eric was looking at his phone, one eyebrow slightly raised as he stared intently and his cheeks went a little pink.

“OK, now that is a look of embarrassed shock,” Sabrina said. “What’s going on?”

“I’m, uh, being propositioned?” Eric said, his voice raising at the end to make it a question.

“Propositioned how?” you asked, your attention having completely left your work.

“That’s the thing,” he said. “There’s more than one.”

“Eric, do you want to tell us or not?” Sabrina asked. “Because you’re not actually telling us anything.”

“Well, Lucy sent me a picture of her tits and is trying to get me to come over for a hate-fuck,” he said, then glanced up from his phone. “Want to see?”