Eric has a story to tell

“Sooo, how’d it go?” Sabrina asked.

You had, almost miraculously, gotten out of the apartment on time to catch the right bus and make it to work with room to spare for the coffee run. It was a particularly large one that day so Sabrina had come with you, and you’d snuck a couple of snacks into the order when she was distracted. The first one had been a dainty chocolate croissant for Becks to go with her usual coffee, and she gave you and Sabrina a warm smile and a wink in thanks since there were a couple of different groups talking in the lobby that morning.

The first time you’d almost fucked Becks in the office after the whole sushi thing was supposed to be the only time, then the time in the conference room making up for the first time being interrupted was supposed to be the only time. But now you’d done it again. Which felt like it was on the table for more. That wink wasn’t an immediate invitation, but it was an intimate exchange that you shared a secret.

A secret that could get you all in trouble, but was oh, so good.

You managed to keep the second snack a secret until you were finished and heading to the intern conference room, when you presented Sabrina with her ‘I’m sorry I didn’t fuck you this morning’ giant cookie. That had earned you a beaming smile and a sneaky kiss in the stairwell.

Now she plopped down in her chair at the conference table, setting her purse aside and starting to peel the saran wrap off of the cookie as she looked pointedly at Eric.

“Good morning, Eric,” you said, filling in the pleasantries. “It’s so nice to see you today. I hope you had a good evening last night.”

Eric laughed and shrugged. “Morning,” he said. “Last night was… complicated.”

“How complicated?” Sabrina asked.

“Or complicated how?” you added.

“Well…” he said, then grimaced.

“You fucked it up?” Sabrina asked in concern. As his resident dating coach, she was maybe getting a little too invested.

“Not… really,” he said. “At least, I didn’t fuck it up any more than it kind of got fucked up by things that were out of my control. Do you want the headline or the-”

“At what point during this whole summer of knowing me have I ever wanted only the headline?” Sabrina interrupted him in a deadpan tone.

“Technically, during the first… month and a half?” you said. “Back when Eric only had me, an underqualified amateur, to bounce his relationship options off of.”

“That’s fair, Gemma and I did get more invested when we had our own situation sorted,” Sabrina smirked. Then she looked back to Eric “Gimme the deets, spill the tea, squeeze that juice out of the lemon so we can make some lemonade.”

That got you covering your mouth and clearing your throat to stop from chuckling openly at her silliness.

“You are so weird sometimes,” Eric said, shaking his head at her.

“But am I right about things? Because I just successfully set up two straight girls in a lesbian relationship and they’re super happy,” Sabrina said. “That’s the power I have at my fingertips.”

“They aren’t dating, they’re seeing if they are even interested in it,” you countered.

“You,” Sabrina said, pointing across the table at you. “Aren’t helping. They’re going to get married and Gemma and I are going to be their maids of honour and you’ll officiate the wedding because it’s you who brought them together in the first place.” She turned back to Eric. “Please continue, young Padawan,” she said. Then she took a bite of her giant cookie, which definitely took away from a bit of her gravitas.

“.... Right,” Eric said. “So… OK. We left work yesterday, and me and Beth solidified our plans to meet up for dinner downtown. So I headed home, fixed myself up, and then went to meet her. Well, I get there a little early, right? I grab a spot at the bar to wait for her. Well, guess who comes in?”

“Lucy,” you guessed.

“Got it in one,” he nodded.

“Oh, no,” Sabrina sighed.

“So I don’t know what is going on with her, but I figure she might come claw my eyes out or something with the way she’s glaring at me,” Eric continued. “But then she puts on that like, syrupy sweet voice and is all, ‘Why are you such a bad boy, leaving me on read like that?’ And I had to be like, ‘Oh, it’s not really like that, I was just super busy’ because what am I supposed to say, that I was having the best weekend of my life with someone else while she was trying to seduce me via text all last week? But I also need to get her to leave me the fuck alone because she’s all dressed up like she’s on a date and I don’t need Beth coming in and seeing her weirdly all over me. Well, she won’t take the fucking hint, and whoever she’s meeting doesn’t show up, and Beth does come in and I have to be like ‘Alright, Lucy, my date’s here’ and Lucy does that thing where her switch flips.”

“Oh, shit,” you groaned in empathy.

“Trust me, this isn’t even the worst part,” Eric said.

“It gets worse!?” Sabrina asked.

Eric nodded, eyes wide, and let out a long sigh. “It gets worse. So I’m walking away from Lucy and Beth gives this ‘What the fuck?’ look to me because Lucy is following. Then Lucy barges past me when she realises I’m headed to Beth, and she just starts spitting all this stuff about how I’m such a scummy asshole, and I’m a fuckboy, and how I just use girls and throw them away, and all this shit. And Beth is just looking at her like she’s crazy, and Lucy is getting louder and louder, and then the bouncer of the bar is telling her she needs to calm down. Well, eventually he has to physically pick Lucy up and carry her out of the bar because I dunno what happened but she had a mental break or something and was just screaming like a- I don’t even know. And Beth is just standing there the whole time without having said a word, and we can hear Lucy arguing with the bouncers outside because it took two of them to keep her out.”

“Jesus Christ,” you said.

“I’ve gotta call Becca and Charlotte,” Sabrina snorted. “And Gemma. God, Gemma will flip.”

“Oh, I’m not done,” Eric said.

“You’re not?” you asked.

“You’ve got no idea.”

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