Study Time

For all that you had worked with Sabrina and Gemma for over two months now, studying with them was a different thing entirely. Working, you all had the same methodology because it’s how you had been told to do things. Sure, you had little variations, but you always had the same minor checkmarks you had to hit to get to the final.

Studying was different from working because everyone did things differently, and all three of you had very different approaches.

Sabrina liked to be methodical, going step by step, and that was how she’d started with tackling the Mock Trial prep through the week. Her notes were these tiny little post-its on the printed-out documents, with reference numbers for each document and page. She used a legal pad to collate those notes and scribble thoughts in the margin in pencil. This frustrated Gemma because she was almost the opposite of Sabrina - she liked to form tentposts to work from. Gemma knew where you wanted to go, and where you were starting, and built conceptual pillars to form the argument so she could assign data to each pillar as she filled in the details. This was a messier process than Sabrina’s, and meant that she was engaging with any page of the various material; some of which Sabrina hadn’t gotten to yet.

Then there was you, and when you were studying you tackled things from a Top-Down, big-picture approach. If the goal was winning the mock trial, everything was going to hinge on one or two specific elements that would swing the case hard. Those elements might be small details, but you knew identifying them holistically was the key. That usually meant that you tried to absorb as much of the information as you could, as fast as you could, to get a general picture of things and collect different threads to pull on.

Three people, even if they loved each other, tackling things in three very different ways made a bit of a mess.

You were the first to realize how frustrated Sabrina was getting as you and Gemma sifted through her carefully collated notes, so you made it a priority to get things back in order as soon as you or Gemma were done with a document. You also didn’t scribble notes in the margins like you usually would, instead writing bullet points on a legal pad, so the documents were clean. Gemma didn’t clue in as fast until she noticed that you were picking up her mess from around her as she kept working. She gave you a look like ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ and you raised an eyebrow at her and then glanced silently over at Sabrina.

One look at your brunette girlfriend, who had her head down and working but had a tenseness around her, and Gemma dropped what she was doing and went to her, hugging her from behind and whispering in her ear. Sabrina relaxed as Gemma kept whispering, and then leaned back against the blonde and nodded. Then Sabrina turned in her seat and kissed Gemma on the cheek, which developed into a kiss on the lips.

“Thank you,” Sabrina whispered.

You weren’t sure what Gemma had been saying, but the mood shifted to an easier, more pleasant feeling after that.

Several hours later, getting to late afternoon, the three of you had put together a better picture of the case. Sabrina wasn’t done working through the stacks of depositions and interviews, but it was a big task as she was writing timelines for the actual accident based on each witness. Gemma had identified the key pillars of what your argument would need to show that your company didn’t hold liability for the accident - that included environmental factors, your driver’s potential culpability by not following company or legal procedures, and what the actual cause of the accident had been. Throwing a driver under the bus in a real-world case would have been a standard, if shitty, thing to do if the guy did everything right, but you didn’t feel bad about doing it in a theoretical case.

You had skimmed through the entire case and had a dozen threads of information you wanted to pull on to see if they unravelled. None of them were the smoking gun that would clear the company - that would have been too easy - but they had the potential to be pivotal. One of the major items was that the family van that had been part of the initial collision had been almost thirty years old and in ill repair; this immediately made you think of an insurance scam gone wrong, or maybe even just an innocent but vital failure of brake lights, power steering or another critical part of the car.

You didn’t get to start tugging, however, because Gemma sent you away.

“I need you to head back to your place,” she said.

“I thought we were having a date?” you asked.

“We are, love,” she said. “But you don’t have the right clothes here. Sabrina and I will get ready here and then come to your place to pick you up, OK?”

“Alright,” you sighed. “What do I need to wear?”

“Your suit. The really nice one that Sabrina got you.”

“Oooh, we’re going fancy?” Sabrina asked from over at the kitchen table.

“We are,” Gemma grinned.

“Does that mean you’re going to wear the dress I bought you, too?”

Gemma nodded. “And we’re going all out, so wrap up because we need to start doing our hair and makeup.”

And that’s how you got kicked out of your girlfriend’s apartment as they were half-naked and stripping down to take a shower together. Your bus ride back to your place was rough with spontaneous boners as your mind kept veering off of thinking of the case and onto the two of them, water dripping down their bodies.

It didn’t feel fair, but you’d be with them again soon. And the fact that you’d had a bunch of sex already that day made you feel a little silly for pouting. You really needed to get things back in perspective.

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