Closing Statements and Opening Comments

Garrison’s closing statement was convincing and damning. He was eloquent without being flowery, and you realised that running through the case with you and the other interns had been a practice, bullet-point run of what he said to the judge. Still, it lasted almost two hours and by the time he was finishing up everyone in the courtroom needed a bit of a break. The judge called it for the day rather than pushing through with the Defense’s closing, who would get to pick up in the morning.

Almost as soon as the judge was out of the room, the Defense lead went to Garrison again and started talking. Garrison held up his hand to stop the man, then left his associates and came back to speak with you.

“Head home,” he said. “We’ll have a long night tonight and you can’t be around for it.”

“You’re going to settle?” you asked. “After it’s all pretty much over?”

“We have the most leverage now,” Garrison said. “That’s when it’s best to settle. In this case, the defence knows we have them over a barrel, and a judge’s verdict would just open them up to potential criminal charges that some ADA could file for an easy slam dunk. If they offer our client a good enough deal, none of that needs to happen.”

“So we should head to the office tomorrow?” Gemma guessed.

“Correct. You’ll be back to regular work and hours as of tomorrow,” Garrison said. “And I hope you’ve been putting in the hours on the Mock Trial; after giving you a reward like three paid days sitting around in court there aren’t many excuses I’d accept for poor performance.”

“I’m on top of it, sir,” Sabrina said. “We’ll be ready.”

“Good,” Garrison nodded in dismissal and turned to head back to the waiting lawyers, but hesitated. “Oh, and don’t be surprised when Andy doesn’t show up. He was fired yesterday. I appreciate that you all felt like a team, but don’t let yourselves be dragged down by an anchor in your career.”

That left all four of you stunned as Garrison went back to his burgeoning negotiations.

“Well, shit,” Eric said.

“Oh, Andy,” Gemma sighed.

“Did he text anyone?” you asked.

“Not a word,” Sabrina shook his head.

“He texted me but didn’t mention it at all,” Eric said. “He just asked if I had a weed guy in the city, which I don’t, and which was weird because I mean…”

“Yeah, that’s weird,” you said, shaking your head. “What do we- I mean, do we reach out to him?”

“This is a little cut-throat but… do we care that he’s gone?” Gemma asked. “Garrison was right, we were constantly covering for him. If we hadn’t he’d have been fired a couple of months ago.”

The four of you all clearly felt uncomfortable with that question.

“I’ll text him, see if he says anything,” Eric said. “I mean, I like the guy but…”

The weird news settled on you as you left the courtroom and headed out of the building. Thankfully there were no interruptions, ambushes or other shocking events, but that made you feel like the whole thing with the courthouse had kind of ended in a whimper. Maybe that wasn’t true for the case, as Garrison was embroiled in a multi-million dollar negotiation, but for you and the others, you stepped out to no fanfare and no victory or defeat. Just… another day done.

Eric split off to head home, and you, Gemma and Sabrina stepped away from the foot of the courthouse steps and reconvened quickly before deciding you would head to your place. You had some talking to do, but the girls also wanted to check in on Mosche to see why he hadn’t talked to Tasha yet - they were both texting a bit with Tasha and knew that he’d still been radio silent with her except for a couple of lame attempts at sending memes.

The bus ride across town felt a little like decompression as you and the girls talked about applying what you’d learned to the Mock Trial case. You definitely had work to do.

Back at the apartment you performed the knocking ritual, though you doubted that you would be walking in on Mosche with a woman. More likely you’d walk in on him doing something weird by himself, so it made the ritual worth it. The place was empty though, and the three of you changed into more comfortable clothes in your room. That led to some light kissing and teasing, but no sex, since you knew there was a conversation to be had.

Once you were all settled into the living area with drinks and a bowl of pretzels to share, you took a deep breath. “So,” you said. “Updates?”

“Updates,” Gemma nodded. “I think we should just go through the list of people we’re maybe thinking of being sexual with, make sure we’re all still on the same page still?”

“Sure,” Sabrina nodded. “That makes sense.”

“Becks,” Gemma said.

“Big yes,” Sabrina said. “Not free access, obviously, but I’m totally happy to have her over on weekends whether it’s for filming or not.”

“Same, I just want to make sure we’re not messing with her head or stopping her from finding someone herself,” you said.

“She’s clear. I don’t think she’ll try to meet anyone for real until we’re gone though - if anything, she’s treating us like friends-with-benefits. She is comfortable getting her needs fulfilled by us. Sexual and emotional support.”

“So Becks is no change,” Sabrina said. “Mallory?”

“Do we need to talk about her?” you asked. “We can’t go down to see her again, so unless she comes up to see us…?”

“But we can sext,” Sabrina pointed out. “Are we OK with that?”

“I’m actually texting with her sometimes,” Gemma said. “Not sexting. I’m- She’s helping me out in a sort of lady-mentor role.”

“Oh, baby, that’s great,” Sabrina said with a smile.

“Is something going on?” you asked.

“No, love,” Gemma said. “It’s just nice to have someone more mature to talk about stuff with who isn’t my own family. There’s nothing wrong, so you can turn off your problem-solving brain.”

“OK,” you said, reaching over and squeezing her hand.

“So, would you want me to not sext her then, or John?” Sabrina asked. “Since she’s more than a hookup for you?”

“No, that’s fine,” Gemma shook her head. “She’s a beautiful, lovely woman who we had amazing sex with. I’m not against sexting her, it just won’t be me driving it.”

“Good with me,” you nodded in agreement.

“OK,” Sabrina said. “Then I think the next-least contentious person we need to talk about is Becca.”

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