Grace works her magic

It felt like you could see Rebecca slowly tense up as Grace approached and although Jessica was too excited to see them both to notice Rebecca’s current situation, Grace was able to see that she was starting to feel uneasy, slowing her pace even more and putting on her warmest smile that she could.

“Hi! I’m Grace, nice to meet you. Well I know we've met before at the school but I think it’s the first time I’m meeting you outside of that. Jess said you wanted a tour?” Grace greeted, holding out her hand for a handshake.

“Uhh, yeah if that’s not too much to ask. Ah, I'm Rebecca. I got a recommendation from someone about this place and it’s been a while since i've done anything that isn’t in my own home gym” Rebecca replied, taking her hand but still sounding nervous from what you could gather.

Grace smiled in return once again but turned to see both you and Jessica listening intently to the conversation.

“I’ll take you around and leave these two to their studying if that’s okay with you?” Grace asked, seeing that the conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere if Jessica was around.

Rebecca seemed hesitant at first to go off with Grace alone after just meeting her but she seemed to reach the same conclusion if only a little later.

“Sure that sounds lovely. I’m counting on you two getting good grades by the way” Rebecca joked, agreeing to go with her and trying her best to stay positive.

The both of them gave you a nod before leaving as if to say they were okay with the situation and they moved out of the lobby towards an area out of sight on the ground floor.

“So what’s your home gym like?” Grace asked, just before they got out of ear shot, leaving you alone with a very bummed out Jessica.

She had still been standing up after having brought Grace to the desk but she now moved back around to your side and collapsed into one of the chairs, her early enthusiasm now completely gone.

“I take it you aren’t in the mood for any more studying after that?” you asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

“No” Jessica replied, not even looking in your direction with her very short answer.

Now that she was back to ignoring your existence, you could see that while she was seemingly interested in both Grace and Rebecca, she did act differently when it came to Sarah. It felt like her attitude at the gym had been more of a simple infatuation with the 2 women whereas with Sarah, you could tell that her feelings were deeper and that they were much more genuine.

That left you feeling slightly conflicted as you could easily add her to your list of subjects and let her be involved with some of them, giving her a lot of what she wanted on the surface. But the deeper more meaningful part might seem tainted compared to what she could have in a normal relationship.

Feeling guilty over a potential love rival was one of the weirder thoughts you had had in a while, and with you having multiple partners it felt like you were being almost greedy when you compared it to what a normal life would be like, adding more fuel to the guilty feelings.

Jessica seemed content to just sit and ignore you while you were having this internal battle so you felt like the amount of thought you were putting into this probably wasn’t worth it when the other person didn’t seem to care, giving you a way out of the negative thoughts.

Now however, you didn’t really have anything to do with everyone else currently preoccupied so you ended up clutching your phone in your pocket trying to think of something to do. You went through the list of your subjects in your head but with Jessica right there next to you there wasn’t really anything fun you could do and if you tried messaging someone like Lucy who was out with her friends, you were likely to just get back a simple message or more likely, nothing at all.

The next person to cross your mind however was Izzy, having not had any communication with her since you had left her house with Grace and Emma. Her passive effect from the KDK meant that you could still level her up if you were to call but again that was blocked by Jessica sitting at the side of you.

Instead, you thought to just send her a text and see if she responded, not getting any benefit from it in terms of the KDK but regardless of that, you still wanted to check in with her and potentially open up the conversation to talk with her in the future, not wanting to rely on her active effect to **** a call if you didn’t have to.

It felt like you typed and retyped the message over and over again as you tried your hardest to word a message correctly to her but eventually, you got something you were happy with.

Max: Hey Izzy, I’m not sure if now is the best time but I just wanted to check in and see how you and Jack were doing. Hope everything is okay after the weekend.

Before you could second guess yourself once again, you hit send and put your phone back in your pocket, not wanting to impulsively check the screen if you could help it.

You had no idea what she was up to and with the chance of your father being at home with her, you didn’t want to chance saying something too specific that might get either of you in trouble. That said, you still wanted to show some genuine concern that was where you had started to get too caught up in the wording before you gave up and settled with what you had written down.

“You got somewhere to be?” Jessica asked, making you turn and look at her.

You hadn’t even noticed that she was no longer avoiding you and while you had been focused on your phone you weren’t sure how long she had been watching you as you wrote your message.

“What do you mean?” you replied, trying to figure out what she had seen.

“Well you were looking at your screen pretty intently before you typed something. Did you get a message or something?” she questioned, sounding more curious than anything else.

You gathered that she hadn’t actually read what was on your phone as she would have known the answer to her question so that calmed you enough to realise you could come up with an honest reply.

“No I was just responding to someone that I haven’t spoken to much and I just wanted to get it right. Plus it seems pretty important to reconnect” you admitted, being able to speak to Jessica about this as she was currently far enough removed from the situation.

You were expecting her to end the conversation there but she seemed oddly stuck on your words, taking her time to respond as she chose her next words.

“So what would you do if she didn’t respond?” Jessica asked.

Author's note: Even with all the weird schedule issues now resolved(hopefully) I still plan to take my usual breaks and I'll not be posting from the 3rd to the 10th of November. Hope you all understand :)