Chapter Text
"I think we might be wrapping up this Gustavo Vort thing fairly soon," Annie said as she poured herself a second glass of champagne and curled up on the couch, feet tucked under her as she leaned back against Jeff. It was getting late and she really should put some clothes back on and go home, lest her roommates think she'd moved out and start dividing up her stuff. She'd been spending too many nights at Jeff's, lately… On the other hand, she liked the feel of his body against hers, and she'd just poured herself a second glass of champagne, so she wasn't going to be driving any time soon…
"That seems...optimistic," Jeff said from just behind her. He draped a bare arm over her, which was snuggly and nice and all, but interfered with her champagne-drinking, so after a moment she shifted around until he moved it. He didn't seem to mind it, taking the opportunity to run his hand over her. "It's been almost two months, which would be reasonable for a regular divorce, but we only just finally filed with the court; we don't have a date with the judge set yet."
It hadn't been easy, filing the divorce in Colorado without getting pushback from Rebecca Bunch, Gustavo Vort's divorce attorney, or Paris Geller, Gustavo Vort's other divorce attorney. Rebecca had wanted the divorce to proceed in New York, where Jeff wasn't legally able to practice due to the elaborate shenanigans related to his bar entry. Paris had wanted the divorce to happen in California (same problem). More than once one or the other of them had threatened to bring sanctions against Jeff with the Colorado bar, which Jeff had assured Annie were empty threats, but still. The other side played hardball.
But finally, mostly by playing them against each other, Jeff had wheedled them into settling on Colorado as a compromise. Annie still wasn't entirely sure what had prompted Rebecca to fold and give her approval for the venue, but they weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. While Paris's mandate, as Gustavo Vort's personal attorney, seemed to be to stretch the divorce out and make it as painful as possible for April, Rebecca's duty was to the shareholders of VortTech. Their interest was primarily in avoiding bad publicity or anything that might damage the company's share price. The extent to which Gustavo Vort, inventor of eWhen and Twitter personality, and VortTech, the technology company behind eWhen and a series of prototype electric self-driving cars, were separate entities was not entirely clear to the general public.
Filing for divorce, April Ludgate v. Gustavo Vort , with letters from his attorneys acknowledging the suit? It felt like enough of a triumph that they were splitting a bottle of champagne over it and clothing had become an unnecessary complication.
The next stage of the case was figuring out a) what Gustavo Vort's assets were; b) what portion of those assets April was entitled to; and c) how Gustavo Vort would transfer those assets. Everyone had provisionally accepted Jeff's assertion that April's assets were negligible next to Gustavo Vort's and could be discounted. Rebecca, Paris, and Jeff all had radically different answers to all of those questions, though Annie knew that at least Jeff's was a carefully crafted negotiating stance and presumably the same was true for the other two.
"We've turned a corner, though," Annie said, sipping her champagne. "We filed; we can't un-file."
"Technically we could. But yeah, this is a milestone. Like the first time we kissed."
She scoffed. That had been a kind of milestone, sure, but… "Hopefully more like the third time we kissed, ie, leading to further advances later that same day. The first time we kissed, nothing happened for four years. Well, there was the second kiss later that year, but you know what I mean. Third time was the charm."
"You mean the fourth time." Jeff tried to distract her by running his hand down her side, but Annie wasn't having it.
"Third!" She counted them off. "One, debate freshman year. Two, end of freshman year. Three, OmniTech parking lot."
"Music room junior year!" Jeff's other hand was on her too, now. She quickly set down her champagne so it didn't spill.
Annie felt her pulse quicken. He had started out good at touching her and was only getting better with practice. But she remained focused on how she was right and he was wrong. "What?"
"But either way, yeah." He continued stroking with his hands. "Hopefully we're now in the phase where we drive around run errands and stop to smooch—"
Annie burst out laughing. " Smooch? " She bit her lip as she pressed her back into him and reached behind her, not turning around. She found the bare skin of his chest and caressed it.
"Y-yeah, smooch, it's a word." He was wrapping his arms around her, squeezing her tight. She could feel him breathing.
"I know! It just—mm!—it just seems really weird coming out of your mouth. Smooch ."
Jeff may have taken that as a command, because he scooped her up onto his lap, and tilted her unresisting head up and back and his mouth was next to her mouth, and then his phone buzzed.
He was clearly going to ignore it so she slipped away and rose from the couch. "It might be important, Jeff. It might be a client!"
He eyed her up and down. "I don't care." But he reached for his phone anyway. "It's just Boba Fett," he said, reading the caller ID.
"Oh, well, you don't—" Annie broke off with a disappointed gasp as Jeff started to answer the phone. Interrupting smooching for a client was one thing, but for the idiotically-named landlord of their office?
"Winger and Edison," he said into the phone. She started doing a distracting little dance that she hoped was an appealing mix of sexy and dorky, rather than just dorky. He made a face she recognized as pretending not to like it and almost turned away but didn't.
"Glee club Christmas!" Annie cried, as a sudden wave of deja vu reminded her of what Jeff must have meant by "music room junior year." Her dancing intensified.
Jeff, still on the phone, tried and failed to scowl at her. For a second or so they just grinned at one another. Then he roused from someone, presumably Boba Fett, barking in his ear. "Sorry. What was that? What do you need?"