The Ex-Factor

[Grace Cohen]

((ooc: Grace is wearing This))

For eighteen days Grace had not shaved her legs per the request of her girlfriend Sam in honor of Movember. On the morning of the nineteenth she saved her legs and made a donation instead. It was much easier and far more comfortable. For the record, she didn’t like not shaving, but she still was enthusiastic for Sam, and hadn’t exactly told her that she had shaved her legs or made a donation that morning. In fact she hadn’t seen Sam at all that day between her work at the salon and helping to set up at O’Connor’s for the night.

By late evening Grace was shuffling home by way of Simone’s old yellow Bug. The pretty redhead, who wasn’t girl girlfriend sat in the driver’s seat humming and tapping her hand on the steering wheel to the song ‘I’m Not Over.’ As they puttered up to the house the line, “I’m not over you just yet. You’re not that easy to forget,” rang in her ears as they parked beside the house. The two laughed, carrying their Starbuck coffee drinks, as they climbed the front porch steps. She laughed at Simone’s joking question in a mockingly posh tone as the other girl fluffed her hair, “Do you think my hair looks nice?”

“Well yes I do, I cut it didn’t I?” Grace answered as she wiggled her key into the lock. “It’s stuck,” she giggled, “This happens a lot, hang on,” she fiddled with the key some more shoving her coffee drink into Simone’s hand, “I would just as well leave it unlocked. You’d think angels lived around here it’s so safe, but some of us don’t think so,” she implied Justin, but loved him to pieces none the less.

The pushy redhead then shoved Grace aside pushing the drinks into her hands, “Let me.” Grace relinquished the key that was now stuck in the door. “Okay be my guest but it won’t budge,” she said holding up her hands. A few minutes later they had gotten nowhere nearer to the inside of her house. “How about we both try?” Simone grinned; Grace noticed a familiar look in the other girl’s eyes but passed it off as nothing. “Alright,” she agreed, one twisted while the other lifted and soon enough they both fell into the house, literally toppling over one another. The house wasn’t empty, her flat mates were in.

“Didn’t you here us outside?” Grace asked through laughter as she picked herself up and helped Simone by gathering up a few of her fashion and art magazines out of habit more than anything. Grace shrugged, it was no big deal. They probably found it funny more than anything else. In fact they were probably counting the minutes it took for the two of them to get inside the house, making a contest out of it, that’s what she would have done anyways.

“Right, you all want a drink? Other than coffee I mean,” she asked, shooting a glance at Simone before making her way into the kitchen and pulling out a few of Justin’s famous brews. “Here Simone you will love this.”

[Simone Mathis]

((ooc: Not that it matters but Simone is wearing this))

As they fell over one another Simone whipped out her wand in time to save the coffee drinks from spilling onto the floor. She levitated them in the air for a moment before each of them could grab theirs respectably. Simone smiled, crouching to help pick up her various fashion and art magazines.

“Yeah, I’d love one,” Simone said following Grace into the kitchen. She leaned against the countertop and smiled in what could be regarded as a flirty manner. “Thanks Gracie.”

[Justin Biermann]

A high-pitched beep sounded from Justin's watch as he hit a button to stop the timer. "Two minutes, seventeen seconds. Looks like Juliet's guess was closest, guys," he reported matter-of-factly, apparently unfazed by the pair of girls tumbling through the door. "Let it be known that I had much greater faith in you," he laughed. "Hey Grace, hey Sa--" he started to greet them before he realized that the redhead pushing herself up from the floor was not, in fact, Samantha Robbins. He'd just been so accustomed to seeing the couple as a package deal.

Shrugging, he yelled into the kitchen, "If you try one of the new winter brews you have to fill out an evaluation form!" before collapsing into the couch and picking up a video game controller. Since quitting the Auror program, Justin had been particularly restless and definitely more pedantic and irritating than usual. It had taken a lot of convincing for him to at least attempt to kick back and relax a bit.

[Simone Mathis]

Simone took the Winter Beer offered to her and walked back into the living room along with Grace. She plopped down on the sofa beside Justin. “Alright, where is this evaluation form, cus it’s gonna have awesome written all over it,” she smiled at Justin taking another long sip of beer. “So what game are you playing?” she nodded to the screen, then picked up the second controller, “Can I play?”

[Juliet Tancredi]

“Ha, in your fucking face, Michalka!” Jules exclaimed, almost aggressively competitive, as she pumped a fist in the air at having the closest guess as to how long it would take Grace to get in this time – Kyle remained unconcerned, it seemed, but Juliet would take any victory she could at this stage. It had been a week of sadly disappointing meetings with record producers, people who’d wanted her to change everything about how she dressed, what her hair looked like, and what her songs were about. She hadn’t exactly been polite about rejecting their conditional offers, a ‘sod off’ was involved somewhere in the rejection most of the time. Now, nursing the disappointment by trying out one of Justin’s aforementioned winter brews in a paper cup she shrugged, “Is my evaluation not good enough, eh?” she asked with a pretend hurt pouty smile before she downed the rest of the drink, saying in a deadpan evaluation, “It’s like Christmas in a cup.”

"By the way, hey Cohen, hey Robbins-" she shot their way quickly and then paused, doing a double-take, “Oh, sorry, Simone, didn’t realise it was you. Grace, love, you’ve got to differentiate between girlfriend and friend in terms of hair colour, hella confusing.” Then, picking the controller back up she gestured to the TV which she was sat cross-legged on the floor in front of, “Come on then Biermann, you can’t say we’re going to play Call of Duty and then leave me to pick up the slack,” the blonde argued. It was possible her frustration at the music industry had transferred into an almost frantic competitiveness which had made her difficult to live with during the past couple of days.

[Grace Cohen]

Grace perched herself on the arm of the sofa beside Simon. “Hey it’s not my fault her natural hair color is red,” Grace pointed out, “I offered to change it but she said no,” Grace added. It wasn’t that Simone liked it but more that she like it. Apparently Grace had a thing for beautiful redheads.

“Oh no, don’t let Simone play Call of Duty, she will kick your ass, I can say this from experience,” she laughed a bit looking at Simone who playfully punched her in the arm, saying ‘Shhh you weren’t supposed to tell them,’ to which Grace raised an eyebrow, “Oh yeah so they were just supposed to think you were new at this and had beginners luck,” she smiled at Simone nodding over the rim of her beer bottle as she took another sip. Grace smiled and did the same. “Justin this really does taste like Christmas, a really good Christmas.”

[Justin Biermann]

"I think you mean 'non-denominational winter holiday' in a cup," Justin deadpanned, gently mocking his own tendency to worry and obsess over political correctness. He then handed Simone a form with more beer-related questions than anyone would have thought possible -- he really was not kidding.

He looked at Grace and Simone out of the corner of his eye and squinted suspiciously, wondering if something was going on there. He trusted and adored Grace, but was afraid of seeing Sam hurt, which was like watching someone kick a puppy. Of course, Justin had himself a significant other who was literally screwing other guys on the regular, so it wasn't like he had any room to judge. He reached for another beer and raised his eyebrows at Juliet, then Simone. "Need I remind you all that I am currently starved for the kind of competition that dominated my life for the past two years? I hereby cordially invite each of you to bring it." Mentally, he and Juliet were in a very similar place right now, and it was entirely possible that they were enabling one another's worst competitive tendencies.

[Juliet Tancredi]

“Oh yeah, that’s completely what I meant to say, Mr Politician,” Juliet clarified mock-seriously, “Y’know, that sounds like something your girl would organise a party for,” she pointed out to Grace, twisting around to look at her with a smile. Then, “Ooo Cohen!” she exclaimed, wincing on the other girl’s behalf, “Just ruined her grifting attempts, burn!” Juliet laughed, grinning knowingly at Simone in a joking manner as if to say ‘I’m onto you’, before she turned back to the television and the videogame itself.

She fixed Justin with an unimpressed look, “Need I remind you that I am currently feeling extremely frustrated at the pervy dicks that work in the music industry which already adds to my ongoing irritation at… well… most of the male gender, yourself excepted Biermann,” she conceded before looking fixatedly at her character on the tv screen. “Button bashing is how you do this, yeah? And that’s not innuendo-y, it’s how I play Tekken, it works for this… thing too, right?” she checked, confused but utterly engrossed by it. "I'm gonna say right now that if we were playing Just Dance I would fucking own all of you."