Where I end and you begin

Round 25: Autumn 2022

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Josie Benton and Maia Novak are both 20 and Calvin and Troy Clarke, Aaron Novak and Nick Moretti are all 19.

While Patience is spending a year sunning herself on a tropical beach somewhere, her dormmates are stuck on campus, in a far more mundane setting.

Everyone was expecting some argument as to who would claim Patience's room in her absence but the university, unfortunately for the rest of the dorm, has assigned her room to this guy. Troy is the only one who's tried talking to him and seeing he found him to be rather unfriendly, no one else has bothered since.

People are too busy to pay much attention to their new dorm mate anyway. Despite the fact that he could probably breeze through university without any study at all, Nick spends more time with his head buried in books than anyone else.

Aaron does well in his classes but tends to leave the bulk of the work at the last minute.

He prefers to spend most his time with Calvin, who seems to cruise through his classes without much effort.

Meanwhile, Maia is getting ahead of herself a little. Instead of studying, she's been focusing on the camping trip she wants to go on with Aaron. She tries to tell herself that after this year, she's just got one more year left at university, but it just seems like such a long time!

Maia could really use Aaron's help with her bug collection lately. She feels like she's a little out of practice with the whole thing.

Aaron's often busy with Calvin of late.

Although it's often at the campus bar, as opposed to the dorm. It's mostly deserted during the day.
What other time in your life but university are you going to get to hang out in a bar for hours in the middle of the day? They might as well take advantage of it.

As for Troy, well...he's managed to avoid academic probation somehow, despite the fact that he spends most of his time playing video games.

He and Josie share the same passion for gaming and they often play backseat gamer while the other is on the computer. Troy does wonder how Josie manages to maintain a 4.0 when she spends so much of her time playing SSX3. He's not going to ask. He doesn't want Josie to start thinking that maybe she should spend more time studying, because he likes being with her.

Troy and Josie have got to spend a lot of time together since Patience has been gone.

Troy and Josie have been good friends since last year but they've become even closer over the past few months.

Troy would like to get a little closer but so far, Josie has been a little reluctant. Sometimes, it almost seems like she's going to go for it.

Then at other times, she ruthlessly shoots him down.

Probably because of that boyfriend she's got. Troy's never actually spoken to Will but he's pretty sure he hates him.

Nick was so excited when he saw a flier for the new tinkering club on campus and he had to go down to check it out. He's worried he might have lost his touch with cars - it's been a while.

Because Nick's girlfriend Maia is currently doing anything to avoid studying, she usually comes along.

She has zero interest in cars but seeing they're one of Nick's favourite things to talk about, she's learnt to at least pretend to be interested.

After all, Nick is pretty patient when she stops in the middle of conversation just to check out an insect she's spotted on the ground.

Ah, the things people do for love!

Things are going well for Nick and Maia. She went to meet his parents during the summer, as well as his stepfather. That went well. Nick's visit to meet Maia's parents didn't go quite as well but Maia's not worried. Her dad would be suspicious of any guy she brought home and she's sure that he'll soon see Nick isn't anything like Gordon was.

Lack of motivation to study aside, life in general is good for Maia right now. It's been a long time since Josie has given her any trouble. Maybe it's because Maia is no longer with Jacob.


Or maybe Nick said something to her.

Or perhaps it's just because she seems to spend every waking moment with Troy and barely notices Maia these days. Idly, Maia has wondered if there's anything going on between them.

There's not, but Troy thinks there soon will be. Calvin think his brother is a little cocky about someone who he hasn't even kissed yet but Troy prefers to think of it as confidence.

He's even checked it over with Nick - making a move on your friend's ex can be a little dicey. Troy isn't the most sensitive guy but he is loyal.

After she rejected his proposal last year, Josie kept dating Will. Will seemed to get over it pretty quickly and seems okay. Happy, even.

Josie, on the other hand, isn't. Every time she gets to pick a venue for a date, it's always somewhere very unromantic, like the arcade at the student union. She doesn't want to leave an opportunity for Will to get all mushy and sentimental.

She really should just go ahead and dump him, as they've never really had much in common, even pre-marriage talk. But right now, she doesn't want to deal with the inevitable sob fest that would follow. She's still traumatised from his proposal. Seeing there's no one else she's interested in, Will is getting a reprieve.

Josie probably needs a guy with a little more edge than Will. She can't stand it when they're in the middle of an argument and he just stands there grinning at her.

She probably can't take this for much longer. The relationship has already lasted about a year longer than it should have. Would you believe he still brings up the whole marriage thing?

Troy has the uncanny knack of showing up everywhere Josie is, so trying to avoid him is close to useless. He wants to be visible when she finally gets rid of that boyfriend of hers.

But Troy is a little tired of waiting around for that to happen.

Maybe Josie needs a little push.

Hopefully, this will have a better ending than after the first time they kissed, which resulted in Josie ignoring him for the rest of high school and dating his best friend instead.

They really need to have a talk now but it's kind of hard to talk about anything heavy with a guy in a llama suit sitting next to you.

Troy's in love, though he's not going to say that to Josie just yet. He doesn't want to send her running for the hills. Josie doesn't know what to think except that she shouldn't be with Will.

She tells him in her dorm room, hoping to at least avoid a public sob fest.

That was probably a good decision on her part, because Will is devastated.

And here comes the sobbing. What a drama queen!

Perhaps Troy would react the same way but Josie can't imagine he would. Troy seems more like Josie, more than she ever realised. So when he asks her out a few days later, she agrees.

It's a little bit awkward at first. They've been friends for so long and Josie never even thought about them moving past that until very recently. But they're able to get past that initial weirdness before their food even arrives.

It's completely dark outside by the time they get around to leaving the diner and heading back to campus. They talked for a long time.

Back at the dorm, they end up in Josie's room for the remainder of the night. Yes, after the first date! Troy just had to lose his virginity before the big 2-0 next year!

Extra:
Just because I think Josie's pretty (she's smiling at Troy, by the way - this was after they made out but before she fell in love or crush with him). It's funny because I don't think Tate is the most handsome of Sims and I never would have expected a daughter who looked like him to be so cute but she is!

Notes:

• Title is from Where I End and You Begin by Radiohead.
• Before I forget, here are the grades for this year. Aaron, Calvin, Josie and Nick all have 4.0s, Maia has a 3.4 and Troy has a 3.2. I'll be pleased if Maia and Troy both graduate because it's not looking like it'll be a given at this point!
• Oh my God, Josie's birth control has been off for the past two years. You'd think she would have been more careful about that sort of thing after what happened with her cousin Victoria. Or you know...that I would be more careful about that sort of thing!
• So am I crazy or is Will's "Get Married to Josie" want unusually persistent, even for a Family Sim (which he is)? Doesn't it eventually roll away when it's not locked? His was constant, even when they weren't on a date. I assume it's rolled away now, but who knows? He sure was fond of Josie!
• More on Josie: I can't remember I've mentioned it or not but she and Troy have very high chemistry. They have exactly the same personalities and their attraction score is 140, which doesn't seem like much compared to Anna and Emil's 213 but this is without any Massive Attraction bonuses, so it's pretty impressive. They actually have the highest natural chemistry in Sullivan, taking over from the previous title-holders, Jace and Magdalena.
• I didn't want to force Josie and Troy together. I was waiting for either a) one of them to act or b) mutual romantic wants. They didn't start flirting until this round and Troy rolled up a make out want almost immediately. Josie took her sweet time but she rolled up a fear of being rejected for a kiss by Troy very early on, so she was thinking about him all along. In the end, Troy made out with autonomously before Josie had the chance to roll up a want.
• I had planned to let Troy date around a bit but he just is not interested in anyone else but Josie. Even when he was on the dates I sent him on last round, the romantic wants he'd roll up were few and far between. So I'm just going with it. Some people aren't really interested in dating a bunch of people and I suppose Troy is one of them. So they're together. Troy has been waiting since he was 12 for Josie to notice him, so he's very happy.