Chapter 5: Party

It's finally party time! Emmie gets busy prepping her house, nervous that all the cool folks Sofia's inviting are going to see where she lives...

A working toilet is important, yes.

Let's also de-grime the shower. Nothin' invites more judgment than a disgusting bathing situation...

Emmie even manages to replace the grill that was stolen, as well as purchase some secondhand dining furniture and a small radio.

Please work, please work, please work. She doesn't have any CDs, but hopefully the ancient thing can get a few decent channels.

Yes! Ooh, it's this song! You know, that one. The song of the summer. It's everywhere! I love this song. Emmie gets distracted dancing for a bit until the doorbell rings.

DeAndre Wolf is standing on her porch, holding a parasol.

"Someone order a keg?" If he recognizes Emmie at all, he doesn't say anything.

"Um, yeah. You can just put it - anywhere - or actually, um - out back - follow me - "

Stop. Stuttering, she commands herself. She directs DeAndre to set up the keg on the back porch.

Let's see, how does this thing work... Inside, DeAndre has begun tuning up his guitar, and Emmie is too nervous to ask him how to use a keg.

Oh wait, got it. As Sofia promised, guests start trickling in. Emmie turns on the radio to let them know to come out back.

Justin shows up with an extra-cheesy pizza. Sofia is here too, with a strange man in a white suit who apparently insists on being let in formally at the door.

"Ummmmm," Emmie hesitates too long when greeting the man, trying to spot signs of dishonesty.  He introduces himself as Lord Al B. Trickle, but "call me Lord Al," he says pompously.

"Okay..." Emmie says. "I'm Emmie. You can call me Emmie. Where did you say you were from again?"

Lord Al just smiles. "I thought you said it would be a small gathering," he says to Sofia through the smile, barely concealing his discomfort.

"It's not that many people, honey," Sofia simpers, all traces of her usual aloof attitude gone. "Don't worry, I'll do the talking for you."

She looks at Emmie, her expression difficult to read due to the sunglasses. "He's shy," she says.

Emmie just shrugs, still studying Lord Al with narrowed eyes. She tries to think if she's seen him before - but no, she would have remembered someone dressed like that...

The party rages on. Thanks to Sofia, Emmie meets tons of new people. Wei Keane introduces himself; Emmie learns he's Justin's roommate.























She finds Sofia later in the afternoon to thank her.

"I never would have been able to put this together! This is the greatest party ever, thank you."

 Sofia whoops an uncharacteristic cheer. "Right on!" she cries. She looks happy and relaxed; Emmie begins to wonder if Lord Al is rather good for her after all.

Awkward dancing.

Who knew this many people could even fit on her deck?

After getting a juice refill, Emmie finds herself face-to-face with Lord Al. He's stayed on the sidelines for most of the party, rarely speaking except with Sofia. Emmie, drunk and feeling pretty good about life, is beginning to wonder if he is just shy. As a socially awkward sim, she can understand having trouble connecting with others.

Of course, as soon as she has this thought he starts flirting with her.

"I must say you're intriguing, miss Emmie," he says, his voice slippery smooth. "For some reason I find you... irresistible. What do you say you and I find a way to slip away for a bit?"

Emmie smiles politely and excuses herself, but inside she shudders. What a slime! Sofia has barely turned her back and already he's hitting on the host. And his breath - disgusting. The music is too loud for Sofia to hear, but Emmie resolves to tell her everything as soon as she can.

Lord Al thankfully doesn't notice Emmie's anger, so she tries to shake it off for now.

Or drink it off...

Or dance it off. "This is an awesome party, Emmie. We're like the cool kids now!"

Emmie laughs. "You're so right. Next we'll get mysterious million-dollar inheritances and move to enormous mansions like real-life royalty."

Dancing turns to flirting as the last of the lingering guests leave.

Things... escalate.

Emmie feels good. In bed with a boy she likes, for the first time in her life feeling like more than backwoods swamp trash. But she's also nervous. What do I say? Does he expect me to invite him to stay? Or should I play it cool? 

Thankfully, they both fall asleep before she has to say much.

The next morning, Justin is gone and Emmie is extremely hungover.

She just misses the toilet, but luckily there's not too much mess... Emmie dry heaves for a bit and washes up. It's good that Justin isn't here, probably. She feels way too sick to deal with the awkwardness of waking up in bed with someone she works with.

Cold pizza and smelly dishes probably aren't doing her stomach any favors, but Emmie is too hungry to cook.

After a shower and several glasses of water, Emmie doesn't feel much better. She seems to be coming down with a cold, but the house feels too empty after yesterday's activities and the thought of staying in bed alone depresses her.

Boredom drives her to tinker with the ancient washing machine. She's handy, so it should be fine, right?

Uh-oh, it's busted even worse than before. Before she can lose her voice cursing at it, someone knocks on the door.

The man is here to pick up the keg. "Hey, you look handy. Would you mind looking at my washer for me?"

The guy charges her $50, but it's worth sparing her the headache. Her head is already pounding, her throat itchy, her nose runny, and she knows she should stay home and rest but she's just so sick of being alone in that tiny house.

She considers calling Justin, but thinks better of it and just takes off. It's like her dad used to say: sometimes what a man needs is a good long wander.

---

I have never seen that maintenance truck before. Hmm. I guess my sims are usually fixer-uppers.

In-game, Sofia Carlton was studying her reflection in the bathroom the whole time Emmie and Justin were woohooing. I'm sure she would have got an earful if she'd been able to tear herself away from her reflection, lol. I couldn't get her to leave for most of the night. Also, Justin did spend the night, but he spent it dancing and flirting on the porch with Jenni Jones-Brown, who happens to be his other romantic interest. Which is... interesting, because I'm pretty sure she was already engaged to Goodwin Goode at the time. ~~drama~~

So yeah, SP has been having a field day with relationships already, lol. I might have to edit some settings because it annoyed me irrationally that Sofia married Juan Darer and moved herself and her cat into his tiny bachelor pad. Like, that doesn't even make sense! Grr. I moved them back into her mansion but didn't bother breaking them up, because Juan will probably die soon... Still, there must be a setting to prevent her moving out from that house.

Chapter 4: A Very Prestigious and Expensive Cat

Emmie doesn't hear from Sofia the next day. As far as Emmie can tell, she hasn't been seen around town, either. The one text she sends - Hey, is everything ok? - is met with radio silence.

Hmph. Well, it's fine. It's not like they're friends, or anything.

...At this point, I notice the stink clouds coming off the dirty clothes and remember that laundry hampers exist in this game. So that's where those negative moodlets were coming from... Oops.

Also, it rains a lot in Simisouri. I finally buy my poor sim an umbrella.

Emmie has been putting in a lot of hours at the lab recently, volunteering for extra experiments, even doing outside reading on science subjects. At the end of the day, one of her bosses corners her and tells her that she knows too much about the ins and outs of the science lab to be a viable test subject anymore.

She would be fired, but she's demonstrated enough knowledge of lab safety and equipment to earn a real, salaried job as Lab Assistant. The gardening skills won't hurt for future promotions, they tell her.

She even gets to wear this neat lab coat now!

Despite her promotion, she still leaves work with a dangerously low fun bar. She heads over to a local bar to unwind and celebrate.

This place is pretty popular, but Emmie's never felt confident enough to come. The bar menu is more complicated than the one at the Red Rendezvous, and she stumbles over her drink order and ends up with a bright purple thing that wasn't at all what she meant to order.

She glances around nervously to see if anyone witnessed her shame, and notices Justin as he's walking in.

"Oh, good, you're here," she says with relief. When Justin raises his eyebrows in confusion, Emmie mutters, "Just go with it, I made a fool of myself in front of the bartender and I need to either look less awkward or leave."

Justin gets it, thankfully. "Thanks for meeting me!" he says loudly. "Hope you weren't waiting long!" Some patrons turn to look at them oddly, but Emmie smiles at them awkwardly until they turn back around.

"Congrats on the promotion, by the way," Justin says in a more normal tone. "It looks like you've found my favorite place to relax after work."

They talk about work for a few comfortable minutes. Emmie feels her fun bar inching its way back in the green.

Justin is extremely passionate about science; when Emmie mentions her garden, he launches into an explanation of gene modifications and hybridization that goes right over her head. She mostly just likes to grow things...

He's really cute when he's excited, though. "Tell me more about those splicing techniques," she says.

Justin swoons; that's probably the sexiest thing a girl's ever said to him. Emmie's hands get a little sweaty at the increased eye contact, but Justin doesn't seem to notice.

A few drinks later, they're drunk enough to try out the karaoke machine.

They pull exaggerated sappy faces at each other, since the song is a romantic duet.

They're not too juiced to notice how badly they're singing, but definitely too juiced to care.

"That was really fun," Emmie says after they catch their breath from laughing.

"And you didn't even mention my stink cloud."

"What stink cloud?"

Right answer.

That weekend, Emmie finally gets a reply from Sofia. yea come over, it reads.

???, Emmie types back. Where were you?

A second later, Sofia is calling her cell. "Just come over," she says over the line, sounding irritated.

Well, OK then.

I did you a favor, you know, Emmie thinks angrily at her phone. Then she sighs and calls a cab.

Sofia's mansion looks just like a Barbie dream house. Emmie can't imagine living alone with so much space; doesn't it get boring? Lonely?

Sofia lets Emmie in and immediately ignores her greeting to tend to a very needy-sounding kitten.

"I didn't know you had a kitty."

"His name is Benji. He's a purebred cat." Sofia's voice still has that signature bored affect, but Emmie can detect a hint of pride. "Descended from a line of award-winning cats. He's very intelligent, you know."

"I bet you got him because you're lonely," Emmie thinks out loud. She sits on one of Sofia's many couches, testing its softness. It's not very comfortable.

Sofia takes off her sunglasses in time for Emmie to see her eyes roll. "I got him because he is a very prestigious and expensive cat. Duh." She sits down next to Emmie on the uncomfortable sofa.

"Uh-huh." Emmie tries not to laugh.

"Anyway." Sofia says, trying for nonchalant. "I wanted to, uh. Thank. You. You did me a huge solid the other day. I appreciate it."

"Wow, was that hard for you to say? I don't know why I had to, anyway. It's not like you need the job," Emmie says. "I'm a lab assistant now, so I don't think I can keep covering for you."

"It won't happen again. This is gonna sound crazy, but. This guy I met, Al, he needed some money to pay off some bad dudes, so I went to go drop him off some cash. But once we're married, he'll have access to his.. what? Why are you lookin' at me like that?"

"I mean, I'm trying to figure out if you're joking. That guy is obviously scamming you; and it's not even a good lie. Like, what makes you think this 'Al' dude is going to pay you back?"

"He already did pay me back!" Sofia says, jumping out of her seat angrily. "His mother was being held hostage, Emmie, I was there! I saw these big-- these big guys, like gangsters, they had her all tied up, and they kept asking for cash but Al couldn't get access to the accounts because only his mother could, but of course they didn't believe him, and then--"

Emmie's never seen Sofia lose her cool like this. Not for years, anyway."Okay, okay. Just calm down," she says, trying awkwardly to be soothing. "Look, this guy - what's-his-name - you're saying he actually paid you back?"

"Yeah," Sofia says, seeming to remember her point. "Every cent! I can show you the deposit. His name is Al. Lord Albert Bernard Trickle, III."

"That... doesn't sound like a real name. But! Clearly you have seen some very real violence, so... I'm reserving judgment. Just. Don't marry him just yet? That's crazy! How long have you known him, even?"

"Like, a month," Sofia whines. "But he's royalty! He's got actual royal blood, how can I not marry him? You'd do the same if you met him first!"

"Um, I really wouldn't," Emmie says, but Sofia isn't listening.

"How about you come to one of my parties? And then you could meet him and admit you're wrong."

"Why do you even care what I think?"

"Because I'm right, duh! Are you coming to the party or not!"

Emmie doesn't particularly want to meet this "Al B. Trickle" con man, but she does want to go to a party...

"Have the party at my place. Then we'll be even," she says, trying to sound authoritative.

"Ugh. What, that shack?" Sofia grumbles. "Fine, I guess I do owe you. I'll set it up. Whatever. Now if you'll excuse me, Benji needs a bath."

Guess that's Emmie's cue to leave. As she reaches the door, Sofia clears her throat.

"Congrats, by the way." she says gruffly. "On the promotion."

Emmie looks back over her shoulder. "...Thanks."

---

Venue is the Honky Tonk Tom's Rodeo Bar and Kara-O.K. Corral by Annie Sims :D As much as I loved it (which is a lot! It's amazing <3), I'm having second thoughts about whether it fits in Twinbrook. Which makes sense, as it was built for AP. So I miiiight try to build something of my own... if that's even possible in TS3. I've been spoiled by Sims 4's relatively easier build mode ><

And yeah. I felt the need to humanize Sofia Carlton, don't ask me why because I really don't know. Let me know if you guys want to see the deleted chapter with her and Emmie's backstory, lol but the story works fine without it so I've omitted it for now.

Either way, next up: Party!