Borrowed Time

Chapter Eighty Nine

There was nothing worse than waiting outside of the stupid fucking police station, but Teresa had insisted that if she was going to help Juliette with the case that she make a police report so that they could have a paper trail when they needed to sue someone. It made sense, it was just annoying to have to do.

Luckily, she got to wait with Esme so it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, at least she got a pretty view... Looking at Esme's face was something that she could never complain about, it was too perfect to be upset about.

"So, what time are you meeting Carly's other mom here? Is she getting here soon?" Esme asked, and Juliette shrugged, glancing down at her phone. They'd agreed on 5:30, it was 5:20, she wasn't late, so Juliette wasn't worried yet. Now, if she ran late then she'd be worried but that was a bridge to cross when she got here, not a bridge to cross right now.

"Yeah, Teresa should be here really soon." She drummed her fingers on the dashboard, thinking of what she could say... She didn't want Esme to feel stuck here for the entire day, she could absolutely leave any time that she wanted to leave and Juliette didn't want them to think otherwise. "You don't have to wait the whole time, you know." She offered, and Esme snorted, shaking their head like that idea was ridiculous.

"Okay, one. The last time I left early you got super drunk after giving the report went badly, so I'm not going anywhere. Two... Her name is Teresa?" They asked, and Juliette found it a bit funny that Teresa's name was on the same level as her bender, but she'd take it, it took the heat off the bender itself and put it onto something else, there wasn't much more that Juliette could ask over that.

"Yeah, she's really nice. I've met her a couple of times when I've studied with Carly." She said, and Esme frowned, nodding like that could make sense, but didn't quite work for them. That was fine, it didn't have to work for them.

"Huh..." They sighed, leaning back in their chair a bit to give Juliette a wide smile, one that made her heart skip in her chest. "Well, there's gotta be one uncool person in a relationship, right?" They asked, and Juliette almost nodded before she realized one implication of that.

Was Esme calling her uncool in comparison? Like, they weren't wrong but they were ballsy as shit to say it out loud, Juliette had to give them that much if she gave them nothing else at all... Which was the plan, the plan was to give them nothing else at all because what the fuck?

"Hold on..." Esme glanced at her, raising an eyebrow like they hadn't realized what they did. They would realize their mistake soon enough, Juliette would make 100% sure of that. Rue the fucking day, baby. "Do you think you're cooler than me?" She asked, and Esme's eyes widened as they shook their head, sitting up.

"I never said that." Tone rushed... It could mean that they had meant it but they didn't think Juliette would pick up on it, or that they hadn't meant it and were now worried that Juliette thought that... Either way, this was gonna be really fun.

"You implied it." She pointed out, and Esme sighed, shaking their head as they gave Juliette a look, one that she recognized quite well as 'come on, don't do this to me'... But she was having fun doing this, why wouldn't she do this?

Causing chaos was a very fun way to live.

"No, I implied that Teresa isn't as cool as Allison, and I'd bet that just off of her name being Teresa. She sounds like a grandmother who bakes cookies all day or something." They said, and Juliette snorted. Oh, Esme was gonna lose their shit when they saw how hot Teresa really was... Allison had amazing taste, there was no other way to describe it.

"She's not." She insisted, but Esme only chuckled, shaking their head with a shining smile like they knew everything about everything in the world... It was cute, but they were still wrong. No smile was gonna change that, no matter how much it made Juliette's heart skip in her chest.