A Poignant Fallacy

Scene 39- No Punishment

Juliette walks into the kitchen after Jackson pulls open the sliding door for her.

She turns around and says a meek,
"Thank you."

Jackson just smiles back at her. Juliette liked when he did that. Like the whole reason he did something for her wasn't so he could be thanked, just because he wanted to.

She went over to the barstools on the island and began to try and sit up on one wrapped in her towel.

Jackson, Scarlett, and JD were sitting at the table talking about college.

Laura stands on the other side of the island in the kitchen cleaning.

"Juliette, you're dripping all over my wood floors. Can you please change?"

Juliette says, "But I want to swim more after lunch."

Laura says to her, "Well you need to go rest and get ready for dinner after lunch anyways, it's already one o'clock."

"I don't want to sleep! I don't need to-"

Jackson comes over and covers Juliette's mouth while she was talking before she could finish arguing with their Mother.

He says in a low voice and cleverly to his Mom, "I can solve this problem."

Jackson picks up Juliette and she reluctantly holds on while she rolls her eyes. He sets her down in the middle of the living room and the kitchen and leaves the room. He comes back with a cordless hairdryer and points it at Juliette.

Her eyes widen, "No way. You're not going to-"

Jackson switches it on and starts to dry Juliette but she starts to turn around and walk the other way. He grabs her around the stomach and lifts her up from behind. Now she giggles along with everyone else in the room and Jackson hovers the hairdryer all over her arms and chest. Then Jackson pulls down her towel and Juliette protests,

"Jackson, no, no!"

But he takes it off and it drops on the floor as he blows dry her stomach and legs. After a couple more seconds he finishes drying her, turns off the hairdryer, and puts her down.

Laura states angrily to Juliette, "What in the world are you wearing? Where did you get that?"

If Juliette wasn't embarrassed in front of Scarlett before, she sure was now.

Just then her Father walks into the kitchen because he's home for his lunch break.

Juliette rolls her eyes and thinks to herself, Wow. Perfect timing.

John is still chipper, "What's going on in here?"

John had entered through the backside of the kitchen where Laura was. Laura points over in the direction of Jackson and Juliette standing in the middle of their open concept living space. John starts to walk over to see what his wife was pointing to and Juliette turns around to look up to Jackson and whisper,

"Look what you did now dimwit!"

He looks down at her and just laughs in her face. She was doomed.

John says, "Juliette turn around please."

She obeys and turns around slowly, avoiding eye contact. He laughs out of disbelief when he sees what his daughter is wearing. He starts to walk over to his daughter and grabs her hand and marches her out of the room. Laura leaves soon after that too in a different direction.

Jackson goes to sit back down at the table and Scarlett talks quietly to him,

"You could have done something to save her. You were the one that revealed her secret to your Mom."

Jackson laughs and smiles at her, "You're sweet, but there's no saving when it comes to my parents' wrath."

JD adds in, "Or else he'd be in trouble too. They always know when we're lying."

Scarlett is a little confused, "Jackson, you're grown. Surely they can't punish you like they're going to punish your sister."

JD and Jackson both erupt with laughter.

JD jokes, "That means they'd actually have to do something to Juliette."

Jackson explains half laughing, "Juliette's never been punished a day in her life. By our parents at least. My Dad will probably give her a "stern" talking to and then she'll cry or make puppy eyes and get her way. She usually has to obey whatever rule they've put down, but she gets no punishment if she doesn't."

Scarlett says, "Well you should still apologize to her."

Jackson puts his hands up in defense, "I will, I will."

Author's Note-
Thank you guys so much for reading! I know it's already 39 scenes in and there's still not a lot of the tags I put in the description, but I'm promise I'm building to that. Please leave comments and vote if you like the chapters:) I hope you're enjoying, I have a lot planned for this book