Borrowed Time

Chapter 172

There were few places that Juliette felt like she was not out of place, and half of them were other people's homes - she felt like herself at Micheal's, at Shelby's, Esme's, Emma's... That was about it, most of the rest of the time she was putting on a mask to pretend to be someone who understood what the fuck was going on enough to not get questioned... This was a thousand times worse every time that she was forced to go to the goddamn country club with Micheal and his family.

Had it just been Micheal inviting her she would've said no, but it was Rohama herself... She couldn't say no to Rohama, that was a horrible idea... So now she was stuck at a goddamn country club in a dress that she'd had to have Shelby bring her when she'd picked her up to go meet at Micheal's... It was a cute dress, but it wasn't something she wanted to eat dinner in - she didn't like when her clothing clung to her while she was eating, it made her feel constricted... She already felt constricted in the country club's dining room, with people whispering about things that they had no business knowing about and discussing things that were for sure illegal - giving hush money to people, insider trading, tax evasion... Nothing too severe, but still things that if she cared to, she could easily report to the police, but there was no point. Nearly every person seated around her had the police in their back pockets. Micheal's family didn't care to have that connection, but Michea's father still commanded respect from the department due to his position as a senator - they didn't want to have a media scandal if they used their usual racial profiling against a widely liked political official. Juliette hated that that was the only thing keeping Micheal mostly safe and only if he was with his father.

She hated everything about this town, and the rich side of it as the rotted underbelly of a town that at one point, might have been calm and relaxing - now it was home to one too many shady businessmen who were for sure outrunning white collar crimes that they had committed in the city, or they were living in a house where they could pay less in property taxes while making billions per year. It fucking sucked.

It also sucked to see the way that they treated Esme, something that Juliette hadn't witnessed firsthand, but she now had a keen eye out for - in the course of the fifteen minutes since arriving to the country club, Juliette had seen them get yelled at by multiple parties, she'd seen them have to fight off a few drunk businessmen and she'd seen them dodge a drink that was meant to be splashed on them. 

Juliette wasn't sure what it was about immense amounts of wealth that told people that they could act like heartless fucking animals, but whatever it was needed to be studied in a goddamn lab because it was fucking ridiculous and completely immature.  Also, they were hurting good people for no reason - Esme Panchek was purely one of the best people she knew through and through and she hated that they treated her like they were nothing.

Granted?  There was an upside to being at Esme's work, and that was seeing them in their uniform... The dress shirt, the tie, the way that they wore their hair back, the glint of their piercing when they smiled... It was driving her fucking insane, which was awful for being at dinner with Micheal, Shelby and Micheal's parents, but it would be wonderful when she got back to the trailer later.

She was gonna make Esme see fucking stars, and that was a goddamn promise... It'd been a while since she'd had them tied up and begging for her, and that was something that she considered to be long overdue.

"Juliette." She jumped, feeling rocketed back into conversation as she looked across the table to see Rohama looking at her with a patient, amused expression as she swirled her wine glass around, her chin resting on her hand.

Juliette cleared her throat, hoping against hope that her face wasn't nearly as red as it felt... It was bad enough that she had been fantasizing while at dinner with her friend's family, but it was even worse that she'd been so engrossed in it that she hadn't even heard his mother speaking to her.